Kitchens of Famous Americans

Modern American kitchen. https://goo.gl/images/AWbmhc

Most of us think of open concept kitchen and living areas as the latest trend in home building. The truth is, from the earliest days of Colonial history until the Victorian Age, open concept described the architectural style of most homes unless the owner was quite wealthy. 

Since my husband and I are painting the small kitchen in our South Florida condo, and I want to make use of every square inch even though it’s not open concept, I began to wonder about the history of kitchens in America. That’s just the way my mind rolls. The Library of Congress is a great resource, so I started my research there. Browsing through the archives, I stumbled upon photos of restored kitchens used by our founders and other well-known Americans. 

The kitchen has always been the heart of the home, but in the founding days of our Republic and during westward expansion, kitchens also served as living room, bedroom, and dining room as well…unless you lived at the White House or in wealthier homes where kitchens were housed in separate buildings to keep the house cool and as a deterrent to fire. Until modern times, kitchens were designed for function, not frivolity.

Historically accurate chuckwagon used
for modern-day reenactments. https://goo.gl/images/6n5sp9

Even chuckwagons, used for storing food and cooking utensils and driven by cattlemen or pioneers headed west across the prairies, could be classified as kitchens, albeit rudimentary ones. The actual cooking was done over an open campfire.

Let’s look at a few of the kitchens used by people whose names you’ll recognize.

Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, photographer. Kitchen in the Ford Mansion. The mansion was the site of the "hard winter" December through May 1780 quarters of George Washington and the Continental Army at The Morristown National Historical Park in Morristown, New Jersey. Morristown New Jersey United States, 2017. -08-25. Photograph. https://loc.gov/item/2017882224/.

In most American history books, the author will describe the hard winter of 1780 when George Washington’s Continental Army tied rags around their freezing feet and ears and huddled over campfires with little to eat. As the leader of the army, Washington stayed in the Ford Mansion, but even though he enjoyed better rations at a table warmed by the kitchen fireplace, he regularly rode among his troops to rally their spirits.

After securing our freedom and serving as the first President of the United States, George Washington and his wife Martha retired to their large country estate named Mount Vernon. The home and its gardens and outbuildings sit on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia, and underwent expansion under Washington’s ownership. The Washington family had owned land there since 1674 when George’s great-grandfather put down roots. 

Detroit Publishing Co., Copyright Claimant, and Publisher Detroit Publishing Co.
Martha Washington kitchen at Mt. Vernon.
Mount Vernon Estate Mount Vernon Estate United States Virginia, None.
[Between 1900 and 1920] Photograph.
https://www.loc.gov/item/2016796113/

In 1775, the kitchen had been significantly enlarged from the original just before Washington assumed command of the Continental Army in Boston. It was comprised of three workrooms on the ground floor and a loft where food was stored and where the cook presumably slept. 

After Washington’s death, the inventory of the estate showed the kitchen was equipped with skillets, a griddle, a variety of pots and pans, a toaster, fire spits, coffeepots, and much more. 

Detroit Publishing Co., Copyright Claimant, and Publisher Detroit Publishing Co.
The Kitchen, Paul Revere House, Boston, Mass.
Boston Boston. Massachusetts United States, ca. 1909. Photograph.
https://www.loc.gov/item/2016814827/

The original three-story home of Colonial patriot Paul Revere is the oldest in downtown Boston. Built in 1680, rather than placing the kitchen in a separate building, it was housed in a two-story extension built on the back of the house. The prosperous silversmith and engraver is best known for his midnight ride in April 1775 to alert volunteers that the British were at the colonial militia’s doorstep. The battles of Lexington and Concord followed. No doubt, because of Revere’s wealth, his table would have been laden with the best the marketplace afforded.

Barnett Mcfee Clinedinst, photographer.
Kitchen, New White House.
Washington, D.C., ca. 1902. Nov. 1906. Photograph.
https://www.loc.gov/item/2002735757/

Of course, one of the most famous kitchens in America is that of the White House in Washington, DC. The photo above was taken early in the 20th Century when Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt served as the 26th President of the United States. We can only assume the kitchen was well-equipped to handle state dinners and the hosting of world dignitaries.

Learn more about the history of kitchens at the Library of Congress or Wikipedia.org. With the advent of the Internet, there is no subject that you can’t study, including the lowly kitchen.

If you have a photo or know a story about the kitchen of another famous American, would you please share it with us? 

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My feisty Irish bride Kate O'Brien McKean asks her husband for an annulment in Dreams of My Heart, book 1 of The Reluctant Brides series, setting off a chain reaction of events that endangers them both. The historical romance set in 1875 Montana Territory is published by Mountain Brook Ink. The book is available at Amazon in both ebook and print and free with Kindle Unlimited. 

Barbara J. Scott

After a career spent acquiring and editing books by numerous bestselling Christian authors, Barbara J. Scott has returned to her true love—writing. She is currently writing the second book in the Reluctant Brides series—Love of My Heart. Barbara and her husband Mike recently moved to the Ft. Lauderdale area to be closer to two of their four grandchildren. Reading, writing, and research are her passions. Want to know more? Connect with Barbara at www.BarbaraJScott.com.

Kidnapping George Washington

By J. M. Hochstetler

General George Washington

The American Revolution was one of the last “gentlemen’s” wars. That meant that, for example, a captured enemy officer was allowed free range of the town where he was held as long as he signed a parole promising not to escape. Kidnapping equally became a gentleman’s game in which both sides considered the act justified if it helped to shorten the war, while assassination was deemed a disgrace and unworthy of gentlemen. George Washington approved kidnapping as a strategy and supported attempts to kidnap British General Henry Clinton and one to snatch traitor Benedict Arnold from New York City, all of which failed. Likely more than 1,000 such attempts against top military and civilian leaders on both sides were made during the war.

There were good reasons for this strategy: to remove leaders from participation in the war; and to exchange a captive as needed for one of their own of the same rank that the enemy held. Precise intelligence about the object’s location and absolute secrecy were crucial to success. Failure might leave the raiders stranded in enemy territory, and if captured, they could be hanged. Speed was therefore vital to snag their object, then return to safety with the captive in tow.

Ford Mansion

Washington’s army spent the winter of 1778-79 at Morristown, New Jersey, where they endured more severe and desperate conditions than at Valley Forge the previous year. Temperatures plummeted and 28 blizzards pounded the region, burying the roads under snowdrifts that made traveling any distance difficult at best, impossible at worst, and often brought transportation of essential supplies to a halt. The army camped in a place called Jockey Hollow, while Washington and his staff set up headquarters roughly 3 miles away in Morristown, crowded into the home of widow Theodosia Ford and her 4 young children. For a brief overview of the army’s  trials, watch the video below.

It didn’t take long for the distance between their arch rival and his army to draw the attention of British spies, who immediately passed the information to the British high command. This vulnerability inspired plans for a coup that not only could demoralize the rebels, but just might cripple the patriot cause beyond recovery and end the war with a British triumph: the capture of the American commander.

Not that the patriots were oblivious to the dangers. Washington had already been the object of one failed kidnapping attempt in summer 1776, and his second in command, General Charles Lee was currently held by the British after being snatched in a daring raid that December. It did not escape notice that with rivers and creeks throughout the area frozen solid there was a very real possibility the British might attempt a raid into New Jersey. But Washington was surprised when Silas Condict, a member of the New Jersey executive council, sent him a letter warning that a party of horsemen could reach Morristown undiscovered and capture him. The American commander was convinced, however, that with his Life Guard quartered close by and the army not far down the road, a raid would easily be quashed, and he brushed off Condict’s warning.

Washington at Jockey Hollow

But with only 87 Life Guards available at that time, and snow often blocking the roads between headquarters and the army, a very real hole in security existed. Partially plugging it, two brigades under Maj. General St. Clair were stationed west of Elizabethtown to guard against British raiders crossing the Hudson from Staten Island. St. Clair also had the foresight to ask New Jersey authorities to raise a militia company of light cavalry to patrol the coastal roads. The patrols would soon prove their worth.

In fact, a British plot was already afoot to send raiders across the Hudson River, frozen solid that unusually cold winter. At around the same time Captain George Beckwith, Lt. Gen. Wilhelm vonKnyphausen’s aide, and Lt. Col. John Graves Simcoe, commander of the loyalist Queen’sRangers, independently came up with plans to kidnap the American commander based on detailed intelligence. Knyphausen preferred Beckwith’s plan because it called for a larger main force consisting of several hundred cavalry and infantry, which would cross from Manhattan, targeting Washington’s headquarters, while 3 diversionary units crossed from Staten Island to attack several American outposts in northern Jersey.

Queen's Rangers

Set for February 8, the attack had to be postponed because of intense snow and rain storms. Knyphausen rescheduled the operation for the night of February 10, not knowing that one of St. Clair’s spies was in New York City gathering intelligence. The anonymous spy was likely a “loyalist” the British allowed through their outpost at Paulus Hook, New Jersey, to trade in New York. When the British stopped all traffic in and out of Paulus Hook on the 10^th while cavalry was assembled there to cross the Hudson, he became trapped. By a stroke of sheer luck the clueless British chose him to serve as guide to the main body of raiders, and he crossed with them from New York into New Jersey early on the morning of February 11, headed for Morristown.

The detachment managed to get as far as Hackensack and penetrate five or six more miles into the country. Still a good distance from Morristown, they were forced to turn back by sleet-crusted snow that cut the horses’ fetlocks, and then came under American fire. Unknown to them, Continental soldiers and Jersey militia had also discovered the British diversionary forces and drove them back across the Hudson as well. The only real damage occurred at Elizabethtown, with one American soldier injured and the houses of several prominent citizens plundered “in a most barbarous manner.” All while Washington slept the night away at his headquarters, blissfully unaware of how close he had come to falling into British clutches.

The opportunity to capture Washington and end the war was briefly at the fingertips of the British high command. But fortunately for the fledgling United States and for us today, the moment passed. Ultimately it was not to be.

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American Patriot Series #5

Following a humiliating defeat at Philadelphia and a rival’s stunning victory at Saratoga, Washington’s army faces a bitter winter at Valley Forge. Meanwhile, General Jonathan Carleton races to save Elizabeth Howard from the horrors of the prison ships in the British stronghold at New York, while British General William Howe plots to execute them both. From heart-pounding battles on the high seas, to the rigors of Valley Forge and the Shawnee’s savagely fought wars to preserve their ancestral lands, Valley of the Shadow continues the thrilling saga of America’s founding in an inspiring story of despair, courage, and triumph. 

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J. M.Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers and a lifelong student of history. She is also an author, editor, and publisher. Her American PatriotSeries is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. Northkill, Book 1 of theNorthkill Amish Series coauthored with Bob Hostetler, won Foreword Magazine’s 2014 Indie Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, released April 1, 2017. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year.