“An unusually interesting museum….” #museummondays

During the 1930s,  the Museum was successfully reestablished in its new location. 

According to an article in the 1932 newspaper, “Through the work of the Rev Andrew J. Howell, head of the New Hanover Historical commission, the Sorosis club, and other interested parties, Wilmington can now boast of an unusually interesting museum, considering the short length of time of its inception.  The museum, located in two rooms of the new court house, third floor, and started a year ago with a scanty number of articles, now contains hundreds of rare relics of great value from pre-historic items through various periods in American history.  Many foreign relics also are to be seen.”

Items came into the Museum from a variety of sources:  Sometimes they came via the city of Wilmington.  A confederate flag came into the Museum that way, as did this image of George Washington.

This image of George Washington was donated to the city in the 1920s.  It later became a part of the Museum collection.

Items still landed at the Museum because of the work of the United Daughter of the Confederacy.  In 1937, this "homeopathic pharmacy" was "loaned by the heirs of John Walker to Cape Fear Chapter UDC #3 and by this Chapter Loaned tothe New Hanover County Museum."   

 

Despite the newspaper's claim that the museum was "unusually interesting,' records in the Museum's files indicate that, in the 1930s, a only few hundred people a year visited the museum.

Expanding the Mission #museummonday #capefearmuseum

The New Hanover County Museum and the Courthouse Annex

When the Museum reopened in the court house annex, two big institutional changes took place.

The institution’s mission changed. And so did the women’s group charged with running the place.

The U.D.C worked to bring their collection back to town. And members of the group were still involved in the reconstituted New Hanover County Museum.

But they no longer officially responsible for the institution. Instead, in 1930, the New Hanover Historical Commission turned the Museum's day to day administration over to Sorosis, another longstanding local woman’s group.

Sorosis float from About 1915.  The group organized in the 1890s. 

 

When Sorosis took over, the Museum’s mission shifted.
According to the newspaper, its goal was to collect “…every possible relic of Wilmington’s historic past, and things that have any interesting personal association that would be of general interest.”

The Museum still collected items relating to the Civil War.  But now, the Museum also collected other items of more general historical interest.

Antebellum nutmeg grater donated to Museum in 1930s

Sketch of Wilmington, dated 1837, given to Museum in 1936

Collections Conundrums: Reclaiming Artifacts #museummonday

Sending artifacts to Raleigh also created a second collections conundrum -- how to prove who owned what!   

Almost from the start (if not from the moment the artifacts came back to Wilmington) the Cape Fear Chapter of the U.D.C. knew more stuff went to Raleigh than came home.  At the chapter's March 1933 meeting, “in a discussion of the county museum, it was brought out that the chapter has never recovered all of its articles placed in the state museum in Raleigh for safekeeping at the time of the war."

So, since those first two boxes of artifacts were returned to Wilmington in 1929, there have been a number of local efforts to retrieve items from the North Carolina Museum of History.

Getting Gaston's Hat and Sword

Two of the earliest additions to the U.D.C.'s collection belonged to Confederate Colonel Gaston Meares.

Colonel Gaston Meares, about 1861

Gaston Meares was born in Wilmington.  He attended West Point briefly and served in the Mexican-American War in the 1840s. Meares married Catherine (also known as Kate) Douglass DeRosset in 1850, and the couple moved to New York in 1855.  They were still living in the North in 1860.  By the Spring of 1861, the family was back in Wilmington, and Gaston, aged 39, was commissioned into the Field and Staff of the 3^rd Regiment N.C. Troops. 

Colonel Meares was killed during the battle at Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862.  

In 1898, Colonel Gaston Meares' sword and hat were donated to the U.D.C by his widow.  In an article entitled “The New Museum” from April 23, 1898, the Wilmington Morning Star reported “Mrs Kate DeRosset Meares, widow of the late Col. Gaston Meares, presented to the museum her husband’s military hat which he wore during the Mexican war and for some time during the civil war, before he fell, a martyr in protection of his country’s honor.  Accompanying the hat was also Col. Meares’ sword.”


According to a  17 July 1862 in the letter in the Southern Historical Collection from Ann Claypole Meares to Catherine Douglass DeRosset Meares,  Gaston had both hat and sword with him when he died: "... he was standing with his hat in his hand, & his sword under his arm, & was walking back & forth in a little prominence, from when his men had begged him to come down. & he had once done so, & taken a seat, but feeling anxious went up again. when turning his head a little back, the ball struck his him just above the left eye I think, & fractured the skull, he was immediately removed by two men & carefully attended to, no one heard him say any thing..."

Both the hat and the sword were not returned to Wilmington in 1929.

The sword came back to Wilmington in the early 1980s. 

In 1979, then Museum Director Janet Seapker began to campaign to get items back.  This effort yielded some results.  In the early 1980s, a number of items were returned to Wilmington and the Museum, and one of those items was Gaston Meares' sword.

The hat was another story.

It was only returned to the Museum in 2010, as a part of the Museum's most recent efforts to reclaim items from the founding collection.   That effort yielded Meares' hat, as well as a number of other items. 

Gaston Meares' hat

This gavel was also returned in 2010.  It was made out of flooring from the Executive Mansion in Richmond, Virginia.

Creating Collections Conundrums #museummonday

The United Daughters of the Confederacy’s decision to send the collection to Raleigh has had long-term ramifications. 

The first and most obvious one was that, for more than a decade, the city didn’t have a museum and the UDC’s Confederate collection remained in Raleigh and the Hall of History.

That situation began to change in the late 1920s. 

In December 1928, the Rev. Andrew J. Howell, in his role as chair of the local New Hanover County Historical Commission, called together representatives of local government and key women’s groups to discuss organizing a Museum.  

Among the attendees were  Louis T. Moore, secretary of the chamber of commerce, and chairman of the county commissioners, Addison Hewlett.  The vast majority of the attendees at the meeting were women, representing a range of local groups –  the Colonial Dames, The Daughters of the American Revolution, Sorosis, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy.   

There were two married couples in the room, suggesting the town was close knit and small.  Reverend Howell’s wife, Gertrude Howell, attended as president of the UDC. Louis Moore’s wife represented the local chapter of the Colonial Dames.

At the December 1928 meeting, the county commissioners agreed to provide space in the Court House Annex for a Museum. 

The Museum was housed in two rooms of the County Court House Annex

Gertrude Howell, in her role as president of the U.D.C.  wrote to Raleigh and asked for the Confederate collection back.   She sent a letter in February 1929, stating that “…at the last meeting of Cape Fear Chapter, U.D.C.. it was moved and carried that the Chapter relics, now in the State Museum, should be placed in our own local Museum, where they, of course, rightfully  belong.” 

Colonel Olds agreed to return things to Wilmington, and the Reverend and Mrs. Howell went to Raleigh to retrieve two boxes of “relics” for the revitalized local Museum. 

A Museum Collection on the Move #Museummonday

In 1918, the Museum had been in operation for 20 years in the Wilmington Light Infantry building.  

But things were about to change.  Over the course of a few months, the chapter decided to send the Museum’s collection to Raleigh.

First came a leak in the roof. Then came a committee to investigate the situation.

The committee made the decision to consult with General James I. Metts.   Metts was actively involved in the local Confederate veterans camp and in the state-wide Confederate veterans organization.  

CFM 2002.008.1047

James I. Metts' application to join the UCV

February 6, 1901

Metts told the ladies in  April “…that he thought the museum should be moved to Raleigh, both on account of its better preservation and of the larger number of people who visit there.”

The decision to send the collection to Frederick A. Olds at the Hall of History was not unanimous: some of the ladies argued the room could be repaired.

A later letter from Metts to Olds suggests there may have been another factor at work in the decision to move the collection to Raleigh: Metts wrote a letter stating "The Military Company guarding the town has moved into the W.L.I. Armory and need the room the relics are in..."

     

CFM 2002.008.0506

UCV Chapter Membership certificate

May 22, 1893

Regardless of whether the desire of the WLI to reclaim their space, concerns about conservation, or the wish that more people would see the collection motivated the decision, the chapter decided to do as Metts suggested, and move the collection to Raleigh.  

The Wilmington Morning Star announced on May 4, 1918 that “on account of unfavorable conditions attributable to the war,…it was deemed advisable that they [the artifacts] be loaned to the museum at Raleigh, where there are better facilities for their preservation and where the public will appreciate viewing them.”