"In the year 1793, General Knox sent a party of workmen from Boston to build a summer residence on the bank of the Georges River. The mansion was much like a French chateau, and was often so called by visitors.
"The front entrance faced the river. The first story was of brick, and contained the servants' hall, etc. The second floor had nine rooms, the principal of which was the oval room, into which the main entrance opened. There were two large windows on either side of the door, and on opposite sides were two immense fire-places. This room was used as a picture gallery, and contained many ancient portraits. It had also a remarkable clock. It was high, and the case was of solid mahogany. The top rose in three points and each point had a brass ball on the top. The face, instead of the usual Roman numbers, had the Arabic 1, 2, 3, etc. There were two small dials. On each side of the case were little windows, showing the machinery. Between the two windows on one side of the room was a magnificent mahogany book-case, elaborately trimmed with solid silver, which had belonged to Louis XIV. and was twelve feet long.
"The mansion measured ninety feet across, and had on either side of the oval room two large drawing-rooms, each thirty feet long. There were twenty-eight fire-places in the house. Back of the western drawing-room was a library. This was furnished with beautiful books of every description, a large number being French. On the other side was a large china closet. One set of china was presented to General Knox by the Cincinnati Society. The ceiling was so high that it was necessary to use a step-ladder to reach the china from the higher shelves. Back of the oval room was a passage with a flight of stairs on each side, which met at the top. Above, the oval room was divided into two dressing-rooms. The bedsteads were all solid mahogany, with silk and damask hangings. One room was called the 'gold room,' and everything in it, even the counterpane, was of gold color. The doors were mahogany, and had large brass knobs and brass pieces extending nearly to the centre. The carpets were all woven whole.
"The house outside was painted white, with green blinds, though every room was furnished with shutters inside. A little in the rear of the mansion extended a number of out-buildings, in the form of a crescent, beginning with the stable on one side, and ending with the cook house on the other. General Knox kept twenty saddle horses and a number of pairs of carriage horses. Once there was a gateway, surmounted by the American Eagle, leading into what is now Knox Street. 'Montpelier,' as it was called, had many distinguished visitors every summer."
I noticed in a recent paper the report of an old-time game supper, participated in by ninety prominent sportsmen at Thomaston, Maine, following the custom inaugurated by General Knox for the entertainment of French guests.
It was through hearing of the Knox house that I learned of a "death room." There was one over the eastern dining-room. These depressing rooms had but one window, and the paper was dark and gloomy—white, with black figures, and a deep mourning frieze. Benches were ranged stiffly around the sides, and there were drawers filled with the necessities for preparing a body for burial. Linen and a bottle of "camphire" were never forgotten. There the dead lay till the funeral. I can shiver over the intense gruesomeness of it. How Poe or Hawthorne could have let his inspired imagination work up the possibilities of such a room! A skeleton at the feast is a slight deterrent from undue gaiety, compared with this ever-ready, sunless apartment.
This reminds me that I read the other day of a "deadly-lively" old lady, who, having taken a flat in the suburban depths of Hammersmith, England, stipulated before signing her lease that the landlord should put black wall-paper on the walls of every room except the kitchen. Possibly she had a secret sorrow which she wished to express in this melodramatic fashion. But why except the culinary department? We have been hearing a good deal lately about the effect of color on the nerves and temperament generally. A grim, undertaker-like tone of this kind would no doubt induce a desired melancholy, and if extended to the region of the kitchen range, might have furthered the general effect by ruining the digestion.
A writer in a recent number of the Decorator's and Painter's Magazine, London, says: "An interview has just taken place with a 'a well-known wall-paper manufacturer,' who, in the course of his remarks, informed the representative of the Morning Comet that black wall-papers were now all the rage. 'You would be surprised,' he said, 'how little these papers really detract from the lightness of a room, the glossiness of their surface compensating almost for the darkness of their shade;' and upon this score there would seem to be no reason why a good pitch paper should not serve as an artistic decorative covering for the walls of a drawing-room or a 'dainty' boudoir.
"It has been generally accepted that highly-glazed surfaces render wall-papers objectionable to the eye, and that they are therefore only fit for hanging in sculleries, bath-rooms and the like, where sanitary reasons outweigh decorative advantages. Very probably the gentleman who recommends black papers for walls would also recommend their use for ceilings, so that all might be en suite, and the effect would undoubtedly be added to, were the paintwork also of a deep, lustrous black, whilst—it may be stretching a point, but there is nothing like being consistent and thorough—the windows might at the same time be 'hung' in harmony with walls and ceilings. Coffin trestles with elm boards would make an excellent table, and what better cabinets for bric-a-brac (miniature skeletons, petrified death's-head moths, model tombstones and railed vaults, and so on) than shelved coffins set on end? Plumes might adorn the mantel-shelf, and weeds and weepers festooned around skulls and crossbones would sufficiently ornament the walls without the aid of pictures, whilst the fragments from some dis-used charnel-house might be deposited in heaps in the corners of the apartment."
The old governors often indulged in expensive and unusual wall-papers. The Governor Gore house at Waltham, Massachusetts, had three, all of which I had photographed. The Gore house, until recently the home of Miss Walker, is one of the most beautiful in Massachusetts, and was an inheritance from her uncle, who came into possession of the property in 1856. Before Miss Walker's death, she suggested that the estate be given to the Episcopal Church in Waltham for a cathedral or a residence for the bishop.