WASHINGTON — When Theodore Roosevelt hired an architecture firm to renovate the dark, cramped White House in 1902, much of the structural interior was thrown into piles of trash on the lawn outside: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue had become a construction site. Wood, plaster, glass and even old curtains were strewn about, leaving the once stately grounds in a heap of “dirt and confusion,” as an article in The New York Times put it.
Under orders from Roosevelt, the firm worked quickly to restore the site and complete renovations, without taking time to preserve or repurpose the wood and other materials that had surrounded every president since the building’s reconstruction after the War of 1812. A good chunk of history was carted away and burned.
But a single structural item from the White House of Abraham Lincoln and John Quincy Adams was preserved. Joseph Williamson Jr., a student at Georgetown law school, pulled a 14-by-30-inch piece of ornamental wood from one of those trash piles, with the help of his brother and a friend who was working on the site. Mr. Williamson took it home with him, writing “from old White House. Oct. 15, 1902” on the back in pencil.
The plinth from the Transverse Hall of the White House, possibly the only remaining piece of the White House interior as rebuilt after the War of 1812. Credit RR Auction
Theodore Roosevelt’s trash became Mr. Williamson’s lifelong treasure. The piece of wood, called a plinth, resurfaced when one of Mr. Williamson’s distant relatives contacted the White House Historical Association about a family heirloom. The piece is now being put up for auction after Mr. Williamson’s family members decided to sell it after the loss of two farms that had been in the family for generations.
The plinth encapsulates the decorative scheme for the White House as reconstructed by Presidents James Madison and James Monroe after it was destroyed by a fire set by British troops in 1814. The plinth’s function was to support a recessed niche that would have held plants or a statue. A multipetaled flower was carved into the middle, with an additional string of ornamentation wrapping the wood near its top.
“This is the key to that period of the reconstructed White House following the War of 1812,” said William Seale, a historian working with the historical association, who authenticated the item. “It’s a tremendous thing to historians. It’s the only such piece of the White House that survived that people know anything about. There is nothing like this.”
Mike Meister, a great-grandnephew of Mr. Williamson, had been in possession of the piece. In 2009, he and other family members flew with the plinth to Washington to meet with Mr. Seale.
Mr. Seale’s intense research produced a photograph of the Cross Hall — sometimes called the Transverse Hall — from around 1893. It showed a corner that contained the plinth that Mr. Meister and the others had brought with them to the Decatur House in downtown Washington, which is operated by the historical association.
“There was no question that this was it,” said Mr. Seale, who has written books about the history of the White House and edits White House History, the association’s semiannual journal. “It was the only one it could have been.”
For Mr. Seale, it was like finding a missing piece to a lifelong puzzle.
The piece of wood was part of a set of plinths that had been situated near the White House’s Blue, Red and Green Rooms, facing a screen of columns that separated the Entrance Hall from the Cross Hall on the first floor. Diplomats, visitors and each president from Monroe to Roosevelt would have walked by it to get to the State Dining Room or, in the opposite direction, to the East Room.
The Main Hall of the first floor of the White House in the 1890s. The plinth is in the lower right portion of the picture. Credit via RR Auction
“This plinth is a little piece of a big story,” Mr. Seale said. “This little thing has so much information in it, it’s almost iridescent.”
What was most exciting for him and for Frank S. Welsh — a historical paint analyst who has worked on landmarks like Monticello — was the amount of physical history it contained. Mr. Williamson’s family kept it in great condition, Mr. Seale said, and that allowed Mr. Welsh to identify 17 different layers of paint, including three period applications of gold leaf on some of the ornamentation. The surface also shows hints of red and white.
In Mr. Welsh’s report on the plinth, he said that the number of paint layers was unusual, as “typical historical interiors were generally repainted every seven or eight years.” But 17 finished coat layers in 87 years “could be explained if a space, like the Transverse Hallway, was repainted in a redecoration for every new presidential term,” he said.
“This is a precious piece of antiquity,” Mr. Seale said. “It’s not something you hang on the living room wall, but from a historical standpoint, it’s very valuable.”
Mr. Meister led the effort to get it authenticated. He had kept it in an airtight case in his attic — barely thought of but never forgotten — after receiving it from his father, who had been given the plinth from his own father when he was about 14 or 15 years old. Mr. Meister’s father, a history buff from a long line of history buffs, took it with him to each place he moved — even when he enlisted in the Army.
The piece became a big part of their family lore, with the children often hearing the story about their great-granduncle. But after years of letting it languish, Mr. Meister and his siblings decided to give it a chance to be shared with the rest of the country.
The auction, at the RR Auction house in Boston, will start on Sept. 17, and experts predict that the plinth could go for up to $500,000.
“Dad kept it for all of his young life and adult life, and we kept it because it was important to him,” Mr. Meister said wistfully. “There’s a little feeling of loss, but if someone with enough money can insure it for the amount it’s worth and enjoy it, and do more with it than we’re doing with it, I guess that would be a good thing.”
Mr. Meister said the research he and his family members did to contact Mr. Seale, Mr. Welsh and others brought the family closer together. “I think everybody’s pretty much in agreement that it’s time for it to be in someone else’s hands,” he said.
Story from Jada Smith, New York Times
