Sunday, March 27, 2011

Pictures of Stabler-Leadbeater (Read Other Posts Below First)


Bloodletting devices.  That medieval object in the top left could puncture you several times within a few seconds because of its mechanics.  The glass cup in the bottom left could create a sunctioning vaccum to draw blood if it was slow coming.


In the upstairs, the drawers containing medicinal properties.



The cryptic "I am gone" written in pencil.




Old-timey baby bottles.



Martha Washington's letter requesting castor oil be sent to Mt. Vernon.  Must've been a presidential daily staple for maintaining a healthy constitution.

Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary

Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary opened its doors in 1792 and remained in business until 1933.  More astonishing is that it remained in the family all those years.

The apothecary showed signs of changing with the decorative times.  There was a federalist structural style mingling with a Victorian style, and, maybe even, a tad of art deco.

Famous customers included the Washingtons and Robert E Lee.  There was even a hand-written note from Martha Washington on display requesting castor oil be sent to Mt. Vernon.

Stabler-Leadbeater was a large operation.  On the ground floor were your medicinal needs and other sundries.  I saw herbs and apothecary jars galore.  On the jars were real gold-leaf labels.  This was a sign of the apothecary's prestige.  Sundries included: shoe polish, baby bottles, Stabler-Leadbeater's own name brand perfumes, and medical devices for bloodletting and cupping.

On the second floor was the grande dame of medicines.  This is where all the cauldrons bubbled with medicines and pain relieving ingredients.  Stabler-Leadbeater would provide medicines by the wagonload to outlying apothecaries, and it was on the second floor that they would make them and ready them for distribution.  There were drawers (much like a library's card catalog but larger) up to the ceilings with everything from poke berries to dragon's blood even cocaine, marijuana, codeine, strychnine, mandrake root, and whatever else you can dream up.  Most of the action took place here. 

To throw some intrigue into this post, no one truly knows why the apothecary closed its doors.  It is known (without any inconsistencies) that Leadbeater was the last to walk out of the apothecary one day after work.  When he left he left the key and everything else in the apothecary.  No one ever came back, but a cryptic message is written in pencil on the second floor on a beam that reads "I am gone."

Gadsby's Tavern But Read the Post (Alexandria Field Trip) Below Before Looking at These


Drawing of the tavern (left) and hotel (right). 






Ballroom with musician balcony above and here you have the pricey Prussian blue paint.


Portable piano with folding legs making it portable.




Velvet drapes.  Here too you can see the Prussian blue paint.


Plates of oysters.



Table setting complete with rum punch fixings.  The conical object is sugar.  Sugar was an expensive luxury and people would share it.  They'd pinch tidbits from the cone with an instrument that is on the table.




This is the table in the private dining room set with George Washington's supposed favorite meal.



One of the rooms men would have slept in for the night.




Field Trip to Alexandria

For the past two Saturdays, I've been doing a Saturday field trip.  This Saturday I chose Alexandria.  It's a bit of a metro ride away from the city.  You fly through farm and fields and get to see green.  The scenic ride was a nice retreat from the asphalt jungle of the city with its parks dotted about the way.

I staked out my points of interest Friday night.  I chose the Gadsby's Tavern museum and Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary museum.  I had a thematic day in mind, so I wanted to dine at Gadbsy's Tavern's restaurant where the atmosphere matched the original Tavern at the height of its days.

I get a thrill out of going into historically preserved buildings.  Personal aside, I have to explain how my interest came about.  I was a little girl, and I went to Carowinds, which is an amusement park that rests on the Carolinas' border and could be considered the poor man's Disneyland.  At Carowinds, there is a Smurf Village.  This village is smattered with (what could be considered scaled to size for a smurf) mushroom houses.  Inside the mushrooms are unmade beds, clothes on ironing boards, tables spread with food, etc.  I felt just like a brunette rather than blonde Smurfette.  This started the thrill of stepping into a house, tavern, dwelling, etc that someone had left behind for me to step into and quasi live their life.

Now with that anecdotal aside out of the way,  Gadsby's tavern opened its doors to customers in 1785.  Seven years later, it opened a city hotel attached to the tavern. 

The tavern was a place for men (no ladies allowed) to socialize over food, tobacco, and rum punch.  As told to me by a History graduate student giving the tour, the food typically consisted of a salt cured Virginia ham, leg of lamb, fish, oysters, hominy, seasonal vegetables, and a crusty, hearty bread.  An interesting point to share is that seafood was a main stable because of Alexandria's port.  When an excavation team worked to unearth history in Alexandria, they found a trash heap and in this trash heap were scads of oyster shells.  On the imitation, antique tables in the tavern's dining room were half-eaten plates that had the excavated oyster shells.  They were sitting there as if a man with a fully, satisfied belly had just sat up from the table.

Virginia was rich with tobacco and it was smoked out of long, long pipes that were approximately the length of a flute.  Men would pass the tobacco pipes around the table.  The sharing of the pipe was an experience serving to tighten friendly relations be they business or communal. 

Much like the pipe, the men would share the rum punch.  Rum punch was made of oranges, rum, nutmeg, sugar, and likely other ingredients.  The rum was poured into bowls and the men would pass the bowls around to each other.  Rum punch was the preferred drink over water because waste was flushed into the bodies of water making the water unsuitable for drinking.  Colonial settlers began to turn away from rum punch as it was seen to be more of a British beverage.  Americans were solidifying their own sense of national pride and patriotism and in doing so were casting aside links to the British like a rum punch.  Whiskey was the alternative to rum punch as it was very much American in that George Washington manufactured and sold whiskey.

All of this eating, smoking, and drinking took place in a main dining room, but tucked away in a corner was a private dining room.  This private dining room could be reserved for a princely sum and women were allowed entry.  This private dining room had a fireplace, elevated ceiling, and a large window.  George Washington ate in that room on a few occasions.  It was said he asked for hominy and roasted, canvassback duck.

On the second level, there was a grand ballroom, which by today's standards would cause a fire hazard violation if more than 100 people were in it.  The only interesting piece to this room was the portable piano.  The piano was terribly heavy but it was portable because its legs could fold up making it easy to carry.

On the third level, were the boarding rooms.  There were three and seven men could sleep in one room.  They would sleep three to a bed and some would sleep on the floor. 

That concludes the tavern.

The city hotel is attached to the tavern and was built in 1792.  Mr. Gadbsy, owner of tavern and hotel, was quite the entrepreneur or Donald Trump (with his Trump towers) of his day with these hotels.  He chose the word "hotel" because it is a French word and would attract a certain, wealthy clientele.  In this city hotel, were rooms equipped with canopied beds with tables for room service, giant windows (giant windows were a sign of stature, wealth, and elegance), and coal burning fireplaces.  Coal was expensive but was known to burn cleaner than wood and could keep a room heated longer.  This is what they would have considered a hotel amenity.  Another feature of the hotel was its ballroom.  The molding was painted Prussian blue, which was the most expensive paint you could buy at the time and burgundy, velvet curtains, the most expensive fabric, draped the windows.  There was a teensy balcony for musicians to sit in to entertain and create ambience.  In this ballroom, Thomas Jefferson held his inaugural ball.  Now for the piece de resistance, the hotel had an ice well.  The well was dug deep beneath the ground and Gadsby would have workers fill the well with ice from the surrounding bodies of water during the winters so he could sell it for an absurd amount of money in the hot, lazy days of the summer.

The pictures will provide a better explanation of it all.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

This is my mom, Julia, and me. Julia's in the middle.
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This is Thompson-Markward Hall. Colleen looked up the address and sent me mail. For those who have not gone that distance, my address is Room 307 North, 235 2nd Street NE, Washington, DC 20002. :)
My dad and I in front of the US Capital.
That missile pointed at my head is a Tomahawk. That's my dad.
This was at the Air and Space Museum. That's me and the Wright Brothers.
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Mamie Eisenhower. I do love this dress.
Like I said in an earlier post, Grace Coolidge was my favorite and here is one of her dresses. Very Great Gatsy.
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The Watergate file cabinet. Talk about a piece of dark Americana. That's my dad.
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Bon apetit! Julia Child's kitchen. This was an exhibit in one of the Smithsonian museums.
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This is a part of Union Station. I catch the metro here every morning for work. It is about a half mile from where I live making it convenient. There is a great Indian take-out restaurant in the food court. I've eaten there three times already. Union Station is also a great place for shopping for about any thing you want.
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All I'm going to say about this picture is that my mom made me do it.
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Information on the garden. It is not a new creation. The garden was started many, many years ago by another first lady who slips my brain. I do know that Jackie O was very involved with the garden, too.
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Michelle Obama's garden. You can see the wooden boxes. They're a burnt, rusty brown color.
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My new address.
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My bed.
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My closet.
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My dinky desk with "Hot in Cleveland" playing on my computer and a Curious George calendar on the wall.
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My room and Type A me with my first day outfit spread out on the chair.
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My room. That is a picture of the young Elvis Presley along with his early music cronies.
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The lobby, again.
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This is the lobby in the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel.
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