Oh, the meandering tangents I can take.
After spending last evening at John Marshall's house, it seemed only fitting to visit his grave site this morning.
Besides, it had been weeks since I'd tended the graves of my charges, Henrietta and Daniel. Walking down Fourth Street to the cemeteries, I had a funeral procession to my right and banks of honeysuckle to the left. Both somehow seemed fitting.
At the Hebrew cemetery, I checked on Henrietta's small, pink painted stone to make sure last week's storm hadn't dislodged it. It was still tucked into the curve of her headstone, as faithful as she apparently was.
I became devoted to Henrietta when I saw that her stone referred to her as "consort," which I mistakenly assumed meant "other woman," but have since been informed by the Shockoe Hill Cemetery folks can mean wife.
Over at Shockoe, I found five of the six pebbles I'd placed on Daniel Norton's grave site still there but one was missing and nowhere in sight. I went to my pebble source corner and found a worthy replacement for the man who discovered Virginia's indigenous grape.
Tending duties completed, I went off to follow my tangent: finding John Marshall's burial place. It took a while because I'm directionally challenged (even after looking at the map twice) but there are worse ways to spend a morning than traipsing around a graveyard, so I didn't mind.
I somehow missed the enormous tree with a plaque on the side of it saying "John Marshall section" but finally found what I was looking for, fenced in with a small iron railing.
No surprise, there was his adored wife Polly's tomb right next to his, so I unlatched the little gate and went inside to pay my respects only hours after walking though the rooms of their house.
It appeared that no one has adopted the lovebirds because there were no pebbles of remembrance on either tomb. I headed right back to my pebble stash and found a fine, big stone that seemed suitable for the man who dominated the Supreme Court for over three decades and laid it on his tomb.
But I couldn't very well ignore the love of his life who fancied beautiful things, so I found a purple pansy for Polly's tomb, appropriate, I thought, for the uptown girl who'd won the heart of the rough and tumble Fauquier County boy.
I seemed to be the only person at the Marshalls' house last night who was paying their respects this morning.
Walking back a different way than I came, the vacant lots were abloom with blue cornflowers, white Queen Anne's Lace and purple clover, a color scheme chosen by nature and one of my favorites.
At the edge of one of the lots, I spotted a small green plaque I'd never noticed before, despite having walked this way dozens of times.
"Bray's gambrel-roofed cottage 1790, owned by Edgar Allen Poe's foster father," it read. A post-Revolutionary War house practically in my neighborhood? How had I missed that?
And here's where yet another tangent comes in. 1790 was the year John Marshall built his house. Overnight, I'm all about 224 year old houses.
Being the nerd that I am, I came right home and did my research, finding not only a history of the house ("very attractively located at the entrance to Shockoe Cemetery," preservationist Mary Wingfield Scott wrote) but an old picture of the wooden house with the familiar cemetery brick walls and enormous trees looking much like the ones still there behind it.
I read that the wooden house sold for $30 and the bricks for $76 in 1875 and the author had no clue if it had been rebuilt somewhere else.
Now it's just a lot covered in wildflowers a mere mile from the still-elegant Marshall house.
Next time someone asks me why I live where I do, I'm just going to take them on my 1790 house tour and let them see for themselves.
Showing posts with label john marshall house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label john marshall house. Show all posts
Friday, May 30, 2014
Guts on the Menu
So that was me sipping wine in the cellar of the most important man who was never President.
The John Marshall house was hosting their summer salon and while it hardly felt like summer today, I walk by that house at least once a week so I was intrigued with the idea of being inside.
The enormous magnolia tree in the front yard was in bloom as I checked in on the front porch and walked through the doorway of the longest-serving Chief Justice.
Guides in the rooms shared their wealth of knowledge with us, like the fact that the portrait hanging over the mantle in the front room showed Marshall at 78. Frankly, he didn't look a day over 60 in the painting.
Off the back passage was Marshall's butler Robin's base of operations and our guide told us Robin was responsible for sanding the rough, country boy edges off Marshall.
Seems on one of his trips to Raleigh to hear court, he arrived only to realize he'd forgotten to pack pants. The ones he'd worn on the ride down were too dirty and smelly to wear, he wrote to his beloved wife Polly in a letter, so he'd gone to court with just his judicial robe over his loins.
That's right, John Marshall went commando in court. They should teach fun facts like that in school and kids would be way more into history.
Many of the house's flourishes were done for the benefit of Polly, an upper crust girl Marshall fell hard for early. Meaning he was doodling his name and hers in the margins of his law books when he was at William & Mary.
I'm quite sure my name has never been doodled anywhere.
Downstairs in the cellar/gift shop, I looked at a notebook of old photographs of the house, including those from the period when John Marshall high school was built completely around Marshall's house, something I hadn't known.
The school was built within inches of the home on three sides, almost engulfing it, meaning they knocked down outbuildings like the kitchen and smokehouse, a real shame.
Down there were wine and appetizers and people mingling, but I was more interested in the dugout area that houses barrels (wine? ale?) as it must have in his day.
The garden out back was charming, a cottage mixture of flowers and herbs, and looking particularly lush on a misty evening. It wasn't hard to imagine Polly and John sitting out there at night enjoying the air together.
I was asked on the way out if I worked in the neighborhood and made sure they knew that I was a proud J-Ward resident, mere blocks away from all that history. I might have even mentioned living in an 1876 house, not that it compares to Mr. Marshall's 1790 gem.
My inner history nerd happy, my hired mouth and I hurriedly went to dinner so I could make a late movie date with Pru.
First we spent time at her place where she gave me a mini technology lesson and then we set out for Movieland in the mist.
Showing tonight was "Chef" and what food-loving restaurant regular wouldn't be curious about a film focusing on a larger than life chef who refuses to cede creative control to an owner who expects him to serve molten chocolate lava cake?
As any foodie can tell you, that's emasculation of the highest order.
What I liked about the movie was that it was part travelogue with postcard-worthy scenes set in Miami, New Orleans and Austin. Scenes of prep and cooking, shot from every angle, were food porn of the highest order.
Music was practically a character in the film, including a scene of Gary Clark, Jr. playing live and a sensational cover of (and singalong to) "Sexual Healing" by the Hot 8 Brass Band.
Being the Luddite that I am, I also got a major kick out of a chef who did not use Twitter until his kid taught him how.
There was even the realism of cleaning a kitchen, hardly sexy but oh-so realistic.
And perhaps most importantly of all, the chef, played by director Jon Favreau, looked like a chef, not like a chiseled, buff actor. Because let's face it, who trusts a skinny chef?
Granted there were some moments of pure movie ridiculousness. Am I really supposed to believe that an owner could be so obtuse as to insist on serving the exact same meal to a critic who had panned the same food the night before?
Or that a blogger turned food critic could sell his website and make enough money to finance a restaurant in Miami?
But those are quibbles and for the most part, the film was about regaining your passion for what you do.
And the moral was as obvious as the nose on my face, something I have been told by more than one chef over the years.
There is nothing quite like a good sandwich. Ask anyone who has his own knives.
The John Marshall house was hosting their summer salon and while it hardly felt like summer today, I walk by that house at least once a week so I was intrigued with the idea of being inside.
The enormous magnolia tree in the front yard was in bloom as I checked in on the front porch and walked through the doorway of the longest-serving Chief Justice.
Guides in the rooms shared their wealth of knowledge with us, like the fact that the portrait hanging over the mantle in the front room showed Marshall at 78. Frankly, he didn't look a day over 60 in the painting.
Off the back passage was Marshall's butler Robin's base of operations and our guide told us Robin was responsible for sanding the rough, country boy edges off Marshall.
Seems on one of his trips to Raleigh to hear court, he arrived only to realize he'd forgotten to pack pants. The ones he'd worn on the ride down were too dirty and smelly to wear, he wrote to his beloved wife Polly in a letter, so he'd gone to court with just his judicial robe over his loins.
That's right, John Marshall went commando in court. They should teach fun facts like that in school and kids would be way more into history.
Many of the house's flourishes were done for the benefit of Polly, an upper crust girl Marshall fell hard for early. Meaning he was doodling his name and hers in the margins of his law books when he was at William & Mary.
I'm quite sure my name has never been doodled anywhere.
Downstairs in the cellar/gift shop, I looked at a notebook of old photographs of the house, including those from the period when John Marshall high school was built completely around Marshall's house, something I hadn't known.
The school was built within inches of the home on three sides, almost engulfing it, meaning they knocked down outbuildings like the kitchen and smokehouse, a real shame.
Down there were wine and appetizers and people mingling, but I was more interested in the dugout area that houses barrels (wine? ale?) as it must have in his day.
The garden out back was charming, a cottage mixture of flowers and herbs, and looking particularly lush on a misty evening. It wasn't hard to imagine Polly and John sitting out there at night enjoying the air together.
I was asked on the way out if I worked in the neighborhood and made sure they knew that I was a proud J-Ward resident, mere blocks away from all that history. I might have even mentioned living in an 1876 house, not that it compares to Mr. Marshall's 1790 gem.
My inner history nerd happy, my hired mouth and I hurriedly went to dinner so I could make a late movie date with Pru.
First we spent time at her place where she gave me a mini technology lesson and then we set out for Movieland in the mist.
Showing tonight was "Chef" and what food-loving restaurant regular wouldn't be curious about a film focusing on a larger than life chef who refuses to cede creative control to an owner who expects him to serve molten chocolate lava cake?
As any foodie can tell you, that's emasculation of the highest order.
What I liked about the movie was that it was part travelogue with postcard-worthy scenes set in Miami, New Orleans and Austin. Scenes of prep and cooking, shot from every angle, were food porn of the highest order.
Music was practically a character in the film, including a scene of Gary Clark, Jr. playing live and a sensational cover of (and singalong to) "Sexual Healing" by the Hot 8 Brass Band.
Being the Luddite that I am, I also got a major kick out of a chef who did not use Twitter until his kid taught him how.
There was even the realism of cleaning a kitchen, hardly sexy but oh-so realistic.
And perhaps most importantly of all, the chef, played by director Jon Favreau, looked like a chef, not like a chiseled, buff actor. Because let's face it, who trusts a skinny chef?
Granted there were some moments of pure movie ridiculousness. Am I really supposed to believe that an owner could be so obtuse as to insist on serving the exact same meal to a critic who had panned the same food the night before?
Or that a blogger turned food critic could sell his website and make enough money to finance a restaurant in Miami?
But those are quibbles and for the most part, the film was about regaining your passion for what you do.
And the moral was as obvious as the nose on my face, something I have been told by more than one chef over the years.
There is nothing quite like a good sandwich. Ask anyone who has his own knives.
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