II "Elmwood"
An Early Picture of "Elmwood"
Copyright 1957
by the University of Virginia
Library of Congress Card
Number 57-6691
I. EpitomeIV. James Mercer Garnett: The Grandfather
V. Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter: The Uncle
VI. Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett: The Owner in 1864
VII. Mary Picton Stevens Garnett: The Wife
IX. The Transfer of the Collection
An Early Picture of "Elmwood"James Mercer Garnett: The Grandfather
Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter: The Uncle
Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett: The Owner in 1864
Mary Picton Stevens Garnett: The Wife
Mrs. James Clayton Mitchell: The Donor
Garnett Room, University of Virginia Library
II "Elmwood"
An Early Picture of "Elmwood"
The "Elmwood" of 1864 was--as indeed the building still is--a solid example of a Virginia plantation house dating from colonial times. It stood on rising ground somewhat less than a mile south of the highway (now Route 17) running roughly
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parallel with and to the right of the Rappahannock River as one proceeded downstream from Fredericksburg to Tappahannock. The building was a massive brick structure of two storeys above a windowed basement, its stern lines broken by an unsightly stair tower near one end. The location gave an effect of severe aloofness:
and to one approaching "Elmwood" from the highway, the first impression was of the grimness of a barracks. But as one passed through the outer portal, the effect was at once of spaciousness and of ornate decoration. The interior was rich in its furnishings, its marble mantels were colorful, and the extent of its hand-tooled woodwork was extraordinary. The generous proportions of its halls and reception rooms and chambers offered promise of unstinted hospitality; and its library room, paneled with curly maple and equipped with built-in bookcases of maple and mahogany, was an invitation to scholarly and cultural pursuits. Extending back of the mansion was a formal garden, and beyond that was the family burial plot, the whole bordered
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with cedar and holly and with crape myrtle of unusual size. Together with the outlying house for the overseer and with the tenant cottages and farm buildings, this was the center of an estate of broad acreage.
The three given names of the 1864 owner--Muscoe, Russell, Hunter--along with the surname Garnett point to prominent Virginia families stemming from colonial settlers. Also linked by marriage with the Garnetts were Fentons, Mercers, and Taliaferros. In England there had been Garnetts extending back to NormanFrench origins in the eleventh century. The Virginia Garnetts apparently came from a Lancashire branch. In scholarly attainments transmitted through successive generations they resembled the Ottley in Yorkshire branch of the English Garnetts, among whose members have been Jeremiah Garnett (1793- 1870), founder and editor of the Manchester Guardian; his elder
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brother, Richard Garnett (1789-1850), philologist and Assistant Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum; whose son, Richard Garnett (1835-1906), was Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum and joint author of the Garnett and Gosse Illustrated History of English Literature; and his son and grandson, Edward Garnett (1868- 1937) and David Garnett (born 1892), have been authors and critics of note.
IV James Mercer Garnett: The Grandfather
James Mercer Garnett: The Grandfather
"Elmwood" was built shortly before the Revolutionary War by an earlier Muscoe Garnett (1736-1803), who married Grace Fenton Mercer; and it was presented as a wedding gift to their son, James Mercer Garnett (1770-1843). This son was the grandfather of the 1864 owner of the estate; and it was he who began the collection of the home library. He gained distinction in four fields: politics, agriculture, religion, and education. His name
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thereafter became a favorite one for Garnett progeny. One descendant, of the second generation, w as the James Mercer Garnett who from 1882 to 1896 was Professor of` English Language and Literature at the University of Virginia.
The original James Mercer Garnett was a member of the Virginia Legislature in 1799-1800 and again in 1824-1825; he held an honored place in that Convention of distinguished men which framed the Virginia Constitution of 1829-1830; he was in 1809 one of the grand jury which indicted Aaron Burr for treason; and he represented Virginia in the United States Congress for two terms, 1805-1809. On his resignation at the close of his second term, his friend John Randolph of Roanoke testified of him that "he never said an unwise thing or gave a bad vote." Records of that friendship, which reveal a softer aspect of the bitter and ofttimes tempestuous Randolph, are preserved at the University of Virginia Library in a manuscript collection of more than three hundred letters covering the years 1806 to 1832.
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One of the reasons for James Mercer Garnett's retirement from Congress was his desire to concentrate his efforts on the improvement of agricultural conditions in Virginia. He was a member of the Fredericksburg Agricultural Society, and its President for twenty years; he was one of the founders of the Virginia State Agricultural Society; and he was the first President of the National Society of Agriculture. He wrote a number of pamphlets and newspaper and periodical articles on agriculture, and, as a by-product of the farmer's point of view, he was an energetic advocate of free trade.
Like his father and his grandfather, James Mercer Garnett was a Vestryman of the nearby Vawter's Church. He was at various times a delegate both to the Diocesan Conventions and to the General Conventions of the Episcopal Church. On his own property he erected a log house for use as a Sunday School, of which he was for many years the teacher.
His own education had been obtained at home. When in the 1820's the wealth he
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had inherited began to dwindle, partly because of his profuse hospitality and his personal benevolence, he and his talented wife (he had married a first cousin, Mary Eleanor Dick Mercer) opened at "Elmwood" a school for girls. This had several years of prosperity, students coming from a number of States besides Virginia. A series of formal lectures which he delivered before the young ladies was in 1824 published by T. W. White of Richmond, and in that year and the next it ran into four editions, the last two bearing the title Lectures on Female Education. About 1830 the school was closed because of the ill health of Mrs. Garnett. But not long after, a small school for boys was opened at "Elmwood," the main purpose in this case being to insure companionship for his grandson, our Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett. That attempt, however, was not long continued. An indication of James Mercer Garnett's reputation as an educator was his election, in 1824, as a member of the Board of Visitors of the College of William and Mary.
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The comments of two visitors may serve to picture the "Elmwood" and the Garnett family of those days.
Benjamin Johnson Barbour, later a Congressman from Virginia and Rector of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia during the critical years following the War of 1861-1865, was a pupil at the boys' school at "Elmwood." In some reminiscences dated 1885 he wrote:
I shall not attempt any description of "Elmwood." I will only say that it has suggested some of the fine old English homes to me, and for years after I lived there, when I would be reading an English novel, "Elmwood" with its fine hall, its library and parlor, its corridors and general spaciousness, would rise up before me.
John Henry Hobart, who was to become Bishop of New York, was a visitor at "Elmwood" during one of his vacations from college life at Princeton; and in a letter he then wrote to his mother was this tribute:
The family in which I have been form a scene of domestic happiness that my imagination
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has often painted but such as I have never before found realized. Every want and every wish supplied by an ample sufficiency, their manners unfettered by all artificial forms of politeness, and yet entirely removed from rustic plainness, mark the artless expression of informal goodness wishing to dispense happiness to all around.
James Mercer Garnett had four sons and four daughters. His wife died in 1837, but he himself lived on until 1843. His eldest son, James Mercer Garnett, Jr., was, however, short-lived. Born at "Elmwood" in 1794, he died there in 1824--a young man already widely read and of much promise. He had been a student at Princeton, but left before obtaining a degree. He had then privately studied law and had begun practice at Loretto, a small settlement which served as post office for "Elmwood." Like his father, he married a first cousin, Maria Hunter. Their only child, Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett, was born in 1821, and was thus only three years of age at the time of his father's death. It was
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a natural consequence that the ties of affection between grandfather and grandson became especially close.
V Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter: The Uncle
Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter: The Uncle
Intimate also was the relationship between the growing boy and his mother's younger brother. Her home had been in the neighboring estate (on the Tappahannock side) of "Fonthill." There lived her brother and her two maiden sisters. The brother was Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter (1809-1887). He was already entered upon a career that was to come within sight of the highest political distinction.
He had been a student at the University of Virginia from 1826 to 1829. It has been recorded that along with Edgar A1lan Poe he was in the group of students present at the funeral of Thomas Jefferson. He had read law under Judge Henry St. George Tucker in Winchester, Virginia, and for a short time thereafter had practiced his profession in Essex County.
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But soon came the entrance upon a long course of office holding. In succession he was a member of the Virginia General Assembly, a member of the United States Congress, the Speaker of that body, and for fourteen years (1847-1861) a Senator in Washington. During most of his period in the Senate he was Chairman of its powerful Finance Committee. Both President Pierce and President Buchanan are said to have offered him the post of Secretary of State in their Cabinets, but their offers were declined. During the conventions preliminary to the national election of 1860 Hunter was prominently considered among the possible candidates for President. Later he was among those mentioned for the presidency of the Confederate States. He was Secretary of State under President Davis for a period during the years 1861 and 1862, but resigned and became Senator-- and in the Confederate Senate he was again foremost in financial councils. Toward the close of the war he was one of the Southern Commissioners who met with
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President Lincoln and Secretary Seward in a futile effort to negotiate peace. After the surrender at Appomattox he was taken prisoner and was for several months confined at Fort Pulaski. When freed, he returned to a "Fonthill" that had in 1863 suffered severely from a raid instigated by General Benjamin F. Butler. Nevertheless Hunter continued to be a leader in the efforts toward Southern rehabilitation that followed. From 1874 to 1880 he was Treasurer of Virginia; and shortly before his death, which came in 1887, President Cleveland appointed him Collector of the Port of Tappahannock thus completing what might be termed a full gamut of public service.
What this resumé does not reveal is that throughout his long career Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter proved himself to be a man of broad culture--and that his public addresses (a plump volume of them could be compiled) demonstrate a foundation of literary as well as of political knowledge. Certainly in this uncle of his, as well as in his grandfather, young Muscoe
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Garnett had intimate and inspiring examples of noble character, scholarly attainment, serious purpose, and widely recognized distinction.
VI Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett: The Owner in 1864
Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett: The Owner in 1864
It was in this ''Elmwood'' and with this family environment that Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett was born in 1821; and home and family were dominant influences in his life. He was a sensitive, retiring, precocious youth. His education up to his college days at the University of Virginia was received at home, and it was directed mainly by his mother and his two maiden aunts from "Fonthill." Fearing the effects of this only son's isolation from playmates of his own age, his family did undertake for a time the boys' school at "Elmwood" with teachers brought from outside. But in a revealing sketch of his boyhood, written by one of his aunts, Martha Fenton Hunter (author of several books, the best known being The Clifford
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Family), it is noted that at recess periods Muscoe was quite likely to slip away from his youthful comrades to read some favorite book, such as Rollin's Roman History. Charles Rollin's map-studded volumes did have popular appeal. Even so, this preference offers sufficient evidence that Muscoe was an exceptional child.
This home training continued until, in his seventeenth year, he was admitted as a college student at the University of Virginia. He enrolled in the Schools of Ancient Languages (Greek and Latin), of French Language, of German Language, and of Pure Mathematics. In that period. for satisfactory completion of the requirements of a School there was awarded a Certificate of Proficiency. There were no bachelor's degrees conferred for college work, but a student could continue his studies towards a master's degree. At the close of a single session (1838-1839), Muscoe Garnett received the desired certificates, the "tickets," in all of his Schools.
At this point this young man of eighteen years made a characteristic decision.
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Instead of further study at Charlottesville leading to a master's degree, he resolved to return to "Elmwood" for an organized course of reading in the home library there before he went on to the study of Law--his father's and his uncle's profession. The letter written home from the University, the letter in which he announced this decision, would seem to be a pertinent document in the story of the Garnett collection, and from it an extract is here quoted.
I shall continue my general studies without reference to any particular profession for at least twelve months and probably longer. Of course, then, my three branches of study will be History, Metaphysics, and Belles Lettres. I shall frame an extensive course of study in each, and the books may be in any of the five languages I am acquainted with. So by reading authors in the original, my knowledge of the language will be kept up and improved. History I will study not as a mere amusement, but philosophically. I will study it in connection with Political Economy and the general doctrines of Government, and as an illustration of the science of the mind, in
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short, as "Philosophy teaching by example." By Metaphysics I mean the whole philosophy of the mind, whether considered individually or in masses, in its most extensive sense. In Belles Lettres I will study the great poets and critics, and view their masterpieces not only as sources of enjoyment, but as works of art, and examine the principles which direct their composition. In a word, I mean to study in these Belles Lettres what the Germans call Aesthetics. And furthermore, I shall accustom myself to express my reflections on what I read in writing. This will force me to reflect, fix what I read in my memory, and assist me to form a style in writing.
Now look at the advantages of this plan. I am anxious to become well acquainted with the languages, and this plan will certainly make me so. For, if I read Shakespeare, so will I Homer and Goethe. If I read Clarendon, so will I Sismondi and Tacitus, and if I study Bacon, so will I Plato. This plan too embraces everything but Mathematics in its connection with the Natural Sciences, and the Sciences themselves. But these can easily be put in. It may be objected that it is so extensive that it would require a long time to do it any justice. I reply that I can stop whenever I find it necessary, and that, as to requiring so much time and labor, a thorough
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education is not attained without these. I think, in making out a course of reading, the best plan is to put down the very best books we know, without considering whether we have them or not, and also to make the course very thorough without noticing how long it would require to go through it. Then we can afterwards modify it to suit our case.
That is a remarkable conception for a youth of eighteen, whether the date be 1839 or 1957. Equally remarkable is the resolution with which that 1839 eighteen year-old put the plan into operation. To it he devoted not one but two years; and the field of operation was the home library at ''Elmwood.'' Once or twice he did go to Washington, where he could consult additional volumes at the Library of Congress and where he could find interest and stimulus in visits to the halls of Congress, his uncle then being Speaker of the House.
By 1841 Muscae deemed that the time was ripe for specialization in law studies. He returned to the University of Virginia, and it was his good fortune that Judge Henry St. George Tucker was that session
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beginning his four years tenure of the law professorship--a brief tenure, but one of lasting significance for the University since Professor Tucker was the prime mover in the establishment of the Honor System. Robert M. T. Hunter had read law under Judge Tucker in Winchester; and his home-loving nephew was for that session of 1841-1842 made a member of the Tucker household. It was for that session only, for the revealing reason that young Muscae, who had needed only one year for his college "tickets," now completed in one year the requirements for a law degree.
He began practice, as his father had done, at Loretta. There was not a great deal of law business in that rural area (this is no adverse criticism of Essex County), and he was able to resume his reading programme at "Elmwood." He now proceeded to the stage of forming a "style in writing." The experiments included several book reviews which were contributed to the Southern Magazine and the Southern Literary Messenger.
The financial difficulties which had
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beset the estate worsened toward the close of the grandfather's life, and for an interval "Elmwood" passed out of the possession of the immediate family. Fortunately a brother-in-law of James Mercer Garnet, Robert Payne Warring, was able so to take over the property that it later reverted to the direct line. But an immediate result was that after the grandfather's death in 1843, Muscae and his mother for several years transferred their residence to the Hunter home at "Fonthill." On their return to "Elmwood" in the more prosperous period of the 1850's, Muscae concerned himself in making additions to the book collection, in developing the flower garden, and in sundry renovations of the residence itself.
During those years there was a shift in the young lawyer's concentration of interest that offers a mild parallel to Woodrow Wilson's legal experience at Atlanta. From the somewhat trivial cases which Essex County offered, Muscae moved to the contemplation of government and its underlying principles. The year 1850 sharply
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indicated the change. The publication of a pamphlet, The Union, Past and Future: How It Works and How to Save It, a philosophical exposition of the relationship of slavery to national government, elicited wide attention and comment. Muscae was selected as a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of that year; and, following that, he was elected a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, a post which he held until 1855. In 1856 came his election as Representative from the First Virginia District to the United States Congress. From then until the outbreak of the war, Essex County and the Garnet-Hunter family had the distinction of being represented--and ably represented--in Washington by Muscae R. H. Garnet as Congressman and by Robert M. T. Hunter as Senator.
It is pleasant to inject into this record the assurance that the Garnet-Hunter prestige was recognized at the University of Virginia. Both uncle and nephew were chosen as alumni association orators at Finals, Hunter in 1839 and Garnet in
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1850 (that year of significance in his career); and both served as members of the University's Board of Visitors, Hunter during the period 1845 to 1852 and Garnet from 1855 to 1859. During his occupancy of that office, Muscae Garnet was quite fittingly named Chairman of the Library Committee of the Board of Visitors --and it is to be noted that never previously had the Visitors' Library Committee so effectively concerned itself with such matters as the professional equipment of the Librarian and the "modern" cataloguing of` the library collection.
Muscae Garnet continued in Washington until the secession of Virginia in April 1861. He then became a member of the Virginia State Convention; and in November of that year he was elected to represent the First Virginia District in the Confederate House of Representatives. He served in that legislative body through its months of increasing difficulty and discouragement until, early in 1864, there was for him an abrupt termination. He contracted typhoid fever, was granted
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leave to return to "Elmwood," and died in his loved home on February fourteenth. He had not yet reached his forty-third birthday; and the expressions of profound regret at this sudden ending of a career of unusual promise gave evidence of the widespread respect felt by his contemporaries for the pre-eminent abilities of this scholar-statesman.
VII Mary Picton Stevens Garnett: The Wife
Mary Picton Stevens Garnett: The Wife
Intermarriage within related families had been a characteristic of the Garnetts. Both Muscae's father and his grandfather had wedded first cousins. But Muscae himself had stepped out. On 26 July 1860 he had married a northerner, Mary Picton Stevens of "Castle Point," Hoboken, New Jersey. She also had come from a family of distinction. In that case, however, the distinction was in the field of engineering, specifically in pioneer developments in the use of steam locomotion both for ships and for railways. Mrs. Garnet's father, Edwin
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Augustus Stevens (1795- 1868), his two elder brothers, John Cox Stevens (1785-1857) and Robert Livingston Stevens (1787-1856), and their father, John Stevens (1749-1838), all had notable careers as inventors; and Mrs. Garnet's father was the founder of the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. Ability in business management had secured for the family moderate financial resources. There was also lively inclination toward love of sports. For example, John Cox Stevens was a founder of the New York Yacht Club, and he had been instrumental in the building of the "America" which in 1851 won the first international yacht race, off Cowes, England. There was a family tradition that Mrs. Garnet's father had been a volunteer member of the crew in that famous victory.
That was the paternal line. Mrs. Garnet's mother, Mary Barton Picton of West Point, was Edwin Augustus Stevens' first wife. His second wife was Martha Bayard Dod, daughter of Albert Baldwin Dod, who had ably pursued--and pursued simultaneously--
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careers as a clergyman and as a professor of mathematics at Princeton University. Through her stepmother, Mrs. Garnet had come into friendly relations with the Princeton Dods.
The married life of Mary Picton Stevens and Muscae Garnet was all too brief. Its duration was somewhat less than four years--spent at first in Washington and later at "Elmwood." The young bride met with an affectionate reception at "Elmwood" and she soon came to love her new Virginia home. She settled wholeheartedly into its life and there is good evidence that she took her part in the addition of books to the home library.
After her husband's untimely death, it was her desire to remain at "Elmwood." But Essex County, while still nominally held by the Confederate forces, was liable to be overrun by scouting and raiding parties of both the blue and the gray. Moreover there were two very young children: James Mercer Garnet, of two years and seven months (born 7 July 1861), and Mary Barton Picton Garnet, of eight
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months (born 28 May 1863). Consequently the anxious Stevens family at "Castle Point" exerted at Washington its not inconsiderable influence to have the widow and her children moved through the lines and brought north to New Jersey.
The measures taken by the Washington administration were notably appropriate. Earlier in the war, Mrs. Garnet's father had presented to the northern government a small vessel propelled by a steam engine of Stevens design; and this had been converted into a gunboat. Moreover Mrs. Garnet's stepmother had a younger brother, Captain Albert Dod, who had gained recognition in the northern army both on the battle front and in staff work. So what the Washington authorities did was to order the Stevens gunboat to proceed down the Potomac and up the Rappahannock to a point opposite "Elmwood;" and to detach Captain Dod and a squad of soldiers to make the trip with a pass for Mrs. Garnet, two children, and a nurse.
It was evening when Captain Dod and
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his file of soldiers arrived at "Elmwood." Though fearing that this was some raiding party, the young widow bravely faced them--to be greeted by a familiar voice:
"Mary, I have come for you."
"Oh, it's you, Albert. But--I don't want to leave."
A long discussion ensued. But the realization of her family's acute anxiety and the sight of the pass from President Lincoln finally persuaded Mrs. Garnet. She did, however, succeed in having the departure postponed until morning. There followed a night busy with preparations for a journey with young children, with the concealment of some of the more movable possessions, and with arrangements for a caretaker to remain in charge at "Elmwood."
At break of dawn the house was securely closed, and the little party quietly stole down across the main road to the landing stage, and was taken aboard. The children and the nurse were hurried below. But as the gunboat got under way, this adopted daughter of the Confederacy insisted on
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remaining on deck for a final look across her familiar fields toward the distant mass that was "Elmwood." Captain Dod and the gunboat's commanding officer urged her to retire for greater safety.
"No," she flashed back at them. "You two men go below. Southern soldiers will not shoot at a lady."
They laughed, and one said: "All right. Let her stay. Anyway those Johnny Rebs can't hit a barn door."
It is true that there was some desultory shooting as the boat dropped down the Rappahannock. But the trip was made safely.
And on that eventful night the Garnet home library had been sealed into its permanent form as a collection.
As soon after the fighting war as circumstances would permit, Mrs. Garnet returned to ''Elmwood'' and was joyfully received. But the difficult years of the reconstruction period prevented her from
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maintaining a residence there; and health conditions in her family at "Castle Point" seemed to make necessary her protracted withdrawal. Later efforts to reopen "Elmwood" were blocked by the expense of renovating the building and running the estate. Nevertheless the services of a resident overseer were continued, and the contents of the mansion, including its library, were carefully protected.
Naturally there were temptations to pillage any isolated property during those years of widespread penury. But the vigilant care of the faithful servitors was aided by a curious rumor that became current in that sparsely settled district. It was the rumor of the ghostly activities of the "Doctor. "
In the days of the family's openhanded hospitality, the "Doctor" had come as a week-end guest--and had remained forty years, had died at "Elmwood," and had been interred in the family burial plot. The story bruited about through the countryside was that nightly the "Doctor" was wont to emerge from his grave and visit
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his familiar chamber and the library, putting to rights the furniture and dusting the books. Thus did the gentle guest perform grateful returns for the gracious hospitality of his whilom host with the indirect but potent result that prowling bands of superstitious vagabonds were strongly inclined to resist any inclination to maraud .
The wife died in 1903, and her son, who was still another James Mercer Garnet, in 1915. The ownership both of "Elmwood" and of "Fonthill" then passed to that little daughter of eight months in 1864. She had grown up, had in New Jersey married a clergyman, James Clayton Mitchell, and upon his death was residing in North Wales (near Philadelphia) in Pennsylvania. It was her custom to make occasional trips to Virginia, staying at the smaller house "Fonthill" and continuing the necessary measures for the protection of both properties.
Not long before her death, 9 November 1949, Mrs. J. Clayton Mitchell transferred the ownership of "Elmwood" to
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her nephew, Muscae Russell Hunter Garnet II of New York City, and the ownership of "Fonthill" to a niece, Mrs. Thomas Blackburn Payne of Fredericksburg. Both houses are now being attractively used as summer homes. The grandson who proudly bears the name of the owner in 1864 has devotedly accomplished much for the restoration of "Elmwood" to its former distinction -- and hospitality. In 1953 the mansion and its formal garden were opened for inspection during "Historic Garden Week"--that annual Mecca for flower lovers so effectively planned and managed by The Garden Club of Virginia.
IX The Transfer of the Collection
Mrs. J. Clayton Mitchell: The Donor
Information concerning an undisturbed collection of books dating from the years before the War of 1861 - 1865 had reached certain interested circles, but its existence was not generally known. The possibility of an inspection of that collection came to the University of Virginia Library in 1930 through Dr. Carroll Mason
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Sparrow, Professor of Physics and member of the Faculty Library Committee, Mrs. Sparrow having relatives living in Tappahannock. One of those relatives, Mr. James Meriwether Lewis, a graduate of the University of Virginia, was Commonwealth Attorney for Essex County. He arranged with Mrs. J. Clayton Mitchell for a small group from the University to visit "Elmwood" on October first of that year.
As that little group stepped into the spacious reception hall, the effect was that of a plunge into the past as if three score and ten years had in a breath been unlived. Nowhere was the past more real than in the library room, with its rows of shelved books, its padded easy chair where Muscae Garnet had been wont to sit, its orderly piles of the Revue des Deux Moncles on the window ledge beside the chair, the subscription ending a month or two after that February of 1864. The impression was so vivid that at the close of that enchanted day, as one, breathing the crisp October air, walked down the well-nigh
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overgrown road to the main highway, there was no surprise at seeing a cluster of horsemen led by a red-coated rider who flourished a bugle and was preceded by a pack of hounds. But a raucous honk by an impatient motorist was so incongruous as instinctively to provoke a flash of anger.
On that day was conceived the plan for the permanent preservation of that home library in a future library building at Muscae Garnet's University. The proposition was suggested in a letter to Mrs. Mitchell. There was at that time no response. But eight years later, when that new building was nearing completion and word had been transmitted to Mrs. Mitchell that there was therein an appropriate special room, she gave her hearty approval, and a date was set for the transfer. Included with the gift was a mahogany secretary, a most suitable accompaniment to the books. Mrs. Mitchell came from Pennsylvania for the occasion; and she entertained the party from the University of Virginia at a luncheon in the dining hall at "Elmwood," the viands being sent from
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the Riverside Hotel at Tappahannock. Thus was the old time hospitality once more in evidence, with the sprightly Garnet owner graciously presiding. The transfer was made with care; and at the dedication of the Alderman Library building at the Final Exercises in June of that year, 1938, the collection was in place in its new home.
X The Collection Itself
The Garnett Room in the University of Virginia Library
As for the collection that has thus been preserved, it is comparatively a small one, of only about twelve hundred volumes. It is, however, in no sense a collection casually assembled. The books were selected with painstaking care. The range of subjects is wide. The largest section is that of Literature, including several European languages in addition to English. In English the compass is notable, extending from Beowulf to Edgar Allan Poe. Other general subjects, in order of emphasis, are History and Geography, Religion and Philosophy, Law, and Agriculture, including
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Botany. In Science and Technology and Domestic Science the books are few but are representative.
In the collectors' minds there was obviously no intention of making this a rare book collection. The books were acquired for serious reading. In some cases time has now added rarity. The purchases were made through booksellers in Fredericksburg and Washington, or directly from publishers in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. No indication has been observed that the Garnetts imported books from abroad. This tended to limit them to reliance on American publications and reprints. In view of Muscae Garnet's familiarity with Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian, and one or two other European tongues (shortly before his death he began a study of Sanskrit), it is altogether probable that had there been greater access to original publications in those languages, the collection would in those materials have had greater depth. Tabs attached to some of the book covers indicate that Muscae Garnet made use of a binder in Fredericksburg,
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and on some of the volumes his name, M. R. H. Garnet, is printed at the base of the spine. There are only a few fine bindings--and in the majority of these, the name Mary Picton Stevens is written on the flyleaf.
This Garnet collection is an excellent library example of an exception proving the rule. The rule in this case is that for the convenience of readers, especially when the readers are research scholars using the stacks, all books on the same subject should be shelved together--and that there should therefore be as few separately located collections as possible. But should these Garnet books be scattered by subject through the main stack collection, its value for research would be drastically reduced. Considered by individual volumes this is not an especially valuable collection; considered as a unit it decidedly is, and it offers valid topics for investigation in a number of directions.
It will be readily apparent what some of the possible subjects for investigation are. Obviously one is the collection's revelation
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of the salient characteristics of this leading Virginia family of a century ago-- more especially the characteristics of Muscae Russell Hunter Garnet himself. For example, consider Muscae Garnet as a traveler.
Reference has previously been made to the sketch of the youthful Muscae written by an admiring aunt. In it she records that from his earliest years he delighted in maps; that he spent many happy hours lying on the floor with a map spread out before him, while, supported on his elbows, he traced out sea coasts and cities, rivers and mountains. That zest for travel continued unabated throughout his life, and it was illustrated in his conversation and in his writings.
During the year he was studying Law at the University of Virginia, that is, during the session of 1841-1842, he was an editor of a student publication called The Collegian; and in the issue for November 841 a fellow editor, John R. Thompson (who later cut for himself an enduring niche among the Virginia poets), wrote a
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description of Muscae Garnet, giving him the sobriquet of "our indefatigable Emerald." From that contemporary appraisal this bit may be quoted:
"His conversation is instructive and diversified. At one time he discourses on the beauties of the dreamy writers of Germany, at another he enters into an eloquent and thrilling disquisition of the "Sovereignty of the People." But his favorite theme is Italy. He is familiar with every "ruined arch and ivied wall" from Rome and Caracalla's Baths to Tivoli's romantic steep. Her dark-eyed v daughters and her sunny skies are associated with his fondest dreams of the Poet Land."
Again, about five years later, while Muscae Garnet was leisurely practicing law in Essex County, he experimented with the serious avocation of writing reviews. One of those, contributed to the Southern Literary Messenger, was a review of John Paget's two volume work on Hungary and Transylvania. What a review! It filled seventeen pages of double column small print--so long and so thorough it was that the Editors divided it for publication,
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as leading articles, in two issues, those for January and February 1846.
Now what was the physical reality of his travels? In actual fact, his journeyings from "Elmwood" extended westward as far as Charlottesville (for his college and law courses), northward to Washington (as Congressman), southward to Richmond (as Congressman in the Confederacy), and his farthest venture was to New Jersey where he married his wife, whom he had met in Washington. He was indeed an extensive traveler, but his traveling was in his mind, and his mind found its incentive in the books in this home library. Therein were the open roads to the countries and the peoples of Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. It was while seated in the comfortably padded chair in the library at "Elmwood" that he unlatched the
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foamIn addition to this collection's revelations
Of perilous seas, in Faery lands forlorn.
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of Garnet character and interests and to the more general topics of investigation which this early nineteenth-century home library affords, there is one value which did not occur to the then University Librarian until in 1940 it w as brought to his attention by Count Carlo Sforza, the renowned Italian statesman.
Count Sforza, outspoken opponent of Mussolini and Fascism, was then living in exile in New York City. During the early months of that year, 1940, he came to the University of Virginia once a week to lecture on the Italian people and government. He was a frequent and warmly welcomed user of the Alderman Library. One day he was shown the Garnet collection, and something of its background was explained to him. He listened with avid interest, and he seemed loath to leave the Garnet Room.
The following week Count Sforza appeared in the Librarian's office accompanied by an upstanding youth, whose resemblance to the tall and distinguished Count was unmistakable.
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"This time I have brought with me my son, who is in school in New York. I have brought him because I wished to have him see that home library which you showed to me last week. May we have permission to inspect it?"
The permission was promptly, indeed eagerly, granted. On entering the Garnet Room, the Count made the further request that he be allowed to tell the story of the collection. With his characteristic and gracious courtesy he injected into the long narrative in Italian occasional English words, obviously as clues to aid the Librarian in following the exposition; and specific books were pointed out to the son, especially the little group on Italian life and letters.
At the end the Count turned to the Librarian with this explanatory comment:
"This past week I have been often thinking of this collection. It has been to me a source of great encouragement. That is why I have brought my son from New York, especially to see these books. It has been a source of encouragement because
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it has suggested to me that in many liberty loving countries there may be home collections like this one, of books freely bought and freely read. I think this practice and these collections form a true and a vital bond among free peoples.
"In our home in Italy we had a library so very similar to this one. The books had been gathered without fear, and without fear we read and discussed them. Our library room was a cherished center of our family life. Then that Mussolini"--the descriptive words he used were vitriolic-- "confiscated our home, our books, and our estate, and we have to live in exile. But I want you to know"--his words came more slowly, and he removed his glasses with their film of moisture--"I want you to know--that never since I was thrust out-- from my loved Italy--have I felt so much at home--as I do here--in this room--and among these books."
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Delightful sources of information have been the letters from and the remembered conversations with Mrs. J. Clayton Mitchell, the daughter of eight months when Muscoe Russell Hunter Garllett died in 1864 and the donor of this collection. The present owner of "Elmwood," Muscoe Russell Huntcr Garnett 1I, has read this text and he and Mrs. Thomas B. Payne, the present owner of ''Fonthill,'' have aided with the illustrations. Among the printed materials consulted have been the following:
Bartlett, David Vandewater Golden. Presidential Candidates: Containing Sketches Bio graphical, Personal, and Political of Prominellt Candidates for the Presidency in 1860. New York, Burdick, 1859. (R. M. T. Hunter, pp. 244-250)
Biographical Directory of the American Congress. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1950. (Articles on James Mercer Garnett, 1770-1843, Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett, Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter)
Chisolm, William Garnett. Elmwood, Essex County, Virginia. Privately printed in 1953 for Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett II.
Chisolm, William Garnett. The Garnetts of Essex County and Their Homes. In Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 42, no. 1, January 1934, pp. 72-83; no. 2, April , pp. 166-180; no. 3, July 1934, pp. 256-
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268; no. 4, October 1934, pp. 358-366; vol. 43, no. 1, January 1935, pp. 69-71.
Dictionary of American Biography. New York, Scribner, 1928-1937. Twenty volumes. Articles on
Garnett, James Mercer, 1770-1843, by Avery 0. Craven.
Garnett, Muscoe Russell Hunter, by Armistead C. Gordon, Jr.
Hunter, Robert Mercer Taliaferro, by Charles H. Ambler.
Stevens, Edwin Augustus, by Carl W. Mitman.
Stevens, John, by Carl W. Mitman.
Stevens, Robert Livingston, by Carl W. Mitman.
Garnett, James M ercer, 1840- 1916. Biographical Sketch of Hon. Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett, of Essex County, Virginia. In William and Mary College Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 1, July lgog, pp. 17-37; no. 2, October 1909, pp. 71-80. Reprinted as pamphlet of seventy-six pages, including Appendix of extracts from the writings of Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett.
Garnett, James Mercer, 1840- 1916. Genealogy of the Hunter-Garnett Family of Essex Coun ty, Virginia. Richmond, Whittet & Shepperson, Cl910.
Hunter. Martha T. A Memoir of Robert M. T.
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Hunter. Washington, Neale Publishing Company, 1903.
Lewis, Nell Battle. Feature story, illustrated, in Sunday issue of Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 14 September 1941, part 4, page 5.
Rothery, Agnes. Houses Virginians Have Loved. New York, Rinehart & Company, C1954. (Elmwood, pp. 207-214) .
Sale, Edith Tunis. Interiors of Virginia Houses of Colonial Times. Richmond, WilliaIll Byrd Press, 1927. (Elmwood, pp. 229-245)
Senator Hunter of Virginia. In Harper's Weekly, vol. 4, no. 167, lo March 1860, pp. 145, 146.
Simms, Henry Harrison. Life of Robert M. T. Hunter: A Study in Sectionalism and Secession. Richmond, William Byrd Press, C 1935.
Univcrsity of Virginia: Its History, lllílllellce, Equipment, and Characteristics, with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Founders, Benefactors, Officcrs, and Alumni. Edited by Paul Brandon Barringer, James Mercer Garnett, Rosewall Page. New York, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904. Two volumes. (Articles in volume one on Robert M. T. Hunter, pp. 331-332, and on Muscoe R. H. Gaenett, p.375)
Waterman, Thomas Tileston. The Mansions of Virginia 1706-1776. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, C1945. Pp. 246-248, 298no8, 415.
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One thousand copies produced by the University of Virginia Press, Charlotìesville. Composed in Linotype Baskerville, 12 point on 13. Printed on a No. 4 Miehle press, on 80 pound Warren's Cumberland Dull enamel paper. Engravings by Allied Arts of Charlottesville. Cloth binding by the Albrecht Company of Baltimore.
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