The brass-studded box
that transported the Treaty of Ghent, the document that formally ended
the War of 1812, has been restored and returned to The Octagon, the museum
of The American Architectural Foundation, in Washington, D.C. A public
viewing of the Ghent Treaty Box and a lecture on the British burning of
the capital will take place at The Octagon on August 24, the 189th anniversary
of that conflagration. The treaty box, which had aged badly over the past
two centuries, has not been on public display since its conservation.
The box served a brief but important function in a crucial early stage
of this nation’s history. Following 2-1/2 years of conflict, war
with Britain concluded at the signing of a treaty December 24, 1814, in
Ghent, Belgium. Because of the uncertainty of travel, American officials
sent home three separate copies of the treaty across the Atlantic to ensure
the safe arrival of at least one. Henry Carroll, secretary to peace commissioner
Henry Clay, was the first to arrive in Washington with the treaty, carrying
it in his personal brass-studded document box, now known as the Ghent
Treaty Box.
Carroll,
son of Charles Carroll of Belle Vue, delivered the treaty to President
James Madison at the Octagon, the home of Colonel John Tayloe III that
served as the temporary Executive Mansion after the British burned the
White House only a few hundred yards to the west. When signed by President
Madison in his office on the second floor of The Octagon on February 17,
1815, the Treaty of Ghent officially ended the War of 1812. The official
document became part of the National Archives, and the Ghent Treaty Box
passed down through the Carroll family, who donated it in 1940 to The
Octagon.
Although the peace heralded by the Treaty of Ghent has survived well
for 188 years, the box in which it arrived has not. Over time, the leather
covering on the box deteriorated badly. Nearly a quarter of the leather
was lost, with many missing areas patched long ago with poorly matching
colored resin. The remaining leather was cracked, cupped, and peeling,
and the brass trim corroded. Because the treaty box was quite fragile,
the Octagon staff approached Colonial Williamsburg’s department
of conservation for help.
Leroy Graves, Colonial Williamsburg’s conservator of upholstery,
and Heather Porter, then a graduate intern from the Royal College of Art,
Victoria and Albert Museum in London, undertook the examination and painstaking
treatment of the artifact. Because of the delicate condition of the box,
much of the work has been accomplished beneath a microscope. Treatment
has included flattening and stabilizing the cupped leather, carefully
re-adhering it to the wood box, patching losses with matching leather,
and removing an old coating that disfigured and darkened the original
surface. Due to its stable but sensitive condition, the treaty box will
be exhibited at The Octagon on special occasions only.
Copyright 2003 The American Institute of Architects.
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