“To
the President:
Office of the Secretary of the Treasury: Sixteen rooms,
one of which to be at least 25 or 30 feet by 20.”
~Levi Woodbury
Secretary of the Treasury Levi
Woodbury moved into his new office in the West End of
the center wing in 1838. Secretary Woodbury’s
office was a suite at the western end of the center
wing on the second floor (which would be known as the
third floor after 1910) of the newly completed structure.
Levi Woodbury served
as Secretary of Treasury from 1834-41.
Library of Congress
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here to see a more detailed image
Coincidentally, this second floor
office was in nearly exactly the same location as the
offices in the previous Treasury buildings where Woodbury’s
predecessors had sat during 1800 – 1833. Precise
evidence for this phenomenon can be found in an interpretation
of various photographs taken by L.E. Walker (the Treasury’s
architectural photographer), who created the earliest
and only photograph of the Secretary’s office
when it was located in the first Treasury until 1861.
In a photograph taken to document
the progress in the construction process of the 1858
West wing, seen below, Walker accidentally captured
the western two-thirds of Mills’ Center wing,
revealing a pair of awnings at the second floor. It
has since been decided that awnings in that era shaded
only the windows of senior officers and officials, thereby
intimating that the rooms with the awnings were room
3218 (the office of Secretary Howell Cobb) and room
3222 (Secretary Cobb’s reception room).
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here to see a more detailed image
Secretary Howell Cobb,
left, whose office is indicated by the window awnings
in the photograph above, served from 1857-1860. Library
of Congress
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here to see a more detailed image
While little is known about the interior design, furnishings,
and decorative features that created the first Secretary’s
office in Mills’ Treasury, there is some evidence
that allows a glimpse into the office’s appearance
and function relative to its design. According to an
1841 drawing by Robert Mills, seen below, the exterior
west entrance leading to the Secretary’s office
would have been seven steps above a walkway that passed
through the President’s Garden to the President’s
House (The White House), thereby enabling conveniently
quick communication between the President of the U.S.
and the Secretary of the Treasury.
From 1838-1861, the
Secretary’s Office, indicated in red on Mills’
plan, above, was located at the west end of the
center wing.
 The
fireplace mantel pictured left, designed by German-born
sculptor Ferdinand Pettrich (1798-1872) in 1838, is
one of nine surviving mantelpieces that likely adorned
the fireplace in the orig-inal office of the Secretary.
The mantels were made of cast iron in three varying
decorative schemes
and finished in a black paint similar to the protective
varnish used for cast iron stoves
of the period.
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here to see a more detailed image.
Conservators are presently cleaning these rare
mantelpieces of many layers of paint and restoring them
to their original black finish before they are reinstalled
in the East Wing offices, including the first Secretary’s
office. Further research will allow members of TBARR
to gain a clearer picture of the physical space and
the objects from the Secretary’s office during
the early era of the Treasury.
 A
hole drilled into the wall of the former Secretary’s
office, seen left, revealed that the fireplace behind
the wall is in a condition that may be restored to
its original state once the wall is removed. The original
marble hearth that complemented the Pettrich mantelpiece
(above) was also discovered when the original floor
was uncovered.
TBARR
Project
Photographed July 30, 2002
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