Salmon P. Chase Suite
Born in 1808 in Cornish, New Hampshire,
moved to Ohio as a young boy
where he spent the majority of his adult
life. Chase trained as a lawyer and began his
public service in the United States Senate
from 1849-1855 and then held office as
Governor of Ohio from 1856-1860. After a
brief return to the Senate from 1860 to 1861,
he was called upon by Abraham Lincoln to
serve as Secretary of the Treasury.
From 1861-1864, Salmon Chase occupied a
suite of offices in the southeast corner of
the third floor of the which
included a private office and an adjoining
reception room. His term of office spanned
the years of the Civil War and many of the
measures undertaken in Chase's office were in
response to wartime needs.
To help finance the war, Secretary Chase
mandated the in which was created, backed by
neither silver nor gold. In response to a
monetary system where states and individual
banks printed their own money, a national
banking system was instituted and became law
in February of 1863. Also under Secretary
Chase's direction, the Treasury Department
oversaw the creation of two bureaus: the
Bureau of Engraving and Printing which
produced the new federal notes, and the Bureau
of Internal Revenue (later renamed the
Internal Revenue Service) which was
responsible for collecting a new income tax
to help finance the War. In many of these
endeavors, Chase was supported by the
financier Jay Cooke, whose portrait can be
seen hanging in the reception room.
Chase resigned his position as Secretary
of the Treasury in June of 1864 and was
appointed Chief Justice of the United States
Supreme Court in the fall of that year. He
presided on the bench during the turbulent
era of Reconstruction until his death in
1873.
The suite of rooms occupied by Salmon
Chase was one of the most elaborately
decorated of any Treasury office. The most
significant aspect of the restoration process
was the stabilization and conservation of the
allegorical murals representing "Treasury"
and Justice" and the Treasury shields on the
ceiling of Secretary Chase's office. Paint
conservators worked meticulously stripping
the ceiling of approximately 90 years of
paint to reveal the decorative painting which
included Treasury seals in each of the four
corners.
While the ceiling in
Chase's office was restored, the decorative
paint scheme on the walls was too damaged to
be conserved. Instead, the decoration was
carefully replicated using original colors.
In order to identify the original layer of
paint, architectural conservators examined
paint probes taken from each architectural
element (such as window frames, cornice
moldings, baseboards, etc.). With information
discovered by paint analysis, the decorative
painting on the ceiling and walls of Chase's
reception room have been faithfully
replicated.
There are no surviving invoices or
historic images available of the rooms as
they looked during the 1860s, so the rooms
have been decorated and furnished to be
"period-appropriate" for the nineteenth
century.
The draperies are based on a period
engraving of a nineteenth century design from
the collections of the Winterthur Museum.
Pressed metal window cornices were inspired
by an entablature design in the Treasury that
features corn, grapes and hops, symbolizing
the abundance of America's nineteenth century
agricultural economy.
The eagle sofas and bookcase in the
reception room are part of the historic
Treasury furniture collection. Complementing
the original furnishings are a number of
acquired pieces such as the set of side
chairs originally owned by financier Jay
Cooke and the gothic-revival bookcase in
Chase's office made by Julia Thompson, one of
the few known female cabinet makers of the
nineteenth century.
J. Goldsborough Bruff, a draftsman from
Treasury's , is believed
to have designed the overmantel mirror in
Chase's office. This mirror is the Treasury
collection's most elaborate and features a
large eagle, fruits and vegetables, popular
nineteenth century iconography for a federal
office building.
The restoration of the murals and the
furnishing of the suite with original and
period pieces brings to life the rooms where
some of the most significant events in the
Treasury Department's history took place.
We wish
to thank the Office of the Curator for
helping obtain and maintain this
information. |