I just visited the Das Haus Museum in Berkholz, Niagara County, New York in order to see one of three known Civil War Memorial wreaths, which I consider to be absolute national treasures, even though the history of these pieces and their existence happens to be relatively unknown to a wide audience today. In fact, these objects could easily be displayed at any national art museum in America.
The wreaths were made by Carl Ludwig Heinrich Mehwaldt (1809-1887), a migrant potter from Bruessow, Germany, who came to America with his wife and three sons in the 1850s. All three of his sons enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War and two were killed in Virginia in 1865. These are the official comments provided about their deaths by the 8th Regiment New York Voluneteer Artillery:
Mehwaldt, G.G. - Age 21 years. Enlisted, July 29, 1862, at Lockport, NY; mustered in as a private, Co. B, One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Infantry, July 29, 1862 (which became the Eighth Artillery, December 19, 1862), to serve three years; killed, June 3, 1864, at Cold Harbor, VA.Mehwaldt, Herman - Age 18 years. Enlisted, December 20, 1863, at Whitefield, NY; mustered in as a private, Co. B, January 5, 1864, to serve three years; wounded, June 18, 1864, before Petersburg, VA; died of such wounds, June 26, 1864, on board steamer Connecticut.
To commemorate the lives of his sons, Mehwaldt made two amazing hand modeled red earthenware wreaths that hung in the community's Holy Ghost Church, decorated with highly detailed and carefully constructed flowers that grew around Mehwaldt's home, each measuring about twenty inches in diameter. After the wreaths were fired in the kiln, each flower and leaf was carefully painted with accurate colors.
Mehwaldt's career and two of three wreaths were well known in the 1920s when they were published by the Buffalo Historical Society and The Magazine Antiques, but have been largely forgotten since then. In a story written in 1921 by Ada Walker Camehl (1866-1939) for Volume 25 of the Buffalo Historical Society Publications in Western New York, titled, The Old Bergholz Pottery, she describes these works as beautiful art. She also mentions a chandelier that Mehwaldt created for the church. Additionally, Mehwaldt must have created other specialty pieces (see part two).
Camehl also wrote for the September 1922 issue of The Magazine Antiques that "Mehwaldt also produced quantities of chimney crocks, red earthenware crocks of all sizes, butter-crocks with handles to be hung in wells to keep butter cool; cooking utensils, candlesticks, all manners of tableware - platters, plates, sauce-dishes, cups and saucers, mugs, pitchers, sugar bowls, vegetable dishes, teapots and teakettles. He also produced finer products like inkstands and tile stoves. At Christmas-time, he usually turned out many little dinner-sets for children, and toys made in the form of pigs, owls, roosters, and birds with whistles in their tails."
These wreaths had been missing for about fifty years when the Das Haus Museum was able to track down one in Seattle two years ago. And this past May that wreath returned home to the museum only a matter of feet from the site of Mehwaldt's pottery and a very short distance from where the Holy Ghost Church was located. They are now trying to determine the whereabouts of the other wreath that was last known in Chicago in the 1960s. Neither wreath ever left ownership of the Mehwaldt family, although the last known owner of the missing wreath died in the 1990s.
Interestingly, the remains of a third wreath was unknown until recently, likely also manufactured for a local soldier who died in the Civil War. It is owned by a local homeowner in Berkholz and retains a history of ownership with that family. The story of how it broke (see part two for pictures) is even documented with it falling off a wall in the 1950s because a group of young children were fooling around. It is very likely that only three commemorative wreaths were ever made by Mehwaldt. Each is an amazing piece of American folk art and in my opinion an absolute national treasure!
Civil War Memorial Wreath Manufactured in Western New York
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
No comments:
Post a Comment