ABSTRACT 
 
 
 
 
Title of Document: CLASS BY THE GLASS: THE 
SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPORTED WINE 
CONSUMPTION IN AMERICA, 1750-1800   
  
 Catherine Stewart Thomas, Master of Arts, 2007 
Directed By: Associate Professor Mary Corbin Sies,  
American Studies 
 
 
This paper analyses the ritual of imported wine consumption in America between 
1750 and 1800 and its significance in establishing a wealthy gentleman?s power and 
place within a social hierarchy. My research was conducted by exploring 
contemporary written and visual records, as well as examining material objects and 
architectural spaces, specifically pertaining to the Annapolis, Maryland region. 
 
Beginning with a study of the varieties of wines consumed and their influence in the 
politically-charged environment prior to the American Revolution, the paper then 
explores why and how gentlemen used wine bibbing as an indication of one?s identity 
in a burgeoning society. Quantities of wine-related furniture and decorative objects, 
in combination with architectural storage spaces, conveyed a life far above that of the 
average citizen. Finally, this paper examines to what degree historic house museums 
are interpreting the wine ritual and suggests steps that might be taken to do so more 
effectively. 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CLASS BY THE GLASS: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPORTED WINE 
CONSUMPTION IN AMERICA, 1750-1800 
 
 
 
By 
 
 
Catherine Stewart Thomas 
 
 
 
 
 
Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the  
University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment 
of the requirements for the degree of 
Master of Arts 
2007 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Advisory Committee: 
 
Associate Professor Mary Corbin Sies, Chair 
Barbara G. Carson 
Professor Paul Shackel 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
? Copyright by 
Catherine Stewart Thomas 
2007 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ii
Dedication 
 
To my parents: 
You instilled in me a love of learning, and especially, a love of history. For 
that I will be eternally grateful. 
 
And to my husband, Jeff: 
I would never have completed this project without your endless 
encouragement and patience. Thank you for your unfailing support. 
 iii
Acknowledgements 
There are so many individuals I wish to thank that it would be impossible to include everyone 
here. My advisor, Associate Professor Mary Sies at the University of Maryland, completely 
shaped my graduate school experience. For her thought-provoking classes and her endless 
advice, I will always be grateful. I would also like to thank Jeff Burnett, Barbara Carson, and 
Paul Shackel for reading drafts of this paper and for offering helpful criticisms and 
suggestions. 
 
Many colleagues have generously assisted me with this topic. I would particularly like to 
thank James A. Abbott for literally years of encouragement in pursuing this subject. 
Additionally, William Voss Elder III, MB Munford, Mark Letzer, and Catherine Arthur 
always thoughtfully shared information related to the subject of wine consumption.  
 
In Annapolis, I would like to extend my appreciation to those who assisted me with local 
information: Tom Cuddy, Alexandra Deutsch, Heather Ersts, Heather Foster, Orlando  
Ridout V, Jean Russo, Paul Shackel, and Donna Ware. Researching the domestic architecture 
of Annapolis would have been impossible without the current residents of these magnificent 
houses. They generously opened their doors to me so that I could crawl around their 
basements and attics. Architectural historians Edward Chappell, Willie Graham, and  
Mark Wenger were also helpful in suggesting locations of possible wine cellars or garrets.  
 
Finally, I was assisted by independent scholars both in the United States and Britain, as well 
as staff at many cultural institutions. I have thanked certain individuals within the body of the 
paper but many others suggested objects or written materials that did not fit into the scope of 
this paper. I will focus on these pieces as I continue to research the subject. 
 iv
Table of Contents 
 
 
 
Dedication?????????????????????????????.ii 
 
Acknowledgements?????????????????????????..iii 
 
List of Illustrations??????????????????????????v 
 
Introduction????????????????????????????...1 
 
Chapter 1: Wines and Consumption???????????????????18 
 Section 1: Case Study of Annapolis????????????????.19 
 Section 2: Types of Wine????????????????????.32 
 Section 3: Taxation without Representation????????????....40 
 
Chapter 2: Wine Bibbing as a Ritual: Gender and Gentility?????????...45 
 
Chapter 3: Equipage?????????????????????????.61 
 Section 1: Case Study of Annapolis????????????????.62 
 Section 2: Background on Equipage????????????????72 
 
Chapter 4: Architecture and Wine???????????????????...99 
 Section 1: Case Study of Annapolis???????????????..100 
 Section 2: Background on Wine Storage?????????????...106 
 
Chapter 5: Interpretation of Wine Consumption in Historic House Museums??..119 
 Section 1: Case Study of Annapolis???????????????...121 
 Section 2: Interpretation at Other Sites??????????????..123 
 
Summary??????????????????????????.??...135 
 
Appendix A: Origins of Wines Mentioned????????????????140 
 
Appendix B: Wine and Its Equipage in a Sampling of Annapolis Inventories??.141 
 
Appendix C: Historic Houses Visited??????????????????146 
 
Bibliography???????????????????????????..148 
 v
List of Illustrations 
 
Figure 1 
Upton Scott Cellar, Annapolis 
 
Figure 2 
Upton Scott Cellar, Annapolis 
 
Figure 3 
Hammond-Harwood House Cellar, Annapolis 
 
Figure 4 
Chase-Lloyd House Cellar, Annapolis 
 
Figure 5 
Old Wine Cellar 
Courtesy of Sotheby?s 
 
Figure 6 
Drayton Hall Cellar, South Carolina 
 
Figure 7 
Drayton Hall Closet, South Carolina 
 
Figure 8 
The Woodlands Cellar, Philadelphia 
 
Figure 9 
Wickham-Valentine Cellar, Richmond 
 
Figure 10 
Wickham-Valentine Garret, Richmond 
 
Figure 11 
Octagon House Cellar, Washington, DC 
 
Figure 12 
Homewood House Cellar, Baltimore 
Courtesy of Homewood House, The Johns Hopkins University 
 
Figure 13 
Homewood House Garret, Baltimore 
Courtesy of Homewood House, The Johns Hopkins University 
 
 
 vi
Figure 14 
Homewood House Garret, Baltimore  
Courtesy of Homewood House, The Johns Hopkins University 
 
Figure 15 
Longfellow National Historic Site Cellar, Cambridge, MA 
Courtesy of the National  Park Service,  
Longfellow National Historic Site 
 
Figure 16 
Stenton Cellar, Philadelphia 
 
Figure 17 
Stenton Closet, Philadelphia 
 
Figure 18 
John Marshall House Cellar, Richmond 
 
Figure 19 
John Marshall House Cellar, Richmond 
 1
Introduction 
 
This paper examines how the ritualistic consumption of imported wine, long 
overlooked for its influential role in colonial society, established a gentleman?s power 
and place within a social hierarchy. Although the elite group that practiced this wine-
bibbing ritual prospered from approximately 1740 until 1865, from the Colonial era 
to the Civil War, for the purposes of this paper, I will concentrate on the practices of 
this ritual during the years of 1750 to 1800.
1
 During that time, gentlemen considered 
wine drinking a serious sport with a detailed protocol that included the necessary 
possession of elaborate accessories associated with wine?s consumption. These 
objects as individual pieces did not always play a significant role as status markers on 
their own. Rather, they created an impressive visual effect when acting together to 
complete the ritual within a social setting. If one had an extensive wine cellar in 
quantity and quality, the correct accoutrements to highlight the wine, and the 
knowledge of how to handle these objects, he could claim a certain position in 
society.  
 
Wine drinking was as important for establishing the perception of social hierarchy 
among men as the well-known act of drinking tea was for women; however, wine is 
often disregarded for the magnitude of what it symbolized in colonial America.
2
 
                                                 
1
 Further discussion on the specifics of this date range will be provided later in this introduction. 
2
 Men participated in tea drinking as well, but the tea ritual played more of a symbolic role in the lives 
of women ? much like the symbolic role of wine drinking in the gentlemen?s lives. Women did drink a 
glass or two of wine with men during dinner, but the majority of the wine was consumed after the 
women had withdrawn from the table. Women, however, were not exempt from conspicuous 
consumption, and tea drinking was their way of demonstrating their position within society. For 
 2
Imported wine, or the equipage associated with it, is frequently mentioned as an 
example within a broader discussion of colonial American life, but rarely has it been 
examined by itself for the noteworthy part it played in creating the definition of a 
?gentleman? in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century America. Drinking wine was 
a form of ?symbolic, active and communicative? behavior that was appreciated, 
interpreted, and judged by people of all economic backgrounds.
3
  
 
Although each aspect of the wine-drinking ritual encompasses a varied number of 
academic areas, the actual subject of this paper, the after-dinner consumption of 
imported wine within the home, is quite narrow. It would be inaccurate to categorize 
all drinking situations, or even all wine-drinking situations, as one. Rather a broad 
variety of spirits were consumed, and, indeed, other types of wine were available as 
well. Furthermore, individuals, many of whom could not afford imported wine, 
attempted to grow indigenous grapes for their own use, and wine was frequently an 
ingredient in punch, another popular early American beverage. However, each of 
these topics is large enough in its own right to deserve separate consideration. 
                                                                                                                                           
information on tea consumption, see:  Rodris Roth, ?Tea-Drinking in Eighteenth-Century America: Its 
Etiquette and Equipage,? in Material Life in America, ed. Robert Blair St. George (Boston: 
Northeastern University Press, 1988); Rupert Faulkner, ed., Tea: East and West (London: Victoria and 
Albert Museum, 2003); Edward Wenham, ?Tea and Tea Things in England,? Antiques 54 (October 
1948); Peter B. Brown, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee, and Tea-Drinking 
1600-1850 (York, York Civic Trust, 1995); and William H. Ukers, The Romance of Tea: An Outline 
History of Tea and Tea-Drinking Though Sixteen Hundred Years (New York: Knopf, 1936). 
3
 Ann Smart Martin and J. Ritchie Garrison Garrison, "Shaping the Field: The Multidisciplinary 
Perspectives of Material Culture," in American Material Culture: The Shape of the Field, ed. Ann 
Smart Martin and J. Ritchie Garrison Garrison (Knoxville: Distributed by University of Tennessee 
Press for Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1997), 14-15. They are referring to Ian Hodder?s 
work, Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology (London: Cambridge 
University Press, 1986), especially Chapter 7: ?Contextual Archaeology.? Crew members, dock 
workers, merchants, craftsmen, and servants were all aware of the quantities and types of wine and 
wine-related equipage that were either being imported or made to be used during wine-consuming 
rituals.  
 3
Furthermore, wine bibbing within domestic settings warrants its own specific 
discussion because, unlike other types of consumption, the wine ritual was vital in 
establishing the identity of many of these gentlemen.  
 
Even though imported wine consumption occurred throughout the colonies and early 
states, I have focused on the geographic area of Annapolis, Maryland as a case study. 
For the purposes of broadening my arguments, as well as offering plausibility and 
discrepancy checks to the Annapolis research, I draw upon supporting evidence 
(written, visual, and artifactual) from other regions along the East Coast during the 
same time periods. Furthermore, there seemed to be little change in the overall 
importance and popularity of the wine consumption ritual during the hundred year 
span of 1750 to 1850, so I have also included information, as well as primary sources, 
from just before and after my fifty-year focus.  
 
Comprehending the power of this pastime requires scrutiny of each element of the 
ritual, all the while keeping in mind the dialectical relationship between the objects 
and their users. Individuals cannot be defined apart from the objects they used, and, 
likewise, objects cannot be defined apart from the people who used them. When 
examining history, researchers must keep in mind that material artifacts were 
intentional and were active players within their context. The scholar Jules Prown once 
stated that ?objects made or modified by man reflect, consciously or unconsciously, 
directly or indirectly, the beliefs of the individuals who made, commissioned, or used 
 4
them and, by extension, the beliefs of the larger society to which they belonged.?
4
 
With regard to wine bibbing, the related ?objects? include both architecture and the 
vast array of equipage necessary for the activity, as well as written narratives and fine 
arts.  
 
An individual?s desire for status, successfully conveyed through the possession of 
necessary accoutrements for the consumption of wine, prompted the creation of 
beautifully designed and lavishly produced decorative items. While the gentry were 
hardly the only Americans to consume alcohol,
5
 their affluence and awareness of the 
prominence conveyed by material goods promoted the production of these 
aesthetically significant decorative objects and extravagant architectural spaces. Since 
the equipage acted as both an economic and a social marker, it validated the owner as 
much as the owner validated the equipage through its utilization. Because of this, 
British archaeologist Ian Hodder believes that each object has a symbolic meaning 
only when examined in a specific context along with other related objects. No one 
piece of this ritual can be examined in a vacuum.
6
 
 
In Chapter One, I detail the specific types of wine imported into the colonies and the 
history of America?s early attempts to grow indigenous grapes for wine production. I 
further argue that the ritual of importing and consuming wine produced structures of 
                                                 
4
 Jules David Prown, "Mind in Matter," in Material Life in America 1600-1860, ed. Robert Blair St. 
George (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988), 17-18. 
5
 The lower classes favored cheaper beer, hard cider, and especially rum. Barbados molasses was 
exported to New England where the first commercial rum distillery opened in Boston in 1700 (Andrew 
Barr, Drink: A Social History of America (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1999), 35.) 
6
 Ian Hodder, Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology (London: 
Cambridge University Press, 1986), 140. 
 5
power that were of particular relevance to the relationships and ideals of an emerging 
country?s ideology.
7
 The partiality these gentlemen showed towards certain varieties 
of imported wine clashed with the British desire to control trade and importation and 
ultimately led to wine being viewed as another metaphor for taxation without 
representation.  
 
Chapter Two examines how and why wine consumption helped these gentlemen 
identify themselves as genteel, even if that meant acting in a very unattractive 
manner. The complete ritual can be understood on both a private level, which 
involved one?s individual hobbies and preferences, as well as on a more public level, 
with an established social meaning.
8
 Even the public aspect of wine bibbing was, in 
fact, not very public but instead purposively intimate and quite controlled. Typically, 
it occurred in one room, the dining room, of a private house with a select number of 
visiting gentlemen. The choice of who was to be included provided a visible 
indication of group identity, for the host in a private home could be much more 
selective in assembling the participants compared to a self-forming group in a club or 
tavern. Each aspect of wine bibbing communicated a visual and behavioral language. 
The character of these gentlemen was based on their choices of material objects and 
their performance in ?using? these items when in each other?s company. Diary and 
letter notations, as well as visual images of wine consumption are of specific interest 
                                                 
7
 ?Ritual is an opportunity to affirm, evoke, assign, or revise the conventional symbols and meanings 
of the cultural order.? (McCracken, Grant David, Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the 
Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 
84). Mary Douglas describes a ritual as a form of restricted code and a ?system of control as well as a 
system of communication.? (Natural Symbols (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1973) 78-79).    
8
 Anne Yentsch and Larry McKee, "Footprints of Buildings in Eighteenth-Century Annapolis," 
American Archaeology 6, no. 1 (1987): 41-42. 
 6
in this chapter, since they accurately illustrate the complicated meanings associated 
with this ritual.  
 
Chapters Three and Four concentrate on the specific objects, equipage and 
architecture respectively, involved in wine consumption. Not only did wine bibbing 
involve the use of many small, yet elaborate, pieces of material culture, it also 
affected the way certain spaces were used within domestic architecture in order for 
wines to be properly stored. Scholars on relations between culture and economy, such 
as Cary Carson and Don Slater, argue that consumer culture was a reality in America 
long before the Industrial Revolution and had a profound effect on this country?s 
image of itself; ?it is commerce that provides so many of the new images and 
concepts through which society is understood and through which consumption is 
recognized and revalued in ways that bear the mark of what we now call consumer 
culture: notions of economy and government, the idea of civil society and of society 
itself, images of the self, self-interest, reason and desire, new concepts of status and 
culture.?
9
 In truth, the emphasis on objects and consumption in the eighteenth century 
?reconfigured the definition of a gentleman, previously associated with family 
origins, inherited income, extensive land holdings, and an important country seat.?
10
 
                                                 
9
 Don Slater, Consumer Culture and Modernity (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1997), 21. Cary Carson 
also writes about this premise in Cary Carson, "The Consumer Revolution in Colonial America: Why 
Demand?" ed. Cary Carson, Ronald Hoffman, and Peter J. Albert (Charlottesville: University Press of 
Virginia, 1994). 
10
 Phyllis Whitman Hunter, Purchasing Identity in the Atlantic World: Massachusetts Merchants, 
1670-1780 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 4. Hunter?s main premise is that the merchants 
themselves played a significant role in shaping this new society. More needs to be studied of this 
subject with regard to the ritual of wine consumption. See also David Hancock, ?Markets, Merchants, 
and the Wider World of Boston Wine, 1700-1775? in Entrepreneurs: The Boston Community ed. 
Conrad Edick Wright and Katheryn P.Viens (1997) and Edward Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit: The 
Annapolis Merchants in the Era of the American Revolution (1975). 
 7
 
In Chapter Five, I assess how this important ritual is currently portrayed in the 
historic house museum setting. Preserving early American domestic architecture is 
truly successful when all aspects of the house are conserved, especially the attics and 
cellars where much of the behind-the-scenes activity occurred. The stories of these 
houses and the people who lived in them cannot be told exclusively in the elegant 
dining rooms. Rather, the social history of a house needs to be interpreted in areas 
such as its storage spaces where food provisions were kept and where servants spent 
hours attending to the daily responsibilities of their position, including decanting 
wine.  
 
By examining the nature of this ritual from an interdisciplinary perspective, the 
conclusions of this paper directly apply to the studies of a diverse group of scholars. 
Cultural anthropologists, material culture specialists, and social historians are able to 
better understand a vast array of factors relating to everyday life in the eighteenth and 
nineteenth centuries, including material culture, commodities and consumption, 
rituals, foodways, status markers and class, etiquette, gender, socialization, and space 
as a sense of place. In particular, they will see how gentlemen used this consumption 
ritual to create or sustain a place for themselves among the upper ranks of society. 
Wine bibbing was a vehicle men of a certain wealth used to bond with their peers and 
to separate themselves from those deemed less aristocratic. 
 
Case Study Methodology 
 8
With regard to the case study, I focus on Annapolis because it was a vital town at the 
height of its glory by the mid-eighteenth century. Surviving evidence of the types of 
trade that occurred in Annapolis, the variety of objects that were made there, and the 
elegant houses that were constructed indicate that the day-to-day life in this town was 
similar to that in larger urban areas along the coast, such as Boston, New York, 
Philadelphia, and Charleston. Annapolis residents were interested in the latest 
fashions from abroad and were successfully establishing their town as a major 
cultural center. Many of the local elite constructed large urban residences showcasing 
their upwardly mobile lifestyle. However, Annapolis was unable to sustain itself as a 
major cultural hub; thus it seemed appropriate to focus this paper on the time period 
just before and after its golden age (1750 to 1800). There were discrepancies in the 
Annapolitans? handling of wine compared to other locations, perhaps due in part to 
the town?s small size and its brief time in the spotlight. I discuss these throughout the 
paper. Additionally, by including the Revolutionary War years in the scope of this 
project, I show that such a major historical event had little impact on the wine-
drinking habits of wealthy gentlemen. For, although there was a decline in 
accessibility of wine during the war years, wine consumption increased again 
immediately following the end of the War.  
 
In addition to examining wine-related objects and architecture associated with 
residents of Annapolis, I turned towards probate inventories for hard evidence of the 
types of wine and accoutrements the gentlemen of this town were actively acquiring. 
Researching these documents proved to be somewhat challenging. Below I will 
 9
describe the various obstacles, which made it impossible to take a completely broad 
and random sampling of estate probate records. I will then explain how I 
subsequently approached the research from various angles.  
 
During much of the colonial period, Maryland?s probate court was called the 
Prerogative Court. Until it was abolished in 1777, all probate records were recorded 
under this agency. Most counties kept duplicate records of their residents, except for 
Anne Arundel County. Thus, researchers must go through all of the Prerogative Court 
records (which do not have indexes) in order to locate Annapolis decedents prior to 
1777. This made it virtually impossible for me to find enough listings for a systematic 
sampling. Even if I knew an individual?s year of death, his probate record, if recorded 
at all, may have been taken or transcribed years later. Although I was not able to do a 
methodical sampling, I did find a handful of useful inventories for the first twenty-
five years of my time-period. 
 
 Beginning with the Anne Arundel County inventories from 1777 to 1779, I randomly 
took three names from each letter of the alphabet listed in the index. I repeated this 
method (except by only sampling two names from each letter of the alphabet) for the 
years of 1787 to 1790. While I found interesting information in these records, 
subsequent books of inventories did not have indexes. Additionally, most inventories 
lacked specific addresses, so unless I could trace a name to a known residence within 
the town limits (an area referred to as the Annapolis Hundred), it was difficult to 
determine exactly where some of these individuals lived within the county.  
 10
 
In 1783 a Tax Assessment Record for the Annapolis Hundred was recorded. My 
observation of the inventories up to this point was that the number of pieces of wine 
equipage listed in an inventory was significantly higher if the record was of a 
gentleman whose name I recognized as being a wealthier individual, such as Edward 
Lloyd IV or Charles Carroll of Carrollton. For this reason, I took the name with the 
highest recorded value from each letter of the alphabet in the index of this 1783 
document. However, out of twenty-six names, I was only able to locate inventories 
for two of these gentlemen upon their deaths.  
 
When it became obvious that finding enough relevant inventories to analyze for my 
case study on Annapolis was going to be difficult, I changed my strategy to locate as 
many probate records as possible for the wealthiest individuals in the town. I 
compiled a list of preferred gentlemen by approaching my definition of elite status 
from a number of angles. Because it is widely accepted by scholars that the building 
of elegant houses was often considered a mark of class distinction in the eighteenth 
century, I included the names of the men who built stately homes in Annapolis during 
my date range.
11
 I then added additional names from two sources. One was the 
Gunston Hall Probate Inventory Database, which contains transcribed inventories 
from individuals in early Maryland and Virginia (www.gunstonhall.org). The second 
                                                 
11
 I am grateful to Gregory Weidman for sharing with me the location at the Maryland State Archives 
of the inventories for some of these gentlemen. 
 11
source was a list compiled by Lois Carr and Lorena Walsh of Annapolis residents, 
their year of death, and their overall worth.
12 
 
 
The names I pulled from the Carr and Walsh list each had an estate worth a minimum 
of 500 pounds. I used this value because, according to Edward Papenfuse, an average 
assessed wealth over 500 pounds made an Annapolis man a gentleman, a member of 
the upper class.
13
 The difference between an estate of 500 pounds and 3,000 pounds 
(the average of the wealthier individuals mentioned in this document)
14
, however, is 
significant by eighteenth-century standards. In my assessment, an individual whose 
worth was 500 pounds may, in reality, have been considered more of what scholar 
Barbara Carson would label as an aspiring member of society rather than an elite 
member.  In a study of early nineteenth-century Washington, DC inventories, Carson 
counted table settings. Those with the most were labeled ?elite.? Decedents with 
fewer were called ?aspiring.? The elite gave dinner parties for eighteen, twenty-four 
or more. The aspiring could accommodate eight, ten, or twelve.
15
 Although I did not 
                                                 
12
 The list includes inventories dated from 1699 to 1774. Over the course of their careers, Carr and 
Walsh have studied literally thousands of probate records in the Chesapeake region. For a more in-
depth description of their methodology in analyzing Maryland inventories, see: Carr and Walsh, 
?Inventories and the Analysis of Wealth and Consumption Patterns in St. Mary?s County, Maryland, 
1658-1777.? Historical Methods (13) no. 2 Spring 1980. The same authors included the Anne Arundel 
County inventories in their article, ?Changing Lifestyles and Consumer Behavior in the Colonial 
Chesapeake,? in Of Consuming Interests, ed. Cary Carson, 1994. I am very grateful to Paul Shackel at 
the University of Maryland and Jean Russo at Historic Annapolis Foundation for assisting me with this 
list. 
13
 Edward C. Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit: The Annapolis Merchants in the Era of the American 
Revolution, 1763-1805 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1975), 139. These gentlemen made up 
20% of the heads of households in Annapolis but controlled 49% of the wealth of the town. (Ibid.) Carr 
& Walsh establish their wealth parameters a little lower than Papenfuse. 
14
 This average does not take into account the assessed value of Edward Lloyd IV?s because it was so 
far above that of the rest of Annapolis society. His estate was assigned a value of 38,785 pounds. 
15
 Barbara Carson?s model derives from her study, Ambitious Appetites: Dining, Behavior, and 
Patterns of Consumption in Federal Washington (1990). This ranking conformed well with Robert 
Roberts distinction between great and little people. Robert Roberts was a butler who wrote the 
etiquette book The House Servant?s Directory (1827). See more on Roberts in Chapter 3 of this paper. 
 12
clearly define each household according to Carson?s model, the concept is relevant to 
my arguments since entertaining was an important component to the wine 
consumption ritual as well as to the overall ability of an eighteenth-century gentleman 
to claim himself as ?genteel.? For the most part, there did seem to be a direct 
correlation between the number of pieces of silverware an individual owned and the 
number of wine glasses listed in the inventories. Most of the gentlemen, who had an 
impressive amount of wine in their cellars, also had a significant number of wine 
glasses in which to serve the beverage to their contemporaries. A drawback, which 
Carson fully acknowledges, is that the numbers of forks, knives, plates, or wine 
glasses in an inventory do not help to answer the question of how food and beverages 
were consumed.
16
 The how and why of wine consumption are questions I attempt to 
answer in this paper.  
 
In the end, the inventories I located that listed a considerable amount of wine 
equipage and a large supply of wine in storage belonged to gentlemen whose wealth 
was above 1,800 pounds, and I considered most of these individuals to be part of the 
elite. The distinction between wealth and class is a very difficult issue to approach. 
The Dictionary of the History of Ideas states that definition of class varies depending 
on whether power, wealth, or relationships are emphasized.
17
 Class, in my opinion, is 
related to all of these things. It is not only tied to one?s wealth, but is also associated 
with culture and the perceived notions of gentility. Lois Carr and Lorena Walsh state 
                                                 
16
 Barbara G. Carson, Ambitious Appetites: Dining, Behavior, and Patterns of Consumption in Federal 
Washington (DC: The American Institute of Architects Press, 1990), 36-37. 
17
 Philip P. Wiener, ed., The Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas (New 
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973-4). The electronic version of this book is maintained by the 
University of Virginia Library and can be found at http://etext.virginia.edu/DicHist/dict.html.  
 13
in their article ?Changing Lifestyles and Consumer Behavior in the Colonial 
Chesapeake? that the ?culture of gentility became a means of emphasizing social 
differences and fueling social competition?By the 1760s the social position of 
anyone could be gauged not just by wealth or offices held but by their dress, 
household arrangements, and social ceremonies.?
18
 Most of the men mentioned in this 
paper are well-known individuals who are universally regarded as having been part of 
the upper class society due to a number of factors, including their wealth, their family 
associations, or their role within the political and civic society in which they lived. In 
order to define them as elite for the purposes of this study, one question I posed was 
whether or not they needed to possess a full range of equipage to participate in the 
symbolic wine-drinking ritual. It was quite apparent that these individuals typically 
owned a certain critical grouping of objects, consisting of multiple wine glasses, a 
few decanters, and generally one or two bottle stands or waiters. However, I 
ultimately concluded that having a full range did not need to be a defining factor for a 
number of reasons. First, since there were so many accoutrements associated with this 
activity, it is hard to clearly define what would be considered a full range. Second, it 
is impossible to determine if certain objects of value (in this study, specifically wine-
related objects) were excluded from probate inventories for any number of reasons, 
including to undervalue the estate. As Camille Wells notes in her review of a historic 
house exhibition, ?inventories can mislead as often as they enlighten: They are 
?snapshots? taken by appraisers on one or two days in the life of a domestic scene that 
                                                 
18
 Lois Carr and Lorena Walsh, "Changing Lifestyles and Consumer Behavior in the Colonial 
Chesapeake," in Of Consuming Interests: The Style of Life in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Cary Carson, 
Ronald Hoffman, and Peter J. Albert (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994), 61. 
 14
almost certainly coalesced over decades.?
19
 Additionally, records indicate that few 
wealthy individuals in any part of the East Coast possessed every possible wine-
related object.  
 
Although various aspects of the wine-bibbing ritual have been examined or discussed 
briefly in other studies of consumption and consumerism, no one has taken a 
comprehensive look at the practice in its entirety, nor to the extent it deserves. Wines 
and drinking on the whole are addressed in sources such as: Andrew Barr, Drink: A 
Social History (1999); Bradley Brooks, The Social Functions of Alcohol in 
Eighteenth-Century Maryland (Master?s Thesis, 1988); Eric Burns, The Spirits of 
America: A Social History of Alcohol (2004); Richard Hooker, Food and Drink in 
America (1999); and Peter Thompson, ??The Friendly Glass:? Drink and Gentility in 
Philadelphia? (1989). David Hancock has also written quite extensively on Madeira 
wine and its significance in eighteenth-century commerce (see bibliography). All of 
these authors provide information on the history of imported wine in this country, 
including some of the social and commercial implications of consumption, but none 
discuss the specifics of the ritual itself. 
 
Additional sources on consumption and commerce include: Cary Carson et al., Of 
Consuming Interests: The Style of Life in the Eighteenth Century (1994); Phyllis 
Hunter, Purchasing Identity in the Atlantic World: Massachusetts Merchants, 1670-
1780 (2001); Edward Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit: The Annapolis Merchants in the 
                                                 
19
 Camille Wells, "How Do We Know? Recreating Domestic Interiors," Winterthur Portfolio 36, no. 1 
(2001): 43. 
 15
Era of the American Revolution (1975); and Don Slater, Consumer Culture and 
Modernity (1997).
20
 All of these scholars? works greatly assisted me in thinking about 
the growing level of consumption in the eighteenth century and the reasons for this 
shift. Their writings encouraged me ask (and attempt to answer) the question: why? 
The entire text in Of Consuming Interests is pertinent to my work, but I wish to make 
note of two articles in particular. Lois Carr and Lorena Walsh in their piece 
?Changing Lifestyles and Consumer Behavior? chose twelve amenities or items that 
either made life more comfortable or advertised social status. They then tracked the 
presence or absence of these items in Chesapeake probate inventories. Neither wine 
nor any of its accoutrements were included as one of the amenities (tea is not either 
but is mentioned as an additional amenity). This is yet another indication that wine 
may have been overlooked in the past for its symbolic role in the eighteenth-century 
consumer culture. Cary Carson, in his culminating section of the book entitled ?The 
Consumer Revolution in Colonial America: Why Demand?,? states that social 
historians need to put their energies into figuring out what importance people gave to 
artifacts, in particular how their possessions defined status. He also notes that we 
have not adequately studied the important event of dining, which needs to be 
addressed since the rituals that occurred at the dinner table ?became the earliest fully 
developed and most frequently practiced form of social interaction among genteel 
                                                 
20
 Other helpful sources on consumerism include Celia Lury, Consumer Culture (New Brunswick: 
Rutgers University Press, 1996); Ann Smart Martin, ?Makers, Buyers, and Users: Consumerism as a 
Material Culture Framework,? Winterthur Portfolio 28, no. 2/3 (1993); Grant McCracken, Culture and 
Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities 
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988); Lorna Weatherill, Consumer Behavior and Material 
Culture in Britain, 1660-1760 (London: Routledge, 1988); and Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, and 
J.H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England 
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982). 
 16
friends and acquaintances.?
21
 In this paper, I have attempted to analyze one aspect of 
dining: the wine ritual. 
 
Wine-related equipage is mentioned within broader texts on dining or other social 
rituals, such as in: Diane Berger, ?Pray Let Them Be Neat and Fashionable or Send 
None?: Dining in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century America (Master?s Thesis, 
1990); Barbara Carson, Ambitious Appetites: Dining, Behavior, and Patterns of 
Consumption in Federal Washington (1990); and Elisabeth Garrett?s works on The 
Home (1990) and The Dining Room (1984).
22
 These texts assisted me in analyzing the 
roles material objects played in history and how we, as scholars, need to constantly 
look beyond their utilitarian functions. 
 
Finally, Richard Bushman has written on ritual, refinement, and culture in ?American 
High-Style and Vernacular Cultures? (1984) and The Refinement of America (1992). 
His work encouraged me to expand my argument of how the wine ritual was a vehicle 
for the social elite to distance themselves from other factions of society. Paul 
Shackel?s Personal Discipline and Material Culture: An Archaeology of Annapolis, 
Maryland, 1695-1870 (1993) was also helpful as it uses an archaeologist?s approach 
to emphasize how material culture, etiquette, and ritual worked together in early 
Annapolis to form power relations. After examining these and many additional 
sources, it appears that all the aspects of the wine-drinking ritual have not previously 
                                                 
21
 Carson, "The Consumer Revolution in Colonial America: Why Demand?" 604. 
22
 For additional sources on material culture see Daniel Miller, ed., Material Cultures: Why Some 
Things Matter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998); and Ann Smart Martin and J. Richie 
Garrison, ed., American Material Culture: The Shape of the Field, (Winterthur, DE: Henry Francis de 
Pont Winterthur Museum, 1997). 
 17
been examined together, including the related elements of domestic architecture and 
the need for interpretation of the activity within the historic house museum setting.    
 
It is relevant and necessary for historians to take into account the consumption ritual 
involving imported wine, for it exhibited an enormous amount of power in early 
America: power in terms of hierarchy of space, material objects, and valuable time 
allocated for the study, care, and handling of the beverage. But questions still need to 
be addressed regarding wine. Specifically, why did these gentlemen need a drink to 
define themselves? Why did they consume it in a particular way? Furthermore, is it 
possible that wine may have been the most powerful beverage in colonial America? 
Through an examination of various forms of evidence, I will establish that, if not the 
most powerful, imported wine was certainly exceedingly influential in a burgeoning 
new society. 
 
 
 
 18
Chapter 1: Wines and Consumption 
 
?Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy? 
 ? Benjamin Franklin 
 
In order to understand the ritual of wine-bibbing and its place within a broader global 
context, it is necessary to get a sense of the types of wine being imported into the 
colonies and the way in which the consumers? choices influenced the political arena 
at the time of the American Revolution. This chapter will explore the foremost 
component of the ritual, imported wine itself, and how its consumption set the stage 
for the social activity of wine bibbing to become a powerful distinguisher of class. 
First, I will present information from my case study and will then expound upon it 
with additional background information.  
 
For wine to become a symbolic beverage for social status, the inhabitants of these 
colonies first needed to demonstrate their desire for upward mobility and cultural 
enhancement. As survival in the new land became less challenging on a daily basis, 
and, as trade routes advanced, the wealthier individuals, such as those living in 
Annapolis, differentiated themselves by their ability to afford luxurious goods. Those 
who strove to possess the many objects associated with wine consumption initially 
needed to have a supply of wine worthy of such accoutrements. As early as 1657 in 
what is presently upstate New York, Jeremias van Rensselaer wrote to his cousin in 
Holland: ?your merchandise which I took with me came over in good order and the 
glasses may sell well. The market for them has been poor, as there was no wine up 
 19
above, so that no people had no need of them, but now that there is wine, I have 
already sold 7 or 8 beavers worth of them.?
23
  
 
Furthermore, it is important to know what types of wines were imported since the 
difficulty in obtaining certain varieties had both financial and political implications, 
which rarely seemed to dissuade the purchaser and, at times, was perhaps an enticing 
factor in their acquisition. Without any one of these elements imported wine 
consumption may not have become a representative way of communication and, thus, 
a significant part in a male?s quest for gentility. 
 
Section 1: Case Study of Annapolis 
Annapolis, Maryland was one of the early economic centers in the colonies and, 
therefore, a town where goods, such as wine and its accoutrements, became an 
important part of daily life. The area?s history began in 1694, when the Maryland 
Assembly voted to move the state?s capital from St. Mary?s in southern Maryland to 
?Anne-Arundel Towne.? A year later the town?s name was changed to Annapolis.
24
 
In the early eighteenth century, as Annapolis?s political importance grew, the port 
became a major distribution center for European goods; ships sailed out of Annapolis 
                                                 
23
 AJF van Lear, ed., Correspondence of Jeremias Van Rensselaer (Albany: University of State of NY, 
1982), 47. I am grateful to Arlene Palmer Schwind for sharing this reference. Jeremias van Rensselaer 
succeeded his brother as the third director of Rensselaerwyck, the largest and most successful 
patroonship in the Dutch Colony of New Netherland, extending over much of present-day upstate New 
York and into southern Vermont. He married MariaVan Cortlandt, the sister of the New York mayor, 
Stephanus Van Cortlandt and the sister-in-law of the Albany mayor, Pieter Schuyler. 
24
 Elizabeth A. Anderson, Annapolis: A Walk through History (Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 
1984), 15. 
 20
with tobacco and returned with the latest fashions.
25
 The town residents purchased 
many of these goods before they were shipped to other colonial outposts. By 1740, a 
relatively small number of planter-gentry families owned seventy percent of the town 
land, quickly making Annapolis as socially competitive as any of the larger cities on 
the East Coast.
26
 An English visitor to Annapolis wrote: ?the quick importation of 
fashions from the mother country is really astonishing?a new fashion is adopted 
earlier by the polished and affluent American than by many opulent persons in the 
great metropolis [London]?In short, very little difference is, in reality, observable in 
the manners of the wealthy colonist and the wealthy Briton.?
27
 
 
Annapolis?s true golden age occurred between the early 1760s and the late 1780s; 
?The bustling sea port grew rapidly, and the town became a center of stylish decorum 
with amenities like theaters and social clubs. Annapolis became home to a series of 
formal gardens and ostentatious buildings which included several impressive five-part 
brick Georgian mansions.?
28
 As the population growth in Annapolis rose 27.7% 
during the second half of the eighteenth century, no less than fourteen impressive 
townhouses were erected.
29
 During the social season, many of the owners of these 
elegant houses hosted opulent gatherings, one possible reason why the Rector of St. 
                                                 
25
 Trade in early America was generally based on a mercantile economy where raw materials and 
agricultural products from the colonies were traded for manufactured goods from other countries, 
particularly England. 
26
 Yentsch and McKee: 48. 
27
 William Eddis, Letters from America, ed. Aubrey Land (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard 
University Press, 1769), 57-58. Quoted in T.H. Breen, "'Baubles of Britain': The American and 
Consumer Revolutions in the Eighteenth Century," in Of Consuming Interests: The Style of Life in the 
Eighteenth Century, ed. Cary Carson, Ronald Hoffman, and Peter J. Albert (Charlottesville: University 
Press of Virginia, 1994), 459. 
28
 Paul A. Shackel, Paul R. Mullins, and Mark S. Warner, ed., Annapolis Pasts: Historical 
Archaeology in Annapolis, Maryland (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1998), xx-xxi. 
29
 Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit: The Annapolis Merchants in the Era of the American Revolution, 
1763-1805, 17, 29. 
 21
Anne?s Parish, Reverend Jonathan Boucher, stated in 1770 that Annapolis was ?the 
genteelest town in North America.?
30
           
 
Instead of exchanging their crops for credit, as frequently occurred in other towns, 
many planters in Annapolis used cash to buy goods from local businessmen. This, in 
turn, helped the merchants successfully import high-end wares over a long period of 
time. Fourteen of the twenty-two merchants who advertised in the town in 1774 
remained in business for at least another decade, quite an impressive feat during the 
colonial period.
31
 Another factor that assisted Annapolis?s economic growth was 
Maryland?s non-involvement in the French and Indian War (1754 to 1763), which 
meant that unlike other colonies, Maryland was not burdened with war debt.
32
 
 
Because of the Revolution, the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay was blockaded by the 
British Navy from 1777 to 1778, making it impossible for luxury goods to be shipped 
directly to Annapolis. Instead, items had to be transported from the Atlantic Ocean 
side of Maryland?s eastern shore or from Philadelphia.
33
 One consequence of this was 
that a number of Annapolis residents began moving to Baltimore, thereby 
transforming this city to the new social center for the state. Yet Annapolis?s moment 
in the sun was not quite over, for this small, genteel town found itself to be the capital 
of the United States from November 26, 1783 until August 13, 1784, while the 
Continental Congress reconvened there for a nine-month session. During this time, 
                                                 
30
 Quoted in Anderson, 18-19. 
31
 Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit: The Annapolis Merchants in the Era of the American Revolution, 
1763-1805, 27, 33. 
32
 Ibid., 30. 
33
 Ibid., 93. 
 22
George Washington resigned as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, and 
the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War, was ratified.
34
 Obviously, 
there was much cause for celebration, warranting large amounts of wine, in the new 
capital. On December 22, 1783, at a State House dinner with George Washington as 
host, 98 bottles of wine and 2 ? gallons of spirits were consumed. A year later at a 
similar dinner, George Mann, the proprietor of a local tavern, billed Washington for 
42 bottles of Madeira, 21 bottles of Port, and 4 gallons of spirits.
35
 The number of 
Annapolis residents again began to grow in the postwar years; however, after 1788 
this growth slowed, commerce declined, and Annapolis became the relatively quiet 
town it remains today.
36
  
 
During the colonial period, Maryland?s trading abilities, and, thus, its supply of 
luxury goods, were greatly affected by the Navigation Acts, which allowed Britain to 
control the range and prices of foreign goods from non-British countries (the 
Navigation Acts will be discussed in further detail in Section 3 of this chapter). Until 
1764, however, ships from Madeira were permitted to travel directly to their 
destinations, including the port of Annapolis. On May 15, 1755, the Schooner 
Industry arrived in the port carrying 27 pipes, 8 hogsheads, and 38 ? casks of 
Madeira.
37
 Following the Revolution and the Treaty of Paris, the array of foreign 
goods greatly expanded as free trade now became a part of the colonies? everyday 
                                                 
34
 Anderson, 19. 
35
 Frederick Philip Stieff, Eat, Drink and Be Merry in Maryland (Baltimore: John Hopkins University 
Press, 1998), Appendix C, D, E; 315-317. 
36
 Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit: The Annapolis Merchants in the Era of the American Revolution, 
1763-1805, 153. 
37
 Naval Officer, Port of Entry Records, Annapolis, MSA S204-3, Maryland State Archives. 
 23
life. French goods (including French wines) became widely available in Annapolis, 
due in part to the business of Wallace, Johnson, and Muir, who expanded the tobacco 
trade with France between 1781 and 1783.
38
 On January 22, 1783, this firm wrote to 
its Bordeaux associate, Thomas Ridout, requesting fifty-four cases of Claret, noting 
that it should be ?real good & well flavored & strong Bodied, that will bear the 
voyage.?
39
 In November of the same year, Thomas Ridout wrote to his Annapolis 
relative, John Ridout: ?I hope Mr. Carroll has recd. his wine & expect the Col Lloyds 
is at sea??
40
 Five years later, on January 31, 1788, the Gazette published a list of 
seventeen ships arriving in Annapolis from all over the world, including Barbados, 
Limington, Demarara, Aux-Cays, Amsterdam, Dublin, St. Croix, Salem, Belfast, 
Port-au-Prince, Charleston, St. Bartholomews, Rhode Island, Norfolk, and three from 
New York.
41
 
 
For the local upper class, such as Edward Lloyd IV, who owned an elaborate 
plantation in the country (Wye House in Talbot County) as well as an elegant house 
in Annapolis (Chase-Lloyd House), the rules of social graces and the intentional 
communication of one?s place in society were similarly demonstrated in both 
locations.  It did not matter if a man of wealth lived in an urban center or rural 
                                                 
38
 Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit: The Annapolis Merchants in the Era of the American Revolution, 
1763-1805, 109. 
39
 Wallace, Johnson, and Muir Letter Book, 22 January 1783, 1781-1783, New York Public Library. 
Microfilm # M1191, MD State Archives. Quoted in Bradley C. Brooks, ?The Social Functions of 
Alcohol in Eighteenth-Century Maryland? (Master's Thesis, University of Delaware, 1988). 
40
 Ridout Papers, MSA SC371, Maryland State Archives. I am grateful to Jean Russo at the Historic 
Annapolis Foundation for sharing this reference. It is unclear which Carroll Ridout is referring to but 
Col Lloyd would have been Edward Lloyd IV. 
41
 Elihu S. Riley, The Ancient City: A History of Annapolis, in Maryland, 1649-1887 (Annapolis: 
Record Printing Office, Reprinted by the Anne Arundel-Annapolis Bicentennial Committee, 1887, 
reprinted 1976), 222. 
 24
plantation ? imported wine was a desirable and present item in most gentlemen?s 
households. As was the case in all the colonies, if a man was fortunate enough to have 
more than one house, wine could have been moved from one location to the other, 
along with the silver and clothing. In South Carolina, Charles Drayton noted in his 
diary of 1797: ?Sent to Sava. A Celaret. with 2. cases Wine.?
42
 Drayton is referring to 
Savannah Bob, another plantation he owned, indicating that wine was at times 
shipped between his properties. Charles Carroll of Annapolis and his son Charles 
Carroll of Carrollton frequently sent wine back and forth among their properties. In 
April of 1770, Charles Carroll of Annapolis requested four or five dozen bottles of 
Claret be sent from the Carroll Annapolis house to Doughoregan, their manor house 
in Howard County. Two years later he again asked that French wine be sent - this 
time Burgundy and C?te R?tie.
43
 Due to the fragility of the product, however, this 
may not have been a common practice. Ideally, a gentleman who split his time 
between properties, probably ordered wine separately for each location; however, 
there would have been little distinction between the quality and quantity of wine 
consumed at either site.  
 
In April of 1785, Edward Lloyd IV purchased from the French merchant William 
Bousie 60 bottles of Champagne, 60 bottles of Burgundy, and an undetermined 
quantity of Barsac wine and lunch Frontenac. Lloyd was well versed in the quality of 
                                                 
42
 Charles Drayton Diary, 1785-1820. Owned by Drayton Hall, South Carolina. I am grateful to Tim 
Chesser at Drayton Hall for sharing this reference. 
43
 Ronald Hoffman, ed., Dear Papa, Dear Charley: The Peregrinations of a Revolutionary Aristocrat, 
as Told by Charles Carroll of Carrollton and His Father, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, vol. I-III 
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 504, 613. Soon after Charles Carroll of 
Carrollton?s wedding in 1768, his father, Charles Carroll of Annapolis moved to Doughoregan, leaving 
the Annapolis house to be occupied by his son. Descriptions of all the varieties of wines mentioned in 
this paper are listed in the Appendix. 
 25
wine he preferred and when ordering six dozen bottles of Claret in 1792, he wrote to 
the London merchants Oxley Hancock & Co.: ?The Claret wine is sound good Wine 
but I have had better from London formerly, and beg to call your attention to the wine 
now ordered that it is the best that can pofsibly [sic] be procured?None will Answer 
but Wine of the first flavor and quality.?
44
 Upon Lloyd?s death in 1796, literally 
thousands of bottles of wine were recorded, covering two pages of his Wye House 
inventory. In the list were 689 bottles of Madeira; 1,822 bottles of sweet wine; 66 
assorted bottles of Sherry, Lisbon, Port, Claret, Champagne, Burgundy and Rhenish 
wines; 6 pint bottles of Port; 21 gallons of Madeira; 4 cases of Port; 6 gallons of 
sweet wine; 6 pipes of Madeira; and 15 gallons of old Madeira.
45
 All of this totaled 
over 1,000 pounds sterling. When a decedent owned multiple houses in different 
counties, separate probate inventories were not usually taken since that would involve 
multiple jurisdictions. Instead the inventories were either listed separately but 
recorded under one county or all of the individual?s possessions would be 
consolidated at one location. Because the appraisers of Lloyd?s estate did not separate 
his possessions by house but did mention a quantity of silver plate that had been in 
Annapolis, we can question whether some of this wine was originally stored in the 
Chase-Lloyd house in town. 
 
                                                 
44
 Lloyd Papers, 1658-1910, MS 2001 Box 15, Volume 7 and Reel 21, Maryland Historical Society. 
Quoted in Alexandra A. Alevizatos, ?"Procured of the Best and Most Fashionable Materials:" the 
Furniture and Furnishings of the Lloyd Family, 1750-1850? (Master's Thesis, University of Delaware, 
1999), Appendix C. 
45
 Talbot County Inventories, Volume JPF, Microfilm Reel WK 597-598: 38-133. Maryland State 
Archives. 
 26
Another well-known resident of Annapolis, Charles Carroll, Barrister spent a great 
deal of time writing to agents abroad informing them of wine-related orders and 
indicating that he had knowledge of the complexity of this beverage. On December 6, 
1766, he wrote to the firm Scott Pringle and Company, located on Madeira, ?I desire 
you will by the first vessel coming to Annapolis send me a pipe of the best Madeira 
wine as it is for my own table use I would have it of the very prime kind?If you can 
have the wine two or three years old or more if it can be got of equal goodness in 
quality and tho? it should cost me more I shall willingly allow it.? Possibly in 
response to this order, he again wrote to the firm in 1769 (now called Scott, Pringle, 
Cheap, & Co.): ?I am now about Breaking the pipe of wine I Received from you in 
1767 the flavor of which I think Good in Kind. But I fear Tho? I hope I may be 
mistaken it may be Rather too Hard for me as the very Dry Wine are [sic] in General 
Too Harsh for my Stomach which the Soft Silky Balsamic wines suit better.?
46
   
 
Charles Carroll of Carrollton (cousin of Charles Carroll, Barrister and son of Charles 
Carroll of Annapolis) was one of the wealthiest men in the colonies and the only 
Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. Growing up in a well-educated, 
affluent family Carroll learned about wines as a young man while studying in Europe. 
In October of 1763, at twenty-six years of age, he wrote from Paris to his father in 
Annapolis: ?The enclosed paper contains the different prices of Mon Nisett?s wines. I 
can answer for the Chambertin?s [wine produced in the C?te de Beaune section of 
                                                 
46
 "Letters of Charles Carroll, Barrister," Maryland Historical Magazine 38 (1943): 365-66. This 
particular Charles Carroll referred to himself as CC ?Barrister? to distinguish himself from the other 
Charles Carrolls in his family. Although he built a home outside of Baltimore (Mount Clare) after his 
marriage to Margaret Tilghman in 1763, he maintained a residence in Annapolis where the above 
mentioned letters were written. 
 27
Burgundy] being excellent: I was nearly tempted to give Mr. Nisett a commission to 
send you a pipe: let me advise you, if you buy French wines always buy the best.?
47
 
Back in Annapolis, Carroll wrote a lengthy letter in 1774 to the firm Lawton and 
Browne in Cork, Ireland regarding the care and handling of the vast amount of Claret 
he consumed per year: 
The Claret you shipped last was very good, and approved by all who drank it, 
I mean the Hogshd which was first used, the 2
nd
 Hogshead fell short of the 
first in point of Flavour, indeed it proved but a very indifferent wine, owing I 
believe to my keeping it a Twelve-month without bottling. I consume nearly 
two hogsheads pr. Annum and therefore I beg you will send me very early 
next spring two Hogsheads of the very best and newest Claret you can procure 
from Bourdeaux?In 10 or 12 days from the Arrival of this Claret in my 
cellars I propose to bottle it off, for in that time I imagine it will be fine 
enough to bottle, I am satisfied by dear bought experience that Claret will not 
retain its flavour if Kept in the Cask even 6 month after its arrival in this 
Province, and the older the Claret the greater the hazard, which induces me to 
write for the very newest.
48
 
 
  
In addition to French wines, Carroll also ordered a large quantity of Madeira. On 
April 15, 1795, he wrote to the well-known Philadelphia merchant Henry Hill 
requesting an order be placed with his partners Lamar Hill Bisset & Co. on Madeira 
for ?three butts of their best, three years old Madeira wine.? This particular wine 
shipment cost just over 151 pounds. Every few years Carroll ordered the same 
amount (three butts containing from 145 to 160 gallons each) and specified exactly 
how he wanted the wine shipped. The butts were to be made of the ?best Hamburgh 
staves, well secured with iron hoops and banded with the letters and mark in the 
                                                 
47
 Hoffman, ed., Dear Papa, Dear Charley: The Peregrinations of a Revolutionary Aristocrat, as Told 
by Charles Carroll of Carrollton and His Father, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, 335. 
48
 Ibid., 723. A hogshead contained approximately 145 gallons of wine. 
 28
margin of this letter.?
49
 As Carroll mentioned in his letter to Lawton and Browne, he 
kept the wine in his ?cellars,? which appeared to be an underground vaulted area in 
the eastern section of the house that was accessed via a service stairway near the 
dining room.
50
 An eighteen-century bottle seal with Carroll?s family crest was 
discovered at the site and is now housed in the collection at the Historic Annapolis 
Foundation. 
 
Other wealthy Annapolis residents may not have gone to such great lengths to 
describe their wine consumption, but they too continuously stored a variety of foreign 
wine in their homes. Canary, a variety of wine seldom mentioned in Annapolis 
probate records, was listed in Joseph Galloway?s inventory of 1753, along with 
Madeira and red and white wine.
51
 One year later, Daniel Dulany the Elder?s probate 
record of 1754 included a much broader array of wines stored in his ?vault? and 
?cellars.? At his death he had 153 bottles of Claret, 23 of Memsey Madeira, 30 of 
Rhenish, 24 of Port, 125 of Fontemack, 20 gallons of Madeira, and an additional pipe 
of Madeira containing 104 gallons. All of this wine had a value of 103.90 pounds in a 
large estate worth 3,062.2.10 ? pounds.
52
 Dulany was a lawyer who held both public 
and private offices. He also had three financially beneficial marriages, collectively 
enabling him to die a wealthy man. Associated both personally and professionally 
                                                 
49
 Charles Carroll of Carrollton Letterbook. Arents Tobacco Collection, New York Public Library. I 
am grateful to Catherine Arthur at Homewood House for sharing a transcript of this letter book.  
50
 Edward Chappell et al., Architecture in Annapolis: A Field Guide, ed. Marcia M. Miller and Orlando 
V Ridout (Newark, DE: The Vernacular Architecture Forum; Crownsville, MD: Maryland Historical 
Trust Press: 1998), 53. There is also a very large underground vault detached from the house; however, 
there is currently debate over the origin of this wine cellar. The Redemptorists may have built it during 
their 100 year occupancy of the house (1852-1969). 
51
 Prerogative Court Inventories, Volume 57: 133-137. Maryland State Archives. 
52
 Prerogative Court Inventories, Volume 84: 47-67. Maryland State Archives. 
 29
with other wealthy, wine-loving Annapolitans, Dulany must have frequently hosted 
wine-bibbing evenings with his contemporaries. Interestingly, when Dulany?s wife, 
Henrietta Maria, died twelve years later, no wine and only a small quantity of rum is 
listed in the house, indicating that she did not partake in wine consumption as her 
husband did.
53
  
 
In the second half of the eighteenth century, the wealthy gentlemen of Annapolis 
continued to show a proclivity for foreign wines. An inventory was taken of John 
Brice?s house in 1767, which lists 199 quarts of Port
54
 and 338 quarts of Madeira. 
Brice was a justice of the Provincial Court from 1741 to 1766 and, although he lived 
in an early, somewhat modest house in the center of Annapolis, the value of his estate 
was still sizable at 3,169.7.5 pounds.
55
 Still, Brice?s amount of wine did not begin to 
compare to that of John Morton Jordan whose foreign wines represented one of the 
most valuable components of his property (as valuable as his bay horses and more so 
than his individual enslaved workers). In addition to 8 pipes and 4 dozen bottles of 
Madeira, he also had large quantities of Claret (16 bottles), Port (53 bottles), 
Malmsey Madeira (1 ? cask ? 2/3 full), and Lisbon wine (38 bottles) listed in his 
probate inventory of 1771. His whole estate was worth 1,820.15.8 pounds with his 
wine adding up to over 153 pounds of that.
56
 Jordan owned very few pieces of wine 
                                                 
53
 Prerogative Court Inventories, Volume 96: 138-151. Maryland State Archives. 
54
 Appraisers inconsistently specify which color port they are referring to in inventories. We know that 
both red and white port was being delivered to the Annapolis Harbor, for the merchant, William 
Aikman, listed a supply of both in the Maryland Gazette on November 17, 1774 (MSA SC2731, 
Maryland State Archives).  
55
 Prerogative Court Inventories, Volume 97: 180-185. Maryland State Archives. Brice was in the 
process of building a larger house at the time of his death. 
56
 Prerogative Court Inventories, Volume 114:139-152. Maryland State Archives. 
 
 30
equipage and since he was a successful merchant, we cannot disregard the fact that he 
may have been storing this wine for his various customers.  
 
Philip Thomas Lee is an example of a man who regarded wine as a useful and 
valuable commodity which needed to be protected during tumultuous times. He was a 
lawyer who served in many legislative roles including Maryland?s Upper Legislative 
House from 1773 to 1774 and lived with his family in Annapolis until the 
Revolutionary War. For safety, he then moved his wife and children to his father?s 
plantation, Blenheim, in Charles County where he died in 1778. Lee?s inventory of 
1780 lists the majority of his personal possessions as still being located in Annapolis 
(including all of his books and a large variety of wine accoutrements, which will be 
discussed in Chapter 3 of this paper); nevertheless, his supply of wine was recorded 
in storage at the Charles County house. It can be assumed that he transported his 
collection of wine to the country where it would carry him through the war years, 
especially since procuring any additional wine may have been difficult during this 
time. Listed in the inventory are 3 double bottles of Burgundy, 4 bottles of Hock, 3 
bottles of red wine, 6 bottles of sweet wine and 174 bottles of Madeira.
57
  
 
Another of Maryland?s four signers of the Declaration of Independence was Thomas 
Stone. He was a lawyer who served in many public offices, including the State 
Senate. While in Annapolis, he lived in the Peggy Stewart House but also frequented 
his country home, Habre de Venture in Charles County. Friendly with the likes of 
                                                 
57
 Charles County Inventories, Maryland Register of Wills 1788-1791, MSA CM386-10: 246-260. 
Maryland State Archives. 
 31
Edward Lloyd and the various Carrolls, Stone was well versed in the ritual of wine 
consumption. Listed in Stone?s 1787 Annapolis inventory is 1 pipe of Madeira 
(containing up to 290 gallons of wine), 30 bottles of Hock, 6 bottles of Claret, and 4 
bottles of an unnamed wine. The Madeira is the most expensive item in his entire 
inventory.
58
  
 
Finally, it is interesting to note an inventory which surprisingly does not list any wine. 
Governor Robert Eden who fled back to England in 1776 had an amazing array of 
wine equipage (see Chapter 3 of this paper). However, according to the inventory 
taken of the Governor?s mansion after he left, Eden appeared not to have any wine in 
storage. It is quite probable that the men in charge of the estate arranged to disperse 
the wine amongst themselves rather than record it. 
 
All of the inventories listed above describe estates belonging to the elite whose 
overall worth was at least 1,800 pounds. There appears to be a large disparity between 
the amount of imported wine stored in these homes and that stored in aspiring 
households, where perhaps only a few bottles or gallons of brandy, rum, Porter, or 
Madeira were listed in the probate records. This indicates that the varieties of wine 
consumed and the types of individuals who were able to afford them were a 
significant factor in this consumption ritual.  
 
 
                                                 
58
 Charles County Inventories, Maryland Register of Wills 1785-1788, MSA CM386-9: 489-494. 
Maryland State Archives. 
 32
Section 2: Types of Wines 
The gentlemen of Annapolis depended upon imported wine since efforts to establish 
viticulture in the colonies were not successful. Upon arriving in Virginia, early wine-
drinking colonists were encouraged by the sight of wild vines covered with grapes, 
and they were equally optimistic about the prospects of growing European vines. 
Their expectations, however, of being able to produce large quantities of quality wine 
were soon shattered by the abundance of endemic plant diseases, the high cost of 
producing wines, and the lack of flavor in locally grown grapes. Consequently, 
approximately twenty gallons was the grand total produced during the early years of 
the Jamestown settlement.
59
 Other areas of the colonies, such as New England in the 
1640s, Maryland in the 1670s, South Carolina and Pennsylvania in the 1680s, and 
Georgia in the 1740s and 1750s, also experimented with foreign vines but they too 
did not succeed.
60
 The earliest known American texts on viticulture include Edward 
Antill?s An Essay on the Cultivation of the Vine, published in the first volume of the 
American Philosophical Transactions (1771) and an unpublished 1775 text by Robert 
Bolling of Virginia entitled A Sketch of Vine Culture. Sir Edward Barry?s 
Observations Historical, Critical and Medicinal, on Wines of the Ancients (1775) 
describes the viticulture efforts of Louis de Saint Pierre, ?who has established a great 
colony of vignerons [winegrowers] in South Carolina, and carried there three years 
ago above three hundred vignerons from different parts of Europe?he has not the 
least doubt of having excellent Wine there, which if he has, must be of infinite service 
                                                 
59
 Richard J. Hooker, Food and Drink in America (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1999), 
36-37. 
60
 Barr, Drink: A Social History of America, 355. 
 33
to this country.?
61
 Josiah Quincy, Jr. on his visit to the Charleston area in 1773 also 
noted the brief success of the growth of foreign grapes at Joseph Allston?s plantation, 
the Oaks: ?He [Allston] has propagated the Lisbon and Wine-Island grapes with great 
success.?
62
 Even during the late eighteenth century, there were still high hopes over 
the indigenous vines as noted in Samuel Deane?s first publication of The New 
England Farmer in 1790. In describing the native vines of New England, Deane 
states ?Who can doubt whether the appearance of these indigenous vines indicate, 
that nature has designed such a country for vineyards??
63
 Unfortunately, this proved 
not to be the case until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and, although 
small quantities of local, homemade wines were accessible to all wealth groups, the 
?superior? wines of the eighteenth century had to be imported, which, inevitably, 
limited their availability to only those able to afford such a luxury. The demand for 
European wines was so great, that early immigrants to Maryland were encouraged to 
bring it with them in order to trade it for cattle upon arrival.
64
 
 
As can be seen in the Annapolis inventories, colonists mimicked the English in their 
preferences of foreign wine varieties. They enjoyed the heavier, sweeter wines such 
as Canary, Port, Lisbon, Sherry (or ?Sack?), Malaga (or Mountain), and Fayal from 
                                                 
61
 Quoted in Janice B. Longone and Daniel T. Longone, American Cookbooks and Wine Books, 1797-
1950 (Ann Arbor: The Clements Library and The Wine and Food Library, 1984), 42. 
62
 "Journal of Josiah Quincy, Junior, 1773," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 49 
(1916): 453. 
63
 Quoted in Longone and Longone, 42. 
64
 Hooker, Food and Drink in America, 36-37. By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, 
viticulture enthusiasts on the east coast and in the mid-west were beginning to relinquish hope for 
growing European grapes and were turning their interest towards native varieties with some success.  
By the middle of the century, Ohio and Missouri were producing the most wine, only to be surpassed 
by California in the 1870?s. Furthermore, the climate in California proved to be extremely hospitable 
for the European vine. For references on American viticulture, see: Thomas Pinney, A History of Wine 
in America: From Prohibition to the Present (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) and 
Longone and Longone, American Cookbooks and Wine Books (1984). 
 34
Spain and Portugal and their respective territories. Madeira, from the Portuguese 
island of the same name (400 miles off the coast of West Africa), was by far the most 
popular. In 1703 only four varieties of grapes were grown on Madeira: white, black, 
Malvasia, and Vidonia; yet, by 1807, twenty-three types existed.
65
  
 
The demand for Madeira was so high that there are accounts of merchants sending 
enslaved workers to the island in exchange for wine. Thomas McMullen wrote in his 
1852 Hand-book of Wines: ?The first colonies of North America were no sooner 
settled there, than they carried slaves, corn, and other produce to the island, and 
exchanged them for wine.?
66
 A visitor to New York in the late 1700?s wrote: ?I have 
gone dining about from house to house but meet with the same round of topics 
everywhere ? land, Madeira wine, fishing parties, or politics, make up the sum 
total.?
67
 Peter Manigault of Charleston wrote in a letter to his wine merchants, Lamar, 
Hill, and Bisset on July 31, 1767, ?As I would spare no price to have the best Wine 
the Island can afford, I must again desire the Favor of you to order me two of the Best 
pipes that can be got for Money.?
68
 After drawing up a prenuptial agreement for 
Charles Carroll, Jr.?s marriage to Harriet Chew, the lawyer, Mr. Cook, requested that 
his services be paid for in the form of Madeira. The groom?s father, Charles Carroll 
of Carrollton, wrote to his son on July 3, 1800: ?Mr. Cook asks a quarter Cask of 
                                                 
65
 David Hancock, "Commerce and Conversation in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic: The Invention of 
Madeira Wine," Journal of Interdisciplinary History XXIX, no. 2 (1998): 204. 
66
 Thomas McMullen, Hand-Book of Wines: Practical, Theoretical, and with a Description of Foreign 
Spirits and Liqueurs (New York: D. Appleton, 1852), 91. 
67
 Quoted in Emanuel Berk, A Century Past: A Celebration of the Madeira Party in America (Sonoma, 
CA: The Rare Wine Company, 1999), 5. 
68
 Quoted in Maurice A. Crouse, ed, "The Letterbook of Peter Manigault, 1763-1773," The South 
Carolina Historical Magazine 70, no. 2 (1969): 93. See mention of Peter Manigault in the discussion 
of George Roupel?s drawing in Chapter 2 of this paper. 
 35
Madeira for drawing up the marriage settlement. I have written to him that I shall 
present you this Summer or Autumn with a But [sic] of Madeira, out of which you 
will let him have thirty gallons.?
69
  
 
Madeira was popular for numerous reasons. First, because of its high level of acidity, 
it was considered a refreshing beverage in the early eighteenth century and was 
described as ?fittest to cheer the fainting spirits in the heat of summer, and to warm 
the chilled blood in the bitter colds of winter.?
70
 Subsequently, in the second quarter 
of the eighteenth century, many Madeiras began to be fortified with brandy, 
increasing their alcohol content to a hearty 15 to 18 percent. The belief was that 
fortification helped the sweet and somewhat rough wine to become smoother and 
more pleasant tasting. This occurred partly because the brandy stopped the 
fermentation process, which, in turn, enabled the wine to not only withstand but also 
to favor the hard sea voyage and the fluctuations of temperatures better than other 
wines. Since both heat and oxidation, enemies of most wines, proved vital to the 
development of the Madeira, long ocean voyages, with warm temperatures and the 
constant rocking of the sea, enhanced its aging process. The most sought after 
Madeiras became ones delivered to their port of destination via a non-direct route, 
giving them more time to age. A trip to the East or West Indies and then back to 
London or the American colonies could take upwards of six months. In his article, 
                                                 
69
 Current location of the original letter is unknown. Transcript copy in Homewood House Archives. I 
am grateful to Catherine Arthur at Homewood House for sharing this information. Although the 
marriage of Carroll and Chew was an auspicious one since each was from one of the wealthier families 
in America, it was not a happy marriage. Carroll?s severe alcoholism finally forced Harriet to flee 
Baltimore with her children and take refuge with her family back in Philadelphia. See further 
discussions on Charles Carroll, Jr. in Chapter 5 of this paper. 
70
 Quoted in Barr, Drink: A Social History of America, 42. 
 36
?Commerce and Conversation in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic: The Invention of 
Madeira Wine,? David Hancock mentions that the first record of a distributor or 
consumer intentionally sending wine on a longer than necessary route was in 1749 via 
the West Indies and again in 1772 via India. By the end of the eighteenth century, 
vintners began to heat the wine in specially built rooms called hot-houses before it 
even left the island. Also around this time, according to various letters written 
between merchants, Americans started to prefer artificially rocked Madeira, rather 
than wine rocked naturally by the ocean. Agitation seemed to distribute the brandy 
more evenly throughout the wine, leading distributors to ensure complete blending of 
all ingredients by utilizing steam-powered machines that rocked the wine. Since 
different parts of the colonies favored varying amounts of fortification, some 
distributors even supplied unfortified wines along with a cask of brandy, to be mixed 
in at the seller?s discretion. Southerners preferred dry white wine that had been 
heavily fortified, while Philadelphians desired the golden wines with less brandy. 
New Yorkers asked for even less brandy and more sugar.
71
  
 
French wines were sought after, but, because of the bad relationship between England 
and France, importation of these wines into the colonies was kept to a minimum until 
after the Revolutionary War when trade opened up between America and France (see 
mention of the Annapolis firm Wallace, Johnson, and Muir and their importation of 
French wines in Section 1 of this chapter). Furthermore, any French wines that were 
allowed to be imported into the colonies before the Revolution were heavily taxed 
                                                 
71
 Hancock, "Commerce and Conversation in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic: The Invention of 
Madeira Wine," 212, 207-208. 
 37
under Britain?s Navigation Acts.
72
 Claret, which was defined as any red Bordeaux, 
was the most popular of the French wines, but Burgundies, Champagne, and 
Frontenacs were also purchased. Wealthy Annapolitans were not the only individuals 
increasing their consumption of French wine after the Revolution. In 1805, the ship, 
Woodrop Sims arrived in Charleston from Bordeaux carrying: 40 hogsheads of 
vintage 1802 Claret, Champagne in cases of 12 bottles each, ?old? Lafite in cases of 
12 pint and half bottles each, as well as in cases of 34 pint and half bottles each, and 
292 hogsheads of ?Cargo Wine.?
73
 
 
Thomas Jefferson, who spent more than 8,000 dollars on wine during his first term as 
President, was known for his obsession with French wines. He felt that consumption 
of them would alleviate some of the drunkenness he witnessed among his peers since 
French wine was not fortified and, thus, contained less alcohol than other wines such 
as Madeira; ?I am anxious to introduce here these fine wines [French wines] in place 
of the alcoholic wines of Spain and Portugal. The delicacy and innocence of these 
wines will change the habit from the coarse [sic] and inebriating hitherto only known 
here.? By the mid-nineteenth century Jefferson had gotten his wish, for French wines 
were considered more popular than Madeira. This, however, was not just due to taste, 
for in the spring of 1852, the vineyards on Madeira were eradicated by the powerful 
disease called o?dium fungus, which attacks the leaves and grapes of the vine before 
                                                 
72
 In 1764 Richard Derby of Boston smuggled in some French wine by shipping it from Guadeloupe to 
Madeira and disguising it in Madeira-shaped bottles. (David Hancock, "Markets, Merchants, and the 
Wider World of Boston Wine, 1700-1775," in Entrepreneurs: The Boston Business Community, 1700-
1850, ed. Conrad Edick Wright and Katheryn P. Viens (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 
1997), 94.) Original letter is in the Richard Derby Letterbook, Essex Institute. 
73
 City Gazette, Charleston, South Carolina, 5 September, 1805. I am grateful to the Museum of Early 
Southern Decorative Arts Reference Library for providing this information.  
 38
they have ripened.
74
 Lastly, a few German wines, such as Hock and Rhenish, are 
frequently listed in probate records such as those of Edward Lloyd IV?s and Philip 
Thomas Lee?s. 
  
One only has to examine the inventories of the colonies? governors during the years 
prior to the Revolution to see that the variety of wines imported elsewhere along the 
east coast were similar to those in Annapolis cellars. In 1770, after his death, an 
inventory was begun for His Excellency Lord Botetourt?s palace in Virginia. Included 
varieties in a list of over one thousand bottles of wine are Madeira, Burgundy, Claret, 
red Port, ?Champaine,? Hock, and general white wine. Much of this was stored in his 
extensive cellar, in rooms individually labeled as the ?binn cellar,? the ?vault,? and 
the ?Madeira and Cheese Store.? Areas of the original brick walls and interior storage 
bins survive at the Governor?s Palace, verifying that wine binning was practiced in 
the colonies as early as 1706 when the palace was constructed.
75
  
 
In the inventory of Governor Tyron?s house in New York, taken after it burned in 
1773, the wines listed included Port, Madeira, Mountain, Malmsea Madeira, Minorca, 
Hock, Frontenaic, and Claret. When his Excellency the Honorable Lord William 
Campbell fled Charleston at the time of the Revolutionary War, he left behind 101 
bottles of seven year-old Madeira wine in his ?loft? (we can assume that this was a 
                                                 
74
 Quoted in Barr, Drink: A Social History of America, 85.  Also, Barr, 82. 
75
 William E. Pittman, ?Morphological Variability in Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth-Century 
English Wine Bottles? (Master's Thesis, College of William and Mary, 1990), 61-62. In 1769, Lord 
Botetourt ordered from the London cabinetmaker, William Fenton, a ?mohogainy Cellor lined with 
lead.? The order is reproduced in Graham Hood, The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg: A Cultural 
Study (Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1991), 29. The original is in the 
Badminton Papers, courtesy of the Duke of Beaufort.  
 39
type of garret space), as well as 4 pipes of London Madeira, an undetermined amount 
of Malmsey Madeira, 42 bottles of Frontiniac, 69 bottles of Claret, 144 bottles of 
Rhenish, 5 bottles of Port, and 2 bags of corks in his ?wine cellar.?
76
 Also in 
Charleston around this time, Dr. George Milligen stated that ?few Gentlemen are 
without Claret, Port, Lisbon, and other Wines, of the French, Spanish, or Portugal 
Vintages.?
77
  
 
During the first Continental Congress, after dinner with George Washington and a 
few select Philadelphians at Benjamin Chew Sr.?s town house in Philadelphia, John 
Adams noted on October 22, 1774: ?Wines most excellent and admirable. I drank 
Madeira at a great rate??
78
 As can be seen in his receipt book, Benjamin Chew Sr. 
ordered a variety of wine between 1772 and 1787, however, not surprisingly, there 
appears to be somewhat of a gap around the time of the Revolution: 
 pipe of Madeira wine 1772 
 cask of Mountain wine 1773 
 quarter cask of Wine 1774 
 pipe of Madeira 1785 
 quarter cask of Port wine 1787 
 pipe of Madeira 1787
79
 
Landon Carter also made note of the difficulty obtaining wine during the War in his 
diary of 1776: ?I have been glad to treat all who came to see me as well as I possibly 
                                                 
76
 Hood, The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg: A Cultural Study. Appendix 1, 6, and 7 respectively. 
77
 Quoted in Anna Wells Rutledge, "After the Cloth Was Removed," Winterthur Portfolio 4 (1968): 
50. 
78
 L.H. Butterfield, ed., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, vol. II (Cambridge, MA: The 
Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1961), 136. 
79
 Cliveden archival item NTARC.CL.1.23. Nancy E. Richards, "Benjamin Chew's Receipt Book, 
1770-1809,"  (Cliveden of the National Trust, Inc., 1992). Perceived as a Loyalist because he would 
not relinquish his crown-appointed position as chief justice of colonial Pennsylvania?s Supreme Court, 
Chew spent one year of the Revolution under house arrest in New Jersey. I am grateful to Philip Seitz 
at Cliveden for assistance with information regarding the Chew family. 
 40
could; but through the difficulty of the times wine could not be got in the same plenty 
as usual.?
80
 
 
By 1810, when the Treasury Department started recording quantities of imported 
wine and the duties paid, the wines listed were divided into eight descriptive 
categories:  
Malmsey, Madeira and London Particular Madeira 
All other Madeira 
Burgundy, Champagne, Rhenish and Tokay 
Sherry and St. Lucar 
Claret and other wines not enumerated 
Lisbon, Oporto and other Portugal wines 
Teneriffe, Fayal, Malaga, St. George and other western island wines 
All other wines.
81
  
 
Isaac Milnor, the revenue officer at the Port of Philadelphia in 1812, recorded an 
enormous array of wines arriving on ships. In addition to all the types of wine noted 
above, there were also quantities of Muscat wine and Catalonia.
82
  
 
Section 3: Taxation without Representation 
In Annapolis and elsewhere in the colonies, it was not just social competition that 
determined what wines were consumed. In considering Mihaly Csikszentimihalyi?s 
theory that artifacts objectify the self, these commodities must be viewed as having 
many roles, beyond their utilitarian one, within a society. As part of a complex 
system in a social and political economy, commodities, such as wine, took on 
                                                 
80
 Jack P. Greene, ed., The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, vol. II 
(Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1965), 1001. 
81
 United States. Register of the Treasury. Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury (Washington, DC: 
Printed by Gales & Seaton, 1826). Owned by the American Antiquarian Society, Worchester, MA. 
82
 Shipping Records, 1708-1892, Collection 245, Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed 
Ephemera, Winterthur Library. 
 41
political significance, for it was through the collective consumption of wine that 
colonists were able to become politicized and thus express their political views. Wine, 
like tea, became a source of tax revenue for the British, and American colonists in 
both the North and South recognized it as a metaphor for taxation without 
representation.  As I will show, similar riots to the Boston tea party occurred over 
wine consumption, yet they are rarely mentioned in history books.  
 
British trading laws affected the types and prices of available wine in the colonies. 
The Navigation Acts stated that all foreign goods had to be transported in ships built 
in British or British-colonial shipyards and had to have a crew consisting of 75% 
British citizens or colonists. Furthermore, foreign goods had to pass through British 
ports where the items were unloaded and assigned duties. With this system, costs of 
foreign merchandise were noncompetitive with British goods, thus protecting 
Britain?s commercial monopoly. Americans, however, were permitted to directly 
import wines, fruit, and olive oil from Britain?s ally, Portugal, and the Portuguese 
Islands, including the Canaries and Madeira.
83
 Anyone wanting to import the popular 
wines from these islands could do so without paying a heavy tax, making them very 
desirable. 
 
Things began to get difficult for the wine-consuming gentlemen with the Revenue 
Act of 1764, which placed heavy duties on goods such as wine, sugar, indigo, and 
coffee arriving in America from all non-British colonies. The British government 
                                                 
83
 Samuel B. Griffith II, The War for American Independence (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 
2002), 13-14. 
 42
needed the funds raised from this act to recoup some of its financial loses from the 
French and Indian War. Realizing that, if the colonists could only be convinced to 
favor Port, supplied via England, rather than wines delivered directly from their port 
of origin, British government officials believed the business of trading wine with the 
colonists could become quite lucrative. In an effort to accomplish this, a small duty of 
ten shillings per double hogshead was charged for Port and a whopping seven pounds 
for the same in Madeira.
84
 Yet, in the end, the British only succeeded in encouraging 
the politically aware wine-drinking upper class to bond not only with the tea-drinkers 
but also with the rum-drinking lower class (whose drinking habits had previously 
been affected by the Molasses Act of 1733) to form a strong cohort of leaders and 
militiamen for the Revolution.   
 
In May of 1768, five years before the infamous Boston Tea Party, John Hancock?s 
ship, the Liberty, docked in Boston and most of its shipment of Madeira was quietly 
unloaded while the customs regulator was locked in one of the ship?s cabins. When 
the customs officers arrived the next morning and found little to tax aboard the ship, 
they arrested Hancock and charged him with smuggling. In response, a crowd of two 
to three thousand attacked the customs officers who were forced to flee to a nearby 
island. Shortly afterwards, twelve British warships arrived in Boston in an effort to 
intimidate the unruly citizens.
85
  
 
Annapolitans reacted to the various duties in much the same way as the New 
                                                 
84
 Waverly Root and Richard de Rochemont, Eating in America: A History (New York: The Ecco 
Press, 1976), 89-90. 
85
 Barr, Drink: A Social History of America, 311. 
 43
Englanders. In 1773, the ship, Peggy Stewart, was sent to Madeira where its cargo of 
corn, wheat, flour, and beans was sold, the proceeds of which were sent back to 
Annapolis in the form of wine. The owners of the boat wrote to the captain with 
advice on how to avoid the importation taxes: ?From Madeira you are to return 
directly to this port and when you come on shore bring all your letters and papers of 
every kind to us and before you see us do not mention what quantity of wine you 
have on board or to whom any of it belongs.?
86
 It is not clear whether it was the same 
captain of the Peggy Stewart, who, one year later, was forced by his fellow colonists 
to burn the ship in Annapolis with a full cargo of tea still aboard. Because the 
delegates of Annapolis voted on non-importation laws in a motion to support Boston 
after the British closed its port following the Boston Tea Party, the ship?s owners and 
captain had made a grievous mistake of attempting to import tea and pay the duties to 
the British. A year later, in 1775, an Annapolis merchant wrote to a Londoner, ?You 
may depend that we will die before we give up our liberties and have our property at 
the disposal of a damn lot of rascally ministers.?
87
  Political talk in general must have 
occurred frequently among the men who participated in wine-drinking rituals at their 
peers? homes. Their infatuation with wine only further fueled their misgivings and 
lack of acceptance of British rule.  
 
If wine had not existed as a luxurious product, the wine-bibbing ritual would never 
have grown to represent a higher rung on the social ladder for the gentlemen of the 
                                                 
86
 Quoted in Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit: The Annapolis Merchants in the Era of the American 
Revolution, 1763-1805, 46-47. 
87
 Quoted in Robert J. Brugger, Maryland: A Middle Temperament 1634-1980 (Baltimore: Johns 
Hopkins University Press in association with the Maryland Historical Society, 1988), 116.  
 44
eighteenth century. Partly because of the difficulty and high cost of importing them, 
foreign wines were elevated from mere beverage to a necessary ingredient in the life 
of an elite gentleman. Cary Carson discusses in his article, ?The Consumer 
Revolution in Colonial America: Why Demand?,? that demand for frivolous objects 
leads to supply.
88
 The demand for imported wines led not only to a supply of the 
beverage itself but also to a supply of objects necessary for its care, handling, and 
presentation. Once these demands were met, another avenue for social and political 
interaction was established. 
 
 
 
                                                 
88
 Carson, "The Consumer Revolution in Colonial America: Why Demand?" 483-700. In this article 
Carson discusses how demand for luxury goods has been prevalent since the 1650s with the courts of 
Louis XIII and Louis IV. Grant McCracken also explores the history of consumer culture in his book 
Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and 
Activities (1988), including the consumer trends in England that corresponded with those in France.  
 45
 
Chapter 2: Wine Bibbing as a Ritual: Gender and Gentility 
 
?The bottle is of the aristocracy, treat it like a gentleman.?
89
 
 
Unlike today when we mainly drink wine before and during dinner, individuals of the 
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries consumed the majority of it after the meal. 
Frenchman, M?deric Louis ?lie Moreau de Saint-M?ry traveled in Norfolk, VA, New 
York, and Philadelphia from 1794-1798, and, although the following diary notation 
was made during his stay in Philadelphia in 1798, it easily applied to dinners held all 
along the East Coast at that time, including Annapolis: ?The entr?e is accompanied by 
Bordeaux or Madeira, which they keep drinking right through dessert, toward the end 
of which any ladies who are at the dinner leave the table and withdraw by themselves, 
leaving the men free to drink as much as they please, because then bottles go the 
round continuously, each man pouring for himself.? Moreau de Saint-Mery also noted 
that, when the males were left to their own devices, it was not always a mannerly 
event: ?toasts are drunk, cigars are lighted, diners run to the corners of the room 
hunting night tables and vases which will enable them to hold a greater amount of 
liquor. Sometimes dinner is prolonged in this manner far into the night, but finally the 
dinner table is deserted because of boredom, fatigue or drunkenness.?
90
 Considering 
that the dinner hour in the eighteenth century was usually around 2 o?clock in the 
                                                 
89
 McMullen, Hand-Book of Wines: Practical, Theoretical, and with a Description of Foreign Spirits 
and Liqueurs, 235. 
90
 Mederic Louis Elie Moreau de St. Mery, Moreau De St. Mery's American Journey, trans. Kenneth 
Roberts and Anna M. Roberts (Garden City: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1947), 265-66. 
 46
afternoon, a late evening of drinking suggests that quite a quantity of wine was 
consumed. 
 
This chapter will explore the social setting of the wine-drinking ritual described 
above, and, in particular, the participants in the ritual. What were the underlying 
forces behind this male activity, and how did it demonstrate that an individual was 
worthy of social acceptance? Why did the ritual seem to have two levels of 
participation: one refined and one raucous? Were both considered part of the overall 
genteel image? Written and visual accounts that collectively reveal the nature of 
imported wine consumption can assist us in deciphering this complex type of 
behavior.  
   
Because the colonists had to recreate themselves in a new land, where one?s family 
origins were not always known, there was an identity crisis among this group of 
opportunists. Colonists had to look to the idealized image of English society for a 
sense of self, especially among the elite who sought to cast themselves at a level 
equal to the English gentry.
91
 According to David Hancock, by the mid-eighteenth 
century, even in England, gentility was defined more by deportment than heredity or 
profession.
92
 The same could be said for the colonies, where there was little to inherit. 
Knowledge of wine and its proper care and handling was a strategic way for the 
English or American gentleman to demonstrate his worthy place in a higher level of 
                                                 
91
 Jack P. Greene, Imperatives, Behaviors, and Identities: Essays in Early American Cultural History 
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992), 159-160, 166. 
92
 David Hancock, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British 
Community, 1735-1785 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 280. 
 47
society. He successfully distanced himself from those below him by creating an 
atmosphere that could not be replicated by the lower classes for both lack of funds 
and for lack of the social and cultural knowledge necessary for achieving the desired 
effect.
93
 Although the expense of wine and related accoutrements was an important 
factor, skilled elegance was an equally successful way to create a barrier between the 
classes. Rhys Isaac argues that ?Society is not primarily a material entity. It is rather 
to be understood as a dynamic product of the activities of its members ? a product 
profoundly shaped by the images the participants have of their own and others? 
performances.?
94
 The characteristics of a true gentleman were almost certainly 
recognizable among the population in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, even 
though they may be somewhat unclear to us today. 
 
In his article, ?American High-Style and Vernacular Cultures,? Richard Bushman 
discusses three features of gentility in the eighteenth century, all of which revolve 
around the idea of performance: a concern for personal refinement, contact between 
refined people where manners could be exhibited, and arrangement of the proper 
environment for these gatherings.
95
 A distinct gap was formed between men who had 
the luxury of being able to dedicate themselves to such pursuits and men whose lives 
did not permit such opulence. ?How these men drank reveals much about their self-
perceptions and social relations with one another. Drinking was crucial to the process 
                                                 
93
 There is no written evidence that the lower classes were participating in wine-drinking on a 
ritualistic level. There are references of individuals consuming too much alcohol (wine included) at 
taverns which spurred sermons and local laws condemning intoxication.  
94
 Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina 
Press, 1982), 324. 
95
 Richard L Bushman, "American High-Style and Vernacular Cultures," in Colonial British America: 
Essays in the New History of the Early Modern Era, ed. Jack P. Greene and J.R. Pole (Baltimore: 
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), 358. 
 48
by which a gentleman adopted the forms of ?gentility? and demonstrated his gentility 
to his peers and society at large.?
96
  
 
There was a certain expectation that each gentleman would know the rules of 
etiquette involved in the care and consumption of wine after dinner. This type of 
etiquette was more specialized than just the idea of using polite manners when 
interacting with others. Paul Shackel, in his book, Personal Discipline and Material 
Culture, emphasizes the importance of etiquette, for he believes ?it is not an empty 
formality. It is tied to human relations and the creation of hierarchies in societies, it is 
dynamic, it supports interest groups, and it has material consequences.?
97
 Each 
individual had to hold his own and participate in the evening?s activities in order to be 
evaluated and accepted by the group. Captain Thomas Hamilton, an Englishman, 
recorded details of such a protocol in New York in 1833: 
The ladies have no sooner risen from the table, than the business of 
winebibbing commences in good earnest. The servants still remain in the 
apartment, and supply fresh glasses to the guests as the successive bottles 
make their appearance. To each of these a history is attached, and the vintage, 
the date of importation etc., are all duly detailed; then come the criticisms of 
the company, and as each bottle produced contains wine of a different quality 
from its predecessor, there is no chance of the topic being exhausted. At 
length, having made the complete tour of the cellar, proceeding progressively 
from commoner wines to those of finest flavor, the party adjourns to the 
drawing room.
98
 
 
Although his trip occurred a bit later than the time-period examined in this paper, this 
type of event grew out of the ritualistic wine consumption performed by these 
                                                 
96
 Peter Thompson, ""the Friendly Glass": Drink and Gentility in Philadelphia," The Pennsylvania 
Magazine of History and Biography CXIII, no. 4 (1989): 549-550. 
97
 Paul A. Shackel, Personal Discipline and Material Culture (Knoxville: University of Tennessee 
Press, 1993), 3-4. 
98
 Quoted in Feay Shellman Coleman, Nostrums for Fashionable Entertainments: Dining in Georgia, 
1800-1850 (Savannah: Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Inc., 1992), 25. 
 49
gentlemen?s fathers in the mid-eighteenth century. As you can see, there was a social 
obligation that, as a guest at one of these parties, you ?were expected to be 
intellectually prepared to match sensory experience with memories of drinking 
similar wines in the past and with information gained through reading and 
conversation.?
99
 Hamilton also noted on his trip to America: ?I have never drunk any 
Madeira in Europe at all equaling what I have frequently met in the United States. 
The gentlemen in America pique themselves on their discrimination in wine, in a 
degree which is not common in England.?
100
 An example of an Annapolitan agreeing 
with this sentiment was Charles Carroll of Carrollton who, while staying in England, 
wrote to his father Charles Carroll of Annapolis on February 30, 1760: ?I shall be 
much obliged to you if you could contrive to send me some good Madeira wine, what 
we have here is so detestable that I can?t drink it.?
101
 
 
Several additional letters demonstrate this knowledge of the various characteristics of 
imported wine; many of the elite gentlemen knew (and were expected to know) what 
qualities they were looking for in the expensive beverage they were importing. On 
May 7, 1763, Severn Eyre of Northampton County, Virginia wrote a letter to Newton 
and Gordon and Company on the island of Madeira regarding the purchase of one 
Pipe of the best London wine: ?Pray let the wine be of the very best kind, and I would 
wish [?] it to be of a rich amber color.?
102
 Charles Drayton of South Carolina made 
                                                 
99
 Robert C. Fuller, Religion and Wine: A Cultural History of Wine Drinking in the United States 
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1996), 16. 
100
 Thomas Hamilton, Men and Manners in America (London: T. Cadell, 1833), 118-121. Quoted in 
Barr, Drink: A Social History of America, 43-44. 
101
 Hoffman, ed., Dear Papa, Dear Charley: The Peregrinations of a Revolutionary Aristocrat, as Told 
by Charles Carroll of Carrollton and His Father, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, 150. 
102
 Severn Eyre 1763 Letter, Call #38611, The Library of Virginia, Richmond. 
 50
note of his knowledge of wine in a journal entry of 1797: ?Will brought the 10 yrs. 
old wine Vintage 1787 purchased from the agent of the late French and British 
consuls. Nr. 2 is richer ? Nr. 3 more fit for use.?
103
 And, in 1789, Thomas Jefferson 
wrote to James Brown, a Richmond merchant: ?I would prefer good Lisbon; next to 
that Sherry, next to that Carcavelos; but still a good quality of the latter would be 
preferable to an indifferent quality of the former. If none of these, then claret.?
104
 
 
Whether it was the desire for male bonding or rather the lack of control that 
sometimes accompanied these men while consuming this valued beverage, the 
women were expected to leave the table before the wine consumption started in 
earnest. In his etiquette manual, The Honours of the Table, John Trusler wrote in 
1788: ?Habit having made a pint of wine after dinner almost necessary to a man who 
eats freely, which is not the case with women, and as their fitting and drinking with 
the men would be unseemly; it is customary, after the cloth and dessert are removed 
and 2 or 3 glasses of wine are gone round, for the ladies to retire and leave the men to 
themselves.?
105
 Nevertheless, not every male agreed with this arrangement. Thomas 
Pinckney, traveling in Virginia, wrote to Harriet Pinckney, in Charleston, on January 
31, 1777:  
I will take this opportunity once for all of venting my indignation upon an 
abominable Custom which prevails every where that I have been to the 
Northward of Charles Town (I will not answer for Maryland as I never dined 
in private in that State except once). I mean that of the whole Company rising 
                                                 
103
 Charles Drayton Diary, 1785-1820. Owned by Drayton Hall, South Carolina. I am grateful to Tim 
Chesser at Drayton Hall for sharing this reference. 
104
 Quoted in James M. Gabler, Passions: The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson (Baltimore: 
Bacchus Press, 1995), 169. 
105
 John Trusler, The Honours of the Table, or, Rules of Behavior During Meals (London: Printed for 
the author at the Literary Press, 1788). 
 51
from the Table immediately upon the Cloths being withdrawn after Meals, and 
the Ladies retiring to their Apartments; a Custom which spoils good 
Company, prevents that intercourse of the Sexes which serves to polish and 
improve both, and in short reduces a Man to the disagreeable necessity of 
losing his Dinner or the agreeable Conversation of the Ladies.?
106
 
 
 
Not only did the women ?withdraw? after dinner, but, upon occasion, the entire 
evening was considered strictly a male gathering, where women were not included 
from the onset. As early as 1730, when he had dinner on multiple occasions with the 
wealthier families of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, including the Wentworths, Robert 
Hale made note that ?The Gentlemen treat at their own houses and seldom go to the 
Taverns. Their treats are splendid, they drink excessively all sorts of wine and punch 
? their women came not into company.?
107
 Fifty years later, in Philadelphia, William 
Hamilton, known for his bachelor dinners where the guests could taste some of his 
prize Madeira, delivered the following invitation: ?Mr. W. Hamilton requests the 
honor of Dr. Parke?s company to partake of a bachelor?s dinner on Tuesday? (May 
13, 1783).
108
   
 
                                                 
106
 "Letter, Thomas Pinckney to Harriet Pinckney, Virginia, 31 Jan. 1777," South Carolina Historical 
Magazine 58. I am grateful to the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts providing this reference. 
107
 Quoted in David E. van Deventer, The Emergence of Provincial New Hampshire, 1623-1741 
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), 218. 
108
 Invitation to William Hamilton's, 1783. Pemberton Collection, Vol. 39, Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. In 1784, Mr. Hamilton traveled to England for two years where the 
Madeira did not meet his approval. On December 1, 1784, he wrote to the same Doctor Thomas Parke 
in Pennsylvania: ?I have therefore to beg that you will contrive to send me some Madeira? (Society 
Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania). I am grateful to Jamie Jacobs at the National Park 
Service (Historic American Buildings Survey) for sharing these references. See a description of The 
Woodlands in Chapter 4. To my knowledge, there is no known record of an all-female dinner 
occurring during this time-period. 
 52
An all-male event similar to William Hamilton?s dinner was significant enough 
among the genteel population to be recorded by artists who offered a visual 
commentary of society, much like authors and their written accounts of various 
lifestyles. In 1821, Henry Sargent painted The Dinner Party, which portrayed just 
such a male social occasion in Boston, most likely occurring at the artist?s own 
house.
109
 The artwork depicts activity after the main courses of dinner are completed, 
after the tablecloths are removed, and after an unusual amount of wine is placed on 
the table. The event appears to be a very refined occasion with many pieces of wine 
equipage visible within the image, including a wine cooler on the floor, wine glasses, 
bottles, decanters, and coasters.
110
 Two elaborately dressed servants represent an 
additional feature to the evening?s accoutrements. The gentlemen depicted look very 
conscious of how to perform amongst their peers; they are part of a selective group 
who knows what is at stake in the evening. In order to distance themselves from those 
who never would dine in rooms like this, they needed to know how to handle 
themselves among the elaborate pieces of equipage. Fashionable objects represented 
?a badge of membership in class-conscious social groups. As the outward signs of 
status, consumer goods and the social arts they were used to perform served, first, as 
shared symbols of group identity and, second, as devices that social climbers imitated 
in hopes of ascending the social ladder.?
111
 Visual representations of the act of wine 
bibbing, such as this one, acknowledge the key role this ritual played in society. By 
                                                 
109
 Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It was not until 1824 that Sargent painted a similar 
version of a tea party. For a comparison of the two paintings, see Jane C. Nylander, ?Henry Sargent?s 
Dinner Party and Tea Party,? The Magazine Antiques CXXI no. 5 (May 1982): 1172-1183. 
110
 The cooler depicted with a fitted metal interior and a drain spigot underneath could easily be the 
same one currently in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston collection which is similar in appearance and 
was given by a Sargent descendent.  
111
 Carson, "The Consumer Revolution in Colonial America: Why Demand?" 522. 
 53
comparing them to contemporary written descriptions, we can conclude that they 
offer an accurate depiction of the way in which wine accessories were handled. 
 
These same gentlemen, however, were also known for their over indulgence in wine 
and their less then genteel way of handling themselves when drunk. It seems that the 
bonding experience or the attempts at forming a cohesive group within society 
involved participating at two levels. The more serious aspect occurred in the early 
part of the tasting when men showed off their knowledge of wines and the proper 
handling of the beverage. This then led to the second half of the event, which focused 
on capacity and the competitive sport of getting drunk. In 1744, Alexander Hamilton 
made note that some gentlemen believed ?a man could not have a more sociable 
quality or enduement [sic] than to be able to pour down seas of liquor and remain 
unconquered while others sunk under the table.?
112
 Mary Bagot, wife of the British 
Ambassador, noted a party given by the Baron and Baroness Hyde de Neuville in 
Washington, DC in the beginning of the nineteenth century where ?the men most of 
them drunk & running at the champagne and Madeira which they drank like 
savages.?
113
 And, Englishman John Lambert observed during his travels in the States 
from 1806 to 1808 that ?the wine flows in abundance and nothing affords them 
greater satisfaction than to see their guests drop gradually under the table after 
dinner.?
114
 Although written by an Englishman to his architect, the following 
                                                 
112
 Carl Bridenbaugh, ed., Gentleman's Progress: The Intinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton 
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992), 43. 
113
 David Hosford, "Exile in Yankeeland: The Journal of Mary Bagot 1816-1819," Records of the 
Columbia Historical Society 52 (1984): 45. Quoted in Carson, Ambitious Appetites: Dining, Behavior, 
and Patterns of Consumption in Federal Washington, 148. 
114
 John Lambert, Travels through Lower Canada and the United States of America in the Years 1806, 
1807, and 1808 (London: Richard Phillips, 1810), 147-148. Quoted in James C. Jordan III, "The 
 54
quotation could just as easily have come from a man in the colonies, since they 
copied the English in so many of their drinking habits. The author of the 1752 letter 
stated that his wife ?wishes for a room of separation between the eating room and the 
drawing room, to hinder the ladies from the noise and talk of the men when left to 
their bottle.?
115
 
 
Similar to the refined parts of the evening, the more raucous aspect of the ritual was 
also represented in fine art. George Roupel, an amateur artist, painted Peter 
Manigault and His Friends circa 1768.
116
  Not unlike the Sargent painting, the 
Roupel piece offers a social commentary of an actual event occurring in the dining 
room at Peter Manigault?s house, Steepbrook, just outside of Charleston, South 
Carolina.
117
 In addition to Peter Manigault, Isaac Godin (Manigault?s neighbor), and 
the artist himself, the other five individuals represented in the black ink and wash 
image are gentlemen from the colonial military.
118
 Each has the words of his toast in a 
bubble above his head, and the sole servant, asleep on the window seat indicates that 
this evening has been going on for too long. A broken wine glass is visible on the 
table along with six opened bottles of wine. Although the evening looks to be 
somewhat under control, one man has removed another?s wig while calling him a 
dog.  
 
                                                                                                                                           
Neoclassical Dining Room in Charleston," Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts XIV, no. 2 
(1988): 2. 
115
 Quoted in Mark Girouard, Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History 
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 204. 
116
 Collection of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum and Library. 
117
 See mention of types of wine ordered by Peter Manigault Chapter 1 of this paper. 
118
 Rutledge, "After the Cloth Was Removed," 48. 
 55
A particularly interesting social analysis of the English and American levels of 
consumption occurs in a French image, L?Apr?s-D?n?e des Anglais.
119
 This engraving 
by an unknown artist dates to circa 1814 and refers specifically to English habits. 
However, it is also an accurate portrayal of what occurred in the homes of American 
gentlemen in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Because the French had a 
very different relationship with wine and were appalled by the quantity of it 
consumed by the English and Americans, this commentary proves to be notable, and I 
have included it here as an honest contemporary opinion given by an outsider looking 
in. The French did not view wine as such a marker of distinction, possibly because 
quality wine was available and affordable to many levels of French society. And since 
French women did not leave the table after the cloth was removed, excess wine 
drinking was discouraged.
120
 
 
In addition to the wine bottles and glasses visible in L?Apr?s-D?n?e des Anglais, there 
is also a depiction of the multi-faceted function of a sideboard and a man taking 
advantage of this convenience. Since an intoxicated gentleman would use anything he 
deemed appropriate to relieve himself, Thomas Sheraton took it upon himself to 
design a sideboard, such as the one illustrated in this piece, with a chamber-pot 
concealed within it. He explained that it was ?made to hide itself in the end rail as 
                                                 
119
 British Museum collection. 
120
 A visitor to Monticello noted that Jefferson served dinner in the French style and that the women 
remained at the table (Diane L. Berger, ?"Pray Let Them Be Neat and Fashionable or Send None": 
Dining in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century America, an Exploration of Ritual and Equipage with a 
Case Study of Virginia Probate Records? (Master's Thesis, George Washington University, 1990), 44). 
Jefferson endorsed moderation with regards to any alcohol consumption. 
 56
much as possible, both for look and secrecy.?
121
 Secrecy did not actually seem to be a 
concern to these men, according to the French traveler Faujas de Saint-Fond, who 
was a guest of an English gentleman in his country house near the end of the 
eighteenth century. In addition to complaining that the ladies were left too long in the 
withdrawing room while the men drank to excess after dinner, he also noted that ?in 
the pretty corners of the room the necessary convenience is to be found. This is 
applied to with so little ceremony that the person who has occasion to use it does not 
even interrupt his talk during the operation.?
122
 What makes the French image even 
more amusing is that there is another matching engraving, presumably by the same 
artist, which portrays English women after the meal looking incredibly stiff and bored 
as they drink tea in the withdrawing room while they wait for the men to join them. 
 
With this type of behavior, one no longer wonders why women started the prohibition 
movement and why the men were so against it. A prohibitionist male in colonial 
America would have been considered a lunatic. Bertram Wyatt-Brown notes in the 
book, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South that ?in the struggle 
over which would be a greater commitment, the husband?s loyalty to male friends or 
to his wife, nothing played so decisive a role as alcohol.?
123
 But why was there such a 
discrepancy between the controlled and formal part of wine bibbing and the drunken 
                                                 
121
 Thomas Sheraton, The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing-Book (London: T. Bensley, 
1802), 364. Also quoted in Elisabeth Donaghy Garrett, At Home: The American Family, 1750-1870 
(New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990), 88. 
122
 Quoted in Andre Parreaux, Daily Life in England in the Reign of George the Third, trans. Carola 
Congreve (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969), 37. 
123
 Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (Oxford: Oxford 
University Press, 1982), 278. Prohibition was many years in the making. As early as the Revolutionary 
War years, Dr. Benjamin Rush was advocating for abstention from alcohol. (William David Barry and 
Nan Cumming, Rum, Riot, and Reform: Maine and the History of American Drinking (Portland: Maine 
Historical Society, 1998), 6). 
 57
aftermath? Were these gentlemen pretending to be one type of person when they were 
actually someone quite different? Were they merely letting down their guards when 
the women left their presence? In truth, I think the issue is more complex than either 
of these scenarios. Excess indicated upward mobility. Displaying knowledge of 
wines, touring the cellars, and properly handing the equipment was just one part of an 
excessive evening within a fraternity-like atmosphere. Overindulgence and bonding 
with the boys was the other equally important part of the ritual. Drunkenness was, at 
times, part of the protocol. Written and visual evidence indicate that the wines and 
equipage were not the only aspect to acknowledge. The jovial play and camaraderie 
associated with drinking was also worthy of commentary. It was not until the 
Victorian era that ?polite? and ?refined? carried an expectation of reserved behavior 
throughout an entire evening.  
 
If drinking was a sign of male masculinity, of group and individual identity, a means 
to an end, how did young gentlemen learn about this important aspect of their lives? 
Although books on manners were available in the colonies (a copy of Lord 
Chesterfield?s Letters to his Son, published in London in 1774 and in New York in 
1775 was owned by Benjamin Chew Sr. in Philadelphia),
124
 few mention much on 
accepted behavior while drinking. Books on the history of wine, individual types of 
wine, and the logistics of keeping a cellar demonstrate that wine was a topic of 
importance. Yet, instead of relying on etiquette books, it appears that most young 
men learned the proper wine-related conduct through their male elders, such as their 
                                                 
124
 Nancy E. Richards, "The City Home of Benjamin Chew, Sr., and His Family: A Case Study of the 
Textures of Life,"  (Cliveden of the National Trust, Inc., 1996), 48. 
 58
fathers or uncles. Since knowing the drinking protocol was character-building, young 
men had to be instructed as early as possible on how to conduct themselves. 
Nevertheless, even with instruction, they did not always conform to their fathers? 
standards. Colonel Landon Carter made note in his journal of his son?s deplorable 
conduct with regards to drinking: ?The treatment I met with yesterday is not to be 
endured from my son?.But at Supper I asked if there was not a bottle of wine 
brought up. Yes, said that fellow, let?s have it for last night the Colo. Went to bed, 
carried the keys with him, and would not have any wine. To be accused so before 
company when though I went to bed being left alone for everybody went to dancing 
in the next room, I gave the keys to Parker to get what they wanted?Then the heroe 
[sic] told the company I denied him wine. I did some months ago ask how he could 
waste the wine by Powering it out on his Pancakes??
125
 
 
However, gentlemen, such as Landon Carter, discussed more than the wine itself in 
their diaries and letters, for beautiful settings were also an integral part of the wine-
bibbing ritual. When Josiah Quincy, Jr. of Massachusetts visited Miles Brewton at his 
noteworthy Charleston townhouse on March 7, 1773, he critiqued the surroundings as 
well as the wine: ?By odds the richest wines I ever tasted: Exceeds Mr. Hancock?s, 
Vassall?s, Phillips?s and others much in flavour, softness, and strength. I toast all your 
friends, Sir. Each gentleman gave his toast round in succession. ?At Mr. Brewton?s 
side board was very magnificent plate: a very large exquisitely wrought goblet, most 
excellent workmanship and singularly beautiful.?
126
 
                                                 
125
 Greene, ed., The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, vol. II, 1009-1010. 
126
 "Journal of Josiah Quincy, Junior, 1773," 446. 
 59
 
As Josiah Quincy suggests, all of the objects used during the consumption of wine 
enhanced the overall effect of the evening. Sarah Richards notes in Eighteenth-
Century Ceramics: ?Consumer goods were drawn into active use and made to signify 
in ways which were instrumental in forming a person?s sense of self, affirming a 
sense of shared social and cultural belonging, and at the same time maintaining a 
distance from those unable to acquire the skills and material evidence of ?polite? 
conduct.? Society became ?increasingly conscious of a link between a sense of 
individual worth, the ownership of goods, and the mechanisms by which things could 
be made to carry meanings beyond their ostensible function.?
127
 Thus, the atmosphere 
created during this ritual was multi-dimensional. 
 
Whereas travel diaries and letters written by women often mention tea as a subject of 
interest and as an underlying factor in establishing the economic class of the 
participants, those written by men, as can be seen throughout this paper, frequently 
focus on wine in this manner. Even though men did consume tea, they seemed more 
interested in discussing matters related to wine. Who had the most wine bottles in his 
cellar; who had the best; who knew the most about his wines and the proper way of 
consuming them? These were all questions asked when discussing a man?s place 
within his particular society. The best wine and equipage were extremely extravagant, 
and the presence of them established perceived structures of power, affecting both 
physical space as well as social conceptions. Frenchman Comte de S?gur wrote to his 
                                                 
127
 Sarah Richards, Eighteenth-Century Ceramics: Products for a Civilized Society (Manchester: 
Manchester University Press, 1999), 1-2. For more on this, see Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood, 
World of Goods (New York: Basic Books, 1979). 
 60
wife during a visit to America in the late eighteenth century about the excesses of 
both tea and wine drinking: ?My health continues excellent, despite the quantity of 
tea one must drink with the ladies out of gallantry, and of the Madeira all day long 
with the men out of politeness.?
128
 ?Too much?, however, was the best way for each 
gender to guarantee a top rung on the social ladder. 
 
                                                 
128
 Quoted in Rodris Roth, "Tea-Drinking in Eighteenth-Century America: Its Etiquette and Equipage," 
in Material Life in America, 1600-1860, ed. Robert Blair St. George (Boston: Northeastern University 
Press, 1988), 445. 
 61
Chapter 3: Equipage  
 
?If God had intended Man to drink water, He would not have made him with an 
elbow capable of raising a wine glass? ? Benjamin Franklin 
 
In addition to the many personal accounts of the ritual of wine-drinking, surviving 
objects confirm the importance of this rite in the lives of eighteenth and nineteenth-
century upper-class gentlemen. Enormous sums of money were spent on sterling 
silver, imported glass, and mahogany furniture as dining and wine drinking became 
symbols of eighteenth-century gentility. Being able to afford quality imported wine 
and serve it with all the correct paraphernalia meant that you had reached the level of 
society where you could supply the ultimate dining experience. Based on the artifacts 
found, it appears that some gentlemen spared no expense in pursuit of this aim. 
 
How did all of this wine get from the vineyard to the table and what objects were 
used to accent the social ritual which coincided with drinking this beverage? In early 
America, this process was a complicated, rule-driven exercise. The accoutrements 
were vital to the sophisticated atmosphere these gentlemen were attempting to create 
and ?were in truth but outward signs of what the inhabitants hoped would be an 
inward grace.?
129
 Anthropologist Mary Douglas explores in her book Natural 
Symbols how the implications of participating in rituals, for instance those involving 
the consumption of wine, were part of a restricted code and could be conveyed along 
standardized non-verbal channels such as through the use of objects. She further 
                                                 
129
 Richard L Bushman, The Refinement of America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), xi-xiii. 
 62
describes how the codes deriving from rituals allowed ?a person to perceive his 
identity as part of his immediate social world; personal and social integration [were] 
achieved together.?
130
 
  
Robert Roberts, the African American butler at Gore Place in Waltham, 
Massachusetts,
131
 observed in his House Servant?s Directory that ?you must think that 
ladies and gentlemen that have splendid and costly articles, wish to have them seen 
and set out to the best advantage.?
132
 In the eighteenth century, when having the basic 
ingredients for a fairly comfortable life (a house with several rooms, food prepared in 
a variety of ways, and somewhat fashionable clothing) became more commonplace, 
the elite focused on filling their elaborate houses with frivolous objects in order to 
truly separate themselves from ordinary people. Conspicuous wine consumption led 
to an array of equipage that is almost incomprehensible to us today. What better way 
to indicate that you have reached the top of society, than to dedicate your time and 
funds to such a multifaceted pastime? 
 
Section 1: Case Study of Annapolis 
In an article in the August 26
th
 issue of the 1746 Maryland Gazette, the author, 
Horatius (a pseudonym), claimed that ?a refined and polite Gentleman ? understands 
how to lay his Garden, Model his house, fancy his Esquipage [sic], appoint his table, 
and improve a leisure Hour.?
133
 Not only were the Annapolis elite schooled in the 
types of wine that should be gracing their tables, they were also importing the 
                                                 
130
 Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1973), 54, 191. 
131
 Home of Christopher Gore, Governor of Massachusetts in 1809. 
132
 Robert Roberts, The House Servant's Directory (Boston: Munroe and Francis, 1827), 48-49. 
133
 Quoted in Shackel, Personal Discipline and Material Culture, 71. 
 63
appropriate objects to accompany the wine?s consumption. Below I will discuss 
objects listed in invoices and Annapolis inventories, and later in this chapter I will 
elaborate on the function of each object.
134
 
 
Archaeological digs in Annapolis have unearthed fragments of wine equipage from 
the sites of various ornate houses. One such building is the Calvert House on State 
Circle, built by Governor George Calvert in 1728. Included in this collection are 
bottle seals (all predate the time-period of this paper), wine bottles, and wine glasses 
with various decorative stems. The fragments of glass stems are particularly 
interesting, for they include plain or ?neat? stems as well as examples of air twists 
and color twists. Included in a group of circa 1740 to 1780 straight stems are an 
opaque white ribbon twist stem, an opaque white gauze-type stem, and a stem of 
spiral gauze within a single narrow spiral band. Also in this collection of fragments 
were several examples of a short drawn stem, each still attached to parts of its base 
and bowl. These are typical of the glass produced by John Frederick Amelung in 
Maryland circa 1780 to 1805 (more on Amelung will be discussed later in this 
chapter). Although these various glass pieces represent the types of glassware ordered 
and used in Annapolis in the eighteenth century, it is unlikely that all of them 
belonged specifically to wine glasses. Clients often ordered other varieties of 
stemware to match their wine glasses and vice versa.  
 
                                                 
134
 Many of the inventories list quantities of empty bottles. Because they had little value when empty 
and could have been used for a variety of liquids, I have not made note of them here.  
 64
Additional fragments discovered during the dig at the Calvert House include a round 
glass ball that is typical of the top of a ground stopper used in decanters from 1730 
onward and the base of a square, dark green case bottle containing a few inches of 
solidified red residue. Without testing the residue, it is impossible to say whether it 
was wine or perhaps something medicinal. However, eighteenth-century wines were 
known to have had heavy sediment, and the color of this material is appropriate for a 
dark wine. One of the most exciting discoveries at the Calvert House was two intact 
bottles still containing their circa 1750 Madeira, found resting at the bottom of a 
well.
135
  
 
A demand among local clients for wine-related equipage is evident by numerous 
surviving Annapolis-made objects as well as by records indicating the types of 
acquisitions made by Annapolitans. John Shaw (wk. 1770-1829), a well-known 
cabinetmaker in the Maryland area, wrote the following to his client, General William 
Smallwood in 1784 regarding a sideboard he was close to completing: ?I Shall be 
glad you would Send to the glass man about the bottles as I Expect to finish the Table 
very Soon.?
136
 The bottle drawers in Shaw?s sideboards were usually concealed 
behind a cupboard door on either end of the sideboard. Some of these drawers were 
removable and had handles cut into the sides so that they could be carried around the 
dining table.
137
 Provenances for surviving examples indicate that numerous Annapolis 
residents purchased sideboards from Shaw. One example was possibly constructed 
                                                 
135
 All of the Calvert archaeological pieces are in the Historic Annapolis Foundation collection. 
136
 Chancery Court Papers 1819, Folder 2, Maryland State Archives. Quoted in William Voss Elder III 
and Lu Bartlett, John Shaw: Cabinetmaker of Annapolis (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1983), 
20. 
137
 Example of such a sideboard is in the Baltimore Museum of Art collection (BMA1932.31.1). 
 65
circa 1785 for Jeremiah Townley Chase, who lived in the Hammond-Harwood House 
from 1789 until his death in 1828.
138
 His 1828 inventory listed a sideboard valued at 
ten dollars. According to family tradition, another 1797 Shaw sideboard was made for 
John Randall of Annapolis.
139
  
 
John Shaw sold other wine-related pieces as well, such as cellarets and bottle stands. 
A labeled and dated 1795 Shaw cellaret has a false front to simulate two small 
drawers over one long drawer with the actual access to the piece being a hinged top. 
The interior is fitted with partitions to accommodate six vertical bottles on each side 
of a center section with a removable caddy.
140
 A similar example of this type of 
cellaret was made circa 1790 to 1800 for D. Dennis Claude of Annapolis.
141
 Bottle 
stands were pieces of furniture resembling small tables on tripod feet, with tabletops 
that were fitted with individual bottle and glass holders. The entire top usually rotated 
on the stand. In 1780 Edward Lloyd IV purchased a bottle stand from Shaw costing 
four pounds.
142
 Other examples of equipage made in Annapolis included bottle boards 
and dumbwaiters. Bottle boards were portable mahogany trays with partitions made 
to accommodate bottles. They were almost always listed in advertisements next to tea 
boards. The local cabinetmaker, William Slicer advertised in the Maryland Gazette 
on June 1, 1769 that he made ?dumb-Waiters? and ?Bottle-Boards.?
143
 
 
                                                 
138
 See the description of this house in Chapter 4 and 5. 
139
 Elder III and Bartlett, John Shaw: Cabinetmaker of Annapolis, 76-77, 112-114. 
140
 Private collection. Similar example on loan at the Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis. 
141
 Elder III and Bartlett, John Shaw: Cabinetmaker of Annapolis, 88, 101-102. 
142
 Lloyd Papers, Daybook, 1770-1780, MS 2001, M1211, Vol.7. Maryland Historical Society. Quoted 
in Ibid., 16. 
143
 Quoted in Ibid., 40. I will discuss dumbwaiters later in this section. 
 66
In addition to wine-related furnishings, silver equipage was also being made and 
imported into Annapolis. The silversmith William Faris who worked in the town from 
1757 to 1804 made a shop drawing for a wine siphon circa 1770, though it is not 
known whether this form was ever executed in his shop. Also surviving is a circa 
1775 silver funnel attributed to Faris, which is engraved with the initials WAP for 
William and Ann Faris Pitt, along with those of their children and grandchildren. 
Although it is unmarked and possibly imported, silversmiths did not always mark 
pieces for their own use.
144
 In 1768 Charles Carroll, Barrister ordered silver from 
London in the form of ?two pair of Table Bottle stands with Silver Rimes, with Crest 
or Coat as Inclosed [sic].?
145
 Edward Lloyd IV placed a similar order in 1793 for ?6 
handsome Silver Bottle Stands with my Arms theron and Letters ELL NB. Let these 
Bottle Stands be made of the largest size that they suit the largest Wine Decanters.?
146
 
In addition to the 3 pairs of decanter stands listed in his 1796 inventory (presumably 
those described above), Lloyd owned 2 small waiters, 3 salvers, and 2 pairs of 
additional bottle stands, all in silver.
147
 
 
Apparent from inventories and objects found at archaeological sites, glass was being 
imported into Annapolis at a steady rate. The Maryland firm of Wallace, Davidson & 
Johnson ordered numerous decanters in 1771, six of which were ?Engraved for 
                                                 
144
 Mark B. Letzer and Jean B. Russo, ed., The Diary of William Faris: The Daily Life of an Annapolis 
Silversmith (Baltimore: The Press at the Maryland Historical Society, 2003), 440, 69. Both the drawing 
of the siphon and the funnel are in the Maryland Historical Society collection. 
145
 "Letters of Charles Carroll, Barrister," 184. 
146
 Lloyd Papers, 1658-1910, MS 2001 Reel 25, Maryland Historical Society. Quoted in Alevizatos, 
?"Procured of the Best and Most Fashionable Materials:" the Furniture and Furnishings of the Lloyd 
Family, 1750-1850,? Appendix C. 
147
 Talbot County Inventories, Volume JPF, Microfilm Reel WK 597-598: 38-133.  Maryland State 
Archives. 
 67
Madeira.? This same firm ordered 1,512 wine glasses between December 1771 and 
October 1772.
148
 Charles Carroll, Barrister requested that the 3 dozen wine glasses, 2 
quart decanters, and 2 pint decanters he ordered in 1768 match a glass he sent with 
the order. Also in this purchase order was a request for 2 square quart-size bottles 
with ground stoppers and 4 matching pint-size bottles ?for a Case to be made 
Here.?
149
 And, in January of 1792 the London merchants Thomas Eden & Co. sent 
Edward Lloyd IV a set of ?wine glass decanters for a sideboard table.?
150
 Additional 
glass objects listed in Lloyd?s inventory were two cut glass salvers, 24 wine glasses, 
and 95 vessels of glass of different kinds.
151
 
 
Probate inventories, such as Lloyd?s, reveal a variety of accoutrements used by the 
gentlemen of Annapolis in conjunction with the wide range of wines they were 
importing. According to Daniel Dulany?s 1754 inventory, he had wine-related 
accessories stored in his ?Great Dining Room,? including 1 salver, 49 ? pounds of 
double flint glass (which is differentiated from the 89 jelly, syllabub, and water 
glasses listed directly beneath it ), 7 small silver salvers, 2 large silver salvers, and 2 
                                                 
148
 Wallace, Davidson, and Johnson Order Books, 1771-1774, Chancery Court (Chancery Papers, 
Exhibits), MSA S528-27, Maryland State Archives. 
149
 "Letters of Charles Carroll, Barrister," 188-189. This is similar to John Shaw?s request for bottles to 
fit the sideboard he was constructing for General Smallwood. 
150
 Lloyd Papers, 1658-1910, MS 2001 Reel 21, Maryland Historical Society. Quoted in Alevizatos, 
?"Procured of the Best and Most Fashionable Materials:" the Furniture and Furnishings of the Lloyd 
Family, 1750-1850,? Appendix C. 
151
 Talbot County Inventories, Volume JPF, Microfilm Reel WK 597-598: 38-133.  Maryland State 
Archives. 
 68
silver strainers.
152
 As with the variety of wine listed in Daniel Dulany?s inventory, 
none of these objects were listed in his wife?s inventory of 1766 (see Chapter 1).  
 
Records pertaining to Richard Chew show that when he died in 1761, he had yet to 
update his house to have a separate dining room; thus, most of his wine equipage was 
located in the hall or parlor. Included in the inventory are 2 silver waiters, 1 case with 
bottles, 1 mahogany cooler with brass hoops, 3 quart decanters, 1 pint decanter, 1 
stand with glasses, 2 tin waiters, and 1 mahogany waiter. Although the glasses are not 
identified by number or type, in that they were listed as being located on a stand is 
significant since it indicates they were meant to be displayed. Given the variety of 
other wine accoutrements, we can assume that at least some of these glasses were 
probably wine glasses.
153
   
 
Although Edmund Rutland did not have a large collection of wine in this cellar at the 
time of his death (17 bottles of Claret, 11 of Port, and 9 of Lisbon wine), his 1765 
probate record includes an unusual object for American inventories: the dumbwaiter. 
In the eighteenth century this was not typically the more commonly known 
mechanical device but rather a piece of mahogany furniture on tripod feet with 
several enclosed shelves for storage. Dumbwaiters were multi-functional and could 
be used to store a variety of items, including decanters of wine and wine glasses. 
Thomas Sheraton described such a piece in his 1803 Cabinet Dictionary: ?Dumb-
                                                 
152
 Prerogative Court Inventories, Volume 84: 47-67. Maryland State Archives. Two silver decanter 
handles are also listed, but given that they were probably not meant for decanters but rather cruets, I 
have not included them. 
153
 Prerogative Court Inventories, Volume 102: 114-123. Maryland State Archives. Also in Chew?s 
cellar were casks containing hundreds of gallons of an unspecified liquid.   
 69
waiter, amongst cabinet-makers, is a useful piece of furniture, to serve in some 
respects the place of a waiter, whence it is so named. There are different kinds of 
these waiters, but they are all made of mahogany, and are intended for the use of the 
dining parlour, on which to place glasses of wine, and plates, both clean and such as 
have been used.?
154
 Rutland also owned 20 wine glasses, 1 quart decanter, and 1 pint 
decanter.
155
  
 
Evidence of a nice array of wine equipage can also be seen in Governor Eden?s 
inventory, whose recording was prompted by his return to England during the 
Revolution. A mahogany wine cooler with brass hoops and stands was located in the 
Long Room (presumably the dining room on account of the presence of multiple 
dining tables and numerous chairs). This piece would have been more ornate than the 
plainer mahogany box and typically rested on a frame with castors. The brass hoops 
indicate that it was meant to be carried around the room. In the Secretary?s office was 
a sideboard table with a marble top and a mahogany case with six bottles. Given that 
this room is listed on the inventory as being next to the Long Room, it probably 
contained overflow of dining accessories. The mahogany box may have been an 
earlier piece that was replaced by the more fashionable cooler. The butler?s pantry 
contained all the small accoutrements for wine consumption in Eden?s house, such as 
7 ? dozen wine glasses, 11 quart decanters with ground stoppers, 4 pint decanters 
with ground stoppers, 4 leather decanter stands, and 1 silver wine strainer. Not only 
                                                 
154
 Quoted in Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal Period 1788-1825 (New 
York: Bonanza Books, 1978), 394. 
155
 Prerogative Court Inventories, Volume 88: 261-265. Maryland State Archives. 
 70
did the pantry probably have shelves to store these items, it would have also been a 
secure location with a lockable door.
156
  
 
With many of these Annapolis probate inventories, descriptive terms were rarely 
assigned to glassware. This is what makes Doctor Benjamin Kennedy?s inventory of 
1778 so important, for it includes 1 flowered glass decanter, 11 flowered wine 
glasses, and 7 plain wine glasses. He also owned 2 leather bottle stands and 1 
Japanned waiter. Although Kennedy did not appear to have a supply of wine in 
storage, he had enough fashionable pieces of equipage to impress any visitor.
157
 
Another Annapolitan who did not have wine listed in his probate record but obviously 
entertained gentlemen was Robert Johnson who died in 1774. His 1779 probate 
record included 2 cases with bottles, 20 wine glasses, and a backgammon board and 
billiard table (the gaming pieces were listed next to the dining objects).
158
  
 
Joseph Pemberton?s 1783 probate record also provides more descriptive detail on 
glassware used in Annapolis, for he owned 12 ?cut? wine glasses, along with 1 bottle 
case, 7 japanned waiters, 10 decanters, and 4 bottle stands.
159
 Although we know 
individuals, such as the Carrolls, were placing orders for cut glass, often appraisers 
did not take the time to label the glass as such in inventories. In addition to their 
notation of 95 pieces of glass (consisting of tumblers, wine, and jelly glasses), the 
                                                 
156
 Hood, The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg: A Cultural Study, Appendix 5, 299-302. 
157
 Anne Arundel County Register of Wills, MSA C88-1: 134, Maryland State Archives. 
158
 Anne Arundel County Register of Wills, MSA C88-2: 57-60, Maryland State Archives. 
159
 Anne Arundel County Testamentary Papers, Box 4, Folder 89, Maryland State Archives. 
 71
appraisers of Aquila Paca?s estate in 1789 recorded 1 large waiter, 4 small waiters, 1 
dozen wine glasses,
160
 5 small goblets, 3 decanters, and 2 old funnels.
161
  
 
As was mentioned in Chapter One, although Philip Thomas Lee took his wine to his 
father?s house in Charles County during the Revolutionary War, he left his wide 
variety of wine equipage in his Annapolis house where it would be waiting for him 
upon his return (except for 3 corkscrews located in Charles County). His probate 
record of 1780 (not recorded until 1789) provides unusual descriptions of the objects 
which prove to be noteworthy. Included in the list were 1 large mahogany wine 
cooler bound with brass, 19 cut wine glasses, 10 wine glasses, 1 half gallon decanter, 
4 genteel quart decanters, 1 pint decanter, 5 table decanters, and 2 plain quart wine 
decanters,1 large corkscrew, and 1 pewter funnel.
162
 For one decanter over another to 
be labeled as ?genteel,? it must have been quite an object. Was it engraved with 
flowers and grapevines? Did it have his initials etched into it? The other term ?table 
decanters? indicates that these pieces were also of an extremely nice quality. They 
were possibly even engraved with particular names of the beverages such as Madeira 
or Claret.  
 
Also in Chapter One, I described the impressive amount of wine stored in the cellar of 
Judge John Brice?s house in 1766, but surprisingly, he did not own many pieces of 
equipage in which to serve this wine. On the other hand, his son, James Brice who 
                                                 
160
 In comparison, 9 blue and white tea cups and saucers are listed. 
161
 Anne Arundel County Register of Wills, MSA C88-2: 299-307, Maryland State Archives. 
162
 Charles County Inventories, Maryland Register of Wills 1788-1791, MSA CM386-10: 246-260. 
Maryland State Archives. 
 72
finished building the grand, brick house his father had barely started before his death, 
had quite a large grouping of wine accoutrements but very little wine itself stored in 
the building when he died in 1802. James?s probate inventory lists 1 liquor case, 95 
pieces of glass (containing tumblers, wine and jelly glasses), 13 waiters of different 
sizes, and 7 glass decanters.
163
 
 
Section 2: Background on Equipage 
How do we make sense of this rich array of equipage in Annapolis households? 
Establishing an accurate environment for the activity of wine bibbing was a key 
element of the ritual. Since wine equipage played a lead role in this environment, it is 
important to understand the function of each object. Traditionally, wine was made 
and stored in wooden barrels or ?casks? and was shipped intact and left in its original 
container until the time came to bottle the wine for individual sale or to decant it in 
one?s private cellar. Other storage containers included hogsheads (large casks holding 
up to one hundred and forty-six gallons of liquid) and pipes (holding up to two 
hogsheads or four barrels).
164
 
 
When it came to shipping and storage, Madeira differed from other wines. Beginning 
in the early nineteenth century, Madeira was transferred from wooden casks to 
demijohns for storage upon delivery to its purchaser. Demijohns were glass or 
stoneware bottles covered with wickerwork and able to hold up to ten gallons. These 
containers were rarely labeled in an elaborate fashion. Instead they often were marked 
                                                 
163
 Anne Arundel County Testamentary Papers, Box 55, Folder 51, Maryland State Archives. 
164
 Robin  Butler and Gillian Walkling, The Book of Wine Antiques (Suffolk: The Antique Collectors' 
Club, 1986), 132. 
 73
with a chalk inscription or a handwritten paper label. Furthermore, the Madeira was 
usually not named after its vineyard but rather after the boat on which it was shipped 
or the family name of the person who acquired it.
165
  
 
Dining rooms, where much of this wine was consumed and whose name became 
more frequent in inventories after the mid-eighteenth century, were males? turf, so to 
speak.
166
 The mistress of the house may have been in charge of instructing the 
servants with regards to the appearance of the room or the meal, but typically her 
husband ordered the extravagant items used within the room. Cellarets, wine coolers, 
and sideboards will be discussed here. 
 
Although somewhat different in function, cellarets and wine coolers have fairly 
similar appearances. Basically, they are wooden boxes constructed with or without 
legs and seem to have been placed underneath the sideboard when not in use. Sarah 
Anna Emery observed in her hometown of Newburyport, Massachusetts, in the early 
1800s: ?beneath (the mahogany sideboard) generally stood an ornamental liquor case, 
and upon the top were some half dozen cut-glass decanters filled with wine, brandy, 
and other liquors; these were flanked by trays of wine glasses and tumblers.?
167
 While 
                                                 
165
 Berk, A Century Past: A Celebration of the Madeira Party in America, 6-9. 
166
 Specified dining rooms became more and more prevalent as the eighteenth-century progressed. 
Most of the houses lived in by the Annapolis gentlemen whose inventories were discussed in Chapter 
1, as well as earlier in this chapter had dining rooms. As dining became a symbol for affluence, these 
rooms became one of the most valued in the home. For more information see: Mark R. Wenger, "The 
Dining Room in Early Virginia," in Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, ed. Thomas Carter and 
Bernard L. Herman (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1989). 
167
 Quoted in Elisabeth Donaghy Garrett, "The American Home: The Dining Room," The Magazine 
Antiques (October 1984): 915. 
 74
entertaining, these small pieces of furniture (or, little cellars) could easily be moved 
closer to the table.  
 
The interiors of cellarets, or ?diminutive cellars,? were usually divided into six or 
twelve spaces for individual bottles or decanters. With the emergence of the empire or 
late neoclassical period, the appearance of the previously popular ?neat and plain? 
cellarets and coolers began to change. Classical designs, such as the octagonal forms 
of Roman sarcophagi started to dictate their shape.
168
 These fashionable storage 
pieces, although appearing not to be necessary, were, in fact, vital to a gentleman of a 
certain economic status who was serious about wine drinking. The London Price 
Books of the late eighteenth century record seven cellaret shapes: two square models, 
two ovals, one hexagon, one octagon, and an oblong octagon design.
169
 Most of these 
pieces accommodated bottles in a vertical position, but because the wines had a great 
deal of sediment, it was more advantageous to design interiors which could 
accommodate horizontal bottles. Thus, when the wine was decanted the sediment was 
less disturbed.  
 
Although cellarets were made of wood, particularly mahogany, coolers were made of 
many materials, including porcelain, silver, pewter, and wood and came in many 
shapes and sizes. Because coolers were used not only for the storage of bottles but 
                                                 
168
 William Voss Elder III and Jayne E. Stokes, American Furniture, 1680-1880 (Baltimore: The 
Baltimore Museum of Art, 1987), 177. 
169
 Susan Solony, "Some Unusual Stylistic Preferences in New York Cellaret Design, 1810-1834," 
Studies in the Decorative Arts Fall-Winter (1997-1998): 87. 
 75
also for the chilling of wine, the wooden versions had copper or tin linings to 
accommodate cold water or ice. Many coolers had spigots to drain the water and 
some could be quite large, as we can see from Laura Richards recollection: ?In this 
room were also the grand piano and the big sideboard, with its wine cooler, a piece of 
furniture dear to brother Harry and me in a peculiar way. It was an oblong chest of 
solid mahogany, the hexagonal cover sloping upward toward a trophy of grapes. 
When I look at it to-day, it is hard to imagine that brother Harry and I used to sit in it, 
facing each other. Our little boots were probably not at all good for the zinc 
lining.?
170
 Americans, however, did not seem to partake in the English tradition of 
having an extremely large silver cooler for the floor, which was part of a 3-piece set 
also containing a fountain and a cistern. With this contraption, wine glasses would be 
rinsed in the fountain, dirty water poured into the cistern and new wine poured from a 
bottle in the cooler. 
 
Evidence of American and English-made cellarets and coolers can be found in the 
inventories and original papers of the elite throughout the entire East Coast. Those 
most frequently listed in the Annapolis inventories were ?mahogany bottle cases? or 
?liquor cases.? These less than elaborate descriptive terms probably were used to 
cover a variety of examples, from the simple bottle case with handles which rested on 
the floor or table to a more decorative version which rested on legs. From the word 
?liquor? we can also assume that some of them possibly held more than just wine. 
Edward Lloyd?s storage unit was described as a mahogany case containing six 
                                                 
170
 Quoted in Garrett, "The American Home: The Dining Room," 913. Thomas Sheraton was one 
English furniture designer who made no distinction between cellarets and coolers. 
 76
bottles, each with a silver stopper and was probably a standing version on castors. 
Also found in Annapolis inventories is the term ?wine cooler.? Governor Eden had a 
wine cooler on legs as well as a case with bottles.  
 
From descriptions elsewhere in the states, we can formulate an even better picture of 
these objects at that time. In 1782, the Philadelphia merchant Richard Vaux ordered 
the following: 28 dozen plain wine glasses, 28 dozen flint Bumper wine glasses, 12 
dozen best plain wine glasses, and ?a solid mahogany case on a frame neatly inlaid on 
Brafs [sic] Box castors. A pair of strong Brafs lifting handles, stop hinges, and fine 
locke [sic]. Partitions within with green Bays [sic] and 15 flint half Gallon Bottles 
with ground and cut stoppers.?
171
 In 1797 Hugh Thompson of Baltimore ordered from 
London ?a Mahogany Oval Cellerette for 10 bottles lined with lead banded with sattin 
[sic] wood? for an expensive eight pounds. In the same year, he also ordered from 
London three dozen fluted and engraved wine glasses, two dozen full-size fluted and 
engraved champagne glasses, and two dozen fluted and engraved wine coolers.
172
 The 
inventory of Michael Muckenfuss?s belongings, taken in 1808 in Charleston included 
three cellarets; the largest with a ?raised top? was valued at a costly fifty dollars.
173
 
 
                                                 
171
 Richard Vaux Business Records, 1782-90, Winterthur Library, Joseph Downs Collection of 
Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera. 
172
 Hugh Thompson Papers, 1793-1824, MS990, Maryland Historical Society. I am grateful to 
Catherine Arthur at Homewood House for sharing this reference. The type of cooler mentioned would 
have sat on the table and will be discussed later in this chapter.  
173
 E. Milby Burton, Charleston Furniture, 1700-1825 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina 
Press, 1955), 58. 
 77
As early as 1779, clients began to purchase sideboards with bottle drawers in England 
and Ireland. In that same year, the firm of Gillows and Company in Lancaster, 
England, advertised ?a new sort of sideboard table now with drawers etc in a genteel 
style to hold bottles.?
174
 Referring to the English preoccupation with drinking, Robert 
Adam, the famous designer and architect said: ?Accustomed by habit, or induced by 
the nature of our climate, we indulge more largely [than the French] in the enjoyment 
of the bottle?
175
 ? thus there needed to be furniture to accommodate these bottles in 
an impressive manner. Adam also noted that the French did not put as much effort 
into the decoration of the dining room since both sexes together retired to another 
room immediately following their meals. The English and Americans, on the other 
hand, viewed dining rooms as ?the apartments of conversation, in which we are to 
pass a great part of our time.?
176
 Governor Eden and Edward Lloyd?s sideboards with 
the marble tops were probably examples of the latest English fashion. 
 
American-made sideboards with bottle drawers soon followed, as exemplified by 
those that John Shaw made in Annapolis. Also, in locations such as Maryland, 
huntboards became popular. These sideboards without drawers made it necessary to 
have a separate piece of furniture for the storage of bottles, one possible explanation 
for the abundance of cellarets in this area.
177
 Edward Lloyd IV may have been 
referring to such a piece in his order of decanters ?for a Sideboard Table? (discussed 
                                                 
174
 Quoted in Garrett, "The American Home: The Dining Room," 914. 
175
 Quoted in Solony, "Some Unusual Stylistic Preferences in New York Cellaret Design, 1810-1834," 
85. 
176
 Quoted in Garrett, At Home: The American Family, 1750-1870, 80. 
177
 Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal Period 1788-1825, 357-358. 
 78
earlier in the chapter), although full sideboards were also at times referred to as 
sideboard tables. The advertisement for the public sale in Charleston of Philip 
Henry?s household furniture made reference to a matching sideboard and wine 
storage piece by listing a ?mahogany side board with a brass hooped cooler.?
178
 
Paired sideboards set into niches were the ultimate display of refinement. After dining 
in New York in 1771, the artist, John Singelton Copley noted that each of the 
recessed niches on either side of the fireplace in his friend?s dining room contained a 
sideboard.
179
 
 
Annapolitans would closely watch their wine to decide when it was mature and ready 
to impress their guests. At that point, the wine needed to be transferred to bottles or 
decanters.
180
 In contrast to bottles seen today with creative labels, bottles at that time 
were plain, squat varieties with little or no markings.
181
 As early as 1650, wine bottles 
in England were minimally labeled on the shoulder with a glass seal indicating the 
owner, or sometimes merely the name of the contents.
182
 Thomas Lepper, proprietor 
of a New York glass manufactory, advertised personalized bottles in the 1754 issue of 
the New York Gazette.
183
 Two such wine bottles with the initials ?RW? were made for 
Richard Wistar circa 1745 to 1755. He was the son of Caspar Wistar, the founder of 
                                                 
178
 South Carolina and American General Gazette. 28 May, 1778. I am grateful to Jane Spillman at the 
Corning Museum of Glass for sharing this reference. 
179
 Garrett, At Home: The American Family, 1750-1870, 87. 
180
 Often this was done by well-qualified and trusted servants, under the oversight of the gentleman of 
the household, which led to an interesting relationship between the two. This will be explored more in 
Chapter 5.  
181
 For an in-depth study of English-made wine bottles see: Pittman, ?Morphological Variability in 
Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth-Century English Wine Bottles.? 
182
 Derek C. Davis, English and Irish Antique Glass (New York: Frerick A. Praeger, 1965), 68. 
183
 Arlene Palmer, "Glass Production in Eighteenth-Century America: The Wistarburgh Enterprise," 
Winterthur Portfolio 11 (1976): 85. 
 79
Wistarburgh Glassworks in Alloway, New Jersey, one of the first successful glass 
manufactories in the colonies, which was in operation from 1738 until the 
Revolution.
184
 Another bottle, dated 1752, bears the seal of William Savery, a 
Philadelphia cabinetmaker. It too may also be from the Wistarburgh manufactory.
185
  
 
Although mostly English in origin and not attributable to any known glasshouse, 
additional seals, such as the one belonging to Annapolis resident Charles Carroll of 
Carrollton
186
 have been discovered displaying other well-known names of American 
men. These include ?Robert Carter / 1713,? ?G Wythe / 1768? (first professor of law 
at the College of William and Mary and a signer of the Declaration of Independence), 
and ?GMA / 1760? for George and Ann Mason, all of Virginia; William de Hart of 
New Jersey, Henry Remsem of New York, J. Sherburne / 1754 of Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire and Jonathan Warner of Portsmouth.
187
 ?GA Hall? seals were found in 
archaeological digs at the Heyward-Washington House in Charleston, South Carolina. 
The seals have dates ranging from 1758 to 1812. GA Hall was Heyward?s brother-in-
law. 
188
 An embossed late eighteenth century seal of ?C. Pinkney? was discovered at 
the Miles Brewton house in Charleston, and an identical one was found at Charles 
Pinkney?s plantation in Mt. Pleasant. Pinkney probably brought the bottle to Brewton 
as gift, indicating the importance of such a commodity.
189
  Brewton?s own eighteenth-
                                                 
184
 Ibid.: 75. Object owned by the Corning Museum of Glass and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 
185
 Ibid.: 85. Object owned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 
186
 Owned by the Historic Annapolis Foundation and discussed in Chapter 1. 
187
 Carter: Department of Historic Resources of Virginia collection. Wythe: Colonial Williamsburg 
collection. Mason: Gunston Hall collection. Hart and Remsem: New-York Historical Society 
collection. Sherburne and Warner: Warner House collection. 
188
 Charleston Museum collection. 
189
 Charleston Museum collection. 
 80
century marked bottle was discovered during an archaeological dig at his house.
190
 
Finally, a wine bottle in the Metropolitan Museum of Art?s collection is a nice 
surviving example of one documenting its ownership and contents. The bottle is 
impressed with the name ?T.C./Pearsall? and printed on a paper label affixed to the 
body is the importing information: ?Madeira Wine / Imported by T.C.P. from 
Murdock, Masterton and Co. / 1800.? 
 
To date there has been very little evidence of African American men drinking 
imported wine. This recently changed with an extremely pertinent discovery of wine 
bottle fragments and seals at the James Dexter Site in Philadelphia. Dexter was a free 
African American who lived in a house on North Fifth Street from 1790 to 1798. This 
discovery will hopefully lead to further revelations in this area of study.
191
 Although 
all of the above mentioned bottles are interesting to us today as fragments of the past, 
in their time they were not meant to be placed on the table or even within view of the 
diners. They would have been kept in a bottle drawer, cellaret or wine cooler.
192
  
 
Corkscrews or bottle openers, which were English made and first appeared in the late 
seventeenth century, presumably were used for opening more than wine bottles; 
however every wine-consuming gentleman had to possess one. Thomas Jones of the 
Chesapeake area purchased a corkscrew in July of 1755, and Benjamin Chew of 
                                                 
190
 Private collection. I am grateful to Martha Zierden at the Charleston Museum for sharing this 
information. 
191
 I am grateful to Cheryl LaRoche for sharing this information. 
192
 Seals with the names of American men are being discovered all the time. As this represents physical 
evidence of wine consumption in this country, a separate study exclusively on this subject matter is 
warranted. For more information on wine bottle seals, see: Ivor Noel Hume, Glass in Colonial 
Williamsburg's Archaeological Collections, Colonial Williamsburg Archaeological Series No. 1 
(Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1969). 
 81
Philadelphia purchased two corkscrews in August of 1768 as a group of goods for his 
daughter Mary?s dowry.
193
 Corkscrews have been discovered in archaeological digs 
along the East Coast and are now housed in collections such as the Department of 
Historic Resources in Virginia. In Annapolis, Philip Thomas Lee owned four 
corkscrews. Additionally, one eighteenth-century corkscrew, possibly owned by a 
Dulany family member, was given in the 1980s to the Historic Annapolis Foundation. 
 
Siphons and funnels with strainers were also part of the necessary accoutrements for 
transferring wine from one storage container to another. Wines in the eighteenth and 
nineteenth centuries had a great deal of sediment, necessitating the use of a siphon for 
decanting purposes. By drawing the wine out of its container, rather than pouring it, 
less of the residue was disturbed. Gentlemen elevated these objects from their 
utilitarian status by having them made either of silver or, in the case of funnels, also 
of porcelain and glass. Among the known American-made siphons is a circa 1800 
example with an unknown maker?s mark of ?TH? in the Historic Deerfield collection. 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has another American siphon made between 1700 
and 1800 also by an unknown maker, which was owned by Lieutenant-Governor 
Bentham of South Carolina. And the silversmith Samuel Williamson made a siphon 
in Philadelphia between 1800 and 1810, which is now located in the Philadelphia 
Museum of Art.  
 
                                                 
193
 Gunston Hall Plantation Probate Inventory Database. Richards, "The City Home of Benjamin 
Chew, Sr., and His Family: A Case Study of the Textures of Life," Appendix III, 84. 
 82
Another way to deal with the sediment was to pour the wine through a funnel with a 
strainer, thus allowing for the loose particles to be captured. A funnel made circa 
1780 to 1790 by the Philadelphia maker Richard Humphreys is in the Historic 
Deerfield Collection, and the inventory of Governor Tryon?s New York house, taken 
after a fire in 1773, lists a silver ?decanter funnel.?
194
 In addition to Philip Thomas 
Lee of Annapolis owning a pewter funnel, two other Annapolitans, Daniel Dulany 
and Robert Eden, owned silver strainers, which presumably functioned in a similar 
manner. Another interesting American piece of silver is a wine taster made by 
Henricus Boelen of New York City circa 1730.
195
 Although this was a common 
object for a wine connoisseur to possess, few American examples are known; most 
were imported from England and rarely listed on inventories. 
 
In addition to the large cellarets and coolers mentioned earlier in this chapter, there 
were also similar, yet smaller examples of these pieces, which held one, two, or four 
decanters and sat directly on the table. An interesting quadruple cooler of this type is 
in the Mount Vernon collection. Made in England circa 1790 and plated in silver, the 
bucket contains four individual holders of pierced silver plate. In October 1789 
Washington was quite specific when placing the order for the coolers: 
Of plated ware may be made I conceive handsome and useful Coolers for 
wine at and after dinner. Those I am in need of viz. [sic] eight double ones 
(for Madeira and claret the wines usually drank at dinner) each of the 
apertures to be sufficient to contain a pint decanter, with an allowance in the 
depth of it for ice at bottom so as to raise the neck of the decanter above the 
cooler; between the apertures a handle is to be placed by which these double 
coolers may with convenience be removed from one part of the table to the 
other. For the wine after dinner four quadruple coolers will be necessary?The 
                                                 
194
 Hood, The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg: A Cultural Study, Appendix 6, 303-306. 
195
 New-York Historical Society collection. 
 83
reason why I prefer an aperture for every decanter or bottle to coolers that 
would contain two and four is that whether full or empty the bottles will 
always stay upright and never be at variance with each other.
196
 
 
On August 14, 1797, Washington wrote to Clement Biddle, a friend who handled 
Washington?s business affairs in Philadelphia, regarding two four-bottle coolers, 
which he left in Philadelphia and wished to have sold. On the same day he wrote to 
Secretary James McHenry asking for three of the double coolers to be given as tokens 
of his friendship to McHenry, Colonel Pickering, and Mr. Wolcott.
197
 
 
Another Presidential silver wine cooler in the White House collection, one of four 
acquired by the future President James Monroe while he was in France and made 
circa 1798 to 1809 by the famous Parisian silver maker Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot, 
is a highly sculptural piece with an elegantly engraved band of grape leaves. The 
inscription ?President?s House? was engraved on this cooler at a later date. 
?Japanned? coolers such as those in Colonel Edward Darrell?s 1802 inventory were 
probably the size appropriate for table use and were decorated to simulate Chinese 
lacquer. This style became popular in England and America in the eighteenth century 
as trade expanded in the Far East. Toleware also became a desired medium for dining 
accessories. These objects were usually made out of thin sheets of metal, especially 
tin, and were then painted in various decorative schemes. James Rundlett of 
Portsmouth, New Hampshire owned a tole decanter holder, which is still located in 
                                                 
196
 Gerald W.R. Ward, ed., Becoming a Nation: Americana from the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, 
U.S. Department of State (New York: Rizzoli, 2003), 48. I am grateful to James Abbott for sharing this 
reference. 
197
 John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington, 39 vols., vol. 36 (Washington, D.C.: 
United States Government Printing Office, 1931-1944), 10. Ward, ed., Becoming a Nation: Americana 
from the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State, 48. 
 84
the Rundlett-May House. One additional type of cooler was listed in Edward Lloyd 
IV?s 1796 inventory: 4 china coolers. Although these may have been large enough to 
be on the floor, they were more apt to be individual ones which sat on the sideboard 
or dining table.
198
  
 
By the mid-eighteenth century, it had become fashionable for servants to pour the 
wine into glass decanters which they would either place on the table or pass to the 
seated gentlemen. According to a 1715 dictionary, a decanter was defined as ?a Bottle 
made of clear Flint-glass, for the holding of Wine, etc. to be pour?d off into a 
Drinking-Glass.?
199
 Decanters were mostly imported, the majority being from 
England or Ireland, and ranged from simple blown varieties to elaborate engraved and 
cut glass versions in clear or colored assortments. Boston merchant Lewis DeBlois 
advertised in 1761 that he had received from London and Bristol the ?best? engraved 
and flowered decanters and wineglasses, which were probably quite similar to the 
flowered decanter listed in the Annapolis inventory of Benjamin Kennedy.
200
 Certain 
varieties of decanters were ?labell?d? meaning that they had the name of the type of 
wine they were meant to contain engraved on the glass in a way that mimicked a 
bottle ticket. A merchant advertised in a 1764 edition of the New York Gazette that he 
had the ?newest fashioned decanters labeled Madeira,?
201
 an example of which was 
discovered in an archaeological dig of a dry well site at Thomas Jefferson?s home, 
                                                 
198
 Talbot County Inventories, Volume JPF, Microfilm Reel WK 597-598: 38-133.  Maryland State 
Archives. 
199
 Quoted in Arlene Palmer, Glass in Early America (Winterthur, DE: Henry Francis duPont 
Winterthur Museum, 1993), 124. 
200
 Cleo Witt, Cyril Weeden, and Arlene Palmer Schwind, Bristol Glass (Bristol: Redcliffe Press Ltd., 
1984), 74. DuBlois advertisement in Boston Gazette (June 8, 1761). 
201
 Quoted in Hume, Glass in Colonial Williamsburg's Archaeological Collections, 25. 
 85
Monticello. This circa 1760 to 1770 English decanter has a wheel-engraved cartouche 
surrounding the word ?Madeira? and an elegantly engraved grape motif covers the 
body. Another rare and important artifact is a lead glass decanter in the Strawbery 
Banke collection in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which has the local Sherburne 
family coat of arms etched into its body. Probably made in England circa 1750 to 
1760, this piece is significant because few surviving glass objects have American 
armorial decoration. The abundance of decanters listed in the Annapolis probate 
records could be due in part to quantity and variety of wines in these gentlemen?s 
cellars. Drinking with their contemporaries after dinner required an assortment of 
appropriate containers to properly hold and display the wine. 
 
Customarily, when wine bottles and decanters were removed from the storage cases 
and placed either on the table or sideboard, they were set in what was known as a 
wine slide, otherwise labeled as a stand or coaster. The word ?slide? was used to 
indicate that when thirst beckoned at the other end of the table, the bottle and coaster 
were literally slid from one end of the table to the other. Since most of the drinking 
occurred after the tablecloth had been removed, this would have been possible on a 
table?s highly polished mahogany surface. Examples from the mid-eighteenth century 
were fairly consistent in shape. Many had hard wood bases and elaborately pierced 
silver sides. A distinctive turned ribbed pattern in the base helped keep drips off the 
table. Most decanters had tops or stoppers further reducing the possibility of spillage. 
Later versions of slides had glass or silver bases. To prevent scratching the surface of 
the table, the underside of the coaster was covered in felt. This type of object was 
 86
fairly prevalent in Annapolis inventories. In fact, it appears to have been the most 
popular piece of wine equipage after glasses and decanters. 
 
In addition to Edward Lloyd IV and Charles Carroll, Barrister, many other Americans 
were acquiring silver bottle stands. A pair of silver coasters made by Myer Myers of 
New York City circa 1770 to 1776 bears an engraving of the Schuyler family crest, 
owned by Philip Schuyler of New York.
202
 Another prominent gentleman, Arthur 
Middleton of South Carolina, ordered coasters with his initials and crest engraved on 
them while on a trip to England with his wife, Mary Izard Middleton. They were 
made circa 1771 to 1772 by the English silversmith, Thomas Langford and are 
currently owned by the Middleton Place Foundation.
203
 In 1768, Charles Harris, a 
silversmith in Charleston, advertised that he ?makes and sells all sorts of new 
fashionable bottle stands,?
204
 and Philip Fithian, a tutor from New Jersey who worked 
for Robert Carter of Nomini Hall in Virginia, recorded that the Carters purchased a 
?Pair of elegant Decanter-holders? and a ?pair of fashionable Goblets? all in silver 
plate on September 12, 1774.
205
 
 
Although silver coasters were the most widely sought after, by the end of the 
eighteenth century, imported red or black papier-m?ch? coasters with gold foliate 
                                                 
202
 New-York Historical Society collection. The Schuylers were a prominent family in Albany, New 
York. 
203
 Arthur Middleton (1742-1787) was one of South Carolina?s signers of the Declaration of 
Independence. I am grateful to Barbara Doyle at Middleton Place for her assistance with this 
information. 
204
 Quoted in  Maurie Dee McInnis, In Pursuit of Refinement: Charlestonians Abroad, 1740-1860 
(Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1999), 273. 
205
 Hunter Dickinson Farish, ed., Journal & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian 1773-1774: A Plantation 
Tutor of the Old Dominion (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1957), 189. 
 87
patterns on the sides were also popular,
206
 along with other materials, such as leather 
and toleware. In Annapolis, Thomas Stone?s inventory of 1788 lists four ?gilt paper 
decanter stands? which were, presumably, of the papier-m?ch? variety,
207
 and an 
example of a toleware coaster belonging to an American can be seen at the Rundlett-
May House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Governor Eden?s inventory in Annapolis 
lists four leather bottle stands; Benjamin Kennedy and Edward Lloyd each had two. 
 
Whereas it was common for wine bottles to be labeled in some fashion, decanters 
typically were not, which gave rise to yet another accessory, the bottle ticket. These 
tickets, or labels as we frequently refer to them today, came into use around 1730 and 
were usually made of a flat piece of cast chiseled, chased, engraved, or pierced silver 
with a simple chain to hang elegantly around the neck of the decanter. They were also 
made of porcelain and, very rarely, of glass. On the same trip to England when he 
ordered the coasters, Arthur Middleton acquired a variety of silver wine labels 
engraved with the names:  Madeira, white wine, Claret, Mountain, Champagne, 
Hock, Burgundy, and Port.
208
 Eight silver ?decanter tickets? were also listed in 
Governor Tryon?s New York inventory of 1773.
209
 Few American-made wine labels 
are known, presumably because it was easier for silversmiths to import these items 
since such a small piece of silver was barely profitable. One known American label is 
engraved ?Madeira? and stamped with the mark of Louis Boudo, a Charleston 
                                                 
206
 Peter Brown, "Stands, Coasters, Wagons, and Chariots for the Table," The Magazine Antiques 
(1996): 526. 
207
 Charles County Inventories, Maryland Register of Wills 1785-1788, MSA CM386-9: 489-494. 
Maryland State Archives.  
208
 Middleton Place Foundation collection. I am grateful to Barbara Doyle for her assistance with this 
information. 
209
 Hood, The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg: A Cultural Study, Appendix 6, 303-306. 
 88
silversmith who worked from 1786 to 1827. However, the Prince of Wales feather 
design on the top, which in England was used exclusively by the Bateman 
silversmiths, suggests that this particular piece was imported to Charleston and 
marked by Boudo before sale.
210
  
 
Although labels denoting Champagne do exist, they are rare since the short life span 
of an opened bottle of Champagne precludes its long-term placement in a decanter. 
Some scholars believe the use of this label was merely a tactic for showing off the 
excesses one could afford, though, the historian, Ann Hansen, notes that the name 
?champagne? referred to any red or white wine produced in the Champagne region of 
France. Thus, labels could conceivably have been used for the non-effervescent 
variety.
211
  The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has a ?Champagne? silver label in its 
collection, presumably made by Thomas Hammersley of New York circa 1780. It is 
perplexing to note that bottle tickets were not recorded in Annapolis probate 
inventories. Although there is no clear reason for this, I find it impossible to believe 
that that they were never used by the residents of this town.  
 
Another piece of silver that graced the tables and sideboards of the gentlemen of 
Annapolis was the salver, which refers to a flat serving form similar to a tray but 
frequently elevated on feet or a base. This object had multiple uses, for it could hold 
either tea or wine equipage. In doing so, it not only kept spills from the table, it also 
                                                 
210
 Captain Sir Thomas Barlow, "An Early 19th Century Label from America," Wine Label Circle 
Journal (2000): 259. The label is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art?s collection. 
211
 Ann Natalie Hansen, "The Social History of the Wine Label," Silver Magazine XXI, no. IV (1988): 
31. 
 89
symbolically lifted the beverage in importance. At times, especially in the Annapolis 
region, these objects were frequently referred to as waiters. On June 8, 1789, George 
Washington?s personal secretary, Tobias Lear, wrote to Clement Biddle in 
Philadelphia: ??the President is desireous [sic] of getting a sett [sic] of those waiters, 
salvers, or whatever they are called, which are set in the middle of the dining 
table??
212
 
 
Since silver generally survives better than glass, there are numerous examples of 
elaborate silver salvers that can be traced back to important men of the eighteenth and 
nineteenth centuries, including Daniel Dulany of Annapolis. Many even have the 
family?s initials or coat of arms engraved in the center, such as an elaborately chased 
salver executed circa 1754 in Philadelphia by Philip Syng, Jr. This piece, located in 
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, was made for the wedding of Edward and 
Sarah Penington and is decorated with flowers, c-scrolls, and leaves around a 
centrally engraved cipher. An English salver in the Historic Charleston Foundation 
collection is engraved with the arms of Lieutenant Governor William Bull II and was 
made circa 1762 by Samuel Courtauld I. And a New York salver made by John Heath 
circa 1765 to 1770 was designed in the rococo style and sits on four ball-and-claw 
feet. Engraved in the center within a cartouche of c-scrolls and foliage is the Schuyler 
family coat of arms.
213
 Japanned waiters, similar in style to the Japanned coolers, 
were also available. Both Benjamin Kennedy and Joseph Pemberton of Annapolis 
                                                 
212
 Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Manuscript Department. Quoted in Susan Detweiler, George 
Washington's Chinaware (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1982), Appendix. 
213
 Winterthur Museum collection. See mention of the Schuyler family in the section on bottle coasters.  
 90
owned them, and although these waiters would have been fashionable, they were not 
as practical as silver for frequent and long-term use. 
 
Like decanters, glasses were usually imported from England or Ireland, particularly 
prior to the Revolution. When free trade occurred after the War, they also frequently 
came from Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, among other countries. The novelty 
of wine glasses was that their shape had a deliberate function. The long stem 
distanced the wine from the table, giving the liquid an unusual importance, and the 
small vase-shape at the top was thought to enhance the color and brightness of the 
beverage.
214
 Glassware was typically described in invoices and inventories, including 
those related to Annapolitans, either by its appearance: ?plain,? ?neat,? ?enameled,? 
?cut? or by the type of wine it was meant to hold such as ?claret.? Additionally, 
fragments of wine glasses of all shapes and colors have been found in archaeological 
sites around the country, including ones with plain air-twist, colored air-twist, and 
faceted stems.
215
 The air-twist design was created by inserting air traps into the stem 
of the glass and then drawing the air out into spiral patterns; this style was frequently 
referred to as a ?worm?d? glass.
216
 On August 4, 1763, William Robert advertised in 
the Maryland Gazette the ?best worm?d wine glasses.?
217
 By the 1750s, but 
particularly between 1760 and 1775, opaque white threads were used to create spiral 
and gauze designs within stems. White was the most popular color of these enamel-
                                                 
214
 Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), 242-243. 
215
 Examples can be seen in collections all over the East Coast, including Colonial Williamsburg, 
Department of Historic Resources in Virginia, Strawberry Banke, and Historic Annapolis Foundation. 
216
 Ivor Noel Hume, A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), 
193. 
217
 Maryland Gazette, MSA SC2731-2-6. Maryland State Archives. 
 91
twist glasses in the colonies but green, blue, and red enamel-twist wine glasses have 
also been discovered in archeological digs.
218
 In December of 1771 Robert Cary sent 
an invoice to George Washington for ?3 dozn Enamel wine Glasses,? and in the South 
Carolina Gazette of 1763, Charleston merchant, Walter Mansell, advertised: 
?wormed and enameled wine-glasses,? possibly referring to a combination of air-
twist and opaque-twist in one stem (similar to the stem fragment found at the Calvert 
House in Annapolis and discussed earlier in this chapter).
219
 A few years later, wine 
glasses with wheel-cut stems of hexagonal facets and wheel-engraved bowls with a 
variety of designs became all the rage.
220
 As noted before, specific types of glass were 
rarely identified in Annapolis inventories, except for in Benjamin Kennedy?s, which 
listed flowered wine glasses and in Philip Thomas Lee?s, which listed cut wine 
glasses. 
 
Before the Revolution, the glass manufacturers of Bristol, England supplied much of 
the colonies? glassware. Frederick Rhinelander, a New York glass and china 
merchant primarily used Vigor and Stevens at Redcliff Backs for his supply of Bristol 
glass. Rhinelander specified which type of stem he desired, from enamel-twist to 
?diamond? (presumably facet-cut in a diamond pattern) and which bowl shape, 
including globe, pear, or lemon.
221
 From Vigor & Stevens, Rhinelander also ordered 
?Spanish? wine glasses. Although this particular form is not known to us today, 
                                                 
218
 Hume, Glass in Colonial Williamsburg's Archaeological Collections, 22. There were no colored 
enamel twist stems in the small grouping of archaeological fragments I was given access to in 
Annapolis, but this does not mean they were unavailable or unused in the town. 
219
 ?George Washington?s Papers.? Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Microfilm Reel 116. 
Palmer, Glass in Early America, 67. 
220
 Hume, A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America, 194. 
221
 Witt, Weeden, and Schwind, Bristol Glass, 74-75, 77-81. The Rhinelander business papers are 
located in the New-York Historical Society collection. 
 92
advertisements for this specific shape of glass appeared in the South Carolina Gazette 
on November 20, 1752, and in the New York Mercury on April 4, 1762.
222
  
 
As was discussed earlier in this chapter, customers at times placed individualized 
orders of glassware to reflect their wealth and taste. In 1796, William Smith of 
Boston purchased an elaborate set of glass from Bristol, which included decanters, 
wines, tumblers and rummers, all with the initials ?WS? engraved on a shield.
223
 Just 
like Charles Carroll, Barrister, Peter Lyons of Virginia wrote to a London agent in 
1771 requesting wine glasses of a very particular variety: ?I have given Captn. 
Robinson a Wine Glass as a pattern for two dozen mentioned in the Invoice to be sent 
to me.?
224
 By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries many advertisements 
record large quantities of glass shipments, and inventories usually list a wide range of 
stemware. A 1797 invoice from a Bristol glass manufacturer to T & T Powell, 
merchants of Baltimore, listed the following: ?6 quart decanters rings cut out fluted, 
engraved to pattern, 12 pint decanters to match, 3 dozen clarettes fluted and engraved, 
3 dozen wines ditto, 2 dozen full size Champaign glasses ditto, and 2 dozen wine 
coolers ditto.? Presumably, these were ordered by Hugh Thompson, whose cellaret 
order was mentioned earlier in this chapter.
225
  
 
                                                 
222
 Arlene Palmer Schwind, "English Glass Imports in New York, 1770-1790," Journal of Glass 
Studies 25 (1983): 182. 
223
 Witt, Weeden, and Schwind, Bristol Glass, 84. The objects are located in the Portland Museum of 
Art collection. 
224
 Francis Norton Mason, ed., John Norton & Sons, Merchants of London and Virginia (Richmond: 
Dietz Press, 1937), 191. 
225
 Hugh Thomspon Papers, 1793-1824, MS990, Maryland Historical Society. Quoted in Dwight P. 
Lanmon, "The Baltimore Glass Trade, 1780-1820," Winterthur Portfolio 5 (1969): 22. 
 93
Not all stemware was imported since American-made eighteenth-century wine 
glasses do exist, though not in great quantities. One of the earliest examples of a wine 
glass with rococo decoration is attributed to Henry William Stiegel, owner of 
American Flint Glass Manufactory in Manheim, Pennsylvania, America?s first 
manufacturer of colored glass. Commemorating the marriage of Stiegel?s daughter, 
Elizabeth, to William Old in 1773, the piece is made of lead glass with an English-
style opaque white-twist stem and an engraved bowl with a rose decoration and a 
foliate cartouche enclosing the inscription ?W & E OLD.?
226
 Three surviving wine 
glasses with ?GR? and a surrounding wreath with flowers were made for George and 
Metha Repold of Baltimore by the New Bremen Glassmanufactory circa 1785. 
George Repold was a merchant who did business with John Frederick Amelung, the 
owner of the New Bremen glasshouse. Repold?s inventory listed three dozen wine 
glasses.
227
 
 
While glass tended to be the most commonly used medium for stemware during this 
time, other materials, most notably silver, were also available. Silver goblets tended 
to be reserved for use during a ceremonious occasion. Thomas Jefferson designed a 
silver goblet around 1789, the drawing of which is located at the Massachusetts 
Historical Society and the goblets, made in France by Claude-Nicolas Delanoy, are 
owned by Monticello.  
 
                                                 
226
 Morrison H. Heckscher and Leslie Greene Bowman, American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in 
Ornament (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992), 230. 
227
 Dwight P. Lanmon, et al., John Frederick Amelung: Early American Glassmaker (Corning: The 
Corning Museum of Glass Press, 1990), 84. The glasses are in the Corning Museum of Glass 
collection. 
 94
Regardless of whether one was using glass or silver stemware, the protocol for 
arranging wine glasses was of paramount importance. Robert Roberts in his House 
Servants Directory of 1827 suggested displaying them on the sideboard in a 
semicircle: ?Your glasses should form a crescent or half circle, as this looks sublime. 
If you should have a light on your sideboard, you must leave a vacant place behind 
your glasses for it; in forming the crescent, your highest glasses must be the farthest 
off, the smallest ones in the inner circle??
228
 One wonders whether Edward Lloyd 
was attempting to create just such a symbolic display when he specifically noted that 
the decanters he ordered in 1792 were for a sideboard table. 
 
Yet another extravagant element of this ritual was the ability to serve wine in chilled 
glasses, which necessitated an additional piece of equipage called the monteith.  The 
first known written reference to this particular object was made by Anthony Wood, a 
British antiquarian, who wrote in 1683: ?This yeare [sic] in the summer time came up 
a vessel or bason notched at the brims to let drinking glasses hang there by the foot so 
that the body or drinking place might stand in the water to cool them.?
229
 Many of the 
early monteiths came with a detachable collar so that they could also function as 
punch bowls. These elaborate display items were made in many materials, including 
silver, pewter, glass, porcelain, and tole. In the 1790s Joseph Barrell of Boston 
referred to his silver plated set of coolers as ?two for glasses and four for 
                                                 
228
 Roberts, The House Servant's Directory, 48. 
229
 Quoted in Jessie McNab, "The Legacy of a Fantastical Scot," The Metropolitan Museum of Art 
Bulletin  (1961): 173. 
 95
decanters.?
230
 Monteiths typically rested away from the table, either on a sideboard or 
smaller table, where a servant had easy access to them. By the mid-eighteenth 
century, the French were making an object called a verri?re, which was a shallower, 
oval version of the monteith. Usually made of delicately-decorated French porcelain, 
it was intended for the table. 
 
Americans were aware of the popularity of monteiths and verri?res and ordered them 
from abroad. A plain English creamware verri?re circa 1780 to 1810, originally used 
by a family in Greenland, New Hampshire, is currently in Strawbery Banke?s 
collection. Because this family was not known to travel or to collect items, we can 
assume the monteith was acquired by them in the early nineteenth century. In the 
collection at Monticello is a circa 1787 S?vres hard-paste porcelain verri?re, which 
belonged to Thomas Jefferson, and, in the Reeves Center Collection at Washington 
and Lee University is a Chinese Export porcelain monteith painted with the coat of 
arms of the Clement family of Philadelphia surrounded by a border of grapevines in 
polychrome enamels and gold. Although I have yet to discover any monteiths or 
verri?res listed in Annapolis inventories, individuals in the Maryland and Virginia 
regions did own such pieces. In Orange County, Virginia Alexander Spotswood?s 
1741 inventory listed one monteith, and in Williamsburg, James Geddy?s inventory 
taken in 1744 included a pewter monteith.
231
 Small numbers of American-made silver 
monteiths are known, especially in the north, such as the one made by Daniel 
                                                 
230
 Quoted in Louise Conway Belden, The Festive Tradition: Table Decoration and Desserts in 
America, 1650-1900 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983), 245. 
231
 John D. Davis, English Silver at Williamsburg (Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 
1976), 44. I am grateful to Mark Letzer for sharing this source with me. 
 96
Henchman of Boston and presented to the President of Dartmouth College by John 
Wentworth, Royal Governor of New Hampshire to commemorate the college?s first 
graduation in 1771.
232
  
 
A final object that appeared on the table for the same purpose as the monteith was one 
called a rinse, which was a small, individual glass cooler, placed at each setting on a 
table. Rinses were used for either cleaning glasses between wines or for chilling them 
so that they could hold white wine or champagne. Examples of nicely etched English 
glass rinses marked ?JM? for Joseph Manigault? are currently owned by the 
Charleston Museum.  
 
In colonial America, no other individual element of dining required the number of 
pieces of equipage as wine consumption, which indicates the importance placed on 
this ritual. The public auction listing of William Bingham?s property in Philadelphia 
in November of 1805 represents an accurate account of the variety of wine equipage 
owned by an elite member of society at that time. Included in the sale was a 
mahogany wine cooler, 25 plain wine glasses, 32 figured wine glasses, 37 figured 
claret glasses, 19 champagne glasses, 2 cut glass quart decanters, 11 pint cut glass 
decanters, 2 large round waiters, 2 small round waiters, 6 wine labels, 2 silver goblets 
gilt inside, 1 strainer, and 1 pair of coasters.
233
 Benjamin Chew Sr.?s purchases from 
1774 through 1801 also represent a wide variety of wine paraphernalia. They 
                                                 
232
 Hood Museum of Art collection. 
233
 Robert C. Alberts, The Golden Voyage: The Life and Times of William Bingham 1752-1804 
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969), Appendix IV. I am grateful to Lance Humphries for 
sharing this information. 
 97
included 15 decanters, 1 dozen Claret glasses, 2 Japanned waiters, 2 corkscrews, cut 
wine glasses, 1 pair of cut decanters in quart size, 1 dozen cut decanters in pint size, 
and 1 pair of bottle stands.
234
 When ?His Excellency the Right Honorable Lord 
William Campbell? fled Charleston in the beginning of the Revolutionary War, he 
left behind: 1 very large cut glass decanter in a plate basket, 1 large mahogany 
sideboard, 1 silver mounted butler, 2 bottle stands, 1 dozen basket bottle stands, 3 five 
quart decanters, 1 half gallon decanter, 11 quart decanters, 10 pint decanters, 3 quart 
decanters cut, 3 plain glass salvers, 80 wine glasses of 2 patterns, 1 plate waiter, 3 
small plate waiters, 8 plate labels or bottle tickets
235
 Lord Botetourt?s inventory of 
1770 lists some of the largest number of varied and unusual wine accoutrements: 12 
bottle stands, 1 mahogany wine cooler, 28 cut wine glasses, 2 Japanned wine cisterns, 
4 silver plate salvers, 1 large silver plate waiter, 18 silver bottle labels, 1 silver plate 
wine strainer, 5 cut glass wine decanters, 16 plain quart decanters, 6 flowered wine 
glasses, 35 plain wine glasses, 30 flowered wine glasses, 1 iron cork screw, 1 wine 
crane, 1 quart and 1 pint wine decanter, 45 wine glasses, 21 glass salvers.
236
 
Interestingly, in my research, I have only come across the term ?crane? twice in 
inventories, once in that of Lord Botetourt and the other in the 1761 Annapolis 
inventory of Patrick Creagh which lists ?one small pewter bottle crane.?
237
 Although 
the exact function of this piece is still a mystery to scholars, my opinion is that it 
possibly referred to a type of siphon used to draw the wine out of a bottle when 
decanting it. 
                                                 
234
 Richards, "The City Home of Benjamin Chew, Sr., and His Family: A Case Study of the Textures 
of Life," 61, 84-89. 
235
 Hood, The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg: A Cultural Study, Appendix 7, 307-313. 
236
 Ibid., Appendix 1, 287-295.  
237
 Prerogative Court Inventories, Microfilm SR4356-3: 82-89. Maryland State Archives. 
 98
 
In this chapter I have outlined a vast array of objects related to wine consumption. 
Few gentlemen in the colonies, including those in Annapolis, had this great of an 
assortment of accoutrements. Royal Governors seemed to have the most extensive 
amount of objects, probably because they entertained on a higher level than even the 
wealthiest of individuals such as Edward Lloyd IV. Nevertheless, the actual objects 
still in existence today that can be traced back to specific Americans, along with the 
invoices, probate inventories, and other primary sources, are ?faithful records? that 
tell the stories of their time.
238
 There was a reason for such quantity and quality of 
objects, for they were needed to augment the behavior accompanying the 
consumption of this beverage in order to create the perception of symbolic luxury.  
 
 
 
                                                 
238
 Carson, "The Consumer Revolution in Colonial America: Why Demand?" 556-57. 
 99
Chapter 4: Architecture and Wine 
 
?All who purchase wine for their own consumption,  
should have a cellar to hold it.?
239
 
 
Surviving architecture and written or visual records discussing or depicting 
architectural spaces dedicated to the storage of wine should also be viewed as 
historical evidence indicating the extreme importance of this ritual among the upper 
class. Similar to the objects used within its walls, the house ?became a necessary 
extension of one?s identity as a gentleman.? Prevalent by the mid-eighteenth century, 
larger houses took on a more significant role than merely providing shelter, for they 
were grand arenas used to display one?s place among equals and to buffer oneself 
from associating with those of a different status.
240
  
 
The ability to dine elegantly at home, alone, or with guests gave a homeowner greater 
prestige than his ability to drink in public places such as taverns or clubs. Different 
dynamics occurred within a private home, for it offered a socially charged setting 
where one was able to create and display an atmosphere of individual wealth, 
accomplishment, and prestige. Wine storage areas, as well as dining rooms, supplied 
the framework for these activities that demonstrated one?s social accomplishments. 
 
                                                 
239
 Cyrus Redding, Every Man His Butler (London: Whittaker & Co., 1839), 62. 
240
 Jan K. Gilliam, "The Evolution of the House in Early Virginia," in The American Home: Material 
Culture, Domestic Space, and Family Life, ed. Eleanor McD. Thompson (Winterthur, Delaware: Henry 
Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1998), 193, 177. See also: Wenger, "The Dining Room in Early 
Virginia." 
 
 100
The most obvious way that architecture was used to frame the activity of wine 
connoisseurship and, in turn, the economic and social power of an individual was 
through the construction of wine cellars. Cyrus Redding, an Englishman who wrote 
etiquette manuals, stated in his 1839 book, Every Man His Own Butler, ?all who 
purchase wine for their own consumption, should have a cellar to hold it, just as one 
who has taken himself a wife, should get a suitable dwelling for her reception.?
241
 A 
stocked wine cellar proved that the owner could afford more than just a few bottles of 
choice, imported wine.  
 
 
Section 1: Case Study of Annapolis 
Although Mark Leone?s description below applies to the gardens of some of the 
imposing houses in Annapolis, it could be extended to their wine cellars as well: ?It 
was not passive, it was very active, for by walking in it, building it, looking at it, 
admiring and discussing it, and using it in any way, its contemporaries could take 
themselves and their position as granted and convince others that the way things are is 
the way they always had been and should remain.?
242
 When these houses of the 
eighteenth-century Annapolis elite were being constructed, their owners made 
conscious decisions regarding the types of space they wanted incorporated. 
Furthermore, these choices said volumes about the owners? perception of their place 
                                                 
241
 Redding, Every Man His Butler, 62. Although this book was published in London a bit later than 
the events discussed in this paper, it was still very pertinent to the eighteenth and early nineteenth 
century colonists. The author even states in his introduction that the subject ?should be applicable in 
New York or in Sidney as at home? (iv). 
242
 Mark P. Leone, "Interpreting Ideology in Historical Archaeology: Using the Rules of Perspective in 
the William Paca Garden in Annapolis, Maryland," in Ideology, Power, and Prehistory, ed. D Miller 
and C. Tilley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 34. 
 101
in society and about how others viewed them. Given the grandeur of these buildings, 
it is not surprising that many of the private residences built during this period contain 
spaces unquestionably used for wine storage. In the following passages, I will 
describe these wine-related spaces in some of the Annapolis houses and will then 
supply background information on wine cellars and garrets elsewhere in the colonies. 
 
The Judge John Brice, Jr. House in Annapolis was built as early as 1739 
(dendrochronology has been performed on the structure and the wood dates to 1738). 
One-and-a-half stories with a gambrel roof, it is more modest in its design than the 
later Annapolis houses; however, it still has many of the same features. Located off 
the general part of the cellar is a narrow brick room with what once was a dirt floor. 
Two vents in the interior walls provide ventilation. The room is secured by a door 
with heavy locking hardware, a necessary feature when protecting an expensive 
commodity such as imported wine. The presence of two doorways that lead from 
Brice?s basement to the exterior of the building may have made theft a valid concern. 
John Brice?s inventory of May 1, 1767, records 199 quarts of Port and 338 quarts of 
Madeira in the ?cellar.? Its value was 53.14 pounds (the enslaved males with the 
highest value were recorded in his inventory at 50 pounds).
243
 Given the quantity and 
cost of the wine, it is safe to assume that this secure and well-ventilated room was, in 
fact, where the wine was stored. Brice owned a store next door to the house so it is 
possible that some of this wine was to be sold; however, it is difficult to verify this 
without any supporting documentation. 
 
                                                 
243
 Prerogative Court Inventories, Volume 97: 180-185. Maryland State Archives. 
 102
Begun in 1762, the Upton Scott House is one of the earliest of the large, brick 
Georgian houses built in Annapolis. Dr. Scott, a native of Ireland, was the personal 
physician to Governor Horatio Sharpe and an individual active in the local 
community. In the west corner of the cellar of this elaborate house is a brick, barrel-
vaulted room presumably used as a wine cellar.
244
 The 
room is slightly below the main floor of the basement 
and is approached by descending two stairs. The 
original door has been replaced by a modern variety. A 
mysterious feature of this vault is an underground 
tunnel that runs from beneath the floor of the room 
down to Spa Creek, hundreds of yards away. At this 
point, there is no evidence clarifying the purpose of this 
tunnel. Fairly close to the 
entrance of the vaulted space is an exterior door leading to 
the side of the house. This door still contains its original 
hardware, which given its size, successfully kept out any 
individuals attempting to steal the provisions from the wine 
cellar or the kitchen, which was also located in the basement. 
 
The Ridout House in Annapolis is an example of an eighteenth-century home that 
was obviously intended for serious entertaining. John Ridout built the elegant brick 
structure around the time of his marriage to Mary Ogle in 1764. The two-bay dining 
                                                 
244
 As will be discussed later in this chapter, the main purpose for barrel-vaulted rooms in the 
basements of brick houses was for structural stability. The open space underneath these ?barrels? was 
ideal for storage of provisions that needed to be kept cool.  
Figure 1: 
Upton Scott Cellar 
Figure 2: 
Upton Scott Cellar Door 
 103
room is located in the front of the house, facing the street, for all to see as soon as 
they came into the entrance hall. To place such importance on the dining room, rather 
than the drawing room, was a mid-eighteenth-century development. Many houses of 
this time did not even have a specific room dedicated to dining, but details of this 
front room indicate that the space was intended for just such an activity. In one corner 
is an original built-in bowfat, consisting of display shelves, a drawer, and an open 
storage space underneath. The room also has an unusually high chair rail. The 
extended top of the large sideboard, which is original to the house and just fits over 
the chair rail, suggests that this eighteenth-century piece was probably custom made 
for this particular room. Located off the dining room is a small, finished storage area 
that originally had shelving. This space, which also served as a passageway leading to 
the drawing room, has paneled doors on either end, making it a discreet serving area 
during meals.
245
   
 
In the cellar of the Ridout House, two unheated, barrel-vaulted, brick rooms are 
located under the entrance hall and west wing respectively, close to the basement 
kitchen. Typical of service basements, the English bond brick in each room, as well 
as the whole cellar area, is white-washed. Although the doors to each of these rooms 
are nineteenth-century, it is likely that doors have always existed at their entryways. 
Large metal hooks hang from the ceiling in one of the spaces, indicating that this 
room may have been used for food storage, while the other was probably used for 
wine storage. A nearby doorway to the garden allowed for hogsheads to be rolled 
directly into the cellar hallway. If they contained wine, they could then be rolled 
                                                 
245
 Chappell et al., Architecture in Annapolis: A Field Guide, 133. 
 104
through the large doorway into the vaulted room listed above or they could be rolled 
through a hinged, horizontal doorway at floor level into the kitchen. Although I was 
not able to examine the attic space, the current owner confirmed that many empty 
wine bottles and demijohns were found there. No known inventory exists for John 
Ridout?s property, but given his level of prestige in Annapolis and his obvious 
interest in entertaining, he surely had a large supply of imported wine and served it to 
his guests in the most fashionable of objects. 
 
There were several other Annapolis houses that were built in quick succession at this 
time and all have similar vaulted, brick rooms in their respective cellars. One such 
example is the Hammond-Harwood House, built between 1774 and 1775 by William 
Buckland for Mathias Hammond. Although numerous 
vaulted niches were built into the masonry of the 
chimney supports at Hammond-Harwood, the most 
likely place for wine storage is the barrel-vaulted room 
with a herringbone-designed brick floor located under 
the entrance hall. The dining room in this house is the 
largest and most ornate room on the first floor, but 
unlike the Ridout House, it is located in the back with a 
view of the garden. Decorated with elaborate wood and 
plaster ornaments, the Hammond-Harwood dining room was meant for long meals 
and lengthy after-dinner wine consumption. Hammond mysteriously left Annapolis 
on the eve of the Revolution and never returned to his elaborate house. The 1828 
Figure 3: 
Hammond-Harwood Cellar 
 105
probate inventory for Jeremiah Townley Chase who lived in Hammond-Harwood as 
early as 1789 does not mention wine stored in the cellar. However, Chase did own a 
wide assortment of wine equipage including 3 dozen wine glasses, 12 cut glass 
decanters, 1 mahogany liquor case, 1 mahogany dumbwaiter, 1 mahogany sideboard 
(see reference in Chapter 3), and 2 silver waiters.
246
  
 
The Chase-Lloyd House was started in 1769 by Samuel Chase; however, he sold it to 
Edward Lloyd IV before the building was completed in 1774. Lloyd used this house 
as his residence when he was in town for business or social reasons, but Wye House 
in Talbot County was his main dwelling place. The dining room of Chase-Lloyd is 
the most lavishly decorated of all the rooms, with classical and flower motifs 
abounding in the ornamental plaster and woodwork 
(again, by the hand of William Buckland). In the 
cellar, a very large white-washed, barrel-vaulted room 
runs under the entire length of the entrance hall above. 
Although constructed as structural support, evidence 
of enormous hardware on the doorframe indicates that 
this space was subsequently utilized as storage. Given 
the room?s size, I strongly doubt that only wine was 
stored here. On the other hand, because Edward Lloyd 
IV?s Talbot County estate included thousands of bottles of wine, it is not beyond the 
realm of possibility that much of this space may have been dedicated to wine storage. 
 
                                                 
246
 Anne Arundel County Register of Wills, MSA C88-17: 547-554, Maryland State Archives. 
Figure 4: 
Chase-Lloyd Cellar 
 106
Just outside Annapolis stands Whitehall, built in 1765 by Governor Horatio Sharpe 
near the mouth of the Severn River. After Sharpe returned to England in 1773, he left 
the house to his secretary, John Ridout. In its cellar are two barrel-vaulted spaces each 
secured by vented doors. Although legend has it that the space was used as a jail, 
there is no evidence or reason for this assumption. Perhaps the heavy hardware on the 
doors led to this theory. However, the hardware makes it even more likely that the 
space was used for the storage of food stuffs and wine. 
 
The Daniel Dulany House is no longer in existence, since it was located on the 
current Naval Academy campus and was leveled in the late nineteenth century. This 
is unfortunate because we know from Dulany?s inventory (see Chapters 1 and 3) that 
a large amount of wine was stored in the ?vault and cellars.? The term ?vault? likely 
referred to the brick, barrel-vaulted spaces described in the Ridout, Hammond-
Harwood, Chase-Lloyd, Scott, and Whitehall houses. What becomes obvious is that 
the men who were building and living in these houses in Annapolis took full 
advantage of the structural elements of their homes to further their socially 
competitive lifestyles.  
 
 
Section 2: Background on Wine Storage 
Over the course of the eighteenth century the shape of the wine bottle evolved and the 
special requirements for its storage followed suit. By the third quarter of this century, 
wine was being stored in cylindrical bottles, whereas earlier vessels tended to be more 
 107
short and squat. Because the cylindrical form allowed the bottles to be stacked on 
their sides in the cellar, those who imported pipes and hogsheads of wine needed a 
more accommodating space to store the bottles.
247
 Acknowledging this growing 
desire to keep quantities of liquor in one?s home, the London bookseller Robert 
Dodsley began offering The Cellar-Book, or Butler?s Assistant, in keeping a regular 
Account of his Liquors in 1760.
248
  
 
None of the houses I examined along the east coast had a definitive wine cellar.
249
 
However, circumstantial evidence such as inventories, written accounts, drawings, 
and distinctive architectural details consistently point to specific areas of cellars and 
attics and the probability that they were used for wine storage. Architectural 
characteristics needed for an ideal wine cellar included relatively cool temperatures, 
ventilation (either in the walls or via a latticed or louvered door), and security. Built-
in storage units were an additional accessory. These allowed for a cellar to hold the 
maximum capacity of bottles in an organized fashion.  
 
Although any area of a basement could be used to store wine, brick vaulted spaces, 
like those in Annapolis, were ideal for providing the stipulations described above. 
Houses of this period contained arched storage areas in a variety of designs. The 
smaller vaults provided structural support for a wall or chimney and were built on 
                                                 
247
 For more information, see Pittman, ?Morphological Variability in Late Seventeenth and Early 
Eighteenth-Century English Wine Bottles.? 
248
 Hugh Johnson, Vintage: The Story of Wine (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 304. 
249
 The architectural plans for the Decatur house label a room as a wine cellar, but we do not know if 
Decatur adhered to Latrobe?s intentions (see the discussion on this house in Chapter 5). 
 108
piers resting on stone footings beneath the cellar floor.
250
 A small wine cellar was 
easily created by placing a locked door at the opening of the vaulted niche. Houses all 
along the East Coast, from the Means House (1797) in Portland, Maine, to Drayton 
Hall (c. 1738) near Charleston, South Carolina, contain examples of these smaller, 
arched structural supports that would have been ideal for wine storage.  
 
Other houses featured larger barrel-vaulted areas that were actual rooms created as 
structural support for the entire building. Their size could 
accommodate the storage of vast quantities of wine, 
especially if they contained individual bins for better 
organization (see references to storage bins at Homewood 
House and Riversdale later in this chapter). This type of 
organized storage led to the need for an object known as a 
bin label, usually made of white or cream pottery with black lettering, which denoted 
the types of wine stored in the unmarked bottles hidden in the depths of these 
spaces.
251
 An early record of such a space actually being called a ?vault? occurs in 
William Byrd?s diary. In Virginia, on April 30, 1709, Bryd wrote: ?When the ladies 
had put their things in order we went into the vault and drank a glass of Rhenish wine 
and sugar.?
252
  
 
                                                 
250
 James L. Garvin, A Building History of Northern New England (Hanover: University Press of New 
England, 2001), 55. 
251
 John Salter, ed., Wine Labels 1730-2003: A Worldwide History (Suffolk, England: Antique 
Collectors' Club in association with The Wine Label Circle, 2004), 305. 
252
 Quoted in Louis B. Wright and Marion Tinling, ed., The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover 
1709-1712 (Richmond: The Dietz Press, 1941), 28. 
Figure 5: 
Old Wine Cellar 
 109
In addition to cellars, attics or garret spaces were, at times, used for the storage of 
Madeira in the colonies. Since Madeira matured more favorably in heat, collectors 
realized that the wine would continue to ripen and age in their own homes. The 
features of these garret spaces were similar to those of the cellars in terms of a 
regulated temperature, ventilation, and security. They, too, could be quite elaborate 
spaces or, at times, were merely glorified closets. A man in South Carolina writing to 
his son mentions wine storage in a garret: ?I send you a pipe of wine for immediate 
use, ?tis nearly your own age. By importing a pipe every year and storing it in your 
garrett [sic] you will always have a bottle to offer your friends.?
253
 
 
Also in South Carolina, the City Gazette and Daily Advertiser listed a property for 
sale in 1801 on Church Street in Charleston that included a brick carriage house, 
above which was a ?wine-room.?
254
 Quite a few eighteenth-century houses in the 
Charleston area had garrets, including a room with a louvered door at the Miles 
Brewton House, which had the capacity of 1,200 bottles. Still visible on the walls and 
door is a chalk record of William Alston?s Madeira inventory. One inscription reads: 
?39 dozn bottles of Madeira Wine Drawn off? and another notes that 468 bottles were 
consumed in 1792.
255
 
 
                                                 
253
 Quoted in Rutledge, "After the Cloth Was Removed," 50. This is also an interesting indication that 
much of the etiquette of wine consumption was passed down from father to son. 
254
 Quoted in Carl L. Lounsbury, ed., An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and 
Landscape (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994), 407. 
255
 Richard N. C?t?, Mary's World: Love, War, and Family Ties in Nineteenth-Century Charleston 
(Mount Pleasant, SC: Corinthian Books, 2001), 38-39. For an image of this, see p. 31.  Another house 
with a well-documented wine garret is the Wickham-Valentine House in Richmond, which will be 
discussed in Chapter 5.  
 110
Interestingly, a garret storage space for Madeira seems to have been solely an 
American phenomenon. To date, I have not come across any English sources 
mentioning this type of storage. Additionally, neither English scholar Peter Brown, 
nor Robin Butler has ever heard of such a practice in England. I must also note that I 
have not found any evidence of a garret space used for Madeira storage in Annapolis. 
Since wine was stored in garrets as close as Baltimore and Richmond, it is difficult to 
fathom that this practice did not occur in Annapolis, especially since the elite 
gentlemen of this town seemed to participate in the wine consumption ritual at the 
same level as their fellow countrymen. One explanation may be that undisturbed 
architectural space in Annapolis is not very prevalent making it difficult for historians 
to interpret the original fabric of the house. Since the storage of Madeira in garrets 
was an accepted and somewhat common practice among those who were able to 
afford an extra supply of this beverage and were knowledgeable of its aging process, 
perhaps there was no particular reason to mention it in written materials of the time. 
Nevertheless, these explanations fail to answer why Madeira was not recorded in 
Annapolis inventories as being located in the attic.
256
 
 
References to both wine cellars and garret spaces can be found in numerous 
inventories, diaries, and letters elsewhere in the colonies. Below are details of several 
notable examples. Richard Henry Lee lived at a house called Chantilly in 
Westmoreland County, Virginia (near Stratford Hall). His 1794 inventory lists wine 
                                                 
256
 Since many of these gentlemen used their Annapolis house only when they were in town for 
business or for the social season and spent the rest of the year at their grand country estates, it would 
be interesting to know if any of these country houses had specialized wine garrets. Perhaps the author 
will undertake this in future research. 
 111
in two locations. First, the store room over the dining room contained 58 gallons of 
Madeira in various demijohns, 8 dozen bottles of Madeira, 16 bottles partly full of 
Madeira, 9 3-pint bottles of Madeira and 1 pewter funnel. In his cellar were 12 bottles 
of vin de Grave, 28 bottles of Port, 61 bottles of Virginia wine, and 2 pipes of 
Madeira containing 190 gallons.
257
  
 
Charles Drayton, owner of Drayton Hall in South Carolina, 
made a note in his diary that he ?took from the cellar one 
large case bottle of Madeira.?
258
 Begun in 1738, Drayton Hall 
does not have a below-ground cellar since the water table is 
too high in this area for the construction of basements. 
Instead the ground floor is used as a large storage area. 
Located in the long hallway of this floor are six niches built 
into the white-washed brick foundation walls (two are built 
into the masonry of the chimneys).  Four of these niches were 
made into closets with wooded scalloped-edged shelves. Ghost marks indicate that 
doors with heavy hardware were used to secure the contents of these closets. One can 
assume that some of the valuable contents may have been wine.  
 
                                                 
257
 Document owned by Stratford Hall. I am grateful to Judy Hynson at Stratford Hall for her 
assistance with this research. The mention of Virginia wine in Lee?s inventory is noteworthy. 
Assuming that it was locally made wine, it proves that some early vineyards were successful, if even 
for a short time. The pipes of Madeira in the cellar indicate that the Madeira was stored in a garret only 
after it had been decanted into smaller storage containers. Richard Henry Lee was the sixth President 
of the United States in Congress assembled under the Articles of Confederation. Chantilly was 
destroyed by a fire. 
258
 Charles Drayton Diary, 1785-1820. Owned by Drayton Hall, South Carolina. See other references 
to this diary throughout this paper. I am grateful to Tim Chesser at Drayton Hall for sharing this 
reference and for giving me a tour of the house. 
Figure 6: 
Drayton Hall Cellar 
 112
Also of interest, is a very unusual closet on the second floor in 
the drawing room, next to the ballroom of Drayton Hall.  
Behind the closet doorway is a crude plaster wall, into which is 
carved a deep, narrow storage space, lined with shelves. 
Although the exact purpose for this closet is unknown, the 
locked door and the relatively cool temperature inside suggest 
the possibility that wine was stored there for easy access 
during social occasions. 
 
Stratford Hall, the brick Georgian house built in Virginia by Thomas Lee between 
1730 and 1738, has four long, barrel-vaulted brick cellars with short doorways sealing 
them off from the general cellar. These are similar to the barrel-vaulted rooms in the 
Annapolis houses but much narrower and harder to access. Philip Ludwell Lee?s 
inventory of 1776 lists wine in the ?cellar,? making it almost certain that at least one 
of these vaults was used for wine storage. Additional wine is listed in the inventory as 
being in the ?wet room,? the hyphen area on the ground floor connecting the east and 
west wings.  Matilda and ?Light Horse Harry? Lee who lived in Stratford Hall, 
ordered an impressive amount of French wine in 1785: 200 bottles of old Medoc, 36 
bottles of Chateau Margaux, and 72 bottles of Grave wine (white wine). These had to 
have been stored in a secure and somewhat temperature-controlled part of the house, 
namely the vaulted cellar.
259
 
                                                 
259
 Location of the original order is unknown. Transcript copy at Stratford Hall. I am grateful to Judy 
Hynson at Stratford Hall for the tour and for access to the inventories and transcripts of relevant 
papers. Due to the difficulty in navigating the cellars, these areas are not on view to the public, but an 
Figure 7: 
Drayton Hall Upstairs Closet 
 113
 
Sabine Hall in Virginia has fascinating supporting evidence that a brick vaulted cellar 
was used for wine storage. Built circa 1738 by Landon Carter, the fourth son of 
Robert ?King? Carter, the house is a classic brick Georgian structure with an 
elaborate underground basement. Still located in a large vaulted, white-washed room 
(similar in size to the ones in Annapolis) is a marble cask caddie. Undoubtedly made 
by the same stone masons who constructed the house, the caddie has a thick, grooved 
piece of curved marble as the barrel support and three wide, low legs as the base. Its 
weight alone is probably the rationale for its survival in its original location.
260
 
Landon Carter?s diary contains further evidence of wine being stored in the basement 
of Sabine Hall. While discussing his son?s behavior with regard to drinking, Carter 
mentions the wine being ?brought up,? as well as having keys to secure the wine. 
Also mentioned in his diary are the types of wine he ordered for the house, including 
Claret and Mountain.
261
 The 1779 inventory of his estate included 66 wine glasses ? 
an enormous amount even to us today.
262
   
 
Thomas Jefferson designed an elaborate and ingenious architectural feature that was 
dedicated to aiding his wine consumption at Monticello. Mechanical dumbwaiters 
were installed on either side of the dining room fireplace, which could be lowered 
                                                                                                                                           
image of one of the small vaulted rooms at Stratford Hall can be seen on the Historic American 
Buildings Survey website (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammems/collections/habs_haer/).  
260
 I am grateful to Ralph Harvard for informing me of this piece and to the present owner for showing 
it to me. 
261
 Greene, ed., The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, vol. II, 1009-1010, 
671, 737. For the full quotation regarding the cellar and the keys, see Chapter 2. 
262
 Berger, ?"Pray Let Them Be Neat and Fashionable or Send None:" Dining in Eighteenth and 
Nineteenth Century America, an Exploration of Ritual and Equipage with a Case Study of Virginia 
Probate Records,? 160. 
 114
through the ceiling of the brick cellar below, where a servant would replenish the 
wine supply. When not in use, the dumbwaiters were concealed behind paneled doors 
in the mantelpiece. Although Monticello was begun in 1769, the dining room area of 
the house was not completed and used until 1772. Jefferson was known for his love of 
wine and these pieces of ?equipage? must have been admired by all of the wine-
consuming contemporaries he had to dinner. 
 
William Hamilton?s home in Philadelphia, The Woodlands, is a testament to the 
luxuries a bachelor gentleman could afford. Constructed circa 1770 and reconstructed 
in a more neoclassical style between 1786 and 1789, it has an exceptional survival of 
what more than likely was a 
wine storage area. 
Portrayed in 1797 as 
?interested only in his 
house, his hothouse, and his 
Madeira,?
263
 Hamilton must 
have devoted some of the 
storage spaces in The 
Woodlands to his prize wines. Located in the elaborate 
basement of The Woodlands is a room separated from 
                                                 
263
 Metchie J.E. Budka, ed., Under Their Vine and Fig Tree: Travels through America in 1797-1799, 
1805 with Some Further Account of Life in New Jersey (Elizabeth, NJ: Grassmann Publishing 
Company, 1965), 53. Quoted in Jamie Jacobs, "Historic American Buildings Survey: Addendum to the 
Woodlands,"  (The National Park Service, 2002), 45. I am grateful to Jamie Jacobs at the National Park 
Service (Historic American Buildings Survey) for assisting me with information on this site.  See a 
reference to Hamilton?s all-male dinner parties in Chapter 2. 
Figure 8: 
The Woodlands Cellar 
 115
the rest of the basement by a curved, wooden wall consisting of paneling on the lower 
half and open, round spindles, allowing for ventilation and easy visibility inside, on 
the upper half. A locked door gives access into the space. There is no specific 
documentation or evidence inside the room to confirm that this area was used for 
wine storage; however, it is likely given the suitability of the space for that purpose. 
A photograph of the circa 1804 Israel Huckins tavern in New Hampshire shows a 
similar room used for the storage of liquor,
264
 and a photograph of the space in The 
Woodlands, taken in the 1930s, identifies it as a wine cellar. At that time, there were 
more original artifacts in the house, some of which may have indicated that wine was 
stored in this space. There are other closets in the vast and elaborate basement, which, 
too, could have been used for wine storage, but, given Hamilton?s passion for 
Madeira, few of them were probably large enough to hold the quantity he would have 
had on hand. Although there are also two attic spaces in the house, I was unable to 
view these and cannot say whether there is any likelihood they were used for wine 
storage. Hamilton was known to be an Anglophile, and the architecture of The 
Woodlands was significantly altered after his travels to England. Because the English 
either did not know of or approve of the American practice of storing Madeira in an 
attic space, Hamilton would probably not have followed this practice. 
 
Houses in New England also used designated wine cellars. In 1823, Joseph Anthony 
of New Bedford, Massachusetts makes note of his wine cellar in his diary: ?Devoted 
the day to bottling port wine?filled 300 bottles and stowed them in the wine 
                                                 
264
 For the image, see Donna-Belle Garvin, On the Road North of Boston: New Hampshire Taverns 
and Turnpikes, 1700-1900 (Hanover: University Press of New England, 2003), 25. 
 116
cellar.?
265
 The Shirley-Eustis House in Roxbury was built during the period of 1747 
to 1751 by William Shirley, appointed Royal Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony 
and Commander-in-Chief of all British forces in North America by George II. The 
House is one of only four remaining Royal Colonial Governors' mansions in the 
country and the only one actually built for a Royal Colonial Governor. Located in the 
Historic New England collection is a drawing, which illustrates a wine cellar in the 
basement of the Shirley-Eustis House. The image was executed from the memory of 
Mrs. Blaisdell, the housekeeper working there during the William and Caroline Eustis 
residency (1819 to 1865) and shows that a separate wine cellar was located between a 
cellar for vegetables and one for general supplies.
266
  
 
Riversdale, the house built by Henri Joseph Stier in Prince George?s County, 
Maryland in the eighteenth century and completed by Stier?s daughter, Rosalie, and 
her husband George Calvert in 1807, has a remarkable wine cellar. Behind a large 
door with open slats is a barrel-vaulted space, within which is a smaller vaulted space 
made up of individual masonry bins for storing different types of wine. Rosalie 
Calvert provides one notable exception of a woman in America ordering and 
recording the contents of the cellar. In two letters to her sister, Isabelle van Havre, 
Rosalie bemoans the fact that she is in charge or all household activities, including 
ones for which her husband should have been responsible. When providing a list of 
such duties, she mentions wine as the first item in both letters: ?my husband [George 
                                                 
265
 Quoted in Sandra Oliver, "Joy of Historical Cooking: Cups of Cheer," Food History News 54 14, 
no. 2 (2002): 3. I am grateful to Kathleen O?Connor at Bayou Bend for sharing this reference. 
266
 I am grateful to both Andrea Taaffe at the Shirley-Eustis House and the staff of Historic New 
England for sharing this information. 
 117
Calvert] does absolutely nothing other than manage his lands. The wines, the 
provisions, the servants? work, horses, carriages, garden, dairy ? I am in charge of all 
that.?
267
  
 
The architectural drawings for Benjamin Henry Latrobe?s 1818 plans of the Stephen 
Decatur house in Washington, DC are located in the Library of Congress, and while 
they are a bit later in date than the focus of this paper, they are highly pertinent to this 
discussion. Designated basement spaces are included in the drawings, including one 
labeled ?Vaulted Wine Cellar,? which is a large space in the eastern axial of the 
house. There is also a garret space above the third floor. Although this area is not 
labeled in the drawings and there is no concrete evidence that Madeira was stored 
there, the photographs taken of the Decatur garret prior to its demolition show a door 
with open lattice work very similar to other garret spaces where Madeira was known 
to be stored. The sale of Steven Decatur?s property in 1820 included many wine-
related pieces of equipage, signifying that the house probably hosted elaborate 
evening celebrations geared towards imported wine consumption. Along with 
furniture related to dining, smaller accoutrements listed in sale included: 83 wine 
glasses, 20 claret glasses, 7 pairs of decanters, 1 pair of pint decanters, 4 small 
waiters, 6 large waiters, and 2 coasters.
268
  
 
                                                 
267
 Margaret Law Callcott, ed., Mistress of Riversdale: The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert, 
1795-1821 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 351. Despite this reference, the 
museum label for this space is entitled ?George Calvert?s Wine Cellar.? 
268
 Helen Duprey Bullock, ed., Decatur House (Washington, D.C.: National Trust for Historic 
Preservation, 1967), Appendices. I am grateful to Katherine Malone-France for assisting me with this 
information. Images of the Decatur House attic can be seen on the Historic American Buildings Survey 
website (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammems/collections/habs_haer/). 
 118
As indicated in architectural drawings and other written materials, every foot of 
physical space inside an eighteenth or early nineteenth-century home was valued on 
many different levels. These structures had to accommodate several aspects of daily 
life: both the private and public life of the family in the household, as well as the life 
of the servants who were working and, at times, sleeping there. ?Space is permeated 
with social relations,?
269
 and how the distinct areas of the house were divided and 
used said much about its owner. The housing of wine affected space within domestic 
architecture more significantly than any other consumable product in the eighteenth 
century. Considering that whole rooms were dedicated exclusively to its storage, one 
begins to understand the social importance placed upon this particular beverage. If an 
individual could afford to allocate precious space in his home to such a luxury as 
imported wine, he was certainly living a life well beyond that of the average citizen.  
 
                                                 
269
 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 
1991), 286. Quoted in Dolores Hayden, "Urban Landscape History: The Sense of Place and the Politics 
of Space," in Understanding Ordinary Landscapes, ed. Paul Groth and Todd W. Bressi (New Haven: 
Yale University Press, 1997), 132. 
 119
Chapter 5:  Interpretation of Wine Consumption in Historic House 
Museums 
 
 
Consuming imported wine was one of the most complex and sophisticated rituals of 
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but one can only get a true sense of its 
magnitude when considering all the elements of the evidentiary body in its entirety. 
While diaries discussing social occasions survive, as do examples of the equipage, 
and sometimes, albeit rarely, the wine itself, it is critical that the actual physical 
places in which the wine was stored and handled be preserved as well. In the 
following chapter, I will discuss how the importance of this ritual might be better 
conveyed to the public within the context of various historic house museums.  
 
Since the 1850s, with Ann Pamela Cunningham?s successful incorporation of the 
Mount Vernon Ladies? Association of the Union and the opening of Hasbrouck 
House in Newburgh, New York, as the first house preserved by a state government, 
historic house museums have been a part of the American landscape. William Sumner 
Appleton continued this tradition by founding the Society for the Preservation of New 
England Antiquities in 1910. Later, the Historic Sites Act of 1935 ?brought the 
federal government and the National Park Service into the field when that legislation 
declared it ?a national policy to preserve for historic use historic sites, buildings, and 
 120
objects of national significance for the inspiration and benefit of the people of the 
United States.??
270
 
 
With this in mind, I thought it useful to examine the extent to which the story of 
wine-bibbing, and all of its relevant factors, is incorporated into the interpretive 
programs of historic house museums from Maine to South Carolina. In visiting these 
sites, I posed the following questions to determine what is currently being achieved 
and what more can be done: First, are all of the areas of the buildings relevant to the 
wine story available to the public? Second, is the ritual mentioned in tours? And third, 
how can this activity be better presented to the public? 
 
It is widely accepted that the historic environment provides a valuable learning 
experience. By presenting history within an accurate setting, we take words off a 
page, put them in a context, and bring them to life. It is much easier to tell the story of 
wine consumption within the walls that framed this activity and with the objects that 
gave it a visible and undeniable importance. In Material Culture History: The 
Scholarship Nobody Knows, Cary Carson observes that ?the history of material life 
presents its own important account of people?s increasing dependence on inanimate 
objects to communicate and mediate their relationships with one another and to guide 
their daily progress through the social worlds they inhabit.?
271
 What better way to 
                                                 
270
 Edward P. Alexander, "Historical Prologue: The Rise of American History Museums," in 
Leadership for the Future: Changing Directorial Roles in American History Museums and Historical 
Societies, ed. Bryant F. Tolles Jr. (Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1991), 
11-13. 
271
 Cary Carson, "Material Culture History: The Scholarship Nobody Knows," in American Material 
Culture: The Shape of the Field, ed. Ann Smart Martin and J. Ritchie Garrison Garrison (Knoxville: 
 121
demonstrate the role that wine consumption played in a man?s quest for social 
prestige than to show where it happened and how it occurred? Furthermore, in 
advocating for the preservation (at a basic level) and interpretation (at a higher level) 
of a basement or an attic, we move well beyond the topic of wine consumption. These 
areas of the house are fundamental to the comprehension and appreciation of a 
building?s physical fabric. 
 
Nevertheless, I concluded that relatively few historic house museums are highlighting 
the importance of the wine ritual, and virtually none of them are utilizing all of the 
architectural resources they have. Though dining rooms served as the center stage for 
the extravagant evenings where large quantities of imported wine were consumed, the 
wine cellars and garret spaces were also vital to the refined image the gentleman of 
the house was attempting to portray. Peter Ward wrote in A History of Domestic 
Space ?we choose, build, or alter our dwellings in order to meet some of our needs 
beyond the basic one of shelter?In a sense the home is the theatre of our domestic 
experience, the stage on which we enact much of the long drama of our lives.?
272
 But 
we can only understand this drama if all of the stage, both front and back, is visible.  
 
Section 1: Case Study of Annapolis 
Little of the wine consumption story is currently being presented to the public in the 
historic house museums of Annapolis. Of the grand, eighteenth-century houses, only 
                                                                                                                                           
Distributed by University of Tennessee Press for Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1997), 
415. 
272
 Peter Ward, A History of Domestic Space: Privacy and the Canadian Home (Vancouver: UMB 
Press, 1999), 3. Chapter 1 of this book is relevant to this subject. 
 122
the William Paca House and the Hammond-Harwood House are open to visitors, and 
due to lack of various resources, neither of them routinely interprets the ritual of wine 
consumption. William Paca constructed his elaborate, five-part Georgian house after 
his marriage to Mary Chew in 1763. He then sold the house in 1780, after which it 
changed hands many times over. In 1901 a developer acquired the dwelling and 
incorporated it into Carvel Hall Hotel, a resort built over Paca?s gardens in the back 
of the house.
273
 The interior of this building had been significantly altered well before 
the Historic Annapolis Foundation (HAF) purchased it in the late 1960s; however, the 
organization further altered the original fabric of the house.  
 
Originally, the wine cellar located in the east hyphen was a masonry enclosure with 
plaster walls. Access to the room was through a trap door from the room above or a 
door on the garden side of the hyphen that could only be opened from the inside. 
Ghost marks from shelving were visible on the walls. HAF removed most of the 
existing Paca wine cellar in order to accommodate the building?s mechanical systems. 
Reportedly, the room was documented before it was destroyed; however, I have yet to 
locate any photographs of the space. Thorough recording of an existing structure 
should always be standard protocol for any historic organization before evidence is 
destroyed. In addition to answering questions in the future regarding the physical 
construction of the building, the photographs and supporting documentation could 
assist with a related exhibition or a recreation of the space. Any materials removed 
from the site, such as hardware and shelving, should also be saved for future 
examination and possible display. 
                                                 
273
 Chappell et al., Architecture in Annapolis: A Field Guide, 114. 
 123
 
The Hammond-Harwood House has a brick, barrel-vaulted room in the cellar which 
is still extant but not on view to the public. It is located around the corner from the 
central, front room of the basement, where meetings and lectures are currently held. 
The vaulted room now serves as an office and research room. However, considering 
the many varied activities that occurred on a daily basis in these cellars and the 
important role wine consumption played in the lives of the gentlemen of Annapolis, 
the curators of Hammond-Harwood House have an ideal opportunity to present the 
stories associated with this vaulted space, especially since it is one of the few historic 
sites where the public already has access to the cellar. 
 
Section 2: Interpretation at Other Sites 
Various historic house museums do currently interpret the story of wine consumption 
at some level. Two in particular have recently undergone restorations following 
extensive scholarly research that was performed both before and during the work. 
First, the Wickham-Valentine House 
in Richmond, which was built in 
1812, accurately interprets a vaulted 
room in the basement as a wine 
storage area. Barrels, demijohns, and 
wine bottles are displayed throughout 
the space and an interpretive panel is 
attached to the security railing. What is 
Figure 9: 
Wickham-Valentine Cellar 
 124
not on display, however, is an astounding wine closet located on the third floor. The 
room, with plastered walls and possibly only one coat of paint, has long, wooden 
shelves on either side. The entry door contains evidence of a large lockbox, and the 
other end has a small opening with metal bars which looks into a skylit space under 
the eaves. The closet appears to be original to the house; an 
inventory from 1839 lists over 600 bottles of Madeira and 
various ports stored there.
274
 Unfortunately, it would be 
physically difficult for visitors to view this area of the house. 
However, a display addressing the topic of Madeira storage 
could be arranged near or in the wine cellar. This 
interpretive area would have professional photographs of 
the garret and a copy of the 1839 inventory. 
 
Another house representing part of the imported wine 
story is the Octagon House in Washington, DC. Built in 
1800, it has a unit of six brick and stucco vaulted bins 
(3 over 3) in its cellar. Barrels are displayed in these 
bins, and, on the wall, is a label entitled ?What type of 
goods were stored here?? It goes on to explain that the 
Tayloes kept wine in this small curved area and that the 
space would have originally had a locked door to 
prevent theft. This label is more descriptive than those 
                                                 
274
 I am grateful to Ken Myers for giving me a tour of the house and sharing the inventory. 
Figure 10: 
Wickham-Valentine Garret 
Figure 11: 
Octagon House Cellar 
 125
in other parts of the building since visitors here are on a self-guided tour rather than a 
docent-led tour which occurs elsewhere in the house. A storage space in the attic with 
a locked, lattice-covered door may have been where Madeira was stored in the 
Octagon but not prior to 1814 when a hipped roof was added to the house and the 
space was thereby created. Currently, this location is closed to the public and used for 
storage. On the general tour of the house, docents could continue the wine story, 
started by the displays in the basement, by highlighting Tayloe-owned wine-related 
objects in the dining room and then mentioning the possible Madeira storage in the 
attic. 
 
All too often in museum settings, only formal rooms are open to the public. Even in 
secondary sources about historic houses, discussions or illustrations of spaces other 
than the main rooms are rare. Yet, this approach tells only half the story. These 
buildings were working houses where people of different backgrounds had to coexist 
on a daily basis. Since wine was stored or consumed on practically every floor and 
various individuals were responsible for its care and handling, this subject matter 
provides a perfect opportunity to broaden the understanding of the material elements 
of the structure as well as the relationships within the household. Wine storage areas 
are especially relevant because the owner of the home may have worked more closely 
with his servants in these spaces than in other parts of the building. In the past, 
historic house museums often shied away from politically charged topics such as the 
role of slaves and servants and their relationships with their masters.
275
 However, this 
                                                 
275
 For more on this topic, see Patricia West, Domesticating History: The Political Origins of 
America's House Museums (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 1999). 
 126
has changed in recent years and many museums are now focusing on the stories of the 
workers who were employed (voluntarily or involuntarily) at these sites. In doing so, 
curators can now address all of the topics related to the wine-bibbing ritual. 
 
When hogsheads and pipes full of wine arrived at these houses, the wine needed to be 
decanted, which involved pouring it into dozens or even hundreds of bottles. These 
bottles then required frequent rotation to prevent the corks from drying out and the 
wine from being compromised. Because imported wine was an expensive yet 
essential element in a gentleman?s bid for elite status, he relied upon a few trusted 
servants to assist him with its care. This was a large responsibility for the workers and 
not one performed within the most comfortable of environments since they were 
carrying out their tasks in either damp basements or hot attics. Charles Drayton of 
South Carolina mentioned in an 1801 diary notation that he and his Butler ?drew off 
my wine from the cases, into bottles.?
276
 One wonders what type of conversation 
occurred between these two men during the many hours it took them to perform this 
chore.  
 
If a house museum was so inclined, the story of wine-bibbing could be told in 
numerous ways depending upon the resources of the site. Ideally, all of the wine-
related areas of the house would be opened and restored to their original appearance. 
Physical access is not enough, however, especially since some of the spaces were 
                                                 
276
 Charles Drayton Diary, 1785-1820. I am grateful to Tim Chesser at Drayton Hall for sharing 
notations from the diary. 
 127
used for activities that are quite foreign to us today. For this reason, the use of labels 
and didactic panels is necessary to further explain the ritual. 
 
In cases where permanently opening the storage areas for display is not feasible, there 
are alternatives that would accomplish a similar objective. Museum staff could create 
a small exhibition highlighting the topic and have the theme carried throughout the 
house for a limited amount of time. A themed tour could also be held as a special 
ticketed event to raise money for the site. Both of these would require minimal and 
temporary access and interpretation of the storage areas. At this time, photographs 
could be taken for informational brochures and a video could be made that would 
provide images for times when the spaces are closed. Demonstrations of activities 
such as decanting could also be performed or recorded for the video. At the very 
least, docents need to be trained to provide more information on the importance of 
this ritual during general tours. Sherry Butcher-Younghans in her book, Historic 
House Museums: A Practical Handbook for their Care, Preservation, and 
Management, states that ?interpretation is an attempt to stimulate the senses and 
arouse the imagination.?
277
 In order to do this, a museum staff would need to be 
creative in their approach of interpretation. 
 
Homewood House, built in 1801 in Baltimore, Maryland, is a site where little original 
fabric has been altered and where the opportunity for interpretation of the wine-
drinking ritual is promising. The dining room, which is always arranged for public 
                                                 
277
 Sherry Butcher-Younghans, Historic House Museums: A Practical Handbook for Their Care, 
Preservation, and Management (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 182. Of particular interest 
are chapter 1 and 10. 
 128
display, could be set as it would have been just after the main meal, when the 
tablecloth has been removed and wine and dessert were being served. Below the 
central hall, a largely intact wine cellar survives in 
the basement, complete with a herringbone brick 
floor and individual vaulted masonry bins which 
could be regulated to different temperatures, 
depending upon the type of wine stored there.
278
 
The only modern intrusion is a furnace installed in a 
small area of the room where two additional storage bins were originally located. At 
the present time, this space is not being interpreted, as it is the only area in the house 
large enough to accommodate public receptions. Nevertheless, the museum staff is 
currently working on a grant application to study the wine cellar with the goal of 
eventually restoring it for public display.  
 
Upstairs in Homewood House is a 
garret where Madeira was likely 
stored in demijohns. Since 
Americans believed that this 
particular wine aged better in 
heat, a small space under the 
                                                 
278
 Many of the barrel-vaulted rooms in Annapolis are also located under the central hallway. However, 
the room at Homewood is not barrel-vaulted. The individual bins are somewhat similar to those at 
Octagon House, yet the ones at Homewood are larger and greater in number. Charles Carroll of 
Homewood?s son, Charles Carroll of Doughoregan mentions in his records of November 1835 that he 
?packed in the cellar 40 doz. London Particular Ma. House of Newton Gordon Murdoch Duff & Co.-
Imported 1832 Bottled June 1835.? (Transcribed in Catherine Rogers Arthur and Cindy Kelly, 
Homewood House (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), Appendix B. 
Figure 12: 
Homewood House Cellar 
Figure 13: 
Homewood House Garret 
Figure 14: 
Homewood House Garret 
 129
eaves with a window was ideal for its storage. The garret at Homewood is located 
below the roof within the pediment of the portico. The space is approached by 
opening a locked iron grate at waist level in an anteroom off the second floor hallway. 
It is lighted (and warmed) by a decorative window in the pediment. Madeira was the 
most expensive item in Carroll?s 1825 inventory, totaling 500 dollars; however, the 
appraisers did not make note of where it was stored in the house.
279
 Currently, this 
small room is used as storage for the offices surrounding it. Rarely are stairs leading 
to Madeira storage areas very accessible in historic houses; however the one at 
Homewood is approached via the main staircase to the second floor, making 
interpretation of this space slightly more realistic, especially for small groups who are 
able to climb steep stairs. Ironically, because the original occupant of the house, 
Charles Carroll of Homewood, died of alcoholism, this site offers a unique 
opportunity to educate the public about this debilitating disease which plagued past 
generations as well.
280
 The staff acknowledges the important role that wine played at 
this site, and they continually incorporate more information into their tours. Until they 
restore the cellar, it would take minimal resources to temporarily arrange the two 
storage spaces in a way that documents their original use and then photograph these 
installations. The subsequent photographic display could then provide visitors with 
images of a type of wine storage few of us are familiar with today. 
 
                                                 
279
 Transcribed in Ibid., Appendix A. Refer to this source for additional general information on 
Homewood House and photographs of the site, including the cellar and the garret. 
280
 Rosalie Calvert wrote to her father on June, 10, 1814: ?Charles Carroll has become a ?Sot?-he is 
drunk from morning to evening.? (Callcott, ed., Mistress of Riversdale: The Plantation Letters of 
Rosalie Stier Calvert, 1795-1821, 267.) 
 130
Likewise, the 1837 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House in Cambridge, 
Massachusetts has the potential to integrate aspects of the wine-drinking ritual into its 
public displays. This house has several brick, barrel-
vaulted rooms in its basement, and records indicate that 
at least one of them was used for the storage of wine. 
These rooms are similar to the barrel-vaulted spaces in 
Annapolis, including the presence of a small vent at the 
apex of the vault. Due to space restrictions in the house, 
these areas are presently used for object storage, but 
their overall fabric has not been altered. This survival of 
original material lends an opportunity to restore the 
rooms to their earlier appearance. Integral to the interpretation would be wine-related 
objects already in the museum?s collection that are associated with Longfellow?s 
occupancy. These include The History of Ancient and Modern Wines, published in 
1824 in London and archaeological fragments of wine bottles discovered during a dig 
in the cellar. On May 12, 1837, Longfellow wrote to his father ?The wine is bottled, 
and turns out to be of the very best quality. The Hock-drinkers in Boston think they 
never tasted any equal to it. I shall send you by Monday?s boat a basket of it, in small 
bottles.?
281
 If permanently opening the basement to the public is not a possibility, the 
space could be temporarily cleared and documented. The ensuing photography could 
then be incorporated into tours and displays on the main floor. 
 
                                                 
281
 Samuel Longfellow, ed., Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with Extracts from His Journals and 
Correspondence, 3 vols., vol. 2 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969 reprint), 24. I am grateful to Anita 
Israel at the Longfellow National Historic Site for sharing this reference. 
Figure 15: 
Longfellow Cellar 
 131
Similarly, Stenton in Philadelphia, which was built by James Logan 
between 1723 and 1730, contains a remarkable survival of wine 
storage areas and accessories.  Inside a large 
brick-vaulted room in the basement is a long, 
wooden cask caddy which held barrels of 
wine off the floor. Near this is a locked closet 
which still contains wooden shelves with 
cutouts designed to accommodate wine bottles. According to 
Bill Pittman?s thesis on English wine bottles, the glass bottles 
would have been inverted in the wooden holders so that the corks would remain 
moist. This practice of binning bottles in frames occurred in England by the end of 
the seventeenth century.
282
 It is unclear whether the shelves in the Paca House cellar 
might have contained similar wooden holders. The basement of Stenton has a dirt 
floor and is located down a narrow set of stairs so it would need significant alterations 
in order to be opened to the public. Since original fabric would be destroyed in order 
to do this, a better alternative might be to offer a wine-themed tour or an overall cellar 
tour as a special, fundraising event. The architectural features of Stenton?s basement 
are unusual enough to warrant a photographic brochure on the hidden spaces in the 
house and the functions that occurred in these underground spaces. 
 
                                                 
282
 Pittman, ?Morphological Variability in Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth-Century English 
Wine Bottles,? 60. 
Figure 16: 
Stenton Cellar 
Figure 17: 
Stenton Closet 
 132
In Richmond, the John Marshall House has some interesting examples of wine 
storage facilities as well. Marshall, who was a Supreme Court Justice, was known for 
his love of Madeira and every Sunday he had all-male dinner parties at his house in 
Richmond to discuss law and to drink Madeira. Professionally, Marshall disagreed 
with the regulation that Supreme Court Justices could only drink wine during wet 
weather when it would assist them in staying healthy. While Marshall was the Chief 
Justice, he permitted wine consumption on a daily basis, saying: ?Our jurisdiction 
extends over so large a territory that the doctrine of chances makes it certain that it 
must be raining somewhere.?
283
 In fact, some of the best Madeira was marked ?The 
Supreme Court? because it was imported directly for the Court, and the justices 
would sip it as they discussed the day?s cases after the cloth had been removed at 
dinner.
284
  
 
Marshall?s 1790 brick house still contains evidence of 
where this wine 
connoisseur stored his 
favorite beverage. In what 
was then the basement 
kitchen and is now the gift shop 
are two brick, barrel-vaulted 
                                                 
283
 Quoted in Josiah Quincy, Figures of the Past from the Leaves of Old Journals (Boston: Little, 
Brown and Company, 1926), 189-190. I am grateful to Charles Hobson for assisting with this 
reference. 
284
 Eric Burns, The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol (Philadelphia: Temple University 
Press, 2004), 28. There must have been a dining room at the Supreme Court where these dinners took 
place; however, the story is relevant because it attests to Marshall?s admiration for Madeira. 
Figure 19: 
John Marshall Cellar
Figure 18: 
John Marshall Cellar 
 133
storage rooms. Each has a slightly raised floor along with its original door with four 
small ventilation holes and evidence of a very secure locking mechanism. It is rare for 
these spaces to contain their original doors, much less such interesting ones, so at the 
very least, a didactic panel describing the function of the rooms could be placed in the 
shop. One of these vaults was most likely used for food storage, but from his papers, 
it appears that one was used for the storage of wine. Currently, they both contain shop 
materials, but since the cellar is large and easily accessible, they could, instead, be 
part of the overall information being presented to the public at this site.
285
 
 
Obviously, there is a limited amount of information that can be conveyed at any one 
particular site due to space restrictions and the challenge of physically getting the 
visitors to the cellars and attics in a safe and efficient manner. However, if historic 
house museums are going to continue to be a viable tool in educating the public on 
the country?s cultural history, the staff must constantly revaluate and expand 
interpretation of these sites. One of the many concerns for any museum staff is 
fostering visitation. Directors and curators are continually thinking of new types of 
interpretation that will entice a repeat visitor. Not only would opening up additional 
areas of the house give a more balanced approach to the social history being 
preserved and presented to the viewing public, but focusing on an activity such as 
wine consumption, would attract individuals specifically interested in the topic, as 
well as regular patrons who are curious about previously unopened areas of the 
museum. Some organizations have found that featuring seminars is yet another way 
                                                 
285
 I am grateful to Patricia Archer for giving me a tour of the Marshall house and for sharing this 
information. 
 134
to build traffic, and this technique could be more widely applied. Every spring for the 
past ten years Homewood House has sponsored ?An Evening of Traditional 
Beverages,? which is an innovative way of discussing wine consumption by focusing 
on a single type of liquor that Charles Carroll possibly had in his house. This has been 
an extremely successful event for the site and draws a large crowd every year. 
 
A building is not just a stagnant object, yet its role in society can only be understood 
through its use. As William Alderson and Shirley Low noted in their book on the 
subject of interpretation, ?we do not meet that obligation just by saving and restoring 
a historic site. Only when the essential meaning of a site and of the people and events 
associated with it is communicated to the visitor can we truly say that we have met 
our responsibilities.?
286
 More recently, Patricia West acknowledges in her book 
Domesticating History ?we now see the proper function of a museum as the 
presentation of historically accurate interpretations of the American past?We not 
only have the right but the responsibility to revise [the missions of historic houses] to 
accommodate new scholarship, new communities, and new agendas.?
287
 Daily 
activities, such as an all-male dinner party or the ongoing care of the provisions in a 
wine cellar, can not only stimulate a visitor?s imagination but can also expand her 
understanding of the past when viewed within the context in which it occurred.  
                                                 
286
 William T. Alderson and Shirley Payne Low, Interpretation of Historic Sites, 2nd ed. (Nashville: 
American Association for State and Local History, 1985), 7. 
287
 West, Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America's House Museums, 162. 
 135
Summary 
 
 
Today, wine, with its low alcohol content, is more widely consumed than other, more 
potent alcoholic drinks. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, it 
was only consumed by the small group who could afford it and its accoutrements. 
Good quality American wines did not exist, and respectable wines from foreign ports 
had high importation costs. Furthermore, why would anyone dare to serve expensive 
wine in low-quality equipage? One extravagance led to the other, and as with any 
luxurious product, inventories reveal that both wine cellars full of exotic wines and 
lavish objects associated with wine were prevalent not among the working majority 
but solely among the wealthy minorities. According to Lois Carr and Lorena Walsh, 
?over the first quarter of the eighteenth century change accelerated in the households 
of the rich and powerful. They began to acquire a greater array of material goods that 
permitted a style of living truly different from that of more ordinary people.?
288
 
 
The affluent gentleman in early America had both the funds and the time to dedicate 
to leisurely pursuits such as wine consumption. Reflecting on the times, diarist James 
Boswell observed in 1775 that ?Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a 
considerable portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most rational 
and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living.?
289
 It was a way for them to 
support their self-proclaimed status of gentility. As the well-known scholar, Thorstein 
                                                 
288
 Carr and Walsh, "Changing Lifestyles and Consumer Behavior in the Colonial Chesapeake," 66. 
289
 Quoted in Peter Brown and Marla Schwartz, Come Drink the Bowl Dry: Alcoholic Liquors and 
Their Place in 18th Century Society (York, England: York Civic Trust for Fairfax House, 1996), 4. I 
am grateful to Mark Letzer for sharing this article. 
 136
Veblen emphasized in his legendary book, The Theory of the Leisure Class: 
?Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods was a means of reputability to the 
gentleman of leisure.?
290
  
 
Why did the upper-class gentlemen of Annapolis and other cities use imported wine 
to help label themselves as genteel or refined? In other words, why did the ritual 
involving this beverage act as such a significant activity in which they could 
participate? Wine bibbing had financial, political, and social implications. It produced 
the widest array of luxurious accoutrements dedicated to one pursuit, and it required a 
special use of physical space within a household. Participation in the ritual indicated 
that one had the requisite knowledge of how to buy, care for, and consume certain 
varieties of wine. Furthermore, the desire for these wines helped to establish a 
political platform for colonists to work towards their independence. Individuals of 
this time period understood the implications of their ability to partake in this ritual. 
Wine, the cultural object, and all the other cultural objects associated with its 
consumption could demonstrate the owner?s power and place within a social 
hierarchy; it was a form of communication.
291
 The power of this beverage was that it 
exuded power. 
 
Still, much more needs to be explored with regard to this topic. The information on 
Annapolis consumption habits was surprisingly and disappointingly scant. There 
proved to be fewer written records and surviving architectural evidence than I had 
                                                 
290
 Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), 57. 
291
 Mihaly Csikszentimihalyi, "Why We Need Things," in History from Things, ed. Steven Lubar and 
W. David Kingery (DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1993), 23. 
 137
hoped, and, thus, the Annapolitan?s role in the wine-bibbing ritual still remains 
inconclusive. It would be beneficial to conduct a more extensive study including a 
few additional early American cities to see whether the patterns of behavior remained 
consistent in each location.  
 
Future research should also include a more comprehensive examination of inventories 
in order to systematically compare the numbers of pieces of equipage listed in 
gentlemen?s estates. Although some of this is addressed in this paper, evidence from 
an even larger group of inventories may help to answer the following questions: Who 
had a full range of accoutrements, and what exactly constituted a full range? Did it 
mean that the individual not only needed a certain assemblage of wine-related objects 
but also a certain amount of wine in storage? One problem with this requirement is 
that because wine was a consumable item, we would never know if an individual had 
merely run out of his supply of wine shortly before his death and was simply waiting 
for another shipment.  
 
It would also be beneficial to have another examination involving probate inventories 
that would compare the numbers of pieces of wine and tea equipage owned by 
individuals. A fair amount is known about the tea ritual, but, similar to wine, little is 
known of who could perform it properly. It is accepted by scholars that both tea and 
wine rituals were carried out by the upper class, but it is not definitely known whether 
tea accessories appeared more often in aspiring households than wine-related 
accoutrements. Many of the inventories I examined to date, in particular the ones I 
 138
would label as belonging to an ?aspiring? household, do appear to list more tea-
related items than wine. This, in addition to the various letter and journal entries, 
leads me to believe that, in fact, the consumption of tea was slightly more universal 
than that of wine. Contemporary written materials often note the popularity of tea, but 
rarely is any detail given to the types or quality of the tea, as is the case with wine. 
Tea equipage may have been a definition of status but those who had an array of 
luxurious wine equipage may have defined themselves at an even higher level of 
society. Additionally, very little information is available on the consumption of wine 
in the lower class; yet, this does not mean that researchers should stop searching for 
it. 
 
 Another important study would be to investigate the servants? roles in the ritual, for 
this activity may have provided a different type of rapport between the master and his 
servant than with other household duties. In addition to the butler?s responsibilities of 
overseeing the footmen and taking care of the expensive items related to dining, he 
often worked beside the master when decanting the wines down in the wine cellar or 
up in the Madeira garret. Furthermore, I would like to continue to examine 
architectural spaces throughout the East Coast to compare the similarities and 
differences of these barrel-vaulted rooms and to locate more evidence of Madeira 
storage in garrets. 
 
The role merchants played in procuring the material culture associated with wine 
bibbing is a subject related to the topic of this paper that is in need of further study. 
 139
Additionally, the function of clubs in providing another setting for the pursuit of wine 
consumption could be explored. How did these more public spaces affect the goals of 
the gentlemen consuming this beverage? And, finally, because they provide direct 
evidence of wine consumption, an in-depth study could be made of all the known 
wine bottle seals that exist with an American?s name or coat of arms on it.  
 
Given all of these related components to the ritualistic consumption of imported wine, 
scholars can continue to broaden their understanding of early American culture on 
many levels with this one diverse subject matter. Imported wine?s rise from an 
expensive beverage in the 1600s to a powerful commodity in the 1700s influenced the 
social fate of many early American gentlemen, for its consumption established a 
recognizable distinction between classes. This distinction, though underappreciated 
for many years, can now become part of the history of early America?s growing 
society. 
 140
Appendix A 
Origins of Wines Mentioned 
(and their various spellings in historical documents) 
 
 
Madeiras 
London Madeira 
Memsey, Malmsey, or Malmsea 
 
Other Spanish and Portuguese Wines 
Canary ? wine from Canary Islands and Azores 
Carcavelos, Carcavella, or Calcavelli ? fortified wine from vineyards near Lisbon,  
 Portugal 
Catalonia ? wine from the north-eastern province of Spain 
Fayal ? wine from the Portuguese island of Faial in the Azores 
Lisbon ? red and white table wines from vineyards near capital of Portugal  
Minorca ? wine from the Spanish island of Minorca 
Mountain or Malaga ? dessert wine from Spain 
Port ? fortified wine from Portugal 
Sherry or Sack ? fortified golden wine from Spain 
St. George ? wine from Portugal 
St. Lucar ? wine from the Canary Island of Tenerife 
Teneriffe ? wine from the Canary Island of Tenerife 
 
French Wines 
Barsac ? sweet wine from Bordeaux region 
Burgundy ? red wine from Bordeaux region 
Champagne 
Chateau Margaux ? red wine from the Bordeaux region 
Claret ? English name for red wine briefly fermented from Bordeaux region 
C?te R?tie ? red wine we now know as C?tes du Rh?ne 
Frontiniac, Fontemack, Frontenaic, or Frontenac 
Grave ? white wine from Bordeaux region 
Lafite ? red wine from Bordeaux region 
Medoc ? wine from area north of Bordeaux 
Muscat ? sweet dessert wines, often fortified 
 
German Wines 
Hock ? English name for any German wine made along the Rhine River 
Rhenish ? white wine from Rhine River Valley region 
 
Hungarian Wines 
Tokay ? strong, usually sweet wine 
 141
Appendix B 
Wine and Its Equipage in a Sampling of Annapolis  
Probate Inventories
292
 
 
Wine and Objects 
 
John Brice   Inventory Taken: 1 May 1767; Entered 2 August 1767 
6 Decanters         0.15.0 
6 qts. Sweet Wine        0.15.0 
199 qts. Port 
338 qts. Madeira Wine       53.14.0 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?3,169.7.5 
 
 
Richard Chew  Inventory Taken: 30 October 1761 
1 Silver Waiter       wt. 7 ozs. 8 dwt. 
1 Silver Waiter         wt. 15 ozs. 17 dwt. 10 grains 
1 Case & Bottles        1.0.0 
1 Mahogany Cooler with brass Hoops     1.15.0 
3 qt Decanters         0.7.0 
1 pint Decanter        0.1.0 
1 Stand with Glasses        0.8.0 
2 tinn Waiters & 1 Mahogany ditto      0.2.6 
9 Casks Contg. 100 Galls*       3.12.0 
4 do do 30 Each*       0.16.0 
1 cask Contg. 150 Gallons*       0.12.0 
* Unspecified liquid 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?5,237.15.6 
 
 
Edward Dorsey  Inventory Taken: 31 October 1761; Entered 14 July 1762 
Glass ware Consisting of Wine and Jelly Glasses, Tumblers, Cruits, Decanters &c.
          3.15.0 
4 Bottle Stands        0.8.0 
A Cooler         0.4.0 
Small Bottle Case broke       0.7.6 
50 Gallons Wine in Cask and 14 Gallons in Bottles    32.0.0 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?1,804.3.2 
 
 
                                                 
292
 Dining tables and empty bottles or casks are frequently listed in the inventories but have not been 
included in this study. I also have not corrected the spelling errors in the inventories. 
 142
Daniel Dulany  Inventory Taken: 21 May 1754; Entered 24 July 1764 
1 Salver         0.2.6 
49 ? lb. of Double Flint Glass      2.9.0 
7 Small Salvers, 2 large Ditto (one large Salver omitted) 
2 Strainers 
2 Decanter handles 
153 Bottles of Claret        22.19.0 
23 Ditto Memsey        3.9.0 
30 Ditto Renish        4.10.0 
24 Ditto old Bad Port        18.15.0 
125 ditto Fontemack        18.15.0 
20 gallons of Madeira Wine       6.0.0 
1 Pipe of Madeira Wine qy 104 Galls      31.4.0 
1 Ditto in which is 24 Do       7.4.0 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?3,062.2.10 ?  
 
 
Robert Eden*   Inventory Taken: 26 June 1776 
1 Maho: wine cooler with brass hoops & Stands    5.10.0 
1 Sideboard Table with Marble Slab vased with dove coulour?d Marble 15.0.0 
1 Maho: case with 6 flint Bottles      5.0.0 
7 ? doz Wine Glasses        3.9.0 
11 Quart Decanters with ground Stoppers     4.2.6 
4 pint Decanters with ground Stoppers     1.0.0 
4 Leather Decanter stands       0.17.6 
1 Silver Wine Strainer        0.12.0 
* No wine is listed but it was probably consumed before he returned to England or 
was divided among the appraisers 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?2,808.8.0 
 
 
Joseph Galloway  Inventory Taken: 1 January 1753; Entered 9 April 1754 
5 Decanters  3 Doz & 3 Glasses and tumblers    2.0.0 
3 Small Casks with abt. 2 Gal. Madeira Wine    1.4.0 
2 Chests  6 Doz. Quart & pint Bottles     1.16.0 
3 Gal. Red & White Wine in Bottles      1.17.9 
3 Gall. Canary in Do.         0.17.0 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?1,821.4.8 
 
 
 143
John Morton Jordon  Inventory Taken: 11 October 1771; Entered 1 December 1773 
4 Doz. and 1 Bottle Madeira Wine      6.2.0 
16 Bottles of old Clarrett       2.8.0 
4 Doz and five Bottles of Port Wine      6.12.6 
6 Pipes Madeira Wine        48.0.0 
1 ? Cask Malmsey Wine 2/3 full      4.0.0 
38 Bottles Containing very bad Lisbon Wine     1.5.4 
2 Pipes Madeira Wine at 44? each      88.0.0 
4 Glass Decanter        0.18.0 
3 ? Doz. Wine Punch and Beer Glass     1.8.0 
2 Cork Screws         0.2.0 
1 old India Bottle Slide       0.0.6 
3 Quart Decanters        0.6.0 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?1,820.15.8 
 
 
Philip Thomas Lee  Inventory Taken: 30 July 1780; Entered 8 December 1789 
1 Large Mahogany Wine Cooler bound with brass   Sold 5.0.0 
1 Tin Funnel        Sold 0.0.4 
2 small Waiters       Sold 0.7.6 
1 Large Cork Screw       Sold 0.0.9 
1 tin funnel        Sold 0.1.6 
1 pewter funnel        0.2.6 
1 Cooler        Sold 0.3.9 
10 Wine Glasses       Sold 0.3.9 
1 half gallon decanter       Sold 0.7.6 
4 Genteel quart decanters      Sold 1.5.0 
2 broken decanters       Sold 0.3.0 
1 pint decanter        Sold 0.1.6 
3 bottle stands        Sold 0.3.0 
19 Cut Wine Glasses       Sold 0.15.0 
5 Table decanters       Sold 1.15.0 
2 plain quart wine Glasses decanters     Sold 0.8.0 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?1,548.15.3 
3 Cork screws         0.6.0 
14 doz. 6 bott. Madeira wine       25.7.6 
6 bottles sweet wine        0.12.0 
3 double bottles Burgundy       0.12.0 
4 bottles Hock         0.12.0 
3 bottles Red wine        0.6.0 
   Assessed wealth from Charles County Residence ?405.24.6 
 
 
 144
Edmund Rutland  Inventory Taken: 1765 
1 Dum Waiter         0.10.0 
20 Wine Glasses        0.6.0 
1 quart Decanter, 1 Pint Decanter      0.3.0 
17 Bottles Claret, 11 Bottles Port Wine, 9 Bottles Lisbon   1.17.0 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?801.17.1 
* Rare instance of an individual whose assessed wealth is under 1,800 pounds but 
who has both wine in storage (albeit a small amount) and wine-related objects 
(although they are of little value). 
 
 
Thomas Stone  Inventory Taken: 3 January 1788; Entered: 31 March 1788 
17 wine glasses broken setts, 9 decanters, some damaged   1.15.0 
4 gilt paper decanter stands        
4 Japaned waiters 
1 Pipe Madeira Wine        90.0.0 
4 bottles wine 30 do Hock 6 do Claret     6.0.0 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?1,150.8.1 
   Plus Assessed wealth from Charles County Res. ?1,515.2.0 
 
 
 
Objects Only 
 
James Brice   Inventory Taken: 25 May 1802; Entered 22 October 1802 
1 Liquor Case         1.00 
13 Waiters of different Sizes, mostly very old    2.00 
95 Pieces of Glass Consisting of Tumblers, Wine, and Jelly Glasses 8.00 
7 Glass Decanters        1.50 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence $1,576.26 
 
 
Benjamin Kennedy  Inventory Taken: 11 September 1778 
2 Leather Bottle Stands       0.3.0 
1 flower?d Glass Decanter       0.2.0 
11 flower?d Wine Glasses       0.11.0 
7 plain Wine Glasses 
1 Japanned Waiter 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?854.19.8 
 
 
 145
Aquila Paca   Inventory Taken: 14 September 1789 
1 large Waiter         1.15.0 
2 small Waiters        1.0.0 
2 [?] Waiters         1.2.0 
1 Doz. Wine Glasses        1.9.0 
5 small Goblets        0.5.0 
3 Decanters         0.15.0 
2 old Funnels         1.1.0 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?1,401.13.6 
 
 
Joseph Pemberton  Inventory Entered: 11 December 1783 
1 Bottle Case         0.15.0 
1 japand Cooler        2.5.0 
4 large japand Waiters       2.0.0 
3 japand Waiters        0.11.3 
12 cut Wine Glasses        0.12.0 
10 Decanters         2.0.0 
4 Bottle Stands        0.12.0 
2 Bottle Cases with 4 Galls French Brandy     2.5.0 
   Assessed wealth from Annapolis Residence ?1,540.2.10 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 146
Appendix C 
Historic Houses Visited 
 
 
District of Columbia 
Octagon House 
Decatur House 
 
Maryland 
Charles Carroll House 
Chase-Lloyd House 
Folly Quarter 
Hammond-Harwood House 
Hampton National Historic Site 
Homewood House 
John Brice House 
James Brice House 
John Ridout House 
Paca House 
Riversdale 
Upton-Scott House 
Whitehall 
Widehall 
 
Massachusetts 
Gore Place 
Jeremiah Lee House 
Shirley-Eustis House 
Longfellow National Historic Site 
 
New Hampshire 
Moffatt-Ladd House 
Wendell House 
Wentworth House 
Rundlett-May House 
 
Pennsylvania 
Cliveden 
Henry Hill/Physick House 
Mount Pleasant 
Solitude 
Stenton 
The Woodlands 
 
 147
South Carolina 
Drayton Hall 
Aiken-Rhett House 
Heyward-Washington House 
Joseph Manigault House 
Nathaniel Russell House 
 
Virginia 
Blandfield 
John Marshall House 
Monticello 
Sabine Hall 
Stratford Hall 
Wickham-Valentine House
 148
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