Thomasville Chapter DAR features program by Mary Lou Goehring

May 25—THOMASVILLE- The May meeting of the Thomasville Chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) featured an interesting program on "Dining in Early America" by Georgia State Society DAR Northeast District Director Mary Lou Goehring. Thomasville Chapter Regent Shelba Sellers introduced the speaker. Goehring is the Chapter Historian of the Jacob Braselton Chapter, NSDAR and serves on the National Society's DAR Museum Outreach Committee as vice chair for the Georgia State period room and as a correspondent docent.

Goehring said the DAR Museum is located in the NSDAR headquarters in Washington, D.C. There are two floors which contain period rooms decorated by different states. The Georgia State Society DAR has a period room which is Lucy Tondee's Tavern, an 18th century tavern.

Goehring provided a slide presentation about cooking and dining traditions in the American home in 18th and early 19th centuries. The Oklahoma period room displayed a kitchen from the 1800s. There were large pots to cook meat in. Vegetables and meat would be added to a pot of soup hanging over the fire and kept hot all the time. Other pots were used for hot water for coffee and tea. Spices such as nutmeg were hand grated. Also on display in the Oklahoma room is a washing machine, fish steamer, irons, coffee grinder, waffle iron and wooden potato masher. Many of the items used were made by blacksmiths.

The Georgia Room is decorated as Lucy Tondee's Tavern. The 18th century tavern was located in Savannah and was owned by Peter Tondee during the Revolutionary War. He kept a written detail of all chairs, tables, silverware and other items in the Tavern. When Tondee died everything was left to his wife Lucy who continued to run the tavern during the American Revolution. The Sons of Liberty gathered at Tondee's Tavern and George Washington was entertained there when he came to Georgia. The chairs in the tavern don't match because chairs had a tendency to get broken in taverns. Patrons could spend the night upstairs. There was a fireplace for cooking and a different room for the family. During this time, most people had meat and fish for their big meal and vegetables. Items also shown in Tondee's Tavern were a punch bowl for serving punch and a salt cellar in which salt was sprinkled out using crystal spoons.

The Massachusetts Room contains a bed, kitchen and fireplace all together because it was so cold there. The drop leaf style dining table was in front of the fireplace and behind it was the bed with curtains around it which would close to make it a private room. On the table were beeswax candles, a pitcher for wine or water, small glasses for sherry, tin plates and silverware with wooden or ivory handles made from animal horns. Oysters were eaten instead of fish in Massachusetts so there were oyster shells on the metal plates. Goehring also included a photo of a beautifully handwritten recipe card "To Make a Potatoe Pudding" from Miss Hannah Bloomfield's Receipt Book of Cookery. The ingredients included potatoes, butter, eggs, brandy, cream, rosewater and sugar.

The Virginia Room has a wood buffet with candelabras on top and a china cabinet with a variety of china and 13 glasses for good luck. China plates are displayed on the dining table and the meal served consisted of carrots, meat, fish, asparagus and potato pie. Breakfast, lunch and dinner would be set up on the sideboard each day for service. The cellarette had a lock on it and contained wine, bourbon, gin and brandy. The woman of the house kept the key and would count items after it was used each day and then locked it back.

Goehring concluded her presentation with the North Carolina Room. It has the grail on the front of the fireplace to keep embers off the floor. There is a warming pot to keep things warm. The period room also features a dining room table and chairs, the dumbwaiter which was used to hold drinks and desserts and the sideboard with a gravy bowl and candles on top. The Glass Epergne displayed desserts which were usually made with brandy or other alcohol.

"America hasn't changed that much even though we really think it has and these things that we now use revert back to this time," said Goehring. "This is what it was like to dine in America during the 18th and 19th century."

The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890 to promote historic preservation, education, and patriotism. Its members are descended from the patriots who won American independence during the Revolutionary War. With more than 190,000 members in approximately 3,000 chapters worldwide, DAR is one of the world's largest and most active service organizations. More than one million women have joined the DAR since it was founded. To learn more about the work of today's DAR, visit www.DAR.org. For more information about the Thomasville Chapter DAR, visit thomasville.georgiastatedar.org or facebook.com/ThomasvilleChapterNSDAR.