one was running the most prominent colonial sea ports and that was the very important to him in his business life. secondly, norfolk had been burned to the ground during the american revolution and we were rebuilding and he was rebuilding his life, so it was a good match. thirdly, and maybe most importantly to moses meyers, when he moved here in 1787, virginia had just passed the statute of religious freedom, five years before the bill of rights. this would be important to moses in his new because they were jewish. moses moses meyers moved to norfolk, virginia in 1787 become norfolk's first permanent jewish residence. by 1791 they were doing well enough to purchase this lot of land and begin construction on this beautiful land. we moved in, we know, by 1795. and five generations of moses

meyers family have lived in this house. they're the only family to ever live in this house until it became a museum in 1931. when the great things about that is they left the house with the content intact, so the majority of the frenchs that we're going to see as we move through the house, are not period antiques but actually gates of first generation of the meyer's family. if we look up above us, we can see one of the finest examples of classical plaster work to be found anywhere in this time period. the ceiling is in the robert adams style. we also have, over here, a beautiful case clock. and this clock is original to the house and the family. it predates the house as moses was brought this clock with him from new york city. now, this is the first room that many guests would have seen.

they would have been welcomed into this room while one of moses enslaved servants would have brought him out to meet most arched guests. you'll only get to see if you're a vip or friend of the family. you're a friend of the family, so come on in. . allow me to introduce you to the meyers family. above this door, we have moses meyers himself and on our right-hand side, we have elijah meyers. these two portraits were painted by gilbert stewart, the same artist that painted the portrait of george washington that's on the one dollar bill. above the fireplace we have the eldest son john. above this door, we have samuel meyers, their second eldest son. and here we have meyer meyers, the third eldest son. and in total, the meyers had 12

children, nine of whom lived to adulthood, of the nine children that lived to adulthood, six were boys, three were girls. now, you might ask yourself, are these original colors on the wall or are the originals furnishings. on the first floor here, we have the house set more or less how it looked in 18 is the. and the reason we know what was in each room in 1819 is unfortunately moses meyers suffered a second bankruptcy. there had been a kind of a panic in that year and he had over extended himself by opening a branch of business for his eldest son john. when panic hit, he had to stop payment and file bankruptcy, some creditors came in and did an inventory of the entire house, which we have. we're able to use that inventory to place over hundred pieces in the original location.

now, the colors that you see on the wall are the 1819 colors. in 2005 we had a paint analysis done. if you look at this picture here, you will see that they look much different in the fireplace was once completely painted over. when they did that paint analysis and dug underneath the layers of paint, they struck gold, 22 and a half carat gold, which was largely intact. it only had to be repaired in a few places, but today it's considered one of the most elaborate guilded fireplaces in america at this time. now, if we -- if we come over here, i would love to bring you into the parlor. originally, this room would have served as the dining room to the family. as noted by the food mo teef on the fireplace mantle.

when they built a later dining room addition by 1810, it allowed them to transform this dining room into a parlor. now, this is a room where they would play games, they loved games of chance, they loved guessing games but their greatest love was music. all the children were trained musicians. this is their very own pia pianoforte. the girls played the harp and the boys played the violin and all of the children sang. they had over 900 pieces of sheet music, one of the largest private collections of music to be found anywhere in antebellum america. over the door here we have another painting by thomas sully, this is joseph marks. now you may ask yourself, being of the jewish faith, how did they find people of the same faith to marry considering the fact that they were the first jewish residents in norfolk. and i'll tell you it was very

difficult so moses myers' son samuel and meyer myers married two of mr. marx's daughters, li louisa and judith. over the fireplace you can see two original oil lamps. this may be one of the first set of oil lamps in norfolk, virginia, as moses would have had access to whale oil as a shipping merchant at a time when not very many people had access to that oil. come along with me and i'll escort you to the dining room. we're standing in the grand dining room. this is a later addition to the house. this was added around 1810. many furnishings in this room are original. this is their original table and we have 12 beautiful help l white chairs. we have two original side boards

that were custom built for this room. they're so exact to measure that they are not interchangeable because one of these nooks is one inch shorter than the other so as you see the back legs, they are tucked into the base boards. these two side boards have been in this exact location for every 200 years. moses myers' family were known as great entertainers and eliza was known as a very gracious hostess. a lot of people ask us, did they have a kosher diet and the answer to that is no. unfortunately they were not able to keep a kosher diet and we know that even though they celebrated passover and yom kippur, they also had occasion to eat oysters on christmas day and we do know that from one of their journals. they also wufd other types of entertainment in this room like

balls, weddings, and, unfortunately, funerals. so we're entering the second level of the myers' family home. it's interesting to think that looking out this window in the 1790s most of the other homes in this area would have had one story, maybe two story wooden structures. this was the first brick residence built in norfolk after the revolution. most other family homes in this area would have had single room homes maybe the size of this landing if you were lucky the size of this landing and this room combined. on the 1819 inventory of this house, this room was used for storage. they had about 30 armchairs stacked up in this room and it's another sign of their wealth that they had space that they could store things like this here. space was a luxury not many

people in norfolk could afford. if we're looking over here in this case, this is some of the original myers' family glass and china and a kiddish cup. this is a cup used in jewish ceremonies and rituals. from here we'll enter the myers' master bedroom. this is another room where the majority of the furniture that you're seeing is original to the family. it's not just period antiques, this is the actual bed that moses myers slept in and, unfortunately, it's the bed that he died in. it's a locally made piece of furniture by local craftsman james woodward and you can see the acorn above the head board, that's a symbol of wealth. one of the thing this is family definitely had going for it. this is a great place where we can talk about form following function in furniture.

the canopy bed is still popular today, but back then it would have had mosquito netting for summertime or maybe heavy curtains in the winter. and this wing-back chair could be pulled forward towards a fire and the wings act as walls that circulate the heat. allow me to bring you behind the scenes and show you what's in this closet. here we have some of the myers' clothing. in fact, that light tan and gold suit on your left may have been the suit that moses was wearing in this 1785 miniature portrait. many guests point out to us that that they would love to live in this time period but unfortunately there were many drawbacks to living in the 17 and 1800s, one of the

unfortunate aspects of life during this time was slavery. it would have been an enslaved servant's job everyday to come in, stoke the fire, empty the chamber pot, fill up the pitcher and basin there and even use this object here on the bed, this is a bed warmer. they would fill it with live coals and run it under the blankets to warm the bed before the myers got into bed at night, just a couple of the tasks that an enslaved servant was expected to do. we like to tell the story of all the people that live in this house, and if you would like to hear more about the enslaved servants, follow me to the kitchen. we are now standing in the moses myers family kitchen. this kitchen was an addition to the house probably built around 1797. it was very important to them to have the kitchen separate from the house to reduce the risk of

fire. unfortunately, this is one of the rooms where the furniture that you're looking at is not original to the family. but what is original is the flooring. we are standing on ballast stones off of one of moses myers' ships and you can see the brick extends out and that's because brick is a natural heat conductor and they could put pots and pans here to keep them warm. now, this would have been one of the busiest rooms in the house because the myers' enslaved servants would have been coming and going from this kitchen at all times and they would have taken all of their meals in this room. above this room we have sleeping quarters for their enslaved servants. and urban slavery was much different than plantation slavery. here in town, the enslaved servant had time to interact with other free blacks in

norfolk and they could earn a wage. if moses myers didn't have any work for his enslaved servants, they could hire themselves out and earn a wage. one of the men who worked for moses myers was a man named billy, and he was a skilled tradesman, he was a cooper who built barrels and boxes. this would have been very important to moses in his shipping. now we are standing in the moses myers maritime merchant room. on this wall you can see a map of the atlantic and these are all the different seaports where moses myers' ships would make call and we illustrate the different types of cargo that he would have carried -- cotton, rum, spices, molassemolasses, m different cargoes. now the family did suffer some ill side effects of their

religion. in 1817, the family had sent a shipment of tobacco to norway. unfortunately, no way had recently passed some laws forbidding jews from profiting from trade. the family, which had already sent the shipment of tobacco to norway, sent their son meyer myers to norway to recover payment on that shipment of tobacco. he was warned by a friend that the first thing they would ask for when he applied for a norwegian passport was what religion. because he was forewarned, he feigned an illness and sent his enslaved servant to get the passport for him. luckily, the officials were so taken aback that they forgot to ask what religion. in this way mier was able eyer obtain a passport that did not state his religion. unfortunately, the merchants who received the tobacco were seeking to hide behind this law

and they turned meyer myers in for being jewish. he was brought before the magistrate who demanded that he provide him a certificate of baptism. meyer myers countered this by saying "who do you know who carries around a certificate of baptism?" so meyer said to the magistrate "name any doctor and i will go get an examination and thereby prove that i am not jewish." he did go to the doctor and we're not sure if maybe some money changed hands but we do know that he was able to prove that he was not jewish. he spent five years in norway trying to recover that shipment of tobacco or the payment thereof and he never received the full payment. we have other maritime artifacts in this room, including this naval dirk which belonged to the family's youngest son, henry

myers, and this tent over here, kind of your old-fashioned gps. they could raise the arm at noon and measure the angle of the sun above the horizon and thereby know their latitude. this okay tent belonged to the family's youngest son henry myers who was a midshipman in the navy and unfortunately died of yellow fever in 1822. we are now standing in the barton myers room. barton myers was the great grandson of moses. and it's his wife kay who left the house to become a museum in 1931. by the age of 35, barton myers had already founded two factories, was president of the chamber of commerce, was instrumental in getting many railroad lines here to norfolk and had served as mayor of norfolk all by the age of 35.

one of the most important things that barton myers did was in 1907 he was on the board of directors for the jamestown exposition. the exposition was held in norfolk but celebrated the 300th anniversary of the founding of jamestown and bar dton myers owd the land on which the exposition was held and he had it set up with plumbing and electricity. after the exhibition was over, he lobbied the u.s. government to bring their navy base here to norfolk which was already well known as a great deep water port they did bring their navy base here and norfolk naval air space, the world's largest navy base is on the land barton myers owned and had set up with plumbing and electricity. would we even have a navy base here if not for barton myers? we'd like to thank you for visiting the moses myers house

today and we hope you'll come back and see us again very soon to learn us about this fascinating family and the affect that one family can have on the life of a small town like norfolk. hi, i'm allison termine, i'm the librarian for the chrysler museum. i've brought some material today from the moses myers archives which we have a lot of paper material, music, and books. add li adaline myers did a lot of shopping and grocery lists. lists are often not kept but the myers' family firm kept good records of everything and we have a lot of -- as you can see these are just some examples of

the things she would buy in preparation for dinners for just her family or larger dinners for guests. there's things on this like fish, potatoes, soweweet sweet 17 duck, beef, cabbage. they seemed to have eaten a lot of melon, that was in most meals. and this is -- these date from around 1829 -- 1824 to 1829. here i've taken out a freight list for the ship ravina. this is around 1824. one of myers' ships and it leaves a detailed inveptory of what's on the ship, the weight

of it, the measurement and the totals. and then here we have pre-printed shipping documents to state who the ship owner was, where it was headed, the name of the vessel, what they were shipping, the date and also the description, the length, breadth and depth of the ship and how many tons it was able to carry. so this is typical of 1819. so this is the moses myers' family bible. at this point it's a bit fragile and needs some conservation but it has many other useful information like birth dates written in the margins in the bible so it was definitely a well-used book in the house. here on the table is just a small example of what we hold at

the library, we have many letters that are written twice as a carbon copy, almost, so when they send it out and maybe they wouldn't get a letter back, a reply for a couple of weeks they can refer back to the original letter they wrote to remember what it is that they were talking about. the letters and all the documents that we have help us learn more about the moses myers' family. we have a very intimate and personal look into letters from moses myers to his children and letters from moses myers to his business partners and other people so this way we're able to piece together a well-rounded story along with having the historic house is a very -- is a really great asset to have.

you can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our web site at cspan.org/history. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. this weekend, our road to the white house coverage includes former president bill clinton campaigning in ohio on behalf of his wife. he'll speak to supporters in columbus at around 2:15 p.m. eastern. watch that live on c-span. later in the day, donald trump is on the campaign trail in arizona. watch his rally in phoenix, live at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span.

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each week, american history tv's american artifacts takes you to museums and historic places to learn what artifacts reveal about american history. rock creek park in washington, d.c. covers 1700 acres from the mouth of the creek in georgetown north to the district's border with maryland. we visited pierce mill, built in the early 1800s along rock creek. >> i'm standing in front of pierce mill and rock creek park. this is a -- one of the last vestiges of the rural past of washington, this mill. it's the only one of its type left. it was part of a way of life of farming and milling that happened in the early 1800s. the mill -- the owner of the mill was a quaker, a former quaker from pennsylvania named isaac pierce. he came to the washington area in the late 1790s and he bought

a lot of land, ultimately 160 acres along rock creek park and he bought -- there was an old mill here that he bought and he built this mill in about 1820 and he had a whole farm said the here. there was a farmhouse, there was a house that may have been -- a building that may have been a distillery, a barn, a spring house, an entire farm area here. the mill, as i said, was built in 1820 and stayed in operation through almost the entire 19th century. it was -- the mill was subsumed into rock creek park in 1890 when the rock creek park was founded and it kept operating for seven more years and finally ended in 1897 when the main shaft of the