Christmasespast

by Michael J. DeCicco

December will be the time to enjoy the sights holiday season and learn about the New Bedford’s past traditions.

On Thursday, December 14, the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum will open for its Christmas on County program. Visitors will be able to tour the halls of the mansion decked out for the holiday season and hear from docents about some of the unique holiday customs held by residents of the house in years past.

Lauren Prescott, Manager of Collections and Interpretation, said there will be a Christmas tree elaborately decorated in modern fashion in the first floor parlor where Beatrice Duff regularly placed her Christmas Tree in the late 1970s (for years, her mother, also named Beatrice, had placed it in the front hall on the second floor until daughter Beatrice wanted its regular location moved).

The downstairs dining room will be designed for a holiday dinner party. The table settings and furniture will be a 19th-century design against wallpaper that is in the 1930s style installed by the Duffs. Upstairs, visitors will find a stunningly large nativity scene designed by Peruvian artist Luis Duffy-Baraybar. But it's the stories of past Christmas celebrations at the Rotch-Jones-Duff House that will let visitors imagine what past Chrristmases were like in the stately mansion. The house's first owner, William Rotch, Jr., wouldn’t have had much of a Christmas celebration or displayed any decorations, Prescott said. That’s the first surprise of the house’s Christmas history. Rotch was a Quaker who didn’t make much of a fuss about Christmas, which wasn't celebrated in a large way until the 1850s. He acquired the property as part of land owned by his father, William Rotch Sr., who passed the parcel to his children after his death in 1828. The property was deeded to William Jr. on July 5, 1831.

Generations

“The most information we have is about the Jones family,” Prescott said. “They were the second owners of the home, and they lived here from 1851 until 1935. Edward Coffin Jones purchased the home and lived here with his daughters Emma, Amelia, and Sarah, until he died in 1880. Amelia continued living here until her death in 1935.”

She said the Jones Family celebrated Christmas as early as the 1850s, when the Jones daughters were young children. “We have numerous books in our library with inscriptions to various Jones family members for Christmas, ranging from 1854 through to the 20th century,” she noted.

Rotch House historians know from Emma Jones’ papers found at the Whaling Museum that the Jones Family held one of the largest Christmas parties in the house in 1871. The guest list, Prescott said, included 28 people, probably friends who lived in the area. According to Emma, each guest purchased a gift of no more than $1 (about $25 today) – a limit set by Amelia. The gifts were placed on the branches of the Christmas tree along with a verse or note written to accompany the present. A poem called “The Tree’s Welcome” was read by one of the Jones daughters at the start of the gift exchange. The verses explained the rationale behind the gift and sometimes hinted at the identity of the giver. For example, Thomas Swift received a “little man holding on to the tail of a little pig, which, when wound up went with unparallel[ed] speed.” The accompanying verse included lines that played on Swift's last name: “Swift thy name and swift thy nature.”

That party, unfortunately, would be the last big celebration of Christmas at the house for a while. After Sarah C. Jones married John Malcolm Forbes in 1873, Prescott said, the Joneses spent the Christmas holiday in Milton, Massachusetts. On Christmas Eve in 1874, they traveled to Milton to celebrate the holiday there first. On Christmas morning at breakfast, according to Amelia Jones's diary, the family exchanged presents there and in the evening a dinner party was followed by “theatricals.” The following year, in 1875, the Jones family did not leave for Milton until Christmas day, having exchanged their own gifts at home on Christmas eve. Amelia Jones continued to spend Christmas with the Forbes family after her sister's death in 1891, usually with her niece Ellen Forbes.

Holiday celebrations under the Duff family's ownership were even quieter affairs, Prescott said, wherein family members who visited the Duffs for Christmas would come over after Christmas dinner. The Duff family placed nativity scenes in an unused fireplace banked with greens during the holiday, and the family’s other simple decorations consisted of greens on the mantels.

This year’s Christmas decorations will be decidedly more modern than what the original resident families would have enjoyed. But the museum is confident it is putting its best foot forward with docents full of stories of the house’s past Christmases. The adornments will stay up through the end of the year and come down in early January.

Prescott added that visitors will also be asked to wear their ugliest holiday sweater and seasonal accessories and sample entries in the Cookie Challenge, now in its fourth year, wherein weekend-warrior bakers can bring batches of their favorite homemade cookie for visitors to sample and judge. This event is part of AHA! Night. Donations are accepted in lieu of a fee.

Reliving the past

from 1-4 p.m.. The tour, which requires pre-registration, will start at the society’s headquarters at the James Arnold House, 427 County Street, with a brunch at 11 a.m. (the brunch cost is a separate ticket). It will feature a visit to five historic houses in downtown New Bedford, including tours of the Arnold House, the Rotch-Jones-Duff House, and three other homes that the society leaves as a surprise by not announcing them in advance.

Program Coordinator Pat Daughton is proud to note the fundraising event is now in its 29th year, interrupted only by COVID in 2020. She said that in years past, when the tours were conducted for two days, up to 400 people attended.

She said that what attendees get to see on the Preservation Society tours is the value of these historic houses that define the city’s rich history. “I know I will walk by one of these houses, big and small in the city, and say ‘I’d like to see what's inside,’” she said.

What visitors get to see and appreciate inside and out, she elaborated, is the extraordinary craftsmanship that went into designing and constructing these homes. And these visitors should note that a lot of people and groups in the city have worked for years to preserve these historic homes, she said. “And that’s something the city should be proud of,” she said. “We’ve managed to keep some of our historic architecture intact. That’s a great thing for our community to be able to do. It’s a huge effort from all a lot of people and groups in this city.”

For a tour of more than one historic house downtown at a time, attend the New Bedford Preservation Society’s Historic Holiday Tour (the Society’s main fundraiser to support its programs throughout the year) which is scheduled for December 9

The New Bedford Preservation Society is a private 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that, according to its website, “strives to heighten awareness, provide education and guidance, and promote sensitive restoration and preservation of New Bedford's fine historic structures and the neighborhoods in which they are located.”

Tickets are available for purchase on the New Bedford Preservation Society website at nbpreservationsociety.org.