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Mon, 7 Nov 2011 10:51:26 -0800

This history was compiled in 2001 by Kim Nemeth an Americorps Volunteer working at the museum 2001-2002.

In 1874, William Kirkman began building one of the Northwest’s most outstanding Victorian structures. An Italianate-style home, the Kirkman House was made of local brick, the house took nearly $7,000 to complete. An 1881 news article sites Allen as the architect. The Italianate style is relatively rare to find in Washington State, especially an example of brick Italianate. This architectural period reached its peak in the 1860s-early 1870s, a period when not many brick buildings were being built. However, this style was very popular in the West Coast when Kirkman was living in San Francisco, and brought these style ideas with him. The family moved into the home in 1880, and it was home to three generations of Kirkman’s.

The Kirkman House is an authentic example of the luxurious 1880’s, a period of extensive growth for Walla Walla in downtown business buildings and in fine homes. In Walla Walla, it is the second oldest brick building still in existence, and certainly one of the grandest. The house has a rich history of its own, having undergone several phases throughout its 131-year history.  
THE HISTORIC ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
The Historic Architectural Development Corporation, or HAD, was created in 1973 in reaction to the direction they saw Walla Walla moving in. The wonderful heritage of architecture left by early settlers was crumbling, either through abandonment or demolition, to make room for newer buildings. The group had the foresight to see that these buildings were an asset to citizens. Not only would the restoration of these buildings create a beautiful place to live, but would also benefit downtown, and Walla Walla in general, economically by preserving the rich history of this city.

Incorporated on November 6, 1973, HAD’s purpose was to aid in the development and restoration of existing historic buildings in the Walla Walla area, and to purchase, when necessary and practical, historic buildings to restore and develop new beauty and usefulness to the community. The founders of HAD were W.L. Minnick, Erma Jo Bergevin, Helen King and Peggy Hoyt. The original officers of HAD were Erma Jo Bergevin, Peggy Hoyt, Whitney Ellis, Tim Copeland, W.L. Minnick, Mrs. Ralph Stevens and Mrs. Eugene W King.

Their early objectives were focused on raising awareness of the beautiful landmarks in the area. This was done by aiding landowners in placing their buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, including the Dacres, the Memorial Building at Whitman College, Carnegie, and the Kirkman House. They also developed a city beautification program through research, displays and promotion of a commission to provide the guidelines for preservation of buildings. An educational program was developed by Professor Paul Dewey, which presented the architecture of Walla Walla and showed how buildings originally looked, thereby giving local citizens an idea of why returning these buildings to their original condition was so important (Walla Walla Union Bulletin, March 23, 1975).

While HAD made great strides and received recognition within the community, some actions were met with controversy. An early example of this occurred in their work with the Schwarz building downtown. HAD received great criticism for their actions toward the owners of the Schwarz building in trying to get them to not raze, but restore the building. While the owners looked at their options and decided it was not economically feasible to restore, HAD continued to push, sending letters to newspapers and holding meetings with the architects and banks involved. The Schwarz was eventually razed; however, HAD’s concerns were noted. When plans for the new building on the site were discussed, HAD participated in the Advisory Council to ensure the new building designed matched the surrounding buildings.

HAD began their relationship with the Kirkman House in the early 1970s. The group had been in contact with Carolyn Retzer, the property owner at the time, regarding the historic value of the building. Upon HAD’s recommendation, Retzer placed the Kirkman House on the National Register for Historic Places. In the spring of 1977, HAD bought the Kirkman House for $50,000. The property then became the headquarters for HAD. Originally, the group planned to restore the house to its original condition and use the building as a historic architectural library and picture gallery for lectures, workshops and special events. The purchase, however, split the group internally and caused many members to resign. There was a growing sentiment among some members that the group was taking on too many projects too soon and straying from the original mission of the group. The acquisition of the Kirkman House left many dissatisfied with the direction of HAD. Indeed, HAD did shift directions with its purchase of the Kirkman House. HAD’s time was now consumed with the restoration of the House, not the development and restoration of Walla Walla buildings overall.

As the Kirkman House progressed, the original goals of the Historic Architecture Development Corporation drastically changed. Where once they were involved in many projects, the Kirkman House Museum became their sole project. The members of HAD became the board members of the Museum. In 1977, the by-laws called for a “Kirkman House Planning Committee” and then later a committee within HAD for the “Kirkman House Board.” Today HAD exists as a legal entity over the Kirkman House, but in name only. The group is now exclusively the board of the Museum. The origin and mission statement of the Museum currently is as follows:

Kirkman House Museum is owned and operated by Historic Architecture Development, Inc., a state registered, non-profit organization. Historic Architecture Development, Inc. was formed in 1975 to purchase the Kirkman House and restore it to its Victorian era appearance. Since 1975 it has repaid its loan for the initial purchase and restored 80% of the mansion's interior to the 1890s era when the William Kirkman Family lived there. The volunteer Board of Directors has obtained local grants, admission fees, and rent from adjoining non-historic property to cover its operating expenses.

The mission The Kirkman House Museum enriches the Walla Walla community with exhibits, events and programs that bring our valley’s history to life.

THE START OF A MUSEUM
When the Kirkman House was purchased in 1977 by HAD, the house was not a house but an apartment building, and had been for nearly fifty years. The building retained little of the splendor it originally held. Like many homes in Walla Walla, the Kirkman House has undergone a number of changes since it was built in 1880. The Kirkman family built the home between 1874-1880, and was their main residence until 1919. At that time, Mrs. Kirkman gave the home to Whitman College, then estimated at a value of $20,000. Mr. Kirkman had long been a supporter of the College and the gift of the Kirkman House was to aid these fundraising efforts.. Whitman had begun a fundraising effort to build a new dormitory on campus that later became Lyman Hall. The College used Kirkman House as a dormitory for five years. After giving the home to the College, the William Kirkman Chair of History was established for the generous gift.

In the 1920s, Whitman College sold the property to a private owner. The house was then converted to an apartment building, and was used as one for nearly fifty years. Front porches were added to the façade with the addition of four columns. The widow’s walk was taken out and the balustrades above both of the lower front windows were torn down, greatly changing the exterior. On the inside, walls were added, ceilings were lowered to 10-12 feet, and plumbing for individual apartments was added. The original faux marble in the hallways was painted over many times, and carpets covered the elegant wood floors in all the rooms and the parquet in the hallway. The carpets laid in the 1930s protected the floors. When they were torn up in the 1970s during the beginning of restoration, the wood floors were in beautiful condition. Thus all the floors in the home are original and are in remarkable condition, considering their age. Nevertheless, the task ahead to restore the building into a museum resembling the original home was enormous, and would prove to take over fifteen years.

On May 1, 1977, HAD moved their offices to one of the cottages on Kirkman grounds and quickly began their work. The Dining Room and Isabella’s Room, or the Master Bedroom, were the first to be restored. On Sunday, December 11, 1977, the Museum had its first-ever Christmas open house. And while there were still many tenants living in the building, Isabella’s room was cleaned out and partially restored. That little of the home was restored mattered not for the enthusiasm of HAD and visitors, as over 500 people attended the Museum that day to see the progress and hear the plans HAD had for the building. The event raised over $600 and began the traditional Christmas Open House that continues today at the museum.

Momentum was building. In January of 1978, HAD was awarded a matching grant for $31,721.00 from the Historic Preservation Program, Department of the Interior. This grant ushered in the first major step in restoring the house, and Supporters of the Kirkman House Museum at the first annual Christmas Open House in the Front Parlorthe next two years were spent using this grant. HAD started at the foundation, using part of the grant for both foundation and porch repair.

The apartments made extensive changes to the house. Porches were added to the facade and the widow’s walk was taken down. With this grant, the façade was restored to near original condition and much of the exterior was painted. The Kirkman façade originally had a balustrade above both of the first story windows, which was not added with this restoration. The results, however, were very similar to the original, and the home began to take on, once again, its original stateliness. The work was finished on the façade by December, 1979.

This grant was also used for updating the heating unit and adding radiators to the upstairs bedrooms. Interior paint and wallpaper for both the master bedroom and dining room were bought. Both of these rooms reached near completion as far as restoration. From this point, a call for furniture was sent to members in the community to decorate these fine rooms.

In September, 1979, the Museum had quite a surprise. With the help of “a little luck and a keen eye,” the widow’s walk was restored to its proper place atop the Kirkman House (Walla Walla Union Bulletin, “Widow’s Walk Finds its Way Home,” by Marianna Jones, Sept. 27, 1979.) Taken down during the apartment phase, the walk was “missing” for nearly fifty years. A lady who was helping to restore the museum saw a beautiful walk at the Garden City Furniture building on Alder Street and thought it remarkably similar to the original Kirkman House widow’s walk balustrade. After speaking with several experts and consulting old photographs of the house, their suspicions were confirmed. Indeed, they had happened upon the original walk. Jim Nostdal, a local artist, helped return the gate atop the Museum, and made wax-clay replicas of the corner pieces that had been lost. This wonderful find fueled excitement for the Museum further, and restoration only increased in the following years.

In 1980, progress continued. The dining room was completely restored by December, while the Master bedroom was partially completed and work on the front parlor began. There were over 800 guests to the Museum that year, and HAD decided to hire an intern from Whitman College to oversee tours and live in the apartment.

1981 was perhaps the busiest year of restoration. Two grants from the George T. Welch Foundation for $4,000 each, as well as a grant from the Department of the Interior for $2269.79 gave the Museum the means to continue.

The Welch grants were used in creating what is now the library. The library was originally Mr. Kirkman, and then William Henry’s, bedroom. Victorian couples often had separate bedrooms, and while Mrs. Kirkman had her room upstairs, Mr. Kirkman was downstairs. His poor health throughout his life probably factored into his decision to keep a room on the lower level, to avoid climbing the 22-step staircase on a daily basis.

However, HAD wanted the Kirkman House to be an “ideal” Victorian mansion. This included having a library in the house, despite the original home’s lack of one. Using the craftsmen at the Whitehouse-Crawford to supply the paneling and molding, “Uncle Will’s” room became the library we see today. Donations of books and Victorian bric a brac were added to the built-in shelves. Mrs. Erma Jo Bergevin reframed William Henry’s law degree and placed it, along with a drawing of Mr. Kirkman in the stately room to complete it.

The grant from the Department of the Interior was used to support much of the labor in returning rooms to their original size. Walls were torn out, ceilings that had been put in at 10 feet for heating purposes were torn down, showing the original 14 foot ceilings above. By the end of the year, the Front and Middle parlors were ready for wallpapering. HAD had wanted to recreate the original wallpaper, but due to high costs decided on the Lincrusta paper that is in place today. The hallway carpeting was removed, revealing the beautiful parquet flooring that had long been covered over. The pink paint in the hallways was scraped off, showing the original faux marble the Kirkmans had on their walls.

A new brick retaining wall, steps and pillars, sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. James Eagleson, were added to the façade and front lawn, completed by November of 1981.

HAD as the board of the museum, was busy fundraising as well. A Tea Dance at the Ritz House created funds for the museum. At the 1981 Christmas open house, raffle tickets were sold for a Hawaiian trip, which brought in well over $600. A Community Christmas card, placed in the Union Bulletin, was sponsored by local individuals to benefit the Kirkman House Museum.

1983-4 saw the completion of the Library and the Sewing Room, making four rooms in the Museum complete. The Museum began persuading local groups to “adopt” a room. Community groups would either pledge money or volunteer hours (and often it was both) and then work with HAD to complete the room. This worked quite well, and helped move the process of restoration further. The Walla Walla Chapter of the Daughter of Pioneers adopted the Master Suite, while Fannie Ann’s room was sponsored by the Walla Walla Valley Collector’s Club.. The Library was adopted by the George T. Welch Foundation, as it was this foundation that sponsored, through several grants, the creation of the Library. The Walla Walla Chapters of P.E.O. adopted the dining room, while the AD Chapter of P.E.O. the music room. The front hall was aided by the help of the Telephone Pioneers of America, and the Kitchen by the Walla Walla Junior Club.

In 1983, the Welch Foundation gave a $2,000 matching grant which was used for the purchase of two antique fireplaces and the repair of the oak fireplace in the Music Room. The two antique fireplaces were bought in Paris, France by Jay Bergevin and are French marble. The matching facings were placed in Fannie Ann and Myrtle Bell’s rooms.

From 1984-1989, much of the focus was in acquisitions. Descendants of the Kirkman Family were generous in their giving, loaning or donating many items to the Museum to be displayed in their original home. The community was very supportive, giving local items to the Museum for many to see and enjoy. And while the Museum did buy some items now on display, much of the furnishings here were given, thanks to the spreading enthusiasm of the members of HAD, and their own generosity (see list of gifts and major events).

In July, 1988, the mortgage was officially paid off. By the end of 1989, nearly all the rooms were restored to what we know today. The hallway was begun, and in 1990 the faux marble was completed by Pendleton artist Bill Bier. A sample of the original faux marble was restored at the top of the front stairs. By 1993, the all but two rooms were completed, the Kitchen and Leslie Gilmore’s room.

AMERICORPS
In the summer of 1998, the Museum took a new turn. The museum had traditionally hired interns from Whitman College to work part time at the Museum and to live in the upstairs apartment. While this adequately worked, the AmeriCorps program offered a full-time coordinator to deal with the day to day work necessary to move the Museum forward. Government funded, the position is an 11 month internship using recent college graduates, to run the Museum. The effectiveness of the program is seen through the progress made in the past four years. The house is taking on new directions and involving groups that previously had little contact with the Museum.

Andy Beard was the first AmeriCorps volunteer. During his tenure, he wrote a history of William Kirkman and his family. He also initiated the annual craft show now held the weekend following Thanksgiving.

Lindsey Frallic followed Andy. Many of our now annual events began during Lindsey’s stay. Sheep to Shawl and the Whispered Memories Tea were two of the most successful events. She also wrote a biography of Walter Brattain, a Whitman dormer at Kirkman House.
Allison Bren had perhaps the largest task, to create an accession file of the items in the Museum. Her year was spent cataloging, finding, describing, and numbering each piece in the Museum. Allison also had several children’s crafts, including a summer program called Mornings at the Museum which is becoming an annual event as well.

Kim Nemeth continued running the annual events, adding a vintage fashion show and Strawberry Regale. Her project was writing a history of the Museum, documenting the evolution of the Kirkman House through its twenty-five years of existence. Her tenure also saw the beginning of the Textile Center at the Museum in the first cottage on the grounds, giving the Museum new direction and focus.
Alan Adams will continue the AmeriCorps tradition of bringing new ideas and events to the Museum. He will also focus on preservation of materials, specifically textiles.

THE TEXTILE CENTER AT THE KIRKMAN HOUSE
In the fall of 2001, the Walla Walla Textile Artists approached the Kirkman House Museum about developing a Textile Center and Weaver’s Cottage at the Museum to promote and educate the public about the fabric arts from the 1850s through present day. This would be done through displays, demonstrations, and eventually classes teaching spinning and weaving, and branching into many varieties of fabric art. The founding members are Peggy Hoyt, Textile Coordinator, Susan Swayne, board member and liaison between the board and the Textile Center, Mary Jane Fehrenbacher and Tam Lennox.

Their proposal was approved in January of 2002 and work quickly began. When the Museum opened in April, the South Parlor had been converted into a temporary Textile Center, with daily demonstrators showing visitors how to spin and weave. By September of 2002 the first cottage on Museum grounds had been renovated and turned into the Weaver’s Cottage. The opening on September 7th was marked with a Sheep-to-Shawl on the lawn and a celebration. Daily demonstrations are now given in the Cottage and a Mercantile will soon open selling hand-made, fiber arts pieces to the public.

The inclusion of a Textile Center continues the Museum’s goal to be an ever-evolving entity, striving to find new ways to educate and involve the community. The annual events offered continue to expand, creating opportunities to involve many age groups in the Kirkman House. From 1993 to 2000, little information is available regarding the events and growth of the Museum. Few major accomplishments occurred during this time. According to board members, and through reading past board meeting minutes, the Museum appears to have focused solely on day to day operations and small events. The start of the AmeriCorps programs with the Kirkman House pulled the Museum to a new level by having someone who would handle daily tasks. Of course, much more needs to happen with the House, including restoration of the last two rooms to their original condition as well as structural work. The last several years have marked a new phase, and brought new enthusiasm to the Museum.

Isabella Jan. 21, 1845 - April 25, 1931

Sat, 25 Apr 1931 10:43:43 -0800

Mrs. Kirkman’s Irish Roots

By Charles Harley

“California is the hardest place to get a wife in any place in the world,” William G. Kirkman wrote home from San Francisco, October 15, 1854. Kirkman, though, was nothing if not persistent. “On the 4th of February, 1867, in San Francisco, Mr. Kirkman was united in marriage to Miss Isabella Potts, a native of Ireland,” W.D. Lyman’s Old Walla Walla County tells us.

Through his letters back to England and because, before emigrating, Mr. Kirkman worked in what then was one of England’s leading industrial enterprises, his Old Country background has long been fairly accessible to us. From knowledge of Mrs. Kirkman’s Irish roots, however, we have until recently had little more to go on than brief journal entries covering a few days’ visit to his Potts grandparents’ farm at Drumgrole, County Monaghan, as recorded in 1892 by The Kirkman’s elder son, William H. Kirkman.

“Thursday, July 14th... At four o’ clock took train for Ballybay... Took rooms at Leslie Arms Hotel and were then driven to Drumgrole about 3/4 mile distant where we saw for the first time grandfather & mother...”

In May, my wife Ellen and I visited Ballybay, a country town some fifty miles north by northwest of Dublin. Thanks to two encounters there, our knowledge of the descent and early circumstances of the woman who eventually became first lady of Kirkman House was greatly increased. The first encounter was with Mr. Robert Potts, whose farm includes the acres Isabella’s father once held. The second was with Mr. Peadar Murname, co-author, with his brother, of a monumental history of Ballybay and vicinity.

Mr. Potts of Drumgrole I found in the local telephone book. Mrs. Potts answered the phone. I explained that we were from America to research the Potts of Drumgrole. She replied that her husband would pick us up by car at eight next morning.

As he drove us from our Ballybay lodgings, Mr. Potts said that, despite his having the same names as Isabella’s father, their families were not related. Isabella’s Potts had left the land he now owned three generations ago. Her line in Drumgrole had died out.

At Drumgrole, we took a muddy farm lane that brought us to the edge of a rising field-Drumgrole is Irish for Ridge of Hoops-of verdant pasture. Mid field lay two solid slabs of mossy stone, one of them cut as though to accommodate a door or window: all that remains of Isabella Potts’s family home. Nearby, densely mantled with brambles, lay ruins of farm buildings, tumbled stone walls and twisted iron. Inspection was brief because Mr. Potts had undertaken to show us also the gravestones of Isabella’s parents, not-withstanding that, back at the farm; an ailing cow awaited his ministrations.

For a stone exposed for more than a century to the eternal Irish damp, the Potts memorial, situated in the far right corner of the Second Bullyboy Presbyterian Church bone yard, is remarkably un-mossy. Its inscription is easily read-and to me proved somewhat surprising.

After viewing what remains of Isabella Potts Kirkman’s childhood home at Drumgrole and visiting her parents grave in a churchyard in the nearby town of Ballybay, I called on Peadar Murnane, by avocation historian of the town and its surrounds, at his home on Ballybay’s Main Street.

I told Peadar of my mild surprise that Isabella’s parents’ ages at death were given on their gravestone as 96, Robert, and 95, his widow, Agnes. I read my host the entry from William H. Kirkman’s Journal of Summer Travel for 12 July, 1892: ‘Found the old couple looking very well, especially Grandmother, who is for one of her age (96) quite active. Grandfather not being so able to move about without assistance but still quite bright though 98 years of age.’

Peadar fished from the sea of papers that laps his office a photocopy of old Robert’s death certificate, which gives his age on death, 9 January, 1894, 18 months after his grandson’s visit, as 98…still. Gaps, errors and discrepancies in the vital statistics of those times were inevitable, Peadar said, given widespread illiteracy and poverty, and the paucity of official records—the Irish census not established till 1821, and the national register of “hatches, matches and dispatches” not till 1864.

The evidence suggests that George, Isabella’s elder brother and, according to available records, the one son of the family, was at best semiliterate. As the bearer of the news of his father’s death to the registrar for the district of Ballybay, it fell to George to sign the death registration certificate. His name in the box on the certificate reserved for the informant’s signature is, however, plainly written by the assistant registrar; whose longhand also fills the certificate’s 10 other information boxes.

Eleven years after his father’s demise, George had to inform the registrar of another death in the family, this time of his spinster sister, Sarah. On her death certificate George attests that he was present when Sarah died at the farm at Drumgrole. In the box for the informant’s signature, the name George Potts is again in the registrar’s hand. Between ‘George’ and ‘Potts’ comes a handwritten ‘X’. Next to that ‘X’ the registrar has appended, ‘His mark’.

We don’t know the year of his birth but in all probability George Potts was born late enough to be a potential beneficiary of Ireland’s National Schools system, created in 1831 to provide the poor and less well off with the rudiments of an education. Maybe George passed through a few of the earliest grades. If, though, he was the sole boy in the Robert Potts household, he more likely spent what ought to have been his school years helping his father on their tenant holding of —according to the 1861 Griffith Valuations, a land survey executed for the purpose of assessing tax—fourteen and one sixteenth acres, the proceeds from which were required to support a family eight or nine strong.

As girls in a household of modest means, Isabella and her sisters would almost certainly not have attended school. They would either have stayed home to help their mother or entered domestic service. From his photograph, Mr. Robert Potts was a proud man, and the family enjoyed a reputation for thrift, so perhaps it was with savings from the income from the farm, rather than from a slavey’s pittance that, in 1863, Isabella paid her passage to America.

‘For the first time stepped on Irish soil or rather English Landlord soil,’ William H. Kirkman wrote, 13 July, in his Journal of Summer Travel, 1892.
William and parents, William G. Kirkman and wife, Isabella, had that day disembarked upon “John Bull’s Other Island” en route for the modest farm at Drumgrole, near the town of Ballybay, County Monaghan, leased by Isabella’s father, Mr. Robert Potts, from the Leslie family, local grandees.

However true of Ireland as a whole, the view implicit in young William’s journal entry of hapless Hibernians prostrate beneath the hunting-booted heels of Anglo-Saxon rack-renters hardly reflects the particular circumstances of the Potts of Drumgrole.

While Isabella was growing up at Drumgrole in the 1840s-50s, the person to whom her father paid rent was female and of Scotch, ultimately Hun, origin. Specifically, the forbears of Emily Eleanor Wilhelmina Leslie had come to Ireland from Scotland in the sixteenth century, to Scotland from Hungary in the eleventh century, and claimed descent from Attila the Hun, whose parents galloped into Eastern Europe from central Asia early in the fifth century. Moreover, for a descendant of Attila, Ms. Leslie proved a pretty considerate landlady.

County Monaghan was sorely hit by Ireland’s Great Hunger of 1847-48. Blight ruined more than half the county’s crop of potatoes, its people’s staple food. Over the decade 1841-1851, through starvation and emigration, the population of Ballybay and its neighboring parish shrank by 20 per cent. But for Ms. Leslie’s charity and timely investments, that figure would have been worse. The Northern Standard newspaper for January 1847 stated that this lady “most liberally contributed 100 pounds to the Relief Fund”, which ladled out vegetable broth to the destitute. Men, who, with their families, might otherwise have starved, were given jobs on Ms. Leslie’s demesne, road making and ditch digging. For Ballybay—she owned the town—Ms. Leslie authorized construction at her own expense of a new market house, thus employing skilled tradesmen who otherwise might have foundered on the failed economy.

How straightened Robert Potts was by the famine we do not know. Records for tithes and taxes suggest that he weathered those hard times with acreage undiminished. Quite likely his rent was reduced. We find no suggestion that, from hunger and penury, any Potts of Drumgrole fled Ireland or sought refuge in the local workhouse—where, in exchange for roof and crust, inmates wore their fingers to the bone.

Odds are Potts and Leslies respected each other for what they were worth. The Leslies of Ballybay owed their estates to the expropriation of Irish Roman Catholic territorial magnates by Protestant conquerors. The Potts, too, were Protestant colonists from Scotland. ‘Destroy the Irish and plant your estate with Protestants,’ as a great landlord’s estate manager advised his employer. The Leslies, though, were known for their kindness.

In naming their second son Leslie, the Kirkman’s were perpetuating the memory of landed gentry whose tenants Ms. Kirkman’s forbears had been for well over a century. Isabella Potts quit Ireland not as a miserable refugee but, surely, with ambition to achieve in the New World a modicum of the prestige the Leslies enjoyed in the country she had left behind. As things turned out, she succeeded rather well.

William Dec. 7, 1831 - April 25, 1893

Tue, 25 Apr 1893 10:20:29 -0800

New Views and a Deepened Perspective

“After a late breakfast took train for Ramsbottom…This was the place of father’s birth and boyhood days and day was pleasantly spent with relatives and friends and in visiting old & familiar places of interest to father,” W.H. Kirkman wrote in his Journal of Summer Travel, Thursday 7, July 1892.

Correspondence over the past two years between Kirkman House Museum and Ramsbottom Heritage Society local historians, Barry and Isobel Aldous, has yielded a trove of new information about those old and familiar places that Kirkman Sr., on his one and only trip to England after emigration to America in 1853, visited just months before he died.

Using names from a copy of the Penrose Library Northwest Archives collection of William G. Kirkman letters sent to England by Kirkman House Museum, the Aldous’ found the entry in England’s 1841 census for the eleven-strong-household – including William’s grandmother, Betty Grimes Kirkman, 65, described in the census as indigent – of James Kirkman, William’s father. Though the census records the Kirkmans as resident in Tottington Lower End – then a flourishing community in the Ramsbottom vicinity, now, save a single home, vanished beneath tree roots and moss – it lacks a street address for their cottage because, as was then generally true of country houses large and small, there wasn’t one.

So the Aldous’ consulted the 1842 tithe map covering Tottington Lower End – a tithe map shows the real property on which a proprietor paid a rent-charge for the support of local clergy – plus a schedule that, if the property tithed is a dwelling, identifies its occupants. From map and schedule Aldous could deduce the row of cottages, if not the particular cottage, that the Kirkmans lived in. (Map and schedule also reveal that the Kirkmans’ home, as much as the property in the Ramsbottom area, belonged to the Grant Brothers, calico mill owners and employers of James Kirkman as a loom supervisor and, in youth and young manhood, son William as loom hand.)

Next, by overlaying the appropriate section of the tithe map on Google Earth satellite photograph, Aldous ascertained where the site of those old cottages lay. He took his own camera to the spot thus identified and photographed for our museum the lane the cottages stood on and a doorstep that could well have been that at the entrance to William Kirkman’s crowded boyhood home.

The tithe schedule additionally reveals that the cottage adjoining the Kirkmans’ accommodated the family of William’s Uncle Righteous Brooks and Aunt Fanny Kirkman Brooks, both mentioned in letters Kirkman-the-emigrant wrote to his parents. Hard by lived the Thomas Haslam family, one of whom was quite likely Kirkman’s “Friend Haslam.”

In February 1857, this particular friend was with Kirkman prospecting for gold in Columbia County, California. In October 1857, he and Kirkman went to a photographer in San Francisco to sit for portraits: “Friend Haslam & me were taken together.” In March 1858 Kirkman writes from Australia, where he is smarting over his failure in the gold field of Heathcote McIvor, in the state of Victoria, that Haslam, also down under, is “well and working at the tinkering business.” At last report, chum Haslam is about to return to California to start a cider business, his intended partner in the venture to be Kirkman’s former partner in the recently abandoned quest for Antipodean gold.

Another place with a Kirkman connection marked on the tithe map is the Christ Church Wesleyan Methodist chapel school, the “old Methodist school,” as Kirkman calls the establishment.

“For I could tell you how deeply I have felt my lack of information… though in form I had a common school experience…” Kirkman wrote to his parents, adding scathingly, “God save my brother from a similar one.”

Finally, from the archive of Ramsbottom Heritage Society, comes an undated photograph of the ruins of the Grant Brothers’ great calico print factory known as The Square, following its construction in 1821 rated among the wonders of industrial England.

“I feel sorry that you should have been so long working short time,” Kirkman wrote to his father from the gold field of California, 1855. “Well, the loom is good in its place, I suppose, but I don’t want to have to do with it and another thing is I never will so long as there exists either [California or Australia].” He further remarked that he would “rather dig a day than go to see Kirkman up in corner” – i.e., find his father idled by lack of work at the mill – “as I used to some times.”

The younger Kirkman clearly regarded employment at the The Square as little better than voluntary servitude. If, on revisiting the former scene of the Grants’ industrial fiefdom, he cracked a smile, it surely was in acknowledgement of the life there that he had so successfully escaped from.

Part of the 1842 tithe map of Tottington Lower End overlaid over a satellite photo of Ramsbottom, Lancashire. The James Kirkman family cottage was one of those built in a row indicated by a horizontal bar in the lower left. The red arrow points to the doorstep remains that is thought to be the Kirkmans.

The doorstep to what may have been William Kirkman’s boyhood home in Tottington Lower End. The U.K. censuses for 1841 and 1851 record young William’s presence in the community. He may well have lived there from birth, in 1831.

Photograph by Barry Aldous, 2007.

Wall embanking the River Irwell to secure the site of The Square, the five storey calico mill, now vanished, where William Kirkman likely worked for several years before emigrating, age 21, to the United States, 1853. The census for 1851 lists William as a power loom weaver and his father, James, as a loom “overlooker” or supervisor.

Photograph by Barry Aldous, 2007.

Undated photograph of the ruins of The Square from the archive of the Ramsbottom Heritage Society. By 1892, the year of Kirkman’s return to his home town, The Square had been sold and had become a bleaching plant.

Article by Charles Harley

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