Since I last updated you on progress in Bump Tavern, many changes have taken place in the first floor rooms in Bump Tavern. They have slowly transformed from a dining room and bedroom/office into a sitting room and best bedroom. Here's a pictorial update.
In the new sitting room, we've made this the long-term guests and Bump family's social hub. While overnight guests and village patrons looking for gossip and a quick beer used the tap room for those purposes, the Bump family and their summer-long vacationing guests from New York City used the sitting room for, well, sitting. However, it was also the place to catch a quick meal, a cup of tea or lemonade, darn socks, read a book, play the piano, sing, have a party or take a nap.
Most curators can be real royal pains when it comes to moving objects for exhibition. I try very hard not to be "that" curator. However, on this particular project, I failed miserably at planning ahead in the egress and logistics department. I decided to add a piano to the room AFTER the new, and immobile, railings were installed. Here's an image of our wonderful collections and facilities staff gently assembling the piano in its new home after they had lifted it over the railing.
And here is preparator Stephen Loughman re-hanging some of the artwork. Notice the fully assembled piano in the background.
The adjoining room has been transformed from a bedroom/office for the tavern keeper into a best bedroom for favored or frequent guests. New research has shown that the tavern owner most likely kept all of his cash and books in the bar area, rather than have two office locations. And, since the Bump family lived in the tavern all year long, they may have had a more private room on the upper floors. We know from letters that by the 1860s, this room was used by guests and today it has been slightly re-furnished to represent two women travelling to the Catskills for the summer. The dresser is part of the tavern's original furnishings was donated to us recently by ancestors.
We've refreshed the bed with a newly acquired coverlet woven by David Johnson in orleans county for Rhoda C. Dix. Maybe Rhoda was the youngest child in a large family. She had Johnson weave "Property of Rhoda C. Dix" into the corner block. Although not unheard of, this language is very rare. I can only envision a young woman who must constantly protect her belongings from pillaging older sisters.
