Sarah Davis 1814 – 1879

            Sarah Woodruff Walker was born on September 4, 1814 in Lenox, Massachusetts. She was one of nine children born to William Perrin and Lucy Adam Walker. William Walker was an important man, being the Judge to Probate for Berkshire County, and the family had many significant social and family connections.

            Sarah attended Hartford Female Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, where Catherine and Harriet Beecher taught. This school was founded in 1823 by Catherine Beecher, and was one of the first major educational institutions for women in the United States. It was created as a way to challenge women’s intellectual abilities and also to educate them so they could better educate and instill morals in their children at home.

After quitting school, Sarah returned home to Lenox where she met David Davis, a young law student at Yale University. David was born in Maryland and was educated at Kenyon College in Ohio. After graduating from Kenyon, he came to attend Yale University and study in the office of Judge Bishop, one of the most talented and well-known lawyers of Lenox. Through his work in Judge Bishop’s office, Davis became acquainted with Sarah’s father, and through this acquaintance, he became friends with Sarah. The friendship soon grew to love, and in 1835, David asked Sarah’s father for permission to marry her. Her father denied him immediate engagement, so David set out for Illinois in the hopes of making a name for himself. He purchased Jesse Fell’s law practice in Bloomington, IL and began to establish himself as a lawyer there. After making a modest fortune, he once again approached Sarah’s father. This time, her father consented, and the two were married on October 30, 1838.

            After their marriage, Sarah and David returned to Bloomington early in 1839. In October 1845, the Davis family moved to a large farm which David had purchased from its builder, Jesse Fell. The farm and land was considered outside of town, since Bloomington’s population was relatively small at that time. The farm was very large, 160 acres, and had several gardens, livestock, an orchard, farm house, and other structures. Fell had named it Fort Jesse, but many of their peers called it “Fell’s Folly” because it was separated from Bloomington by a stream. The Davis’s renamed the estate “Clover Lawn.”

Sarah and David had seven children of whom only two lived to adulthood. In 1840, during David’s unsuccessful campaign as a Whig Party nominee for State Senator in Illinois, Sarah lost their first child. As a result, she grew very ill and returned to her family in Lenox for nine months to recover. In June 1842, she gave birth to a healthy son, George Perrin. Sarah then gave birth to five more children: Mercer, Lucy, and Sarah (commonly known as Sallie), Frances Mary and an unnamed daughter. Unfortunately, only George and Sallie survived to adulthood.

            Although Sarah disliked politics, she supported and nurtured her husband’s ambitions, fulfilling her role as a woman and wife who was a member of polite society. In 1844, David won the election as a Whig to the Illinois legislature, and four years later, was elected judge of Illinois’ Eighth Judicial Circuit, where he served during Abraham Lincoln’s remaining years as an attorney on the same circuit. Lincoln and Davis became very close friends during their years on the circuit, and Lincoln was often a guest at the home of Sarah and David. He became a very close friend of the family. Davis also served as Lincoln’s campaign manager during the 1860 Republican nominating convention in Chicago. In 1862, while Lincoln was President of the United States, he appointed David to the United States Supreme Court. In 1877, David resigned from the Supreme Court when he was elected to the United States Senate by the Illinois legislature, for which he served as Senate president pro tempore from 1881 to 1883. He retired from politics in 1883.

Throughout most of David’s political involvement, he lived in Washington while Sarah chose to remain in Bloomington. Sarah kept up social appearances with friends and associates of hers and David’s while he was away. She also took care of David’s affairs and kept him apprised of all that went on in Bloomington during his absences. She did this through the writing of letters, which gave a vivid description of her daily life and life in Bloomington during that period of time. They both wrote numerous letters back and forth to each other. Sarah and David’s letters also revealed their close relationship and deep love for one another. On their 32^nd wedding anniversary, Sarah wrote, “…this is our wedding Anniversary – 32 years to day we were made one – and a kind loving husband you have been to me…I can hardly think of any time when I did not love you – so long has your image filled my heart.”

            While David was in Washington, Sarah supervised the construction of their new mansion. To reflect their increasing wealth and status in Bloomington, the farm house which came with the land Davis had purchased from Fell, would no longer do. They needed a new and impressive mansion which would reflect their increased social status. David hired French-born architect Alfred Piquenard to design the Victorian-style mansion; a three-story home with 36 rooms. Piquenard was one of the Midwest’s leading architects at the time who also designed the Capitol building in Springfield.

Sarah made most of the decisions about the mansion’s interior, struggling between decorating decisions and the rising costs. She was able to rationalize the choices she made and kept David updated through her letters. Sarah wrote to David on one occasion about the painting of the walls that was being done, saying that “The expense of this work will be considerable, but if it can be washed as Mr. Becker says to look fresh - and will last as long as he says - I think we shall not regret it.” The mansion had all the modern conveniences of the time, including indoor bathroom fixtures, a heating system, gas lighting, built-in cast-iron stove, ice box, soapstone sink, hot water tank, and a communication system using call bells and speaking tubes. Sarah was also able to incorporate her passion for plants in the design of the mansion and grounds, with her ornamental garden in the front yard as well as plants inside the house.

At the start of the project, the mansion was estimated to cost around $30,000, which would equal about $500,000 today. After its completion in 1872, however, the cost had risen to $75,000, which would equal about $1,300,000 today. David normally would have had little patience for spending twice as much as he had planned, but his commitment to the project and his high regard for his wife led him to accepting that drastic change.

            The mansion emanated all the ideals of middle-class families of that generation, who lived out a set of rules and values called genteel. These values included: displaying appropriate material possessions as signs of social status, refined behavior, and good taste; high moral principles, seen especially through their love of nature; and rigid and complex rules for proper behavior, including rules for proper décor. The home of a genteel family was to serve as a sort of refuge that protected their family from the frightening social disorder caused by the United States Civil War, industrialization, and urbanization.

Sarah strived to live in accordance with such guidelines, but she unknowingly succumbed to the growing trend of consumerism. She purchased objects for her parlor that were outside the domestic sphere in the corrupt world of the public marketplace and also purchased fancy, prepared foods and exotic, raw foods that were not produced on their farm. In that sense, Sarah changed from a “cloistered housewife” to a powerful, modern-day consumer, while still believing herself a strict member of that middle-class social network.

Sarah was also an avid churchgoer.  While she was not a member, she was a constant attendant at First Presbyterian Church, where “her influence and liberality were felt.”

            Sarah employed fulltime live-in domestic servants, usually two women and one man. The servants had their own bedrooms located at the rear of the mansion on the second floor, separated by a doorway and a small staircase. These rooms were much more luxurious than the rooms of other servants at other homes of the time. They were furnished with area rugs, heating stoves, gas lights, wallpaper, built-in closets and recessed sinks and were allowed to use the upstairs bathroom that was probably used by guests as well. Although the servant quarters remained separate, Sarah often treated her servants as family. She nursed them when they were sick, gave them small gifts of food, clothing, and money, and even helped them to entertain their guests.

            In the fall of 1879, Sarah suddenly became ill while visiting her sister, Fanny Walker Williams, at her sister’s home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  She had originally planned on visiting the Rockwell family in Lenox, MA, but because of her sudden illness, never made it to Lenox.  Sadly, on November 9, 1879, she died surrounded by her family at the home of her sister Fanny in Stockbridge, MA. Her remains were returned to Bloomington and she was buried in Evergreen Memorial Cemetery in the Davis family plot. Her obituary in the Daily Pantagraph stated: “There was nothing better to characterize [Sarah’s] daily life than its simplicity and the modest manner in which her charities and sympathies were extended to the afflicted and distressed. There was no desire for show or display, and, though the mistress of a princely mansion, she was ever a plain, unassuming and Christian woman,”

Today, the mansion still stands in Bloomington, IL. On the 4.1 acres of land are the mansion itself, an 1850s barn and stable, two privies, a foaling shed, a carriage barn, and Sarah’s ornamental flower garden. There also exists the circular drive that remains as it was originally configured. The property was entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and in 1975, it was declared a National Historic Landmark.