Life Downstairs at Staatsburgh: A Servant Wedding

Fans of the television series Downton Abbey may remember the slow burn of the relationship between the butler, Carson, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Hughes.  Finally, after many seasons of the show, and many more years of working together, the pair expressed their love for each other and were married (much to the delight of the show's fans!).

Romance between servants was usually discouraged, but it did happen.  Some left service after being married, but others continued like Anna and Mr. Bates (another married couple featured on Downton Abbey!).  Even here at Staatsburgh, we know the servants were not immune to falling in love.  Staatsburgh's butler was already married with children when he started working for the Mills family, but his daughter fell in love and married a footman!  Read their story below:

Carson & Mrs. Hughes (Photo: PBS/Masterpiece)

A Gilded Age Gossip Columnist: Maury Paul, The Man Behind Cholly Knickerbocker

Downton Abbey Spoiler Alert!  Do you remember the final  season of Downton Abbey when Lady Edith's magazine hired a new writer with the pen name of Cassandra Jones to write an advice column for women? Ms. Jones' column turned out to be very popular and when Lady Edith arranged a meeting with the author, she found out Cassandra Jones was none other than her grandmother's butler Septimus Spratt!

Maury Henry Biddle Paul took on a similar gender bending identity and pseudonym when he wrote for newspaper columns as Polly Stuyvesant and Cholly Knickerbocker while reporting on the activities of society's wealthy elite class.  He was born in 1890 so he missed much of the earlier years of the Gilded Age, but he started paying attention to society news at a young age.  Even though Ruth Mills died in 1920, he still included her in more than one column when he reported about the status of the Millses several homes.  The Gilded Age elite were not immune to the prying eye of the media just as celebrities today are constantly hounded by paparazzi.  The fact that salacious gossip sells is not a new concept!

Maury Paul aka Cholly Knickbocker (right in black bow tie) visiting a club, circa 1938.

A Gilded Age Afternoon Tea

Since Staatsburgh has recently launched a Gilded Age Tea & Talk series, we have been looking more into the custom of having tea.  The winter pilot run of the Tea & Talk series has proven to be a successful addition to our site's programming and each tea has a waiting list.  Drinking tea is the perfect time to think about proper etiquette and each talk in the series looks at some of aspect of etiquette during the Gilded Age.  In case you have reserved a space on one of Staatsburgh's teas or just plan to have a tea party, here are some tips that will help you survive an afternoon tea without making an embarrassing faux pas.

American Heiresses & English Lords: A Match Made in Heaven?

The staff at Staatsburgh are great fans of the television program Downton Abbey. We love the show because it illustrates the way a great estate like Staatsburgh would operate with opulent dinner parties and a strict hierarchy of servants. Watching the show can bring to life situations that would have happened here at Staatsburgh. We love it so much that we started a special Downton Abbey themed tour at the site. The tour will be offered again in September and October (check out our facebook page for dates), and in the spirit of Downton Abbey, this blog takes a moment to look at marriages between American heiresses and the European aristocracy.

There has been some interest in the practice of American heiresses marrying titled Englishmen because of the show.  On Downton Abbey, Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, is married to an American woman, the former Cora Levinson, daughter of a dry goods millionaire. At Staatsburgh, Ruth Livingston Mills used her sister's position in English society after marrying an Englishman to help secure her daughter Beatrice's marriage to an Earl.  

Downton's Cora Levinson arrived in England in 1888 at age 20 chaperoned by her mother. She was presented at court and enjoyed a London Season. During a London Season, a young lady would attend countless parties and balls with hopes of meeting a potential suitor. By the end of Cora's first Season, she was engaged to the future Lord Grantham who needed to secure funds to rescue his large estate. What began as a marriage of convenience soon grew into love and on the show the marriage between the Earl and Countess of Grantham is portrayed as loving and happy. Other women who were forced into marriage like Conseulo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough, were not as lucky in love and many of these marriages later dissolved. Yet like the fictional marriage between Cora Levinson and the Earl of Grantham, a great influx of American money helped to maintain and preserve the great estates of the English nobility.