Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site

The Swedish House

Historic Structure Report

September 2005

Historical Architecture, Cultural Resources Division

Southeast Regional Office

National Park Service
Cultural Resources

Southeast Region

National Park Service

100 Alabama St. SW

Atlanta, GA 30303

(404) 562-3117

The historic structure report presented here exists in two 

formats. A printed version is available for study at the park, 

the Southeast Regional Office of the National Park Service, 

and at a variety of other repositories. For more widespread 

access, this historic structure report also exists in a webbased format through ParkNet, the website of the National 

Park Service. Please visit www.nps.gov for more 

information.

2005

Historic Structure Report

Swedish House

Carl Sandburg Home National Historical Site

LCS#: 05148

Cover image: Swedish House, 1964 (CARL3000/

17/20)


National Park Service vii

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Management Summary

Historical Data 1

Architectural Data 1

Treatment and Use 2

Administrative Data 3

Location Data 3

Related Studies 3

Cultural Resource Data 3

Historical Background and Context

The Memmingers’ Rock Hill 5

Construction 8

Civil War and Reconstruction 9

The Greggs’ Rock Hill 12

The Smyths’ Connemara 14

The Sandburgs’ Connemara 16

The Help 19

Overseers and Hired Hands 20

Slaves and Servants 22

Chronology of Development and Use

Gothic Revival 27

Construction 29

Historic Alterations 31

Walls 31

Flooring 32

Windows 33

Exterior Siding and Trim 33

Roofing 34

Front Stoop 34

Wiring 35

Shelving 35

Fireplace and Chimney 35

NPS Repairs 35

Archaeology 36

Framing Repairs 36

Foundation 36

Siding and Trim 38

Fireplace and Chimney 38

Insulation 38
viii Swedish House HSR

Modern Utilities 39

Use 39

Sandburg Era 40

National Park Service 40

Physical Description

Building Site 44

Foundation 45

Structural System 46

Exterior 46

Roof 46

Siding and Trim 46

Windows 47

Porch 48

Interior 48

Room 100 49

Room 101 51

Room 102 52

Room 200 53

Room 201 54

Room 202 55

Systems 55

Floor Plan of Existing Building 57

Treatment and Use

Requirements for Treatment and Use 59

Legal Requirements 59

DOI and NPS Policies and Regulations 60

Alternatives for Treatment and Use 61

Use 61

Treatment 62

Ultimate Treatment and Use 62

Treatment 63

Further Historical Research 63

Sources of Information

Manuscript Collections 65

Public Records 65

Primary Published Sources 65

Secondary Published Sources 65

NPS Studies 66

Oral Interviews 66
National Park Service ix

List of Figures

1 United States Geological Survey map (1946), with arrow marking location

of Swedish House at Connemara. 3

2 One of the earliest photographs of the Main House at Rock Hill, c. 1880, Baker 

Barber Collection. (CARL3001/01/48P)) 5

3 Sketch of Rock Hill in Memminger’s account book, c. 1852, annotated for 

legibility. “Servant’s House” at left center is the Swedish House. (taken from 

Pence, Archeological Overview and Assessment, 1998) 6

4 Half of a stereoscopic image of Rock Hill, c. 1880, the earliest image of the 

Main House. (CARL 28466) 7

5 Christopher Memminger, c. 1865. (CARL 28429) 7

6 View of Ice House around 1950. The building was constructed by Memminger 

in 1847. (CARL3000/29/1P) 8

7 View of the antebellum spring house, c. 1910. (CARL3001/03/01P) 8

8 View of Buck House, 2004, probably built by Memminger as an overseer’s house 

in the 1840s. (NPS 2004) 9

9 View of Memminger’s first servants’ house, now known as the Chicken House, 

probably constructed by slaves in 1842. (NPS 2005) 9

10 View of Connemara, spring 1901, showing alterations from the 1890s. 

(CARL 3001/01/04P) 10

11 View of Connemara after it was repainted by the Smyths in 1901 (CARL3001/01/18P) 11

12 Boating on the Front Lake at Connemara, c. 1910. (CARL3001/01/41P) 12

13 Smyth family on the steps at Connemara, c. 1903. (Collection of Julianne Heggoy, 

great-grand-daughter of the Smyths) 13

14 View south at west end of Main House, c. 1915, with earliest image of the 

Swedish House, showing part of east gable, at extreme right. (CARL3301/18/06P) 14

15 View of Connemara, 1938. (Photograph by Bayard Wooten, CARL3001/23/09P) 15

16 Mr. and Mrs. Sandburg in Dining Room at Connemara, photographed by Vachon. 

(CARL 12132) 16

17 Carl Sandburg and Main House, 1946. (Photograph by June Glenn, Jr., CARL 109103) 17

18 The Sandburgs on the front porch of the Main House, September 1966. 

(CARL3000/03/09P) 18

19 Mrs. Sandburg in front of the Swedish House, 1968. (CARL3000/04/20P) 19

20 The Smyths’ maid Sylvene, 1937, location uncertain. (Collection of Julianne Heggoy 

Collection, great-grand-daughter of the Smyths) 20

21 Three of the Smyths’ grandchildren at rear of Main House, c. 1910, with one of the 

servants, perhaps Paul Thompson. (CARL3001/01/17P) 21

22 The Smyths’ servants in front of the Kitchen, c. 1910. (Collection of William McKay, 

great-grandson of the Smyths) 22
x Swedish House HSR

23 Robert Marshall, c. 1900, the Smyths’ butler in the late nineteenth and early 

twentieth centuries. (Julianne Heggoy Collection) 23

24 Undated photograph, probably of Smyth’s chauffeur James Robinson. 

(CARL3002/10/05p) 24

25 Earliest image of Swedish House, 1946, with early wooden steps and porch still intact. 

(CARL3000/17/1P Coll.)28

26 Mill workers’ Gothic Revival housing, Graniteville, SC, 1848. (From Mills Lane, 

Architecture of the Old South: South Carolina) 28

27 Plan of Swedish House with notes on alterations. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 29

28 View of rear of Swedish House, c. 1964?, with antebellum privy and tenant house 

in background. (CARL 3000/17/4P) 30

29 View of front of Swedish House in 1964. (CARL3000/17/20P) 31

30 View of Swedish House in March 1969. (CARL4012/3P) 32

31 View of east end of house in 1974. (CARL4008/03/12P) 33

32 VIew of typical shutter, c. 1970. (CARL5026/2/3P) 33

33 View of Swedish House, 1971. (CARL5026/2/3P) 34

34 Muntin profiles in Swedish House, with Type A representing muntins in original 

sash and B and C muntins in later replacement sash. 35

35 View of west end of Swedish House, spring 1971. (CARL4008/03/06P) 35

36 View of south foundation during repairs, 1977. (CARL4008/03/25P) 35

37 Site map from Pense, Archaeological Overview and Assessment (1998), showing 

areas excavated in 1976. 36

38 “Plans and Elevations Indicating Proposed Restoration Work,” from Russell Jones’ 

historic structure report on the Swedish House, 1976. 37

39 View of new footings, 1977. (CARL4008/03/15P) 38

40 Glenn Barnwell, former maintenance employee, standing, inspecting foundation

repairs at rear of house, 1977. (CARL4008/03/27P) 38

41 Chief of Maintenance Charlie Hamm, left, and Joe Moore, temporary carpenter, 

at front of house with siding removed, 1977. (CARL4008/03/38P) 38

42 View of west end, 1977. (CARL4008/03/30P) 39

43 View of east end of house, 1977. (CARL4018/02/118P) 39

44 View of east end of house after installation of insulation. (CARL4008/03/39P) 40

45 View north in Room 100 in 1969. (CARL4012/3) 40

46 View southeast in Room 102 in 1969. (CARL4012/3) 40

47 View southeast in Room 202, 1969. (CARL4012/3) 41

48 View to southwest of front of Swedish House. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 43

49 View to northeast of rear and west end. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 44

50 View to northwest of rear and east end. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 45

51 View of west gable. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 46

52 View of northwest corner of house, showing typical roof decking and exterior 

finishes. ((T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 46

53 View of window on east side of Room 102. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 46

54 View of twentieth-century stoop and shed roof at front door. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 47

55 View of front door. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 47

56 View southwest in Room 100. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 48

57 View northeast in Room 100. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 49

58 View southeast in Room 100. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 50

59 Detail view of mantel in Room 100. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 51

60 View northeast in Room 101. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 51
National Park Service xi

61 View southwest in Room 101. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 52

62 View southeast in Room 102. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 52

63 View west in Room 102. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 53

64 View of stairs to second floor. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 53

65 View south of stairs in Room 200. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 54

66 View southeast in Room 201. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 54

67 View northeast in Room 202. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 55

68 View west in Room 201. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 55

69 View of a portion of the knob-and-tube wiring system, which is no longer active.

(T. Jones, NPS, 2004) 55
xii Swedish House HSR
National Park Service xiii

We are pleased to make available this historic structure report on the Swedish House at Connemara, part of 

our ongoing effort to provide comprehensive documentation for the historic structures and landscapes of 

National Park Service units in the Southeast Region. Many individuals contributed to this work, but we 

would particularly like to thank Connie Hudson Backlund, Superintendent, Sue Bennett, Chief of Visitors 

Services, and the staff at Carl Sandburg National Historic Site for their assistance throughout the process. 

Johnnie Wright, Chief of Maintenance, and Glenn Barnwell, who began working at the park as 

rehabilitation of the Swedish House was underway in 1977, were most helpful in providing information on 

the park’s treatment of the house over the years. Special thanks goes to Lynn White Savage, the park’s 

Museum Curator, whose knowledge of the park’s archives and willingness to locate relevant materials has 

greatly expedited this project. We hope that this study of the Swedish House at Connemara will prove 

valuable to park management in ongoing efforts to preserve the building and to everyone in understanding 

and interpreting this unique resource.

Dan Scheidt

Chief, Cultural Resources Stewardship

Southeast Regional Office

September 2005

Foreword
xiv Swedish House HSR
National Park Service xv

Project Team

Primary Research, Building Investigation, and 

Author

Tommy H. Jones, Architectural Historian

National Park Service

Southeast Regional Office

Atlanta, GA

Project Manager, Carl Sandburg Home National 

Historic Site

Sue Bennett, Acting Chief of Cultural Resources

Carl Sandburg Home National Historical Site

Flat Rock, NC

Park Collections Research Lynn White Savage, Museum Curator

Carl Sandburg Home National Historical Site

Flat Rock, NC

Document Publication/

Intranet Access

Jay Womack, Historian

National Park Service

Southeast Regional Office

Atlanta, GA

Program Reviews Bob Blythe, History

Allen Bohnert, Curatorial & Museum

Services

Danny Scheidt, Historical Architecture

National Park Service

Tracy Stakely, Historical Landscape Architecture

Southeast Regional Office

Atlanta, GA
xvi Swedish House HSR
National Park Service 1

“What a hell of a baronial estate for an old Socialist,” 

Carl Sandburg (1878- 1967) remarked after 

purchasing Connemara in 1946.1

 Not only was there 

a fine residence, but there were also numerous 

outbuildings and dependencies, one of which was 

the Swedish House, a remarkable cottage originally 

built to house enslaved house servants, but used 

primarily as a sort of overflow library for storage of 

the Sandburgs’ enormous collection of books and 

magazines.

Historical Data

The Swedish House at Connemara was built in the 

early 1850s by Christopher G. Memminger (1803-

1889), a wealthy lawyer and politician from Charleston who later became secretary of the treasury for 

the Confederate States of America. After his death, 

his heirs sold the estate, which was then known as 

Rock Hill, to trustees for Mary Fleming Gregg 

(1839- died after 1900). Her husband, William H. 

Gregg, Jr. (1834- 1895), was the son of the famed 

William H. Gregg, Sr., builder of one of the South’s 

earliest textile mills, at Graniteville, South Carolina, 

in the 1840s. In 1900, Mary Fleming Gregg sold 

Rock Hill to Ellison Adger Smyth (1847- 1942), 

“dean of the Southern textile industry,” according to 

his obituary in the New York Times. The Smyths 

renamed the estate Connemara and, like the Greggs 

and the Memmingers, continued to use the Swedish 

House as a servants’ house. Like the Main House, 

the Swedish House was occupied only about four 

months out of the year in the nineteenth and early 

twentieth centuries. Until the late nineteenth century, when epidemics of malaria, yellow fever, and 

cholera finally began to be controlled, the Memmingers generally left Charleston around the end of 

June and did not return until the threat of disease 

began to fade in late October or early November. In 

the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, 

“the season” at Flat Rock generally ran from late 

May through September. The Smyths continued to 

use Connemara as a part- time residence until 1924 

when the Main House was rehabilitated and 

became their primary residence. The Swedish 

House, too, was occupied year- round after 1924.

Weary of the harsh winters at their old home in 

Harbert, Michigan, Carl Sandburg (1878- 1967) and 

his wife bought the estate in the fall of 1945 and, with 

their daughters, occupied the Main House in January 1946. Winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1940 for his 

biography of Abraham Lincoln and another in 1951 

for his poetry, Sandburg, “the poet of the American 

people,” enjoyed some of his most productive years 

at Connemara, including completion of Remembrance Rock, his sweeping novel of the American 

experience. After his death in October 1967, his 

widow deeded the estate to the Federal government, 

and it became Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in 1968. Since the Sandburgs did not 

employ servants, the Swedish House, so called 

because Sandburg thought it reminiscent of Swedish architecture, was unoccupied except by an 

occasional overnight guest. The grandchildren liked 

to play in the house, but it was mainly used for storage of books, newspapers, and magazines that overflowed the bookshelves and Book Room in the 

Main House.

Architectural Data

Constructed around 1852, this building is a twostory, wood- framed structure, built on a locally1. Paula Steichen, My Connemara (New York, NY: 

paperback edition, 2002, originally published by 

Harcourt Brace & World, Inc., 1969), p. 111. Steichen 

was Carl Sandburg’s grand-daughter.

Management 

Summary
2 Swedish House HSR

quarried stone foundation. The house features a 

steeply- pitched, end- gabled roof and scroll- sawn 

barge boards reminiscent of the Gothic Revival. 

Approximately 28- 1/2’ long (east to west), 18- 1/2’ 

wide (north to south) and around 26- 1/2’ from the 

top of the foundation to the peak of the gable, the 

house has three rooms on the first floor and two 

rooms flanking a small hall on the second, with a 

total floor area of around 950 square feet. A stone 

chimney and fireplace were reconstructed at the 

west end of the house in 1977 to replace the original 

torn down by the Sandburgs in the 1960s.

A number of alterations are evident in the present 

structure but its historic form, plan, and most architectural details have remained essentially intact, or 

in the case of the chimney and fireplace, been 

reconstructed. The building contains architectural 

features such as nine- over- six windows, a wooden 

rim lock, and wrought iron hardware not found in 

any other buildings at Connemara. Building investigation was limited to non- destructive visual inspection, and materials were characterized without 

laboratory analysis. The building is now empty and 

only rarely used.

Treatment and Use

The primary purpose of this historic structure 

report is to document the historic evolution of the 

Swedish House. An historic structure report was 

completed in the 1970s, but that report focused 

primarily only on the building’s existing condition.

 Overall, the house remains in good condition with 

most of its historic fabric still intact.2

 Extensive 

rehabilitation in 1976- 1977 repaired most of the 

damage done by benign neglect in the 1960s, and 

early NPS plans for adaptive use that would have 

destroyed significant historic features have since 

been abandoned. However, like the other servants’ 

house at Connemara, the so- called Chicken House, 

the Swedish House is little used and is not routinely 

interpreted for park visitors.

Use of the Swedish House as a place for interpretive 

exhibits is perhaps the most reasonable alternative 

for use. Indeed the architecture itself might be 

considered an interesting exhibit in its own right 

and worthy of interpretation. The building is not 

suitable for display of museum objects, but it would 

be well- suited to a wide variety of exhibits, either 

temporary or permanent, that did not require the 

display of fragile original artifacts.

Although there appear to be no pressing problems 

of repair, if anything other than exhibit of the house 

itself is contemplated, some alterations to the electrical system might be needed to provide exhibit 

lighting. In addition, the building is not handicapped accessible. In order for those with impaired 

mobility to enter, a ramp to the front stoop is probably the best option, if it were installed in such a way 

that the existing stoop and steps remain in place. 

The change in floor level between Room 100 and 

Rooms 101 and 102 would have to be addressed as 

well, or entry could be limited to the main room, 

with the two side rooms fully visible through open 

doors.

Archival research for this project has been limited, 

and additional research in Memminger’s account 

book, the Federal census and other sources would 

no doubt add many useful details to the chronology 

of the building’s evolution and could support a 

broader interpretation of the site.

In addition, the park has requested funding for an 

oral history project, and if the interviews routinely 

emphasized the appearance and evolution of the 

Swedish House, understanding of the building 

might be significantly expanded. Use of floor plans 

and historic photographs would be indispensable in 

facilitating recall of memories about the house.

2. “Historic” fabric includes but is not limited to the 

original features and materials. All features and 

materials that existed in 1968 should be considered 

part of the building’s historic fabric.
National Park Service 3

Management Summary

Administrative 

Data

Location Data

Building Name:

Swedish House, Connemara

Location:

Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site

Little River Road

Flat Rock, North Carolina.

LCS#: 05148

Related Studies

Bailey, Louise Howe. From “Rock Hill” to “Connemara”: 

The Story Before Carl Sandburg. National Park 

Service, 1980.

Hart, Susan. Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site 

Cultural Landscape Report. Atlanta, GA: NPS- SERO, 

Division of Cultural Resources, 1993.

Jones, Russell. “Historic Structure Report: Architectural 

Data, Home * Garage * Swedish House.” NPS: Denver 

Service Center, September 1976.

Pence, Heather Russo. Carl Sandburg Home National 

Historic Site: Archeological Overview and Assessment. 

Tallahassee, FL: Southeast Archeological Center/ 

National Park Service, 1998.

Steichen, Paula. “Hyacinths and Biscuits; The Life and 

Works of Carl Sandburg,” Handbook 117: Carl 

Sandburg Home. Washington, DC: NPS, Division of 

Publications, 1982.

Svejda, Dr. George J. “Historic Structure Report, Carl 

Sandburg Home National Historic Site.” NPS, Office 

of History and Historic Architecture, Eastern Service 

Center, 1972.

Wallace, David H. Historic Furnishings Report, Main House 

and Swedish House at Carl Sandburg Home National 

Historic Site, Flat Rock, North Carolina. Frederick, 

MD: NP, 1984.

Cultural Resource Data

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 

1976 as a contributing structure in the Flat Rock, 

North Carolina, National Historic District. The 

period of the building’s significance is from its 

construction about 1852 until the Sandburgs sold the 

estate in 1968. Proposed treatment is preservation.

FIGURE 1. United States Geological Survey map (1946), with arrow marking 

location of Swedish House at Connemara.
4 Swedish House HSR
National Park Service 5

Connemara is dominated by the early Greek Revival 

architecture of the Main House (1838- 1839), but 

numerous other structures have been built over the 

nearly 170 years since the estate was established. 

One of those secondary structures that remains 

standing is the Swedish House, so called by the 

Sandburgs because its steeply gabled roof and fanciful barge boards reminded them of Swedish 

architecture. With a design that grew out of the 

Gothic Revival, the Swedish House was built 

between 1850 and 1853 as a residence for enslaved 

domestic servants and continued to house domestic 

servants until the early 1940s. After the Sandburgs 

acquired Connemara in 1945, the house was no 

longer used as a residence but as a place to store 

some of the thousands upon thousands of books, 

magazines, and newspapers that overflowed the 

Main House.

The Memmingers’ 

Rock Hill

The estate was originally developed by Christopher 

G. Memminger (1803- 1889), a wealthy lawyer and 

politician from Charleston who later became secretary of the treasury for the Confederate States of 

America. According to his son, Memminger’s health 

as a young man was “delicate, and to keep [it he] 

took long journeys on horseback to the Virginia 

Springs,” a series of eleven hot or warm mineral 

springs that were scattered along the border of 

FIGURE 2. One of the earliest photographs of the Main House at Rock Hill, c. 1880, Baker Barber 

Collection. (CARL3001/01/48P))

Historical Background 

and Context
6 Swedish House HSR

Historical Background & Context

present- day Virginia and West Virginia. With a 

growing family, however, Memminger soon found 

these jaunts impractical, while at the same time, the 

opening of the Charleston- Hamburg Railroad in 

1833 and of South Carolina’s State Road around the 

same time made possible a relatively short twoweek journey from Charleston to the mountains of 

western North Carolina, especially around Flat 

Rock where a number of wealthy families from 

Charleston, South Carolina, began building summer 

homes in the late 1820s and early 1830s. 

While today we think of the mountains as a way to 

escape the heat and humidity of summer, throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, escape 

from disease was equally important. Tropical and 

subtropical diseases such as dengue fever, malaria, 

and yellow fever regularly became epidemic and 

were especially feared by the Low Country rice 

planters, who routinely abandoned their plantations 

during the “fever months,” which generally ran from 

late June until the frosts of autumn. By the War of 

1812, some of the wealthy planters and other coastal 

residents had discovered the relative safety of 

upstate South Carolina, and were building resort 

homes in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. The new 

State Road opened up the mountains themselves to 

resort development, a trend that was spurred on by 

the advent of the first cholera pandemic in North 

America in 1832.

Memminger’s first recorded visit to Flat Rock came 

in the fall of 1836, although he may have visited earlier. It was during that visit that he apparently determined to build his own summer home at Flat Rock. 

He is reported to have kept a journal and, although 

the journal has not been located, his son Edward 

and local historian Sadie Patton published excerpts 

FIGURE 3. Sketch of Rock Hill in Memminger’s account book, c. 1852, annotated for 

legibility. “Servant’s House” at left center is the Swedish House. (taken from Pence, 

Archeological Overview and Assessment, 1998)
National Park Service 7

Part I: Developmental History

from it that document his stay at Flat Rock in October 1836.3

 He arrived in Flat Rock from Asheville on 

October 8, in the company of Jefferson Bennett, a 

son of Memminger’s patron Thomas Bennett.

At Flat Rock, he wrote, “we found our friends, Mr. 

and Mrs. Willington” (i.e., Aaron Smith Willington, 

1781- 1862, longtime publisher of the Charleston 

News and Courier), and “a good comfortable tavern,” which was probably George Summey’s tavern 

on the High Road about a half mile south of the 

present post office. Continuing, Memminger wrote:

With the Count de Choiseul and his family I was particularly pleased. The Countess is a lady of very agreeable manners and so frank and plain as to possess me 

very much in her favor. The daughters, too, seem to be 

girls with whom my wife and her sister might be intimate, and formed another inducement to locate near 

them. Besides the Count himself so earnestly tendered 

his services that I was relieved from a considerable difficulty.

Of course, the first comers had the best sites for residences. But as I also wanted a farm I could not be so 

easily furnished as the land near Flat Rock is miserably 

barren. Nevertheless after much cruising I at last found 

a place that would suit very well and authorized the 

Count to purchase it if it could be had, on Mr. Baring 

tendering to let me have some of his contiguous land 

and the use of a spring from an elevation of his land.

We also sketched the plan of a kitchen to be built for 

our occupation next summer on the spot,- - - a project 

by the way which I am rather doubtful because my 

kitchen is rather too fine an affair. I ought to hire Mr. 

King’s house if possible and build at once.4

Events intervened, however, and Memminger’s 

plans appear to have been laid aside, due perhaps to 

the great financial panic that unfolded in the winter 

and spring of 1837, sending the country’s economy 

into a depression that did not begin to ease until the 

early 1840s. He apparently came to some agreement with Baring for the land that he wanted, 

although he did not actually take title until November 1838 and was still noting payments to Baring “for 

land” in October 1839.5

 By the end of 1837, he had 

begun preliminary work, including construction of 

a bridge across the creek that later formed Front 

Lake and perhaps leveling a building site in the hillside above. Perhaps as early as late in 1837, Memminger had engaged the services of architect 

Charles Reichardt, and by the spring of 1838, he had 

contracted with a builder, James Rosamond, and 

begun construction.

3. For additional detail on the development of Flat 

Rock, see Edward Read Memminger, An Historical 

Sketch of Flat Rock (Flat Rock, NC: privately published, 

1954; originally written in 1922); Sadie Smathers 

Patton, Flat Rock, The Little Charleston of the 

Mountains (Historic Flat Rock, Inc., 3rd edition, n.d.) 

and The Story of Henderson County (Asheville, NC: 

The Miller Printing Company, 1947); and Mrs. Alicia 

Middleton Trenholm, Flat Rock, North Carolina: A 

Sketch of the Past (no publication data, 1908).

4. Patton, Flat Rock, p. 11.

5. Buncombe County Deed Book 21, pp. 445-447.

FIGURE 4. Half of a stereoscopic image of 

Rock Hill, c. 1880, the earliest image of 

the Main House. (CARL 28466)

FIGURE 5. Christopher Memminger, c. 1865. 

(CARL 28429)
8 Swedish House HSR

Historical Background & Context

Construction

Major construction appears to have begun in April 

1838, and the Main House, a separate Kitchen, 

which the Sandburgs converted into a garage in 

1945, and a stable, which is apparently no longer 

extant, were substantially complete by the time the 

Memminger family arrived at Flat Rock in early July 

1839. Memminger initially referred to the place as 

“the Buncombe Establishment,” but in account 

book entries in July 1839, he makes his first reference 

to “Rock Hill,” appropriate enough for a site where 

stone out- croppings abound.6

Although most work was done by summer 1839, the 

final details of Rosamond’s contracted work were 

not wound up until the fall, and Memminger made 

his final payment to Rosamond on January 4, 1840. 

The house, kitchen, and stable had cost Memminger 

just over $4,000, but his total expenses for development of Rock Hill amounted to more than twice 

that amount by the end of 1842.7

On July 19, 1839, the family set out for their first 

summer in their new house at Flat Rock, where they 

arrived on the 27th.8 Although they got a late start 

that year, most years they began their journey near 

the end of June, sending the horses, wagon and carriage ahead to Aiken, South Carolina, by railroad

freight a few days before the family and servants also 

took the train from Charleston. After a rendezvous 

at the end of the line in Aiken, it was a slow, weeklong climb by carriage and wagon up the Piedmont 

to Greenville and across the Blue Ridge at Saluda 

Gap, before descending into Flat Rock. Around the 

end of October, with cooler weather bringing relief 

from the fever season of summer and fall, the journey was reversed, with the family generally back in 

Charleston by the end of the first or second week in 

November. The trip was made a little easier in 1853, 

when they were able to take a train as far as Columbia, shaving a day or two off the most rigorous portion of the journey that had to be made by carriage 

and wagon. By 1861, the rail line was completed as 

far as Spartanburg, which left only a two- day, 

horse- drawn journey over the mountains. Not until 

1880 was it possible to travel from Charleston to Flat 

Rock entirely by rail.

Memminger continued to make improvements at 

Rock Hill throughout the 1840s and 1850s. A small 

house for the cook and a wagon house were built in 

1842 or 1843 and an ice house in 1847, the same year 

that Memminger constructed a large addition to the 

rear of the Main House and apparently made significant alterations to the original interior as well. 

Although there is no documentation, the spring 

house may have been built around this time and 

there must have been at least one privy along with a 

FIGURE 6. View of Ice House around 1950. The 

building was constructed by Memminger in 

1847. (CARL3000/29/1P)

FIGURE 7. View of the antebellum spring house, 

c. 1910. (CARL3001/03/01P)

6. C. G. Memminger Papers (#502) 1803-1915 in 

Southern Historical Collection, University of North 

Carolina, Chapel Hill, includes an account book 

entitled “Account of Expenditures for a/c of 

Buncombe Establishment” which documents many of 

Memminger’s expenses related to Rock Hill.

7. Memminger records his final payment to Rosamond in 

two places in his account book.

8. Memminger first recorded expenses for their journeys 

to and from Flat Rock in his Rock Hill account book in 

1839 and continued each year until the late 1850s.
National Park Service 9

Part I: Developmental History

a wood shed and other secondary structures. The 

so- called Buck House, too, may have been constructed by Memminger in the 1840s, probably as a 

residence for his caretaker. Finally, Memminger 

built a second servants’ house, the Swedish House, 

between 1850 and 1853.

Memminger continued to use Rock Hill as a summer retreat throughout the antebellum period, 

except for the summer of 1854, when he and his two 

oldest children, Ellen and Tom, made a grand tour 

of Europe, including Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and France. His wife, pregnant with their 

tenth child, remained behind in Charleston, but he 

wrote her frequently, commenting while in Switzerland that it was “very like Buncombe [Rock Hill] in 

October- - - frost in the morning. But the hotels are 

made for summer, and chimneys are not in each 

room, and fuel is not as at Buncombe.”9

Civil War and 

Reconstruction

Memminger’s term as Confederate Secretary of the 

Treasury was fraught with difficulties, and whatever 

his personal failings, his was an impossible task. 

Well before the end of the war, the Confederate 

Treasury was little more than a pile of paper, leading 

a bitter editor at the Richmond Whig to excoriate 

Memminger as “a second rate lawyer in Charleston, 

famous for the energy and persistence with which 

he collected small bills and dunned petty debtors. . . 

. He has done his best, but he has been overtaken- -

that is all.”10 By the summer of 1864, it became clear 

that Memminger could not rescue the Treasury 

from insolvency, and he was forced to resign on 

June 15, 1864, blamed- - unfairly most would now 

agree- - for the collapse of Confederate finances. He 

was replaced by George Trenholm, a well- known 

Charleston banker and perhaps the richest man in 

the Confederacy. Trenholm had a summer home, 

which he called Solitude, a short distance northeast 

of Rock Hill, and his brother Edward was a neighbor as well, having bought Baring’s Mountain 

Lodge in the 1850s. Memminger defended himself 

by saying he was forced “to administer plans which I 

neither originated nor approved.”11

With Charleston under near- constant bombardment (it was abandoned by the Confederates in 

February 1865), the Memmingers retreated to Rock 

Hill where they spent much of the next two years.12

In his memoir of Flat Rock, written in 1922, the 

Memmingers’ youngest son, Edward, wrote that 

Rock Hill “possibly [had] more reminders of the 

dark days of the Confederacy than any other 

[house] in Flat Rock.”13

Edward Memminger’s account of the breakdown of 

law and order as the Confederacy collapsed in 1865 

paints a vivid picture of the scene at Rock Hill:

9. Memminger Papers, Account Book. The Memminger 

papers include a few letters from Memminger to his 

wife while he was in Europe in 1854.

10. Coulter, Confederate States, p. 150.

11. Coulter, Confederate States, p. 164.

12. Sadie Smathers Patton, The Story of Henderson 

County (Asheville, NC: 1954), p. 207.

13. Memminger, Flat Rock, p. 14.

FIGURE 8. View of Buck House, 2004, 

probably built by Memminger as an 

overseer’s house in the 1840s. (NPS 2004)

FIGURE 9. View of Memminger’s first servants’ 

house, now known as the Chicken House, 

probably constructed by slaves in 1842. (NPS 

2005)
10 Swedish House HSR

Historical Background & Context

After the surrender at Appomattox, the Union troops 

came through Flat Rock and, though they were guilty 

of no German atrocities, they pillaged some of the 

houses and took whatever they wanted. In the day the 

men of the family “took to the woods” to escape the 

soldiers and had to come back at night to defend the 

house from a gang of deserters from the Confederate 

Army, who had turned bandits and terrorized the 

community with their burglaries and other offences. 

As the defenders of the house were but two men and a 

boy, resort had to be had to other means of defence, so 

the steps in front of the house, from the portico to the 

ground, were pulled down, port- holes were cut in the 

doors holding strategic positions, the windows on the 

ground floor were barricaded with sand- bags and 

chevaux de frises and communication cut through 

doors and floors from story to story. The house never 

was attacked though threatened.14

In the summer of 1865, with the Memmingers still at 

Flat Rock, their house at the corner of Wentworth 

and Smith in Charleston was declared abandoned 

and turned over to the Freedmen’s Bureau for use as 

an orphanage for African- American children. With 

roads and railroads in shambles, travel was next to 

impossible, and any sort of communication difficult 

at best. “We have neither mails or correspondence,” 

Memminger wrote to a friend, “so that any glimpse 

of the doings of the great world is highly acceptable.” Weeks- old newspapers dropped off by traveling acquaintances only occasionally pierced Rock 

Hill’s isolation.15 Memminger applied for pardon 

under the terms set forth by Congress, but it was not 

granted until December 1866, and the Freedmen’s 

Bureau did not return the Memminger’s house in 

Charleston until early January 1867.16

Many of Memminger’s peers were ruined by the 

war or at least in severely reduced circumstances. 

Yet even with the loss of his slaves, Memminger 

must have had few real financial difficulties and 

appears even to have prospered. In the 1870 Federal 

census, he is shown with $20,000 in real estate, a 

drop of 20% since 1860, but with $100,000 in personal property, which was double the declared 

amount in 1860, even after the loss of his slaves.

In addition to resuming his law practice, Memminger was also actively involved in a wide variety of 

14. Memminger, Flat Rock, p. 14.

FIGURE 10. View of Connemara, spring 1901, showing alterations from the 1890s. (CARL 

3001/01/04P)

15. Bailey, Rock Hill to Connemara, p 27.

16. The 1880 Federal Census gives the address as 122 

Wentworth Street, between Coming and Pitt, but that 

number may have been later changed. The house 

apparently no longer exists.
National Park Service 11

Part I: Developmental History

enterprises after the Civil War. According to Patton, 

he was “a pioneer in the development of the phosphate industry in South Carolina,” In 1868, he organized the Sulphuric Acid and Super- Phosphate 

Company (later known as the Etiwan Phosphate 

Company), not only one of the earliest of the South 

Carolina phosphate companies but also the first 

company in the South to engage in the commercial 

manufacture of sulphuric acid.17

In the 1870s, in addition to his investment in phosphates, Memminger bought shares in the Silver 

Mountain Mining Company in Carbon County, 

Wyoming, and he continued to be one of the leaders 

in the effort to establish rail service from Charleston 

across the Blue Ridge into Tennessee and on to Cincinnati. A route was surveyed in 1838, but by the 

time the Civil War intervened, track had been laid 

only as far as Spartanburg. After the war, the Spartanburg and Asheville Railroad was organized to 

continue the work, with Memminger as its president. His son remembered driving his father to 

Spartanburg in 1874 for the ground- breaking ceremony, which included “a great celebration with 

speech making and a barbecue.”18 The line was 

completed across the Blue Ridge in 1876, but the 

work proved extraordinarily expensive and the line 

was not completed through Flat Rock to Hendersonville until 1880. The following year the company 

was reorganized as the Asheville and Spartanburg 

Railroad, and the line was completed to Asheville in 

1886.

In November 1875 Mary, Christopher Memminger’s 

wife of forty- three years, died and was buried at St. 

John in the Wilderness cemetery. On March 27, 1878, 

he married her sister Sarah Ann, who had long been 

close to the family.

Memminger was re- elected to the Legislature in 

1876 and, as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, worked to restore the state’s finances. He 

also introduced a bill to revive his alma mater, South 

Carolina College in Columbia, but retired from 

public life when the legislative term ended in 1877. In 

17. Bailey, From Rock Hill to Connemara, p. 28; Dr. George November 1885, Memminger resigned as chairman 

J. Svejda, “Historic Structure Report, Carl Sandburg 

Home National Historic Site,” unpublished MSS for 

NPS, dated April 28, 1972, p. 10.

FIGURE 11. View of Connemara after it was repainted by the Smyths in 1901 (CARL3001/01/

18P)

18. Memminger, Flat Rock, p. 24.
12 Swedish House HSR

Historical Background & Context

of Charleston’s Public School Board, a position he 

had held since the early 1850s.

Christopher Memminger died in Charleston on 

March 7, 1888. In its eulogy for Memminger, The 

News and Courier wrote that he was

one of those who have given lustre to the name of 

South Carolina; the towering and never- to- be- forgotten few. Earnest, able, equable. Publicist; man of 

affairs, apostle of popular education in South Carolina; 

loyal always to Church and State.19

Following the funeral in Charleston, Memminger’s 

remains were returned to Flat Rock, where he was 

interred next to his first wife in the cemetery at St. 

John in the Wilderness.

The house at Rock Hill may have sat empty in the 

summer of 1889, since Memminger’s son Dr. Allard 

Memminger had built his own house, Richmond 

Hill, nearby in 187020, and Edward Read Memminger was constructing a new house for himself at 

Tranquility, which was slated for completion and 

occupancy by the summer of 1890. And so the 

Memmingers put Rock Hill up for sale. On September 12, 1889, Edward Memminger, acting as executor 

of his father’s estate, sold Rock Hill, its contents, 

and 292 acres for $10,000 to Caspar A. Chisholm, in 

trust for Chisholm’s sister- in- law Mary A. F. 

Gregg.21

The Greggs’ Rock 

Hill

Born in South Carolina about 1839, Mary A. Fleming 

Gregg was the daughter of Daniel Fleming, a 

wealthy Charleston merchant. She married William 

Gregg, Jr., on December 10, 1856. Gregg was born at 

Graniteville, Aiken County, South Carolina, on 

October 11, 1834, the eldest son of William and Mariana Jones Gregg. William Gregg, Sr. (1800- 1867), 

was one of the early proponents of Southern industrialization and, according to one historian, “the 

19. Quoted in Svejda, p. 12.

20. Richmond Hill was built as “a miniature of Rock Hill” 

according to Patton, Henderson County, p. 210. It was 

later bought by Mrs. Robert E. Lee III, a 

granddaughter of Christopher Memminger, who 

restored it and renamed it Enchantment.

FIGURE 12. Boating on the Front Lake at Connemara, c. 1910. (CARL3001/01/41P)

21. Henderson County Deed Book 25, pp. 469-470. 

Chisholm was married to Mary Gregg’s sister. The 

deed also mentions earlier trustees of Mary Gregg, 

including her father Daniel Fleming and her brotherin-law James Jones Gregg.
National Park Service 13

Part I: Developmental History

most significant figure in the development of cotton 

mills in the South.”22

William Gregg, Jr., and his wife, Mary Fleming 

Gregg, appear to have had only two children, a son 

born in 1860 and a daughter born in 1863. In the 

Charleston city directories for 1888- 1890, William 

and Mary Gregg are listed at 27 Rutledge Avenue 

near the Battery, just a few doors away from his 

widowed mother, Mariana Gregg, at 16 Rutledge 

and just a block and a half from Christopher Memminger’s widow on Council Street. At that time, 

Gregg’s occupation was listed in the directory as 

“phosphates,” in which he, like Memminger and 

other wealthy Charlestonians, had invested heavily 

after the Civil War.23 What relationship may have 

existed between the Memmingers and the Greggs 

prior to 1889 is not clear. However, C. G. Memminger, Sr., and William Gregg, Sr., were contemporaries and both served in the South Carolina 

assembly in the 1850s, sometimes on opposite sides 

of an issue. Both were delegates to the state’s secession convention in 1860, and as neighbors in 

Charleston, quite likely had something more than a 

passing acquaintance with one another.

In her history of Connemara prior to the Sandburgs, 

Louise Bailey states that “there is no indication that 

[Gregg] or his family occupied the house, or that 

they made any changes in the house or grounds.”24

While that may be true, the Greggs bought Rock 

Hill fully furnished and, like the Memmingers, 

employed an overseer, William Slattery (born in 

North Carolina about 1862), who of course lived on 

the property year- round.25 It seems improbable 

that William and Mary Gregg would not have spent 

some time in the house, at least prior to his death in 

February 1895. In addition, a series of changes and 

22. “Gregg, William,” Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, 

editors, Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 

NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1946), pp. 599-600; 

National Historic Landmark nomination for 

Graniteville; 1860 Federal Census, South Carolina, 

Edgefield County, Graniteville, p. 67.

23. Abstract of Charleston city directories at 

<www.ancestry.com>, accessed 14 June 2004.

FIGURE 13. Smyth family on the steps at Connemara, c. 1903. (Collection of 

Julianne Heggoy, great-grand-daughter of the Smyths)

24. Bailey, From “Rock Hill” to “Connemara,” p. 32.

25. Bailey, From “Rock Hill” to “Connemara,” p. 44.
14 Swedish House HSR

Historical Background & Context

additions to the Main House that were almost certainly done by the Greggs was executed in the late 

nineteenth century.

Gregg’s widow retained ownership of Rock Hill for 

nearly six years after his death, and it is not known 

what finally precipitated the decision to sell. It is 

possible that too much of the family’s income 

depended on South Carolina’s phosphate industry, 

which was well on the way to collapse in the face of 

competition from the new mines in Florida. Or it is 

possible that it related to the tragic drowning of a 

child, perhaps a grandchild, in Front Lake.26 Whatever the reason, on December 12, 1900, Mary Gregg 

conveyed title to Rock Hill to James Adger Smyth 

and Augustine T. Smyth as trustees for their younger 

brother Ellison A. Smyth and his wife Julia G. 

Smyth.27

The Smyths’ 

Connemara

Called the “dean of Southern textile manufacturers” 

by the New York Times when he died in 1942, Ellison 

Adger Smyth was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1847.28 He was the son of Thomas Smyth 

(1808- 1873) and grandson of Samuel Smith [sic]29, 

who apparently made a fortune as a grocer and 

tobacco distributor in Belfast in the north of Ireland.

In 1880, in partnership with Francis Joseph Pelzer, 

Jr., and William Lebby, and “unquestionably influenced” by the pioneering work of William Gregg, 

Sr., at Graniteville before the Civil War, Smyth began 

building a model cotton mill, complete with mill village, on 500 acres east of Anderson, South Carolina. 

Christened Pelzer Mills, and with Smyth as its president, the operation included four mills with nearly 

2000 looms, and more than 3,000 employees by 

1896. The mill town itself contained more than 400 

mill- worker houses, six stores, a church, and “a 

good hotel.”

By the turn of the century, Smyth’s mills were generating income that made him one of South Carolina’s wealthiest citizens, and Smyth made the 

decision to buy a second home. He and his wife 

were well into middle age, and while South Carolinians no longer fled to the mountains to escape disease, the oppressive heat and humidity of summer 

provided more than enough reason to continue the 

trek, with Flat Rock remaining a popular retreat. 

The Flat Rock houses did not change hands often, 

FIGURE 14. View south at west end of Main House, 

c. 1915, with earliest image of the Swedish House, 

showing part of east gable, at extreme right. 

(CARL3301/18/06P)

26. Mary McKay, the Smyths’ granddaughter, 

remembered “somebody drowned in front lake not 

long before we bought the place,” and the Smyth 

grandchildren were never allowed to swim in the lake 

as a result. Also see interview with Frank Ballard, 19 

October 1982, who recalled the drowning victim as 

being a child.

27. Henderson County Deed Book 40, pp. 567-572.

28. “Capt. Ellison Smyth, A Manufacturer, 94,” New York 

Times, August 3, 1942.

29. Ellison’s grandfather Samuel is reported to have 

changed the spelling of his surname to “Smith,” but 

his father Thomas Smith reverted to “Smyth” in 1837 

in order to avoid confusion with another Thomas 

Smith.The name is pronounced with the sound of a 

long “i”. Most of the family, including Ellison Smyth, 

spelled the name without a final “e.” His brother 

Augustine Smythe reverted to the archaic spelling of 

the family name, again as a way to distinguish himself 

from an Augustine Smith.
National Park Service 15

Part I: Developmental History

and even when they did, they generally continued to 

be owned by descendants, relatives or business 

associates of the original owners. According to his 

granddaughter, Smyth had been acquainted with 

William Gregg, Jr., through the textile business and 

credited the older man with “so much help and 

inspiration in his [own] business accomplishments.” 

Thus, when Gregg’s widow finally decided to sell 

Rock Hill, it was Smyth who took title to the property in December 1900.

Besides rehabilitating the house, Smyth renamed 

Rock Hill, christening it Connemara, reportedly 

because it reminded him of his ancestral Ireland. 

With their Charleston roots and their wealth, the 

Smyths fit seamlessly into Flat Rock society, but the 

house was mainly a place for the extended family to 

while away the summer months. With the house 

opened by the caretaker, the women and children 

arrived in May and stayed until school started in 

September. Ellison Smyth and his grown son generally came up from Greenville and Pelzer on Friday 

afternoons, catching the return train home on Sunday evening at the station at East Flat Rock.30

Ellison Smyth remained active throughout his long 

life, continuing to be involved with the operation of 

his mills and other investments. By the 1920s, however, he must have been contemplating significant 

changes in his life. He was in his seventies, and the 

chore of commuting between Flat Rock and Greenville was beginning to wear, even with the added 

convenience of automobiles. According to their 

granddaughter, Julia Smyth was less than enthusiastic about moving to Flat Rock. Nevertheless, the 

house was rehabilitated and “winterized,” which 

included replacing Memminger’s antebellum addition to the rear of the house and installing a central 

heating system. Sometime in 1924, the Smyths relocated to Flat Rock for good.31 While Mrs. Smyth 

loved Connemara, their old house at 237 Broadus 

Avenue in Greenville had been their home for many 

years, and her granddaughter recalled, Julia “never 

FIGURE 15. View of Connemara, 1938. (Photograph by Bayard Wooten, 

CARL3001/23/09P)

30. Bailey’s From “Rock Hill” to “Connemara” recounts 

many details of the Smyths time at Connemara, as do 

the series of NPS oral interviews with Smyth’s 

granddaughter Mary McKay in 1973.

31. McKay interview.
16 Swedish House HSR

Historical Background & Context

got over the move from Greenville.”32 She died in 

1927.

Smyth stayed on at Connemara, cared for by an 

assistant, Pauline Harvey, and after her death by his 

granddaughter Nancy Blake. Later, according to 

another granddaughter, an unmarried cousin of 

Julia Smyth became Smyth’s caregiver.33

Through the 1930s, Smyth continued his regular 

routine, going to his office at Balfour Mills every 

day, and making his rounds at Connemara, feeding 

the chickens, turkeys, and ducks at five o’clock each 

afternoon and then walking down the hill to the 

road and back with his collie, Laddie.34 In the 

snowy winter of 1941- 1942, however, his health took 

a turn for the worse, with the weather so bad that 

the doctor had to be driven in an ox cart from the 

road to the house. Smyth lingered on through the 

spring and into summer, but died in his bed at Connemara on August 8, 1942. He was 94.

The New York Times eulogized him as “the dean of 

Southern textile operators,” while one of his biographers hailed him as “one of the South’s greatest 

industrial leaders.”

[H]is success as a cotton mill executive was due not 

only to his business capacity but to an unusual gift for 

managing men. There were never any strikes or other 

labor troubles in his mills. . . . [He was] governed 

throughout his career by the highest standards of personal and business honor, was unostentatious, efficient, and always ready to contribute of his time and 

money to the public welfare. He was deeply interested 

in the history of North and South Carolina and collected a large and valuable library on the subject.35

In the depths of World War II, sale of Connemara 

was not really an option, and the Main House 

apparently remained unoccupied until war’s end. 

Not until the summer of 1945 was the place put up 

for sale.

The Sandburgs’ 

Connemara

For the Sandburgs, both of whom were in their sixties in the early 1940s, the harsh Michigan winters 

were becoming more difficult to endure. The winds 

howling off the lake were so bad that they had to reputty the windows every three years or so to keep 

them from rattling, and as Mrs. Sandburg put it, 

they were “sort of frozen out of [their] place in 

Michigan.”36 Mrs. Sandburg’s herd of prize goats 

was an issue, too, as Sandburg explained to a 

reporter shortly before their move.

The soil around here is sandy and unsuited to goats. 

There is a hillside near the Carolina property where 

they can browse and where they can properly develop 

their legs. But we’re mostly going because of Mrs. 

Sandburg. The climate is too cold here in winter. There 

are too many steps in this house and too many winding 

paths that must be walked before you get anywhere.37

For a variety of reasons then, as World War II 

ground to its end in the summer of 1945, Mrs. Sandburg set out with her sister- in- law Dana Steichen 

and daughter Helga in search of a new home “in the 

32. McKay interview.

33. McKay and Emily Jane Ballard interviews; 1930 

Federal Census, Henderson County, NC.

34. Smyth’s granddaughter Mrs. Rogers and Mrs. Emily 

Jane Ballard both recounted Smyth’s afternoon 

routine.

FIGURE 16. Mr. and Mrs. Sandburg in Dining Room 

at Connemara, photographed by Vachon. (CARL 

12132) 35. “Smyth, Ellison Adger,” The National Cyclopedia of 

American Biography (NY: J. T. White, 1945), Vol. 33, p. 

397.

36. Interview with Mrs. Sandburg (CARL-4023/2/03), 1967, 

Roll 2.

37. Eddie Doherty, “'Ghost' of Carl Sandburg Pulls Stakes-

--by Carload,” undated newspaper article, pasted in 

front of Memminger Scrapbook (CARL Coll. #28461)
National Park Service 17

Part I: Developmental History

general area” of Asheville and western North Carolina. Mrs. Sandburg had first seen the mountains of 

western North Carolina in the late 1930s as part of a 

trip to Florida, and she remembered that the air was 

“somehow different” there.38

So it was that they came to buy Connemara, in spite 

of the asking price of $45,000, which Mrs. Sandburg 

remembered as being “way ahead of everything 

else- - it was a pretty expensive place.”39 Sandburg 

himself thought the price “near silly,”40 but expensive or not, it suited their needs exactly, and he 

immediately promised a lecture trip to raise the 

cash.41

As Mrs. Sandburg remembered later, the house was 

in “terrible shape,” and its renovation was a major 

undertaking, costing some $50,000 and overseen 

almost entirely by Mrs. Sandburg. She found a local 

builder, Joe Anders, who inspected the house and 

helped plan the renovation. By the end of September 1945 work was underway, even though working 

out details of the sale with the numerous Smyth 

heirs delayed the actual real estate closing until the 

middle of October.

A month later, Mrs. Sandburg, daughter Janet, 

nephew Eric Johnson, and their young housekeeper, 22- year- old Adeline Polega left Michigan 

for North Carolina, with Adeline driving the family’s station wagon towing a trailer full of the most 

valuable bucks and pregnant does. Helga, who had 

recently divorced, her two children, and Margaret 

stayed behind with their father, completing the 

packing and “keeping house amid the ruins,” as 

Sandburg put it. Although the movers were 

expected within a couple of weeks, it was late 

December before they were finally able to leave 

38. Paula Steichen, My Connemara (New York, NY: 

paperback edition, 2002, originally published by 

Harcourt Brace & World, Inc., 1969), p.7.

39. Interview with Mrs. Sandburg (CARL-4023/2/03), 1967, 

Roll 2.

40. Sandburg to Lloyd Lewis, probably January 1946, 

#483, in Herbert Mitgang, ed., The Letters of Carl 

Sandburg (Harcourt & Brace, 1968).

41. Interview with Mrs. Sandburg (CARL-4023/2/03), 1967, 

Roll 2.

FIGURE 17. Carl Sandburg and Main House, 1946. (Photograph by June Glenn, 

Jr., CARL 109103)
18 Swedish House HSR

Historical Background & Context

Michigan, only to be met with a severe ice storm that 

delayed their arrival in Flat Rock until the day after 

New Year’s 1946.42

Sandburg continued to write, incessantly, producing 

more than a third of his life’s work after moving to 

Connemara, including his American epic Remembrance Rock, published in 1948. His wife thought he 

would enjoy using the Crow’s Nest (Room 207) as a 

study, but Sandburg refused, knowing the spectacular view alone would be a distraction from his work. 

Instead the bedroom (Room 201) at the southwest 

corner of the second floor became his study, with 

the connecting room (Room 202) his bedroom. Well 

into his seventies, Sandburg continued to spend six 

or eight hours a day at his work, and he continued to 

write and lecture for most of his life.

And as Sandburg wrote, his wife managed a vibrant 

household that included their two oldest children, 

Margaret and Janet, neither of whom ever married. 

Their youngest child, Helga, who was divorced, and 

her two children, John Carl and Paula, also were 

part of the household until Helga remarried and 

moved away in 1952. All had a role to play, whether 

with household chores or helping with the prizewinning herd of Chikaming goats. The farm complex was far enough from the house that the noise 

from milking and other activities would not disturb 

Sandburg’s writing and that had been a significant 

selling point in the first place. Nevertheless, the 

house itself, particularly the basement, on occasion 

became a nursery for the newborn kids, which were 

raised with as much care and attention as any purebred puppy or kitten.

“Paula is a wonder in all ways as a helpmeet,” Sandburg wrote his publisher in the fall of 1953.

She is steadily reducing the herd but so long as she 

stays ambulant she will be breeding goats as her 

brother does delphiniums: it is a genius with her and 

the goat industry idolizes her for her knowledge and 

lighted enthusiasms. Janet says, ‘I love this place and 

hope we never move from it’: she enjoys her chores 

with goats, chickens, the garden and butter making. 

Margaret has become widely read, a scholar who often 

surprises me with her erudition, knows the Bible and 

Shakespeare better than I do.43

42. Wallace, p. 20.

FIGURE 18. The Sandburgs on the front porch of the Main House, September 

1966. (CARL3000/03/09P)

43. Herbert Mitgang, ed., The Letters of Carl Sandburg, 

(1968), p. 495.
National Park Service 19

Part I: Developmental History

.In 1956, Sandburg, who knew the scholarly value of 

the books and papers he had accumulated, decided 

to sell a large part of his library to the University of 

Illinois for $30,000. He made the decision almost 

“on impulse,” Margaret thought, and for her, it was a 

“traumatic experience” that summer to watch as 

thousands of his precious books were carried away. 

Only later did she admit to hiding some of the books 

in which she was most interested in her closet.

Sandburg celebrated his 80th birthday in 1958, and 

he continued to travel and lecture. In February 1959 

he appeared before a joint session of Congress 

which he addressed in honor of the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, and in 1960- 1961 he spent 

several months in Hollywood as script consultant 

for The Greatest Story Ever Told. When Sandburg 

returned from California, however, his step was 

noticeably slower, and in 1963 he was hospitalized. 

After that, he rarely left Connemara. In September 

1965, his health was so poor, Mrs. Sandburg had a 

hospital bed brought into her bedroom, and it was 

there that he spent more and more time. 

On July 22, 1967, he “breathed away” into death, and 

Mrs. Sandburg told the press, “Now Carl belongs to 

the ages.” A simple funeral was held at St. John in the 

Wilderness, where a Unitarian minister spoke a 

eulogy full of Sandburg’s poetry. The organist 

played “John Brown’s Body” and “Shout All Over 

God’s Heaven,” the bell tolled once, and it was 

over.44 As he wished, Sandburg’s body was cremated and the ashes were interred beneath a great 

granite boulder behind his birthplace in Galesburg, 

Illinois. When his wife died ten years later, her ashes 

joined his.

All my life I have been trying to learn to read, to see 

and hear, and to write. At sixty- five I began my first 

novel, and the five years lacking a month I took to finish it, I was still traveling, still a seeker. . . . It could be, 

in the grace of God, I shall live to be eighty- nine, as did 

[the Japanese poet] Hokusai, and speaking my farewell 

to earthly scenes, I might paraphrase: "If God had let 

me live five years longer I should have been a writer."45

Mrs. Sandburg soon made up her mind to offer the 

place to the Federal government as a memorial to 

her husband. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall 

was an old friend of the Sandburgs and, after a visit 

to Connemara in October 1967, threw his weight 

behind the project. The house and land were sold to 

the government and a deed of gift for its contents 

was signed by Mrs. Sandburg in July 1968.46 On 

October 17, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson 

approved the Congressional Act creating the Carl 

Sandburg Home National Historic Site.47 In the 

summer of 1969, Mrs. Sandburg, Margaret, and 

Janet moved out of Connemara and into their new 

home in Asheville, North Carolina.

The Help

The Memmingers, the Greggs, the Smyths, and the 

Sandburgs all needed help in running the estate, 

which through most of its history was a working 

farm in addition to being a summer resort and, after 

1924, a year- round residence. Except for the Sand44. Steichen, My Connemara, p. 176.

45. Preface to Complete Poems.

46. Henderson County Deed Book 468, p. 321.

47. Public Law 90-592.

FIGURE 19. Mrs. Sandburg in front of the 

Swedish House, 1968. (CARL3000/04/20P)
20 Swedish House HSR

Historical Background & Context

burgs, there was a variety of domestic servants, 

including cooks, maids, and butlers, and all four 

families engaged a full- time overseer or caretaker 

from the local community (the Sandburgs called 

him the “farm manager” or “herdsman”) as well as 

several hired “hands” for a variety of agricultural 

work. During the antebellum period, many of the 

Memminger’s domestic servants were AfricanAmerican slaves, but even then the Memmingers 

hired local people, all white, as farm laborers and 

sometimes even as domestic servants.

Overseers and Hired Hands

In October 1839, Memminger apparently hired his 

first overseer, Kinson Middleton, who for $250 per 

year agreed “to give my whole time and attention to 

working and managing [Memminger’s] farm at Flat 

Rock.”48 Probably from the beginning, Memminger 

had a caretaker’s residence at Rock Hill, but it is 

rarely mentioned in his account book. In 1844, he 

noted that he paid for “plastering and work on 

Middleton’s house,” which was presumably the 

caretaker’s residence at Rock Hill. What is now 

known as the Buck House was probably built as a 

caretaker’s residence, and the so- called Tenant 

House may also have served as a caretaker’s residence prior to construction of the Farm Manager’s 

House in 1912.

In 1845, Memminger replaced Middleton with John 

W. McCarson (born about 1816), who with his wife 

and five children moved into the overseer’s house. 

In 1850, the Federal census showed that four more 

children had been added to the McCarson family.

In 1844, Memminger began accounting for development of “Valley Farm,” which marks his purchase of 

what became Edward Memminger’s estate, Tranquility, located a mile or so northwest of Connemara.49 By the 1850s, brothers Andrew Hart (born 

about 1825) and Alfred Hart (born about 1831) were 

employed by Memminger. Their agreement stipulated that Alfred Hart would reside “at the farm,” 

which presumably meant Valley Farm, while 

Andrew Hart would reside “at the residence,” which 

presumably meant the caretaker’s house at Rock 

Hill.50

Local residents were also employed on the estate on 

a seasonal basis to work the farm and for other 

tasks, including painting and small construction 

projects. Paying fifty cents per hundred, Memminger bought thousands of split rails for fencing 

from local men, and continued to patronize Abraham Kuykendall, whose sawmill had furnished 

much of the lumber to build Rock Hill. Like the 

other summer residents, Memminger took advantage of the fresh poultry and produce local farmers 

could offer as well.

Memminger also had other relationships with the 

local residents around Flat Rock. Patton records 

that in 1860 Memminger built a house at Valley 

Farm in addition to the two houses already on the 

property. Memminger apparently let this new, larger 

FIGURE 20. The Smyths’ maid Sylvene, 1937, 

location uncertain. (Collection of Julianne 

Heggoy Collection, great-grand-daughter 

of the Smyths)

48. See Memminger Papers, Account Book.

49. Patton, Flat Rock, p. 44.

50. Memminger’s account book includes caretaker 

agreements with Middleton and the Harts, but only 

the Harts can be located in the Henderson County 

census. Also see Memminger, Flat Rock, p. 24.
National Park Service 21

Part I: Developmental History

house to a family named Hollingsworth, with at 

least one of their daughters employed at Rock Hill, 

probably as a maid or laundress. This house was the 

scene of some events recorded in J. V. Hadley’s 

Seven Months a Prisoner, a first- person account of 

his escape from a Confederate prison and his long 

journey home. Originally published in 1898, Hadley’s book is reported to have provided source 

material for Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain (1997), 

which was also made into a motion picture.

51

Sometime during this period, the Memmingers’ 

longtime overseer Andrew Hart lost a leg as the 

result of an accidental gunshot wound. Forced to 

retire as overseer, he bought an old store on the 

High Road which, Edward Memminger recalled, “in 

time became a great nuisance to the community 

from the sale of whiskey. After [Hart’s] death, his 

sons operated the store but without the sale of 

whiskey.”52

Rock Hill had been a working farm, and after 

Smyth’s purchase of the property in 1900, Connemara remained one as well. Smyth simply added to 

and adapted Memminger’s old farm complex where 

he maintained sheep, hogs, chickens, ducks, turkeys, and a herd of perhaps two dozen Guernsey 

cows.53 Like the Memmingers and the Greggs, 

Smyth employed a caretaker for the estate, a local 

man who lived on site. In addition to providing 

year- round security, the caretaker and his family 

were responsible for opening the house in the 

spring and closing it down in the fall. They also took 

care of any livestock, planted the vegetable garden 

and flowers in the spring, and did all that was necessary to keep the farm in operation. There were 

always three or four farm “hands” as well, some of 

whom lived in the Buck House.54

The Smyths’ first caretaker, William Slattery, was 

born during the Civil War, reportedly the son of one 

of the Hollingsworth sisters who sheltered the 

escaped soldiers in Seven Months A Prisoner.

55 A 

carpenter, among other occupations, Slattery grew 

up nearby and, as noted above, was a caretaker for 

the Greggs in the 1890s. It is quite possible, too, that 

he worked for the Memmingers in the 1880s, 

although he was probably too young to have been 

the principal caretaker.

In 1912, Smyth had a new house (now known as the 

Farm Manager’s House) constructed for the caretaker, or farm manager as he came to be called. Slattery may not have occupied it at all, however, since 

around that time he was either fired or left of his 

own accord and took a position managing one of 

the other nearby estates.56 His replacement was 

Ulysses Ballard, whom Smyth’s granddaughter 

remembered as a “splendid caretaker” and who had 

been Slattery’s assistant.57

Born in 1886, Ballard married Emily Jane Osteen in 

1909, and their first child, Frank, was born in January 1910. Ballard apparently operated a grocery store 

in Flat Rock prior to working for the Smyths. A 

daughter was born to the Ballards shortly before 

51. Patton, Flat Rock, pp. 44-45.

52. Memminger, Flat Rock, p. 24.

53. Interview with Mrs. Rogers, in which she states her 

belief that at least some of the farm buildings predated her grandfather’s purchase of Rock Hill.

54. Interview with Emily Jane Ballard.

55. Mary McKay interview.

56. The name of Slattery’s employer in 1920 is illegible in 

that year’s census. Mrs. Rogers in her December 1976 

interview thought that there might have been some 

sort of altercation that led to Slattery’s being fired.

57. Bailey, p. 44.

FIGURE 21. Three of the Smyths’ 

grandchildren at rear of Main House, c. 

1910, with one of the servants, perhaps 

Paul Thompson. (CARL3001/01/17P)
22 Swedish House HSR

Historical Background & Context

they moved into the new caretaker’s house at Connemara in 1912, and four more daughters were born 

after that. Ulysses Ballard would remain caretaker 

for the estate until shortly after it was sold to the 

Sandburgs in 1945.

Slaves and Servants

The Memmingers, the Greggs, and the Smyths all 

depended on servants to keep their households 

running. Unlike the caretakers, all of whom were 

white, the service staff was typically African- American, listed in the census as “black” or “mulatto,” 

and prior to the Civil War they were apparently all 

enslaved servants. Some of the servants probably 

remained at the family’s primary residence during 

the summer, since the men would often return 

home for business. As a result, as noted above, local 

people were hired to cook, do laundry, and other 

chores while the family was at Flat Rock.

The Memmingers’ Servants. C. G. Memminger 

was a slave owner, as were the Greggs but perhaps 

not the Smyths. Assuming that all slaves were enumerated, which was not always the case, the 1850 

census of the Parish of St. Phillips and St. Michaels 

in Charleston shows Memminger with twelve slaves, 

seven female, and five male, all adults eighteen or 

over except for a ten- year- old girl. In 1860 there 

were no slaves listed in Memminger’s possession in 

Charleston, but six men, all in their thirties or forties 

were shown in his possession in Henderson County, 

North Carolina. Apparently all of Memminger’s 

domestic slaves escaped enumeration that year.58

The enslaved servants no doubt included a cook, a 

butler, maids, gardeners, drivers, and other domestic servants, but the enslaved men in the 1860 census 

were most likely farm laborers at Rock Hill or at 

Memminger’s Valley Farm nearby. In addition, 

Memminger could have rented some of his slaves, 

especially if they were skilled craftsmen. The carpenters Ben and Peter mentioned in Memminger’s 

account book were probably slaves and apparently 

built the servants’ house that the Sandburgs called 

the Chicken House, but which was most likely constructed as a residence for the Memminger’s cook 

and perhaps the butler or a nursemaid.

At least one of Memminger’s slaves appears to have 

gained a position of some trust within the family. For 

several years in the 1840s, Memminger noted in his 

FIGURE 22. The Smyths’ servants in front of the Kitchen, c. 1910. (Collection of William McKay, 

great-grandson of the Smyths)

58. 1850 and 1860 Federal Census, Slave Schedules, which 

do not list slaves by name but only by age, sex, and 

skin color.
National Park Service 23

Part I: Developmental History

account book payments for train fare and other 

expenses between Charleston and Flat Rock for one 

Robert. Since Memminger appears to have used 

surnames to refer to white workers and only given 

names for black workers, it seems that Robert was 

Memminger’s trusted black butler, who was sent 

ahead to Flat Rock a week or two early to get the 

house ready for their arrival. Aside from these 

three- - Robert, Peter, and Ben- - almost nothing 

else can be said about the Memminger’s slaves.

There were probably at least four servants who 

made the trip each summer, and it is possible that 

one or two of them initially lived in the main house, 

perhaps in one or more of the upstairs bedrooms. 

As the Memminger family grew, however, more 

room was needed and in the late 1840s, the main 

house was enlarged, and in the early 1850s, a new 

servants’ house was constructed. Now known as the 

Swedish House, this servants’ house had four bedrooms and, with meals taken in the servants’ dining 

room in the Kitchen, would have provided ample 

room for the Memmingers’ servants.

Emancipation brought freedom to Memminger’s 

slaves, but it cannot be said how many, if any, of 

them continued to work for him as employees after 

the war. Some may have, while others appear to 

have left, including perhaps the black Memminger 

households at Walterboro, South Carolina, that 

show up in the 1870 Federal census.

The Memmingers still needed servants after the 

war, and these continued to be African Americans 

for whom freedom from bondage may have made 

little difference in their day- to- day existence. Five 

African Americans were listed as part of the Memminger household in the 1870 Federal census, all 

probably residing in a servants’ house behind the 

Memmingers’ residence on Wentworth Street in 

Charleston. Two, Thomas and Grace Whilden (both 

born about 1820), were apparently married, with 

him listing his occupation simply as laborer and her 

listed as a “washer.” Cupid McLowed, a “hostler” or 

groom born about 1840, was probably Memminger’s 

driver, while thirty- year- old Mary Bowser and 

fifty- year- old Martha Price were both “domestic 

servants,” no doubt in the Memmingers’ household. 

At least some of the servants would have gone with 

the family to Flat Rock, but there is no way to know 

which ones.59

The 1880 Federal census lists only two servants in 

Memminger’s employment: John Jenkins, a black 

man born about 1830, who was probably the butler, 

and Charlotte Ray, a mulatto woman born about 

1820, who was probably the family’s cook. However, 

these were only the servants living on the premises 

at the Memmingers’ residence in Charleston, and 

there were probably others besides them residing 

elsewhere in the city.

The Smyths’ Servants. One of the Smyths’ granddaughters remembered that “there were always 

plenty of servants; you could get them for so little.”60 Nothing is known about the Greggs’ servants, 

but a number of the Smyths’ servants can be identified in the Federal census, and their last butler, 

James Fisher, was interviewed by the park in the 

1970s. Still, except for the Fishers, very little is 

known about these people beyond their names and 

perhaps their approximate ages.

The 1870 census shows the Smyth household with 

two servants, a nurse, Lydia B. Perry, born about 

1835, and another domestic servant, Heyward Perry, 

born about 1850, and perhaps Lydia’s son. Heyward 

Perry cannot be located in the 1880 census, but 

59. Some of the servants’ surnames are difficult to discern 

in the census schedules.

60. Interview with Mary McKay.

FIGURE 23. Robert Marshall, c. 1900, the 

Smyths’ butler in the late nineteenth and 

early twentieth centuries. (Julianne Heggoy 

Collection)
24 Swedish House HSR

Historical Background & Context

Lydia remained in the family’s employment, assisted 

by a second servant, Mary Ellis, born about 1836.

The 1890 Federal census was mostly destroyed by 

fire, but the 1900 census lists nine African Americans as part of the Smyths’ household. These 

included Mary Margreth, born in July 1875, John 

Singleton, born September 1840, Ginny Singleton, 

born December 1880, Paul Thompson, born June 

1872, and Kate, whose last name is illegible, born in 

1840.

In addition, there appears to be a family group, the 

Golightlys, that is also part of the Smyth household. 

The first name of the elder male, born in 1873, is 

illegible, but not that of presumably his wife, Lizzie, 

born in September 1877. Three children are also 

listed: Lizzie, born June 1896, Alistir, born March 

1898, and Ruben, born December 1899. 

Only one servant is listed in the Smyth household in 

1910: Lavonia Lawson, born around 1860, but there 

must have been others. Photographs from the 

Smyth family include two of a man named Robert 

Marshall, who was the family’s butler in the late 

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the 

nature of the photographs suggest that he occupied 

a special place in the household. Born about 1850, he 

married a woman named Eva around 1890, and was 

living with her and her 87- year- old mother on 

Thompson Street in Greenville in 1910.61

Marshall must have died or become incapacitated in 

1910 or 1911, and in the winter of 1911- 1912, James 

Fisher (born about 1890) went to work for the 

Smyths, serving as Smyth’s valet and butler.62

Around the end of World War I, Fisher married the 

Smyths’ maid, Carrie, and their first child, Mary, 

was born in July 1919. Another daughter, Benny, was 

born in 1922.63 They did not live with the Smyths, 

however, but had their own home in Greenville on 

Glenn Street not far from the Smyths’ home on 

Broadus Avenue. After 1924, they resided in the 

Swedish House year- round.

The Smyth grandchildren also remembered the 

family’s cook, Johnny Simmons, but he has not been 

located in the Federal census and nothing else is 

known about him.

Ellison Smyth always had a driver or chauffeur as 

well. Until his death in the mid- 1930s, James Robinson was the chauffeur and resided in the “tenant 

house,” which Smyth moved to its present location 

around 1926 or 1927.64 Born about 1875, Robinson 

married around 1900, but there is no record of children from the marriage and the identity of his wife 

remains undocumented.65 After Robinson’s death, 

James Fisher took over his responsibilities.

The Sandburgs’ Help. Adeline Polega came down 

and stayed until midsummer 1946, helping with the 

FIGURE 24. Undated photograph, probably of 

Smyth’s chauffeur James Robinson. (CARL3002/10/

05p)

61. Ages and relationships are documented by the 1910 

Federal Census, Greenville County, South Carolina, 

which also documents Marshall’s occupation as the 

Smyths’ butler.

62. James Fisher was interviewed by the park staff on 18 

November 1975 and gave the date of his 

employment.

63. 1930 Federal Census, Henderson County, NC, 

documents birth dates.

64. In her December 1976 interview, Smyth’s 

granddaughter Mrs. Rogers mentions Smyth’s 

relocation of the tenant house from its original 

location off the Memminger Walk to a location 

behind the Main House and, from there, to its present 

location along the driveway.

65. 1930 Federal Census, Henderson County, NC, 

documents marriage and age.
National Park Service 25

Part I: Developmental History

unpacking of thousands of books, but then returned 

home to Michigan. Even the Ballards left in early 

spring of 1946, apparently because Frank Ballard did 

not like dealing with the Sandburgs’ goats, but a new 

farm manager or herdsman was eventually found.66

After Ballard’s departure, the Sandburgs hired 

Frank Mintz, Jr., (born about 1912) as farm manager. 

Around 1954, Leroy Levi was hired as farm manager, 

serving in that position for the rest of the Sandburgs’ tenure at Connemara.67 Art Golby, Helga’s 

second husband, also worked at Connemara for a 

time.

Unlike the Memmingers and the Smyths, the Sandburgs did not employ servants, except for a cook 

and a housekeeper, neither of whom worked full 

time or resided at Connemara. The lack of servants 

was due to the fact, as one friend put it, that the 

Sandburgs “were accustomed to doing things themselves.”68 Even without the rising labor costs after 

World War II, which reduced the demand for the 

domestic help that had been common even in many 

less- than- well- to- do households before the war, 

Sandburg, the “old Socialist,” was simply not one to 

employ servants.

66. Interview with Frank Ballard, 19 October 1982.

67. Memorandum, Historian Dr. George J. Svejda to Chief, 

Office of History and Historic Architecture, Eastern 

Service Center, 24 May 1971. 68. Interview with Louise Bailey, 16 January 1973.
26 Swedish House HSR

Historical Background & Context
National Park Service 27

Dubbed the Swedish House by the Sandburgs, this 

building was constructed around 1852. The primary 

source of documentary evidence is Memminger’s 

“Account of Expenditures for a/c of Buncombe 

Establishment,” an account book that he kept for 

Rock Hill. Beginning on 1 April 1838 and ending in 

1862, the book provides documentation for certain 

aspects of Memminger’s development of the estate 

prior to the Civil War, including a sketch map locating the Main House and adjacent structures, one of 

which is in the same location and orientation as the 

Swedish House.69 That structure is marked “servant’s house” and, because the present structure has 

characteristics and materials that are typical of the 

antebellum period, it is assumed to be the same 

structure as the Swedish House. Entries in the 

account book showing payments for materials and 

labor in 1849, 1850, and 1853 suggesting that the 

Swedish House was being constructed some time 

during that time.

The Swedish House appears in only a few historic 

photographs in the park’s collection. The earliest 

dates to the 1920s, but shows only a glimpse of the 

east gable. The others date to the Sandburg period, 

but most show only portions of the building’s exterior. In spite of the paucity of photographic or 

documentary evidence, variations in building materials help establish a general sequence in which 

most changes occurred and similarities of some of 

the materials to those used in the main house suggest possible time frames in which some of these 

changes might have occurred. An analysis of 

painted finishes might confirm some of the conclusions here and might be useful in establishing the 

chronology of the changes that can be observed.

Gothic Revival

With its steep gables and fanciful barge boards, the 

Swedish House is not a traditional building but, 

rather, has a design clearly influenced by the Gothic 

Revival. One of Flat Rock’s earliest Gothic Revival 

buildings70, the house stands in marked contrast 

with not only the Greek Revival design of the Main 

House but also with the vernacular design of the 

original kitchen (1838), which was converted into a 

garage by the Sandburgs, and the other servants’ 

dwelling (1841), which the Smyths used as a wash 

house and which the Sandburgs used to house 

chickens and, at times, baby goats, thus leading to its 

designation as the “Chicken House” in the Sandburg era.

There is no documentation for the source of the 

design of the Swedish House, but it is worth noting 

that Memminger’s relationship with the Bennetts 

and others in Charleston insured that he would 

have been aware of the latest architectural trends 

and would have had many resources at his disposal. 

Gothic- inspired architectural details were widely 

used in eighteenth- century Britain and even appear 

on a mantel in the celebrated Miles Brewton House 

that was built in Charleston in the late 1760s. Always 

associated with Europe’s medieval cathedrals, the 

“Gothick” style became especially popular for 

ecclesiastical buildings, beginning in this country in 

the 1820s, but it was not until Andrew Jackson 

Davis’ work in the early 1830s that Americans began 

building Gothic Revival residential architecture. 

Davis’ Rural Residences (1837) included numerous 

Gothic designs, and his friend Andrew Jackson 

Downing popularized the style through his pattern 

69. C. G. Memminger Papers (#502), Southern Historical 

Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 

NC.

70. Ravenswood, one of Flat Rock’s best-known Gothic 

Revival houses was constructed 1859-1860.

Chronology of 

Development and Use
28 Swedish House HSR

Chronology of Development and Use

books, especially Cottage Residences (1842) and The 

Architecture of Country Houses (1850). 

When William Gregg, Sr., (whose son bought Rock 

Hill from the Memmingers in 1889) began developing his cotton mill at Graniteville, South Carolina, in 

the mid- 1840s, he envisioned a model community 

that would, as Mills Lane wrote, “through good 

architecture and community planning encourage 

moral improvement in the mill’s employees.” In July 

1846, Lane reports, Gregg wrote Richard Upjohn, 

one of the nation’s foremost architects of the period 

and famous for his Gothic churches, requesting his 

assistance at Graniteville. “I should like. . . to decide 

on some cheap stile of Architecture, that we may . . . 

build up a uniform Village conforming to some sort 

of order.”

Gregg apparently already had in mind cheap but 

attractive houses for the mill workers that would be 

sixteen by thirty feet, with a single brick chimney 

and unfinished interior. By the spring of 1848, forty 

of these “cottages of the Gothic order of architecture [built] after handsome Architectural plans” had 

been erected at Graniteville. Gregg is known to have 

sent his carpenter to meet with Upjohn in New 

York, but it is not clear that Upjohn actually 

designed the mill workers’ houses at Graniteville.71

The Swedish House is similar to Gregg’s mill housing, even if Gregg’s mill houses were unlikely to have 

been the sole source for Memminger’s design for his 

servant’s house. Gregg’s mill village received widespread attention, and given that Memminger and 

Gregg appear to have had more than a passing 

acquaintance, it is quite possible that Memminger 

saw the village first hand since his journey to and 

from Flat Rock each summer took him within five or 

six miles of the mill.

Although the Swedish House lacks board- and- batten siding, which was one of the hallmarks of the 

Gothic cottages of Downing, Upjohn, and others, it 

has a similar form, with the second story behind a 

steeply- pitched gable roof; a prominent barge 

board, though its design is far from Gothic; and a 

very similar scale, 18- 1/2’ by 28- 1/2’ versus the 16’ by 

30’ that Gregg initially proposed to Upjohn.

FIGURE 25. Earliest image of Swedish House, 1946, with 

early wooden steps and porch still intact. (CARL3000/

17/1P Coll.)

FIGURE 26. Mill workers’ Gothic Revival housing, 

Graniteville, SC, 1848. (From Mills Lane, 

Architecture of the Old South: South Carolina)

71. Mills Lane, Architecture of the Old South, South 

Carolina, p. 218, 221.
National Park Service 29

Part I: Developmental History

Construction

Memminger’s account book for Rock Hill documents construction of the Main House, the Kitchen, 

and a stable in 1838, all of them mentioned by name. 

Also mentioned specifically are a “wagon house,” 

which was built by Memminger’s Flat Rock neighbor Noah Corn in 1843, and an “Ice House” built in 

1847. “Work on House” is documented in 1847- 1849 

and almost certainly refers to the addition that 

Memminger is known to have made to the rear of 

the house at some point during the antebellum 

period.

In addition to work on his caretaker’s house in 1844, 

Memminger recorded purchases of lumber and 

other materials as well as payments for labor that 

appear to indicate construction of at least two other 

buildings, one in 1841 and one between 1850 and 

1853. These must have been the two servants’ houses 

(now known as the Chicken House and the Swedish 

House) shown on the undated sketch map that 

Memminger included in his account book (see Figure 3), since both buildings are clearly of antebellum 

origin, and there is no suggestion in Memminger’s 

papers that they were ever replaced.

Walker and Shephard’s archaeological investigation 

in 1976 “deduced from window glass fragments” 

that the Swedish House was built prior to 1845.72 In 

1841, Memminger paid for unspecified work by 

Peter and Ben, who were apparently slaves and only 

listed by their first names, but to whom he referred 

as carpenters. While it is possible that the building 

being built was the Swedish House, that seems 

unlikely. Not only did the 1841 structure precede 

Downing’s popularization of the Gothic Revival 

style, which began in 1842 with publication of his 

Cottage Residences, the charges in Memminger’s 

account book are smaller than those that are documented in 1850 and 1853. More significantly, there 

are no charges for stone work in 1841, which is a significant element of the Swedish House’s architecture. In addition, it should be remembered that 

dating a building on the basis of glass fragments or 

any other single building material alone, as the 

archaeologists did, can only provide a general range 

of time during which the building might have been 

constructed.

Memminger typically did not itemize materials, and 

his entries are erratic in that some entries list payee, 

what was bought, and amount, while others show 

only the payee or only what was bought. In the 

FIGURE 27. Plan of Swedish House with notes on alterations. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004)

100

102

101

201

200

202

north

Note 1

Note 2

Note 3

Note 4

Notes on Building Evolution

1. This window is thought to have been present originally, based on typical fenestration of the period.

2. Material differences suggest that the wall enclosing the staircase might not have been originally present.

3. The presence of stone steps was documented by Walker and Shepherd's archaeological investigation in 1976. A sheltering shed roof over

 the entrance was probably always present. A wooden stoop with steps on both sides of the stoop was added at an early date.

4. Although the existing wall was constructed in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, there was probably always a wall at this

 location. The present door was added after the present wall was constructed, probably in the early twentieth century, since rooms of the

 period of the house's construction were typically not connected in this way.

first floor second floor

72. Heather Russo Pence, Carl Sandburg Home National 

Historic Site: Archeological Overview and Assessment

(Tallahassee, FL: Southeast Archeological Center/ 

National Park Service, 1998), p. 56.
30 Swedish House HSR

Chronology of Development and Use

1840s and early 1850s, he bought much of his lumber 

from his neighbors Elisha King and H. T. Farmer, 

but there were smaller purchases from Charles 

Grier and Count de Choisel. There were also payments for lumber to Barnett, a local wagon and 

cabinet maker. Ripley and Patton seem to have been 

Memminger’s usual supplier of hardware and sundries through the store they operated in 

Hendersonville.

The name “Drake” is frequently found among 

Memminger’s accounting entries, a number of them 

relating to carpentry, but only occassionally is a first 

name given. James, Nathan, and Nathan M. Drake 

are identified at various points between 1844 and 

1855, but none of them have been surely identified. 

Many of the payments to “Drake” for oats, corn, and 

hay were probably to Memminger’s neighbor in 

Henderson County, Nathan Drake, who was born 

about 1798.73 He may also have been the N. Drake to 

whom Memminger paid $70.00 in 1852 for a “wagon 

to Aiken.” Other payments to Drakes are clearly 

related to carpentry work, including a payment to 

N. Drake for nails and to “Drake, carpenter” in 1844. 

Payments to unidentified Drakes for carpentry are 

also shown in 1848 and 1849. A payment of $20.00 

for board for Drake is also shown in October 1849. 

There are also large payments to N. M. Drake and to 

Nathan Drake in 1853 that may document completion of the Swedish House. Whether this is the same 

Nathan Drake who provided Memminger with fodder and other supplies is not clear, but many 

nineteenth- century farmers were compentent carpenters who might supplement their agricultural 

income by hiring out their services as a carpenter. 

The Drake family remains poorly documented.

Payments were also made to a James Drake in 1850, 

but it is not clear for what. He might be the same 

James Drake born about 1810 who was residing in 

Henderson County in 1850. However, that entry in 

the account book is followed a few lines later by 

payment for “board” for “Drake” and, a few lines 

after that, payment of $107.25 for “Drake’s bill for 

trip,” the amount suggesting a trip from Charleston 

to Flat Rock. A New Yorker named James P. Drake, 

born about 1825, appears in the 1850 census in the 

parish of St. Michael and St. Philip in Charleston, 

73. Federal Census of Henderson County, 1850-1860.

FIGURE 28. View of rear of Swedish House, c. 1964?, with antebellum privy and 

tenant house in background. (CARL 3000/17/4P)
National Park Service 31

Part I: Developmental History

Memminger’s home parish. His occupation was 

given as blacksmith, which suggests the possibility 

that Memminger brought him to Flat Rock for some 

specialized work in 1850. There is no clue as to what 

that work might have been. Additional research will 

be necessary to determine the identity of the individuals named Drake who received payments from 

Memminger in the 1840s and 1850s.

Historic 

Alterations

In addition to periodic repainting, the house has 

undergone a number of minor alterations that are 

evident from an inspection of the existing building, 

but it appears to retain its original form and plan 

and most of its original features such as windows 

and doors. There are no obvious material differences to suggest that the partition walls on both 

floors were added after the building’s initial construction (although one wall was later 

reconstructed), but analysis of painted finishes 

could confirm the assumption that the present plan 

is original. 

No documentary evidence for any of the observed 

alterations has been located, and with one exception (see Figure 15), historic photographs of the 

building are absent prior to World War II. However, 

some replacement or added material in the Swedish 

House is similar or identical to material in the Main 

House, and it is likely that at least some of the significant alterations at the Swedish House occurred 

around the same time as some of the alterations in 

the Main House. For that reason, it is probable that 

the alterations to the windows and siding on the 

south side of the Swedish House, the installation of 

new flooring in Room 100, and the addition of a 

door between Rooms 101 and 102 all occured 

around the time that the house became a yearround residence in the 1920s.

Walls

One of the earliest substantial changes appears to 

have been removal of the wall that separates Rooms 

101 and 102. Why this would have been necessary is 

FIGURE 29. View of front of Swedish House in 1964. (CARL3000/17/20P)
32 Swedish House HSR

Chronology of Development and Use

not known, but remnants of what was clearly an 

unframed, vertical- board wall similar to the east 

wall of Room 100 are visible along the south edge of 

the ceiling in Room 101, nailed to one of the floor 

joists on that side of the room and then later sawn 

off.

At a later date, the existing wall that partitions Room 

101 from Room 102 was constructed. The wall is 

wood- framed and finished on one side with a narrow, beaded, tongue- and- groove material similar to 

that used in construction of the west bay window on 

the main house, which suggests that this alteration 

may have occurred contemporaneously, i.e. around 

1890. The presence of knob- and- tube wiring running through this wall suggests that the change 

occurred before the house was wired for electricity 

around 1920.

The wall that encloses the upper flight of the staircase is composed of plain, 3- 1/2” tongue- andgroove boards. The boards are blind nailed and so 

the type of nail used could not be determined, but 

the lumber suggests that this wall might have been 

added in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, enclosing what had been open stairs.

Differences in materials used suggest that the door 

opening between Rooms 101 and 102 was not contemporaneous with the wall. The use of doublebeaded boards for the door and the use for door 

stop of a molded base cap like that used in Smyth’s 

rear addition suggests that this alteration might have 

occurred in the 1920s when the house became a 

year- round residence.

Flooring

 On the second floor, in Room 201, large areas of the 

original flooring, which was 8”- 9” wide, have been 

removed and replaced with a 5- 1/2” tongue- andgroove flooring. When and why this alteration might 

have been necessary is unknown, but the use of 5- 1/

2” material suggests that the change occurred in the 

nineteenth century.

Elsewhere in the house, the original flooring 

remains mostly intact, but in Room 100 it is overlaid 

with a 3- 1/2” tongue- and- groove pine similar to 

FIGURE 30. View of Swedish House in March 1969. (CARL4012/3P) 
National Park Service 33

Part I: Developmental History

that which was used in Smyth’s rear addition to the 

Main House in 1924. With eighty- five years of use 

by that time, it is conceivable, even likely, that the 

original flooring was badly worn in this room, particularly around the fireplace, and that the existing 

flooring was installed when the house became a 

year- round residence in the early 1920s.

Windows

All of the first- floor windows are nine- over- six, as 

is the window in the east gable on the second floor. 

The two smaller windows in the west gable are both 

four- over- four. Three molding profiles are present 

(see Figure 35), with two probably representing 

replacement sash, since it seems unlikely that 

Memminger would have used salvaged material in 

the original construction. Analysis of painted finishes could confirm that assumption. The earliest 

sash appear to be those with a triangular muntin, 

typical of the period. Original sash remain in the 

second floor windows and in the window in Room 

102. The original lower sash survives in the north 

window in Room 101, but the original upper sash 

was destroyed by a falling tree and replaced in the 

1970s. Sash with Type B profile could have been 

installed at an early date, but those with Type C 

were most likely installed in the late nineteenth or 

early twentieth century.

Stylistically and functionally, a window would be 

expected on the south wall of Room 102. However, 

the south side of the house has been completely 

resided on the exterior, and bookshelves cover the 

south wall in Room 102, obscuring any evidence for 

a window in that location. There is no documentation that would provide a possible date for closure 

of the window, but it might have been an alteration 

from early in the Sandburg era, contemporaneous 

with installation of the shelving and residing of the 

south side of the house.

Exterior Siding and Trim

As previously mentioned, the original siding over 

the entire south side of the house has been replaced 

with a modern, re- sawn or beveled siding attached 

with wire nails. This replacement might have been 

necessitated simply because of deterioration, since 

the south side of buildings typically degrade at a 

faster rate than the other facades. The use of beveled siding and wire nails suggests that this must 

have occurred in the twentieth century, perhaps as

FIGURE 31. View of east end of house in 1974. 

(CARL4008/03/12P)

FIGURE 32. VIew of typical shutter, c. 1970. 

(CARL5026/2/3P) 
34 Swedish House HSR

Chronology of Development and Use

late as the Sandburg era, although there is no mention of such work in the historic record. Siding 

replacement probably coincided with closure of the 

south window in Room 102 and alterations to the 

south window in Room 100. At that location the 

entire window was taken out of the opening, the 

original sash replaced with two- over- two sash, and 

the window frame re- installed with inside and outside reversed in the opening. The decorative barge 

board at the west end of the house was lost during 

the Sandburg era, probably in conjunction with 

demolition of the chimney, which occurred in the 

mid- 1960s (see below).

Roofing

The photograph of the house in 1946 (Figure 26) 

shows a standing seam metal roof covering, which 

might have been the original. Historic photographs 

show that roof covering having been replaced prior 

to 1964 with the existing V- crimp metal roofing. 

The earliest roofing visible at the front stoop is 

wood shingles, replaced by asphalt shingles when 

the stoop was reconstructed by the Sandburgs prior 

to 1964.

Front Stoop

Historic photographs show that the small concrete 

stoop and single flight of concrete steps at the front 

door were constructed by the Sandburgs prior to 

1964 to replace an earlier wooden stoop which had a 

flight of steps on both its east and west sides. The 

earlier steps had wooden railings, which were not 

reconstructed for the concrete steps. At the same 

time, the shed roof sheltering the stoop was replaced 

with the present roof, which has a much more shallow pitch than the earlier roof. The archaeological 

investigation in the 1970s found large stones beneath 

the existing stoop and suggested that these were an 

FIGURE 33. View of Swedish House, 1971. (CARL5026/2/3P)
National Park Service 35

Part I: Developmental History

original architectural feature and formed the original stoop at the building’s entrance.74

Wiring

In the early twentieth century, the house was wired 

for electric lighting. The system was probably 

installed at the same time that Smyth first wired the 

main house around 1920. Much of this original, 

knob- and- tube, wiring system, which was run 

exposed on ceilings and walls, remains intact but is 

no longer in service.

Shelving

The Sandburgs installed the shelving that is present 

in every room in the house. There is no mention of 

the work in the Sandburgs’ records, but it most 

likely occurred in the 1940s or early 1950s and was 

the only significant alteration that the Sandburgs 

made to the interior.75

Fireplace and Chimney

According to the 1976 Historic Structure Report on 

the building, “the chimney . . . was removed [or collapsed] during the Sandburg period because of 

deterioration.”76 No date is given for this occurrence, but historic photographs show that it 

occured after 1964 and was perhaps the last significant alteration to the house during the historic 

period.

NPS Repairs

When the park first opened, the Swedish House still 

contained many of the books, magazines, and 

newspapers that the Sandburgs had stored there, 

and the house was open on a daily basis. Since there 

was no interior climate control, louvers were 

installed at the windows so that the lower sash 

could be left open to keep the building ventilated.

As historic photographs show (e.g., Figure 26) and 

early NPS reports document, the Swedish House 

was in poor repair by the time the NPS acquired the 

property. The Sandburgs treated the structure for 

an infestation of powder post beetles in 1965 and 

maintained the roof, but few if any repairs were 

made to the building. With the NPS initially focused

74. Pence, p. 56.

75. Wallace, p. 211.

76. Jones (1976), p. 7.

FIGURE 34. Muntin profiles in Swedish House, with 

Type A representing muntins in original sash and 

B and C muntins in later replacement sash.

A B C

FIGURE 35. View of west end of Swedish House, spring 

1971. (CARL4008/03/06P)

FIGURE 36. View of south foundation during 

repairs, 1977. (CARL4008/03/25P)
36 Swedish House HSR

Chronology of Development and Use

on stabilizing the main house, significant work on 

the Swedish House was delayed, but in September 

1976, Russell Jones, restoration architect with the 

Denver Service Center, completed an historic structure report on the Swedish House, which allowed 

the NPS to begin a major campaign to rehabilitate 

the building that fall, with work continuing into the 

summer of 1977.

Archaeology

In preparation for installation of a drainage line 

around the building, in November 1976, John H. 

Walker and Stephen Shepherd conducted an 

archaeological investigation around and under the 

Swedish House. Two test pits were opened along the 

south side of the house and there was extensive 

excavation at the west end of the house and around 

the front porch.

In addition, portions or all of the flooring on the 

first floor had been taken up in order to inspect and 

repair the framing, and this allowed for archaeological testing around the fireplace hearth. No 

architectural or cultural features were discovered 

except for the stones under the front stoop mentioned above.77

Framing Repairs

Initial investigation quickly revealed significant 

deterioration of the framing, especially at the east 

end of the house where the wood frame was in contact with the earth. Siding was removed from the 

lower walls on the east and south sides of the house 

and all of the siding was removed from the north 

(front) side of the house, presumably to allow for 

inspection of the framing. Significant damage to 

thesills and joists from rot and termites necessitated 

replacement of the eastern half of the building’s sills 

as well as an undetermined number of joists at that 

end of the building.

Foundation

Much of the foundation, especially at the east end of 

the structure, was in poor condition and sections 

were little more than loose rubble laid at grade. 

FIGURE 37. Site map from Pense, Archaeological Overview and Assessment (1998), 

showing areas excavated in 1976.

77. Pence, pp. 41, 54-56.
National Park Service 37

Part I: Developmental History

FIGURE 38. “Plans and Elevations Indicating Proposed Restoration Work,” from Russell 

Jones’ historic structure report on the Swedish House, 1976.
38 Swedish House HSR

Chronology of Development and Use

Archaeological testing around the northwest corner 

showed that no footings were present. As a result, it 

was decided to reconstruct much of the foundation 

on new concrete footings. The reconstructed foundation included a new access door on the south side, 

since there had previously been no access to the 

crawl space beneath the house.

Siding and Trim

It is not clear how much siding was replaced, but it is 

assumed that most of the original siding was reinstalled, albeit with the regrettable loss of fasteners. 

Large amounts of the historic siding on all but the 

front of the house were not disturbed at all, and 

above the level of the window sills to about a foot 

below the eaves, the historic fasteners remain intact. 

On the west gable, the original scalloped barge 

boards were lost, probably when the chimney was 

taken down, and were replaced by plain barge 

boards. The barge boards in the west gable were 

recreated and the original barge board at the east 

end was repaired. In addition, fascia was replaced 

across the rear side of the house. Windows and 

shutters were also repaired, the missing shutter from 

the south window was recreated, and missing hardware was replaced.78

Fireplace and Chimney

Following the 1976 archaeological investigation, 

which identified the chimney’s foundation, the fireplace and chimney were reconstructed. 

Archaeology showed that the chimney had incorporated both brick and stone, and historic 

photographs showed what appeared to be a stuccoed brick chimney shaft above the roof. In 

addition, the mantel remained in place inside the 

house, and the original fireplace opening through 

the wall could be clearly identified. All of this 

allowed for what appears to be a reasonably authentic reconstruction of the chimney and fireplace, 

although no historic photographs have yet been 

located that would document the actual appearance 

of the original chimney and fireplace.

Insulation

In order to install batts of fiberglass insulation in the 

walls, additional siding was removed to expose the 

FIGURE 39. View of new footings, 1977. 

(CARL4008/03/15P)

FIGURE 40. Glenn Barnwell, former maintenance 

employee, standing, inspecting foundation 

repairs at rear of house, 1977. (CARL4008/03/27P)

FIGURE 41. Chief of Maintenance Charlie Hamm, 

left, and Joe Moore, temporary carpenter, at 

front of house with siding removed, 1977. 

(CARL4008/03/38P)

78. Russell Jones, Historic Structure Report: Architectural 

Data: Home*Garage*Swedish House (NPS, 1976), p. 7.
National Park Service 39

Part I: Developmental History

tops of the walls on the south, east, and west sides 

(the front had already been stripped). This allowed 

the insulation to be installed from the exterior 

without disturbing the plaster walls inside the 

house.

Modern Utilities

In 1977, the NPS completely rewired the house, 

bypassing but not removing the original electrical 

system, much of which dated to around 1920. 

Around the same time, a sprinkler system was 

installed throughout the house to protect against 

fire. A mechanical pit for sprinkler valves was created under the southwest corner of the house, 

accessed through the new opening in the 

foundation.

Use

Memminger built the Swedish House as another 

residence for his enslaved house servants. The original servants’ house (the present Chicken House), 

only had two rooms, which were home to two of the 

family’s most important servants, the cook and the 

children’s nursemaid. Where the Memminger’s 

butler, maids, driver, and other servants lived during 

that period is not known, but the Swedish House 

was probably built for them. Since the servants took 

their meals in the servants’ dining room, which 

occupied part of the kitchen building, neither of the 

servants’ houses had kitchens but were designed 

strictly for ordinary living and sleeping. Until 1924, 

both would apparently have been used only when 

the family was in residence in the main house. 

There is no definitive documentation to identify the 

servants who lived in the Swedish House in the 

nineteenth century, but the Smyths’ granddaughters 

remembered that the male servants, including their 

butlers Robert Marshall (before 1912) and James 

Fisher (after 1912), used the house in the early twentieth century. The Smyths referred to the house as 

“the Hall.” After the Smyths moved to Flat Rock on 

a year- round basis in 1924, Fisher, his wife, and 

three children lived in the house.79 According to 

one source, the Smyths’ cook also lived in the 

house, which was apparently vacant after Smyth’s 

death in 1942.80

79. Wallace, pp. 211-212; also interview notes with one of 

Smyth’s granddaughters, referenced in Pence, p. 54.

80. Svejda, p. 40.

FIGURE 42. View of west end, 1977. (CARL4008/03/

30P)

FIGURE 43. View of east end of house, 1977. 

(CARL4018/02/118P)
40 Swedish House HSR

Chronology of Development and Use

Sandburg Era

Since the Sandburgs did not employ servants except 

for a part- time cook and housekeeper who did not 

live on the premises, they did not use the Swedish 

House as a servants’ house. The building had no 

heating or plumbing, and only occasionally, an 

overnight guest would sleep on an iron cot in the 

main room on the first floor. Old rugs, the Victrola 

that the Sandburgs bought when they were newly 

wed, and odds and ends of furniture were scattered 

through the house. Inexplicably, a human skull was 

displayed on the mantel.81

The Sandburg’s grandchildren enjoyed playing in 

the house, but for the most part the Sandburgs used 

the house for storage of the mounds of magazines 

that accumulated and the overflow books that 

Sandburg, for whatever reason, decided not to keep 

in the main house. Long- time farm manager Leroy 

Levi was interviewed in 1969 and remembered:

Mr. Sandburg never would let anybody live in 

this house. He kept his books and magazines in it 

and newspapers. . . . He would spend a lot of 

time in this house at times.82

Margaret and Helga tried to keep the collection 

organized, but it was generally a losing battle against 

the tide of books and magazines that flowed from 

the Main House. What Margaret managed to 

accomplish in organizing the collection was lost forever when the building had to be treated for 

powder- post beetles in 1965.83

National Park Service

When the park opened to the public in 1974, the first 

floor of the house was open on a daily basis, the 

books and magazines that the Sandburgs had stored 

there were on display, although some of the books 

were removed to the Main House to fill the gaps left 

on the shelves after Sandburg’s bequest to the University of Illinois library.

Plans for the building’s rehabilitation in 1976 

included adaptation of the Swedish House as a site 

for some of the park’s educational programs. The 

plans (see Figure 35) called for removal of the partition walls on the first floor, installation of restroom 

facilities on the southeast side of the first floor, and 

FIGURE 44. View of east end of house after 

installation of insulation. (CARL4008/03/39P)

FIGURE 45. View north in Room 100 in 1969. 

(CARL4012/3) 

FIGURE 46. View southeast in Room 102 in 1969. 

(CARL4012/3)

81. Wallace, pp. 211-215.

82. Quoted in Wallace, p. 213.

83. Wallace, p. 212.
National Park Service 41

Part I: Developmental History

other modifications to adapt the building to the new 

use. In the end, the interior was not altered as it was 

decided to adapt the garage and add a temporary 

trailer restroom nearby instead. Plans for adaptive 

use of the Swedish House were abandoned, and 

visitors continued to see the house as before. For a 

few years, a “retired” traveling exhibit on Sandburg 

was displayed in the main room. In 1995 the park’s 

new museum storage building was completed, and 

because the lack of climate control was taking a 

serious toll on the artifacts in the building, work 

began removing the magazines and newspapers 

from the first and second floor. The main room on 

the first floor remained on display until the last of 

the books were removed for exhibit in the Book 

Room in the Main House in the summer of 2000. 

Since that time, the building is used occasioinally 

for educational programs, but otherwise is not open 

to the public.

FIGURE 47. View southeast in Room 202, 1969. 

(CARL4012/3) 
42 Swedish House HSR

Chronology of Development and Use

Connemara Chronology

1836, fall Memminger begins looking for property at Flat Rock

1838, March 15 Probable start of construction of Main House

1838, April 1 Memminger begins keeping an account book for his “Buncombe Establishment,” i.e. Rock Hill

1838, summer Kitchen and stable constructed

1839, July Main house mostly complete and Memmingers arrive for first summer at Flat Rock

1841 Probable construction date of Cook’s house (present “Chicken House”)

1843 Noah Corn builds wagon shed

1845-1847 Memminger buys and develops Valley Farm, later known as Tranquility

1847 Ice House constructed

1848-1849 Addition of two rooms and a porch across rear of Main House, and probable date of alterations 

to the interior of the original house

c. 1852 Servant’s House (present “Swedish House”) constructed

1864, summer Memmingers remove to Flat Rock for summer and do not return to Charleston for over two years

1865-1866 Confederate “bushwhackers” plague Flat Rock, forcing removal of front steps at Rock Hill

1867, winter Memminger’s citizenship restored, and Charleston house returned to his possession

1889 Memmingers sell Rock Hill to Greggs

c. 1890 Probable date of construction of east porch, west bay, replacement of front steps, and addition of 

another room and possibly a bathroom at rear of house

1900 Greggs sell Rock Hill to Smyths

c. 1920 Smyth install Delco lighting system for Main House and probably for Swedish House as well

1924 Smyth replaces the Memminger additions at the rear, weatherstrips windows and doors, and 

otherwise rehabilitates the Main House for year-round occupancy

1942 Smyth dies; Fishers vacate Swedish House a short time later

1945, October 18 Smyths sell Connemara to Sandburgs, who begin remodeling of Main House

1948, June Most of Sandburgs’ alterations are complete

1967 Carl Sandburg dies in May

Mrs. Sandburg signs deed of gift of Connemara to National Park Service in June

1968, July Mrs. Sandburg, Margaret, and Janet vacate Connemara

1976, September Historic Structure Report completed by Russell Jones; plans for rehablitation include major 

alterations to the interior for adaptive use

1976-1977 Repairs and rehabilitation, including reconstruction of chimney and fireplace; plans for interior 

alterations abandoned

1977 Building’s electrical system replaced and fire suppresion system installed

1995 Park’s new museum storage facility completed and work begins removing historic contents of 

Swedish House

2000, summer Last of the historic books and magazines are removed from the house

2001 Lead paint abatement
National Park Service 43

Constructed around 1852 , the Swedish House is a 

two- story, wood- framed structure, built on a 

locally- quarried stone foundation. The house features a steeply- pitched, end- gabled roof and 

scroll- sawn barge boards reminiscent of the Gothic 

Revival. Approximately 28- 1/2’ long (east to west), 

18- 1/2’ wide (north to south) and around 26- 1/2 

from the top of the foundation to the peak of the 

gable, the house has three rooms on the first floor 

and two rooms flanking a small hall on the second, 

with a total floor area of around 950 square. The 

house was used as a servants’ house until World War 

II, but the Sandburgs, who did not employ servants 

living on site, used it mostly for additional storage 

space for books and magazines. Major repairs, 

including reconstruction of the chimney and some 

archaeological investigation occurred in the mid1970s. Proposals to significantly alter the building’s 

interior were not executed, and the building is now 

empty.

FIGURE 48. View to southwest of front of Swedish House. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004)

Physical 

Description
44 Swedish House HSR

Physical Description

A number of alterations are evident in the present 

structure but, as discussed in the preceding section, 

its original form, plan, and significant architectural 

details have remained essentially intact, or as in the 

case of the chimney and fireplace, been reconstructed. The building contains architectural features, such as nine- over- six windows, a wooden 

rim lock, and wrought iron hardware that are 

unique to the site. Building investigation was limited 

to non- destructive visual inspection, and materials 

were characterized without laboratory analysis.

Building Site

Located little more than fifty feet southwest of the 

Main House, the facade of the Swedish House is 

somewhat obscured by a thick grove of bamboo, 

which has apparently been a feature of the site since 

at least the 1920s. The building’s east- west orientation is perpendicular to the north- south orientation 

of the original Kitchen (1838), which the Sandburgs 

remodeled into a garage, and the first servant’s 

house (1841), which the Smyths converted to a laundry and the Sandburgs used as a chicken house.

A wire fence, an historic feature of the site, is 

attached to the northwest corner of the house and 

runs a few feet west before turning south and then 

east to the Chicken House. A wooden picket fence is 

attached to the northeast corner of the house and 

runs to the northwest corner of the Garage. With a 

third fence between the Chicken House and the 

Garage, these fences form a large enclosure that the 

Sandburgs typically used for their goats. A gravel 

walk, one of the primary routes taken by visitors 

leaving the Main House, runs down the hill directly 

in front of the Swedish House.

A plan of the existing building can be found at 

the end of this section.

In 1976, archaeological investigation documented 

the presence of a large, natural- stone “step” 

beneath the present concrete stoop at the front 

door. The site map of the excavations (Figure 13 

above) shows this feature to be slightly larger than 

the present stoop and also shows a smaller stone 

feature on the north side of the large stone feature 

FIGURE 49. View to northeast of rear and west end. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004)
National Park Service 45

Part I: Developmental History

that appears to be a step to the stone landing at the 

front door. These features apparently remain in 

situ.

84

Foundation

The house is set on a low, random- range, ashlar 

foundation using locally- quarried stone similar to 

that used on the main house. The foundation’s 

height ranges from only a few inches at the building’s southeast corner to slightly more than three 

feet at the west end. Approximately 18” thick, the 

foundation is continuous except for a small, plywood- covered access door on the rear near the 

west end. 

In the winter and spring of 1976- 1977, some of the 

historic foundation was demolished, concrete footings were installed, and a new foundation constructed re- using stone from the original 

foundation. At the same time, the remainder of the 

foundation was repointed, and the access door on 

the south side of the foundation was created. 

The chimney was also reconstructed in 1977, using 

random- range ashlar, similar to the foundation and 

presumably replicating the historic chimney. The 

base of the chimney measures around 31” by 69”, 

with the chimney rising in that dimension to 

approximately the level of the second floor where 

three corbeled courses of stone provide a transition 

to a brick stack around 26” by 34” that continues to 

less than two feet above the ridge of the roof. The 

chimney terminates with a coping course of concrete or dressed stone. The masonry is in excellent 

condition.

84. Pence, Archaeological Overview and Assessment, p. 

55.

FIGURE 50. View to northwest of rear and east end. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004)
46 Swedish House HSR

Physical Description

Structural System

The house is wood framed, using a modified braced 

frame typical of the mid- nineteenth century. Sills 

are hewn around 7” by 10” in dimension. Running 

north and south, joists are sash sawn, around 2- 1/2” 

to 3” by around 8” and are mortised into the sills. 

Posts and studs could not be observed except 

through photographs taken in the 1970s (e.g., see 

Figures 36, 38, 39) but they are similar to those found 

in the antebellum portions of the Main House. 

Studs appear to be around 3” by 4”, with 4” by 7” 

posts. The ends of rafters, which are visible, are 

around 2- 1/2” to 3” by 6” to 7”. Examination of the 

1970s photographs indicates that the rafters are 

notched over the top plates of the walls, but there is 

no indication of the type of ridge connections.

Exterior

The exterior finishes of the structure appear to be 

mostly original, except for the chimney which was 

reconstructed in 1976, the south side where the siding was replaced sometime in the twentieth century, 

and the porch which was rebuilt by the Sandburgs 

prior to 1964.

Roof

The rafters are decked with closely spaced, random- width boards, around 1” thick and 2” to perhaps 6” in width. Some of the decking is apparently 

slab sawn. The earliest historic image of the building dates to early in the Sandburg era and shows the 

Swedish House with a metal roof that appears to be 

standing- seam metal along with a wood- shingled 

roof on the entrance porch, which was much steeper 

than the present roof. The present roof covering on 

the main roof is V- crimp metal sheets installed by 

the Sandburgs in 1961. The roof covering of the 

entrance porch is wood shingles.

Siding and Trim

Exterior woodwork was thoroughly repaired in the 

1970s and remains in mostly good condition. The 

house was originally sided with 3/4” by about 6” 

boards, lapped to a reveal of around 5’- 1/2”. During 

the historic period, all of the original siding was 

removed from the rear (south side) of the house and 

replaced with a 1/2” thick, beveled siding, attached 

with wire nails. Although not original, the beveled 

siding is historic and should be preserved.

FIGURE 51. View of west gable. (T. Jones, NPS, 

2004)

FIGURE 52. View of northwest corner of house, 

showing typical roof decking and exterior finishes. 

((T. Jones, NPS, 2004)

FIGURE 53. View of window on east side of 

Room 102. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004)
National Park Service 47

Part I: Developmental History

Much of the siding is historic, but much of it was 

also taken down in the 1970s to facilitate framing 

repairs and installation of insulation. Although 

most of the historic material was re- installed, the 

original cut nails with which it was attached were 

lost. Siding was not removed from the areas below 

the tops of the windows and above the window sills, 

except on the front of the house where all of the historic material was taken down and re- installed. 

Windows and the front door are all cased at headers 

and jambs with a 2- 3/4” casing with a 1/4” bead 

along the inside edge. There are no drip caps and 

sills are generally around 1” thick. Eaves are not 

completely boxed. A fascia board is present along 

with a 4” or 5” board returning on but not completely covering the soffit. The house’s most distinctive architectural features are the barge boards on 

each gable. Using boards around 11” to 12” wide, the 

barge boards were cut in long, narrow, vertical scallops around 3” wide and 9” long. The barge boards 

in the east gable are original; those in the west gable 

were recreated in 1977.

Windows

Except on the south side, first floor windows are 2’-

4” by 4’- 8”, with double- hung, nine- over- six sash. 

A number of the original sash have been replaced, 

but the original muntin pattern was maintained. On 

the south side, a window into Room 102 has apparently been covered over completely, while the window into Room 100 on the same side of the house 

has been significantly altered, including reversal of 

the frame. Existing sash in that opening are twoover- two and give the opening measurements of 2’-

5” by 4’- 6”.

The second floor window in the east gable is similar 

to the original windows on the first floor. It is 

around 2’- 4” by 4’- 8” with double- hung, nineover- six sash. The west gable has two smaller windows flanking the chimney stack, both of which 

appear to have been part of the original construction. These windows are 1’- 9” by 3’- 10” with double- hung, four- over- four sash.

All of the windows have solid, board- and- batten 

shutters on the exterior, originally hung with 

wrought- iron strap hinges, some 10- 1/2” long and 

some 15” long. Shutters are all of similar construction, using vertical, tongue- and- groove boards, 8’ 

and 4” wide and joined by horizontal boards, 4” and

FIGURE 54. View of twentieth-century stoop 

and shed roof at front door. (T. Jones, NPS, 

2004)

FIGURE 55. View of front door. (T. Jones, NPS, 

2004)
48 Swedish House HSR

Physical Description

 5- 1/4” wide with chamfered edges. The shutter at 

the window on the south side of Room 100 was recreated in 1977 to replace an original shutter which 

had probably been lost when the original siding on 

the rear side of the house was replaced sometime in 

the twentieth century.

To provide ventilation for the structure, which in 

recent years has been generally unoccupied, the 

NPS has fitted all of the window openings on the 

ends and the rear of the house with wooden louvers 

that are fixed beneath the partially- opened lower 

sash in each opening. In addition, small wooden 

louvers around 8”wide and 16” high are mounted in 

the gables. Presumably part of the original construction, these were designed to ventilate the small, 

inaccessible attic above the second floor. Two vents 

flank the chimney in the west gable and there is one 

vent in the east gable.

Porch

At the front door is a small concrete porch that 

replaced an earlier wooden porch sometime 

between 1946 and 1964. Its foundation and two steps 

are formed by common concrete block with a 3” 

concrete slab forming a floor. A simple shed roof 

with exposed, 2” by 4” rafters, set on plain 4” by 4” 

posts, shelters the entrance. The pitch of the present 

roof is signifi- cantly less than the pitch of the earlier, wooden porch that appears in a Sandburg- era 

photograph dated 1946.

According to the 1976 archaeological investigation, 

the present stoop or porch rests on “a natural stone 

step located directly in front of the door to the 

structure.” The feature “is located on a layer of sterile mottled clay [and] probably represented an original architectural feature.”85

Interior

The house is small, containing around 475 square 

feet of floor space on the first floor and slightly less 

FIGURE 56. View southwest in Room 100. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004)

85. Pence, Archaeological Overview and Assessment, p. 

56.
National Park Service 49

Part I: Developmental History

on the second. Entry is into the house’s largest room 

(Room 100), which occupies slightly more than the 

western half of the first floor and has the house’s 

only fire place. The remainder of the first floor is 

divided into two rooms, both accessed from the 

main room, with the front room (Room 101) slightly 

smaller than the rear room (102). Steep, enclosed 

stairs rise in the south- east corner of the first floor 

to a windowless, center hall (200) on the second 

floor. The hall is flanked by two bedrooms, which 

are more or less equal in size.

Room 100

This was the main “living room” for the house, providing access to all of the other rooms. Meals were 

probably never prepared in the house, since the servants are thought to have taken their meals in a servants’ dining room attached to the original kitchen 

next door.

Floors. Painted, tongue- and- groove flooring, 3- 1/

2” wide, is laid over the original flooring, which is 

also tongue- and- groove but 7” to 8” wide. Its 

dimensions suggest that the narrower flooring was 

installed in the twentieth century.

Walls. The north, south, and west walls are plaster 

on wood lath, presumably part of the room’s original finishes. The east wall is an unframed curtain 

wall of vertical, beaded, tongue- and- groove 

boards, 10- 1/2” to 12” wide, installed against nailers 

at the floor and ceiling. The beading is visible only 

on the opposite side of the wall.

Ceiling. The ceiling is set at 8’- 1” above the floor 

and is also plaster on wood lath. Piping for a modern 

sprinkler system is run across the ceiling and there 

are elements of an early, twentieth- century, surface- mounted wiring system on the ceiling as well.

Windows. The room has two windows, one in the 

front (W- 1)) wall and one in the rear wall (W- 5). 

The front window is 2’- 4” by 4’- 8” with doublehung, nine- over- six sash with a different molding 

profile from the original sash in the other windows 

in the house. The rear window, which is 2’- 5” by 4’-

6”, has been altered to accommodate two- over- two 

sash that replace the original nine- over- six sash. 

The window frame has been reversed, which 

explains the presence of a single iron pentil like 

those used for exterior shutters. This is the only 

such pentil on the interior of the house.

FIGURE 57. View northeast in Room 100. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004)
50 Swedish House HSR

Physical Description

Doors. The front door appears to be original. It is 

3’- 0” by 6’- 4”, made with 7/8”- thick, tongue- andgroove boards, 5” to 8” wide, hand- planed, and held 

together with three horizontal battens with chamfered edges. The door is hung with fixed- pin, 3” by 

4”, butt hinges. The door has three, surfacemounted locks. The upper lock, which is apparently 

the oldest, is an upright, dead- bolt, rim lock without 

a knob and measuring 4- 3/4” by 3- 1/8”.. The lower 

lock is also a standard upright rim lock, 3- 1/4” by 3-

3/4” with a brown Mineral knob and was perhaps 

installed in the late nineteenth century. Between the 

two locks is a modern Yale rim lock with a thumb 

latch. In addition to the front door the room has two 

other doors opening into Rooms 101 and 102. Both 

are board- and- batten doors, much like the front 

door, and are described below.

Trim. Windows and doors are cased with 2- 1/2”-

wide boards with a 3/8” beaded sash stop. Window 

stools are 2- 1/2” by 7/8” and aprons are plain 

boards, 4- 1/2” wide.

Stairs. The stairs to the second floor rise in the 

southeast corner of the room in steps with an 8” rise 

and 9- 1/2” run. Three steps rise along the south wall 

to a series of four winders followed by an enclosed, 

straight flight of six steps to the second floor. There 

is no balustrade or railing but the upper flight is 

closed by a wall of 3- 1/2” plain tongue- and- groove 

boards that may have been added in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

Fireplace. The fire place, which was reconstructed 

in 1977, has a fire box measuring 41” wide, 31” high, 

and 26” deep. Presumably its proportions were 

derived from the original mantel that remains in 

place. Where did material come from? The simple 

wooden mantel is approximately 78” wide and 72” 

high and appears to be original except for the mantel 

shelf which has been replaced with a plain 1” by 10” 

board.

Miscellaneous. Along the west wall, the Sandburgs 

installed shelving that runs from floor to ceiling on 

FIGURE 58. View southeast in Room 100. (T. Jones, NPS, 2004)
National Park Service 51

Part I: Developmental History

both sides of the fire place. It is now considered an 

historic feature of the house.

An sprinkler system was added in the 1980s and 

pipes are run exposed across the ceiling. In addition, some of an original, early twentieth- century 

wiring system remain on the ceiling. Wires, which 

are no longer active, are cloth- covered and run on 

porcelain cleats attached to the ceiling. Presumably 

this system would have been powered by Smyth’s 

Delco electrical system, which was installed around 

1920. A modern wiring system was installed in the 

house in 1977 and lighting continues to consist of a 

single bare bulb

Room 101

Located in the northeast corner of the first floor and 

the smallest room in the house, this rooms was 

probably used as a bedroom in the nineteenth century but may have had other use after the house 

became a year- round residence in the 1920s. The 

room is around 7’- 9” by 12’. The remains of what 

appears to be an earlier wooden curtain wall is visible at the top of the south wall. For unknown reasons the wall was entirely replaced, with the 

character of the replacement boards suggesting that 

the change occurred in the nineteenth century.

Flooring. The original flooring remains exposed in 

this room. It is painted, tongue- and- groove, 7” to 

8” wide, laid east to west and is in mostly good condition.

Walls. The north and east walls are plaster on 

wood lath. The west wall is an unframed curtain 

wall of vertical, beaded, tongue- and- groove 

boards, 10- 1/2” to 12” wide, installed against nailers 

at the floor and ceiling. The south wall is framed 

with 1- 3/4” by 3- 1/2” studs finished on the Room 

102 side of the wall with sash- sawn, beaded, 

tongue- and- groove boards 2- 3/8” to 2- 1/2” wide. 

At the ceiling are visible what appear to be the 

remains of an earlier curtain wall.

Ceiling. The ceiling is plaster on wood lath, around 

8’- 2” above the floor.

Doors. The room has two doors, one opening from 

Room 100 and a later door opening into Room 102. 

The door that opens into the room from Room 100 

is 2’- 11” by 6’- 5”, board- and- batten, made up with 

two 12”- wide boards and a 10”- wide board, each 

FIGURE 59. Detail view of mantel in Room 100. 

(T. Jones, NPS, 2004)

FIGURE 60. View northeast in Room 101. (T. 

Jones, NPS, 2004)
52 Swedish House HSR

Physical Description

evidently hand- planed, the entire door much like 

the front door in Room 100. Hinges are modern, 3-

1/2”, loose- pin. The lock is a vertical rim lock, 3- 1/

8” by 4- 1/8” with porcelain knobs.

Windows. The room has a window on the north 

and on the east walls. Both openings are 2’- 4” by 4’-

8”, double hung with nine- over- six sash. The sash 

exhibit three distinct profiles, most likely indicating 

replacement of the original sash, which appear to 

have been similar to the lower sash that remains in 

the north window.

Trim. The room has an 8” baseboard set flush with 

the plaster on the north and east walls. Windows 

and doors are cased with a plain board, 2- 1/2” wide 

with a 3/8” beaded stop. Window stools are 2- 1/2” 

by 7/8” and aprons are plain boards, 4- 1/2” wide. 

The door to room 102 is cased with 3- 1/2”, doublebeaded, tongue- and- groove boards and uses a 2” 

base cap similar to that used in constructing the 

dining room in the main house in the 1920s, suggesting that the door opening might have been made 

at that time.

Miscellaneous Features. Along the west wall, the 

Sandburgs installed shelving that runs from floor to 

ceiling. It is now considered an historic feature of 

the house. A sprinkler system was added in the 

1980s and pipes are run exposed across the ceiling. 

In addition, some of an original, early twentiethcentury wiring system remain on the ceiling. Wires, 

which are no longer active, are run on porcelain 

cleats attached to the ceiling. Presumably this system would have been powered by Smyth’s Delco 

electrical system which he installed around 1920. A 

modern wiring system was installed in the house in 

1977 and lighting continues to consist of a single bare 

bulb.

Room 102

Located in the southeast corner of the first floor and 

also probably used as a bedroom, this room is 

approximately 9’- 8” by 12’. Presumably there was 

once a window on the south wall that was apparently lost when the siding on the south side of the 

building was entirely replaced in the twentieth century. The south wall is now covered by book shelves 

installed by the Sandburgs, and any window that 

might have been present is no longer visible inside 

or outside the house.

FIGURE 61. View southwest in Room 101. (T. Jones, 

NPS, 2004)

FIGURE 62. View southeast in Room 102. (T. Jones, 

NPS, 2004)
National Park Service 53

Part I: Developmental History

Flooring. The original flooring remains exposed in 

this room. It is painted, tongue- and- groove, 7” to 

8” wide, laid east to west and is in mostly good condition.

Walls. The south and east walls are plaster on wood 

lath. The west wall is an unframed curtain wall of 

vertical, beaded, tongue- and- groove boards, 10- 1/

2” to 12” wide, installed against nailers at the floor 

and ceiling. The north wall is framed with 1- 3/4” by 

3- 1/2” studs finished with sash- sawn, beaded, 

tongue- and- groove boards 2- 3/8” to 2- 1/2” wide.

Ceiling. The ceiling is plaster on wood lath, around 

8’- 2” above the floor.

Doors. The room has two doors, one original 

opening from Room 100 and an added opening 

from Room 101. The door from Room 100 is a 

board- and- batten door, 2’- 7” by 6’- 5”, very similar 

to the front door and the door between Rooms 100 

and 101. The door is hung with 3” by 4”, fixed- pin, 

butt hinges, which are not original, and a Corbin rim 

lock, 3- 1/4” by 3- 3/4” with brown Mineral knobs. 

The door also has what is surely its original wooden 

latch, indicating that the Corbin lock might have 

been the first lock on the door. The door to Room 

101 was probably added in the early twentieth century. Measuring around 2’- 3” by 6’- 5”, is a boardand- batten door made with 3- 1/2” by 3/8”, doublebeaded, tongue- and- groove boards. It is hung with 

2” by 3” butt hinges with ball- top spindle. There is 

no lock or knob, only a simple hook and eye latch.

Windows. The room has a single window on the 

east wall. It is around 2’- 4” by 4’- 8”, double hung 

with nine- over- six sash. Both sash have the distinctive V- profile muntins that are typical of what 

appear to be the house’s original window sash.

Trim. The room has a 9” baseboard, beaded along 

the upper edge. The window stool is 2- 1/2” by 7/8” 

and the apron is a plain board, 4- 1/2” wide. 

Miscellaneous Features. The entire south wall is 

covered by floor- to- ceiling shelving installed by the 

Sandburgs.

Room 200

This stair hall is about 4’- 3” wide and runs the width 

of the house.

FIGURE 63. View west in Room 102. (T. Jones, 

NPS, 2004)

FIGURE 64. View of stairs to second floor. (T. 

Jones, NPS, 2004)
54 Swedish House HSR

Physical Description

Flooring. Flooring is typical, original, tongue- andgroove flooring 8” to 9- 1/2” wide, painted, and running east and west.

Walls. Walls are plaster on wood lath.

Ceiling. Ceiling is plaster on wood lath and set 

around 9’ above the floor.

Doors. Doors to the adjacent bedrooms open on 

either side of the hall. The door from Room 201 is 

board- and- batten, 2’- 11” by 6’- 4”. The door is 

made with two exceptionally- wide boards, 3/4” 

thick, one 16- 1/2” wide and the other 17- 3/4” wide. 

Battens are 1- 1/4” by around 6” with chamfered 

edges. The door is notable for the use of wooden 

hinges, 23- 1/2” long and for a hand- wrought hook 

on the interior face. The door opening into Room 

202 is 2’- 10” by 6’- 3” and is also board- and- batten, 

but uses boards only 9- 1/2” wide and is hung with 3” 

by 4” fixed- pin, butt hinges.

Trim. The hall has a 9” beaded baseboard and 

doors are cased with a beaded casing, 3” to 3- 1/2” 

wide.

Room 201

This room was undoubtedly used simply as a bedroom. The most obvious change to the room is the 

book shelves installed by the Sandburgs all around 

this room.

Flooring. Flooring is tongue- and- groove, around 

5- 1/2” wide, and the size difference suggests that the 

original flooring was replaced by the present flooring at an early date.

Walls and Ceiling. Walls and ceiling are typical 

plaster on wood lath. Ceiling height is around 9’.

Doors. See Room 200 for door description.

Windows. The room has two small windows flanking the exterior chimney at the west end of the 

room. Both windows are 1’- 9” by 3’- 10”, doublehung with four- over- four sash. Muntin profiles are 

V- shaped typical of what are assumed to be original 

window sash. The left side of the lower sash in the 

north window has been seriously damaged by an 

animal’s claws or teeth.

Trim. The room has a typical 9” beaded baseboard. 

Door casing is beaded and 3” to 3- 1/2” wide. WinFIGURE 65. View south of stairs in Room 200. 

(T. Jones, NPS, 2004)

FIGURE 66. View southeast in Room 201. (T. 

Jones, NPS, 2004)
National Park Service 55

Part I: Developmental History

dow casing is also beaded but only 2- 1/2” wide with 

a 3/8” beaded casing. Window stools are 3/4” by 2- 1/

2” and aprons are a plain 3”- wide board.

Miscellaneous Features. The perimeter of the 

room has been lined with shelving, installed by the 

Sandburgs.

Room 202

This room is very similar to Room 201, but has only 

one window instead of two. It, too, must have been 

used as a bedroom.

Flooring. Flooring is painted, tongue- and- groove, 

8” to 9” wide and is assumed to be the original 

flooring.

Walls and Ceiling. Walls and ceiling are typical 

plaster on wood lath. Ceiling height is around 9’.

Doors. See Room 200 for door description.

Windows. This room has only one window, located 

on the east wall. It is 2’- 4” by 4’- 8”, nine- over- six, 

with the triangular muntins typical of the house’s 

original windows.

Trim. The room has a typical 9” beaded baseboard. 

Door casing is beaded and 3” to 3- 1/2” wide. Window casing is also beaded but only 2- 1/2” wide with 

a 3/8” beaded stop. Window stools are 3/4” by 2- 1/2” 

and aprons are a plain 3”- wide board.

Miscellaneous Features. As they did in Room 201, 

the Sandburgs installed shelving around the perimeter of this room.

Systems

Parts of the surface- mounted knob- and- tube wiring system remain in place in the house, particularly 

on the ceiling. It is probably contemporaneous with 

the original wiring system in the house and activated 

by the same Delco power supply that Smyth 

installed in the early 1920s for the main house. The 

building was completely rewired in 1977, bypassing 

the historic wiring system but maintaining the simplicity of that earlier system. There is no evidence 

that the house ever had running water or that it had 

heating beyond that provided by the fireplace in 

Room 100.

FIGURE 67. View northeast in Room 202. (T. 

Jones, NPS, 2004)

FIGURE 68. View west in Room 201. (T. Jones, 

NPS, 2004)

FIGURE 69. View of a portion of the knob-andtube wiring system, which is no longer active. 

(T. Jones, NPS, 2004)
56 Swedish House HSR

Physical Description
National Park Service 57

Part I: Developmental History

Floor Plan of 

Existing Building

100

102

101

201

200

202

W-2 W-1

W-3

W-4

W-5

W-6

W-7

W-8

shelving

shelving shelving

shelving

shelving

shelving shelving

shelving

north 1' 5' 10'
58 Swedish House HSR

Physical Description
National Park Service 59

The primary purpose of this historic structure 

report is to document the evolution of the old servants’ house that Carl Sandburg nick- named “the 

Swedish House.” An historic structure report was 

completed in 1976, but that report focused primarily 

on the building’s existing condition. Mrs. Sandburg 

and her daughters were interviewed extensively, but 

researchers did not have access to Memminger’s 

papers nor had there been much documentation of 

the Smyths’ tenure at Connemara. In 1984, Dr. 

David Wallace produced a historic furnishings 

report that included good documentation for the 

building as it existed during the Sandburg era, but 

there remained only a limited understanding of the 

Swedish House prior to the Sandburg era.

The estate is historically significant for its associations with Carl Sandburg, of course, but also for its 

associations with Christopher Memminger, Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederate States of 

America, and with Ellison Smyth, one of the leaders 

in the Southern textile industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Memminger, 

Smyth, and presumably the Greggs as well 

employed servants (mostly African- American 

slaves before the Civil War), some of whom resided 

in the Swedish House. When the Main House 

became a year- round residence in 1924, the Swedish 

House did, too.

 Overall, the house remains in good condition with 

most of its historic fabric still intact.86 Extensive 

rehabilitation in 1976- 1977 repaired most of the 

damage from benign neglect, and early NPS plans 

for adaptive use that would have destroyed significant historic features have since been abandoned. 

However, like the other antebellum servants’ house 

at Connemara, the so- called Chicken House, the 

Swedish House is little used and is not routinely 

interpreted beyond its use by the Sandburgs for 

storage of books, newspapers, andmagazines.

Requirements for 

Treatment and Use

Good stewardship of an historic structure requires 

careful control over treatment and use, beginning 

with basic, common- sense guidelines. The building 

must be carefully monitored, particularly after 

storms or heavy rains, and should be thoroughly 

inspected at least once a year. Data documenting 

the building’s condition should be recorded and 

analyzed to determine any necessary treatment or 

changes in use. Any ground disturbance around the 

building should always be cleared or monitored by 

an archeologist.

Any work on the Swedish House, including routine 

maintenance, should be done by qualified people in 

conformance with approved plans and specifications or work procedures. All maintenance personnel who work in, on, or around the building should 

be given appropriate training, and the entire park 

staff should be made aware of the significance of the 

Swedish House and the major threats to its preservation.

Legal Requirements

A number of laws and regulations circumscribe 

treatment and use of the the Swedish House and the 

other historic structures in our national parks. In 

addition to protecting the cultural resource, these 

requirements also address issues of human safety, 

fire protection, energy conservation, abatement of 

hazardous materials, and handicapped accessibility. 86. “Historic” fabric includes but is not limited to the 

original features and materials. All features and 

materials that existed in 1968 should be considered 

part of the building’s historic fabric.

Treatment and 

Use
60 Swedish House HSR

National Historic Preservation Act. The National 

Historic Preservation Act of 1966 as amended 

(NHPA) mandates Federal protection of significant 

cultural resources. In implementing the act, a number of laws and authorities have been established 

that are binding on the NPS.

A routine step in the park’s planning process for the 

treatment of historic structures is compliance with 

Section 106 of NHPA, which requires Federal agencies “to take into account the effect” of any undertaking involving Nation¦al Register properties. To 

satisfy the requirements of Section 106, regulations 

have been promulgated (36 CFR Part 800,"Protection of Historic Properties") that require, among 

other things, consultation with local governments, 

State Historic Preservation Officers, and Indian 

tribal representatives. Prior to any undertaking at 

the Main House, the NPS is required to “afford the 

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation established under Title II of this act [NHPA] a reasonable 

opportunity to comment with regard to such 

undertaking.”

In 1995, in an effort to expedite the review process, a 

programmatic agreement was made between the 

Advisory Council and the NPS that allows for a categorical exclusion of some activities from the Section 106 review process. These excluded activities 

are limited to routine repairs and maintenance that 

do not alter the appearance of the historic structure 

or involve widespread or total replacement of historic features or materials.

Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. The 

Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) 

establishes comprehensive civil rights protection for 

disabled Americans, both in employment and in 

their right to free, unaided access to public buildings. While people with restricted mobility have 

most frequently benefited from ADA, protection 

also extends to those with other disabilities. This 

would include visitors with impaired vision or hearing, for whom printed tour scripts and audio tours 

allow for interpretation of the site.

Requirements for full compliance with ADA regulations are extensive and easiest to apply to new construction. Full compliance for historic buildings is 

more difficult and sometimes would require significant alterations to the historic character of the 

property. Where that is the case, ADA authorizes a 

process for arriving at alternatives to full compliance that can preserve historic character while 

maximizing a disabled visitor’s access to the historic 

building.

International Building Code. Building codes are 

generally applicable to all buildings whether they 

are historic or not. As a matter of policy, the NPS is 

guided by the International Building Code, which 

includes this statement regarding codes and historic 

buildings:

3406.1 Historic Buildings: The provisions of this 

code related to the construction, repair, 

alteration, addition, restoration and movement 

of structures, and change of occupancy shall not 

be mandatory for historic buildings where such 

buildings are judged by the building official to 

not constitute a distinct life safety hazard

[emphasis added].

Threats to public health and safety should always be 

eliminated, but because this is an historic building, 

alternatives to full code compliance are always 

sought where compliance would needlessly compromise the integrity of the historic building.

NFPA Code 914. The National Fire Protection 

Association (NFPA) has promulgated codes for historic buildings, most notably NFPA 909, “Code for 

the Protection of Cultural Resources Properties - 

Museums, Libraries, and Places of Worship,” and 

NFPA 914, “Code for Fire Protection of Historic 

Structures.” Because the park has already rewired 

the building and installed a sprinkler system, fire 

protection will revolve around fire prevention

through prohibiting storage of flammable materials 

and smoking inside the building.

DOI and NPS Policies and 

Regulations

NPS policy requires planning for the protection of 

cultural resources “whether or not they relate to the 

specific authorizing legislation or interpretive programs of the parks in which they lie.” Thus, the 

Swedish House should be understood in its own 

cultural context and managed in light of its own values so that it may be preserved unimpaired for the 

enjoyment of present and future generations.87

In addition to Director’s Order #28, which has 

guided development of this historic structure 

87. “Cultural Resource Management Guidelines,” (1997), 

p. 1
National Park Service 61

Part II: Treatment and Use

report, there are policies and regulations that have 

been issued by both the Secretary of the Interior 

and the Director of the National Park Service which 

circumscribe treatment of historic buildings.

Secretary’s Standards. The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties have established a framework in which to plan 

and execute treatment of historic structures. 

Guidelines for interpreting the Standards have been 

issued, and the NPS has also published forty- two 

Preservation Briefs that provide detailed direction 

for appropriate treatment of a variety of materials, 

features, and conditions found in historic buildings. 

Regardless of treatment approach, the Standards

put a high priority on preservation of existing historic materials and not just the architectural form 

and style. Replacement of a column, for instance, 

even when replacement is “in kind,” diminishes the 

authenticity of the building, if for no other reason 

than the elimination of the evidence of the passage 

of time, which after all is fundamental to the 

authenticity of an historic structure. The Standards

also require that any alterations, additions, or other 

modifications be reversible, i.e., be designed and 

constructed in such a way that they can be removed 

or reversed in the future without the loss of existing 

historic materials, features, or character.

General Management Policies. Finally, the NPS 

General Management Policies (2001) guide overall 

management of the historic buildings at Connemara, especially Chapter 5 “Cultural Resource 

Management.” Based upon the authority of some 

nineteen Acts of Congress and many more Executive orders and regulations, these policies require

planning to ensure that management processes 

for making decisions and setting priorities 

integrate information about cultural resources, 

and provide for consultation and collaboration 

with outside entities; and stewardship to ensure 

that cultural resources are preserved and 

protected, receive appropriate treatments 

(including maintenance), and are made available 

for public understanding and enjoyment.88

Section 5.3.5, “Treatment of Cultural Resources,” 

provides specific directives, including a directive 

that “the preservation of cultural resources in their 

existing states will always receive first consideration.” The section also states that

treatments entailing greater intervention will not 

proceed without the consideration of 

interpretive alternatives. The appearance and 

condition of resources before treatment, and 

changes made during treatment, will be 

documented. Such documentation will be 

shared with any appropriate state or tribal 

historic preservation office or certified local 

government, and added to the park museum 

cataloging system. Pending treatment decisions 

reached through the planning process, all 

resources will be protected and preserved in 

their existing states.89

Alternatives for 

Treatment and Use

An Historic structure reports typically consider and 

evaluate alternative uses and treatments for the historic structure. Emphasis is on preserving extant 

historic material and resolving conflicts, especially 

those that might result between the mandate to preserve and the necessity for use.

Use

One of the primary concerns in the preservation of 

historic buildings is use of the resource. An unused 

building is much less likely to attract the attention 

(and consequent funding) necessary to insure its 

continued preservation. On the other hand, a 

poorly conceived program of use can lead to significant loss of historic material and compromise of 

historic character. There were, as noted above, 

plans in the 1970s for adaptive use of the Swedish 

House that would have required extensive alterations and loss of historic materials.

Residential Use. The building’s original use as a 

residence is probably no longer feasible without the 

addition of modern utilities, especially a bath room. 

Such an adaptation need not necessitate significant 

loss of historic materials or be irreversible, and it 

would bring life back into the building. Even with 

adaptation, however, there is really no need for onsite housing, except perhaps for the occasional consultant, NPS employee, or others working in the 

park who might enjoy the proximity of the building 

to the work at hand.

88. NPS General Management Policies (2001), p. 50. 89. NPS General Management Policies (2001), p. 56
62 Swedish House HSR

Open for Visitors. In the twentieth century, the 

NPS routinely opened the first floor of the Swedish 

House for visitors, satisfying NPS policy that the 

park’s cultural resources be “made available for 

public understanding and enjoyment.” Since 2000, 

however, the building is rarely opened to the public. 

Many visitors might enjoy the opportunity of entering the house, and the park might consider leaving 

the building open again. An attendant would not be 

necessary, especially since the locked gate on the 

stairs effectively prevents entry to the second floor. 

Display of the Sandburgs collection of magazines 

and books once in the house could not be considered without the addition of climate control. However, a cost- benefit analysis of the addition of 

climate control solely to facilitate display of such 

artifacts would probably not support such a change.

Staff break Area. One of the recommendations 

that emerged from the Watson- Henry study of the 

environmental conditions in the main house was 

that the staff break area be removed from the Main 

House in order to reduce the chance of attracting 

pests that would be detrimental to the collection. 

The Tenant House has been suggested for a break 

area, but the Swedish House could be an alternative, 

although that might require the addition of running 

water, if not a restroom, as well as heating and airconditioning. While a wall- hung sink could be 

added with little loss of character or materials, a 

restroom, as was proposed in the 1970s, would be 

difficult to add without significant damage to the 

building and its historic character. Since all of these 

utilities are already present in the Tenant House, 

their addition to the Swedish House does not seem 

warranted.

Treatment

The quality of the architecture of the Swedish 

House dictates careful consideration of any treatment in order that its well- preserved historic character not be compromised. As suggested above, 

adaptive use would not necessarily require rehabilitative treatment that would compromise the building’s character, but certainly the sort of adaptation 

suggested in the 1970s should not be considered 

again.

Restoration of the building is an approach to treatment that might be considered. Removal of the 

present concrete stoop and steps and shed roof and 

reconstruction of the wooden stoop, double steps, 

and earlier shed roof would restore the building to 

its appearance prior to 1964, but would be inconsistent with the approach taken in the Main House and 

be of little value in interpretation of the Sandburg 

era.

Removal of the building’s electrical system, the 

flooring added in Room 100, and the shelving added 

in all the rooms along with reconstruction of the 

missing window on the south wall of Room 102 

would essentially restore the building to its appearance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Reconstruction of the partition wall between 

Rooms 101 and 102 to match the south wall of Room 

100, removal of the paneling that encloses the stairs 

to the second floor, and excavation of the original 

stone stoop and step at the front door would restore 

the building to more- or- less its original appearance. However, restoration of the building’s 

appearance prior to the Sandburg era would be 

counter- productive to the park’s purpose of interpreting the life and work of Sandburg. The limited 

nature of changes could be easily interpreted 

through photographs, drawings, and other means 

without actual reconstruction or recreation of lost 

features.

Ultimate 

Treatment and Use

Use of the Swedish House as a place for interpretive 

exhibits is perhaps the most reasonable alternative 

for use. The building is not suitable for display of 

museum objects, but it would be well- suited to a 

wide variety of exhibits, either temporary or permanent, that did not require the display of original 

artifacts. The building itself could be exhibited by 

simply opening the first floor to the public, as was 

done until recently. The gate at the stairs to the second floor effectively prevents entry to that part of 

the building.

Interpretation might be limited to the Sandburgs’ 

use of the building, but it might also focus on the 

lives of servants (and antebellum slaves), a number 

of whom have been identified, caretakers, and farm 

managers and how they contributed to the estate’s 

operation, or on some other aspect of the long history of the site. 
National Park Service 63

Part II: Treatment and Use

Treatment

Overall the Swedish House is in excellent condition, 

and there appear to be no pressing problems of 

repair. Although little used, the house is being well 

maintained.

Lighting. If anything other than exhibit of the 

house itself is contemplated, some alterations to the 

electrical system might be needed to provide exhibit 

lighting. These should be designed so that the 

impact on the historic structure is minimized.

Handicapped access. The building is not handicapped accessible. In order for those with impaired 

mobility to enter, a ramp to the front stoop is probably the best option, if it were installed in such a way 

that the existing stoop and steps remain in place. 

The change in floor level between Room 100 and 

Rooms 101 and 102 would have to be addressed as 

well, or entry could be limited to the main room, 

with the two side rooms fully visible through open 

doors.

Repairs and Maintenance. Routine repairs and 

maintenance are potential threats to the integrity of 

any historic building. While it is true that preservation is maintenance, a careless approach can lead to 

significant loss of historic material and diminishment of the site’s authenticity as an historic site. The 

Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Buildings and the guidelines that 

accompany them aim to preserve not only the 

architectural form of an historic structure but its 

substance as well. Thus, reconstruction of an original chimney, for example, diminishes the resource, 

even if the original brick are re- used (as is proposed 

for the chimney at the Farm Manager’s House), 

since all of the mortar and, for all practical purposes, all evidence of historic craftsmanship will be 

lost. Likewise, replacement of siding may retain the 

appearance of the historic building, but at the 

expense of the original nails (which in and of themselves can be important dating devices, if nothing 

else); and again for all practical purposes, evidence 

of the historic craftsmanship will be lost.

“In-kind” Material. Replacement of materials, 

even “in kind,” is problematic and should only be 

undertaken when absolutely necessary. “In kind” 

replacement of historic wooden siding, for instance, 

does not mean that any wooden siding is appropriate as replacement material. In the 1830s and continuing throughout the nineteenth century, oldgrowth lumber, some of it quarter- sawn and all of it 

extremely durable, was used for exterior woodwork. Such lumber is now almost impossible to 

acquire, so that repairs should always avoid removing any more historic material than is absolutely 

necessary. If the end of a run of siding is damaged, 

for example, the entire run should not be replaced 

but only that which is necessary to repair the damage.

Further Historical Research

Archival research for this project has been limited. 

Examination of Memminger’s account book in its 

original form at the University of North Carolina, 

Chapel Hill, and a full transcription would form the 

foundation for continued research that would no 

doubt add many useful details to the chronology of 

the building’s evolution and could support a 

broader interpretation of the site.

For example, the account book includes references 

to many individuals, and with further research in 

the Federal census and other sources, the park 

would be able to better interpret the enslaved servants and the overseers, craftsmen, contractors, and 

common laborers that built and maintained Rock 

Hill. Memminger’s account book ends in 1862, but 

more extensive census data and other useful 

resources exist for the period after the Civil War and 

would be a rich source of information on the free 

black servants, overseers, laborers and other individuals for whom Connemara was home.

In addition, the park has requested funding for an 

oral history project, and if the interviews routinely 

emphasized the appearance and evolution of the 

Swedish House, understanding of the building 

might be significantly expanded. Use of floor plans 

and historic photographs would be indispensable in 

facilitating recall of memories about the house.

The interviews naturally focus on the Sandburg 

family, but it would also be helpful to interview 

those who knew and worked with Sandburg, like 

local historian Louise Bailey and the Sandburg’s 

housekeeper Adeline Polega. The oral history 

project should also include interviews with older 

members of the Smyth family who have memories 

of Connemara. The children of the Fishers and the 

Ballards, if they could be located, might also make 

significant contributions to the project.
64 Swedish House HSR
National Park Service 65

Manuscript 

Collections

Chapel Hill, NC. C. G. Memminger Papers (#502), 

Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, 

University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill. 

Includes account book kept by Memminger during 

construction of Connemara as well as letters and 

other documents relating to Memminger’s life and 

career.

Flat Rock, NC. Carl Sandburg Home National Historic 

Site Collection. Includes numerous photographs, 

letters, and other documents relating to all periods of 

the site’s history.

Personal Collections of Smyth great- grandchildren 

William McKay and Julianne Heggoy.

Public Records

Henderson County, North Carolina, Registrar of Deeds 

and Mortgages, Courthouse, Hendersonville, North 

Carolina.

United States Census, 1790- 1930, original manuscript 

images at <www.ancestry.com.>

Primary Published 

Sources

Bailey, Louise Howe. From “Rock Hill” to “Connemara”: 

The Story Before Carl Sandburg. National Park 

Service, 1980.

Block, Milton, ed. Current Biography, 1940. New York, 

NY: H. W. Wilson Company, 1940.

Cahn, Dr. Robert. “Carl Sandburg,” Christian Science 

Monitor. 1968.

Cyclopedia of Eminent and Representative Men of the 

Carolinas, Volume 1, South Carolina. Madison, WS: 

Brant & Fuller, 1892.

Holcomb, Brent H. Southern Christian Advocate Marriage 

Notices, 1867- 1878. Columbia, SC: SCMAR, 1993

Jacobs, William Plummer. The Pioneer. Clinton, SC: 

Jacobs & Co. Press, (n .d., probably 1934).

Johnson, Allen, and Dumas Malone, editors. Dictionary of 

American Biography. New York, NY: Charles 

Scribner’s Sons, 1946.

Memminger, Edward Read. An Historical Sketch of Flat 

Rock. (Flat Rock, NC: privately published by Mrs. 

Walter M. Norment, 1954.

The National Cyclopedia of American Biography. New 

York, NY: James T. White Company, 1945. 

Patton, Sadie Smathers. The Story of Henderson County. 

Asheville, NC: The Miller Printing Company, 1947.

 . Flat Rock: Little Charleston of the 

Mountains. Hickory, NC: Sadie Smathers Patton, 

1961.

Steichen, Paula. My Connemara. New York, NY: 

paperback edition, 2002, originally published by 

Harcourt Brace & World, Inc., 1969.

Waugh, Barry, Ph.D. “Thomas Smyth,” The Southern 

Presbyterian Review Digitalization Project: Author 

Biography., <http://www.pcanet.org/history/

periodicals/spr/bios/smyth.html>, accessed 22 June 

2004.

Secondary 

Published Sources

Barber, Jody, and Bailey, Louise. Hendersonville, 

Henderson County: A Pictorial History. Norfolk/

Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Co., 1988.

Coulter, E. Merton. The Confederate States of America, 

1861- 1865. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State 

University Press, 1950.

_________________. The South During Reconstruction, 

1865- 1877. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State 

University Press, 1947.

Sources of 

Information
66 Swedish House HSR

Hamlin, Talbot. Greek Revival Architecture in America. 

New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1964 reprint of 

original Oxford University Press edition of 1944.

Jandl, H. Ward, ed. Yesterday’s Houses of Tomorrow: 

Innovative American Homes, 1850- 1950. Washington, 

DC: Preservation Press, 1991.

Kennedy, Roger G. Greek Revival America. New York, NY: 

Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, 1989.

Lane, Mills. Architecture of the Old South: Greek Revival 

and Romantic. Savannah, GA: Beehive Press, 1996.

_________. Architecture of the Old South: South Carolina.

Savannah, GA: Beehive Press, 1997.

Nelson, Lee H. editor. Illustrated Catalogue of American 

Hardware of the Russell and Erwin Manufacturing 

Company. Originally published 1865; Association of 

Preservation Technology, First facsimile edition, 1980

Poston, Jonathan. The Buildings of Charleston: A Guide to 

the City’s Architecture. Columbia, SC: University of 

South Carolina Press, 1997.

Trenholm, Mrs. Alicia Middleton. Flat Rock, North 

Carolina: A Sketch of the Past. No publication data, 

1908, in CARL Coll.

NPS Studies

Hart, Susan. Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site 

Cultural Landscape Report. Atlanta, GA: NPS- SERO, 

Division of Cultural Resources, 1993.

Jones, Russell. “Historic Structure Report: Architectural 

Data, Home * Garage * Swedish House.” NPS: Denver 

Service Center, September 1976.

Pence, Heather Russo. Carl Sandburg Home National 

Historic Site: Archeological Overview and Assessment. 

Tallahassee, FL: Southeast Archeological Center/ 

National Park Service, 1998.

Steichen, Paula. “Hyacinths and Biscuits; The Life and 

Works of Carl Sandburg,” Handbook 117: Carl 

Sandburg Home. Washington, DC: NPS, Division of 

Publications, 1982.

Svedja, Dr. George J. “Historic Structure Report, Carl 

Sandburg Home National Historic Site.” NPS, Office 

of History and Historic Architecture, Eastern Service 

Center, 1972.

Wallace, David H. Historic Furnishings Report, Main 

House and Swedish House at Carl Sandburg Home 

National Historic Site, Flat Rock, North Carolina.

Frederick, MD: NP, 1984.

Oral Interviews

Bailey, Louise. 16 January 1973, interviewd by Gordon Gay. 

Local historian and typist for Sandburg in 1946.

Ballard, Frank. 19 October 1982, interviewer unknown. 

Son of Smyth’s farm manager, Ulysses Ballard.

Ballard, Emily Jane. 14 October 1975, interviewer 

unknown. Widow of Smyth’s farm manager, Ulysses 

Ballard.

Fisher, James. 18 November 1975, interviewed by Warren 

Weber. Smyth’s butler and valet.

McKay, Mary. 16 January 1973 and 21 August 1974, 

interviewed by Warren Weber. Smyth’s 

granddaughter.

Rogers, Mrs. ______. 3 December 1976, interviewed by 

Warren Weber and Len Brown. Smyth’s 

granddaughter.

Sandburg, Lillian Steichen. 1967. Interviewer unknown. 

(CARL 4023/2/I- VII). Widow of Carl Sandburg.

Sandburg, Lillian Steichen. Early 1968, interviewed by 

Robert Cahn. Widow of Carl Sandburg.
As the nation’s principal conservation agency, the 

Department of the Interior has responsibility for most 

of our nationally owned public lands and natural 

resources. This includes fostering sound use of our 

land and water resources; protecting our fish, wildlife, 

and biological diversity; preserving the environmental 

and cultural values of our national parks and 

historical places; and providing for the enjoyment of 

life through outdoor recreation. The department 

assesses our energy and mineral resources and works 

to ensure that their development is in the best 

interests of all our people by encouraging stewardship 

and citizen participation in their care. The 

department also has a major responsibility for 

American Indian reservation communities and for 

people who live in island territories under U.S. 

administration. 

NPS D- 44 September 2005