Conserving History: The Hayes Family Carriage By: Leah Davis Witherow, Curator of History Members of the CSPM staff who work in collections are responsible for continuously monitoring the condition of approximately 65,000 objects, 80,000 photographs and more than 6,000 cubic feet of archival material. When problems arise, CSPM works with professionally trained conservators to clean, repair and stabilize a wide variety of artifacts. One of the largest conservation projects to date involved the Hayes Family Rockaway carriage. During the past one hundred plus years, fluctuations in temperature and humidity created vertical cracks on each of the carriage doors. As temperature and humidity levels rise, the doors swell; as those levels drop, the doors contract. Over time, this damaging cycle caused the wooden doors to split. Additionally, the carriage’s speaking tube, which hangs above the driver’s seat and was used for communication between the passengers and driver, was missing its cover and needed to be stabilized. Through the generous support of Bertram Hayes-Davis, descendant of the Jefferson Davis family, CSPM was able to conserve this important piece of history. Mark Minor completing conservation work on the Hayes Family Carriage in 2015 The conservation work was conducted by Mark Minor, who since 1993 has operated a private conservation practice outside of Salida, Colorado. With a background in furniture making, Minor received his training from the Furniture Conservation Program at the Smithsonian Institution. In 1986 he began his career as a conservator at the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has worked with wood furnishings and objects in museums and historic sites around the world, including the Denver Art Museum, History Colorado, Museums of New Mexico, Koutoubiya Minbar in Marrakech, Morocco and the 17th C. Jesuit mission of Santa Ana de la Hoya in Chihuahua, Mexico. To adequately address the vertical cracks he removed the carriage doors and took them to his studio for the conservation work. The splits were repaired by first inserting 3 mm wood cleats and then filling the splits with colored wax. Finally, a varnish coating was used to blend and protect the applied wax. Minor reinstalled the doors and stabilized the speaking tube with thin strips of woven polyester and attached a new cover. Mark Minor’s painstaking attention to detail and dedication to his work has resulted in a beautiful piece of our community’s history preserved for current and future generations. You can view the Rockaway carriage and learn more about the HayesDavis family by visiting the museum’s third floor lobby. Historic photo of the Hayes Family Rockaway carriage MUSELETTER OCTOBER 2017 | PG 6
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