Matson Insurance has partnered with Jefferson County History Center to offer exploreJeffersonpa.com readers a look into Jefferson County’s past. Today, “The Gordons of Walnut Street” are highlighted.
[Pictured above: The grand Queen Anne Victorian that sits on the corner of Walnut and Church streets was home to the boisterous family of Cadmus and Kate Acheson Gordon for many years. (JCHS Collection)]
(Submitted by Carole Briggs.)
THE GORDONS OF WALNUT STREET
A pair of small oil paintings, a Pittsburgh memoir, a photograph of the Brookville Tennis Association, and a sampler in the History Center’s collections show us much about the Gordon family.
The paintings, attributed to Richard H. Burfoot (1855-1939) were found in the Gordon home and donated to the historical society. Elegantly framed, the two forest landscapes measure 24 by 10 inches. Burfoot was born and received training both in art and music in England. He came to Pittsburgh in 1887 as the artist for the Old Grand pera House there, but soon earned a seat as a violinist with the newly-formed Pittsburgh Symphony. He worked in oil and watercolor and taught. He died in Luthersburg. The landscapes would have been ornate adornments to one of the many rooms in the Cadmus Gordon home.
Cadmus was a Brookville lawyer. His father, Isaac Grantham, was also a lawyer and had been appointed chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1887. Kate was the daughter of a judge, and their marriage was in the judge’s home on Amberson Avenue in Pittsburgh. Cadmus and Kate raised five children.
In her memoir, The Spencers of Amberson Avenue, Ethel Spencer recalled visits of her aunt, Kate Acheson Gordon. “And always it seems to me…she went home with one more child than she had had when she came. Had I been a more sophisticated little girl, I should have known that the lumps of magnesia that Aunt Kate was always nibbling for heartburn were a sure sign of a baby in the offing.”
As the children grew, the Pittsburgh Spencers visited the Brookville Gordons in the summer and games flourished. As a young man, “Caddy” or Cadmus Jr. was a member of the Brookville Tennis Association.
The sampler is small, and the title “Shakespear Club” is misspelled. It includes the names of 15 Brookville women. The dates “1870-1929” may indicate the year the club formed and the year the sampler was completed. The third name on the list is Mrs. C. Z. Gordon. According to a memoir written by Virginia Jenks Hall, the Shakspear [sic] Club was “the town society that met once a month to read aloud from the classics…Refreshments were served, and membership was by invitation.”
Objects like these provide us with hints of how one family lived in our community a century ago. While fathers tended to their professions and businesses, their children played games including tennis, and their wives hosted friends from town and relatives from the city, discussed literature, and admired the fine arts.
Copyright@Jefferson County Historical Society, Inc.
Throwback Thursday is brought to you by Matson Insurance in Brookville.
Submitted by the Jefferson County History Center.
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