In 1894, Mrs. Charles H. Gibson, like Miss. Mary Lloyd Tyson and Mrs. Benjamin Chew Howard before her, got in on the trend of releasing a cookbook to share and boast her renowned hostessing and housekeeping skills. Like those other books “Mrs. Charles H. Gibson’s Maryland and Virginia Cookbook” capitalized on the fame of Chesapeake cooking.
“In placing my book before the public I feel that I have a right to claim a like indulgence to those who, before me, have given to the world the benefit of their experience, and I feel confident that my “Cook Book,” being the result of an experience of twenty years, will meet with a just reward.“ – Preface, “Mrs. Charles H. Gibson’s Maryland and Virginia Cookbook”
Mrs. Charles H. Gibson was born Marietta Fauntleroy Powell in 1838 in Middleburg, Virginia. According to a profile in “The Midland Monthly,” she was educated in Richmond “where she was a great belle.” Describing her as a renowned housekeeper and hostess, the 1896 profile gushes that Mrs. Gibson had written “one of the best cook books extant.”
“The Midland Monthly,” 1896
Around 1858, Marietta married Richard Carmichael Hollyday and moved to his manor in Talbot County, an estate known as Ratcliffe. Hollyday had inherited the mansion from his father Henry, the second son of the senior Henry Hollyday, who had built the Georgian home around 1749 on a tract of land originally bequeathed to Robert Morris by Oliver or Richard Cromwell.
Ratcliffe Manor sits on the Tred Avon River not far from Easton. Although books about colonial architecture always mention that the house is not particularly large, they go on to fawn over its beauty. Swepson Earle wrote in “Maryland’s Colonial Eastern Shore”: “‘Ratcliffe Manor House’ is more distinguished in appearance than the majority of homes built at the same period. The rooms are capacious, the ceilings high, and the quaintly carved woodwork delights the connoisseur of the colonial.”
Ratcliffe Manor, photo by Swepson Earle
“Colonial Mansions of Maryland and Delaware” by John Martin Hammond (1914) describes “an air of comfort and good taste”, with a living room opening to a terraced garden. “To the left of the front door as you enter, is a little office, or study, wherein the master of the plantation in the old days interviewed his overseer and attended to the many small details of management of the place.”
We are fortunate to have a rare alternative view into life at Ratcliffe Manor care of William Green, who had been enslaved at a neighboring farm, escaped to freedom in 1840 and wrote a memoir in 1853. Green singled out Henry Hollyday as a representative of the brutal plantation conditions of the Eastern Shore at that time, with accounts of cruelty, overwork and neglect of the clothing and feeding of the people he enslaved at Ratcliffe.
As the second-born son, the young Henry Hollyday is said to have inherited the Ratcliffe estate due to the irresponsibility of his elder brother Thomas.
In the revocation of the original will, their father wrote “the conduct and deportment of my son Thomas… has been and still continues to be such as has given the greatest anxiety and grief.”
Ratcliffe Manor Dairy Complex, Maryland Historical Trust
The estate passed from ‘the good son’ Henry on to his own son Richard, Marietta’s first husband.
When Richard passed away in 1885, Marietta Hollyday became the owner of Ratcliffe. It remained her home even after she married former U.S. Senator Charles Hopper Gibson in 1888; he moved there with her. Gibson died in 1900 and Marietta sold the home in 1905. She died in 1914. I can’t figure out where she was living at that time.
The recipe I made from her book is a classic example of 1800s recipe confusion. Break the macaroni? I’d like to see an example of what macaroni looked like in the 1890s that it had to be broken into pieces. The whole thing about straining the sauce was a little weird – maybe this would be to remove fibrous tomato pieces? I used canned tomatoes. No specific cheese was called for so I used Parmesan because that’s what I had. When making old recipes it is helpful to remember that the original cooks might not have had a lot of options themselves.
I’ll wrap up this post with an assurance from John Martin Hammond, dismissive of the harsh realities of Eastern Shore plantation life, and unfazed by the drama of the wayward son:
“Ratcliffe Manor has no ghosts and no stories of violent death or suicide. It speaks simply of gentility and good living.”
Reidsville Review, NC, 1892
Recipe:
- macaroni
- .5 Lb beef
- 1 minced onion
- 1 Pint tomatoes, peeled and sliced
- 1 piece butter
- pepper, black
- salt
- grated cheese
Break the macaroni into inch lengths; stew twenty minutes, or till tender. Have the following sauce ready : Cut half a pound of beef into strips, and stew half an hour in cold water. Then add a minced onion and one pint tomatoes, peeled and sliced. Boil an hour and strain through a cullender after taking out the meat. The sauce should be well boiled down by this time. One pint is sufficient for a large dish of maca-
roni. Return the liquid to the saucepan; add a large piece of butter, pepper and salt, and stew till ready to dish the macaroni. Drain this well ; sprinkle lightly with salt and heap it in a dish. Pour the tomato sauce over it. Cover and let it stand in a warm place ten minutes before sending to table. Send grated cheese around with it.
Recipe from “Mrs. Charles H. Gibson’s Maryland and Virginia Cookbook”
