Over-mantle Mirrors
Both of these over-mantle mirrors have been in the Blaine House since the Blaines lived in it. However, the two are not the same age. The mirror over the eastern mantle in the Reception Room dates to the first half of the 1800s. That over the west mantle was made later. It was probably commissioned or purchased by the Blaines in the mid-to-late 1800s.
MSM 79.40.3 (top) and 79.40.9
Todd Mirror
James Todd of Portland made this mirror in around 1825. Todd came to Portland in 1820 and set up shop on Exchange Street. The business thrived until the building burned in 1861.
MSM 88.112.1
China Cabinet with Maine State Seal Crest
The china cabinet with its removable frieze and gallery at top were commissioned for the Blaine House in 1919 or 1920, when the State prepared the house for its new role as the home of Maine’s governors. The custom crest or frieze features Maine’s State Seal, a moose under a white-pine tree.
MSM 79.40.77
Blaine’s Senate Desk and Chair
James G. Blaine served in the Senate and in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was Speaker of the House. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him Secretary of State, a position he held until June,1892, seven months before his death. He used this desk and chair when he served in the U.S. Senate, from 1876 to 1881.
MSM 79.40.31
Blaine Chairs
This pair of Victorian gothic chairs dates to the Blaine family’s occupation of the house in the late 1800s. The seats of these walnut chairs are hinged and small items such as gloves, books or sheet music could be stored inside.
MSM 79.40.149.1-.2
Harriet Stanwood Blaine’s Table
Tradition holds that this unusual octagonal table was used as a dining table by Harriet Stanwood Blaine and her family when they lived at the Blaine House in the late 1800s.
MSM 79.40.140
Blaine Partner’s Desk
A partner’s desk is one that can be used by two people at once, sitting at opposite sides of the desk. Blaine appears to have used several desks during his careers as a newspaperman and a politician in the mid to late 1800s.
MSM 80.101.1
Blaine’s Desk
In his roles as a journalist and a politician, and with houses in Augusta and Bar Harbor, Maine, and Washington, D.C., James G. Blaine had many offices, and many desks. We do not know where he used this example, but his daughters either left the desk in the study for posterity, or brought it from one of his other home offices.
MSM 79.40.35
