Fort Hill-Clergy Hall Kitchen and Calhoun Family Dining Room

The McElhenny's would have used the fireplace in this room as the primary cooking fireplace for the home, but the Calhouns' chose to move their kitchen to a separate building. This was often done during the time to protect from the spread of potential fires, as well as to stem some of the heat that would have been pouring from the kitchen in the hot summer months. In the display cases in this room are a variety of small artifacts from the Calhoun and Clemson families.

These objects can reveal a great deal about the lives of the people who lived at Fort Hill, things like: documents detailing Calhoun's commission as Secretary of War, buttons from his travel cloak, and even a gift from Japan. In another case you will see pieces connected to the women of the Calhoun and Clemson families: earrings and a necklace, a lace bobbin, an ivory parasol handle, and even a piece of mourning jewelry. Mourning jewelry is a tradition common during the Victorian era and the woven bracelet inside the second case is made of John C. Calhoun's hair, and even contains a lock of his hair in the face of the bracelet. This would have been worn by one of the Calhoun women who mourned the loss of John C. Calhoun after his death in 1850.

“Educational Resources | Clemson University, South Carolina.” Accessed May 21, 2020. https://www.clemson.edu/about/history/properties/ed.html.