REEDY, W.Va. (AP) - There it sat at Mountaineer Auction in Clendenin. A beautiful piece of craftsmanship and woodworking. Over 8-feet tall, 6-feet long and weighing more than 600 pounds.
History whispered its story as it belonged to the first governor of West Virginia, Arthur Boreman.
Brian and Rachel Ellison of Reedy saw it.
“We’re buying this,” Brian said. “Then I heard some of the history behind it and thought ’Now I’m really buying it.’”
What the Roane County collectors of pre-1900 antiques saw was the sideboard buffet which once belonged to Boreman, who lived in Parkersburg.
A sideboard is furniture used in the dining room for displaying serving dishes and storage. Boreman’s sideboard has cabinets, mirrors and numerous doors and drawers and a serving surface made of marble.
The drawer pulls contain symbols from the West Virginia State Seal with shovels and picks.
And, according to Brian, all the glass is original.
“It’s 96 inches plus tall and made of German walnut and burl walnut wood,” Brian said. “We didn’t have ceilings high enough at our home to display this so we have it here at my brother’s house. His name is Eric.”
The sideboard was purchased in November 2012 for an amount Brian didn’t want to divulge.
“We had it displayed in Silverton for two months and then moved it here - moved it in the back of a big pickup.”
The sideboard consists of three pieces, according to Brian.
“Top, marble counter and the base,” he said. “There are no screws, clamps, anything like that holding it together. The sheer weight of the thing is what keeps it the way it is. It’s at a minimum a four-man job to take the thing apart.”
The detailed history of the sideboard the Ellisons received indicated it was made around 1870 for the governor’s complex in Wheeling, he said.
“Wheeling was the capital at the time and it was crafted by a man named Frederick Schmeichel, a Prussian immigrant, living in Wheeling,” Brian said.
According to Lorraine Boreman, who was the governor’s daughter, the sideboard, after Schmeichel presented it, went from Wheeling to Charleston, when the capital moved, back to Wheeling, but never returned to Charleston, Brian said. Lorraine died in the late ’50s at the age of 92.
Wheeling was West Virginia’s first capital from 1863-1870 at the Linsly Institute Building. The capital moved south to Charleston from 1870-1875 before returning to Wheeling 1875-1885.
The capital returned to Charleston in 1885 and has remained there since.
According to “History of West Virginia, Old and New. Vol. II. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1923” on the Ohio County Library website, Schmeichel arrived in the United States in March 1870 and was a carpenter and staircase builder in Wheeling.
“There is no indication as to how long it took him to make this,” Brian said. “The sideboard wasn’t moved a lot and there was no restoration work done on it.”
Rachel said records indicate the couple is the fourth owner of the sideboard.
Brian, who grew up in Reedy, moved back three years ago from Ashton in Mason County after retiring from the federal government. One of his final jobs was as an electronics technician at Green Bank with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. He would like to see the sideboards in an historic display in Charleston.
“I would like for the government to buy it, or me loan it to them if that is what they want,” he said.
“It needs to be at the capital or the Cultural Center as part of a display for people to see,” Brian said. “It belonged to the first governor of this state. It’s history.”
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Information from: News and Sentinel (Parkersburg, W.Va.), https://www.newsandsentinel.com
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