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November 2006: The Swedish Nightingale
If you’ve ever been upstairs at the Brettun and Black Museum, you saw a bed in the west room of the three walled off rooms at the south end. This bed was a legacy from a Historical Society member named Paul Freed. He was a charter member but I never knew anybody who had met him;. He lived in Alexandria, Virginia and his interest in Hampton came through his mother who was a member of the Thomas family, very prominent people in 19th century Hampton. Freed had a career in the field of music, playing with several prominent bands in the 1920’s and 30’s including the Paul Whiteman orchestra. He had toured South America and was well known in music circles. He had not forgotten his mother’s birthplace.
Back in the 80’s 90’s the Society was getting serious about restoring the interior of Black’s Store. We launched a fund drive and had raised 6 or 7 thousand dollars and thought we were doing pretty well but had a long way to go.
One evening our curator, Bev Coder, received a phone call from Alexandria, Virginia. The caller gave her the news that Paul Freed was dying, and that Hampton Historical Society was mentioned in his wll. We would be sent a check for $ 2500 to be applied to the restoration and when the estate was settled we would receive $ 12,500 more plus a bed that his mother owned when she lived in Hampton in the 19th century. Talk about a serendipity! This was an incredible bolt out of the blue!
This is the bed that you can see if you go upstairs at Black’s Store. They say it is called a Jenny Lind bed. It is a sturdy walnut piece, very distinctive, with knobs (called spools). I believe it might have some value as an antique. But who was Jenny Lind? I found out quite a bit about that lady recently, in an article about her by a man named Donald Dewey in History Magazine, to which I subscribe.
Jenny Lind, you may remember was a Swedish singer, brought to this country by P T Barnum, the early and perhaps greatest of all promoters. He is famous because of such things as Jumbo the elephant, and Captain Tom Thumb the midget. Barnum was unsurpassed as a promoter and the country was soon going wild over Jenny Lind. It approached hysteria. Everybody had to see and hear her, and scour the newspapers for what she was doing.
Not far from us in Andover, Illinois, you can visit a small chapel that Jenny donated to that community for her countrymen who lived there. Was she as good as the hoopla said she was? Pretty close. She had a 3-octave voice range and unique breath control. She was not super good looking, usually described as plain, but in the hands of Barnum, people were persuaded that she was gorgeous She was held up as a model of Victorian virtue but she had a long string of lovers and some very famous people pursued her. Her career started in Sweden in 1838 and “Lindmania” as they called it, swept over Europe. Barnum didn’t invent her, he just made more money out of her than anybody else.
It is interesting that Hampton was touched by Jenny Lind, even though it is in a very indirect way. Our town has a way of getting involved in a lot of historic events.
A footnote: My wife reminded me that we sleep in a Jenny Lind bed. Not an antique one but it does have the spools. They are very handy to use for this old man when getting up.