The Peel Mansion

On a recent road trip to Bentonville Arkansas, we toured the Peel Mansion.  It was constructed in 1875 by Colonel West Peel and is built in an Italianate Victorian style.  The Villa was surrounded by 180 acres of apple orchards.  Colonel Peel was the first native born Arkansan elected to the United States Congress and also served in the Confederate Army in the American Civil War.  He and his wife Mary Emaline Berry Peel raised nine children here.

This photograph was on display at the mansion.  Colonel Peel is standing on the porch.

This is the structure today.

The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Notice the rough texture of the exterior of the house.

The front door was decorated with these beautiful magnolia leaf wreaths.

The house still has it original hardwood floors that were stained with ox blood.  The staircase banister is carved from walnut.

There were two parlors off the entrance hall, one for the men and one for the women.  The wallpaper was created from  pieces that were found during restoration of the room.

Mr Peel's Parlor also severed as his office

There were several artifacts on display in his parlor, including an old Winchester gun that was found nearby.  The wood was gone, but the gun was still loaded with six bullets.

Here is a detail of the wallpaper in the men's parlor.

They had some Abraham Lincoln artifacts on display that were found in the attic.

The Parlor also had this unique rotating curio cabinet.  

The dining room was pretty plain and the table was set with some china from Mr. Peels time in Congress.  It has his initials on it.  The cabinet in the corner was also a pass-thru from the kitchen for food.

This is the staircase to the third floor tower.  It was barely 2 feet wide.  The tower room served as a classroom for the Peel children.

The master bedroom had one of the original Lazy-boy recliners.

The bedroom also had a Lincoln era rocking chair.

Across the hall was the little boy's room.

The antique rocking horse used to have a full mane and tail of real horse hair.

The little girls room was down the hall and had a large display of 1800's era dolls.

The maids room had a roll-out trundle bed.

The house featured two kitchens downstairs, a harvest kitchen with this stove and another kitchen with a fireplace.

The harvest kitchen had a lot of kitchen implements on display and the tour guide demonstrated a few of them.  The wooden box was a butter mold and the metal cutter/scraper in the front was to shave the sugar off the cone.

One of the items on display was this egg incubator.  The mechanical portion on the right, was kept filled with hot water to keep the eggs the right temperature. 

The small black device above the scoop was actually an ice scraper to make snow cones.

The back kitchen also had several implements on display including the butter churn on the right which would spin as you pulled back and forth on the handle.

The small high-chair was over 100 years old and the tour guide said the staff would tie the children in the chair with a cloth diaper, then put a little honey on the child's fingers and stick some feathers in the honey to keep them occupied.