Restorations underway for trunk belonging to Manasseh Cutler
Pictured is the Cutler trunk, made by “the father of Ohio University” in 1788 in preparation for his first journey from Massachusetts to the wilderness of the Northwest where he and fellow members of the Ohio Company founded the first university west of the Allegheny Mountains. Photo by Kate Munsch/Ohio University Libraries
When renovations to Ohio University’s iconic Cutler Hall were completed in 1947, the University marked the occasion with a two-day rededication event celebrating the legacy of the building, and the man for whom the building is named, and welcoming home a piece of treasured OHIO history. More than 50 years later, that object of history is undergoing a renovation of its own.
OHIO’s University Libraries has been awarded a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant through the State Library of Ohio to restore a trunk belonging to Manasseh Cutler, “the father of Ohio University.”
The deerskin-covered trunk has been in Ohio University’s possession since October 1947 when Gen. Charles Gates Dawes, the great-great-grandson of Cutler and a former U.S. vice president, gifted the family heirloom to the University during the Cutler Hall rededication. More than 20 of Cutler’s descendants attended the ceremony. (To see video of the Athens Campus in 1947, including footage from the Cutler Hall rededication, click here.)
According to the December 1947 issue of The Ohio Alumnus, Cutler made the “traveling trunk” in 1788 in preparation for his first journey from Massachusetts to the wilderness of the Northwest Territory where he and fellow members of the Ohio Company founded Ohio University.
The trunk has been in the care of Ohio University’s Robert E. and Jean R. Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections, housed inside Alden Library.
“When I take people on tours of the archives, and they see (the Cutler trunk) sitting on one of the shelves, they always ask what it is,” William Kimok, University archivist and records manager, said. “Everyone seems very interested in the chest.”
Dating back to the founding not only of Ohio University but of the United States, the trunk is showing its age, and preserving it had become a priority for the caretakers of OHIO’s history at University Libraries.
“The trunk has been something that has been on my radar for several years,” said Miriam Nelson, head of preservation and digital initiatives at University Libraries.
Nelson, Kimok and colleagues at OHIO’s Alden Library were attending a seminar this past summer, during which they learned about the LSTA grant to restore historic items.
“I sort of cornered my colleagues in the hallway afterward. I said, ‘The trunk!’ and they were thinking the same thing. Everyone’s minds were set on this one item to be restored,” Kimok said.
The Intermuseum Conservation Association (ICA), a non-profit regional art conservation center in Cleveland, is in the process of restoring the Cutler trunk, cleaning decades of dirt from the item’s interior and exterior, fixing tears in it, and treating the deerskin cover.
According to Claire Curran, assistant objects conservator at the ICA, when the restoration is complete, the trunk “will be much more stable, and there will be a visible difference.”
Kimok and his colleagues look forward to bringing this OHIO artifact back to Ohio University once again and unveiling it to the community.
“It’s important, not just because it’s old, but it represents our founder, Manasseh Cutler,” Kimok said. “It represents tradition at Ohio University.”