Emily Snyder is a History and Latino and Latin American Studies major in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. After graduation, she plans to pursue a master’s degree in museum studies.
The Peel Mansion in Bentonville, AR has struggled in the past from its lack of a clear narrative to tell visitors that ultimately made the Peel family’s story get lost among the other narratives presented in their home. For some time now, the tours have focused on James H. Berry, the 14th Governor of Arkansas and brother of the matriarch of the Peel family, Mary Emaline Peel, as well as the many other families that lived in the house after the Peels. This tangential rather than direct history of the family left guests confused by the many different narratives and unclear about the importance of the Peel family and a house of this stature. I was asked to do research surrounding the social history of the Peels to create a better understanding of the family during the time period that they built and occupied their mansion home. This was meant to create a narrative that more directly focused on the Peels and the stories that are most often left out of history, especially those of the women of the family.
The Peel Mansion today. Courtesy Emily Snyder.
Some of the letters written by Samuel West Peel to his daughters that helped establish my interpretation of the family’s social history. Courtesy Special Collections, University of Arkansas
It was important to the Peel Mansion that this research was grounded in factual evidence that would be accessible to future researchers, as much of the information they had could not be concretely proven as fact and instead veered towards the anecdotal. These requests led me to the University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections, where I examined the Berry, Dickinson, and Peel Family Papers, as well as a few other key papers of Peel family members. The primary documents found in these papers were most often related to the economic and political activities of the family, however there were some items that helped build an understanding of the social history of the family, such as photographs, genealogical notes, and letters. These materials, along with secondary sources that analyzed the historical circumstances that the Peel family would have experienced, helped me to establish a narrative for the Peel Mansion that created a fruitful and factual interpretation of the history of the family and how that history can be viewed through the mansion itself.
Patriarch of the mansion, Samuel West Peel. Courtesy Special Collections, University of Arkansas
The Peel family’s social history currently revolves around the Civil War and the patriarch of the family, Samuel West Peel. Before the war, Peel had worked as a farmer, store clerk, and law clerk.[ii] He rose to prominence during the war and worked his way up from major to colonel in the Confederate Army.[i] After the war, Arkansas Governor Elisha Baxter appointed Peel to the position of prosecuting attorney.[iii] He held this position from 1873 to 1876, and during this time he bought acres of land in Bentonville, Arkansas and constructed the family’s mansion home.[iv] His job as prosecuting attorney continued into a successful legal and political career, and Peel eventually served in Congress as a representative for Arkansas.[v] These positions changed the family’s social status, giving them the wealth and resources necessary to build a fourteen-room mansion surrounded by acres of apple orchards.[vi]
Those resources also extended to the decoration and uptake of the home, which Mary Emaline, as the matriarch of the family, would have been in charge of. During the Civil War, Mary Emaline and the children struggled after their home was burnt down and they faced serious hardship and hunger common in the region at the time.[vii] The new home and its furnishings may have been a way for Mary Emaline to protect herself and her family from those memories, most notably by building multiple food cellars underneath the house. The parlor was another space that would have exemplified the home of comfort and style that Mary Emaline created. It was important that parlors were decorated well to communicate the family’s status to guests, and as the wife of a prominent lawyer and politician, Mary Emaline received many guests, including senators and congressmen.[viii]
Frank West Peel during his time attending the University of Virginia, between 1892 and 1893. Image form Special Collections, Zillah Cross Peel Papers, box 2, folder 2, item 8.
This change in the family’s status also allowed the Peel children to have greater access to more impressive educational and employment opportunities previously unavailable to them, as Samuel himself only received about three months of schooling.[ix] The Peel’s oldest son, James McFerrin Peel, served as prosecuting attorney of the 4th judicial circuit.[x] Their second son, David Walker Peel, was the President of the First State Bank of Arkansas in Bentonville, a bank that Samuel West Peel and David Walker Peel helped establish.[xi] Their third son, Frank West Peel, attended the University of Virginia, a prestigious university far from their home.[xii] For the daughters, the status of their family was best displayed through the prestigious positions of the men they married, which included the jobs of physician, attorney, and banker. However, one of the Peel daughters, Katherine, also had educational opportunities not often available to young women of her time. She likely attended Galloway College, a Methodist school for higher education of young women in Searcy, Arkansas.[xiii] These educational and employment opportunities of the children demonstrate the status and resources of the family also visible in their ability to build the mansion.
Katherine Peel in her Galloway College hat. Image from Special Collections, Berry, Dickinson, Peel Papers, Oversized Materials.
This understanding of the family was not clear to me right away, and instead required a restructuring of how I was approaching the research to reach these conclusions. I had expected to find the information the Peel Museum wanted within Special Collections and believed there would be some indication of who Mary Emaline, who the museum hoped to highlight more, was. However, little could be directly gained from the materials, and just as throughout history, the Peel women had been left out because their stories were considered insignificant. This generally extended to the family’s entire social history, as the most important thing in their history appeared to be Samuel West Peel’s political and legal career and his connection to James H. Berry. I stopped trying to find primary sources that were not there and instead focused on what I did know. On the recommendation of my mentor, Louise Hancox, I began to view the Peels and Mary Emaline as who they really were, a family and wife of a prominent politician with reach beyond Bentonville, Arkansas. With this new view of the family, the primary sources began to make more sense, as the manifestations of the wealth and status this family had because of this understanding of their position.
Zillah Cross Peel and her daughter Maurine Peel standing on the porch of the mansion in 1899. The house is a manifestation of the family’s wealth and status. Courtesy Special Collections, University of Arkansas.
This research experience taught me quite a bit about historical research that, despite doing research previously, I had not learned before. I learned to trust the interpretation of the history that I came up with, knowing that I had come to a sound conclusion that was supported by ample evidence. I am excited to have been able to give the Peel Museum a new interpretation of their history, and for the fact that future researchers will continue to build on this interpretation to create greater knowledge about early Bentonville and Arkansas as well. I continued to work on research, interpretation, and curation for the Peel Museum this summer, and the research my team and I did proved critical to improving the experience of visitors by helping to establish a clear narrative throughout the museum.
Sources
[i] Essay by Ruth D. Berry, Berry, Dickinson, Peel Family Papers (MC 1372), box 9, folder 30, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville.
[ii] Essay by Ruth D. Berry, Berry, Dickinson, Peel Family Papers.
[iii] Essay by Ruth D. Berry, Berry, Dickinson, Peel Family Papers.
[iv] “Peel, Samuel West,” History, Art, and Archives, United States House of Representatives, https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/P/PEEL,-Samuel-West-(P000184)/, accessed 8/3/21.
[v] Essay by Ruth D. Berry, Berry, Dickinson, Peel Family Papers.
[vi] Essay by Ruth D. Berry, Berry, Dickinson, Peel Family Papers.
[vii] Essay by Ruth D. Berry, Berry, Dickinson, Peel Family Papers.
[viii] “Wedding of Anderson and Peel,” Benton County Democrat, April 2, 1891.
[ix] Essay by Ruth D. Berry, Berry, Dickinson, Peel Family Papers.
[x] “James McFerrin Peel Obituary,” Benton County Pioneer (Bentonville, AR), volume 33, number 3, Autumn 1988.
[xi] Samuel West Peel, Letter to Katherine, November 26, 1907; Samuel West Peel, Letter to Ruby, March 25, 1922.
[xii] Photograph of Frank W. Peel, Zillah Cross Peel Papers (MC 781), box 2, folder 2, item 8, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville.
[xiii] Photograph of Katherine Peel, Berry, Dickinson, Peel Family Papers, oversized materials, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville; Robert W. Meriwether, “Galloway College: The Early Years, 1889-1907,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 40 (Winter 1981), 291.