New Mexico's Palace of the Governors, the oldest public building in the U.S., needs help. Its windows and their frames and sills are in various stages of deterioration.

Fix-up funds are shot, given the state's current economic situation. So Los Compadres del Palacio, a support group of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, is leading a fund-raising drive to rehabilitate and preserve in a proper historical manner the sickly windows.

Recently, I was invited to speak briefly to a gathering of the Compadres and their supporters on the history of the Palace windows. When I looked into the matter, I discovered no elements of high drama, but did find enough material to assemble a rather interesting story.

It seems that no one has written at length on the history of windows in New Mexico. Perhaps that is because the window, in colonial days at least, was not a significant feature of architecture.

We know that windows tended to be fairly small, rectangular and covered with oiled parchment or a mineral such as mica or selenite that occurred naturally in translucent sheets and served as panes.

A Spanish document in our state archives contains an 1819 order by Gov. Facundo Melgares for mica panes from a deposit near Isleta Pueblo. These were for the Palace windows.

I was surprised to see that, because explorer Zebulon Pike in 1807 had reported a mica "stratum" in the mountains near Santa Fe, from which most houses in the capital and all villages to the north got "their window lights made."

So why did Gov. Melgares send all the way to Isleta for his panes? I don't know, but perhaps they were of better quality.

In 1820, still within the colonial era, young David Meriwether of Missouri was arrested for illegally entering the province. He was placed in a jail cell at the west end of the Palace.

In his memoirs, he described it as being dirty and infested with bedbugs and fleas. "There was only a small window about 8 x 10 to admit a little fresh air and light," he wrote.

That's the earliest reference I know to a window size (and there were multiple sizes) in the Palace. By a quirk of fate, a much older Meriwether returned to Santa Fe in 1853 as the newly appointed U.S. territorial governor.

He took up residence in the very building where he had once been held prisoner. Visiting the cell, he must have peered out that same small window and vividly recalled his painful experience.

Irish artist Alfred Waugh, a visitor to Santa Fe in 1845, said in a published travel letter that the adobe house he saw had "small windows placed low in the walls." He added that "The Palace has larger windows."

Shortly after that, the first load of glass panes arrived in town, packed in wooden boxes and straw for the rough ride over the Santa Fe Trail. Probably much of the shipment went into the Palace windows.

A year later, 1846, a solider with Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny's army noted that "houses in Santa Fe are now using glass for glazing."

In the period after the Civil War occurred numerous renovations of the Palace of the Governors. A major one, according to the press, began in 1873, during which "workmen completed new window casings inside and out, painted them, and furnished the windows with substantial shutters."

In this project, as in earlier ones, citizens observed an ongoing attempt to impose a thin skin of "the territorial style of architecture" on the old adobe building.

That lasted until about 1910 when another work-over aimed at returning the historic structure to its imagined appearance in colonial days. In the process, "the territorial type doorway and window casings, dating after the American occupation, were removed."

In spite of all the changes through time, the ancient Palace manages to retain its air of authenticity. Los Compadres' project will help insure that its windows receive the attention they deserve.

Historian Marc Simmons is author of numerous books on New Mexico and the Southwest. His column appears Saturdays.



IF YOU GO

What: Fiesta Melodrama performance and a Merienda Español (rare teas with Spanish and Mexican pastries), sponsored by Los Compadres del Palacio to benefit the Palace of the Governors window rehabilitation project.

When: Saturday, Sept. 11. Doors open 1:15 p.m.

Where: Santa Fe Playhouse, E. DeVargas St.

Tickets: $50, limited to 100 persons.

For information and reservations, call 473-9646.