NATCHEZ — A team of historical researchers opened a time capsule here in Natchez last week hoping to take a step back to 19th century New Orleans.

A team led by Cybele Gontar, who co-authored “Furnishing Louisiana: Creole and Acadian Furniture, 1735-1835,” has been inventorying the furniture, textiles and portraits at Green Leaves as part of the Louisiana Furniture Inventory Project 2012. Gontar is also an instructor at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York.

Gontar said she contacted Historic Natchez Foundation Director Mimi Miller about doing research in Natchez. Miller directed her to Longwood and Green Leaves.

Gontar said Miller recommended Green Leaves for her research because the house’s furniture collection has been kept mostly intact.

“It’s really like a time capsule, almost like a historical vortex,” Gontar said.

The foundation, Gontar said, also provided archival materials to help with the research.

Gontar said her research concentrates on furniture that was made or retailed in New Orleans during the 19th century. She said Natchez is an important part of that research because of its proximity and relationship to New Orleans, which was the epicenter of trade during the 19th century.

The project is part of Gontar’s research for a follow-up book that will cover 1835 – 1935.

The project team includes Will Black, a 2011 graduate of the University of North Carolina, Hyum Kim, a student at Pratt Institute, and Matt Thomas, a student at Southeastern Louisiana University.

The team members’ degree concentrations and backgrounds include Civil War history, art history and graphic design.

Black, Kim and Thomas all said the project’s hands-on experience would be very valuable in their future careers.

Gontar said local furniture maker and restorer Steve Huber has also been instrumental in helping the team inventory the collection and has repaired a few pieces along the way. Huber also gave the team members an upholstery workshop and helped them craft stools, which they will take home when they leave Natchez Friday.

One of the most exciting finds the team has discovered, Gontar said, is that one of the beds at Green Leaves was crafted by furniture maker C. Lee of Manchester, Mass.

Gontar said there are C. Lee beds, which are grand and stately and associated heavily with the South, at Rosalie and Melrose.

“But we didn’t know there was a C. Lee bed here, so it was exciting to find that out,” Gontar said.

The inventory project, Gontar said, is not just about looking and learning about the artifacts solely as objects.

“It’s not just looking at the objects but learning about the families,” Gontar said. “That’s something I always say (to my team), ‘What do the objects tell us about the people who lived in these houses?’”

A copy of Gontar’s team’s research will be left with the owners of Green Leaves and Longwood, so, she said, the additional history of the house can be passed on.

Ruthie Coy, Denison Graham and Aylett Dickman, whose family has owned Green Leaves since about 1849, have told Gontar and her team family stories about Green Leaves heirlooms, which Gontar said has made her research experience in Natchez a rare one.

“I don’t think I have ever inventoried a collection where the family was with us and got to talk to them directly,” Gontar said.

Ruthie Coy, whose family has owned Green Leaves since about 1849, said the furniture inventory research will help her family pass on the legacy and history of Green Leaves to future generations.

“It takes drawing it all together, our stories and their research, to pass it own to future generations,” Coy said. “We don’t have the oral history traditions like previous generations did.”

Gontar said she intends to bring research teams back to the South in December and next summer.

“I will certainly come back to Natchez for my research,” she said. “It is just a jewel of a city.”