BOSTON FURNITURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

BROCK JOBE

The Boston Furniture Industry 1720–1740

The Artificers in this Place Exceed Any upon ye Continent And are here also Most Numerous as Cabinet Makers, Chace & Coach Makers . . . Watchmakers, Printers, Smiths, &C.6

IN 1750 James Birket, a traveller from the West Indies, found Boston filled with craftsmen. To him, their number surpassed that in any other American town. Today, as one passes through museums and historical societies, he is likely to agree with Birket. Hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of furniture made in the Boston area during the eighteenth century have survived. Their makers are, for the most part, unknown. However, the quantity of objects attests to the activity of many craftsmen. This paper is concerned with these men—their number, their opportunities for work, their homes, and the economy in which they operated. Such information provides new insights into not only the men themselves but also their furniture.

Between 1725 and 1760 approximately 127 joiners and cabinetmakers,7 38 chairmakers, 23 upholsterers, 16 carvers, 11 turners, and 9 japanners worked in Boston. These 224 craftsmen comprised a total larger than that of any other American town during this period. Philadelphia, Boston’s nearest competitor, contained about thirty percent fewer craftsmen.8

An increase in shipbuilding during the early eighteenth century provided abundant work for many of these craftsmen. Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713) had proved especially profitable for local merchants.9 Their desire to enlarge the home fleet and the willingness of foreign entrepreneurs to purchase Boston vessels created jobs in every branch of the furniture industry. For example, Samuel Grant, an upholsterer, often supplied chairs and stools for the cabins of newly constructed ships.10 Joseph Ingraham, a local carver, completed the carved details for five ships during 1739. His bill of over £300 included £30:5:0 for an “11 foot Lyon for ship Dragon.”11 Such accounts are typical for carvers and suggest that they were far busier with shipwork than with furniture. Joiners often outfitted the interiors of vessels. Two such craftsmen, Daniel and Joseph Ballard, were often involved in civil litigation and were forced by the courts to account for their work. According to one law suit, Joseph Ballard constructed panelling, cupboards, chests, lockers, cornice moldings, window sashes, and “ye hen & goose coop” for a ship.12 Other joiners provided similar services, sometimes building tables and desks in addition to performing finished carpentry work.13

Besides shipwork, merchants offered cabinetmakers and chairmakers the opportunity to export their goods in vessels bound for Nova Scotia, the coastal ports of New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, or the West Indies. That craftsmen took advantage of the mercantile activity is demonstrated by the statements of Plunkett Fleeson, a Philadelphia upholsterer. In 1742 he advertised chairs “cheaper than any made here, or imported from Boston.” Evidently, hundreds of Boston chairs were flooding into the area because two years later Fleeson chastised “the Master Chair Makers in this City . . . [for] Encouraging the Importation of Boston Chairs.”14 Even in 1762, when Philadelphia cabinetmakers were beginning to produce their finest furniture, Ebenezer Call asked his brother in Boston to have chairs made by a Mr. Lampson and shipped to Philadelphia.15

In addition to ship construction and an export trade, the merchants themselves were excellent clientele for craftsmen. Though occasionally importing furniture from England, local merchants usually relied on Bostonians for their home furnishings. Samuel Abbot, who began his mercantile career in 1760, kept an “Accompt of Household Furniture.”16 In it he noted the purchase of his household goods for the next thirty years. With the exception of four Philadelphia (Windsor) chairs17 and two looking glasses, all of Abbot’s furniture was made in Boston. Chairmakers Henry Perkins, William Fullerton, and George Bright provided mahogany tables and chair frames. John Forsyth, William Gray, and Ziphion Thayer upholstered these chairs and furnished bed mattresses, pillows, curtains, and window cushions. Adino Paddock, a coachmaker, billed Abbot £40 for a chaise “Carved Gilt & Laced”18 while John Gore, a successful japanner, painted and framed a coat of arms for £2. Such complete documentation is nonexistent for the first half of the eighteenth century. However, individual references to purchases by Daniel Henchman, Matthew Bond, and other merchants suggest that they, too, primarily patronized local craftsmen.19

8. The Town of Boston in New England by John Bonner 1722. Drawn by John Bonner, engraved by Francis Dewing. Copperplate engraving, first state; h. 16 ¹³/₁₆ inches, w. 23 inches (engraved surface only). (I. N. Phelps Stokes Collection, Prints Division, The New York Public Library.) See also figs. 9 and 10.

9. Detail of Bonner Map Showing Area between Union and Prince Streets. (I. N. Phelps Stokes Collection, Prints Division, The New York Public Library.) See also figs. 8 and 10. Many furniture craftsmen lived on Ann, Middle, and Back Streets in the North End.

The homes of furniture craftsmen were located throughout the city. Samuel Wheeler, a chairmaker, lived on Orange Street20 near the neck of land leading to Roxbury. Thomas Luckis, a carver, owned a portion of a home almost two miles away on Lynn Street in the North End (fig. 8). Many lived in craftsmen’s districts either in the North End between Union and Prince Streets or in the South End between Cornhill and Battery March (figs. 9 and 10). John Brocas, John Corser, Samuel Ridgway, and Job Coit resided on Anne and Union Streets. A block away on Back and Middle Streets were the homes of cabinetmakers Nathaniel Holmes, Thomas Sherburne, James McMillian, Thomas Johnson, and William Johnson. In the South End on Battery March lived at least five chairmakers. Occasionally these individuals owned their dwellings, but as the century progressed more and more men chose to rent houses, portions of tenements, or just rooms. Indeed, evidence suggests that middle-class property-owning craftsmen of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were gradually replaced by increasingly wealthy merchant-craftsmen and poor journeymen.21

Boston furniture makers worked in an economy based on commodity and credit exchange. Foreign coin did not circulate in the city and even the paper money printed by the Massachusetts government was scarce among craftsmen. As a result, a type of bartering system prevailed where workmen traded small amounts of cash, goods, services, and notes of obligation in lieu of money. A note written by William Randle, a japanner, is typical of the latter form of exchange. On July 15, 1724, he promised to pay “Mr John Greenwood or order Fourty five Pounds on or before the first day of April next, it being for Sundry Prints of ye City of New York Bought & Received of him.”22

10. Detail of Bonner Map Showing Area between Cornhill and Battery March. (I. N. Phelps Stokes Collection, Prints Division, The New York Public Library.) See also figs. 8 and 9. Many furniture craftsmen lived on Milk Street and Battery March, near the wharves of the South End.

In this economy, personal trust played an important role. No man wanted to sell goods to another unless he believed that he would eventually be repaid. Artisans especially needed good credit reputations because of the many items required in their work. Cabinetmakers turned to merchants and ship captains for imported lumber and to braziers and shopkeepers for imported brassware, tools, nails, and glue. Furthermore, in an urban environment, they depended on victuallers and innholders for food and drink. To succeed in such an atmosphere required hard work and reliable connections within the craft and the community. Apprenticeship and kinship ties were the easiest ways of securing these connections. In both, masters and fathers provided assistance for younger men to begin their careers. For this reason, successive generations of families followed the same trade and became trusted members of the community. The Coit family, comprised of Job, Sr., and his three sons, worked as cabinetmakers. The Perkins family included five chairmakers in two generations. The most extended family, the Frothinghams of Boston and Charlestown, contained sixteen woodworkers in four generations.23 Some craftsmen married into the families of furniture makers. Ebenezer Clough, a Boston joiner, married Elizabeth Welch, the daughter of a Charlestown joiner. Robert Davis, a Boston japanner, married the daughter of William Randle, another local japanner.

These complex kinship ties may have contributed to the general conservatism of Boston furniture when compared to that of Philadelphia. The prolonged use of stretchers or the continued appearance of Queen Anne style furniture in the 1760s and 1770s could have resulted from traditional family training.

Family ties not only provided security for Bostonians who trained locally as apprentices, but also made it extremely difficult for immigrants to break into the furniture industry. Between 1730 and 1760 no inventory of an immigrant craftsman exceeded £100 while those of several native workmen surpassed £2000.24 Family connections by no means insured success, but they seem to have been at least a prerequisite for the attainment of wealth in the furniture industry.

Boston’s faltering economy after 1740 further decreased the immigrants’ opportunities. A drop in population during the thirty years prior to the Revolution reflected the deteriorating condition. As the Reverend Andrew Burnaby stated in 1760, “The province of Massachusetts-Bay has been for some years past, I believe, rather on the decline. Its inhabitants have lost several branches of trade, which they are not likely to recover again.”25 Growing competition from other coastal ports, the Molasses Act, and high local taxes created little need or attraction for additional craftsmen.

The best example of the immigrant craftsman’s problems is Charles Warham. Born in London in 1701,26 he travelled to Boston sometime before 1724.27 The young cabinetmaker, who had apparently completed an English apprenticeship, discovered hard times in his new home. Numerous court cases reveal that he was unable to pay for food or rent.28 Without any means of solving his dilemma, Warham evidently became a poor risk to his creditors. In 1731, he sold his household possessions and moved to Charleston, South Carolina.29 On November 2, 1734, he advertised in the South Carolina Gazette “all sorts of Tables, Chests, Chests-of-drawers, Desks, Bookcases &c. As also Coffins of the newest fashion, never as yet made in Charlestown.”30 He purchased lots for his home and shop on Tradd Street and during the ensuing years established a prominent cabinetmaking trade in Charleston. As a result of his newfound prosperity, he turned later in life to land speculation. In 1776, for example, he offered for sale 5000 acres of South Carolina real estate. He died on July 20, 1779, leaving a substantial estate.31 Debt-ridden in Boston, a city glutted with craftsmen, Warham succeeded in Charleston where demand for his work was far greater.

In contrast to this immigrant, several of Boston’s native sons prospered in the furniture industry. The career of Nathaniel Holmes, a cabinetmaker, is illustrative of how men with strong local kinship ties manipulated the credit economy to their best advantage. Holmes was born in Boston on December 29, 1703.32 His father, Nathaniel, Sr., had worked as a joiner and mason during the late seventeenth century. Young Nathaniel was only eight when his father died, and presumably his mother apprenticed him a few years later to one of Boston or Charlestown’s many cabinetmakers. By 1725 he had opened his own cabinet shop near the Mill Bridge in Boston.33 Three years later he married Mary Webber, the daughter of a lumber dealer and sawmill owner, a connection which obviously served his best interests, and during the next decade expanded his cabinetmaking business by employing workmen from the Massachusetts Bay area.

In 1735 Holmes purchased a distillery on Back Street and for five years prospered through the production of both rum and furniture. At the same time he began to hire vessels to carry his goods up and down the coast. His rum business and carrying trade proved so profitable that after 1740 he abandoned his cabinetmaking operation. To complement his distillery, Holmes built a sugar baking house in 174834 and for the next twenty years shipped sugar, molasses, and rum on his own sloops and schooners to Newfoundland, the Middle Colonies, and the South. When he died in 1774, he left an estate valued at almost £4000 which included land and houses throughout Massachusetts and Maine. He owned dwellings on Back, Charter, Middle, and School Streets in Boston as well as a farm in Malden and land in Falmouth and Kennebeck.35 Holmes succeeded far better than any other cabinetmaker in Boston. His biography indicates that a craftsman could become wealthy, but only by changing occupations could he amass a great fortune.

Fortunately, surviving documentation permits a detailed analysis of Holmes’s furniture business.36 During the 1730s Holmes served as a merchant-middleman for numerous craftsmen in Boston and surrounding towns whom he supplied with food, clothing, brassware, lumber, and glue. In return, they constructed furniture which they delivered to Holmes who then sold it to ship captains for export or to private customers in Boston.

Holmes employed ten joiners and cabinetmakers, only four of whom worked in Boston. Robert Lord, Richard Woodward, and Thomas Johnson lived in Boston. Woodward, in fact, boarded with Holmes. Another local cabinetmaker, Thomas Sherburne, helped Holmes manage the business in 1736 and 1737. John Mudge and Jacob Burdit resided in Malden, a small village on the Malden River, north of Boston. Thomas and Chapman Waldron lived in Marblehead, a coastal settlement about sixteen miles northeast of Boston. James Hovey worked for Holmes for nine months in either Plymouth or Boston. The home of Timothy Gooding, Jr., the last of Holmes’s workmen, has not been located. The majority of these men were between twenty-one and twenty-eight years of age,37 suggesting that Holmes was responsible for aiding them at the start of their careers, when they needed credit to purchase household and shop goods.

Holmes dealt with three turners, two bed bottom makers, and a japanner, all presumably of Boston. The turners, John Underwood, Daniel McKillister, and Daniel Swan, produced lathe-turned legs, drops, finials (called flames in the accounts), pillars, and balls which were later used by the joiners to embellish their furniture. Pillars and balls were produced in sets and probably used in the upper portion of tall case clocks as columns and finials, respectively (fig. 11). The bed bottom makers, William Bulfinch and Elias Thomas, laced canvas to bed frames made by Holmes or his workmen. A typical cloth bottom is illustrated in The Cabinet Dictionary by Thomas Sheraton (fig. 12).38 Holmes’s japanner, William Randle, performed an assortment of services, including the gilding of pillars for a clock and the japanning of a pedimented high chest.

The personal papers of Nathaniel Holmes reveal that these fifteen craftsmen constructed 338 pieces of furniture for their employer between 1733 and 1739. Unfortunately, only a portion of the business is documented in the bills and receipts. We have no information, for instance, on how much furniture Holmes constructed himself. Nor do we have complete accounts for each craftsman’s work. The total number of objects probably far exceeded those recorded in the papers.

11. Detail of Tall Clock Showing Pillars and Balls. Works by Benjamin Bagnall, Boston, c. 1715–1730. Case, walnut and white pine; h. 98½ inches, w. 20⅞ inches, d. 10⅜ inches. (Collection of Mrs. Charles L. Bybee and the late Charles L. Bybee: photo, Richard Cheek.) For an overall view of the clock, see Antiques, xciii (January, 1968), 77.

Tables and desks constituted the great majority of their work. Of the documented objects, 62 were desks and 225 were tables. Many were simple utilitarian pieces of furniture made of maple or pine (fig. 13). However, these craftsmen also made elaborate card and tea tables as well as veneered desks with inlaid stringing and stars. On June 15, 1738, John Mudge billed his employer £3:3:0 for a “Larg Sedor desk with a star and scolup dros, no well rume, Lap beeded and pilor dros.”39 Such a desk probably resembled one owned by the American Antiquarian Society (fig. 14). “No well rume” indicates that insufficient space was available for a concealed well, a feature often found in New England desks of the William and Mary style. “Scolup dros” may refer to either the shell carved drawers of a desk interior (fig. 80) or the small arched drawers above the pigeon holes.40 The reference to pillared drawers describes the narrow document drawers with applied pilasters, seen on many Boston eighteenth-century desks (fig. 15).

12. Camp Bed. From Thomas Sheraton, The Cabinet Dictionary, plate xv. London, 1803. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1952.)

13. Table. Eastern Massachusetts, c. 1730–1760. Maple and white pine; h. 25½ inches, w. 31 inches (open), d. 31⅞ inches. (The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.)

Holmes’s workmen constructed 16 desks and bookcases and 16 chests of drawers. To decorate these large pieces of furniture, they often applied carved or inlaid shells. In 1733 William Randle was paid for gilding two carved shells, probably for a high chest (fig. 16).

14. Desk. Eastern Massachusetts, c. 1730–1760. Cherry and white pine; h. 46½ inches, w. 36 inches, d. 19½ inches. (American Antiquarian Society: photo, Richard Merrill.) According to family tradition, this desk was owned by Governor James Bowdoin (1726–1790) of Boston. Feet and brasses are replaced.

Four years later Richard Woodward charged Holmes eighteen shillings for “putting in a Shell” and one pound for “Setting 2 Shells.”41 These later references document the difficult and expensive task of inlaying strips of wood in a radiating pattern (fig. 17). String inlay was an even more common decorative motif. John Mudge constructed “a Case of dros and tabell stringed” in October, 1738, and a month later made “a Case of drawers soled ends and stringed.”42 The earlier reference suggests a matching high chest and dressing table with string inlay. The latter may refer to a veneered high chest with solid sides decorated with stringing.

15. Interior of Desk-on-Frame Showing Pillared Drawers. Boston, c. 1740–1770. Mahogany, maple, tulipwood, and white pine; h. 42⅛ inches, w. 35¾ inches, d. 22⅞ inches. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Herbert Edes, 36.34: photo, Richard Cheek.) For an overall view of the desk, see Richard H. Randall, Jr., American Furniture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 1965), p. 74. According to family tradition, this desk was owned by Jedidiah Parker (born 1736) of Boston.

Holmes’s workmen enumerated only twelve other pieces of furniture in their bills. In 1737 Richard Woodward constructed wall brackets and a bureau table (fig. 18).43 His Boston colleague, Thomas Johnson, made a tea chest and frame, a tankard board, and a double chest of drawers. None of Holmes’s craftsmen working outside the city produced similar one-of-a-kind items.

16. High Chest. Boston area, c. 1730–1750. Walnut and white pine; h. 89½ inches, w. 43¾ inches, d. 22 inches. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, 1909.) This chest has carved and gilded shells, probably similar to the type of work performed by William Randle for Nathaniel Holmes.

17. High Chest. Eastern Massachusetts, c. 1730–1750. Walnut and white pine; h. 86⅛ inches, w. 43¾ inches, d. 23⅛ inches. (The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.) This chest is decorated with inlaid shells, probably similar to those set in by Richard Woodward.

These workmen charged Holmes for the amount of labor involved in making or assisting on a piece of furniture. A standard cost was often set for each form. Tables, for example, were priced according to their length. Richard Woodward charged eleven shillings per foot for tables in 1736. A year and a half later he demanded an extra shilling per foot, no doubt reflecting inflation in colonial Boston. The price of desks also varied according to size. John Mudge charged £2:10:0 for his standard desk and £1:1:0 for a smaller version. Any ornamentation increased the cost. For a desk with pillared drawers, Mudge added two shillings to his standard sum. Veneering, a popular form of decoration on Boston furniture, increased the cost of construction. In 1734 Mudge built both solid wood and veneered chests of drawers. The price of the former amounted to £3:2:0 while the latter was £4:0:0. Occasionally the accounts refer to other details such as stringing, inlaid stars and shells, bracket feet, and toes.44 These motifs varied greatly in price and probably were custom ordered.

18. Bureau Table. Boston area, c. 1730–1750. Walnut and white pine; h. 31¼ inches, w. 33¾ inches, d. 19⅜ inches. (Gore Place Society, Waltham, Massachusetts: photo, Richard Cheek.) This bureau table decorated with string inlay is representative of early bureau tables made in Boston during the 1730s and 1740s.

Often a single object entailed the work of many craftsmen. According to the Holmes papers, a veneered high chest, similar to that made by Ebenezer Hartshorne (fig. 19), required the work of five men. Holmes himself supplied the lumber, brassware, and nails to a cabinetmaker who constructed the case. A turner furnished the cabinetmaker with drops, flame finials, and columns for the front of the chest. After the case was completed, a highly skilled craftsman inlaid the star and may have carved the two shells. Finally, a japanner put on the finishing touches by gilding the shells.

In summary, the papers of Nathaniel Holmes provide much important data on the cabinetmaking trade in the Boston area during the third decade of the eighteenth century. Although no extant furniture can be traced to Holmes or his workmen, the accounts attest to the quantity of their output. Hopefully, examples will be found, so that we may some day more accurately judge the skills of these men and the characteristics of their work.

No discussion of the furniture industry could be complete without considering the role of the upholsterer. During the eighteenth century the upholstery trade was deemed the most lucrative and prestigious craft profession. Its members not only made and sold bedding, bed curtains, and upholstered furniture, but also imported all types of textiles and dry goods for resale. Thomas Fitch and Samuel Grant were two of Boston’s wealthiest upholsterers. A study of their careers demonstrates the reasons for their success as well as the activities and products of the upholsterer in colonial Boston.

19. High Chest. Made by Ebenezer Hartshorne, Charlestown, 1739. Walnut and white pine; h. 90 inches, w. 41½ inches, d. 21½ inches. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Julia Knight Fox Fund, 31.432.) A chest such as this required the work of many craftsmen.

The son of a local cordwainer, Thomas Fitch was born on February 5, 1669.45 His father died when he was only nine. Apparently his mother apprenticed him to a Boston upholsterer, perhaps Edward Shippen, an eminent English-born merchant-upholsterer who moved to Philadelphia about 1688. Fitch later corresponded frequently with Shippen and often sold goods in Boston for his Pennsylvania friend. In 1694 he married Abiel Danforth, the daughter of the Reverend Samuel Danforth of Roxbury. During the following years he established a highly profitable upholstery business and became a respected man in the community. He held numerous public offices including selectman, moderator, town auditor, and representative to the General Court. His daughters married men of high standing. Martha married James Allen, a prosperous merchant, and Mary wedded Andrew Oliver, later a lieutenant governor of the colony. When Thomas Fitch died in 1736, he left a personal estate of £3388:8:11. He also owned several houses in Boston and thousands of acres in many newly established towns in Massachusetts.46

Fitch trained Samuel Grant in the upholstery trade.47 Born in 1705, Samuel was the son of Joseph Grant, a local boat builder.48 He married Elizabeth Cookson in 1729 and they raised six children over the next twenty-five years. Like his former master, Grant held several important town positions. Between 1747 and 1757 he served as town selectman, in 1768 as town moderator. At his death in 1784, he gave the bulk of his estate to Moses Grant, his only surviving son.49

Fortunately for historians of the decorative arts, several volumes of the account books and letterbooks of Thomas Fitch and Samuel Grant have survived.50 With these documents it is possible to focus on the lives of two Boston upholsterers during the years 1720 to 1740. Fitch established an extensive trading network throughout the colonies, specializing in the distribution of English textiles. In addition, he sometimes imported other goods which might sell well in the colonies. In a letter to a New York merchant he stated that “besides all Sorts of Upholstery goods as rugs blank[e]ts quilts ticks broadstrip &c,” he also offered for sale “a Pcill [Parcel] of Ironware and nails.”51 Further correspondence shows that Fitch sold spectacles, penknives, candlesticks, stockings, caps, clothing materials, and other dry goods to merchants in every coastal port from Halifax to the West Indies. To transport these goods he owned shares in several ships.

In addition to his mercantile pursuits, Fitch operated an upholstery shop where he or his workmen produced beds, bolsters, mattresses, curtains, and furniture. Some jobs were done for his clients in their homes. In 1724 he charged George Cradock £0:1:6 for “puting up a bedstd & Curts.”52 A year later Fitch completed the wallpapering of a room for John Jekyl. The cost was £2:12:9 for seventy-eight and a quarter yards of binding, papering tacks, and labor. Jekyl had purchased the paper himself and employed Fitch only to hang it.53

20. Bed Valance. Salem or Boston, c. 1720–1740. English cheyney, w. 12½ inches. (Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts.)

The great majority of Fitch’s patrons were wealthy merchants, lawyers, and physicians of Boston, Newport, and New York. The list included John Read, Esquire, of Boston, Edmund Quincy, Esquire, of Braintree, Isaac Lopez of Newport, and William Beekman of New York. For such a prominent clientele, Fitch made every effort to provide fashionable furnishings. He sometimes wrote to his friends in England for patterns for bed hangings. In 1725 he instructed John East, an upholsterer in London, to “Get your best draughtsman to draw a few of ye newest fashion’d & pretty neat airy Val:ts [Valances] headcloths headboards & Testers and a cornish [cornice] or two: and ye figure of a counter pane if they are in fashion.”54 Several times in the next five years, Fitch requested additional patterns. In an illuminating letter on the taste of Bostonians, he asked East “to send me a pattern or figure of Fashionable Vallance & the figure of a headboard & headcloth done by some ingenious workman to be put on a flat headcloth & as the fashion I think is very plain, he may send some with a little more work, our people too generally choosing them somewhat showy.”55

Fitch’s letters explain the close similarity between English and American bed hangings. An example at the Essex Institute (fig. 20) resembles the end of a valance illustrated in a scene from A Harlot’s Progress by William Hogarth (fig. 21). Another valance, originally owned by the Robbins family of Lexington, Massachusetts (fig. 22), relates to an English example, also engraved by Hogarth in the two prints, Before and After (fig. 23). Such comparisons demonstrate the attempts of American upholsterers to follow English designs. Using imported fabrics and patterns, they were able to copy the most recent fashions in London.

21. A Harlot’s Progress, plate ii. Drawn and engraved by William Hogarth, London, 1732. Copperplate engraving; h. 11⅞ inches, w. 14⅝ inches (engraved surface only). (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Harvey D. Parker Collection, p11991.)

22. Bed Valance. Boston area, c. 1730–1760. English harrateen; w. 13 inches. (Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.) According to family tradition, this valance was owned by the Robbins family of Arlington and Lexington, Massachusetts.

Fitch occasionally collaborated with English upholsterers on elaborate bed hangings. A letter to Silas Hooper, a London merchant, in December, 1725, records the joint efforts of two men on different continents to complete a set of hangings:

Now I desire Yo to apply to some Upholder that’s a neat Workman and get him to Match this Camblet very exactly with enough of it only for one sute of outside Vallane and to Cover one set of Cornishes, and make up the outside vall and Cover the Cornishes handsomely and fashionably, and cover the head board, wood head Cloth and Testr. with some . . . Satten and make the Inside Vall thereof, Let the whole be of a good Air or fancy for a room 10 feet high, and trim’d with the same lace of the Inclosed pattern packing up for me full Enough of the Same binding and breed suitable to finish ye Curtains bases and base moldings here.56

23. Before. Drawn and engraved by William Hogarth, London, 1736. Copperplate engraving; h. 14 ¹¹/₁₆ inches, w. 11 ¹⁵/₁₆ inches (engraved surface only). (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.)

Fitch intended to use this set of hangings as a model for another “sute of the Same which I shall wholly make up here.”57 Such lengthy correspondence suggests the importance of bed hangings in the eighteenth century. For Boston’s gentry they provided a symbol of status as well as comfort. Feather mattresses weighing up to sixty pounds, curtains with over thirty-five yards of expensive worsted material, and elaborately carved high-posted frames made beds the most costly objects in the colonial home.58

Fitch succeeded in business by capably serving an elite clientele. Evidence indicates that his apprentice, Samuel Grant, sought to do the same. In 1728 Grant had completed his indenture and was working at the Crown and Cushion in Union Street (fig. 24). Fitch helped him to begin business by selling him upholstery materials on credit. Of additional importance were the contacts that Grant had made while under his master’s guidance. After his apprenticeship he patronized a London upholsterer used by Fitch, employed the same chairmaker to make bedsteads and chair frames, and sold goods to many of the same persons.59 After his master’s death in 1736, Grant, in effect, inherited both the business and reputation of Thomas Fitch.

The scale of his activity, however, never reached the magnitude of his master’s enterprise. Grant never developed the extensive export trade which characterized Fitch’s career. Perhaps increasing competition from Newport and New York merchants impeded his chances of success in the coastal business. More likely he simply lacked the capital to finance a complex mercantile operation.

Grant rarely imported his textiles directly from English merchants. Whereas Fitch had dealt with as many as five London factors at one time, Grant requested upholstery from only one man and, in this case, the orders were small. Without a far-reaching export trade, Grant had no means of repaying English merchants with goods marketable in London. Fitch had sent furs from New York, tar from the Carolinas, logwood and sugar from the West Indies, and whalebone to his factors in England. He also collected bills of exchange from merchants in other areas which helped to pay for English textiles sent to Boston. Grant, on the other hand, conducted a small export trade along the Atlantic Coast. His only major commodity for shipment to England was beeswax. Consequently, he was forced to rely on merchant-middlemen in Boston for most of his goods. During the year 1732, he purchased upholstery materials, garlits (a coarse linen), and calicoes valued at £1597 from Charles Apthorp, a leading local importer. He also dealt with James Allen, Fitch’s son-in-law and a wealthy merchant, Jacob and John Wendell, two brothers in business together, and Samuel Cary, a ship captain. In repayment for textiles, these men accepted furniture and the services of an upholsterer. Between 1728 and 1740 Grant delivered 141 chairs to the Wendells, 214 to Apthorp, and 400 to Peter Faneuil, another prosperous importer. Most of these chairs were packed into boxes, loaded onto ships owned by the merchants, and sold at distant ports. Some were used to furnish ships’ cabins, while others were requested by the merchants for their own homes or those of relatives and friends. In 1732 James Allen ordered a bed, couch, easy chair, and twelve leather chairs for delivery to his brother, Jeremy Allen.60

24. Trade Card of Samuel Grant. Attributed to Thomas Johnston, Boston, 1736. Restrike of copperplate engraving; h. 4 inches, w. 6⅜ inches (engraved surface only). (American Antiquarian Society.)

Grant’s success as an upholsterer depended on his relationship with local merchants. From 1728 to 1740 his services were constantly in demand and, as a result, he never became a risk to his creditors. He profited by purchasing large quantities of textiles at wholesale prices and reselling them in small lots at higher rates. His charges for labor were minimal when compared to the costs of materials. On July 12, 1731, he billed Jacob and John Wendell for two easy chairs. The frames for each cost £1:17:6; the curled hair, feathers, linen ticking, and webbing for the understructure cost £2:5:8; the outer material and binding was £3:1:6; and the labor was £1:16:0.61 The labor charge amounted to only one-sixth of the total. The labor charge for a pillow, mattress, or bolster was even less. Grant billed George Rogers £12 for feather bedding which cost only £0:5:0 to make.62

Besides describing the business activities of Thomas Fitch and Samuel Grant, the account books provide insights into the popularity, appearance, and style of textiles and furniture. English worsteds were by far the most common textiles used in home furnishings. During a four-year span between 1728 and 1732, Grant used cheyney, a coarse-grained or ribbed worsted, for about ninety percent of his curtains and chair coverings. Ten years later harrateen,63 another worsted closely related to cheyney, superseded it. From 1738 to 1742 harrateen was employed for sixty percent of his furnishings. Cheyney dropped to about thirty percent during the same period and after 1742 disappeared almost altogether.

25. Easy Chair. Boston area, c. 1740–1765. Walnut, white pine, and English harrateen or moreen (original); h. 48 inches, w. 35¼ inches, d. 34 inches. (The Brooklyn Museum, Henry L. Batterman, Maria L. Emmons, and Charles Stewart Smith Memorial Funds.)

26. Detail of the Back of an Easy Chair. Boston area, c. 1750–1770. Mahogany, maple, and English harrateen or moreen (original); h. 46 inches, w. 33 inches, d. 26 inches. (The Bayou Bend Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.) For an overall view of the chair, see American Art: Furniture, Painting, and Silver in the Bayou Bend Collection (Houston, 1974), no. 89.

27. Fragment of a Bed Curtain. Salem or Boston, c. 1750–1770. English harrateen or moreen. (Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts.) According to family tradition, this curtain was owned by Daniel and Sarah Saunders of Salem who were married in 1770.

28. Armchair. Boston area, c. 1710–1725. Maple, red oak, and Russian leather (original); h. 35⅛ inches, w. 24 inches, d. 27½ inches. (The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.) Chairs covered with Russian leather were often sold by Thomas Fitch before 1725.

Today it is difficult to distinguish between these two fabrics. They are part of a group of heavy worsteds which include camlet and moreen. During the eighteenth century both were often decorated with watering, waving, and figuring (figs. 20 and 25). In watering, the cloth received a special preparation with water and then was passed under a hot press to give a smooth and glossy surface. Waving was done by rolling the cloth under an embossed cylinder to create a rippling design. Figuring was simply the stamping of flowers and figures onto the fabric by means of hot irons.64 These impressed patterns can easily be seen on the back of an easy chair at Bayou Bend (fig. 26) and on a fragment of a bed curtain at the Essex Institute (fig. 27). Both examples are red or crimson, the most common color named by Grant; blue, green, and yellow followed in popularity.

Boston upholsterers often covered their chairs in leather. Fitch and Grant used Russian and New England leather. The first, imported into this country through England, was common during the early years of the eighteenth century, but by 1725 had become difficult to obtain. On June 26, 1727, Fitch wrote to a Colonel Coddington in Massachusetts that he had “no Rushia leather Chairs nor other, nor Leather to make them of. Russhia Leather is so very high at home that It wont answer, If I had any they would Certainly be att Your Service. I think Mr Downs has New England red Leather, but there’s no Rushia in Town.”65

After 1730 Boston craftsmen turned primarily to New England leather. This material was usually made of seal or goat skins. Grant imported hundreds of seal skins which he sold to Joseph Calef, a local tanner. The skins were dyed black or red, cut into the shape of chair seats, and returned to Grant.

The account books of Thomas Fitch and Samuel Grant are most helpful in describing the styles of chairs made in Boston between 1720 and 1740. On May 4, 1720, Fitch charged Isaac Lopez £16:2:0 for “12 carvd Russhia Leather chairs & 1 elbow [chair].”66 The reference to carving suggests that these were in the William and Mary style. The large elbow chair may have been similar to an armchair in the Winterthur Museum which still retains its Russian leather upholstery (fig. 28). In 1724 Fitch began to sell crooked-back leather chairs without carving. These chairs, probably resembling a pair in a private collection (fig. 29), were often called Boston chairs and remained popular items for export during the following two decades.

29. Pair of Side Chairs. Boston area, c. 1710–1750. Maple, oak, and leather (original); h. 44⅝ inches, w. 18¾ inches, d. 15 inches. (Private collection, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: photo, Ginsburg and Levy, Inc., New York City.) Chairs of this type were sold by Thomas Fitch after 1724.

30. Armchair. New York, c. 1730–1750. Walnut and linen (not original); h. 36 inches, w. 26¼ inches, d. 23 inches. (The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.) This chair descended in the Tibbits family of New York. Chairs with similar round seats were sold by Samuel Grant in 1729.

Furniture in the Queen Anne style was introduced during the late 1720s. On October 14, 1729, Grant sold an upholstered chair of red cheyney, described as “New fashion round seat.”67 Such a chair was probably related in form to an example attributed to New York (fig. 30). The round seat reflected an increasing emphasis on the curved line, a chief characteristic of the new style. In 1730 Grant recorded the sale of a couch frame with “horsebone feet.”68 Apparently the term referred to a cabriole leg, perhaps with a notch near the bottom of the back of the leg resembling the indentation just above a horse’s hoof.69 On January 22, 1732, Grant charged the mercantile firm of Clark and Kilby £12 for “6 Leath Chairs maple frames hosbone round feet & Cusn Seats.”70 These chairs presumably had cabriole legs, pad feet, and slip seats. It seems likely that they also had straight stiles, curved crest rails, and vase-shaped splats or banisters, as they were often called. Grant, in April, 1732, billed John Breck, a cooper in the North End, for “8 Leathr Chairs horsebone feet & banist[er] backs.”71 Such chairs, no doubt, resembled one illustrated in a portrait of Mrs. Andrew Oliver and Son (fig. 31) by John Smibert. This important painting of the daughter of Thomas Fitch was completed only two months after Grant first mentioned the term “banister.”

Many examples of these Queen Anne chairs have survived. One with a history of ownership in the Boston area (fig. 32) is related in the shaping of the crest rail to Mrs. Oliver’s chair. In later versions of the form, the crest dips in the center to form a yoke (fig. 33).

Between 1732 and 1740 Grant continued to produce leather-backed William and Mary chairs, upholstered armchairs with cheyney and harrateen coverings, and Queen Anne chairs with solid splats. Occasionally embellishments were added to these forms. In 1733 Grant sold some chairs with claw feet. A year later he first produced ones with compass-shaped seats (fig. 34). Throughout the later period, however, he presented no radical changes in style, evidence of the continued popularity of earlier forms in Boston.

31. Mrs. Andrew Oliver and Son. Painted by John Smibert, Boston, 1732. Oil on canvas; h. 50½ inches, w. 40½ inches (excluding frame). (Collection of Andrew Oliver, Jr., Daniel Oliver, and Ruth F. O. Evans: photo, Frick Art Reference Library.)

32. Side Chair. Boston area, c. 1730–1750. Walnut and maple; h. 44½ inches, w. 19¼ inches, d. 21½ inches. (The Bayou Bend Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.) This chair is identical to one in a private collection with a history of ownership in the Boston area.

33. Side Chair. Boston, c. 1735–1760. Walnut; h. 40⅜ inches, w. 20⅜ inches, d. 16½ inches. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Herbert Edes, 36.21.) According to family tradition, this chair was owned by John Leach (1724–1799) of Boston.

34. Side Chair. Boston area, c. 1735–1760. Walnut and maple; h. 39¾ inches, w. 21½ inches, d. 16¼ inches. (Yale University Art Gallery, Mabel Brady Garvan Collection.) According to family tradition, this chair was owned by Edward Holyoke, President of Harvard College from 1737 to 1769.

This survey has focussed on Boston furniture craftsmen of the early eighteenth century and the objects they produced. In an industry with hundreds of workmen, many practiced specialized professions. Japanners, for example, were able to concentrate on the decoration of furniture and looking glasses, a very sophisticated specialty which required a large and wealthy clientele. No other city offered similar opportunities for specialization. Furthermore, as the Holmes accounts reveal, close contacts existed between rural and urban artisans in the Massachusetts Bay area, raising the question of how to discriminate between country and city cabinetwork. When men received materials from Boston, they may also have been given designs or patterns from their employer. Holmes provided sets of veneers to his workmen in Malden. These items, already cut into certain shapes, could easily have been used to build a standard chest or desk which differed little from Boston furniture. Perhaps with the discovery of more documented furniture from Boston and its environs, we may know how these rural examples compared with their urban counterparts.

The papers of Thomas Fitch and Samuel Grant attest to the importance of the upholsterer in colonial Boston. Both men supplied not only expensive and fashionable furnishings to wealthy patrons throughout Massachusetts but also cloth, metalwares, and a wide variety of other dry goods to shopkeepers and country traders. Their careers demonstrate the close connection between the merchant and upholstery trades. The study of eighteenth-century upholsterers, however, is just beginning. Much more data is needed on the less affluent workmen in Boston, Salem, Portsmouth, Newport, and other New England towns, before we can understand how Thomas Fitch and Samuel Grant compared in their craft activities and level of success with others in the upholstery trade.

Most importantly, this study has documented the genesis of the Queen Anne style in Boston. Grant first recorded the production of a chair with a round seat in 1729 and one with horsebone feet in 1732. In the same year, William Randle billed Nathaniel Holmes for japanning a pedimented high chest, the earliest reference to the new style in case furniture. The initial creations of horsebone feet and pedimented high chests were to flower in the following years into the sophisticated Queen Anne furniture for which Boston craftsmanship is famous.

1. Major regional studies are in chronological order by state: The Decorative Arts of New Hampshire 1725–1825 (Manchester, New Hampshire, 1964); The Decorative Arts of New Hampshire: A Sesquicentennial Exhibition (Concord, New Hampshire, 1973); Ralph E. Carpenter, Jr., The Arts and Crafts of Newport, Rhode Island, 1640–1820 (Newport, Rhode Island, 1954); The John Brown House Loan Exhibition of Rhode Island Furniture (Providence, Rhode Island, 1965); Three Centuries of Connecticut Furniture 1635–1935 (Hartford, Connecticut, 1935); Connecticut Furniture, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Hartford, Connecticut, 1967); Joseph Downs and Ruth Ralston, A Loan Exhibition of New York State Furniture (New York, 1934); V. Isabelle Miller, Furniture by New York Cabinetmakers, 1650–1860 (New York, 1956); New York Furniture before 1840 in the Collection of the Albany Institute of History and Art (Albany, 1962); Margaret E. White, Early Furniture Made in New Jersey, 1690–1870 (Newark, New Jersey, 1958); William M. Hornor, Jr., Blue Book, Philadelphia Furniture: William Penn to George Washington (Philadelphia, 1935); Baltimore Furniture: The Work of Baltimore and Annapolis Cabinetmakers from 1760 to 1810 (Baltimore, 1947); William Voss Elder iii, Maryland Queen Anne and Chippendale Furniture of the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore, 1968); E. Milby Burton, Charleston Furniture, 1700–1825 (Charleston, South Carolina, 1955).

2. Mabel Munson Swan wrote numerous articles on New England furniture of the eighteenth century. Her most important study of Boston is a two-part article entitled “Boston’s Carvers and Joiners,” Antiques, lii (March and April, 1948), 198–201, 281–285. Other material by Mabel Swan is cited in a bibliography at the end of this volume.

3. While Richard Randall has several outstanding articles to his credit (see the bibliography), his best-known work is American Furniture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 1965). This catalogue includes well-documented pieces of Boston furniture made throughout the century. Benno Forman and Vernon Stoneman have contributed specific studies on furniture produced at the beginning and end of the century, respectively. See Benno M. Forman, “Urban Aspects of Massachusetts Furniture in the Late Seventeenth Century,” Winterthur Conference Report 1969: Country Cabinetwork and Simple City Furniture (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1970); Vernon C. Stoneman, John and Thomas Seymour, Cabinetmakers in Boston, 1794–1816 (Boston, 1959) and A Supplement to John and Thomas Seymour, Cabinetmakers in Boston, 1794–1816 (Boston, 1966).

4. Gordon Saltar who spoke on wood analysis as an aid to the study of New England furniture submitted the most useful portions of his highly specialized paper for publication: a list of New England cabinet woods and an annotated bibliography on the identification of woods.

5. A side chair and lolling chair in the Winterthur Museum bear the stamps of Stephen Badlam, a cabinetmaker of Dorchester, and the unidentified S. F. Charles Montgomery speculated that S. F. may have been the initials of a Boston journeyman working for Badlam during the 1790s. A likely candidate is Samuel Fisk, a Boston cabinetmaker who died in 1797. Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture, the Federal Period in the Henry Francis du Font Winterthur Museum (New York, 1966), nos. 30, 110.

6. Some Cursory Remarks Made by James Birket in his Voyage to North America 1750–1751, ed. Charles M. Andrews (New Haven, 1916), p. 24.

7. In this paper no distinction is made between joiners known to have made furniture and cabinetmakers. For more information on the use of the two terms in colonial Boston, see Benno M. Forman, “Urban Aspects of Massachusetts Furniture in the Late Seventeenth Century,” Winterthur Conference Report 1969: Country Cabinetwork and Simple City Furniture (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1970), pp. 17–20.

8. An appendix at the back of this volume includes these workmen in a list of furniture craftsmen active in Boston during the eighteenth century. For comparable statistics for Philadelphia, see Arthur W. Leibundguth, “The Furniture-Making Crafts in Philadelphia, c. 1730–1760” (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1964), pp. 132–136.

9. Bernard and Lotte Bailyn, Massachusetts Shipping, 1697–1714: A Statistical Study (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 42–47, 49–50, 74–76; Wesley Frank Craven, The Colonies in Transition 1660–1713 (New York, 1968), pp. 307–310.

10. Thomas Hancock, Daybook, May 27 and December 29, 1738 (Baker Library, Harvard University).

11. Suffolk County Inferior Court of Common Pleas, Boston, Massachusetts, December 21, 1741 (hereafter Suffolk Common Pleas).

12. Ibid., January 18, 1750.

13. For example, see Peter Faneuil, Daybook, May 11, 1732, p. 389 (Baker Library, Harvard University).

14. Quoted in Richard H. Randall, Jr., “Boston Chairs,” Old-Time New England, liv (Summer, 1963), 12–13.

15. Ebenezer Call to William Call, Philadelphia, January 15, 1762, Gratz Papers (The Historical Society of Pennsylvania [photostat copy, Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum Libraries, Joseph Downs Manuscript Collection]).

16. Samuel Abbot, Account Book, 1754–1808, pp. 21–22, 41–42 (Baker Library, Harvard University).

17. It is possible that these chairs may also have been of Boston origin, since the term “Philadelphia chair” was a generic one for any type of Windsor chair.

18. In this context, “Laced” could either mean “diversified with streaks of color” (A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 10 vols. [Oxford, 1905], vi, part i, 11) or be an abbreviation for “lacquered.”

19. See accounts between Henchman and William Downe, a Boston upholsterer, xv, Domestic Bills, January 24, 1743, Hancock Papers (Baker Library, Harvard University). See also accounts between Bond and Thomas Gibbons and Lanier Kenn, two cabinetmakers in partnership, Suffolk Common Pleas, December 15, 1733.

20. For complete documentation on the shop locations of Boston’s furniture craftsmen, see Brock Jobe, “The Boston Furniture Industry 1725–1760” (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1975).

21. James A. Henretta, “Economic Development and Social Structure in Colonial Boston,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., xxii (January, 1965), 81–88.

22. Suffolk County Superior Court of General Sessions, Boston, Massachusetts, docket 21711.

23. Thomas B. Wyman, The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, 2 vols. (Boston, 1879), i, 381–395.

24. The only records documenting immigration into Boston between 1700 and 1760 are ship impost records for the years 1715 and 1716. These incomplete records list the names of eight newly arrived joiners and cabinetmakers from London, Bristol, Ireland, Barbados, Long Island, and North Carolina. Obviously, many others ventured to Boston, but unfortunately their names rarely appear in town records. A Volume of Records Relating to the Early History of Boston Containing Miscellaneous Papers, xxix (Boston, 1900), 229–242 (hereafter Miscellaneous Papers).

25. Andrew Burnaby, Travels Through the Middle Settlements in North-America in the Years 1759 and 1760, 2nd ed. (1775; rpt. Ithaca, New York, 1960), pp. 103–104. For information on the decline in trade, see Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness (1938; rpt. Oxford, 1971), pp. 303, 330–336.

26. E. Milby Burton, Charleston Furniture 1700–1825 (Charleston, 1955), p. 127.

27. Warham purchased goods from Samuel Gardner, a Boston shopkeeper, on October 9, 1724. See Suffolk Common Pleas, December 14, 1730.

28. Ibid., March 22, 1731, August 28, 1732.

29. Ibid., March 3, 1733.

30. Quoted in Burton, Charleston, p. 126.

31. Ibid., pp. 126–127.

32. For information pertaining to Holmes’s life, see George Arthur Gray, The Descendants of George Holmes of Roxbury 1594–1908 (Boston, 1908), pp. 16, 28–30.

33. Miscellaneous Papers, p. 223.

34. Thomas Atkins to Nathaniel Holmes, Boston, viii, Bills, March 16, 1748, Bourn Papers (Baker Library, Harvard University).

35. The inventory totalled £3885:0:3. Suffolk County Registry of Probate, Boston, Massachusetts, docket 15727 (hereafter Suffolk Probate Records).

36. The following information is based on accounts between Holmes and John Mudge, Jacob Burdit, and Mary Jackson, 55.523–525, 55.764.2 (Winterthur Libraries, Joseph Downs Manuscript Collection) and two folders of bills and receipts in the Bourn Papers, vi, Accounts Current 1727–1738, and viii, Bills 1728–1759 (Baker Library, Harvard University).

37. Birth records have only been found for Johnson, Mudge, Burdit, and Sherburne, all of whom were born after 1708. Woodward was called Holmes’s apprentice in 1736 and must have been in his early twenties when hired by his former master. Jeremiah Townsend to Nathaniel Holmes, Boston, vi, Accounts Current, February 1, 1739, Bourn Papers (Baker Library, Harvard University).

38. Thomas Sheraton, The Cabinet Dictionary (London, 1803), plate xv.

39. John Mudge to Nathaniel Holmes, Maiden, Massachusetts, January 6, 1738, 55.524 (Winterthur Libraries, Joseph Downs Manuscript Collection).

40. A desk at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has small arched drawers above the pigeonholes and a concealed well in the desk interior. See Richard H. Randall, Jr., American Furniture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 1965), fig. 55.

41. Richard Woodward to Nathaniel Holmes, Boston, vi, Accounts Current, December 12, 1737, Bourn Papers (Baker Library, Harvard University).

42. John Mudge to Nathaniel Holmes, Maiden, Massachusetts, January 6, 1738, 55.524 (Winterthur Libraries, Joseph Downs Manuscript Collection).

43. This is one of the earliest references to an American bureau table. According to Nancy Goyne Evans, the form did not become popular in New England until after 1750. Evidently Woodward constructed an elegant table, for he charged Holmes six pounds, a sum equivalent to that for a large desk. Richard Woodward to Nathaniel Holmes, Boston, vi, Accounts Current, December 12, 1737, Bourn Papers (Baker Library, Harvard University). See also Nancy Goyne Evans, “The Bureau Table in America,” Winterthur Portfolio III (Winterthur, Delaware, 1967), pp. 25–27.

44. Toes probably refer to the unusual adaptation of the Spanish foot seen on the japanned high chest made by John Pimm (fig. 37). Similar feet appear on dressing tables at Historic Deerfield and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

45. For genealogical material on Fitch, see Ezra S. Stearns, “The Descendants of Dea. Zachary Fitch of Reading,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, lv (July, 1901), 289, 291.

46. Fitch’s immense estate was never completely settled. He owned land in forty towns in addition to all of Gallops Island. Suffolk Probate Records, docket 6868.

47. In a letter of October 20, 1725, Fitch described Grant as “my Young man,” a phrase often used for an apprentice. Thomas Fitch to Silas Hooper, Boston, Fitch Letterbook (Massachusetts Historical Society).

48. For genealogical information on Grant, see W. Henry Grant, Ancestors and Descendants of Moses Grant and Sarah Pierce (Lebanon, Pennsylvania, n.d.), pp. 3, 9–10, 12.

49. No inventory was taken of Grant’s personal property and real estate. In his will he left £466:13:4 to his grandson, John Simpkins, £400 to his granddaughter, Mary Thatcher Simpkins, and cancelled the debts owed to him by his son-in-law, John Simpkins. The remainder of the bequest went to Moses Grant. Suffolk Probate Records, docket 18314.

50. The author is aware of ten volumes which span the first seventy years of the eighteenth century. For the purposes of this paper, only portions documenting business activities between 1720 and 1740 will be considered. See Thomas Fitch, Letterbook, 1702–1711 (American Antiquarian Society); Letterbook, 1714–1717 (New England Historic Genealogical Society); Letterbook, 1723–1733 (Massachusetts Historical Society); Account Book, 1719–1732 (Massachusetts Historical Society); Account Book, 1732–1736 (Massachusetts Historical Society); Samuel Grant, Account Book, 1728–1737 (Massachusetts Historical Society); Receipt Book, 1731–1740 (The Bostonian Society); Account Book, 1737–1760 (American Antiquarian Society); Petty Ledger, 1755–1762 (Boston Public Library); Petty Ledger, 1762–1771 (Boston Public Library).

51. Thomas Fitch to Isaac DeRiemer, Boston, August 7, 1704, Fitch Letterbook (American Antiquarian Society).

52. Thomas Fitch, Account Book, May 22, 1724, p. 281 (Massachusetts Historical Society).

53. Ibid., September 11, 1725, p. 351.

54. Thomas Fitch to John East, Boston, April 6, 1725, Fitch Letterbook (Massachusetts Historical Society).

55. Ibid., December 8, 1731.

56. Ibid., Thomas Fitch to Silas Hooper, Boston, December 15, 1725.

57. Ibid.

58. Florence M. Montgomery, Printed Textiles: English and American Cottons and Linens 1700–1850 (New York, 1970), pp. 49, 55–56.

59. The upholsterer was John East. See Samuel Grant, Account Book, April 11, 1735, p. 383 (Massachusetts Historical Society). The chairmaker was Edmund Perkins. See Thomas Fitch, Account Book, January 15, 1725, p. 312 (Massachusetts Historical Society); Samuel Grant, Account Book, February 12, 1730, p. 35 (Massachusetts Historical Society).

60. Samuel Grant, Account Book, February 4, 1732, p. 132 (Massachusetts Historical Society).

61. Ibid., July 12, 1731, p. 106.

62. Ibid., July 19, 1737, p. 590.

63. Harrateen had been in limited use in Boston from at least 1726. Thomas Fitch commented on the new fabric in that year, when he wrote to a patron in New York: “I concluded it would be difficult to get Such a Calliminco as you proposed to Cover the Ease Chair, and haveing a very Strong thick Harratine which is vastly more fashionable and handsome than a Calliminco I have sent you an Ease Chair Cover’d w[i]th sd Harrateen w[hi]ch I hope will Sute You.” Thomas Fitch to Madam Hooglant, Boston, March 9, 1726, Fitch Letterbook (Massachusetts Historical Society).

64. Abbott Lowell Cummings, Bed Hangings: A Treatise on Fabrics and Styles in the Curtaining of Beds 1650–1850 (Portland, Maine, 1961), p. 18.

65. Thomas Fitch to Colonel Coddington, Boston, June 26, 1727, Fitch Letterbook (Massachusetts Historical Society).

66. Thomas Fitch, Account Book, May 4, 1720, p. 84 (Massachusetts Historical Society).

67. Samuel Grant, Account Book, October 14, 1729, p. 29 (Massachusetts Historical Society).

68. Ibid., November 21, 1730, p. 65.

69. This notch is often seen on Boston furniture of the Queen Anne style. See, for example, a japanned high chest in the collection of the New Haven Colony Historical Society. Elizabeth Rhoades and Brock Jobe, “Recent Discoveries in Boston Japanned Furniture,” Antiques, cv (May, 1974), 1082–1091.

70. Samuel Grant, Account Book, January 22, 1732, p. 131 (Massachusetts Historical Society).

71. Ibid., April 29, 1732, p. 146.

72. Gertrude Z. Thomas, “Lacquer: Chinese, Indian, ‘Right’ Japan, and American,” Antiques, lxxix (June, 1961), 572–575. For information on Boston japanning, see Joseph Downs, “American Japanned Furniture,” Old-Time New England, xxviii (October, 1937), 61–67; Esther Stevens Brazer, “The Early Boston Japanners,” Antiques, xliii (May, 1943), 208–211; Richard H. Randall, Jr., American Furniture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 1965), pp. 66–68; Dean A. Fales, Jr., American Painted Furniture 1660–1880 (New York, 1972), pp. 58–69; and Sinclair Hitchings, “Thomas Johnston,” Boston Prints and Printmakers 1670–1775, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, xlvi (1973), 83–131.

73. Ralph Edwards, The Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture (London, 1964), pp. 327–331.

74. Illustrated in “Benjamin Bagnall of Boston, Clockmaker,” Old-Time New England, xxvi (July, 1935), 31; and Harvard Tercentenary Exhibition (Cambridge, 1936), no. 257, pl. 46.

75. This high chest was brought to my attention after completion of the article. Richard H. Randall, Jr., discusses and illustrates the chest in “William Randall, Boston Japanner,” Antiques, cv (May, 1974), 1127–1131.

76. Two signatures appear on one of the drawer dividers in the upper section. The featured one is “Robert Davis” and the other, in smaller script, appears to be “Re. Damini.” The initials “W R,” possibly those of William Randle, another Boston japanner, also appear on a drawer of the chest. This information was kindly provided by Brock Jobe. See Elizabeth Rhoades and Brock Jobe, “Recent Discoveries in Boston Japanned Furniture,” Antiques, cv (May, 1974), 1082–1091.

77. For more information on Brown and a copy of the advertisement, see David Hansen, “Gawen Brown, Soldier and Clockmaker,” Old-Time New England, xxx (July, 1939), 1–9.

78. See Helen Comstock, American Furniture (New York, 1962), fig. 187. The date 1766 on the Ford example appears to have been added to the nameplate, and the clock is probably earlier than this date—perhaps before 1752 when Brown had moved to King Street.

79. See Esther Stevens Fraser, “A Pedigreed Lacquered Highboy,” Antiques, xv (May, 1929), 398–401; and Joseph Downs, American Furniture, Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods in the Henry Francis du Font Winterthur Museum (New York, 1952), no. 188.

80. Other works include The Ladies Amusement, or Whole Art of Japanning Made Easy (London, n.d., c. 1760); and George Edwards and Mathias Darly, New Book of Chinese Designs (London, 1754).

81. For japanned English clocks with Boston-area histories, see Antiques, xliii (May, 1943), 209; Martha Gandy Fales, “Thomas Wagstaffe, London Quaker Clockmaker,” The Connoisseur, cli (November, 1962), 198–201; and Wallace Nutting, The Clock Book (Framingham, Massachusetts, 1924), fig. 80.

82. Thomas Johnston’s trade card is reproduced in Hitchings, “Thomas Johnston,” p. 87.

83. A good description of the earlier and later methods of japanning is found in [Thomas Dobson, comp.], Encyclopaedia; Or A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature (Philadelphia, 1798), ix, 72–76. For a later example with a Boston history, see Antiques, lxxxi (April, 1962), 346.

84. Comstock, American Furniture, fig. 174.

85. See Lawrence Shaw Mayo, The Winthrop Family in America (Boston, 1948); Frank Augustine Gardner, Gardner Memorial (Salem, 1933).

86. See Fales, American Painted Furniture, pp. 36–38; 62.

87. For more information on Johnston, see Sinclair Hitchings, “Thomas Johnston,” Boston Prints and Printmakers 1670–1775, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, xlvi (1973), 83–131.

88. For information on Pendleton, see Suffolk County Registry of Probate, Boston, Massachusetts, docket 3380; The Diary of Samuel Sewall, Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 5th ser., vi (1879), 333. For Hughes, see the 1726 volume of the records of the Suffolk County Inferior Court of Common Pleas, Boston, Massachusetts, pp. 45, 171. For references to Gore as a japanner, see Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, Boston, Massachusetts, lxxiv, 173–174, 200. See also George Francis Dow, The Arts and Crafts in New England 1704–1775 (1927; rpt. New York, 1967), pp. 239–243; William Whitmore, A Brief Genealogy of the Gore Family Especially in the Line of Gov. Christopher Gore (Boston, 1875), pp. 5–6.

89. Various details are quoted, for instance, in Mabel M. Swan’s article, “The Johnstons and the Reas—Japanners,” Antiques, xliii (May, 1943), 211–213.

90. Andrew Burnaby, Travels Through the Middle Settlements in North-America in the Years 1759 and 1760, 2nd ed. (1775: rpt. Ithaca, New York, 1960), p. 101.

91. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L. H. Butterfield, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1961), i, 294.

92. William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, ed. Joseph Burke (Oxford, 1955), p. 65. First published in 1753.

93. “Ogee” (or “OG”), according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a term of obscure derivation which was defined in eighteenth-century England as “a Moulding, somewhat resembling an S” (T.N. City and C. Purchaser), or more generally “Any curve or line having this form.”

94. In Newport cabinetmaker John Cahoone’s account book (Newport Historical Society), it appears from the prices paid for such items as “a mahogany OG Case of Draws” (mentioned on p. 38, 1754, and on p. 83, 1759)—being as much as half again as much as items listed as “a mahogany case of drawers”—they must have been singular in more than the moldings used. An oxbow or breasted front might be equally described by the general term “OG” but the blockfront, being by far the most common at that time, is more likely. No labelled furniture is known from the workshop of Cahoone or from those of the cabinetmakers employed by him. Another term which may have been used to describe the blockfront is “swell’d.” In a letter of 1763 (quoted by R. Peter Mooz, in “The Origins of Newport Block-Front Furniture Design,” Antiques, xcix [June, 1971], 882), John Goddard of Newport writes to a patron: “there is a sort which is called a Chest on Chest of Drawers & Sweld. front which are Costly as well as ornimental. . . .” Similarly, Thomas Wood of Charlestown, Massachusetts, used this term in his 1776 claim for restitution of property damaged by the British: “Three swell front Desks” (Mabel M. Swan, “Furnituremakers of Charlestown,” Antiques, xlvi [October, 1944], 204). Although “blocked” is the usual modern term applied to these facades, other terms have been applied. For instance, Percy Macquoid in his History of English Furniture, 4 vols. (London, 1906), iii, 49–52, figs. 39, 40, speaks of a (probably Boston) desk with “tubbed and recessed surfaces.”

95. The labelled John Townsend desk (Israel Sack, Inc., New York), the labelled Edmund Townsend kneehole bureau (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), and flat-façaded chests of drawers signed by Constant Bailey (in a private collection, North Carolina) and Benjamin Baker (Newport Restoration Foundation) all display this characteristic.

96. A blockfront desk with a history of ownership in Delaware, and probable manufacture in that state, is at Colonial Williamsburg. Although unorthodox in many of its details, the case construction is similar to that used in Newport.

97. Secondary woods are typically white pine for Boston, and chestnut or tulip wood for Newport. Newporters also generally favored a lighter tone to the mahogany in their facades. James Birket in Some Cursory Remarks Made . . . in his Voyage to North America 1750–1751, ed. Charles M. Andrews (New Haven, 1916), p. 24, noted of Boston in 1750, “but now their woods are very much Cut down and destroy’d and what they have is brought along way by land Carriage.” It seems reasonable to assume that the omnipresent white pine in Boston is a matter of choice as much as of convenience.

98. See Nancy Goyne Evans, “The Genealogy of a Bookcase Desk,” Winterthur Portfolio 9 (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1974), pp. 213–222.

99. Job Coit, Sr., was born in 1692, and is known to have been working in Boston by 1718. His business was located on Ann Street in 1731, and he died in 1742.

100. It has been thought that the West Indies in general, and Havana in particular, were a source for baroque-inspired blockfronted pieces in North America. Wendell Garrett, “Speculations on the Rhode Island Block-Front in 1928,” Antiques, xcix (June, 1971), 887–891. There are other closer and earlier precedents than the Havana cathedral furniture, but the idea might well have migrated from Europe via the West Indies as easily as via Great Britain.

101. Charles Townsend, 1375 to 1897: The Direct Ancestry and Posterity of Judge Charles Townsend, A Pioneer of Buffalo, New York (Orange, New Jersey, 1897), p. 29; Charles Townsend Rich, Genealogy of the Townsend Family (Buffalo, 1877), p. 17.

102. Jeremiah must have known Rebecca before she was widowed, as he removed from Boston to New Haven in 1739 and she was not widowed until 1745.

103. The Newport Townsends spring from a triumvirate of brothers, John, Henry, and Richard, of Norfolk, England; the Boston Townsends trace their lineage to Thomas of Gedding, Suffolk.

104. Ingraham still owned property in Boston until 1752. See the settlement of the estate of Lydia Coit, Suffolk County Registry of Probate, Boston, Massachusetts, docket 9797 (hereafter Suffolk Probate Records).

105. The former is on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the latter is at Historic Deerfield.

106. See the frontispiece of Antiques, lxxxvi (October, 1964), 430–431; also Mooz, “Origins of Newport Block-Front Furniture Design,” pp. 882–886. The men who are known to have made blockfronts, John Townsend, Edmund Townsend, and probably John Goddard, were not born until 1733, 1736, and 1724, respectively. There is no evidence that the older generation, Christopher and Job Townsend, made blockfronts.

107. The drawer construction and protruding drawer dividers are unusual but not unknown in Boston. The distinctive solution to the problem of joining the walnut frame to the secondary wood on the case bottom is not used in other examples known to the author.

108. Thomas Cushing, Jr., Waste Book, September 8, 1739 (Baker Library, Harvard University).

109. Pegs anchoring a mortise and tenon joint are uncommon at this date (c. 1740) in an urban area and a Queen Anne design.

110. 63 × 69 (Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum Libraries, Joseph Downs Manuscript Collection).

111. There is a small group of related examples. See Frances Clary Morse, Furniture of the Olden Times, 2nd ed. (New York, 1917), p. 34. A high chest illustrated in Antiques, c (July, 1971), 13, has similar decorative motifs.

112. There is, however, one reference to a Joseph Davis in 1742 who is paid five shillings by Katherine Davis, widow and executrix of James Davis, a blockmaker of Boston. This list of disbursements also includes three pounds paid to Job Coit for a coffin. Suffolk Probate Records, docket 6911.

113. There is an unblocked Boston desk and bookcase at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (figs. 70 and 71), roughly contemporary with the Coit-Davis products, which possibly shows the very finest of contemporary cabinetwork—that which served as their model. Several design motifs which are executed here are abbreviated by Coit and Davis: the inlaid stars (in the M.F.A. desk, in tricolor and two parts; in the Davis, simplified), the fans above the bookcase section (in the M.F.A. desk, carved in undulating three dimensions; in the Coit, flattened in inlay), the scribe line around the bonnet (in the M.F.A. desk, in two-color inlay; in the Coit, a simple incised line), the amphitheater desk interior (greatly simplified in the Coit), and the round-capped recessed interior blocking (in the M.F.A. desk, a minor feature; in the Coit, the central feature).

114. They are owned by Yale, Ginsburg and Levy, Inc., New York, and John S. Walton, Inc., New York. They are made of mahogany or walnut with unusual secondary woods: the Ginsburg and Levy interior is red cedar, Yale’s is white oak and chestnut. Walton’s has the usual white pine, but lacks the doors over the upper set of drawers. The Ginsburg and Levy chest has mirrored doors, a drop below the bottom front, and a molding between the top and bottom halves; the other two lack these additions. A similar example with inlaid stars, side columns, and a bonnet top is owned by the Henry Ford Museum.

115. “It is thought by the family that this piece was made for Dr. John Sprague of Dedham, and it is known to have descended in the Swett and Green families. Samuel Swett, of Boston, married Elizabeth Sprague in 1800.” Letter to the author from Hazel Kimball of John Walton, Inc., March 2, 1973.

116. As the chest-on-chests in this form are approximately of the same vintage, the link between the makers is more likely to be a matter of style distribution than of apprenticeship.

117. There were three cabinetmakers of this name, living respectively 1708–1765, 1734–1809, and 1774–1832. The label on this chest is that of the second of the name. See Thomas B. Wyman, The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, 2 vols. (Boston, 1879), i, 381–395.

118. According to a checklist of cabinetmakers in the American Decorative Arts Department, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Treadwell was working in Beverly in 1799.

119. Stamping, although known in France, is uncommon in America until the late eighteenth century when it was used by French emigré cabinetmakers and Windsor chairmakers to identify their widely distributed wares.

120. Watson was working between 1737 and 1762 and possibly to 1790. See Dean A. Fales, Jr., Essex County Furniture: Documented Treasures from Local Collections 1660–1860 (Salem, Massachusetts, 1965), fig. 44; Benno M. Forman, “Salem Tradesmen and Craftsmen Circa 1762: A Contemporary Document,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, cvii (January, 1971), 65, 73.

121. Samuel Chamberlain, Salem Interiors: Two Centuries of New England Taste and Decoration (New York, 1950), p. 85; Fales, Essex County Furniture, fig. 44.

122. Richard H. Randall, Jr., American Furniture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 1965), fig. 41.

123. A blockfront chest-on-chest signed by Nathan Bowen of Marblehead and dated 1774 fits into this period as well. See Richard H. Randall, Jr., “An Eighteenth Century Partnership,” The Art Quarterly, xxiii (Summer, 1960), 153–161.

124. Another of the many examples of this form is to be found in the Bennington Museum, Bennington, Vermont.

125. It bears the names “E. Wasgatt,” “Sarah Hayes Wasgatt,” and “Mary Wasgatt.” They were the daughters of Thomas Wasgatt of Maine; “E. Wasgatt,” Eunice, married David Bradstreet of Mount Desert in 1792, so this desk must predate that marriage. It is now in the Garvan Collection at Yale.

126. The fall front and central interior fan-carved door are new, the bottom of the case has been replaced in part (the front four inches are new). The brasses have been changed twice.

127. This desk differs in construction with a high chest signed by Frothingham in the Winterthur Museum. See, in particular, the dovetails and drawer runners—the latter in the Deerfield desk have vertical insets, a very unusual feature.

128. In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is a desk almost identical in form and construction.

129. William Claggett, clockmaker, moved from Boston to Newport in 1726. James Franklin, the brother of Benjamin Franklin, moved his printing business to Newport in 1727. Samuel Casey, a silversmith of Rhode Island, served his apprenticeship in Boston and set up shop outside Newport about 1750, to mention a few examples.

130. Godfrey Malbone and the Deblois family maintained large commercial establishments in both cities.

131. Abraham Redwood, Letterbook, iii, 7 (Newport Historical Society). See also William Ellery, Daybook, 1737, folio 72 (Newport Historical Society): “Father Almy [kin to Townsend cabinetmakers] to 1 barrell of Loaf sugar bought for you in Boston by Greenleaf £28:3:8; to a Try ton painting & carting £13: 15:6.”

132. Ezra Stiles, Miscellany, 1758–1762, p. 339, undated entry probably 1762 (Beinecke Library, Yale University). Several accounts, such as those found in the Jonathan (?) Marsh Account Book (Newport Historical Society)—where notations for 1754, 1755, and 1764 suggest that the scope of the Newport meeting was enlarged to include delegates from the Jerseys, Philadelphia, and England—attest to the accuracy of Stiles’s report.

133. The signature on this piece is a gouged “H x Rust” on the bottom of the case—an unusual but not implausible means of identification (fig. 85).

134. In the registrar’s files at the Winterthur Museum there is a photograph of this desk (c. 1870) with the captions: “Great Grandfather Joseph Waters’s Desk: sold by Sarah W.” and “From Cousin Fitz. Photo of Great Grandfather Waters’s Desk and Bookcase. Molly Mott leaning against it, Waters’ House, Washington Square [Salem].” See Joseph Downs, American Furniture, Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods in the Henry Francis du Font Winterthur Museum (New York, 1952), no. 225.

135. It bears the inscription “William H. Allen,” probably a nineteenth-century owner of the desk.

136. According to The Centennial of the Social Circle in Concord (Cambridge, 1882), p. 114, Joseph Hosmer’s father, James, “purchased . . . the farm belonging to Joseph Shevally, a Frenchman, who married his cousin Sarah Hosmer. . . . Robert Rosier, a Frenchman, married Mary Chevally, and lived near the bridge. . . . He was a very excellent cabinetmaker, and Major Hosmer learned his trade from him.”

137. Cited (no source given) in a letter to the author from Amelia F. Emerson, March, 1972.

138. See Kenneth Scott and Russell H. Kettell, “Joseph Hosmer, Cabinetmaker,” Antiques, lxxiii (April, 1958), 356–359.

139. The Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor, 4 vols. (Boston, 1881), ii, 121–122 fn.

140. Eliza Susan Quincy, “Memoir,” i, 54 (Massachusetts Historical Society).

141. Josiah Quincy’s inventory of 1784 includes “1 Chest of old fineered Draws 24 [shillings],” and “1 Japan Chest Draws 36 [shillings].” The japanned chest is still in the house. Suffolk Probate Records, docket 18158.

142. “List of Pictures and Furniture etc. in the House built 1770 in 1879, by Eliza Susan Quincy,” pp. 32–33 (current location unknown [photostat copy, Winterthur Libraries, Joseph Downs Manuscript Collection]).

143. Similar carving is found on the feet and drop of several other Boston-area blocked casepieces, including a small chest owned by Ginsburg and Levy, Inc., and the desk and bookcase illustrated in figure 83.

144. At this date, there is only one known example of American bombé furniture that probably originated from outside the Boston area, a bombé dressing table probably from New Hampshire. See Samuel Chamberlain, Salem Interiors: Two Centuries of New England Taste and Decoration (New York, 1950), p. 37.

145. Quoted in Survey of London: Spitalfields and Mile End New Town, xxvii (London, 1957) 293. Courtesy of Mr. Benno M. Forman.

146. Mabel M. Swan, “Furnituremakers of Charlestown,” Antiques, xlvi (October, 1944), 203–204.

147. Desmond Fitz-Gerald, Georgian Furniture (London, 1969), fig. 11.

148. Chippendale also imported French furniture; Edward Joy in an article in Country Life, cx (August, 1951), 569, draws attention to Chippendale’s attempt to avoid the English customs.

149. The London cabinetmaker Samuel Bennett labelled a bombé desk and bookcase (c. 1720) that is illustrated in Percy Macquoid and Ralph Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, 2nd ed., rev., 3 vols. (London, 1954), i, 136.

150. Suffolk County Registry of Probate, Boston, Massachusetts, docket 11871 (hereafter Suffolk Probate Records).

151. Quoted in James H. Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts (Boston, 1910), p. 352.

152. Joseph W. P. Frost, “Living with Antiques, Pepperrell Mansion, Kittery Point, Maine,” Antiques, lxxxix (March, 1966), 370.

153. Abbott Lowell Cummings, “The Foster-Hutchinson House,” Old-Time New England, liv (Winter, 1964), 59–76.

154. World Furniture, ed. Helena Hayward (London, 1965), p. 167.

155. Hans Huth, “Roentgens—Cabinet-Makers,” The Connoisseur, xcii (August, 1933), 85–91.

156. For an illustration of the Cade brand, see American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, 3 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1969), ii, 340. “G. CADE” may refer to George Cade (1739–1789), a Boston ropemaker, or to his son, George Cade, Jr. (before 1769–1805), also a local ropemaker. The younger Cade’s inventory included “1 Old Desk” valued at $2.00. If, in fact, Cade did own the bombé desk, then it probably passed to the Plympton family soon after his death in 1805. An inscription on the desk reads, “Augusta P. Plympton, Decr[?] 27 1830 / Formerly property of Dr. Plympton, Waban.” For further information on the Cade and Plympton families, see Suffolk Probate Records, dockets 19402, 22390; A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Statistics of the United States’ Direct Tax of 1798, As Assessed in Boston, xxii (Boston, 1892), 72, 306, 482; John Adams Vinton, The Richardson Memorial (Portland, Maine, 1876), p. 272.

157. Quoted in Anthony Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture (New York, 1968), p. 23.

158. The IId. Edition of Genteel Household Furniture in the Present Taste with an Addition of Several Articles Never Before Executed (London, n.d.), plates xliv, xlv, lxxxviii.

159. Mario Praz, An Illustrated History of Furnishing (New York, 1964), p. 105, fig. 64.

160. For photographs of the bas-relief in the Salon de la Guerre, see André Pératé, Versailles: Le Château, Les Jardins, Les Trianons, Le Musée, La Ville (Paris, 1905), pp. 39, 41; Key Monuments of the History of Architecture, ed. Henry A. Millon (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and New York, 1964), p. 402.

161. Pierre Verlet, French Royal Furniture (London, 1963), p. 8.

162. Other examples are owned by John Walton, Inc., New York, and the Sargent-Murray-Gilman-Hough House, Gloucester, Massachusetts. See also Wallace Nutting, Furniture Treasury (1928; rpt. New York, 1954) figs. 3206, 3210.

163. Ethel Hall Bjerkoe, The Cabinetmakers of America (Garden City, New York, 1957), p. 49.

164. Mabel M. Swan, “Boston’s Carvers and Joiners, Part ii, Post-Revolutionary,” Antiques, liii (April, 1948), 281–285; Richard H. Randall, Jr., “George Bright, Cabinetmaker,” The Art Quarterly, xxvii (1964), 134–149.

165. M. Ada Young, “Five Secretaries and the Cogswells,” Antiques, lxxxviii (October, 1965), 484–485.

166. Joseph Downs, “John Cogswell, Cabinetmaker,” Antiques, lxi (April, 1952), 324.

167. Two heavily restored secretaries with structural features similar to the Cogswell casepieces are now in the Winterthur Museum. Both secretaries have unusual upper sections, much different in appearance from the documented Cogswell chest. However, the structural similarities in the desk sections suggest attributions to Cogswell. See figure 135 and Joseph Downs, American Furniture, Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods in the Henry Francis du Font Winterthur Museum (New York, 1952), no. 227.

168. The Gay family desk and bookcase (fig. 131), attributed to Gibbs Atkins, has slanted drawer sides; the overlapping drawer front is cut to follow the contour of the sides of the case.

169. Both secretaries also have a strong relationship with the desk and bookcase made by George Bright. Until the history of both Atkins’ and B right’s apprenticeships and their respective cabinetshops is determined, I am attributing the Gay and Atkins family desks to Gibbs Atkins.

170. Mabel M. Swan, “Furniture of the Boston Tories,” Antiques, xli (March, 1942), 187.

171. Stark, Loyalists, p. 323.

172. Another bombé desk and bookcase at the Metropolitan Museum also has a tradition of being owned by William Greenleaf. However, Greenleaf’s inventory (Bristol County Registry of Probate, Taunton, Massachusetts, xl, 173) lists only one desk and bookcase (valued at $53). The Metropolitan’s desk has no proven family history, though an extraneous letter in their files mentions that a desk was owned by William Greenleaf and lent to George Washington when he resided at the Vassall-Longfellow House in Cambridge (Daniel Greenleaf to William Pope, Quincy, Massachusetts, July 1, 1838 [American Wing, Metropolitan Museum of Art]). Since the desk and bookcase at the Whaling Museum has a documented history through the Greenleaf family and since the Metropolitan’s letter of documentation is not tied directly to its desk, I feel that the Whaling Museum’s desk was probably the one owned by William Greenleaf.

173. A partial view of the desk and bookcase appears in an 1880s photograph of the left parlor of the Josiah Quincy House, Quincy, Massachusetts, on file in the library of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston, Massachusetts.

174. Sack, Fine Points, p. 161, bottom.

175. Antiques, lxiii (May, 1953), 385. Another Massachusetts bombé tea caddy made of mahogany and white pine is illustrated in Israel Sack, Inc., Opportunities in American Antiques, xxii (November, 1972), 43.

176. Benno M. Forman, “Salem Tradesmen and Craftsmen Circa 1762: A Contemporary Document,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, cvii (January, 1971), 81.

177. Rust was working in Salem from 1762, removed to Boston by 1773, and was located in Beverly in 1782. He later returned to Salem where he died about 1800. Henry Wyckoff Belknap, Artists and Craftsmen of Essex County, Massachusetts (Salem, 1927), p. 68; Forman, “Salem Tradesmen and Craftsmen,” p. 65.

178. Rust’s only dated piece of furniture is a desk which bears the inscription: “This desk Made By Henry Rust of Salem / Salem, New England / One Thousand seven Hundred and Seventy.” Sack, Opportunities, xxii (November, 1972), 28–29.

179. See also a desk illustrated by Ginsburg and Levy, Inc., Antiques, xlvi (November, 1944), 255.

180. Quoted in Richard H. Randall, Jr., “George Bright, Cabinetmaker,” The Art Quarterly, xxvii (1964), 136, 138.

181. For an illustration of the serpentine-front bombé chest, see Edwin J. Hipkiss, Eighteenth-Century American Arts, The M. and M. Karolik Collection (Cambridge, 1941), fig. 35.

182. Joseph Downs, American Furniture, Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods in the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum (New York, 1952), no. 55.

183. See also F. Lewis Hinckley, Directory of the Historic Cabinet Woods (New York, 1960), pp. 120, 133.

184. Mabel M. Swan, “Boston’s Carvers and Joiners, Part i, Pre-Revolutionary,” Antiques, liii (March, 1948), 198.

185. Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, Boston, Massachusetts, xlvii, 196 (hereafter Suffolk Deeds).

186. Swan, “Boston’s Carvers and Joiners, Part i,” p. 198.

187. Suffolk Deeds, lviii, 4–6; lxvi, 194–195.

188. Quoted in Swan, “Boston’s Carvers and Joiners, Part i,” p. 199.

189. Ibid.; The Boston News-Letter, April 20, 1758; The Boston Gazette, April 24, 1758.

190. Suffolk County Registry of Probate, Boston, Massachusetts, docket 19253 (hereafter Suffolk Probate Records).

191. Ibid.

192. The Boston News-Letter, April 20, 1758; The Boston Gazette, April 24, 1758.

193. Suffolk Deeds, cxxvi, 121.

194. “Assessors’ ‘Taking Books’ of the Town of Boston, 1780,” The Bostonian Society, Publications, ix (1912), 33.

195. A Volume of Records Relating to the Early History of Boston Containing Miscellaneous Papers, xxix (Boston, 1900), 16–17.

196. Swan, “Boston’s Carvers and Joiners, Part i,” p. 199.

197. Suffolk Probate Records, docket 23075.

198. Leroy L. Thwing, “The Four Carving Skillins,” Antiques, xxxiii (June, 1938), 327.

199. Suffolk Deeds, xxxiv, 112–113.

200. Suffolk Probate Records, docket 9826.

201. Suffolk Probate Records, docket 9902.

202. A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Boston Town Records, 1770 through 1777, xviii (Boston, 1887), 276–277.

203. “Assessors’ ‘Taking Books’,” p. 25.

204. Mabel M. Swan, “Major Benjamin Frothingham, Cabinetmaker,” Antiques, lxii (November, 1952), 392–395.

205. A summary of Frothingham’s military exploits and the earliest notes on his life are found in Dexter Edwin Spalding, “Benjamin Frothingham of Charlestown, Cabinetmaker and Soldier,” Antiques, xiv (December, 1928), 536–537. Frothingham’s certificate of membership in the Society of the Cincinnati, signed by George Washington and Henry Knox and dated May 5, 1784, has survived and is presently owned by Ginsburg and Levy, Inc., New York.

206. Clement E. Conger and Jane W. Pool, “Americana in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the Department of State, Washington, D.C.,” The Connoisseur, clxxiv (July, 1970), 220, figs. 7, 8.

207. I would like to acknowledge the great help of Albert Sack in acquiring photographs and information for this paper. His many years of observing details in furniture related to Frothingham have been of signal help, as has the firm’s photograph collection.

208. Helen Comstock, “Frothingham and the Question of Attributions,” Antiques, lxiii (June, 1953), 502, fig. 3 showing signature; see also Charles F. Hummel, “Queen Anne and Chippendale Furniture in the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Part iii,” Antiques, xcix (January, 1971), 98–101.

209. Joseph Downs, American Furniture, Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods in the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum (New York, 1952), no. 349.

210. Swan, “Major Benjamin Frothingham,” p. 393.

211. Ibid.

212. Ibid., p. 392.

213. The information and photographs were kindly supplied by Clement Conger, Chairman of the Fine Arts Committee, the Department of State, Washington, D.C.

214. Two Spragues are known to have worked in the cabinet business in Boston at later dates, one of whom, Holmes Sprague, is recorded as working after the Revolution. See Mabel M. Swan, “Boston’s Carvers and Joiners, Part ii, Post-Revolutionary,” Antiques, liii (April, 1948), 285.

215. This desk was sold in the Philip Flayderman sale of January 2–4, 1930. See The Collection of the Late Philip Flayderman (New York, 1930), lot 418.

216. Ethel Hall Bjerkoe, The Cabinetmakers of America (Garden City, New York, 1957), plate xviii, no. 2.

217. Wallace Nutting, Furniture Treasury (1928; rpt. New York, 1954), figs. 718, 719.

218. Helen Comstock, American Furniture (New York, 1962), fig. 304.

219. The interior is shown by Spalding, “Frothingham,” p. 537, fig. 3.

220. Richard H. Randall, Jr., American Furniture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 1965), fig. 64d.

221. Swan, “Major Benjamin Frothingham,” p. 395.

222. For illustrations of the chest and label, see Margaret Rose Ingate, “History in Towns: Mobile, Alabama,” Antiques, lxxxv (March, 1964), 309. For illustrations of the Walter Frothingham chest, see Comstock, “Frothingham and the Question of Attributions” p. 505, figs. 13, 14.

223. Antiques, Lxii (November, 1952), frontispiece. This type of richly carved fan exists in a number of Boston examples including the Hancock dressing table, now in the John Hancock Insurance Company Collection (Albert Sack, Fine Points of Furniture: Early American [New York, 1950], p. 198, bottom); a pad-foot high chest now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Luke Vincent Lockwood, Colonial Furniture in America, 3rd ed., 2 vols. [New York, 1926], i, 97, fig. 94); and a blockfront chest-on-chest (Lockwood, Colonial Furniture, i, 360, fig. xxvii); all perhaps by the same carver.

224. Swan, “Major Benjamin Frothingham,” p. 394 showing inscription.

225. Randall, American Furniture, p. 239.

226. Flayderman, lot 417.

227. Bjerkoe, Cabinetmakers, plate xvii, no. 2.

228. The information was kindly supplied by Barry Greenlaw, Curator of Furniture at Colonial Williamsburg. For further information and illustrations, see Barry Greenlaw, New England Furniture at Colonial Williamsburg (Williamsburg, 1974), no. 98.

229. Swan, “Major Benjamin Frothingham,” p. 395.

230. General Henry Knox to Benjamin Frothingham, Charlestown, January 16, 1797, Henry Knox Papers (Maine Historical Society). Courtesy of Earle Shettleworth.

231. Quoted in Swan, “Major Benjamin Frothingham,” p. 394.

232. Quoted in Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, 3rd ed. (Boston, 1891), pp. 40–41.

233. Suffolk County Registry of Probate, Boston, Massachusetts, docket 20668.

234. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L. H. Butterfield, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1961), ii, 114.

235. A vendue announcement appears in The Boston Gazette, November 21–28, 1737; an advertisement by the merchant Nathaniel Cunningham appears in The Boston Evening-Post, September 6, 1742.

236. William Douglass, A Summary, Historical and Political, of the First Planting, Progressive Improvements, and Present State of the British Settlements in North-America, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London, 1755), ii, 61.

237. Documents and Correspondence in the Boston Public Library Concerning the Boston Fire of 1760, part ii, document 29 (microfilm copy, Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum Libraries, Joseph Downs Manuscript Collection).

238. Adams Diary, ed. Butterfield, i, 228. See also Douglass, A Summary, ii, 66.

239. George B. Emerson, A Report on the Trees and Shrubs Growing Naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts (Boston, 1846), p. 60.

240. Benno M. Forman, “Mill Sawing in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts,” Old-Time New England, lx (Spring, 1970), 118–120.

241. Douglass, A Summary, ii, 54.

* Spruce wood, though little used in the construction of furniture, has long been a favorite in the making of musical instruments, especially sounding boards, for it has exceptional resonance. All of these trees ranged through all of the New England states.