RICHARD H. RANDALL, JR.

Benjamin Frothingham

SO few American cabinetmakers have left behind a broad variety of signed work that the picture of normal daily production cannot be easily examined by the student. William Savery of Philadelphia, John Townsend of Newport, and Benjamin Frothingham of Charlestown are three major exceptions in the eighteenth century, each having liberally labelled his furniture, while others as competent did not seem to do so. Among the many famous cabinetmakers of Boston, like John Cogswell, George Bright, and Ebenezer Hartshorne, sometimes only one or two pieces have retained signatures or maker’s marks, while in the case of Alexander Edwards, who paid as high a tax as Bright, not a single example is known. The signed furniture of Benjamin Frothingham is, therefore, worth considering as giving the broadest view of a typical workshop of the Boston region in the eighteenth century.

Benjamin Frothingham (April 6, 1734 – August 19, 1809) was the son of the joiner Benjamin Frothingham (1708–1765) of Boston. The father had a shop in Milk Street, recorded to have burned in the great fire of March 20, 1760, and presumably the younger Benjamin was trained in that shop. In 1756, our Benjamin Frothingham bought a parcel of land in Charlestown where he seems to have been established from at least 1754 until his death in 1809.204 At the time of the Revolution, his shop in Walker Street was one of twenty-nine cabinetmakers’ establishments which were destroyed when the town of Charlestown was burned by the British on June 17, 1775. He was a member of Captain Gridley’s militia from 1754 and served in the Revolution becoming a major by war’s end. He retained the title of “Major” all his life, and it has often been noted that George Washington visited Frothingham, “whom he had known in the army,” in 1789 in Charlestown. The cabinetmaker was also a member of the Society of the Cincinnati.205 His wife was Mary Deland by whom he had seven children, one of whom, Benjamin (born 1774), followed the family trade.

154. High Chest. Made by Benjamin Frothingham (signature in chalk), Charlestown, c. 1755–1790. Mahogany and white pine; h. 87⅜ inches, w. 42 inches, D. 22⅛ inches. (The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.) This chest and matching dressing table (fig. 155) may have been owned by Nathaniel Richards (1712–1788), an innholder and saddler of Roxbury. His name appears in chalk on the bottom of the long drawer in the lower section.

The example of John Townsend’s labelled furniture gives fair warning to all who would date furniture purely on the basis of style, since his work includes pieces in the styles of the mid-century dated in the 1790s. His three-shell chest in the Metropolitan Museum (fig. 49) is dated 1765, for instance, and a second labelled three-shell chest, now in the State Department, is dated 1792.206 There are minor concessions to the new neoclassicism, in the choice of plain bail handles and a slight change of proportion and lightening of the moldings of the top, but the answer to dating furniture probably lies in the taste of the man who commissioned it, not in the taste of the cabinetmaker.

Hence, the furniture of Frothingham to be examined is placed in the order of stylistic sequence for simplicity, with no intention of implying dates, early or late. The first examples to consider are in the pad-foot cabriole style of the mid-century.207 There is a dressing table and matching high chest of drawers, now in the Winterthur Museum and formerly in the Charles K. Davis Collection, with simple cabriole legs and “plain feet,” as they were called (figs. 154 and 155). Each piece has a nicely executed fan in one drawer, the proportions are good, and the high chest terminates in a well-shaped bonnet with three corkscrew finials. The pieces are made of an unusual burl wood, formerly called curly walnut, but now identified as a type of plum pudding mahogany. The wood is very beautiful and gives considerable interest to the surface, as do the pierced fret brasses on the drawers. Two of the brasses are unusual in that they are stamped clearly on the lower edge of the face “I. Gold,” presumably the name of the maker or supplier. Interior construction is of white pine throughout. One drawer in the high chest is signed in chalk: “Benjamin Frothingham” and “Nathanael Richards” (probably the name of the owner).208

In the cabriole style are two examples at Winterthur having claw feet with raked talons, typical of the Boston region. One is a card table with reverse blocked sides, nicely emphasizing the corners of the table and accommodating the candle pockets (fig. 156). The legs are long and lean with a sophisticated curve and unusually delicate ankles. The piece is labelled in the drawer with one of the labels engraved for Frothingham by Nathaniel Hurd, the silversmith of Boston (fig. 157). Its secondary woods are white pine and maple.209

The second claw table at Winterthur is unusual in itself, since so few of the type survive (fig. 158). It is a six-legged claw foot dining table with two swinging gates to support each large leaf. It is built of light-hued mahogany with white pine and maple as its secondary woods, and is labelled beneath with Hurd’s paper label. The legs are well shaped, but not as delicate as those of the card table, nor are the carved talons as acutely raked.210

Two secretaries with plain bracket feet number among Frothingham’s labelled works. One is made of cherry, an unusual wood in Boston-area practice, and was formerly in the collection of Ernest Lo Nano (fig. 159). The base has a straight front, and the bookcase top has doors with fielded panels terminating in flattened arches. The bonnet top resembles the Winterthur high chest with three corkscrew finials. The interior of the bookcase is divided into eight compartments with two rows of eight ogee-headed pigeonholes above. The desk interior has three reverse blocked sections, containing drawers at each end and a central door, each carved with a fan at the top (fig. 160). These, like the fans of the Davis-Winterthur examples, have a notched or as it is sometimes called a “thumbprint” profile. There are two round-headed pigeonholes between, with a blocked drawer below. The bracket feet have a simple single spur for decoration.211

155. Dressing Table. Attributed to Benjamin Frothingham, Charlestown, c. 1755–1790. Mahogany and white pine; h. 31½ inches, w. 33⅞ inches, d. 20¾ inches. (The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.) This table is a mate to the chest illustrated in fig. 154.

156. Card Table. Made by Benjamin Frothingham (paper label), Charlestown, c. 1755–1790. Mahogany, white pine, and maple; h. 28 inches, w. 34⅛ inches, d. 16¾ inches (closed), 33½ inches (open). (The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.) See also fig. 157.

The second secretary, belonging to William T. Earls in 1952, is rather similar (fig. 161). It is broader in proportion and made of mahogany, but the details of the bookcase interior, the desk, and the feet are nearly identical. It is furnished with only a single middle finial, while the central opening of the bonnet is somewhat wider and rounder in proportion to the breadth of the secretary. There is also a shaped drop in the center of the skirt to accommodate the width of the piece. The mahogany is rather black, and the secondary wood is pine. It is marked with the Hurd paper label in an inside drawer.212

157. Detail of Paper Label on Card Table: “Benjn. Frothingham / Cabbinet Maker / IN / CHARLESTOWN. NE.” (The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.) See also fig. 156.

The third secretary is, like the Davis-Winterthur high chest, signed on the drawers, this time in four places (figs. 97 and 162). It is an unusual mahogany bombé secretary with molded bracket feet. The bookcase upper section again has fielded panels in the doors, with round, rather than flattened arches at the top, and the bonnet is shaped like those already illustrated with three corkscrew finials. The upper case is divided by three fluted pilasters with capitals of the Corinthian order. They are richly carved with acanthus leaves against a punched ground. In the interior of the case are two intaglio fans at the top, three drawers at the bottom and a series of pigeonholes running up each side. In the center are three movable book shelves. The desk is contrived in an amphitheatre arrangement with two tiers of drawers below four pigeonholes at each side. The central door is reverse blocked with a round-headed panel. There are two narrow document drawers with plain pilasters and acorn finials. The long lower drawers have normal straight sides, and the bombé form is carried out by the shaping of the exterior of the case. Red cedar is the major secondary wood.213

158. Dining Table. Made by Benjamin Frothingham (paper label), Charlestown, c. 1755–1790. Mahogany, maple, and white pine; h. 28⅛ inches, w. 59 inches (open), d. 60⅛ inches. (The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.)

The signatures on the bombé secretary are interesting from several points of view. On the back of the top large drawer is the following inscription: “Do D Sprage Benj. Frothingham.” On two small interior desk drawers on the bottom is “Benj. Frothingham,” and on the side of one document drawer is “Do Sprage 1753.” The placement of the inscription on the big drawer is certainly appropriate only to those involved in the construction of the piece, and implies, since Sprage’s initials appear, that he was either a partner or workman in its construction. If the date is correct, it is the only dated example of Frothingham’s work, and is very early in his career. One might surmise that young Benjamin had gone into partnership before his father’s shop burned in 1760, and that he may have already moved from Boston to Charlestown since he is recorded there in 1754. Another possibility might be that Frothingham and Sprage were apprentices nearing the end of their training with the elder Benjamin Frothingham. The construction of the secretary could then have represented the culmination of their apprenticeships and have shown to others their mastery of the craft of cabinetmaking. A final possibility is that the signature is not that of the younger Frothingham, but that of his father. At the moment, however, since no other work attributable to the father is known, it is difficult to subtract this dated and fascinating piece from the work of the man who signed other pieces in a similar fashion. The discovery of facts relating to D. Sprage might settle the matter.214

159. Desk and Bookcase. Made by Benjamin Frothingham (paper label), Charlestown, c. 1755–1790. Cherry. (Present location unknown. Formerly in the collection of Ernest Lo Nano: photo, Israel Sack, Inc., New York City.) See also fig. 160.

160. Interior of Desk and Bookcase. Made by Benjamin Frothingham. (Present location unknown. Formerly in the collection of Ernest Lo Nano: photo, Israel Sack, Inc., New York City.) See also fig. 159.

161. Desk and Bookcase. Made by Benjamin Frothingham (paper label), Charlestown, c. 1755–1790. Mahogany and white pine. (Present location unknown. Formerly in the collection of William T. Earls: photo, Antiques.)

162. Interior of Desk and Bookcase. Made by Benjamin Frothingham and D. Sprage. (The Department of State, Washington, D.C.) See also fig. 97.

Frothingham employed the ogee bracket foot on occasion, as seen on three reverse serpentine mahogany desks. On the first, formerly in the collection of Mrs. Sidney Harwood (fig. 163),215 the foot has a bracket with a simple spur profile. The projecting sections of the reverse serpentine terminate with round blocking in the upper drawer and with a depressed arch in the central area. Such a treatment occurs on a desk by Joseph Hosmer of Concord216 and on a number of pieces from the Northampton area,217 as well as on a chest-on-chest with Boston details in the Henry Ford Museum.218 The interior of the desk has a projecting shelf with three drawers, above which is a pair of drawers below four ogee-headed pigeonholes on each side of the central section. The central door is treated with a reverse-blocked panel with a carved fan, and the two document drawers have plain pilasters with urn finials. The mahogany was chosen for its figure.219

Remarkably similar to the Harwood desk is a second example, now in a private collection (figs. 164 and 165). With the exception of a slight variation in the brasses and the addition of a shaped drop to the center of the skirt, this desk repeats virtually line for line the exterior shape and interior details of the Harwood desk. In addition, the blond mahogany of both desks compares quite closely in wood color and surface grain, suggesting that perhaps a single piece of mahogany was used for the drawer fronts of both pieces. According to the present owner, the second desk was purchased by her father in the Boston area about 1901. Like the Harwood desk, it bears a Hurd label in the small reverse blocked central drawer of the interior.

A third labelled desk with ogee bracket feet is in the collection of the Currier Gallery of Art (figs. 166 and 167). The shape of the brackets and brasses is reminiscent of those on the two previous desks. However, the desk front has a less pronounced bow with only a hint of blocking on the upper drawer. The desk interior also differs, containing a double tier of drawers above a row of pigeonholes. A column of three central drawers is decorated with string inlay and, on the upper drawer, with an inlaid fan. The use of inlay, a characteristic of Federal period work, suggests a date of manufacture of 1790 to 1800. A Hurd paper label appears in the middle drawer of the central section. According to David Brooke, Director of the Currier Gallery, the desk descended in the Nichols family of Wiscasset, Maine, before coming to the Gallery in 1967.

A more elaborate desk is at Historic Deerfield (figs. 78, 79, 168, and 169). It is of rich mahogany with square blocking and short cabriole legs carved with hairy claws. The desk interior duplicates that of the Lo Nano secretary. The feet are the most extraordinary features. All four feet are carved with four great talons grasping a round ball, and the fleshy parts of the foot are rendered so as to represent the effect of pin feathers. The brackets are blocked on the front and have the spur profile. The foot is smaller and more compact than the examples of hairy claw feet by George Bright and other cabinetmakers of the Boston area.220

163. Desk. Made by Benjamin Frothingham (paper label), Charlestown, c. 1755–1790. Mahogany and white pine; h. 43¾ inches, w. 44½ inches, d. 23⅜ inches. (Private collection: photo, Richard Cheek.)

Two blockfront chests of drawers with plain bracket feet bear the label of Frothingham. The first example (fig. 170) has square blocking similar to the Deerfield desk; the bracket has the same spur detail seen on other examples. The top of the piece, which I have never examined, has almost no overhang, a feature unusual in Boston practice, and suggests that this might have been the base of a chest-on-chest originally. The piece bears the Hurd paper label in the drawer and was in the collection of Mrs. Ernest L. Rueter in 1952.221

164. Desk. Made by Benjamin Frothingham (paper label), Charlestown, c. 1755–1790. Mahogany and white pine; h. 43½ inches, w. 41¾ inches, d. 21⅞ inches. (Private collection.) See also fig. 165.

165. Interior of Desk. Made by Benjamin Frothingham. (Private collection.) See also fig. 164.

166. Desk. Made by Benjamin Frothingham (paper label), Charlestown, c. 1780–1800. Mahogany and white pine; h. 43¼ inches, w. 44 inches, d. 24 inches. (The Currier Gallery of Art.) See also fig. 167.

167. Interior of Desk. Made by Benjamin Frothingham. (The Currier Gallery of Art.) See also fig. 166.

The second chest, documented by a fragmentary Hurd label in the upper drawer, has rounded blocking and a molded top which follows the contours of the front. It closely resembles a chest signed in chalk by Walter Frothingham, an unidentified member of the Frothingham family. Mr. and Mrs. Stephens Croom of Mobile, Alabama, owned the chest in 1964.222

A chest-on-chest, now in a private collection, is one of the most masterful of Frothingham’s works (fig. 1). It again carries the Hurd paper label. The lower case is square blocked, and its lines carry down into a blocked ogee bracket foot of a type rarely met outside of Rhode Island. The upper case is flanked by fluted pilasters with pulvinated caps. The carved fan in the central upper drawer is of the most elaborate type found in the Boston area. It is based on stylized acanthus leaves; the main area of the fan is a leaf with undulating edges. Its surface is decorated with punched ovals and at the lower center is a smaller leaf in high relief and a row of scrolling leaves across the base. The richness of carving is continued into the open bonnet with its two floral rosettes, and the three corkscrew finials have pierced bases, giving them a weightlessness and a richness of light and shade. The lower case is supplied with side brasses, matching the large pine-tree type of the drawers.223

Having worked in the styles of the middle and third quarter of the century, Frothingham turned his attention to those of the last years of the century. He is known to have made three pieces of labelled furniture in the new neoclassical manner of Hepplewhite. One is a characteristic New England chair with an urn-decorated back, of a type made in Newport, Providence, Salem, and Boston (fig. 171). The Boston-area chairs are usually uncarved on the lower semicircle of the back splat, as is the case with this chair. The legs are molded, and across the underside of the rear seat rail is lettered “Mr Benjan. Frothingham / Charlestown” in ink. If it is not a mark of ownership, it is likely that this was the inscription of an upholsterer who wished to know to whom the chair should be returned. While it is one of only two surviving chairs associated with Frothingham, his shop inventory listed “6 chears” indicating that he had always made a certain number. The chair is owned by the Toms Foundation of Knoxville, Tennessee.224

168. Desk. Made by Benjamin Frothingham. (Historic Deerfield, Inc., Deerfield, Massachusetts.) See also figs. 78, 79, and 169.

Another chair, which descended in the Frothingham family, is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and carries the legend that it was made in the shop of Benjamin Frothingham. As it is a Windsor chair, with bow back and continuous arms, it seems hardly likely to have been the product of Frothingham’s shop. Windsor chair making was a specialty in the cabinet trade; it is far more likely that Frothingham purchased the chair for his daughter. It is interesting in being a documented example of furniture which did belong to a cabinetmaker’s family.225

169. Detail of Foot of Desk. Made by Benjamin Frothingham. (Historic Deerfield, Inc., Deerfield, Massachusetts.) See also figs. 78, 79, and 168.

170. Chest of Drawers. Made by Benjamin Frothingham (paper label), Charlestown, c. 1755–1790. Mahogany. (Present location unknown. Formerly in the collection of Mrs. Ernest L. Rueter: photo, Antiques.)

The second neoclassical example, which has been in unknown hands since the Philip Flayderman sale of 1930 where it was lot 417, is a serpentine-front sideboard (fig. 172). The unfortunate brasses of the photograph distract one from the quality of this unusual New England board with three central drawers. The doors and drawers are well veneered and banded, with the door keyholes carried out as diamond inlays. The stiles and tapering legs have long round-headed panels of stringing, those of the legs having a single bellflower at the top of each panel. The cuffs are banded, and the top is finished with a double-beaded edge. It was described in the Flayderman catalogue as being of “Tine figured mahogany, banded with cross-cut wood of beautiful color.”226

The third example is a typical D-shaped card table in a characteristic Massachusetts manner. It has good stringing in the legs with a small panel of lighter wood at the top of the leg, and a checkered band across the bottom of the skirt. It is built of good, well-figured mahogany, but has few characteristics that indicate its origins in Frothingham’s shop, other than a finely preserved label on the underside. It is in the collection of Joseph Kindig iii.

While I do not wish to discuss the attributions to Frothingham, of which many have been made, I would like to point out that certain pieces such as the secretary in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery with its bracket feet, similar bonnet, and identical desk interior show such affinity to Frothingham that it is hard to interpret them as merely regional similarities.227 The fall-front square blocked desk at Colonial Williamsburg again shares the general features, with minor variations in the pen drawers of the desk interior, and is one of only a few Boston-area casepieces having blocked ogee bracket feet with scroll returns. This is related to the treatment of the Frothingham chest-on-chest and bears an obvious indirect relation to Newport sources.228

Three surviving bills from Frothingham indicate the variety of work performed in his shop. On June 12, 1788, he billed Colonel

171. Side Chair. Made or owned by Benjamin Frothingham (inscription in ink), Charlestown, c. 1790–1809. Mahogany, beech, and maple; h. 33 inches, w. 22 inches, d. 18 inches. (The Toms Foundation, Craighead-Jackson House, Knoxville, Tennessee.)

Ervin for two field bedsteads, and, on April 17, 1789, William Steams for a coffin and furniture.229 On January 16, 1797, he charged General Henry Knox of Thomaston, Maine, £57:8:0 for the following:

To 2 large mohogany Card Tables	£ 6:12:0
To 2 D[itt]o Do Pembrook Do	6:12:0
To 1 large mohogany Bedsted foot & Side Boards	12:10:0
To 1 Do without foot Board	11: 0:0
To large mohogany ward Robe	16:10:0
To 2 Cornish & Painting	4: 4:0230

The contents of his shop, destroyed by fire in 1775, shed further light on the general size of Frothingham’s production where the following items were listed:

1 Mahogany Case draws	[£] 7: 0:0
1 Burow tabel	4: 0:0
3 Walnut Case draws	17:10:0
12 tabels of sortes	20: 0:0
. . .
6 chears	0:14:0

The wood inventory of the same year includes cherry and “yallowsander wood,” probably American gumwood which Frothingham’s inventory clerk put down as sandalwood because of its similar yellow color. This seems more likely than the interpretation that it was “palisander” or rosewood, which is purplish in hue. The list is as follows:

a Quantity of Mahogany boards & planks	[£]34: 0:0
Walnut boards	14: 0:0
Cherry tree boards	1: 0:0
Mapole planks, pineboards. planks	8: 0:0
. . .
a Quantity of Yallowsander wood	3:10:0231

While we certainly have today only a fragment of the production of Benjamin Frothingham from his career of more than fifty years, the pieces that survive with his label show a man working in the best traditions through three phases of style. He was therefore both skilled and aware of his customers’ needs. His use of unusually beautiful or colored woods—plum pudding mahogany, cherry, and “yallowsander”—indicate either that there may have been some differences in taste between Boston and Charlestown or that the cabinetmaker himself enjoyed unusual woods. His choice of brasses, also, judging from the evidence of two sets of pierced ones, is something more than ordinary.

However, it is very difficult to attribute the richness of taste in details to the cabinetmaker of the eighteenth century. The taste was more often that of the customer. While we know a certain amount about Frothingham, we have, except for three bills, very little knowledge of his clientele. For them it appears that he produced mostly casepieces—desks, secretaries, and chests of drawers—though tables formed a good portion of his 1775 inventory and account for two of his surviving pieces. That he also made chairs is implied by the inventory and affirmed by the Hepplewhite shield-back example.

A number of details remain to be discovered. Who was the I. Gold whose name appears on the brasses of the Davis-Winterthur examples, and who was the D. Sprage who signed the bombé secretary? To judge from the majority of his cabinetwork, it would be interesting to know if he was a carver himself or if, more likely, he employed a carver to produce the elaborate fan of the privately owned chest-on-chest and the hairy paw feet of the Deerfield desk.

Certainly, Major Benjamin Frothingham was a man well known and honored in his own day. He was also financially successful. His claims of 1775 show that he owned a shop valued at £26, a barn at £40, and a house of £220 value. In 1809 he died possessed of twenty-seven square rods of land and a building valued at $2500. He has left behind what many other Boston-area makers have denied us, a series of labelled examples ranging from the mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century. While this tells much about Frothingham as an individual, it tells an equal amount about his contemporaries in Boston and vicinity, and what one may expect to have emerged from their shops. There has yet to be discovered a daybook of a Boston maker, where one can learn the day-to-day business of the cabinetmaker as that of the silversmith is outlined by Paul Revere’s accounts. However, the labelled furniture of Frothingham comes closest to showing the range and variety of the Boston cabinetmaker’s work.

172. Sideboard. Made by Benjamin Frothingham (paper label), Charlestown, c. 1790–1809. Mahogany and white pine; h. 38 inches, w. 59 inches, d. 25 inches. (Present location unknown. Sold at the American Art Association auction of the estate of Philip Flayderman, January 2–4, 1930, lot 417: photo, Antiques.)

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.