GORDON SALTAR

New England Timbers

BOSTON CABINET WOODS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

IN 1634 William Wood in his promotional tract New England Prospects described Boston as “bare of wood,” the residents “being constrayned to fetch their building-timber, and fire-wood from the Ilands in Boates.”232 Furniture craftsmen relied on local merchants, ship captains, inland farmers, and traders for their lumber. During the eighteenth century craftsmen principally used black walnut, mahogany, cedar, and maple as primary woods and white pine as a secondary wood. Less frequently they chose birch, cherry, white oak, red oak, and chestnut. The 1797 inventory of the estate of Samuel Fisk, one of Boston’s wealthiest cabinetmakers, included not only a “Pile of Bay Mahogany” valued at $325.29 and “235 feet Jamaica Mahy” valued at $42.30, but also:

51 feet black Walnut at [$].−4 [per foot]	[$] 2.−4
2 Logs of d[itt]o in the Shed	2.—
720½ feet of Mahy at the Mill in Watertown at .14½ pr foot	104.47
292 feet Chesnut at 1.50 pr hund	4.38
194 feet Cherry tree boards at 2.50 pr hund	4.85
573 feet clear pine boards at 12.0 pr M [thousand]	6.87
1023 feet Maple joysts at 1.50 pr hundd	15.34
844 do boards at 1. pr hundred	8.44
2 birch planks	3.—
. . .
Ebony & wood for Inlays	3.—233

Black walnut, popular throughout most of the century, was imported largely from the southern and middle colonies. In 1774 while travelling through New Jersey, John Adams spotted a row of four large black walnut trees and commented, “It seems that these Trees are plenty in these Southern Provinces—all the black Walnut Timber which is used by our Cabinet Makers in Boston is brought from the Southern Provinces.”234

By the 1730s mahogany had become a fashionable wood in Boston. Shipped from the West Indies and Central America, the wood was sold by the piece at local venues or marketed by merchants.235 According to the Boston physician William Douglass (c. 1691–1752), “Mahogany wood of the West-Indies” was excellent for cabinet and joiners’ work, “much surpassing the red cedar of Carolina and Bermudas, which has a disagreeable perfume.”236

Despite Douglass’ comments, Boston cabinetmakers occasionally used red cedar in their furniture. Merchants imported some cedar from the South; however, much more came from the lowlands and swamps of eastern Massachusetts. Based on surviving evidence, the wood seems to have gained popularity between about 1720 and 1760. In the November 28 – December 5, 1728, issue of The Boston News-Letter, the printer advertised “A Fine Red New Cedar Desk” for sale. After the disastrous fire of 1760, Thomas Foot, a local cabinetmaker, listed among his losses, “36 foot Cedar Logs” valued at £2:17:6.237

Boston craftsmen easily obtained native hardwoods such as cherry or maple. Yeomen in surrounding towns often traded lumber with merchants or craftsmen for imported foodstuffs and cloth. While documented Boston furniture of cherry is scarce, John Adams noted during a visit to the Braintree home of John Borland that “The Wood [cherry] is very good for the Cabinet-Maker. . . . It is a tree of much Beauty.”238 Maple, on the other hand, is seen in many pieces of Boston furniture. Japanned high chests, for example, are almost always constructed of maple. The close-grained wood provided an excellent base for the many layers of white lead, vermilion, lampblack, and gold leaf used by the japanner.

White pine, “the tallest and most stately tree of our forests,”239 was common throughout New England. Beginning early in the seventeenth century, merchants and millwrights established sawmills in coastal settlements and shipped cargoes of sawn pine boards and planks to Boston.240 White pine was, according to William Douglass, “much used in framing of houses and in joiners work, scarce any of it to be found south of New-England. In joiners work, it is of a good grain, soft, and easily wrought.”241

Gordon Saltar has prepared the following list of New England woods available to furniture craftsmen in the eighteenth century. He has included those properties which might have been of concern to cabinetmakers. The log diameters represent the average. The geographical ranges represent coastal regions only. An annotated bibliography on the identification of woods is presented at the end of the article.

Brock Jobe

New England Timbers

CONIFER TIMBERS

Arborvitae, Thuja occidentalis, also called Northern White Cedar

Diameter 2′–3′. Light; soft; brittle; very coarse to fine-grained; somewhat harsh under tools, but can be worked to a smooth finish and holds paint well; faint bitter taste; pale brown. It ranged from New Brunswick to southern New Hampshire and central Massachusetts.

Fir, Abies balsamea, also called Balsam Fir

Diameter 12″–18″. Light; soft; not strong; coarse-grained; pale brown streaked with yellow; is used for sugar and butter tubs because of absence of objectionable taste. It ranged through northern New England and western Massachusetts.

Hemlock, Tsuga canadensis

Diameter 2′–4′. Light; soft; not strong; brittle; coarse-grained; harsh and splintery under tools; glues easily; uneven and frequently spiral-grained; light brown tinged with red. It ranged from Nova Scotia to northern Delaware.

Jack Pine, Pinus banksiana, also called Grey Pine

Diameter under 2′. Light; soft; not strong; close-grained; refractory under tools; clear pale brown. It ranged from Nova Scotia to coast of Maine, northern New Hampshire and Vermont.

Pitch Pine, Pinus rigida

Diameter under 3′. Light; soft; not strong; brittle; coarse-grained; light brown or red. It ranged from Mount Desert, Maine, to southern Delaware.

Red Pine, Pinus resinosa, also called Norway Pine

Diameter 2′–3′. Light; moderately soft to hard; high in shock resistance; works easily with tools; very close-grained; glues well; pale red to orange-brown. It ranged from Nova Scotia to eastern Massachusetts.

White Pine, Pinus strobus

Diameter 3′–4′. Light; not strong; straight-grained; medium-textured; moderately soft; moderately low in shock resistance; works easily with tools; glues well; takes paint extremely well; light brown often tinged with red which darkens a great deal on exposure. It ranged from Newfoundland to northern Delaware.

Red Cedar, Juniperus virginiana

Diameter 3′–4′. Light; close-grained; brittle; not strong; works easily under tools; high in shock resistance; fine-textured; very fragrant; very resistant to decay; purplish or rose-red when first exposed, aging rapidly to a dull red or reddish brown. It ranged from New Brunswick to the coast of Georgia.

Black Spruce, Picea mariana*

Diameter 6″–12″. Light; soft; not strong; glues well; easy to work; pale yellow-white.

White Spruce, Picea glauca*

Diameter under 2′. Same general properties as the Black Spruce.

Red Spruce, Picea rubra*

Diameter 2′–3′. Same general properties as the Black and White Spruces, except somewhat closer-grained and slightly tinged with red.

Tamarack, Larix laricina, also called Eastern Larch

Diameter 18″–20″. Very heavy; moderately to exceedingly hard; strong; coarse-grained; moderately high in shock resistance; a slightly oily feel to the touch; often spiral-grained; yellowish to light reddish brown. It ranged from Labrador to eastern Pennsylvania.

White Cedar, Chamaecyparis thyoides, also called Atlantic White Cedar and Southern White Cedar

Diameter 3′–4′ (probably much smaller in New England). Light; soft; straight-grained; fine-textured; low in shock resistance; works well under tools; takes a smooth finish; holds paint well; slight bitter taste; pale brown with red or pink in the late wood of each annual ring. It ranged from near Concord, New Hampshire, and southern Maine to the coast of northern Florida.

POROUS WOOD TIMBERS

White Ash, Fraxinus americana

Diameter 5′–6′. Heavy; hard; strong; works well under tools; close-grained; tough; brown heartwood; very thick light straw-colored sap wood. It ranged from Nova Scotia to Florida.

Red Ash, Fraxinus pennsylvanica

Diameter 18″-20″. Heavy; hard; fairly strong; works well under tools; brittle; coarse-grained; light brown heartwood; very thick lighter brown sap wood with yellowish streaks. It ranged from Nova Scotia to central Georgia.

Black Ash, Fraxinus nigra, also called Brown Ash

Diameter up to 20″. Heavy; fairly soft; not strong; tough; coarse-grained; straight-grained; separates easily along its annual rings, especially in its thick sap wood, into thin flexible layers—basket, splint-seat material. Heartwood is grey-brown to dark brown, lusterless compared to other Ashes. Sapwood is very light brown, sometimes nearly white. It ranged from Newfoundland to northern Delaware.

Basswood, Tilia americana, also called Linden

Diameter 3′–4′. Soft; weak; low in shock resistance; works well under tools; valued for hand carving; finishes smooth; holds paint well; glues well. Heartwood pale brown with very slight touches of red, merging gradually with the paler sapwood. It ranged from New Brunswick to Pennsylvania.

Beech, Fagus grandifolia

Diameter 3′–4′. Hard; strong; tough; high in shock resistance; difficult to work with hand tools, but excellent for turning; stays smooth when subjected to friction; pale rose to reddish brown. It ranged from New Brunswick to northern Delaware.

Black Birch, Betula lenta, also called Sweet Birch and Cherry Birch

Diameter 2′–5′. Heavy; very strong; hard; close-grained; very high in shock resistance; turns well; takes a smooth finish; dark brown tinged with red. It ranged from southern Maine and northwestern Vermont to northern Delaware.

Yellow Birch, Betula lutea, also called Grey Birch

Diameter 3′–4′. Heavy; very strong; hard; close-grained; high in shock resistance; turns well; takes a smooth finish; light brown tinged with red. It ranged at its best in northern New England; small and rare in southern New England.

Paper Birch, Betula papyrifera, also called Canoe Birch

Diameter 2′–3′. Light; strong; hard; tough (but less so than the Black Birch and the Yellow Birch); very close-grained; turns extremely well; takes a smooth finish; light brown tinged with red. It ranged over northern New England; small and rare in the coastal region of southern New England.

Black Gum, Nyssa sylvatica, also called Sour Gum, Tupelo, and Pepperidge

Diameter up to 5′. Usually heavy; soft; strong; very tough; usually with interlocking grain; moderately high in shock resistance; difficult to split; refractory under hand tools; finishes very well; takes paint well; stains well; glues satisfactorily; light yellow to almost white. It ranged from the valley of the Kennebec River, Maine, to northern Florida.

Blue Beech, Carpinus caroliniana, also called American Hornbeam, Water Beech, and Ironwood

Diameter up to 2′. Hard; moderately strong in bending; exceedingly high in shock resistance; splits with great difficulty; stiff; good for handles, vehicle parts, levers; William Noyes wrote in Wood and Forest (Peoria, Illinois, 1912), p. 125, “No other wood so good for levers, because of stiffness”; pale yellowish to light brown. It ranged from Nova Scotia to Florida.

Butternut, Juglans cinerea, also called White Walnut

Diameter 2′–3′. Light; soft; not strong; coarse-grained; straight-grained; moderately high in shock resistance; works well; takes stain well; light brown turning darker with exposure. It ranged from New Brunswick to eastern Virginia.

Black Cherry, Prunus serotina, also called Wild Cherry and Rum Cherry

Diameter 4′–5′. Light to moderately heavy; moderately strong; rather hard; close-grained; straight-grained; strong in bending and endwise compression; high in shock resistance; works well with tools; finishes smoothly; glues satisfactorily; satiny surface; light to dark reddish brown. It ranged from Nova Scotia to central Florida.

Chestnut, Castanea dentata, also called American Chestnut

Diameter 3′–4′. Light; soft to moderately hard; not strong; easily split; moderately low in shock resistance; works well under tools; glues very well; very resistant to decay; greyish brown to reddish brown. It ranged from Southern Maine to Delaware.

Dogwood, Cornus florida, also called Flowering Dogwood

Diameter 12″–18″. Heavy; hard to very hard; strong; close-grained; strong in bending and in endwise compression; very high in shock resistance; difficult to work with tools; wears smooth with use; turns well; glues poorly. Uses of this wood have always been contingent upon its extreme hardness and fine texture which let it work and stay smooth under continuous wear—mallet heads, pulleys, vehicle parts, hubs of wheels, and machine bearings. Sap wood is very wide pinkish brown; heartwood, when present, dark brown variegated with shades of green and red. It ranged from southern Maine to central Florida.

Pignut Hickory, Carya cordiformis, also called Bitternut

Diameter 2′–3′. Heavy to very heavy; very hard; strong; tough; close-grained; straight-grained; strong to very strong in bending and endwise compression; high to exceedingly high in shock resistance; works satisfactorily under tools; finishes well; below average for gluing; dark brown heartwood with thick lighter sapwood. It ranged from southern Maine to northwestern Florida.

Shellbark Hickory, Carya ovata, also called Shagbark Hickory

Diameter 3′–4′. Same general properties as Pignut Hickory, but a definitely lighter brown. It ranged from southern Maine to western Florida.

Hickory, Carya alba

Diameter up to 3′. Very heavy; hard; tough; strong; flexible; close-grained; rich dark brown like the Pignut. It ranged from eastern Massachusetts to Florida.

Holly, Ilex opaca

Diameter 2′–3′. Light; tough; not strong; close-grained; moderately strong in bending; high in shock resistance; stains well; carves well; works well under tools; turns well; nearly white when first cut, turning brownish with time; thick lighter-colored sapwood. It ranged from the coast of Massachusetts to Florida.

Hop Hornbeam, Ostrya virginiana, also called Ironwood

Diameter up to 2′. Very heavy; very hard; very strong in bending and in endwise compression; stiff; very high in shock resistance; durable; light brown tinged with red to nearly white; a thick pale sapwood of forty years or more. It ranged from western New England to northern Florida.

Great Laurel, Rhododendron maximum, also called Rose Bay

Diameter 10″–12″. Heavy; hard; strong; somewhat brittle; fine-grained; light brown. It ranged from Nova Scotia through New Hampshire and southern New England and eastern New York.

Sugar Maple, Acer saccharum Marsh., also called Rock Maple (of “Hard” group)

Diameter 3′–4′. Heavy; hard; strong; close-grained; tough; usually straight-grained (occasionally curly- or wavy-grained or bird’s-eye); very strong in bending and endwise compression; stiff; high in shock resistance; works well under tools; turns well; stays smooth under abrasion; takes a high polish; takes stain satisfactorily; splits radially; glues medium well; light reddish brown. It ranged from Nova Scotia to northern Georgia.

Black Maple, Acer nigrum Michx. (of “Hard” group)

Diameter up to 3′. Similar to the Acer saccharum. It ranged from Montreal to the valley of Cold River, New Hampshire, through western Vermont and Massachusetts and northwestern Connecticut.

Red Maple, Acer rubrum L., also called Scarlet Maple (of “Soft” group)

Diameter 3′–4½′. Very heavy; close-grained; not strong; usually straight-grained (sometimes curly-grained); moderately hard to hard; moderately weak to strong in bending and in endwise compression; limber to stiff; moderately high in shock resistance; works well under tools; glues satisfactorily; takes a smooth finish; light brown often slightly tinged with red. It ranged from Newfoundland to Florida.

Silver Maple, Acer saccharinum L. (of “Soft” group)

Diameter 3′–4′. Hard; strong; close-grained; easily worked; rather brittle; pale brown; thick sapwood of forty to fifty years’ growth. It ranged from New Brunswick through western Vermont and central Massachusetts.

some typical oaks of the “red” group, called “erythrobalanus”

Red Oak, Quercus borealis Michx. (Quercus rubra L.)

Diameter 2′–3′. Heavy; hard; strong; close-grained; usually straight-grained; strong in bending and endwise compression; high in shock resistance; stiff; tendency to have casehardening; machines well; finishes well; average in gluing; some tendency to split along the rays; light reddish brown. It ranged from New Brunswick through northern New England.

Scarlet Oak, Quercus coccinea, also called Spanish Oak

Diameter 2′–3′. Much like the O. borealis except that its grain is coarser, its sapwood much thicker and darker. It ranged from the valley of the Androscoggin River, Maine, through southern New Hampshire and Vermont.

Pin Oak, Quercus palustris, also called Swamp Spanish Oak

Diameter 2′–3′. Like Q. coccinea except that it has less sapwood. It ranged over the valley of the Connecticut River in western Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Black Oak, Quercus velutina, also called Yellow-Bark Oak

Diameter 3′–4′. Like Q. palustris except that the color is usually brighter and redder. It ranged over the coast of southern Maine through northern Vermont.

some typical oaks of the “white” group, called “leucobalanus”

Burr Oak, Quercus macrocarpa, also called Mossy Cup Oak

Diameter 6′–7′. Heavy; strong; tough; close-grained; strong in bending and endwise compression; high in shock resistance; stiff; tendency to have casehardening; machines well; finishes smooth; glues well; tendency to split along the rays; very durable; dark or rich light brown. It ranged from New Brunswick to the valley of the Penobscot River, Maine, Vermont, western Massachusetts.

White Oak, Quercus alba

Diameter 3′–4′. Same properties as Q. macrocarpa. It ranged from southern Maine to Florida.

Post Oak, Quercus stellata

Diameter 2′–3′. Same properties as above species, but also somewhat like the Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra); splits well tangentially; used for making baskets and splint seats. It ranged from Cape Cod and islands of southern Massachusetts to Florida.

Balsam Poplar, Populus tacamahacca, also called Poplar and Tacamahac

Diameter 6′–7′. Light; moderately soft; weak; low in shock resistance; usually straight-grained; easy to moderately hard to work with tools; glues well; takes paint fairly well; light brown with thick nearly white sap wood. It ranged from Labrador through northern New England.

Swamp Poplar, Populus heterophylla, also called Swamp Cottonwood and Black Cottonwood

Diameter 2′–3′. Same properties as the above except that it is a much darker brown. It ranged from Connecticut and Rhode Island to Florida.

Quaking Aspen, Populus tremuloides, also called Trembling Aspen

Diameter 18″–20″. Same properties as the above except that the color is creamy to very light greyish brown; has a silken luster and a finer texture. It ranged from Labrador to Pennsylvania.

Red Gum, Liquidamber styraciflua, also called Sweet Gum and Bilsted

Diameter 4′–5′. Heavy; fairly hard; straight and sometimes interlocked grain; moderately strong in bending and endwise compression; moderately high in shock resistance; works fairly well with hand tools; turns exceedingly well; takes paint and stains well; has an unusually thick sapwood (sixty to seventy layers of annual growth) of light yellow to almost white; heartwood of carneous grey to varying shades of reddish brown. It ranged from Fairfield County, Connecticut, to southeastern Pennsylvania.

Red Mulberry, Morus rubra

Diameter 3′–4′. Heavy to light; hard to soft; strong; rather tough; coarse-grained; very durable; machines well; works well under tools; glues well; orange-yellow to golden brown, turning a reddish brown upon exposure. It ranged from western Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Long Island to Florida.

Sassafras, Sassafras albidum

Diameter up to 6′. Moderately heavy; moderately hard; very high in shock resistance; coarse-grained; machines well; finishes well; very durable; dull orange-brown to greyish brown or dark brown. It ranged from southern Maine and eastern Massachusetts and southern Vermont to central Florida.

Service Berry, Amelanchier canadensis Med., also called Shad Bush

Diameter 12″–18″. Heavy; exceedingly hard; close-grained; dark brown sometimes tinged with red. It ranged from the valley of the Penobscot River, Maine, the valley of the Connecticut River (central Vermont, southern New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut) through western Massachusetts to Florida.

Service Berry, Amelanchier laevis Wieg.

Diameter 12″-18″. Same as A. canadensis except that it ranges from Newfoundland through New England to northern Georgia.

Staghorn Sumach, Rhus typhina L.

Diameter 12″–14″. Light; brittle; soft; coarse-grained; orange-colored; streaked with green. From its young shoots, pipes are made for drawing sap of the Sugar Maple. It ranged from New Brunswick to northern Georgia.

Sumach, Rhus copallina

Diameter 8″–10″. Light; soft; coarse-grained; light brown streaked with green and often tinged with red. It ranged from northern New England to southern Florida. In North American Sylva by F. Andrew Michaux (Philadelphia: J. Dobson, 1842), in, 205: “Among the native trees, in the Northern States, the Black Birch, the Yellow Birch, the Canoe Birch, the Red-flowering Curled Maple, the Bird’s-eye Maple, the Wild Cherry Tree and the Sumac, are chiefly employed in cabinet-making.”

Sycamore, Platanus occidentalis L., also called Buttonwood and American Plane-Tree

Diameter up to 10′. Moderately heavy; hard; moderately strong in bending and endwise compression; moderately stiff; moderately low in shock resistance; difficult to split because of interlocked grain; turns well; glues satisfactorily; light to dark brown or reddish brown. It ranged from southeastern Maine and northern Vermont to Florida.

Tulip Tree, Liriodendron tulipifera, also called Yellow Poplar, Tulip Poplar, Whitewood

Diameter up to 9′. Light; fairly soft; brittle; straight-grained; moderately weak in bending and endwise compression; fairly stiff; moderately low in shock resistance; easy to work under tools; glues well; takes and holds paint exceptionally well; clear yellow to tan or greenish grey or brown, occasionally with shades of purple, dark green, or black. It ranged from Worcester County, Massachusetts, southwestern Vermont to Florida.

Black Walnut, Juglans nigra

Diameter 4′–6′. Heavy; hard; strong in bending; very strong in endwise compression; stiff; high in shock resistance; works easily with tools; finishes very smoothly; takes and holds stains well; glues well; very durable; light brown to rich chocolate or purplish brown; dull; straight- or irregular-grained. It ranged from western Massachusetts to Florida. A natural hybrid of J. nigra and J. regia (English Walnut) has appeared in the United States and Europe, and on the banks of the James River in Virginia has grown to a larger size than any other recorded Walnut tree.

Black Willow, Salix nigra Marsh.

Diameter up to 4′. Light; soft; weak in bending; exceedingly weak in endwise compression; moderately high in shock resistance; usually with straight grain; works well with tools; glues well; does not split readily; stains and finishes well; light brown to pale reddish or greyish brown, frequently with darker streaks along the grain. It ranged from southern New Brunswick through South Carolina.

White Elm, Ulmus americana L.

Diameter 6′–11′. Moderately heavy; moderately hard; straight or sometimes interlocked grain; moderately weak in endwise compression, with excellent bending qualities; high in shock resistance; tough; difficult to split; difficult to work with tools; used as the hubs of wheels and vehicle parts; brown to dark brown, frequently with shades of red. It ranged from Newfoundland to Florida.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF WOODS

Brown, Harry Philip, Panshin, A. J., and Forsaith, C. C. Textbook of Wood Technology. 2 vols. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949 and 1964. (Carl de Zeeuw collaborated with Brown and Panshin in the preparation of the second edition of vol. 1, 1964, and is listed as one of the authors.)

Vol. 1 contains straight technology, excellent glossary of identification factors, good illustrations, and is the more useful of the two volumes. Deals exclusively with timber woods of the United States.

Carpenter, Charles H., and Leney, Lawrence. 382 Photomicrographs of 91 Papermaking Fibers. Rev. ed. Syracuse, New York: State University of New York, College of Forestry, 1952.

Good illustrations of longitudinal vessels of major pulp woods, most of which are easily identified under the microscope.

Edlin, Herbert L. Trees, Woods and Man. London: Collins, 1956.

A history of British woodlands from the viewpoints of men using these woods throughout changing times and environments.

Emerson, George B. A Report on the Trees and Shrubs Growing Naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts. Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1846. 2nd ed., rev., 2 vols. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1875.

An excellent account of the native woods of Massachusetts. Emerson stresses the appearance and uses (particularly by cabinetmakers) of various woods and in the second edition inserts numerous illustrations.

Greguss, Pál. Holzanatomie der Europäischen Laubhölzer und Sträucher [Wood Anatomy of European Leaf Woods and Shrubs]. Budapest: Akademiai Kiadó, 1959.

An important contribution, especially for the identification of European hardwoods.

Identification of Hardwoods. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1952.

A worldwide study of so-called hardwoods, that is, nonconiferous trees. Factors for identification and keys are difficult and less precise than those in Phillips’ Softwoods. An auxiliary Atlas of End-Grain Photomicrographs, sold separately, can be useful in conjunction. Together they are somewhat useful.

Jane, Frank W. The Structure of Wood. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1956. (A second edition, revised by Karl Wilson and Donald J. B. White, appeared in 1970.)

Deals with gross and microscopic structures of many woods of different continents. Beautifully illustrated and useful for a beginner in wood analysis by microscope.

Phillips, E. W. J. Identification of Softwoods. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1948.

A most thorough work published on the identification of coniferous woods throughout the world.

Sargent, Charles S. Manual of the Trees of North America, 1905. New ed., 2 vols. New York: Dover Publications, 1961.

Very useful for determining those areas in which most species of American trees grow. The inclusion of average dimensions (diameter and height) enables one to estimate whether a particular species is (was) used for lumber.

United States Department of Agriculture. Wood: Colors and Kinds. Agricultural Handbook No. 101. Prepared by Forest Products Laboratory, Forest Service. October, 1956.

Excellent for colored illustrations of common woods.

van Ravenswaay, Charles. “A Historical Checklist of the Pines of Eastern North America.” Winterthur Portfolio 7. Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1972. Pp. 175–215.

An excellent historical guide to the uses and commercial importance of Eastern pines. Van Ravenswaay identifies 13 species of pine and 167 common names applied to these species.

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.