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/ S?,, C .!"'. Ma "UC LIBRARY
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Early
American Furniture Makers
Early
American Furniture Makers
A Social ana Biographical Stiiay
By
THOMAS HAMILTON ORMSBEE
With 122 Illustrations
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
: : : : NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 193.
BY THOMAS Y. CROWII.L COMPANY
To
RENEE H. ORMSBEE
PREFACE
Frequently we forget that our Early American
Furniture was once new. We overlook the fact
that It mirrors the economic, social and political
conditions of the time when It was made. It also
bespeaks the character of the men who produced
it. If this book gives Its readers a glimpse of
these conditions and something of the person-
ality of these practitioners of the cabinet-making
art, the author will have obtained his goal.
No claim is made that everything here Is based
on personal investigation. Where possible the
author has hunted his own facts. In other in-
stances he has made use of the research of others,
endeavoring to give credit where this occurs.
The author is especially indebted to the co-
operation and assistance of Homer E. Keyes,
Don C. Seitz, Frederick M. Feiker, Dr. Samuel
W. Woodhouse Jr., Dexter E. Spaldlng, Wil-
liam S. Walcott Jr., Walter A. Dyer, F. Percy
Vail, Mrs. William H. P. Phyfe, Robert H. Ly-
man, Fritz Bittinger, Mrs. Winfield S. Huntley,
vll
PREFACE
Joseph Brinton, Carleton Roberts, Ernest Ha-
gen, Alexander Graham of Rutgers University;
and John N. NInd Jr., Publisher and A. Carl
Saunders, Editor of Furniture Manufacturer, in
which this material first appeared serially.
Thanks are also due to Henry Ford, Dr. George
P. Coopernail, Antiques, The Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art, New York; The Pennsylvania
Museum, Philadelphia; Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston; American Philosophical Society, Phila-
delphia; The Essex Institute, Salem; The New
York Historical Society; American Art Associa-
tion; Anderson Galleries Inc.; Ginsburg and
Levy Inc.; Israel Sack and Florian Papp, for
many of the Illustrations used.
T. H. O.
Brooklyn, New York
September, 1930
vm
CONTENTS
I THE PILGRIM CENTURY 19
II AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES 35
III DUNCAN PHYFE, THE GREAT .... 61
IV PHYFE'S CONTEMPORARIES 83
V PLAIN AND FANCY CHAIRMAKING . , . 101
VI THE YANKEE CLOCKMAKERS .... 125
VII FROM FURNITURE TO POLITICS .... 145
PICTORIAL OUTLINE OF AMERICAN FURNI-
TURE
161
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF FURNITURE
MAKERS 169
BIBLIOGRAPHY 177
INDEX 181
lx
OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE I. An Early Pilgrim Interior. The Harlow
House, Plymouth, Mass Frontispiece
PLATE II. Governor Edward Winslow's Chair . 20
PLATE III. The Elder Brewster Chair. Of Carved
Oak and Dated about 1650 20
PLATE IV. Parlor of the John Ward House. Built
1684 21
PLATE V. The Nicholas Disbrowe Chest and In-
scription 28
PLATE VI. An i8th Century Room in the Way-
side Inn, Sudbury, Mass 29
PLATE VII. An Early Queen Anne Desk. Made
for Dr. Welch, One of the First Physicians of
Connecticut 32
PLATE VIII. A Desk on Frame. Made about 1710 32
PLATE IX. An Early Highboy of Curly Maple . 33
PLATE X. A Highboy with Cupboard Top. Made
at Bedford, N. Y. 5 about 1750 .... 33
PLATE XL John Hancock's Inaugural Chair.
Used When He Became First Governor of
Massachusetts. Made about 1710 . . . 36
PLATE XII. A Group of Philadelphia Chippen-
dale Furniture 37
xi
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE XIII. A Savery Lowboy. The First La-
beled Piece of His to Be Found. The Mark of
Identification Is Pasted In the Upper Drawer 44
PLATE XIV. A Savery Armchair with Label.
Formerly In the Howard Reifsynder Collec-
tion 45
PLATE XV. A Gostelowe Chest of Drawers with
Label 48
PLATE XVI. Two Benjamin Randolph Sample
Chairs. Formerly in the Howard Reifsynder
Collection 49
PLATE XVII. A Randolph Chair with Label . 50
PLATE XVIII. A John Goddard Desk ... 51
PLATE XIX. One of Six Queen Anne Chairs by
Job Townsend 54
PLATE XX. A Chest of Drawers by John Town-
send Dated November 2oth, 1792 ... 55
PLATE XXI. The Last of the Townsend-Goddard
Dynasty. Thomas Goddard, 1765-1858 . . 58
PLATE XXII. A Hepplewhite Sideboard with
Frothingham Label 59
PLATE XXIII. Col. Marinus Wlllett and One of
His Newspaper Advertisements .... 62
PLATE XXIV. A Transition Secretary. Structur-
ally It Is Chippendale. The Ornamentation Is
Hepplewhite. Its Label Reads: cc Webb
Scott, Cabinet & Chair Makers, Benefit-Street,
Providence, Rhode Island" 63
PLATE XXV. A Mahogany Desk by Benjamin
xli
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Burnham Dated 1769. It Is Believed He
Worked in Philadelphia 64
PLATE XXVI. A Queen Anne Mirror by John
Elliot, Philadelphia s with Bi-Lingual Label . 65
|p PLATE XXVII (Upper). Steps in the Change
^ from F-I-F-E to P-H-Y-F-E. a. 1792; b.
^ 1794; an ^ c - 1 8 7
$ PLATE XXVII (Lower). Phyfe's Own Tool Chest 70
$ PLATE XXVIII. The Phyfe Shops. They Stood on
^ Fulton Street, New York City, Where the
Hudson Terminal Now Is. From Left to
Right They Are, Workshop, Showroom and
Warehouse. Phyfe Lived Across the Street in
|Q a House Similar to the Warehouse ... 71
r PLATE XXIX. A Phyfe Sofa with Cane Seat and
Panels 74
PLATE XXX. A Phyfe Sofa in the Early Empire
Style. Feet Are Painted Black and Winged
Ornamentation Gilded 75
PLATE XXXI. Phyfe's Own Furniture. Pieces
y from His Home on Fulton Street Now
r***-
Owned by His Descendants 80
PLATE XXXII. Lochlin Phyfe, Who Was Asso-
ciated with His Brother Duncan for Many
Years and Is Said to Have Resembled Him . 81
PLATE XXXIII. Phyfe's Sideboard and Cellar-
ette. He Gave Mrs. Phyfe the Silver Service
to Celebrate the End of the War of 1812 . 82
PLATE XXXIV. A New England Parlor of 1800 83
xiii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE XXXV. Room and Furniture by Samuel
Mclntire. Removed from the Capt. Daniel
West House, Peabody, Mass 94
PLATE XXXVI. A Mclntire Sofa. His Work Was
Closely Akin to That of Duncan Phyfe . . 95
PLATE XXXVII. A Hepplewhite Sideboard with
Label of Mills & Deming, New York. Made
about 1790 for Gov. Oliver Walcott of Con-
necticut 96
PLATE XXXVIII. A Matthew Edgerton Secre-
tary with Label 97
PLATE XXXIX. A Hepplewhite Secretary with
Label by Joseph Rawson & Son, Providence . 100
PLATE XL. A Labeled Hepplewhite Table by
Robert Lawton of Newport. It Is Numbered
and Dated May 2Oth 5 1794 101
PLATE XLI. A Butler Secretary. This Is Labeled
"Thos. Burling, Cabinet and Chair Maker,
No. 56 Beekman Street, New York" . . . 108
PLATE XLIL Alexander Hamilton's Library
Table 109
PLATE XLIIL A Painted Dower Chest. Typical
of the Work of the Selzer-Rank Families 112
PLATE XLIV. Windsor Chairs from Primitive to
Decadent 113
A, The Primitive Gothic Chair at the Hos-
pital of St. Cross, Winchester, England;
B, C and D. Typical American Wind-
sors; E. Decadent Form of 1850
xiv
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE XLV. Thomas Jefferson's Writing Wind-
sor. In This He Wrote His First Draft of the
Declaration of Independence. Built to Jef-
ferson's Design. The Seat Revolves . . . 116
PLATE XLVL Franklin's Library Chair. Its Seat
Folds Over and Becomes a Stepladder . . 117
PLATE XLVII. Bill of John K. Cowperthwaite.
Dated May 11, 1825 124
PLATE XLVTIL Advertisement of Andrew Gau-
tier. From New York Gazette^ April 18, 1765 125
PLATE XLIX. The Ash Family Were Outstand-
ing Windsor Chair Makers in New York . 125
PLATE L. Advertisements of New York Chair-
makers Prior to 1820 128
PLATE LI. The Banners of the New York Chair-
makers, Master and Workmen . . . . 129
PLATE LIL A Signed Hitchcock Chair . . . 144
PLATE LIIL An Aaron Willard Mantel Clock . 145
PLATE LIV. A Simon Willard Banjo Clock . . 148
PLATE LV. An Eli Terry Mantel Clock . . . 149
PLATE LVI. Typical Connecticut Clocks. The
Makers, Left to Right, Were Seth Thomas;
New Haven Clock Company; and Chauncey
Jerome 152
PLATE LVII. The Chief Yankee Clockmakers . 153
PLATE LVIII. A Chair of Boss Tweed's Make . 156
PLATE LIX. A Rare Advertisement of Tweed's
Chair Business. From a New York City Di-
rectory Just Before He Retired to Politics .
XV
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PICTORIAL OUTLINE OF AMERICAN
FURNITURE
PLATE LX. Puritan Furniture . . . . . 161
A. Group of iyth Century Pieces
B. Table Chest, c. 1650
C. Two Joined Stools
D. Hutch or Table Chair
E. First American Folding Bed
F. Hadley Chest Made for Abigail Fields,
c. 1690
G. Connecticut Oak Chest with Drawers,
c. 1675
H. Oldest American Table
PLATE LXL Early 1 8th Century 162
A. William and Mary Chest of Drawers
B. Duck Foot Table
C. Three Typical Side Chairs
D. Slat Back Arm Chair
E. Bracket Foot Chest of Drawers
PLATE LXII. American Chippendale . * . . 163
A. Chippendale Double Chair-back Settee
B. Chinese Chippendale Pembroke Table
with John Townsend Label
C. Rhode Island Desk
D. A Simplex Chair Made of Applewood
E. Mahogany Side Chair
xvi
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
F-G. Two Philadelphia Highboys
H. Maple Lowboy with Spanish Feet
I. Bonnet Top Secretary
J. Tilt Top Tripod Table
PLATE LXIIL Phyfe Furniture 164
A. Famous Lyre Type Chair
B. Simpler Form Chair
C. Two-Part Dining Table in Classic Style
D. Sheraton Table
E. Delicately Done Four Post Bed
PLATE LXIV. Hepplewhite-Sheraton Era . . 165
A. Sheraton Butlers Secretary with Side
Closets
B. Hepplewhite Chest of Drawers
C. Barrel Top Secretary
D. Pair of Hepplewhite Card Tables
E. Typical Field Bed
F. Hepplewhite Secretary with Tambour
Front
PLATE LXV. Windsor Chairs 166
A. Connecticut Windsor, Late i8th Century
B. Hoop Back Windsor
C. Two Philadelphia Windsors
D. Low Back i8th Century Settle of Curly
Maple
E. High Back Windsor Settle
F. Three Varieties of New England Wind-
sors
xvii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE LXVL Fancy Chairs 167
A. Painted Fancy Chair with Rush Seat
B. Simple Type with Caned Seat and Bam-
boo Turnings
C. Painted Fancy Settle
D. Boston Rocker
E. Late Fancy Chair. Carries Label of Union
Chair Company, Robertsville, Conn.,
Where Hitchcock Worked after 1843
PLATE LXVTL Types of Clocks 168
A. Lyre Clock, a Variation of the Banjo.
Invented by Aaron Willard
B. An Unusual Simon Willard Clock. He
Seldom Used the Eagle Ornament
C. A Willard Banjo. Probably Made by
Aaron, Brother of Simon
D. Early Shelf Clock. Made by David Wood,
Newburyport, Mass., c. 1800
E. English Clock Movement In an American
Case
F. Connecticut Tall Clock. Made by Thomas
Harland of Norwich, Mentor of Nau-
gatuck Valley Clockmakers
G. John Townsend Clock Case
H. Benjamin Bagnall Tall Clock. Made in
Boston between 1725-1750
I. Miniature Tall Clock by Thomas Clag-
gett, Newport, R. I. ? 1730-1749
xviii
CHAPTER I
THE PILGRIM CENTURY
W O
H tt
t
^
W
I
THE PILGRIM CENTURY
FURNITURE history in the United States
begins, not with Captain John Smith's
company of gentlemen adventurers in
Virginia nor with the Hollanders who swapped
nineteen dollars worth of beads, hatchets and
rum for Manhattan Island, but rather with the
austere, nonconforming Englishmen who settled
New England. It was they who brought the trade
of furniture making from old England and in
these new environs were, by 1675, making tables,
chairs and chests of distinctly American design.
In fact, furniture making in New England
can with certainty be said to date from that
bleak December day in 1620 when the Pilgrim
Fathers with their families, numbering one hun-
dred persons all told, forsook the Mayflower and
scrambled onto Plymouth Rock and dry land.
Their ship was only of 120 tons burden and had
to carry their provisions and supplies for the
colonizing expedition as well as for two trips
21
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
across the uncharted Atlantic. The Mayflower
was 82 feet long, 22 feet beam, and 14 feet
from keel to main deck. Into her hold Christo-
pher Jones, master of the ship, had to stow the
casks of provisions, the supplies and the Pilgrim
Fathers' chests of household gear.
What room was left for all the antiques that
are now reputed to have come over in this his-
toric vessel? The answer is obvious, likewise
careful study of these reputed Mayflower relics
discloses the majority to be either of American
make or of English origin of a later date- But
these very casks of food and drink, which pre-
cluded bringing much of any furniture, required
under the Tunnage Acts then in force that some-
body be aboard the ship who could make casks to
be sent back on the return voyage. To comply, so
that they might sail from Southampton, the Pil-
grims added John Alden of "Speak for Yourself,
John 73 fame to their number. He was a cooper
of twenty-one years. This is how Governor Wil-
liam Bradford, in 1650, in his History of the
Plymouth Settlement listed him:
"John Alden. Mr. Alden was hired at South-
hampton as a cooper. Being a likely young man
he was desired as a settler; but it was left to his
22
THE PILGRIM CENTURY
own choice to stay or return to England; he
stayed and married Priscilla Mullins."
Thus it happened that the first trained wood-
worker came to an English speaking colony on
the American continent. Moreover, Alden pros-
pered and seems to have devoted the 67 years
before his death to office holding, farming, trad-
Ing with the Indians and doing a little furniture
making. Occasionally he is referred to in colonial
records as a "joyner." This does not mean that
he devoted himself to the affairs of Plymouth's
Chamber of Commerce, Rotary club or lodge of
Elks. Instead It was the style of the day for a
man who did cabinet work.
Four years after the founding of Plymouth,
Alden moved to Duxbury, eight miles from
Plymouth. This was America's first suburban
development. Here he cleared a farm of 169
acres and in 1653 built the house that is still
standing. By 1665 Alden, after many years of
membership in the Colonial council, was ap-
pointed deputy governor. Not bad for a man
whose only reason for sailing on the Mayflower
was to care for the casks of salt meat, beer and
water. When he died he left 33 shillings worth
of furniture, to wit, one table, one form (i.e.,
23
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
bench) , one cupboard, two chairs, bedsteads,
chests and boxes. Probably most of these pieces
were of his own make but unfortunately none
of them has survived that can be identified as
genuine John Alden furniture. On the other
hand,, It Is fairly safe to consider that what he
did make was just about like the pieces of Ameri-
can furniture made prior to 1687, the year of his
death.
John Alden was not the sole citizen of Ply-
mouth trained to furniture making. About 1629
there arrived from the Old Country Kenelm
Wlnslow, brother of Governor Edward Wins-
low who played such an Important part In the
affairs of the Pilgrims even from the days of the
Leyden sojourn. Kenelm was one of the young-
est of the five Winslow brothers all of whom
left their native Droitwlch in Worcestershire,
England for the Plymouth settlement. He was
born on April 29, 1599, and thus was thirty
years old when he reached the New World. Evi-
dently he had learned his trade in the homeland
and did not adopt a new calling on reaching
Massachusetts, for there is an entry dated Janu-
ary 6, 1633, * n which he is styled "joyner." It
also shows that he was prosperous enough to
24
THE PILGRIM CENTURY
have a helper for It concerns the indenture to
him of Samuel Jenney as an apprentice.
Further study of this second Plymouth fur-
niture maker discloses him to have been chosen,
in 1640, town surveyor. The next year for neglect
of highways he is fined ten shillings. Then he
quit Plymouth and betook himself to Marshfield
where. In 1637, he had obtained a grant of land.
With this shift of abode Kenelm seems to have
abandoned his trade for thereafter the records
refer to him as a planter and sometimes inter-
ested in shipping. On September 13, 1672, while
on a visit to Salem he died and was buried
there.
Like Alden, with whom he may have worked
for all we know, Winslow did not mark the
product of his hand. So we do not know for a cer-
tainty just what furniture he made. There is a
possibility that a sample of his skill may still
survive. In Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, is Governor
Edward Winslow's wainscot chair. This the cat-
alogue describes as " made in Cheapside, Lon-
don In 1614," but careful students now question
this statement. They are prone to feel that in-
stead of being made of English oak the wood Is
New England light oak. If this be true, then
25
_ JSARLY^AMEM
quite possibly it was made by no other person
than the Governor's brother, KeneliiL To prove
or disprove this beyond doubt is a task that
should be undertaken by some qualified student
of old furniture. It is a challenge not to be over-
looked.
But while Alden was quietly going his way
on his Duxbury farm and Winslow was con-
cerning himself with crops and ships at Marsh-
field, things were happening in other parts of
New England and happening with startling
speed. Between 1629 and 1640 there was a
mighty wave of migration from the western
counties of old England to the Massachusetts
Bay colony and other parts of New England.
Well-to-do merchants, land-owners, artisans and
professional men left the mother country in
alarming numbers. In 1643, t ^ le United Colonies
of New England made up of thirty-nine towns
with a total population of 24,000 came into
being. Soon their settlements reached from
Greenwich, Conn., to Saco, Maine, and coastal
New England was a region of boom towns with
work and opportunity for everybody who would
abide by the strict meeting-house-dominated oli-
garchy that was the law of the land.
26
THE PILGRIM CENTURY
By 1650, the probate courts were handling
estates as large as two thousand pounds sterling,
relatively as much money as a half million dol-
lars today. Skilled laborers were paid 16 shil-
lings a day and prosperous joiners were coming
over from England with their families and ap-
prentices, Roger Mason arrived in Boston in
1635 with ^ s w ^ e an( i ^ OUT children and in
16373 Samuel Dix, joyner 9 with his wife, two
children and two apprentices, William Storey
and Daniel Lindsey. This same year Edward
Johnson of Canterbury, England, reached Bos-
ton with his wife, seven children and three ser-
vants. Quite evidently, Johnson was a cabinet
maker of definite worldly wealth.
So it went. The records are full of the arrival
of furniture makers of this sort. Sometimes, like
Sergeant Stephen Jacques, the man who built
the meeting house at Newburyport, these men
are described as builders as well as makers of
furniture. Unfortunately what pieces they made
out of the oak, maple, pine, chestnut and ash
that grew, so to speak, right beside their work-
shops, can only be determined by those examples
that are now preserved in museums. These in-
clude tables, chairs, stools, benches, settles,
27
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
chests big and little, as well as writing boxes and
Bible boxes.
Although bedsteads were in common use in
New England from the start they were evi-
dently very simple frames, for, in 1633, ^ n Ply-
mouth old bedsteads are valued as low as two
shillings each, and none of these early examples
seems to have survived. The earliest the writer
knows of, is the folding bedstead dating from
about 1700, now in the Metropolitan Museum
in New York. It is made of maple with two tall
posts and a framework at the head to support
the voluminous hangings that were considered
part of every well furnished bed. A study of the
antique shows one how the lower part swung up
under the framework that supported the head-
board draperies. In the Metropolitan there is
also a cradle of American make, of oak with
paneled sides not unlike the chests of the period,
It dates from 1625 to 1675 an ^ shows how
simple were the tastes of the day. Except for the
turnings of the corner posts and parallel lines of
beading on the rails it is without ornamentation.
Simplicity again is the keynote of the oldest
known American table. It dates from about 1650
and may also be seen in this same museum. The
28
<I*t ^t Loch*** from "Coital Furniture in Amenc*," Scribnm)
PLATE V.-Tm NICHOLAS DISBROWE CHEST AND INSCRIPTION.
W
Q
H
CX3
^ ,
ziVv >
* 5
fe K
THE PILGRIM CENTURY
top Is a single plank of pine, twelve feet long
and the three-part understructure connected by
a long plnned-in single stretcher is of oak. It is
not known just where in New England this table
was made, but it can be considered as typical of
the dining table in use for a long time through-
out all of the American colonies. It Is distinctly
Elizabethan if not Gothic In line and its execu-
tion is simplicity Itself.
Simplicity also ruled In the matter of the
stools, benches and settles that took the place of
chairs in the average New England house before
the dawn of the eighteenth century. The stools
were simple three or four-legged affairs of the
general sort that had been used in England for
several* hundred years. The benches and settles
were plain board structures, the latter with high
backs and side pieces designed for warding off
the chill drafts that were prevalent in those Illy
built and Inadequately heated New England
homes.
Of chairs there were two varieties. The
"great" chair, a carved wainscot-constructed
piece of furniture elaborately ornamented, was
evidently only possible for a man of means. Such
is the one known as the Brewster chair, a veri-
29
EARLY
table archieplscopal throne for the man who
ruled the Plymouth colony for a generation.
Then there were the simpler arm chairs made of
turned uprights and spindle backs, with either
a rush seat or one of woven splint. Later slats
replaced the spindles of the backs and the slat
back chair came into being. This typically
American type continued to be made throughout
New England until about the time of the Mexi-
can War.
Chests, because of the manifold uses to which
they were put, were the chief pieces of furniture
in New England homes for the first 75 years.
At first there were many that were brought over
from the old country, but the frequency with
which the earliest of the New England homes
burned down seems to account for the rarity of
English-made chests of this period. At first the
this-country-produced chests were practically
like those from the old homeland, only simpler.
Then, suddenly in the hinterland of the Con-
necticut River Valley, chest making along lines
that were distinctly original commenced. For
many years it has been known that two distinct
types of these chests were made. One was called
the Connecticut and the other the Hadley. Care-
30
THE PILGRIM CENTURY
ful study of the carved ornamentation of these
two examples led to the belief that they were the
work of two different men, but who they were or
where they lived remained unknown until but a
half dozen years ago when Luke Vincent Lock-
wood of New York obtained possession of a
two-drawer chest ornamented with an elabo-
rately carved all-over design on the front. On
the back of the lower drawer of the chest is
written in seventeenth century handwriting:
"Mary Allyns Chistt Cutte and Joyned by
Nich. Disbrowe."
This is the earliest piece of American fur-
niture of proven origin. Mary Allyn, for whom
this chest was made, was the daughter of Colonel
John Allyn, secretary of the colony. She was born
in Hartford in 1657 and died in 1724. In 1686
she married William Whiting.
Of Nicholas Disbrowe we can only find the
following data : He was born at Walden, Essex
county, England, in 1612-13 and was a property
owner in Hartford, Conn., by 1639, where he
lived at the north end of Burr street, now North
Main street. He married Mary Bronson in 1640
and 20 years later obtained permission to build
a i6-foot-square shop on the highway. For service
3 1
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
In the Pequot War on May 11, 1671, Disbrowe
was granted 50 acres of land. Likewise he held
the office of "chimney viewer" In 1647, 1655,
1663 and 1669. In 1665 Disbrowe was surveyor
of highways, and, on March 6, 1672-3 at the age
of 60, he was freed from military service.
In 1669 Disbrowe married Elizabeth, widow
of Twaithe Strickland. He died in 1683 leaving
a total property of 210, a sizable estate for
Hartford In that year. At one time Disbrowe was
charged with practicing witchcraft. This charge
apparently arose from a disputed bill for a chest.
In Mr. Lockwood's opinion, Disbrowe was no
ordinary carver and his design Is distinguished
by undulating bands of carved tulips flowing
from stiles to rails without breaking. In writing
about the Allyn chest In his book, "Colonial Fur-
niture in America," he points out that DIsbrowe's
designs were carefully worked out to fit the in-
dividual piece and no two pieces are identical.
Of the Hadley chests Mr, Lockwood states
that they were made by Captain John Allis of
Hadley, Mass. Capt. Allis 3 mother was a niece
of Nicholas Disbrowe, thus the maker of the
Hadley chest was Disbrowe's grand-nephew.
The Hadley chests were similar to the Dis-
32
"I a
4 <
THE PILGRIM CENTURY
browe style and quite possibly Allis saw the
Mary Allyn chest as well as others made by his
mother's uncle. Allis survived Dlsbrowe by only
six years, and then his widow married Samuel
Belden, and his son Ichabod not only married his
step-father's daughter but went Into partnership
with him, forming the firm of Belden & Allis,
builders, in 1702, of the meeting house at Had-
ley, Mass.
Thus the first American furniture of identified
craftsmanship Is more or less a family affair and
was produced In a region which, but a few years
previously, had been a trackless wilderness. At
the same time that these two men were at work
making and carving their chests, some other
joiners unfortunately unknown were making an-
other Improvement. Under their hands the chest
was becoming a chest of drawers. An example
of this new chest of drawers of oak with carved
ornamentation covering the entire front is In the
Metropolitan Museum. It was made sometime
between 1675 an( i
33
CHAPTER II
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
(American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, Inc.)
PLATE XL JOHN HANCOCK'S INAUGURAL CHAIR. USED WHEN
HE BECAME FIRST GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS. MADE ABOUT
1710.
II
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
IN 1700, save for Georgia Oglethorpe's
interesting experiment in practical philan-
thropy all of the original American
Colonies were prosperous and going bodies
politic. By hewing to the mark, the colonists had
established themselves in land unknown less
than a century before. Thanks to knick-knacks,
rum, treaties, or massacre, the Indians had been
disposed of quite handily. Likewise, the Nether-
lands and Sweden had surrendered New Amster-
dam on the Hudson and New Sweden on the
Delaware. So, from Maine almost to Florida
there stretched a chain of English colonial pos-
sessions mostly converted from proprietary
ventures to crown colonies presided over by in-
dividual royal governors of the stripe that had
''stepped abroad to ease fortune of some of his
father's debts/'
Existence was no longer all log-cabin pioneer-
ing. In the important centers and in the lesser
37
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
towns, as well as on the older farms of the North
and the plantations of the cavalier South 9
"modest affluence and ordered good living" was
the rule. Racially the people were English,
Scotch, Welsh, Irish, Hollanders and French
Huguenots. A few Germans, Swiss, Swedes and
Spanish and Portugese Jews added cosmopolitan
variety. But all were rapidly being assimilated
into independent colonials whose mental back-
ground was essentially English. Like the
Britishers at home on their tight little island,
world commerce, polite or somewhat piratically
shady, was bringing these colonists material
wealth that made possible a better standard of
living for the average household. Their homes
were larger and beginning to be painted outside.
Their furniture was no longer either crudely
home fashioned, or made of oak liberally carved
in the Tudor tradition with native American
variations.
Broadly speaking, 1700 marks the advent in
American native cabinet making of the style of
William and Mary, and also witnesses a sharp
break with the Jacobean and Tudor traditions.
This was followed in rapid succession by the
Queen Anne and Early Georgian periods includ-
38
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
ing, if you will, the first fifteen or twenty years
of the Influence of Thomas Chippendale, and
marks the flowering of American colonial fur-
niture making. The spirit was that of eighteenth
century England dominated, as it was, by the
designs of Thomas Chippendale, but in ex-
ecution it was distinctly American.
By now, furniture making was an established
and going business. It was followed by native-
born journeymen who obtained inspiration from
such early books of design as those by G.
Brunetti and James Gibbs. Then, too, occasion-
ally furniture makers who had learned their
trade in the Old Country came over and set up
shop, being not at all disinclined to take on pro-
fessional airs because of their more recent arrival
from London or elsewhere.
With this combination, knowledge of the
changes in furniture styles traveled almost as
rapidly, considering the times and means of com-
munication, as if there had been a business press
devoted to the art of furniture design and the
methods of making it. During that time, how-
ever, some very interesting things were happen-
ing in furniture making in America. First, the
high-boy, although originally introduced from
39
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
England, became particularly an American
piece. In England, by 1725, highboys were out
of fashion, but not so in the colonies. Local work-
men kept right on making them and refining the
design with the result that it became primarily
an American piece and was made In various
styles as a standard and popular Item of house-
hold furniture.
Much the same happened with Windsor
chairs. By 1736 they had traveled to America
and established themselves In the esteem of
people high and low. From then on, Windsor
chair making was frequently a special trade all
by itself. So it continued for a hundred years,
and American chair makers developed many
variations and refinements which were totally
unknown in the land of its origin.
Who the craftsmen of the first part of this fur-
niture era were Is lost Information. All we know
is that they were here. Museum and private col-
lections have plenty of examples to show the in-
dustry of these unknown men. But then there
comes a change and we have some interesting
facts about a group of furniture makers. All were
able craftsmen working enough in the Chippen-
dale tradition to warrant their being called
40
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
American Chippendales. The list includes
William Savery, Jonathan Gostelowe ? Thomas
Tufts and Benjamin Randolph, all of Phila-
delphia; John Goddard and his Townsend kins-
folk. Job, Christopher and John, all of Newport;
Major Benjamin Frothingham of Charleston,
Mass. ; Col. Marinus Willett and Andrew Gau-
tier of New York; Aaron Chapin of Hartford,
Conn. ; and Webb and Scott of Providence, R. I.
Unfortunately no identifiable pieces of the work
of Willett and Gautier have as yet been dis-
covered, but they are worth considering because
Gautier was the first to use illustrated news-
paper advertising, while Willett's record as a
soldier and patriot made him a colorful person.
William Savery, like John Goddard, was a
Quaker and quite curiously it is these two mem-
bers of the Society of Friends who produced some
of the best examples of American furniture done
in the Chippendale mode. Savery's very ex-
istence, however, was unknown until a few years
ago, when a label was found on the under side
of the lowboy in the collection of the Colonial
Dames housed in the Van Cortlandt Manor
House in New York City. This label reads, "All
sorts of chairs and joiners work made and sold
41
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
by William Savery at the sign of the Chair 5 a
little below the Market, in Second Street, Phila-
delphia/'
This discovery made possible identification of
a number of pieces in the Pennsylvania
Museum and in possession of private owners in
and around Philadelphia. Also, several chairs
and other pieces with the same label have since
come to light. Savery was a master craftsman
and his furniture found ready purchasers among
the wealthy Quakers and others who lived in
Philadelphia, then leading the colonies in wealth
and culture.
Biographical data about Savery are rather
meager. The researches of Alfred C. Prime dis-
close that the Savery family came either directly
from England or via the Barbadoes. When and
where Savery was born is not known, but on
April 19, 17465 he married Mary Peters in Phila-
delphia. He died in 1787, aged sixty-five, which
means he was born in 1721 or 1722.
Records about Savery show that in 1754 he was
a ward assessor. The certificate of this appoint-
ment signed by Benjamin Franklin is in the col-
lection of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.
That he prospered materially is borne out by a
42
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
tax bill of 1780 for 149, upon property valued
at $46,000, American money, a tidy sum for
the poverty-stricken days of the close of the
Revolution. Savery worked for a rich clientele
and his pieces, largely done in a restrained Chip-
pendale manner, make liberal use of the cabriole
leg, the claw and ball foot, the fiddle back and
the ornamentally turned stretcher. A consider-
able number of carved mahogany highboys and
lowboys of Philadelphia make have been at-
tributed to him, but it is now generally believed
that Savery did not often employ ornate carv-
ing. He rather depended upon nicety of pro-
portion and line for his artistic effects.
Jonathan Gostelowe was one of the goodly
company of Philadelphia cabinet makers who
were contemporaries and competitors of Savery,
and since he marked at least one of his pieces we
are able to identify his work and learn some-
thing of his time. A fine walnut serpentine chest
of drawers now in the Pennsylvania Museum
with label attached proves the type of work he
produced, and study of records and family
papers by Clarence W. Brazer supply details as
to the man himself.
In this Philadelphia cabinet maker we have a
43
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
colorful character who occupied a prominent
place during his life. He saw service In the Revo-
lution as a major In the Corps of Artillery Arti-
ficers Ordnance Corps we call it today,
Afterward when he had returned to his trade
Gostelowe played a leading part In the affairs of
the Gentlemen Cabinet and Chair Makers, the
Philadelphia trade association of the day. It was
he who led them when they marched in the
parade on Friday, July 4th, 1788, to celebrate
the fact that the necessary ten states had ratified
the new constitution. This was an impressive
celebration carried through with fitting pomp
and ceremony. About 5,000 men, civilian and
soldiery, marched in the parade, and some 17,000
ate the collation served at Bush Hill following
the patriotic oration of James Wilson.
In church matters Gostelowe was also active.
For some years he was a vestryman of Christ
Church, which still has the baptismal font and
communion table that he presented to it.
The biographical facts about this outstanding
cabinet maker are as follows. He was born at
Passyunk in southern Philadelphia County, in
1744 or 1745. His father, George Gostelowe,
was probably of Swedish birth, but his mother,
44
(ran Cortlandt Manor)
PLATE XIII.-A SAVERY LOWBOY. THE FIRST LABELED PIECE OF
His TO BE FOUND. THE MARK OF IDENTIFICATION Is PASTED IN
THE UPPER DRAWER.
(American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, Inc.)
PLATE XIV. A SAVERY ARMCHAIR WITH LABEL. FORMERLY IN
THE HOWARD REIFSNYDER COLLECTION.
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
Lydia, is said to have come from. Northampton-
shire, England. By 1754, Jonathan's name is on
the Philadelphia tax list, but without trade desig-
nation. On June i6 5 1768, came his marriage to
Mary, niece of Edward Duffield, the clockmaker,
and executor of Benjamin Franklin's estate.
Two years later Mary died, and for nineteen
years Gostelowe remained a widower. It was
during this time that he saw military service. At
last with the Revolution over and his trade re-
sumed, on April 19, 1789, he married Elizabeth,
daughter of Robert Tower, the druggist, who
had been first Chief Commissary of Military
Stores and whose assistant Gostelowe had evi-
dently been. From then on until his retirement
In 1793 he followed his trade and had the dis-
tinction of possessing the most ornate business
card of any of his fellow craftsmen. He died
February 3, 1795.
As to the labeled walnut chest of drawers
which made It possible to start tracing his ac-
tivities, here are some details about Its discovery
which I do not think have been published be-
fore. Mr. GInsburg, of the New York firm of
antique furniture dealers of Ginsburg and Levy,
went several years ago to a sale in an obscure
45
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
Brooklyn auction room. He arrived late and
found that a walnut chest of drawers had already
been sold to a dealer from Canada. Mr, Gins-
burg happened to examine the piece and saw the
Gostelowe label. Then the fun began. The
Canadian dealer did not know of the label and
cared less. He had bought a good piece and he
intended to take it home with him. But at last
the price Mr. Ginsburg offered was too attrac-
tive, and the first Gostelowe escaped the oblivion
of Canada and in time passed into the possession
of the Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia,
the city where it originated. Where it had been
and how it happened to turn up in a Brooklyn
auction room is beside the point. It is now back
home.
In Benjamin Randolph we have an American
Chippendale who limited himself to chairs, but
pieces of his work that have been located and
identified are proof positive that here was a man
of great artistic ability. His fame rests on the
"six sample chairs" first discovered some twenty-
five years ago by James Curran, the Philadelphia
dealer. Rumors had been afloat for some time
about these remarkable pieces and gradually
they were gathered in by the ablest collectors.
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
Three of them finally became part of the famous
collection of the late Howard Reifsnyder, and
were sold last spring at the dispersal of the col-
lection for prices that were truly kingly ransoms.
In design and workmanship they outchippendale
Chippendale himself. The carving of the cabriole
legs and the ribbon tracery of the backs show
plainly that wealthy Philadelphians were appre-
ciative of the best.
In fact, connoisseurs of the Chippendale
period of American cabinet making are now
agreed that finer chairs were never produced in
America. Randolph was a genius in his ability
to work in the style of another and yet avoid the
copyist's usual crudities and lapses.
Of Randolph himself the researches of Dr.
Samuel W. Woodhouse Jr. have yielded these
facts. He was born in Monmouth County, New
Jersey. He was in business for himself in Phila-
delphia by February 18, 1762, when he married
his first wife, Anna Bromwich, sole daughter and
heir of William Bromwich, stay-maker of Sassa-
fras Street. By 1768, Randolph was paying a tax
of 42 and evidently he continued to prosper,
for in 1786 his tax had mounted to 176.
That he was not adverse to turning his hand
47
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
to other things, If the temper of the time war-
ranted, is indicated by an advertisement of his
appearing in the Pennsylvania Evening Post
May 6th, 1777- It reads 9 "Holsters, pistols,
carbines, swords for the Light Horse wanted im-
mediately. Inquire -of Benjamin Randolph In
Chestnut Street/ 5 Question, did the artistic
craftsman have the contract to supply the arms
for this patriotic regiment of horse?
In time, the Declaration of Independence and
kindred events having caused a marked depres-
sion in the business of making elaborate and
costly furniture in the Chippendale mode, Ran-
dolph sold his Philadelphia property and retired
to his place Speedwell Mills on Wadding River,
near Burlington, New Jersey. This seems to have
happened late in 1792. It is probable that his
death took place not long afterward.
Working as he did in Philadelphia, he
naturally came in contact with many of the great
men of the Revolutionary era. Unfortunately he
does not seem to have had any dealings with
Washington, for none of the volumes of Wash-
ington correspondence includes letters to or from
him. On the other hand, there Is documentary
proof that he did work for Thomas Jefferson.
(Pennsylvania Museum, Memorial Hall } Philadelphia}
PLATE XV. A GOSTELOWE CHEST OF DRAWERS WITH LABEL,
03
p
s
csj
o
w w
J ij
PH w
-
I *
* h
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
Randolph was 9 In fact, the maker of the table
upon which was drafted the Declaration of In-
dependence,
John Goddard of Newport, the other out-
standing Quaker furniture master, likewise
worked in a town famous for its wealth. Slave
trading, privateering and whalefishing had their
headquarters there and brought much money to
support the town's first families In an austerely
luxurious manner. Where Savery was known for
his chairs and highboys, Goddard' s fame rests on
the fine secretary desks which are individual
enough to be a type unto themselves. These were
long known to collectors as Rhode Island desks
until patient investigation disclosed that they
were all made by one man John Goddard.
Carefully executed In mahogany, these desks had
drawers with block fronts and shell carvings on
the front of the writing leaf as well as the doors
of the bookcase compartment above and the
pigeonholes and drawers of the interior. God-
dard was partial to broken pediment bonnet tops
with flame finials. He also made tables large and
small, and "common chairs" when his customers
wanted them.
This New England disciple of Chippendale
49
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
was born In Dartmouth,, Massachusetts, on Jan-
uary 20, 1723-24, the son of Daniel Goddard, a
shipwright, and was the third generation of his
family to live in New England. John, probably
brought up in Newport, was on April 3, 1744,
made a freeman of the colony. Two years later
he married Hannah Townsendi, whose father,
Job, is believed to have been the master under
whom Goddard served his apprenticeship. There
is little information to enable us to follow God-
dard' s career as a craftsman. We know that, in
1764, with his father-in-law, he was elected to
the office of 'Viewer of joiners lumber/ 5 Several
letters written by Goddard have fortunately sur-
vived. These sometimes quite interestingly ex-
plain why he cannot make pieces of furniture as
soon as his customers would have him. Possibly
this is the explanation of why, when he died on
July 16, 1785, his estate was advertised as
Insolvent.
A letter owned by the Rhode Island School of
Design written by Goddard to one of the Brown
family mentions one of the finest pieces he ever
made. This Is a tea table which was one of the
features of the recent Flayderman sale in New
York City. This letter reads as follows:
50
(Dr. Samuel W. Woodhouse Jr.)
PLATE XVII. A RANDOLPH CHAIR WITH LABEL.
(Metropolitan Museum of Art}
PLATE XVIII. A JOHN GODDARD DESK.
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
Newport ye 3oth of ye 6th mo 1763
Friend Brown
I send herewith The Tea Table & common Chairs
which thou spoke for with the Bill, tho* other Work is
in good forwardness hope to compleat in a short time. I
Reed, a few lines from Jabez Bowen whom I suppose this
furniture is for, Requesting me to make a pre.Case of
Drawers, please to inform him I shall gladly serve him if
he can wate till sometime in the fall which will be as soon
as I can finnish them as I have but little help, if he in-
clines to wate for me I would know whither he means to
have them different from what is common, as there is a
sort which is called Chest on Chest of Drawers & Sweld
front which are Costly as well as ornimental. thoul
Please to let me know friend Bowens minde that I may
act accordingly, till then am they friend
Jno.Goddard
As we have just said, Goddard married into
the Townsend family, which recent investiga-
tion Indicates was the leading cabinet making
group of Newport. The first of the Townsends to
follow the trade were the brothers Job and Chris-
topher. Job was bom in 1699 and died in 1765.
A set of six Queen Anne walnut chairs with
fiddle backs and Dutch-footed cabriole front
legs, made by him about 1730, have been located
and identified. Of Christopher's furniture we as
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
yet know nothing. Both had large families and
because of similarity of Christian names It Is
hard to trace just who was whose son. We do
know that John Goddard married Job's daughter
Hannah. Also there is In existence a secretary
which carries on the central door of the cabinet
section the inscription, "Made by Job Townsend
In Newport/ 3
As to brother Christopher, one of his sons was
no less a person than John Townsend, the man
who could make block fronted chests of drawers
and secretars in every whit as fine Chippendale
style as his kinsman, John Goddard. A number
of labeled Townsend pieces have been located
and, besides proving his skill and artistic ability,
they show that he sometimes worked in the
Hepplewhlte manner*
In the third generation the Goddard-Town-
send dynasty was represented in cabinet making
by Thomas Goddard, 1765-1858. His span of
life was nearly the same as that of Duncan
Phyfe. He is of interest for his memorandum in-
scriptions on pieces made by his father and re-
paired by him. One of these reads, "Made by
John Goddard, 1761 and repaired by Thomas
Goddard, his son, 1813. Health Officer of the
52
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
Town of Newport Appointed by the Honr.
Town Council Members Nicholas Taylor Esq.
& my son T. Topham." Of his other activities
we know that he was a member of the Society
of Friends, active enough in the local fire com-
pany to become its captain, and a staunch Fed-
eralist who cast his first presidential vote for
George Washington.
Major Benjamin Frothingham Is a new ad-
dition to the identified craftsmen of the colonial
era. Thanks to Dexter E. Spalding, a desk from
Frothingham 5 s shop in Charles town has been dis-
covered and carefully described. In structure,
this piece shows originality In the application of
the reverse serpentine curve of the drawer fronts
and a rather unique ogival bracket foot. The in-
terior of the desk is likewise ornamented by a
carefully executed shell carving upon the front
of the central small drawers,
Benjamin Frothingham was born in Boston,
April 6, 1734. His father, Benjamin, was, like-
wise a joiner and cabinet maker with a shop not
far from the Milk street habitat of the parents of
Benjamin Franklin. By 1756 the younger man
had moved to Charlestown and enlisted in
Richard Gridley's artillery company. Evidently
53
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
he liked being in uniform on "training days/ 5
for by 1775 he held a commission as first lieu-
tenant in Capt. Joseph Chadwick's company of
Col. Richard Gridley's artillery regiment. From
1777 to 1780 Frothlngham's name appears on
the payroll of the Continental Army. He was
wounded at Bethlehem, and various military
records show his continuous service until 1782.
Unfortunately the record of his promotion to the
rank of major has not been found, nor have any
documents proving his direct military relation-
ship with George Washington. But Washington
evidently knew him well, for it is recorded that
when, on October 29, 1789, Washington was In
Charlestown, the only call he made was on
' 'Major Benjamin Frothingham, a cabinet maker
whom he had known in the army, and who was
a member of the Cincinnati/ 5
F. F. HunnewelFs "History of Charlestown"
corroborates all this In the following passage:
"Major Benjamin Frothingham lived on the lot
next north of the engine house opposite Walker
street, and who lost a dwelling, barn and shop
(destruction of Charleston by the British, in
1775) . At his house, built of course after the war,
General Washington made the only private call
54
(American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, Inc.)
PLATE XIX. ONE OF Six QUEEN ANNE CHAIRS BY
JOB TOWNSEND.
(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston}
PLATE XX, A CHEST OF DRAWERS BY JOHN TOWNSEND,
DATED NOVEMBER 20TH, 1792.
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
the only call that he ever made In Charles-
town. The Frothinghams held lands in the
neighborhood from its settlement, owning nearly
across the peninsula/ 5
Of Andrew Gautier, one of the first Ameri-
can furniture makers to use illustrated news-
paper advertising, little is known. He was born
in New York in 1720 and died in 1784. His
grandfather, Jacques, was a French Huguenot
who came to New York with a number of his
co-religionists at the time of the Revocation of
the Edict of Nantes- Andrew Gautier, as his ad-
vertisement in the New York Gazette, of April
18, 1765, shows, specialized in the making of
Windsor chairs, but either he did not brand his
work with a hot iron as others did, or none has
survived,
If a piece of furniture labeled Marinus
Willed: could be discovered, it undoubtedly
would bring an interesting price- For this pre-
revolutionary New York cabinet maker was a
patriot of no mean order. Quite possibly his ac-
tion in defending Fort Stanwix, which stood
where Rome, N. Y. 5 now is, and thereby prevent-
ing St. Leger from joining Burgoyne, changed
the whole course of the Revolution. Had
55
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
St. Leger re-enforced "Gentleman Johnny/ 5 the
battle of Saratoga would not have been the cru-
cial victory for the Continental Army. Without
this news Franklin never could have enlisted the
open and active support of Louis XVI, king of
France.
Earlier in the Revolution Col. Willett also
played an important and picturesque part. With
Paul Revere, Boston's patriot silversmith, Wil-
liam Dawes, Jr. ancestor of Ambassador
Dawes and a man named Lamb, Willett took
part in the dramatic dispatch carrying episodes
of the opening days of the Revolution. Even
then military service was no novelty to him. He
had seen service during the French and Indian
War in the expedition under Lord Amherst that
culminated in driving the French out of Fort
Ticonderoga.
Col. Marinus Willett was born In the farming
village of Jamaica, now part of the city of New
York, in 1740, and died at his Broome street
home in New York in 1830. Evidently neither
cabinet making nor warfare sapped his vitality.
His last public appearance as a distinguished
citizen was at a mass meeting to raise funds for
the cause of the independence of Greece. At this
56
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
the venerable man rose and pledged 2000 acres
of wild land still due him as his adjusted com-
pensation for his revolutionary service to the
cause of Greek liberty. The elaborate public
funeral that was accorded him 9 including fellow
members of the Order of the Cincinnati, riding
in open carriages, is proof of the high position
Willett held,
His son in 1831 published a minute account
of his father's military career, not forgetting the
daring episode when, on July 6, 1775, at the cor-
ner of Broad and Beaver streets, New York,
Col. Willett led the Sons of Liberty when they
seized the British wagon trains starting for the
relief of British troops quartered in Boston.
Furniture making evidently did not interest
the younger Willett. He makes no mention of his
father's furniture making days. Our only infor-
mation about this is the advertisements which ap-
peared in the New York daily papers of 1773
and '74. One of these discovered by Charles O.
Cornellius, associate curator, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York s reads, "Marinus
Willett removed his Vendue store to the house
lately occupied by Weldron & Cornell next door
to Abram Lott's Esq. Tres. Every article in the
57
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
. . . 'Cabinet 5 or 'Chairway' may be had on the
shortest notice and executed in the best manner
by Willett and Peasey, at the said Vendue store,
at the sign of the Clothes press near the new
Oswego market, at the upper end of Maiden
Lane, who will take the dry goods in pay. N. B.
There is on hand at either of the above places
an assortment of choice mahogany furniture/'
Aaron Chapin, first of East Windsor, Conn,
and after 1783 of Hartford, was one of the fore-
most Connecticut Valley workers in the Chippen-
dale manner. His secretars and highboys are
fine examples of this school, while the mass and
proportion of his pieces leave no doubt of his
ability as a designer and workman.
Webb and Scott of Providence is another firm
of cabinet makers whose work can best be char-
acterized as Chippendale-Hepplewhite trans-
itibn. A labeled secretary of theirs made of
cherry shows an interesting combination of
Chippendale outline and Hepplewhite inlay
ornamentation. Their shop was on Benefit Street
and they worked during the last two decades of
the i8th century.
John Elliot was the outstanding Philadelphia
dealer in mirrors during the two decades prior
58
(Antiques)
PLATE XXI -THE LAST OF THE TOWNSEND-GODDARD DYNASTY.
THOMAS GODDARD, 1765-1858.
(American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, Inc.)
PLATE XXIL A HEPPLEWHITE SIDEBOARD WITH FROTHINGHAM
LABEL,
AMERICAN CHIPPENDALES
to the Revolution. His "Looking-glass Store 5 '
was on Walnut Street and both his labeled
pieces and newspaper advertising indicate that
he was more a dealer in mirrors imported from
England than a craftsman. He was evidently a
keen merchant with an eye not only for the trade
of the English-speaking Philadelphians but also
glad to get the patronage of the Palatinate Ger-
mans for at least his labels were bi-lingual. Lit-
tle or no biographical data have yet been found
concerning Benjamin Buraham who is believed
to have worked in Philadelphia prior to 1775. A
marked desk by him dated 1769 is in the Metro-
politan Museum and its design and workman-
ship show that he can rightly be included in the
list of American Chippendales.
Although most of the cabinet makers of the
American Chippendale school lived to see Inde-
pendence won and the United States firmly es-
tablished as a sovereign entity, their style of
furniture making may be said to end with Corn-
wallis 3 surrender at Yorktown. After this came
a new political and social structure and with it
a new era of furniture, the Early Republican.
59
CHAPTER III
DUNCAN PHYFE, THE GREAT
Mahogany Furniture. v .
T'HREE eh$4ftt detict aJ bo"& cafes,
i chefl upon chtifc of <JrAWci?j
x Lady's drelfirig chefl sad ibcnk cafe,
3 Ddks, a rd .*?! pair c,srd tables^
a Sets of chairs^
3 Dining tobies, 5 breakfast tablet* * "*"
i Clock csfe> ftirnifced witliagood plain fiiglMtkl 1 i
clock. Sundry &a4* &c
The aW^e anicks are < w;IJ ro?Iej and xncifr of thn*
of waod of thjf firft qnaUcfy acs! will fee itld as low a
ajjy fura5fure(of equal goodneft) in tbe cjry^ lyy
WILLETT and PEARSEY,
Cabinet and chiir-maken, at the iign of tJbe cfctfeea
prefs, nearly opoofke the Ofwefo=-Marktt 7 at the upper
ead of Maidcik-Lane, where cabinet arti chr woik of
every kind is punftaaliy ptrformd with the
aeatnefs and car
PLATE XXIII. COL. MARINUS WILLETT AND ONE OF His
NEWSPAPER ADVERTISEMENTS.
(American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, Inc.)
PLATE XXIV. A TRANSITION SECRETARY. STRUCTURALLY IT Is
CHIPPENDALE. THE ORNAMENTATION Is HEPPLEWHITE ITS
LABEL READS: "WEBB & SCOTT, CABINET & CHAIR MAKERS
BENEFIT-STREET, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND "
Ill
DUNCAN PHYFE 5 THE GREAT
FURNITURE mirrors the social, political,
literary and the economic trends of its
time. It is for, and a part of, its gen-
eration. Therefore, it is passing strange that the
outstanding furniture maker of the early Re-
publican days of the United States should have
been a man of Highland Scotch birth and boy-
hood,
Nevertheless, Duncan Phyfe is the cabinet
craftsman pre-eminent of the first three decades
of our federal republic. Hardly had the Con-
stitution of the United States been ratified by
the nine states necessary to make it binding on
all thirteen sovereign political entities, than
Phyfe began work as a craftsman and designer.
By and large he used English forms to which he
applied a touch of French ornamentation. This
was very much in tune with the day and age.
Even the Constitution itself was structurally
English, not to say Anglo-Saxon, while the trim-
63
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
mings 5 added to facilitate acceptance,, were
thoughts or phrases bodily borrowed from the
Gallic political philosophers.
In Phyf e's furniture we catch a glimpse of the
aristocratic and reasonably prosperous days that
lasted from the inauguration of Washington to
the Jacksonlan rise to power, political and eco-
nomic, of the plain people of the seaboard and
the Mississippi basin. Yet with all this, pros-
perous Scotch Duncan was a man of the people.
Would he stop work, take off his beaver head-
piece or leave off smoking a stubby pipe, just be-
cause a visiting British aristocrat, Lord John
Hay, came to consult with him about cabinet
woods? Not Duncan Phyfe. His caller received
a civil answer and correct Information, but no
gesture of social deference. Phyfe practiced
Robert Burns 3 precept, "A man's a man for a'
that."
Although he made furniture for aristocrats,
they were those of a Republic where birth did
not give the right to expect hat doffing or knee
flexing. He was a plain man of strict habits. In
fact, he tended so closely to business that, re-
gardless of 62 years' residence in New York
City, it is only with the most careful search of
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)
PLATE XXV -A MAHOGANY DESK BY BENJAMIN BURNHAM, DATED 1769.
IT Is BELIEVED, HE WORKED IN PHILADELPHIA.
(American Art Association, Anderson
Galleries, Inc.]
PLATE XXVI. A QUEEN
ANNE MIRROR BY JOHN
ELLIOT, PHILADELPHIA, WITH
BI-LINGUAL LABEL.
DUNCAN PHYFE, THE GREAT
contemporary records that any trace of him can
be found. He may have been trained In the "joy-
ner's" trade, but evidently did not hold with
taking part in public, social or religious enter-
prises. He is reputed to have been a staunch
Presbyterian, but records of the First Presby-
terian and the Brick Presbyterian churches do
not show that he was ever a member of either,
although his wife and others of his family were.
Likewise, Phyfe never joined the St. Andrew's
society, an organization of substantial men of
Scottish birth or descent, which dined ponder-
ously and annually at the City hotel. Several of
his sons and nephews, however, were not so back-
ward. When, in 1825, New York turned herself
inside out to celebrate the completion of the Erie
Canal, with a stupendous civic parade organized
by trades and professions, Phyfe, the city's lead-
ing cabinet maker, was not even one of the
marshals of the first section of the Third Divis-
ion. In this, under banners of the Fancy and
Windsor Chairmakers' Employers' and Journey-
men's societies, "about two hundred of the trade
appeared in the procession." Just one little note
in Colden's Memorial of this great event men-
tions Phyfe. He is credited with having made the
65
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
cedar boxes for the medals struck off for this
occasion and the casket for the bottles of Lake
Erie water sent to Lafayette,, Evidently his
motto was, "Take the cash and let the credit go/ 5
Further than this, save for mention in small
type In the city directories, Phyfe's name is not
to be found In any contemporary record. Auc-
tioneer Hone, who rose to be Mayor Philip Hone
and kept a most complete and gossipy diary 9
never mentions Phyfe. Neither do any of the
travelers who visited New York and then wrote
flattering or critical books on its wonders or Its
boorishnesses. Nor do hours of reading the New
York papers of that day disclose a single adver-
tisement bearing the name Duncan Phyfe. He
was a genhis in hiding himself from view and
leaving the fashionable gentry, male and female
alike, to spread his name and fame abroad by
word of mouth. In fact, all record of him might
have been lost and we today might quite possibly
be referring to the nameless master of New York,
except that the distinct character of his design
and work led another cabinet maker to identify
some of the best Phyfe pieces and gather every
possible bit of data about the man himself. This
labor of love, Ernest Hagen, who, were he still
66
DUNCAN PHYFE, THE GREAT
alive, would be past the hundred year mark,
commenced nearly fifty years ago, and the note-
book In which he and his son, Ernest F. Hagen,
set down all their Phyfe gleanings, forms the
basis of the books and articles since written. Also,
their judgment that this or that piece was of
Phyfe make Is the foundation upon which
museum curators and discerning collectors base
heir opinions of Phyfe design and execution.
The Phyfe family came from Loch Fannich
in the northern highlands of Scotland. Here, in
1768, Duncan was born. They were members of
the Mackenzie clan and probably shepherds
tending their flocks on the bleak hillsides. The
country around Loch Fannich, romantic as the
name may sound, was never the scene of exploits
of the picturesque Scottish Chiefs. Instead the
people for generations led so uneventful and un-
dramatic a life that history and romance have
practically ignored that region.
From here, in 1783, Gabel Phyfe, his wife and
family of six or eight children, departed for the
New World. They seem to have been headed
direct for Albany. Possibly some of their kin,
serving in a Highland regiment and taken pris-
oner at the battle of Saratoga, may have sent
EARLY AMERICAN Fl^
home glowing accounts of the thriving town, but
recently Fort Orange. During the long voyage,
two of the children Including a younger sister,
Eliza 5 died. The family reached New York
either late in 1783 or early in 1784 just about
the time when Washington, with a simple and
moving ceremony, bade farewell to his officers
and left for his Mount Vernon home and, he
thought, private life.
The Phyfes went at once to Albany. Here
Duncan, the second son, was apprenticed either
to some unknown cabinet maker or possibly to a
coach builder coach making being an early and
notable industry in Albany and Scots the leaders
of the trade.
Just when Duncan completed his apprentice-
ship and returned to New York Is unknown. The
first city directory of 1786 does not mention him,
but the second of 1792 lists both Duncan and his
brother John. Also this entry proves the family
tradition that the name was originally spelled
F-i-f-e. Brother John was a carman living on
Dey street, and Duncan is listed as u joiner, 2
Broad street." By the time the third directory
was compiled Duncan Phyfe's days of discour-
agement and hard times are past. He is not any
68
DUNCAN PHYFE, THE GREAT
longer thinking of giving up and going back to
Albany, Instead, he is the protege of Mrs. Lang-
don, daughter of John Jacob Astor, the fur
prince of New York. Now he is listed as
"P-h-y-f-e, Duncan, cabinet-maker., 3 Broad
street/'
DUNCAN PHYFE'S SIGNATURE WRITTEN IN AN OLD BOOK Now OWNED BY
PHYFE'S GREAT-GRANDSON F. PERCY VAIL.
Family tradition has it that a schoolmaster
suggested this change in spelling as a means of
distinguishing the family from any other Fifes
that might come over from Scotland. Possibly
this is so, but since brother John, the carman,
clung to the old spelling of their name until 1800
when he is listed as John Phyfe, coachman, we
suspect that Duncan saw in this distinctive spell-
ing a business advantage not to be overlooked by
the man who was fast becoming the favored
cabinet maker and furniture designer of New
York. From 1800 on, all the Phyfes used the new
spelling until 1828 when Martha, widow of
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
William Phyfe, half reverted to the old style
and spelled it F-y-f-e.
A study of the manuscript book of the enume-
rator who took the census of 1790 for 'Albany
shows additional data about the Phyf e name and
family affairs. This volume, which had its edges
burned away when the British fired the Capitol
in 1814, was made available to me through the
courtesy of Dr. R. H. McFall of the Bureau of
the Census. Careful study of this Phyfe entry,
taking into consideration the evident erasures
and corrections, indicate that Duncan's father
died at about this time, possibly a few days after
the enumerator had paid his official visit. It. is
evident that the name Isabel was written over
another name hastily erased. In the column,
'Tree white males of 16 years and upward in-
cluding heads of families/ 5 a number has evi-
dently been erased. The conclusion that the
enumerator altered his books to conform to a
recent death is quite obvious and I think per-
fectly tenable. This entry also shows that only
two boys under sixteen were still at home, and
none of the daughters. Evidently the large Phyfe
family had already scattered.
Duncan Phyfe continued his workshop on
7
Fttr, I ihf caracoles', 37 Chapel do.
s Fif? j'>Hr, carman, Dye c >.
? Ff, Djncw* joiner. : Cf tai d-.
ierrii, jofuh,' hoi:fc-carpcoter, 173 W3iim du,
nfe, John, caiman, jS Dfy *$'
Fingluii;, wliJow Sufannah, j? B<*kias>
tnry, tnafoo, 92 Chamber clo.
, Dunon, cabiuct-makcr, 3 Broad do.
J'k> , ftay-makr, 374\Vatr-ttKctadai Rat-
- > Uhanx, d.
s, AUsthuni tjfttaan,
A, MR. 56
(//r0- P. flinf Churchill S, Phyfe)
PLATE XXVII. STEPS IN THE CHANGE FROM F-I-F-E TO P-H-Y-
F-E. a. 1792; b. 1794; and c. 1800. (Upper)
PHYFE'S OWN TOOL CHEST. (Lower)
h w
3 2 1
J2 U
^ H
PHP
H tn W
J W >
12! O
D^
^ S w
K^ 2 S
n K S 2
H
DUNCAN PHYFE, THE GREAT
Broad street, then the furniture street of the city,
until 18065 when he moved his shop and home
to adjoining buildings at 34 and 35 Partition
street. For that day, this was equivalent to
having a retail shop today on Park avenue just
off Fifty-seventh street. St. Paul's Chapel, diag-
onally opposite, was the Episcopal church of the
day, and Broadway, the fashionable promenade.
On this street he stayed the rest of his life. In
1811 he bought number 33 giving him three
buildings on the same side of the street. One was
his home, another his show room, and the third
his workshop. In 1817 Partition street and the
corresponding street, east of Broadway, were re-
named for Robert Fulton, the recently deceased
Inventor of the steamboat. By this time Phyfe
had purchased a house across the street, where
he lived until his death In 1854. These neatly
proportioned Georgian buildings, 168, 170 and
172 Fulton street, have long since disappeared.
Today the Hudson Terminal stands In their
place, and the firehouse opposite marks the site
of the Phyfe homestead. Incidentally, Phyfe's
descendants only sold these real estate holdings
when condemnation proceedings for public im-
provements made such sales imperative. The last
7 1
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
Phyfe holding on Fulton street, originally Dun-
can's garden, passed out of Phyfe ownership
only a few years ago, when the land and build-
ing were acquired by the City for new subway
construction.
Duncan Phyfe's rise to fame and fortune was
almost meteoric. Arriving in New York about
1790, he was In a very few years the leading fur-
niture designer and cabinet maker there, and his
reputation had spread to Philadelphia, Albany,
and the important towns of New Jersey and the
Hudson River valley. In 1797 a New Yorker
of wealth and social position, on marrying, had
Phyfe make all the furniture for his new home,
Knickerbocker New York was, during these
years and particularly with the advent of the
nineteenth century, becoming a city of notable
commercial enterprise. There were many fam-
ilies to whom this brought increasing wealth.
They built themselves fine homes which in turn
gave their standard of living an upward sweep.
This "keeping up with the Jones" provided
Phyfe with an excellent market right at his very
front door for furniture of a design that was dif-
ferent. He did not have to make his product to
sell at a price, and therefore could produce pieces
72
DUNCAN PHYFE, THE GREAT
In which his creative talent and regard for the
very best workmanship were combined.
There Is only one Duncan Phyfe bill known
to be In existence. This was found by Ernest
Hagen and presented by him to T. R. Haines
Halsey 5 the owner of an outstanding collection
of Phyfe furniture. This bill, made out to
Charles N. Bancker, Philadelphia, is worth quot-
ing because It shows the high prices Phyfe
charged for his furniture.
1816
Jany 4 Mr. Bancker
to D. Phyfe dr.
To 12 Mahogany chairs @ $22 $264.00
Sofa 122.00
Piere table 265.00
Pair card tables 130.00
Packing 19.00
DO.OO
Discount 3 prct for cash 24.00
$776.00
Also, another fragment preserved with this is
Interesting because the two rough pencil sketches
of chairs illustrate the odd fact that Phyfe was
73
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
a wretched draftsman. These sketches of his
typical delicately executed lyre-back chairs were
bunglingly done and lacking In perspective.
With cabinet tools he was a master of line, but
not so with paper and pencil.
Duncan Phyfe is particularly Interesting as
an artist-craftsman when one realizes that his
was no history of struggle until middle life for
acceptance and pecuniary recognition. Instead,
before he was thirty, he was well established,
and the next three decades are his period of finest
work. After that, due to a changing mode, he
made heavier and less artistic furniture but still
his work is marked by a fineness which his latter-
day contemporaries totally lacked. Decadent
Phyfe may be scorned by some, but critical study
of his pieces of the "canal boat" days discloses
that, while others worked in a gross manner, he
was still an adherent of fine proportions and
delicate work.
In the years of his best work he was a follower
of Hepplewhite and Sheraton, the two English
masters who succeeded Chippendale. To design,
based on that of these Englishmen, he added a
touch of ornamentation derived from French
cabinet makers of the Directory and Consulate
74
X
X
Q
W
O
Q
&
<J
PQ
Q
W
H
H
W
w
w o
2 H
w-
ffi
H
K H
S 3
PH
DUNCAN PHYFE, THE GREAT
epochs. This Hepplewhite - Sheraton - with -
French-variations periods of his designing lasted
from about 1795 to 1820, and was followed in
turn by the American Empire phase of his work
which terminated In 1830. After that were the
days of "his decadency.
The work of Duncan Phyfe's earliest and best
days Is characterized by the use of reeding, ac-
anthus leaf carving and ornamental brass hard-
ware. It Is during this time that he made his
delicately executed, lyre-backed chairs, finely
proportioned and handsomely carved sofas, and
tripod-based tables. Also he was then making
-other tables with reeded legs that distinctly
show Sheraton's Influence. The transition to his
American Empire days is gradual, and In many
of his pieces made In this latter mode he utilized
details brought over from his earlier style. The
bases of his tables became less restrained In their
carving and of slightly heavier proportions al-
though he still continued to make skilful use of
leaf carving. An excellent example of this Is the
three-part banquet table now in the Metropoli-
tan Museum. In this and other of his Empire
pieces he made liberal use of special bands and
panels of grained -mahogany veneering to em-
75
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
ploy ornamental brasses, particularly rosettes
and claw-foot tips for table legs. In fact, his
brother Lochlin who worked with him all his life
made a number of trips to England to select the
brasses for the Phyfe workshops,
During these years he was employing as many
as a hundred workmen and is credited with hav-
ing his own lumber yard nearby. For his shops
he imported the finest Santo Domingo and
Cuban mahogany. West Indian exporters re-
ferred to their best timbers as "Duncan Phyfe
logs" and he is said to have paid as high as $1000
a piece for some of them. The veneering which
he used was cut under his supervision and ap-
plied with Peter Cooper's best glue.
Even in his later years when he made his
heavier pieces, which he is reported to have
scorned, he worked only with the best mahog-
anies and lightened the artistic gloom by the
skilful employment of decorative veneering.
This is the time when the firm became, first in
1837, Duncan Phyfe & Sons, and then, in 1840,
Duncan Phyfe & Son. In 1846 the business was
discontinued and the stock of furniture on hand
disposed of at auction. From then until his death
he lived quietly in his home across the street, but
DUNCAN PHYFE, THE GREAT
did not entirely forsake his craft. In the back-
yard he had his own little shop where he spent
much of his time at the bench making gifts for
members of the family. These presentation pieces
included sewing tables, boxes 9 cradles and doll's
chests of drawers.
Evidently until the last he got great satis-
faction from work, and this product of his old
age, while done in his "canal boat" manner, is
never the fumbling tinkering of an old man.
The Phyfe family still has a number of these
bits and their workmanship does not betray the
hand of a man in his eighties.
On August 16, 1854, Duncan Phyfe was no
more. The only record of his death is to be found
in the New York Times of the igth : cc ln this city
on Wednesday Duncan Phyfe in the 86th year
of his age/' As quietly as he had lived, he died
and was buried in the churchyard of the First
Presbyterian church on Beekman street. A year
later his body was removed to Greenwood ceme-
tery in Brooklyn. Here it was placed in the
brownstone-faced family vault that is not even
marked with the Phyfe name.
This master designer and craftsman, who was
a small, stocky, retiring man of many idiosyn-
77
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
crasles, including a steadfast refusal to sit for
even a daguerreotype, had, however, keen busi-
ness sense and an acquisitive faculty of a high
order. All this is brought out by study of the
papers connected with his estate which, although
on record in New York City, have never before
been commented upon.
Altogether, he died worth nearly half a mil-
lion. His will deserves quoting because it shows
he was more than generous to his children, grand-
children and less affluent relatives. It reads :
I, Duncan Phyfe of the City "of New York, late
Cabinet-maker, being of sound and disposing mind mem-
ory and understanding, do make publish and declare this
to be my last Will and Testament. First I order and
direct that all my just debts and funeral expenses be paid
by my Executors hereinafter named, as soon as con-
veniently may be after my decease Second I give
devise and bequeath unto- my two daughters Mary,
widow of Sidney B. Whittock, and Eliza, wife of Wil-
liam Vail, all my silverware, china and glassware,
curtains both bed and window, all beds, bed linen and
bedding of every kind, table linen, set of knives and
forks and box containing them which box was made by
me to be divided equally between my said daughters
Third I give devise and bequeath- to my brother, Loch-
lin Phyfe, the yearly sum of four hundred and twenty
dollars to be paid to him by my Executors in half yearly
7 8
DUNCAN PHYFE, THE GREAT
payments for and during the term of his natural life and
that my Executors retain in their hands out of my per-
sonal estate so much as will be sufficient to produce said
annual sum and after the death of the said Lochlin
Phyfe I order and direct that the said sum so retained
by my said Executors for him shall sink into and form
part of my residuary personal estate and go and be ap-
plied in the same manner as I shall hereafter direct as to
my said residuary personal estate Fourth I give devise
and bequeath unto Duncan Phyfe, William Phyfe and
Mary Jane Wintringham wife of David Wintringham,
children of my deceased son Michael, each the sum of
fourteen thousand dollars and do direct that the same be
paid to them as soon as practicably may be after my
decease. Fifth I give devise and bequeath all the rest
residue and remainder of my Estate, Real and Personal,
equally to and amongst my Children, Mary, widow of
Sidney B. Whittock, Eliza, wife of William Vail, Wil-
liam Phyfe, James D. Phyfe and Edward D. Phyfe to
have and to hold the same to them my said children their
heirs and assigns forever. Lastly I make, nominate, con-
stitute and appoint my said sons, William Phyfe, James
D. Phyfe and my son-in-law William Vail Executors of
this my last Will and Testament hereby revoking all
former and other Wills by me at any time heretofore
made. In witness whereof I have hereto subscribed my
name and affixed my seal this twenty fourth day of
January, one thousand eight hundred and fifty four.
D. PHYFE
79
EARLY AMERICA
In the appraisal of his personal property, in-
cluding the contents of his home 5 are a number
of interesting items. For instance: "Mahogany
sideboard and cellaret, $20.00," "8 mahogany
French chairs, $12.00," "one set mahogany ex-
tension tables, $10.00," "one mahogany candle-
stand, $1.00," "one mahogany high post bed-
stead, 2.00," "one field bedstead and tester,
$1.00." This had been relegated to a room in the
garret where also was found, "one lot, cabinet-
maker's books and drawings, $.50." Could these
books and drawings be found today, the mu-
seums of the country would compete keenly to
obtain them. In the shop in the yard were found
"4 unfinished footbenches, $-50," "i unfinished
workbox, $.10," "i old maple writing desk, $.50"
as well as "i lot of mahogany veneers sold to Mr.
Buckley, $100.00," and "l chest of tools,
$25.00." His gold watch, chain and seal were
valued at $75.00, and $30.00 was given as
the worth of "articles of clothing comprising the
late personal wardrobe of the testator/' In ad-
dition to $4739.70 deposited in the North River
Bank the appraisers of the estate list $473.00 as
"cash on hand found in a book." Among his se-
curities were $24,820.00 worth of government
80
PLATE XXXL PHYFE'S OWN FURNITURE. PIECES FROM His
HOME ON FULTON STREET NOW OWNED BY His DESCENDANTS.
(F. Percy Vail)
PLATE XXXII, LOCHLIN PHYFE, WHO WAS ASSOCIATED WITH
His BROTHER DUNCAN FOR MANY YEARS AND Is SAID TO
RESEMBLED HIM.
DUNCAN PHYFE, THE GREAT
bonds and railroad stocks and bonds, and
$223,341.47 In promissory notes signed by vari-
ous members of the Phyf e family.
This Is the story of America's greatest fur-
niture artist. It starts with the beginning of our
national existence and extends to the days of
distinct rumblings of sectional discord. During
three-score years Phyfe lived In New York, but
his fame rests primarily upon . his accomplish-
ments during the first half of this time. That was
the Early Republican era* Of this he was the
cabinet maker par excellence. At the same time
other men or talent were at work elsewhere, but
what they made was different and did not crys-
talize Into an outstanding and distinct style of
Its own.
Si
CHAPTER' IV
PHYFE'S CONTEMPORARIES
CHAPTER IV
PHYFE'S CONTEMPORARIES
think of the half century following
the inauguration of our Federal Gov-
ernment, from a furniture point of
view, as being limited to the person of Duncan
Phyfe, is a mistake. It is as If a hundred years
hence, our day, automotivally, should be known
only for Ford and his Models T and A. We know
that Henry Ford does not make the only good
motor cars. The same applies to Phyfe. While he
was the chief and greatest of cabinet makers and
designers of his age, he had a goodly company of
contemporaries, remembered and forgotten.
From Maine to Georgia, the coastal towns and
cities as well as those inland suffered no dearth
of cabinet makers. Some of these, working in
booming commercial centers, enjoyed just as rich
and fastidious a clientele as he, but the majority
catered to a less affluent public satisfied with
sturdier and less ornamental furniture. Perhaps
these men knew what Phyfe was doing, and per-
85
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
haps not. It matters not. Both they and Duncan 9
pride of New York's aristocracy, were subject to
the same influences. Basically all followed the
designs of the brothers Adam, George Hepple-
white and Thomas Sheraton. To these they
added for seasoning according to taste a touch of
the French influence. Proof that nearly every
farming community had its cabinet maker is to
be found by reading the local histories that the
retired lawyers and clergy of the eighteen-f orties
turned out with such industry. These in the main
were written with great accuracy and never
failed to list all the business men living or gone
before, together with the years of their activity.
Cabinet making, not infrequently combined with
farming or other callings including that of being
the local coffin maker and undertaker, was a re-
spected and profitable trade never overlooked by
these early historians.
Some estimate of the amount of furniture
these contemporaries of Phyfe produced may be
gained by visiting long established households.
Then remember the innumerable stories current
in family after family of how from 1870 to 1900,
the years of scorn for antique furniture, beds,
bureaus, tables, chairs and the like were chopped
86
PHYFE'S CONTEMPORARIES
up for firewood. Nor should It be forgotten that
In the towns where flourished ship building, the
skilled workers employed chiefly on the trim and
equipment of the cabins for masters and pas-
sengers devoted their slack seasons to furniture
making. This was done either as a private ven-
ture or for the yard owners as a subsidiary part
of the business. Furniture so made was either
sold locally or carried in lieu of ballast, and
found a ready market in the southern cotton and
tobacco ports 3 which accounts for the pieces of
distinctly New England furniture still to be
found In parts of the South.
Although It would be an impossible task to
cull all the early histories for a list of the names
of cabinet makers of the Early Republican era,
fortunately early volumes of the United States
Census at times give some facts and figures about
furniture making. If this started with the census
of 1790 nothing could be sweeter, but unhappily
some of these early national censuses were sim-
ply head-counting endeavors.
In i8io 5 however, when the total population
of the United States was about comparable with
the number of people now living in the five
boroughs of New York City, industrial statistics
87
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
were gathered that give us scattering informa-
tion about the cabinet makers and allied trades.
For the district of Maine, the seventeen states,
the five territories and the District of Columbia
this census gives $1,919,223 as the value of the
annual production of these trades. Of this
$1,426,047 is for the 596 makers of "cabinet-
wares"; $105,185 for 2206 dozen wooden
chairs; $122,991, for the 14,569 wooden clocks;
all but four of which were of Connecticut make,
the four worth $36 being of Vermont make;
$100,000 for the 12,000 "frames and looking
glasses" credited to New Jersey, and $165,000
for the yearly output of the nine upholstery
shops located in Pennsylvania.
These figures are quoted only as an indication.
They are very incomplete and I believe the total
value would be twice or thrice the amount given.
In the listing of cabinet makers, the states cred-
ited, the number and the value of their output
are, Maine and Massachusetts, number not
given, but value $318,122 and $118,450 respec-
tively; Pennsylvania, 482 cabinetmakers; Mary-
land, 50 cabinet makers, with an output worth
$217,043 a year. In Virginia the number is omit-
ted but the value is given as $1 14,557 a year. Be-
PHYFE'S CONTEMPORARIES
sides this, Orleans, Louisiana and Illinois terri-
tories are credited with 52, 6 and 6 cabinet mak-
ers respectively with no annual value stated. In
the chair making classification, Massachusetts
and Virginia are the only states about which in-
formation is given. Here 1699 dozen chairs
worth $96,060 are set down for Massachusetts,
and 507 dozen chairs worth $9125 for Virginia.
Evidently census-taking in 1810 was so dis-
organized and the enumerators so lazy or unin-
formed that the executives in charge did not
dare try to gather like figures for almost a gen-
eration. It was not until 1840 when the total
population of the United States was 17,069,453,
that like statistics were again included. But this
time they did a real job and recorded 18,003 men
working at furniture making in "establishments"
representing a capital investment of $6,989,971
and producing for that year $7,555,405 worth.
In 1850, which can be said to mark the last
day of the cabinet makers and the advent of
present-day, factory production of furniture, the
total number of men engaged in furniture mak-
ing and allied trades was 83,580. Of these
37*359 were cabinet and chair makers; 1742
carvers and gilders; 112 frame makers; 294 look-
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
Ing glass makers; 2592 upholsterers and paper
hangers; 645 polishers and finishers; 4 stencll-
ers; and 3823 turners. Beside this, 12,672 were
listed as joiners who may have been either work-
ing at carpentry or furniture making. These fig-
ures are Interesting when one remembers that
our total population was then 23,191,876, and
realizes that this census gives 2,363,958 as the
total number of farmers, 909,789 for laborers,
and 10,889 for factory hands.
Some of the other trades and professions listed
are: chimney sweeps 59, actors 722, reporters
138, soldiers (evidently the total number of the
regular army) 5149, and storekeepers 3747. By
this time when the United States had expanded
to thirty-two states and four territories the num-
ber of authors and pawnbrokers were nearly bal-
anced being 82 and 72 respectively.
It is a great pity that through the generation
and more covered by the statistics just sum-
marized, It was the common trade practice of the
cabinet makers to send out their pieces un-
labeled, but In the main theirs was a localized
trade. Probably they felt that their customers
knew the sort of work they did and considered
that Identification enough. That we know was
90
PHYFE'S CONTEMPORARIES
Duncan Phyfe's attitude, for he only labeled a
very few of his latest pieces, and then only by
tacking on the business card of the firm then
Duncan Phyfe & Son. Had labeling been com-
mon instead of very unusual we might today
have a history of known furniture makers that
would be every bit as authoritative and personal
as that of our silversmiths. But fortunately now
and then there was a cabinet maker who either
by labeling or preeminence of work has made
it possible for us today to identify him and his
product.
Samuel Mclntire, although more like the
brothers Adam in that his chief fame rests on his
houses and carving, deserves to be considered the
peer of Duncan Phyfe. When he did make a
piece of furniture it was every bit as graceful and
delicately executed. Mclntire was a product of
Salem, Mass., where he was bora in 1757 and
died in 1811. It is interesting to notice that, un-
like Phyfe, he did his best work in his later years.
He never marked his furniture but a sufficient
number of pieces have been found with carved
ornamentation so akin to that of the houses he
is known to have built to establish them as Mc-
lntire pieces. His favorite piece of furniture was
91
EARLY J AMEMCANJFURNITURE MAKERS
the sofa, and several of these are to be found in
the collection of the Essex Institute at Salem,
together with chairs to match.
His greatest work was the mansion he built
for Elias Hasket Derby. This house completed
in 1799 was the wonder of New England but
unfortunately did not stand long. Hardly had it
been completed when Derby died and his heirs
tore down the house because they could not af-
ford to maintain it. Mclntire's son, Samuel F. 9
who survived his father eight years, seems to
have been every bit as talented, but intemper-
ance wrecked him.
Still- another New England cabinet maker
of note, whose work and existence have re-
cently been discovered, is Abner Toppan of
Newbury, Mass. He slightly antedated Phyfe,
being born in 1764. He died in 1836. The recent
discovery by Dexter E. Spalding of a marked
Toppan desk made for William Little in 1795
shows Toppan working more nearly in the Chip-
pendale but using inlay ornamentation of the
Hepplewhite style. A sideboard made about
1800 shows his transition to the Hepple white-
Sheraton influence due to the changing taste.
Little is known of his personal life save that he
92
PHYFFS CONTEMPORARIES
was descended from Abraham, Toppan who
settled In Newbury In 1736. Abner was the son
of Edward Toppan and the eleventh of twelve
children. The Little desk Toppan sold for ten
pounds, ten shillings.
Wealthy New York was not the only city that
could boast of a furniture designer and maker
of the first rank. A fortunate recent discovery
Identifies the man who occupied this position in
Philadelphia. He was Henry Connelly and his
sideboards show that he was a real master crafts-
man. His inspiration was that of Sheraton.
Reeded Iegs 5 delicate carvings and reeding of
edges In the earlier Phyfe manner characterizes
Connelly's work. This Philadelphian, like God-
dard and Savery, was a member of the Society
of Friends. He is believed to have been born In
Philadelphia in 1770. He died at Mill Creek
Hundred near Newark, Delaware, in 1826.
During his active years his shop was located at
44 Spruce street. His only activity outside of
cabinet making was participation In "The So-
ciety for Relieving the Misery of Public Pris-
oners/' in which he was for years prominent.
At the same time that Phyfe was beginning to
captivate New York with his individualized
93
EARLY AMEMCANJTJRCT
Sheraton pieces, the firm of Mills & Deming, lo-
cated at 374 Queen street, later Pearl street,
New York, was specializing in sideboards of the
purest Hepplewhite design. The labeled side-
board made for Governor Oliver Walcott of
Connecticut, about 1790, establishes their iden-
tity and reputation. Although this firm sets
forth on its label that It "makes and sells all
kinds of cabinet furniture and chairs, after the
most modern fashions" the investigations of
William Stuart Walcott, Jr. would seem to
prove that Its forte was the sideboard. In addi-
tion to identifying two of these by this firm, Mr.
Walcott described eight others that seem to be
of the same authorship. Since Simeon Deming
of this partnership was born in Weathersford,
Conn., in 1769, It Is interesting to note that most
of these sideboards seem to have gravitated back
to the possession of long established Connecti-
cut families. Deming moved to New York In
1813 continuing there until his death In 1855.
Of Mills nothing has yet been established but
quite possibly he came from the very numerous
family of this name that flourished throughout
Westchester county, New York, in the early
nineteenth century.
94
PHYFE'S CONTEMPORARIES
Strangely enough, it was at New Brunswick,
New Jersey, where now lives F. Percy Vail,
Duncan Phyfe's great-grandson, referred to in
the last section, that the Egertons, father, son
and grandson, worked. Unlike Phyfe, these men
seem to have favored the Hepplewhite mode
and even their last pieces show little of the influ-
ence of Sheraton. Beauty of line, graceful inlay
and rich veneering and grain of wood were the
elements upon which they depended for that
which makes their furniture distinctive.
Matthew Egerton, the first of the line, was
born in 1739 and died in 1802. His son, Mat-
thew, Jr., worked with his father and even be-
fore his father's death was in business for him-
self. Evidently he prospered, for by 1793 he was
able to buy for one hundred and twenty pounds
sterling a lot on Burnet street adjoining his
father's shop. Incidentally the shop of the senior
Egerton still stands. After his father's death,
Matthew, Jr., seems to have taken over the busi-
ness and to have added to the types of furniture
the making of cases for tall clocks. These he
executed in the most orthodox Hepplewhite
manner. In turn Matthew II was joined by his
son Evert and the firm became M. Egerton &
95
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
Son. Although there are plenty of local records
of work done by them no pieces carrying their
mark have as yet been found. Matthew II died
in 1837, and his son quit cabinet making the fol-
lowing year, selling out to Isaac G. Sillcocks.
It Is unfortunate that more is not known about
Joseph Rawson and Son of Providence, and
Robert Lawton, Jr. of Newport. Labeled pieces
of theirs which have survived show that they
were masters of the Hepplewhite school. A Rob-
ert Lawton table owned by Mr. Andrew Varick
Stout of New York bears the date, "Newport,
2Oth of 5th Mon. 1794." Lawton must have been
very painstaking for this piece is marked with
the number seven. Possibly it was made soon
after he set up in business for himself.
The Rawson secretary does not provide us
with so much information. The label on the
under side of a drawer reads,
Joseph Rawson & Son, Cabinet and Chair-Makers, near
the theatre, Sugar Lane, Providence, Rhode Island.
Among the New York cabinet makers who
were working during Phyfe's earlier years was
Thomas Burling. Little is known of him as yet,
save that he was in business In New York from
96
(William Stuart Walcott Jr.)
PLATE XXXVII A HEPPLEWHITE SIDEBOARD WITH LABEL OF
MILLS & DEMING, NEW YORK. MADE ABOUT 1790 FOR Gov.
OLIVER WALCOTT OF CONNECTICUT.
(Herbert M. Waldron)
PLATE XXXVIIL MATTHEW EDGERTON SECRETARY WITH LABEL.
PHYFE'S CONTEMPORARIES
ab >ut 1790 to iSoOo He probably was a member
of the Burling family whose name is per-
p uated in Burling Slip. A Sheraton inlaid-
H> logany butler's secretary of his has been
fo tnd which carries the following label:
Thos. Burling, Cabinet and Chair Maker, No. 56 Beek-
man Street, New York.
Michael Allison, who worked in New York
about 1820, was not only a contemporary but a
neighbor of Duncan Phyfe. A drop-leaf table
of his, done somewhat in the Phyfe manner,
bears this label :
M. Allison's Cabinet and Upholstery Furniture Ware-
house, No. 46 & 48, Vesey Street, New York, May, 1817.
John Seymour and Son, of Boston, were
hardly known until a labeled, mahogany, Hep-
plewhite secretary from their hands sold recently
in New York for $30,000. This delicately-made
piece has sliding tambour shutters ornamented
with inlay festoons, while the legs, drawer fronts
and top are decorated with typical satinwood
inlay.
Peter Grinnell and Son, of Providence, spe-
cialized in mirrors. They were in business for
97
'EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
some years during the early part of the igth Cen-
tury, and had a factory where they made looking-
glasses and picture-frames. A Sheraton carved
and gilded mirror with their label on the back
definitely identifies them, and gives a glimpse of
the trade conditions of the day. It reads :
Looking-Glass & Picture-Frame Manufactory, Prov-
idence. Looking-Glass in Gilt and Mahogany Frames,
of the newest fashions, constantly on hand, at wholesale
and retail; Gilt Frames and Glasses for all kinds of
Needle Work, Portraits and Pictures, Looking-Glass
Plates, Window-Glass of every size, Linseed Lamp and
Whale-Oil, with a large assortment of Paints, Ship-
Chandlery and Hard- Ware. Peter Grinnell and Son,
Main-Street, nearly opposite the Providence Bank.
Other known mirror-makers of this time whose
labeled pieces have been found were Kidder and
Carter of Charlestown, Massachusetts ; Cermen-
ati and Bernarda of Salem, Massachusetts; and
Charles Del Vecchio of New York.
Although contemporary with Phyfe, in the
Pennsylvania Dutch country, there worked,
among others, two men and their sons who carried
on In an entirely different mode. Theirs was
painted furniture of Germanic Europe. The tra-
PHYFE'S CONTEMPORARIES
dition for this of course came with their people
from the Counties Palatine of the Rhine Valley.
This was a strong heredity and many cabinet
makers of the Pennsylvania Dutch were gov-
erned by it. They made practically all types of
furniture but it is the signed dower chests of
John Seltzer and Johann Rank that have sur-
vived. Both of these men lived in Jonestown.
Seltzer was born in 1749 an( ^ died in 1831 at the
age of 81. Rank was born in 1763 and died in
1828. When they and their families came to
Jonestown is unknown but chests by Seltzer dat-
ing from as early as 1771 have been found. By
1 795 he had his sons working for him and it is
difficult to know just which was the work of the
senior Seltzer after this.
The Ranks, father and son, were working as
early as 1795 and in general their chests are not
unlike those of the Seltzer family. All were
simple in construction with a moulded lid and
block feet. Their beauty depended upon the
painted panels of somewhat conventionalized
flowered designs which adorned the fronts and
sometimes the lids and ends.
The men mentioned in this section are but a
few of the many whose work still survives but
99
E^ARLY_AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
as the rest failed to label their pieces, they must
of necessity fall into the ranks of the unknown.
The handiwork of these forgotten cabinet-
makers, however, speaks for itself and shows
that they were workmen of ability and taste with
a fine sense of proportions and a skill not to be
ignored.
100
(American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, Inc.)
PLATE XXXIX. A HEPPLEWHITE SECRETARY WITH LABEL
JOSEPH RAWSON & SON, PROVIDENCE.
I A#/W /-#^*
SjTVIM^T^UUi, -wi>* ,"
Cr:(W'g-fifuardv with Jlever^l Ktnds v
j^rtabfc Wr i!frg-U&s. _ fa ^ ^ T
(Andrew I'arick Stout)
PLATE XL. A LABELED HEPPLEWHITE TABLE BY ROBERT LAWTON
OF NEWPORT. IT Is NUMBERED AND DATED MAY 2OTH, 1794.
CHAPTER V
PLAIN AND FANCY CHAIR MAKING
CHAPTER V
PLAIN AND FANCY CHAIR MAKING
CHAIRS, strange as it may seem, were
not common articles of household fur-
niture as early as tables, beds, chests,
benches and the like. In fact, in England, the
chair was unusual and reserved for the noble and
important, at least till the time of Queen Eliza-
beth, and did not come into anything like gen-
eral use before Charles I had parted company
with his head in accordance with the sentence
passed by Oliver Cromwell's regicide judges.
Prior to this, the common people and those of
less importance in the households of the great
had to be content to seat themselves on benches,
settles and sturdily constructed "joyned 55 stools.
In the New World, in the matter of chairs
things were different from the start and in time
Americans did original things in chair making-
Even John Alden, our first cabinet maker, seems
to have been a chair maker. There still survives
at Duxbury, Massachusetts, a chair which has
103
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
been passed on from generation to generation as
Alden's own chair of his own make. If this is
true, and who can say it is not, it is very inter-
esting, for we might with safety ascribe to
"Speak for Yourself John 55 the Carver, the
Brewster and other chairs credited to the first
two decades of the Plymouth plantation. But to
prove authorship after three hundred years
would be a feat indeed, so for definite informa-
tion as to the presence of chair makers on this
side of the Atlantic we must content ourselves
with knowing that such men as Jonathan John-
son of Lynn, Samuel Poor of Newbury and
Miles Ward of Salem were all following the
calling of chair maker as distinct from that of
cabinet maker prior to 1700. Then for the next
century chair making was, in the main, part of
the work of any cabinet maker, and such master
cabinet makers as William Savery, Jonathan
Gostelowe, Thomas Tufft and General Marinus
Willet in their own labels and advertising de-
scribed themselves as chair makers or as
chair makers and cabinet makers, despite the
fact that they were not specialists but rather
general practitioners of the art of furniture
making.
104
PLAIN AND FANCY CHAIR MAKING
In time, however, chair making became a spe-
cialty, a craft carried on by itself. This it
remained until modern factory production re-
placed the establishments of masters with their
journeymen and apprentices* But we owe much
to these very masters of chair making. It was
they who developed the Windsor, the painted
"fancy" and the rocking chair. The last of these
was purely an American invention, while the
painted fancy chair and the Windsor, both of
English origin, were developed by American
workers in both design and ornamentation to a
point that left the English far behind.
Windsor chairs were introduced from Eng-
land about 1725. This distinctive type is com-
monly considered to have originated in the vil-
lage that nestles under the lea of Windsor castle
about a half century before. This, I believe, is
fiction. There still survive in England several
massive oaken chairs considered to be of Gothic
origin which have passed unnoticed writ-
ers on old furniture. Such an one is to be seen
at the hospital of St. Cross near Winchester.
Anyone who sees one of these cannot help but
recognize it as a Windsor in primitive form.
Therefore, this chair form is much older al-
105
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
though undoubtedly It first came to fashionable
notice in the village whose name it took.
Of this rudimentary Windsor I have never
seen but one of American origin. This was re-
cently discovered at Bedford, New York, and,
like its primary ancestor, has but three legs and
a very low back but is of much lighter construc-
tion. A low back was characteristic of the first
Windsors made in America. These were pro-
duced in Philadelphia where the cabinet makers
soon elaborated their design adding a high comb
back, beautifully turned legs, stretchers and arm
supports and generally glorifying it until Wind-
sors became socially acceptable anywhere except
in the formal drawing rooms of the wealthy.
For a while they were called Philadelphia
chairs. Thus, we find James C. Tuttle, chair-
maker of Salem, Massachusetts, advertising
Philadelphia chairs, but gradually this gave way
and all along the Atlantic seaboard men who
specialized in their making were known as
Windsor chair makers. As this spread, par*
ticularly to New England and New York, the
Windsor took on many forms. Some were made
with high backs with single and double combs,
others had a simple hoop back with or without
106
PLAIN AND FANCYCHMRM^ING
arms, and finally appeared the Windsor writing
chair. This ancestor of the quick-lunch chair
with its broad right arm 3 frequently had a small
drawer beneath the arm for quill pens, nut-gall
ink and sand ? and sometimes a second drawer
under the seat for writing paper and the like.
They usually had the high back and comb top
and were nearly always made with the writing
arm stationary. Sometimes, however, the writing
arm was on a pivot so that it might be swung
closer to the writer. Occasionally one is to be
found with the writing arm on the left side; evi-
dently a special order chair.
In half a century the Windsor had risen to
such high estate that they were found in many
places of public meeting. For Instance when the
First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia
at Carpenters' Hall on September 5, 1774, the
members sat in Windsors which are still to be
seen there. To the presiding officer was assigned
an imposing high-backed chair, while the mem-
bers had to content themselves with simpler
hoop-backed ones. Windsor chairs were again
waiting when the Second Continental Congress
assembled In Independence Hall on May 5,
1775, and it was from such that the members rose
107
EARLY AMERICAN FURMTURE MAKERS
to go forward to sign the Declaration of Inde-
pendence. After the Revolution was over and
Washington had returned to Mt. Vernon, to
lead as he hoped a quiet uneventful life, press of
visitors necessitated his ordering thirty Wind-
sors for the east portico. Here his callers could
be seated while they waited their turn. This is
particularly interesting in the light of the fact
that, before the difference with England, Wash-
ington, in ordering chairs from his London
factor, complained that those of native make
were not strong enough "for common sitting/'
Either the Virginia chair makers improved their
product or Washington's patriotism led him to
overlook the frailty of the domestic product.
One of the first Windsor chair makers of rec-
ord is Richmonde, first name unknown, of Sassa-
fras street, Philadelphia, where he was working
in 1763. The similarity between the identified
Richmonde chair and that of the presiding officer
in Carpenters 3 Hall makes it seem probable
that he was the man who made these historic
Windsors. Another of the eighteenth century
specialists in this type was John Wadsworth of
Hartford. The American Mercury, published In
Hartford on January 4, 1796, contains an ad-
108
(American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, Inc.)
PLATE XLI. A BUTLER SECRETARY. THIS Is LABELED "Tnos.
BURLING, CABINET AND CHAIR MAKER, No. 56 BEEKMAN
STREET, NEW YORK."
w
P3
h
O
H
<
ffi
w
H
C PH
PLAIN AND FANCY CHAIR MAKING
vertisenient by Wadsworth In which he states
that he has come to Hartford "to carry on the
Windsor chairmaking business/' and that he
wants "one or two likely boys 13 or 14 years old/ 3
as apprentices as well as "to purchase a quantity
of square edged white wood plank, from 18 to
2O inches wide/' evidently to convert into Wind-
sor chair seats, as pine or white wood was the
favorite material. The accounting for the fur-
nishing of the old Connecticut State House
shows that Wadsworth was paid. In May 1796,
70 pounds 13 shillings for such "settees and
chairs/ 5
In New York specializing in the making of
Windsors was a thriving business with a number
of men devoting themselves to It. Among the
earliest was Thomas Ash with his shop located
at either 31 or 33 John Street from 1786 until
1815. Ash was a liberal advertiser and evidently
did a business of considerable size but either
he did not mark his chairs or none has survived.
We do know, however, that one of his appren-
tices was Richard Tweed, father of William
Marcy Tweed, famous as Boss Tweed, head of
the unsavory ring that controlled New York
politically during the dreadful decade following
109
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
the Civil War. This son was also a chair maker
until he foreswore the paternal craft for politics.
Of him and others who turned from furniture-
making to public affairs more will be written in a
later section.
Another New Yorker to give himself over to
Windsor chair making was Andrew Gautier
whose Pre-Revolutionary newspaper advertis-
ing is illustrated with a high-backed chair of the
most approved Philadelphia pattern. Coming
after Ash and Gautier was McBride, two or three
of whose simpler chairs branded with his name
still survive* There was John K. Cowperthwaite
who with the beginning of the nineteenth cen-
tury combined Windsor and fancy chair making
at his, in 1818, "long-established Factory, No. 4,
Chatham Square/ 3 Cowperthwaite, whose de-
scendants still continue in the furniture business
in New York, however, was more of a fancy
chair man than a maker of Windsors, and as
such I classify him.
In addition to all of those in the various cities,
towns and villages who followed the trade of
Windsor chair maker and I believe that if an
accurate list of them could be compiled the total
number would easily pass the half thousand
no
PLAIN AND FANCY CHAIR MAKING
mark many other chairs and settees of this sort
were turned out by farmers in their own homes.
Such a simple bow-backed Windsor has de-
scended to me. It was the work of a great-great-
grandfather. He made it before the fireplace of
his New Hampshire farm-house in the course of
a winter, hewing the seat from a white wood
plank and fashioning the spindles from hickory
cut on his wood lot. The turned legs and stretch-
ers are of maple or birch while the U-shaped arm
is of oak showing distinct traces of quarter saw-
ing. These elements, I believe, are not the prod-
uct of my forebear's handicraft but were rather
bought by him either at a general store or from
a local woodturner. General stores, prior to
1825, carried "chair parts" as one of the regular
items. I have seen old inventories of New Eng-
land stores that list so many "bundles of chair
parts/ 5 usually valued at 50 cents a bundle.
How common was the practice of fabricating
Windsors at home, I cannot say, but as a boy in
Vermont, I frequently saw simple chairs of this
sort that were said to be the handiwork of a
father or a grandfather. Always the tale was the
same as in my own family. The chairs were win-
ter work, done before the great fireplace when
in
EARLY AMERICAN
storm prevented out-of-door employment. To
such farm origin, therefore, I ascribe many of
the simpler Windsors, both side and arm, which
are still to be found in the agricultural areas.
How late they were thus made, is hard to say, but
1835 may be considered the end of the period.
In chair shops and chair factories the Windsor
continued to be made for many years. Here,
strangely enough, the design reverted to some-
thing akin to the earliest low-backed form. The
turned parts became heavier, and seat and arms
less carefully shaped. The late decadent-primi-
tive Windsors also took on something of the
fancy chair in that they were painted and dec-
orated with stripings and sometimes stenciled in
gilt. They were the store, office and hotel chair
from before the Mexican War down to the early
eighteen eighties and were very popular indeed.
A study of the illustrated catalogs of various
manufacturers brings to light many styles and
designs of chairs that are basically Windsor.
Sometimes the seats were solid and at others
caned or of perforated three-ply veneer. The
Walter Heywood Chair Company of Fitchburg,
Massachusetts, in its catalog of 1885 shows
eighteen different chair designs that are all of
112
B
C
D
PLATE XLIV. WINDSOR CHAIRS FROM PRIMITIVE TO DECADENT.
A. THE PRIMITIVE GOTHIC CHAIR AT THE HOSPITAL OF ST.
CROSS, WINCHESTER, ENGLAND; B, C AND D. TYPICAL
AMERICAN WINDSORS ; E. DECADENT FORM OF 1850.
PLAIN AND FANCY CHAIR MAKING
the decadent-primitive Windsor sort 5 as well as
a line of Windsor tops mounted upon a typical
revolving office chair base, and a number of chil-
dren's high and miniature chairs of similar par-
entage. Other manufacturers' books show such
chairs and sometimes settees or benches of the
Windsor strain as late as 1894. Evidently the
demand for this type was so strong that even the
Black Walnut age could not kill it.
Like the Windsor, the fancy chair was also of
English origin. For this type the American mak-
ers were indebted to Thomas Sheraton. In his
attempt to adapt the French mode of the early
days of Napoleon he produced the ancestor of
all fancy chairs. Sheraton and the English did
comparatively little with this new chair style
but not so the Americans. For, modifying the
idea to suit their public, the chair makers of the
United States seized upon this Sheraton design
and made It a trade by Itself. All through New
England and New York shops given over to the
fancy chair, as well as more Isolated ones In
other of the coastal states, were soon to be found.
Their product was not only sold locally but
shipped in quantity to the Southern states then
almost entirely given over to agriculture. Later
113
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
making fancy chairs for export, chiefly to the
West Indies, was an important factor.
The New York City Directory of 1810 carries
the advertisement of William Buttre, and of
1815 Charles Fredericks. By 1818 W. Palmer,
William Brown, Jun., and John K. Cowper-
thwaite are likewise advertising themselves as
sources of fancy chairs. Cowperthwaite became
the most Important of these men. In 1825 he was
president of the Master Chair Makers Society
and as such he headed the third division of the
civic parade that marked the opening of the Erie
Canal. Both this society and that of the journey-
men took part. The 200 men of the fancy chair
making craft who marched in this parade were
resplendent with badges and banners which pic-
tured the fancy chair in all its glory and carried
the mottoes, "Rest for the Weary" and u By In-
dustry We Thrive/' 1 The latter was of course
1 Golden, Cadwallader D., "Memoir, prepared at the request of a Com-
mittee of the Common Council of the City of New York, and presented to
the Mayor of the City, at the celebration of the completion of the New
York Canals," New York, 1835.
See plate entitled "Chairmakers' Society," which Is described by Mr.
Golden as follows:
"This plate contains two circular wreathes, abreast of each other; on
the dexter side is a figure of Plenty, the cornucopiae at her feet, and
resting her left hand upon a fancy chair; in her rear, is an Indian corn
field, at the foot of a high mountain; In the distance is a village, with a
chair manufactory; in the far distance is a ship in New York Bay, with
114
PLAIN AND FANCY CHAIR MAKING
that of the journeymen, for then It was good
taste for workmen to boast of their Industry
rather than to assail Industry as the oppressor.
But New York was not the only fancy chair
town. Thousands were made in other centers.
Salem was a notable one. An analysis of the sec-
tion of Artists and Craftsmen of Essex County,
Massachusetts, compiled by Henry W. Belknap,
devoted to the men of the furniture crafts dis-
closed some interesting data. From "the earliest
days" to 1860 it lists 604 furniture makers. Of
these, thirty-two were chair makers and seven-
teen worked at the trade during the fifty years
of the approximate tw r o centuries covered. A bill
of Henry Hubon of Salem reproduced in the
Essex Institute publication just cited, dated
November 22, 1820, lists among other things
"eight fancy chairs $35.00." This was $4.35
Castle Williams, on Governor's Island, on her starboard bow: and in the
farthest distance is New York. Beneath, on a labelled ribbon, is the
motto, 'By Industry we thrive.*
"On the sinister wreath is the Chairmakers Arms ; the shield is divided
into three compartments one across the upper part, separated horizontally
and two beneath, subdivided vertically; on the superior division is a
fancy setee ; on the lower dexter compartment Gules, is a square-bottomed
fancy chair; and on the sinister, Azure, is another round-seated one. The
crest is a Chairmakers boring bitt, crossed vertically by a shaving tool.
On a label beneath is the motto, "Rest for the Weary/
"These wreathes were borne on either side of the Banner of this Society,
on the day of Celebration."
"5
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS ^
each a fairly high price considering that the
same bill includes u a field bed $15.00" and "a
common bed $8.00."
In design the fancy chair was quite simple.
The two front legs and the rung between were
nicely turned. The rest of the parts except for
the cross members of the back were simply made.
In the earliest of the fancy chairs the seat was of
rush but later either cane or solid wooden seats
were used. It was the decoration which, from a
stylistic viewpoint, made this chair. After the en-
tire frame had been painted with an almost
black background, usually relieved with reddish
lines to imitate graining, the striping and sten-
ciling in parcel gilt were applied. The stencil
designs were usually of the conventionalized
leaf and fruit sort, although occasionally they
were more ambitious and included houses, foun-
tains, birds, trees and the like. A unique chair,
found a few years ago in Pennsylvania, has a
low relief bust of General Lafayette cast in lead
as the center of the decoration of the back and
an eagle medallion of the same sort on the center
of the lower cross slat of the back. This chair was
made about 1825 when Lafayette returned to
the United States as the guest of the nation.
116
(American Philosophical Society)
PLATE XLV. THOMAS JEFFERSON'S WRITING WINDSOR. IN THIS HE
WROTE His FIRST DRAFT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
BUILT TO JEFFERSON'S DESIGN. THE SEAT REVOLVES.
{American Philosophical Society')
PLATE XL VI. FRANKLIN'S LIBRARY CHAIR. ITS SEAT FOLDS OVER
AND BECOMES A STEPLADDER.
PLAIN AND FANCY CHAIR MAKING
Of all the men who devoted themselves to
fancy chair making the one whose name and
work are best known Is Lambert Hitchcock of
HItchcockviile, Connecticut. Born In Cheshire,
not far from that part of the 'land of steady
habits, horn gun flints and basswood pumpkin
seeds 53 which saw the development of inexpen-
sive clocks with brass works, he was a typical
Connecticut Yankee with a bent for manufac-
turing a product that could be widely sold In
quantity.
In 1818 Hitchcock left his native town and
settled in Barkhamsted upon the Farmington
river two miles northwest of Winsted. At first
he devoted himself to making chair parts for
shipment to Charleston, S. C. Evidently he pros-
pered rapidly, for by 1821 a settlement had
grown up around his water-power driven shop
known as Hitchcockville. Shortly after this he
gave up making parts and turned to producing
complete chairs of the fancy variety but distinct
enough to be recognized as his work even if they
did not carry the legend, "L. Hitchcock, War-
ranted/ 3 Later, this was changed to : "L. Hitch-
cock, Hitchcockville, Ct/ 3 Then by 1829 the
label changed to Hitchcock, Alford & Co.
117
EARLY AMERICAN
Alfred Alford and Hitchcock had married sis-
ters, built a big house in common and become
partners in the business. In 1843, for causes not
known, Hitchcock left and the enterprise was
carried on under the style of Alford & Co. by
Alfred Alford and his brother, Arba. The Hitch-
cock factory and the joint house are still stand-
ing but the settlement, since 1866, has been
known as Riverton. The old shop is now a rub-
ber factory and the double residence is a single
home of 18 rooms. When built there was a solid
wall dividing it running from cellar to attic.
Only in the apartment in the wing designed for
the common mother-in-law of the two men was
there any door conecting the Hitchcock and Al-
ford sides.
After leaving Hitchcockville the man for
whom it was named was for a time at the Union-
ville Chair Company shops located near Collins-
ville. Later he is believed to have worked at the
Camp .shops at Robertsville about two miles
west of Hitchcockville* At neither place were
chairs turned out which bore the Hitchcock
name. Those of the Camp shops carried the label,
Union Chair Company, West Winsted, Ct., sten-
ciled on the back edge of the seat 1 the same
118
PLAIN AND FANCY CHAIR MAKING
place that the Hitchcock chairs were marked.
The Unionvllle chairs were stenciled with the
words, Unionvllle Chair Co.
In the height of Its glory the Hitchcock fac-
tory employed upwards of a hundred men and
women, the latter doing the stencil work. Not
only did they make the chair called a Hitchcock
but also added a line of those distinctive rock-
ing-chairs known as the Boston rocker. Who In-
vented this is not known but from about 1820
until post-Civil War days it was an extremely
popular chair*
The rocking-chair was a purely American In-
vention. Tradition 'credits It to no less a person
than Benjamin Franklin. This seems plausible
for In the journal of the Rev. Manasseh Cutler
under the date of Friday, July 13, 1787, In re-
cording an afternoon and an evening spent with
the venerable sage of Philadelphia, he describes
several of Franklin's Inventions. This list in-
cluded "his great arm chair, with rockers and a
large fan placed over it, with which he fans him-
self, keeps off flies, etc., while he sits reading,
with only a small motion of his foot; and many
other curiosities and Inventions, all his own, but
of lesser note/ 3 Whether Franklin was the in-
119
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
ventor or not 9 we find rocking-chairs mentioned
before the Revolution. A bill of the famous Wil-
liam Savery to Mrs, Mary Norris of February
11 9 1774, includes "to bottoming a rocking-chair
one shilling, ten pence/' As this was a charge
for a repair, chairs with rockers existed before
this date. The attaching of rockers 5 as nearly as
can be traced from surviving chairs, seems first to
have been done to those not originally so de-
signed. The earliest examples show that the legs
were cut off and rockers added. These were at
first simply of board curved on the lower side
and straight along the upper edge. Gradually
the rocker itself began to take more definite
shape and the upper edge became more and more
concave. By about 1825, the design as we know
it had been devised through a course of trial and
error. It is evident that this chair in which one
could sit and rock was extremely popular, for
practically all forms of the Windsor, the slat
back, the banister back, the lyre-backed Empire
and the painted fancy chair, are to be found
equipped with rockers. This was either done
originally or as a modernizing effort.
Like the Windsor chair, the Boston rocker and
the painted fancy chair also survived several
120
FLAIN ANP
decades after the decline of chair making as a
specialized craft. Study of manufacturer's cat-
alogs of the eighteen-eighties proves this, for
here are shown a number of designs which other-
wise would seem to date distinctly from 1850
or before.
121
CHAPTER VI
YANKEE CLOCK MAKERS
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CHAPTER VI
YANKEE CLOCK MAKERS
ALTHOUGH Old World masters had
practised the mysteries of horology from
before Reformation days, it was not
until Yankee ingenuity addressed itself to clock
making that timepieces were made at a price low
enough so that the average family could not af-
ford to be clockless. Incredible as it may seem,
until about 1800 common folks, generally speak-
ing, had to satisfy themselves with sun dials,
noon marks, hour glasses, turnip sized, triple-
cased silver watches and an uncannily accurate
facility for time telling by the sun. Until then
clock makers had fundamentally adhered to a
single production method. The movements, that
is, the wheels and frames, were laboriously hand-
fashioned from cast brass. What they made was
fine, but the method was so individualistic that
the price had to be high, and output remained
limited.
Why some of the hundreds of men who de-
125
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
voted themselves to clock making did not devise
a simpler and less expensive plan than the hand-
filed-cast-brass scheme seems strange. The solu-
tion of this manufacturing problem, however,
had to await the advent of two groups of New
Englanders. One was the Connecticut clock
makers of the Naugatuck valley; the other cen-
tered around the Willard family of Massachu-
setts. To the former school we are indebted
for low-priced, wooden-works clocks, and later
the cheap clock with a movement of stamped
brass. The Willard brothers, sons and cousins,
produced and refined the banjo clock idea. This
product of the area of plain living and high
thinking is the United States' most distinctive
contribution to clock designing, not only be-
cause of its unique form of case but also by
reason of simplification of the movement judged
from the viewpoint of machine design. The Wil-
lards were a clock making family trained In the
old traditions, but not so with the men of the
Naugatuck valley. With but one or two excep-
tions they were woodworking craftsmen who
came into horology from clock-case making. Free
of the traditions of the craft, they successfully
adapted new materials and devised water-power
126
YANKEE CLOCK MAKERS
driven machines, with which to cut clock wheels,
in such quantities as to be able to make a pre-
sentable clock that could be sold for under ten
dollars. This was distinctly an early demon-
stration of what could be accomplished by mass
production even on a limited scale. Such clocks
answered a long felt want and almost over night
Plymouth Hollow, Bristol, Waterbury, Win-
sted, Norwich, East Windsor and so forth were
clock towns known by their product throughout
the length and breadth of the land, as well as in
practically every foreign land where Yankee
ships went a-trading.
By careful searching of old newspapers and
records, a list of American clock makers from
early days down to about 1860 has been com-
piled, which numbers 852 individuals and com-
panies. Some of these are only slight variations
in name, but again names of clock makers which
I know were in business during the period are
omitted, so it is fair to consider that 850 closely
approximates the total number of American
clock makers in business for themselves prior to
1860. Of this number the majority came after
1800. The total for the entire pre-Revolutionary
period, over a century and a half, is but 67. Of
127
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
these, only two came before 17003 and 22 during
the years from 1700 to 1750.
The household trade of American clock
makers before 1800 was largely in making move-
ments for tall clocks. These, acting as their own
peddlers, they sold frequently direct to the
householder, who either had a cabinet maker
produce the case, or mounted them caseless on a
wall bracket. "Hang-up movements" was the
trade name for those that went caseless. When
so installed, because the pendulum could be seen
swinging back and forth, they were popularly
called "wag-on~the- walls/' Making large clocks
for meeting-house spires was also an Important
part of the business of these men. These spire
clocks were more or less community affairs. Men
of a neighborhood contributed to the cost, and so
everybody could have at least one clock to guide
them. Sometimes, however, getting such sub-
scriptions was not easy. At least one record sur-
vives of a protest against sharing in the cost of a
meeting-house timepiece. This was on the
ground that the objectors lived so far away they
could not possibly read the face of the clock.
None of the work of the two American clock
makers who antedated 1700 has survived, but
128
F.LVCY CHAIR STOKE.
MW.YOEX .INNWt ADVERTtSBR, .
JAPAN AI^D FANCY CHAIRS,
at bis Iftu; Ki Wi>N <top Ak 7
a krtf amh Ic^nt tnoilftMri of Jsptit, Unmet
Vji ltll>tfl w '* |v * Mttlrd in tJic tet 4H4 Wit
JVfMiiii *iw r pb'ainl to ftywr I
;** p>'(ti}j, ijnj r^? fljuwt fjittr ft*>i>ijwii'i!\ IHJK* cxc*
'u! H(i|i jjj !u siiii jij(iK,lmlt{v
CItulIU 1 ^ KM 0\V
.'nto, (hf- (f adhfMnittll'^
i J* N it 1 1 fiir p<-!ilu i n M Jt- A*! ft Uit, at a utiutftt jtfkf,
' ' '
^Jiuui PALMER, \ s . ? ^Aii
SWP-TOKK
FANCJY CHAIR
WAREHOUSE.
<jjr>*rjt*j*f
FREDERICKS,
No, 17
OWOSITK
BOWERY,
STREET.
AN* L!,K(iA\T AttO
FANCY ^WIXDSOlt CHAIRS,
.vcr cum HWKK.
WILLIAM BUTTRE,
lion, and ii; tilt J5>^t row ,
Orders' .-from any jwrt of" w ctmtiiiont
) til! be itftMfot w itii j taniwlrty vA ^\Mth
thr nttmt i
iw fffmd r
mid
PLATE L. ADVERTISEMENTS OF NEW YORK CHAIR MAKERS PRIOR
TO i820.
YANKEE CLOCK MAKERS
we do know some Interesting facts about Ev-
ardus Bogardus of New York City, and William
Davis of Boston. The former, who flourished in
16985 was the son of Dominie Evardus Bogar-
dus, the Dutch Reform parson of the time that
Peter Minuit was Governor General of New
Amsterdam. Incidentally this clergyman's bow-
ery or farm later became the basis of the Trinity
Church lands, and, were It still In Bogardus 5
hands, would make them the landlords of Wall
Street. Whether Bogardus went back to Holland
to learn his trade or not is unknown but he un-
doubtedly followed the clock-making style of
Huygens, the Leyden master, credited with per-
fecting the pendulum.
William Davis, who arrived In Boston In
1683, Is not recorded as a member of the London
Clock-makers Company. The circumstance that
David Edwards became surety that Davis and
family would not become town charges evi-
dently pauper Immigrants were a problem then
as later indicates that he was a penniless
journeyman.
Of the twenty-two men who followed the art
of clock making In America between 1700 and
1750, several are worth mentioning. Avery, first
129
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
name forgotten, Boston, 1727, produced the
clock that still hangs In the Old North church.
This Is the timepiece that set Paul Revere off on
his famous midnight gallop across Middlesex.
Benjamin and Timothy Cheney of East Hart-
ford, now Manchester, Conn., 1745-80, were
among New England's best. They made tall
clocks and provided them with cases of neatly
carved cherry. Incidentally John Fitch, now con-
ceded to be the Inventor of the steamboat idea,
was an apprentice In their shop.
At Guilford, Conn., Ebenezer Parmalee flour-
ished from 1726-1740. Among other things he
made the first clock for the New Haven meeting
house, and in 1726 one for the church at Guil-
ford. This latter movement continued In use
until 1893 an ^? still in running order, is on ex-
hibit In the town of its origin.
The first of the outstanding Pennsylvania
clock makers was Christopher Souers, who ar-
rived in Philadelphia in 1724. Clock making was
not the only thing he could do. His other call-
ings were author, printer, paper maker, doctor,
and farmer. Just to prove his versatility, he
spelled his name Sower when following these
other livelihoods,
130
YANKEE CLOCK MAKERS
Nearly contemporaneous with Souers was
Benjamin Franklin's bosom friend, Edward
Duffield 9 whose tall clocks are still to be met
with in and around Philadelphia. Whether Duf-
field assisted Franklin in constructing some of
the apparatus with which he conducted his "nat-
ural philosophy" experiments is not quite clear,
but we do know that Franklin in his will ap-
pointed him executor.
David RIttenhouse, who lived at Norriton,
Pa., from 1751 to 1770 and continued his clock
making In Philadelphia seven years after that,
was indeed a man of parts. In addition to design-
ing and making tall clock movements of extreme
accuracy, he produced mathematical instruments
that were the equal of the best European prod-
ucts, and was an astronomer of international
reputation. After forsaking clock work he en-
tered public life. Among other posts he held that
of director of the United States Mint from 1792
to 1795. For seven years he was president of the
American Philosophical Society, then, as now,
the nation's outstanding learned society.
Although New York City, in Bogardus, had
the second colonial clock maker, it never devel-
oped any men of distinction. Actually, It had to
131
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
turn elsewhere for the builder of Its first public
clock. So It was that Benjamin Hanks, of Litch-
field, Conn., 1778-1785, built the city's first
communal timepiece. This was Installed In the
turret of the Old Dutch church at the corner of
Nassau and Liberty streets. The movement had
several novel features. Among them was a
windmill attachment for winding.
At this same time north of Boston the out-
standing clock maker was Thomas Lister of
"Halifax, British North America." For 42 years,
1760-1802, he produced tall clocks of fine qual-
ity both as to case and movement. He marked his
work with a label which carried the following
exhortive doggerel:
Lo ! here I stand by thee
To give thee warning day and night;
For every tick that I do give
Cuts short the time thou hast to live.
Therefore, a warning take by me,
To serve thy God as I serve thee:
Each day and night be on thy guard.
And thou shalt have a just reward.
Such were the principal clock makers of our
Colonial and Revolutionary periods. The begin-
132
YANKEE CLOCK MAKERS
nings of the Massachusetts and Connecticut
schools of clock making date from the Revolu-
tionary years. With the Willard family of Graf-
ton, Roxbury and Boston, the craft started about
1765 and continued for nearly a century. Their
great contribution was the banjo clock, patented
in 1802 by Simon Willard. It was a distinct de-
parture from current clock design both as to
movement and case. Here at last Yankee Inge-
nuity had solved the problem of a timepiece as
accurate as the best tall clocks. In a form and size
that could readily be hung on the wall. In this
respect Simon Willard differed from his two
older brothers, Benjamin and Aaron, \vho evi-
dently did not hold with new Ideas.
Although Simon was the inventor of the banjo
clock, he was a master maker of tall clocks and
movements of special design. In 1801 he made a
clock for the United States Senate, so unusual of
design that he had to go to Washington to show
the authorities how to operate It. For this time-
piece he was paid $770. Unfortunately It was
destroyed when the British burned Washington
in 1814. On his trip to the capital he met Thomas
Jefferson, then President, and a genuine friend-
ship sprang up between them. In 1826 he made
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
the turret clock for the University of Virginia,
which was fabricated according to the specifica-
tions drafted by the author of the Declaration of
Independence. Another of Willard's quasi-
public positions was the care of the clocks at
Harvard college. As he was a self-educated man,
this connection with a seat of learning appealed
greatly to him, and he presented the Institution
with two examples of his best work. They are
still in use. One is the tall clock in the faculty
room, and the other the banjo-regulator in Uni-
versity Hall.
Until 1805 Willard not only made his clocks
but peddled them from house to house. From
then until he retired in 1839 he stayed in his
shop in Washington street, Roxbury. During
these thirty-four years he received a number of
important commissions, including the clock still
running in Statuary Hall in the National Cap-
itoL His reputation, however, did not bring him
a competency, and at his death his estate was
less than $500. His son, Simon Willard, Jr., con-
tinued his father's business but moved it to Bos-
ton. He maintained his store at 9 Congress street
until 1870. He frequently marked his clocks
Simon Willard & Son. The younger Willard,
J 34
YANKEE CLOCK MAKERS
like the artist Whistler, was a West Point man.
He was a student at the Military Academy from
1813 to 1815. In 1816 he resigned his army com-
mission and was in the crockery-ware busi-
ness until 1824. The next two years he spent
in his father's shop and then launched out
for himself. The business evidently pros-
pered, for In 1850 his son, Zabdiel A., was
admitted to partnership. Simon, Jr., In addi-
tion to his regular line of banjo clocks, made
the astronomical clock now In the observatory
of Harvard University. This for many years
provided the standard time for all New England
railroads.
Others of the Willard family included Aaron,
Jr., Benjamin K, Ephraim, Henry and Phil-
ander J. In the matter of clock cases Simon Wil-
lard the elder, as well as his brothers, exercised
distinct control over the cabinet makers who pro-
duced them. Such men as Charles Crehore of
Dorchester, Henry Willard of Roxbury and
William Fiske of Watertown produced clock
cases according to designs supplied to them.
Usually cherry or mahogany was the wood used.
Ornamentation was provided by Inlay and brass
balls, urns or spikes used as finials. The Willard
135
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
banjo clock was so popular that in time many
other New England clock makers copied it. A
complete list of these copyists has yet to be com-
piled but would, I believe, total twenty-five or
thirty names.
The same ship that brought the chests of tea
for Boston's famous party had as a passenger
Thomas Harland, mentor of the Connecticut
school of clock makers. He proceeded at once to
Norwich, Conn., where Eli Terry became one of
his apprentices. Terry in time started the plan of
making shelf clocks which could be sold for
modest prices. In fact, the Naugatuck valley of
Connecticut during the first half of the nine-
teenth century was the nation's clock shop.
Timepieces made here were soon being sold by
Yankee peddlers in every state and territory.
Overseas, traders carried them to nearly every
port of Europe, South America, Africa and the
East.
Working independently, Terry made his first
clock in 1792. The movement was of wood,
hand-fashioned with few tools. Soon afterward
he devised a water-driven "engine" for cutting
the wooden cogwheels and in 1797 took out his
first and only patent. By 1807 he was contract-
YANKEE CLOCK MAKERS
ing to make 400 thirty-hour clock movements at
four dollars each.
In 1809 was founded the first of the famous
Connecticut clock partnerships. It was Eli Terry,
Seth Thomas and Silas Hoadley and was styled
Terry, Thomas and Hoadley. This firm lasted
but a year. By 1814 Terry was making his well-
known "pillar and scroll top" model, which
proved so popular that it was soon copied by all
other men of the clock valley. From then until
1824, Terry clocks were the standard of the
trade. Although Terry and Thomas, a Terry
licensee, were working independently, they
dominated the industry.
In Seth Thomas clock making found not a
man of inventive originality but rather one of
keen business sense who was the first to transfer
his calling from a craft to an industry.
Seth Thomas was bora at Wolcott, Conn.,
August 19, 1785. After a few terms at a district
school he was apprenticed to the trade of car-
penter and joiner and worked for some time on
the construction of the Long Wharf at New
Haven. At twenty-one with a small kit of tools
and a still smaller sum of money he entered the
firm of Terry, Thomas and Hoadley, By 1813
137
EARLY AMEMC;^^
he was In business for himself at Plymouth Hol-
low and the next year having paid Ell Terry
$1000.00 for a license commenced making the
"pillar, scroll top 3 ' shelf clock which the former
had just perfected. From then on his business
grew steadily. In time he added a cotton mill as
well as a brass rolling and wire plant to his com-
mercial ventures. In 1853, so ^at his clock busi-
ness might not be interrupted by his death,
Thomas formed the Seth Thomas Clock Com-
pany which Is the only one of the Naugatuck
Valley clock making ventures to continue in the
hands of the original family.
In 1824 a new figure entered the field. Chaun-
cey Jerome, like Seth Thomas and Silas Hoadley,
came into clock making via the cabinet bench and
clockcase. In many ways he was the most pictur-
esque and pathetic of this group of men. With
little or no schooling he was at nine a fatherless
boy working sixteen hours a day for a hard-
hearted farmer. Four years later, released from
this indenture, he was following the trade of car-
penter and from that he naturally drifted Into
clockcase making. By 1822 he had his own small
shop in which he made cases but the difficulty in
getting movements for them led him. In 1824, to
'38
YANKEE CLOCK MAKERS
form a partnership with his brother. Noble
Jerome and Elijah Darrow. Brother Noble
was the movement maker of the firm. The
next year they brought out a "patented bronze
looking-glass clock/ 5
About twelve years later the Idea of a clock
with a stamped brass movement came to him,
which not only brought him a fortune that he
later lost, but revolutionized American clock
making. Wooden works were henceforth a thing
of the past.
"One night I took one of my clocks into my
room/' he wrote in recounting how this idea
came to him, "and placing it on the table left a
light burning near and went to bed. While
thinking over my own business troubles and dis-
appointments, I could not help feeling very
much depressed. I said to myself I will not give
up yet, I know more about the clock business
than anything else. That minute I was looking
at the wooden clock on the table, and it came
into my mind Instantly that there could be a
cheap, one-day brass clock that would take the
place of the wooden one. I at once began to fig-
ure on it, the case would cost no more, the dials,
glass and weights and other fixtures would be
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
the same and the size could be reduced. I laid
awake nearly all night thinking the new thing
over. I knew there was a fortune In it. . . .
"I arrived home from the South the 28th of
January and told my brother, who was a first-
rate clock maker, what I had been thinking
about since I had been gone. He was much
pleased with my plan, thought It a first-rate Idea,
and said he would go right to work and get up
the movement which he perfected In a short time
so that it was the best clock that has ever been
made in this or any other country. There have
been more of this same kind manufactured than
any other In the United States. What I origi-
nated that night on my bed in Richmond has
given work to thousands of men yearly for more
than twenty years, built up the largest manu-
factories in New England and put more than a
million dollars in the pockets of the brass mak-
ers, 'but there Is not one of them that remembers
Joseph/ "
This brass-movement, Jerome clock with its
simple case was a success almost at once. The
movement was all its author claimed it to be.
The case had a mahogany veneer front of O G
moulding lines that appealed to a public using
140
YANKEE CLOCK MAKERS
decadent American Empire furniture. Itself re-
plete with the same type of moulding. By 1841
Chauncey Jerome was the sole owner of his clock
company, having bought out brother Noble and
Darrow. That year his net profit was $35,000. So
great was the demand that "men would deposit
money before orders were finished/ 7 Three years
later he opened a clock-case factory at New
Haven. The next year his movement factories at
Bristol burned. He then moved his entire busi-
ness to New Haven. For eleven years Jerome
was sitting on top of the world. His factory
turned out 200,000 clocks a year; he successfully
invaded the British market despite the Board of
Trade; and was elected Mayor of New Haven.
In 1855 the crash came. The Jerome Manufac-
turing Company had absorbed the Terry and
Barnum company, of which P. T. Barnum, the
Circus King, was the backer. The previous debts
of this company proved too much of a load. The
Jerome company failed. The balance of Chaun-
cey Jerome's life was spent in obscurity and he
died in very straitened circumstances. He al-
ways blamed Barnum, while Barnum, himself
nearly ruined, was clever enough to convert the
episode into good advertising for his temperance
141
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE^
lecture and his American Museum, Out of the
debacle came the New Haven Clock Company
headed by Hiram Camp, nephew of Chauncey
Jerome and forebear of Walter Camp, who later
combined coaching Yale's football teams with
clock making,
In the main this is the story of clock making
in the Naugatuck valley. The Terrys, Seth
Thomas and Chauncey Jerome were the out-
standing principals, but there were others in the
field whose ability and success could with justice
be recounted if space allowed. Also the many
clock shops which sprang up in various parts of
the country were largely founded by men who
had learned their trade back in the Clock Valley,
the birthplace of a real idea inexpensive clocks
for the common people.
142
CHAPTER VII
FROM FURNITURE TO POLITICS
(Dr. George P. Coopernall}
PLATE LIL A SIGNED HITCHCOCK CHAIR.
PLATE LIII. AN AARON WILLARD MANTEL CLOCK.
CHAPTER VII
FROM FURNITURE TO POLITICS
REMEMBERING the scores of Ameri-
cans who have risen to national promi-
nence and lasting name from humble
beginnings, the question what about furniture
makers? naturally propounds itself. Thanks
to a long line of authors of juvenile books on
"Poor Boys Who Became Famous/ 5 we recog-
nize that no honest trade is a bar sinister to
future preferment.
Thumb as you will these success stories about
our national heroes and half heroes, if credit to
furniture making is your goal you will not attain
it. Why, is not evident. If a Boston candle-
maker's shop, a French Huguenot's silver smith-
ery, a tailor's bench in the North Carolina back-*
woods, or the Miami Canal towpath could serve
as stepping-stones to fame, why not the cabinet
bench for at least one? As a setting for a first
scene in a praiseworthy adventure through life,
surely a background of rough planks with saws,
M5
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
chisels and planes for properties and an aroma of
bubbling glue for incense could be didactically
effective. But our historic success writers seem to
have thought differently and possibly lost some-
thing by this oversight.
The making of furniture, however, did play
a very active part in the youth of two men whose
names later passed into history, and secondarily
in that of no less a person than Abraham
Lincoln. His father, Thomas, although generally
credited with being an ineffective if not shiftless
man, really had a trade and it was a branch of
cabinet making. Two other politicians, Stephen
A. Douglas and "Boss" Tweed likewise served
their apprenticeship at the bench. Such Is
the trio that furniture making can claim for its
own.
With all the minute research that has been
devoted to Abraham Lincoln and his parents, it
is strange that only once has it been brought to
light that Thomas Lincoln's trade was that of
making the nicely constructed spinning-wheels
used in converting retted and hetchled flax into
linen thread ready for the loom. For this we are
indebted to Arthur E. Morgan now president of
Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. Some
146
FROM FURNITURE TO POLITICS
twenty years ago while a civil engineer directing
a reclamation project In the Ozark Mountains of
Arkansas, Dr. Morgan came to know some of
Abraham Lincoln's relatives on the Hanks side
of the house. To them the father of the Great
Emancipator was "Uncle Tom/' This is what
the doctor at Jasper, Arkansas, related about
Thomas Lincoln, spinning-wheel maker. "Uncle
Tom was a wheelright. In them days it was a
pretty good trade. You see in them days every
family had to have a big spinning-wheel and a
little wheel. Uncle Tom made the little wheels*
In a family where there were several girls they
had sometimes three or four wheels/ 5
The only other Thomas Lincoln furniture
anecdote that Dr. Morgan records In his article,
"New Light on Lincoln's Boyhood/' published
in the Atlantic Monthly of February, 1920, deals
with a four-post bed of his own make. Here is
the description of it as given by the old doctor :
"Uncle Tom told her (the second Mrs. Thomas
Lincoln) all about the bed he had, how it stood
so high from the floor on four corner posts and
had a top bent over so , and it was only
a hickory one he had made himself. And the fine
top was hickory pole that come up from behind
147
^
the bed, and he had bent It over and bored a hole
In the wall and put It through the hole. You see s
he was a wheelwright and could do good work
at such things/'
A second verification of Thomas Lincoln's
cabinet making capacities Is to be found In the
records of the Little Pigeon Regular Primitive
Baptist Church at Gentryville, Indiana. Then It
was a simple log cabin structure and Thomas
and Nancy Hanks Lincoln were members In
good standing. In fact, the elder Lincoln made
for his church a pulpit and other fittings* Still
existent records of this church leave no doubt as
to this. Thus, from two Independent sources
enough is known of Lincoln's furniture making
to establish him as a member of the craft plying
his trade according to the standards of his pio-
neer surroundings. Perhaps some day a docu-
mented Lincoln piece will be discovered. It
would add much to the human side of American
furniture making.
This Lincoln connection with furniture is
doubly Interesting. First it shows us that Father
Thomas was both a wheelwright and master of
a branch of cabinet making that called for nicety
of workmanship, for the small linen wheels were
148
(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
PLATE LIV. A SIMON WILLARD BANJO CLOCK.
(Antiques')
PLATE LV. AN ELI TERRY MANTEL CLOCK.
FROM FURNITURE TO POLITICS
carefully turned out and well-balanced. Fre-
quently the spokes and other turned parts were
decoratlvely ornamented with fancy turnings.
The elder Lincoln must have had an apprecia-
tive eye, for such lathe work was, in his day, done
with few or no patterns. A steady hand, a keen
eye and an exact memory were then demanded
of any who would work at the lathe.
Further, it is an interesting coincidence that
Lincoln's foremost political rival should also
have had "a furniture-making background. That
Stephen A. Douglas, popularly nicknamed "The
Little Giant/' once worked at the trade seems
to have been forgotten. Evidently this was not
so at the time of the famous Lincoln-Douglas de-
bates. In them we find Lincoln driving home the
punning observation that although Douglas may
have been a cabinet maker he did not know how
to make a Cabinet.
For many years in that part of Vermont where
Douglas was born and grew up, there has been
the rumor that he was once a cabinet maker but
exactly where and for how long was lost infor-
mation. Proof fortunately is to be found in the
Little Giant's incomplete autobiography. This,
written when he was about thirty-five, remained
149
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE
in manuscript until recently published by the
Illinois Historical Society. In It he tells of his
birth at Brandon 5 Vermont on April 23, 1813,
the death of his physician-father,, Stephen Doug-
las, when his son was only two months old and
the hard struggle of the family after that. Al-
though grandfather Squire Douglas was an in-
fluential citizen of Brandon he seems to have
given very little thought to his widowed daugh-
ter-in-law and her son and daughter.
"Upon the death of my father/ 5 wrote
Douglas in his hastily prepared and never com-
pleted story of his life, "my mother moved to a
small farm left her by her father about three
miles north of my native village, and resided
with her brother Edward Fisk, who was an In-
dustrious, economical, clever old bachelor, and
wanted some one to keep house for him. Here I
lived with my mother and uncle upon the farm
until I was about fifteen years of age, and then
determined to select some other mode of living.
I thought it a hardship that my uncle would have
the use of my mother's farm and also the benefit
of my labour without any other equivalent than
my boarding and clothes. I, therefore, deter-
mined upon leaving my home and true friends 9
150
FROM FURNITURE TO POLITICS
and see what I could do for myself In the wide
world among strangers. My mother remon-
strated, warned me of the dangers and tempta-
tions to which young men are exposed, and In-
sisted upon my selecting some trade or engaging
In some business that would give me a steady
home and regular employment. I promised
to comply with her wishes, that is, keep
good company, or In other words keep out
of bad company, avoid all immoral and
vicious practices, attend church regularly, and
obey the regulations of my employer; in
short I promised everything she wanted, if
she would consent to my leaving home. Accord-
ingly In the Spring of 1828, being about fifteen
years of age, I bid my mother, sister and uncle
farewell, and left home for Middlebury, about
fourteen miles distant, and engaged to learn the
cabinet making trade with one Nahum Parker.
I put on my apron and went to work, sawing
table legs from two-inch planks, making wash
stands, bed steads, etc., etc. I was delighted with
the change of home and employment. There was
a novelty about it that rendered it peculiarly in-
teresting. My labor furnished exercise for the
mind as well as the body. I have never been
151
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
placed In any situation or been engaged in any
business which I enjoyed to so great an extent
as the cabinet shop. I then felt contented and
happy, and never aspired to any other distinction
than that connected with my trade and improve-
ments in the arts. Towards the end of the year
I became dissatisfied with my employer in con-
sequence of his Insisting upon my performing
some menial services in the house. I was willing
to do anything connected with the shop but could
not consent to perform the duties of a servant
In the house. A difficulty soon arose between Mr.
Parker and his wife and myself, and resulted in
my leaving him and returning home. So much
was I attached to the life of a mechanic, I could
not content myself at home and soon got a situa-
tion in the shop of Deacon Caleb Knowlton, a
cabinet maker in Brandon, my native village. I
remained with my new employer about a year,
and pursued my business strictly, as all the ap-
prentices in the shop were required to do. Whilst
I lived with Mr. Parker I formed a taste for read-
ing, particularly political works, by being asso-
ciated with a number of young men who spent
their time nights and Sundays in reading and
study. At this time politics ran high In the presi-
152
1-5
f>>
1
N
M r 1
W CO
Simon Willard
Eii Terry
Chauncey Jerome Seth Thomas
PLATE LVIL THE CHIEF YANKEE CLOCKMAKERS.
FROM FURNITURE TO POLITICS
dential election between General Jackson and
J. Q. Adams, My associate apprentices and my-
self were warm advocates of General Jackson's
claims 9 whilst our employer was an ardent sup-
porter of Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay. From this
moment my politics became fixed, and all sub-
sequent reading, reflection and observation have
but confirmed my early attachment to the cause
of Democracy.
"In the winter of 1829 and 1830 I was taken
sick and compelled to return home. My physi-
cians informed me that my physical strength was
too feeble to enable me to work at the cabinet
business, and that it would be necessary for me
to select some other occupation* Finding my
health too feeble to work in the shop. I com-
menced going to school/'
Politically, this illness had far reaching effects
for it was followed by school-teaching days in
central New York and migration to Illinois,
where further school-teaching led to the practice
of the law and his advent into politics, which is a
part of his life that has no close relationship with
furniture.
Just what sort of furniture came from Doug-
las' hands during his apprenticeship under
EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
Nahura Parker and Deacon Caleb Knowlton is a
question that has interested me for a long time.
While I was at Middlebury College, one of the
Civil War veterans of the town showed me an
Empire chest of drawers that had the signature
"Steph. A. Douglas 53 scratched on the pine of the
back of one of the drawers. This, with a cradle
and a light-stand of curly maple, was made by
him during his days in Middlebury for his friend
Isaac Williamson, who had just married.
STEBHEN A. DOUGLAS MADE THIS CRADLE WHILE A CABINET MAKER'S
APPRENTICE IN MIDDLEBURY, VT.
In the hope of locating other Douglas fur-
niture I wrote to his grandson, R. D. Douglas,
He replied at length explaining that upon the
Little Giant's death, his second wife carefully
packed away various articles and letters that
had belonged to him for her two stepsons, but
the building in which these were stored in Wash-
FROM FURNITURE TO POLITICS
Ington burned not long afterward and all was
lost. Therefore 5 In thinking about Douglas and
his furniture, we will have to be content with the
cradle and chest of drawers, although undoubt-
edly there are still in the possession of various
old Middlebury and Brandon families some
Douglas-made pieces or ones upon which he
worked. Perhaps among my pieces bought in
Middlebury I have acquired one that is of
Douglas origin but who knows? For furniture
is mute.
William Marcy Tweed, the man who later
earned the title "Boss 53 Tweed, unlike Douglas,
was born to furniture making. His grandfather,
Philip Tweed, migrated with his wife to New
York in the middle eighteen hundreds from
Kelso, Scotland. By trade he was a blacksmith.
In 1790 his son Richard was born and in due time
was apprenticed to Thomas Ash, an outstand-
ing Windsor chair maker, who was also head
of the city's volunteer fire department and treas-
urer of Tammany Hall. His apprenticeship over,
Richard set up in business for himself at 24
Cherry Street. He prospered, married, and
moved to No. l Cherry Street, the house where
George Washington had lived resplendently
155
NEARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
during part of his stay in New York as Presi-
dent. Here it was on April 3, 1823,, that Boss
Tweed arrived in the world, and it is in this part
of the city that he always lived. His boyhood
was one of ups and downs. At eleven, the family
funds being at low ebb, he went to work in his
father's shop. He stayed there for two years.
Then came a year as errand boy for Isaac Fryer,
harness and hardware dealer. Next, the Tweed
fortunes having improved, he spent a year at the
boarding school of Rev. John Taylor Halsey. It
was at Chilton Hill near Elizabethtown, New
Jersey, and was a quality school for New York
boys.
Then he returned to New York and, before
twenty-one, was back at the paternal trade with
a shop of his own. Chair making, however, was
too prosaic to satisfy the future Boss. By 1847
we find him organizing the famous Americus No.
6 volunteer fire company. Such fire companies
were social institutions. Prominence in them fre-
quently led to more important activities. By
1849, Tweed was the assistant foreman of this
fire company and two years later its foreman, as
well as a ward politician to be reckoned with.
Soon, under his guidance, members of this fire
156
(Ernest F. Hagen)
PLATE LVIIL A CHAIR OF Boss TWEED'S MAKE.
mi 1
M. TWEED,
- , i \ - ~ > \ > ,
TWEED & BROTHER,
, , -,\ ' ,.,',
FINE 8ILT AND
m THE
Pfinr. (iiifF nn?n triffiw t PfDll fllf PDIIBf
ftW'y. Hi. iii, i SlnJlW Itll mm, .
-' !'i,\!;: . ' nil
HOTELS, FARt-ORS, AMU fUBUC CEfllCIS,
325 PEAEL ST., adjoiniag Harpers' Building .
12 MME Sf.! HEW YOEK,
(Ne*w York Historical Society)
PLATE LIX. A RARE ADVERTISEMENT OF TWEED'S CHAIR
BUSINESS. FROM A NEW YORK CITY DIRECTORY, JUST BE-
FORE HE RETIRED TO POLITICS.
FROM FURNITURE TO POLITICS
company and their friends constituted the pic-
turesque Americus Club with summer quarters
at Indian Harbor 9 Greenwich, Conn. From then
on, he devoted more and more time to municipal
affairs, but he did not forget his fire company.
When, in 1852, its first member died he gave his
company a lot in fashionable Greenwood Ceme-
tery, Brooklyn. Again, in 1860, he was on hand
to lead the Americus boys in the torch-light pro-
cession held in honor of the Prince of Wales;
As Tweed's political influence expanded so
did his chair-making venture. After his father's
death the business was first styled Tweed and
Brother. Then, it became William M. Tweed.
At the last it required all of the five-story build-
ing at 357 Pearl street, next door to the famous
publishing house of Harper and Brothers.
In 1858 Tweed forsook chair making to de-
vote himself to that practical brand of politics
which ever since has been identified with his
name. The story of the Tweed Ring and the final
downfall of the Boss does not concern furniture.
Whatever his political faults and crimes, his
chairs were well made and up to the standard of
design of the day. During his earlier days he
worked at the bench himself along with six or
157
EARLY
eight journeymen. He made the usual line which
included mahogany side-chairs of Empire design
known to the trade as "three-quarter chairs/'
others of curly maple with cane seats, and many
less expensive ones with saddle-shaped wooden
seats, which were, of course, Windsor chair de-
scent. Tweed also made various kinds of meet-
ing-place benches.
These chairs and benches 9 Tweed, like other
chair makers of New York, sold to the furniture
dealers "in the wood/' that is unvarnished and
without caning or upholstery. Retailers had their
own varnishing rooms and workshops for caning
or upholstering. Such was the custom of the day.
Of Tweed's work, I have been able to find only
two very old men who could speak from first
hand knowledge. They tell me that his chairs
were well known and considered the equal of
any then being produced in New York.
Unfortunately Tweed did not label his pro-
duct but by a strange piece of good fortune the
late Ernest Hagen, the cabinet maker to whom
we owe the first steps in the rediscovery of Dun-
can Phyfe, bought six chairs from Tweed when
he turned from chair making to politics. These
chairs have continued in the Hagen family and
FROM FURNITURE TO POLITICS
give us an excellent Idea of the type that Tweed
made. There Is a further Phyfe-Tweed coin-
cidence. They are both buried In Greenwood
Cemetery and their graves are no further apart
than were their shops during their active years
of furniture making.
Although no furniture style or innovation of
design can be credited to Thomas Lincoln,
Stephen A* Douglas, or William Marcy Tweed,
it is, I feel, worth while to record their furniture
making activities. They were of the craft, and
the story of Early American furniture would
lose human interest without them*
Broadly speaking, Early American furniture
began with the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth,
and ended with the days of Alamo and its im-
perialistic consequences a span of nearly 220
years. During this period we have journeyed in
furniture from the Tudor of Elizabethan Eng-
land to our own adaptation of the Empire mode
of Napoleonic France.
159
The reader will find in the following eight
pages (161-168)
A PICTORIAL OUTLINE OF AMERICAN
FURNITURE
For detailed description of the illustrations,
see List of Illustrations in the front of the book.
A
D
H
PLATE LX. PURITAN FURNITURE.
161*
' E
PLATE LXI. EARLY iSra CENTURY.
l62
A
H
PLATE LXIL AMERICAN CHIPPENDALE.
163
B
D
PLATE LXIII. PHYFE FURNITURE.
164
D
PLATE LXIV. HEPPLEWHITE-SHERATON ERA.
165
A
PLATE LXV. WINDSOR CHAIRS.
166
PLATE LXVI. FANCY CHAIRS.
167
D
JU
F G H
PLATE LXVIL TYPES OF CLOCKS.
168
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF
AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
AND CLOCK MAKERS
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF
AMERICAN FURNITURE MAKERS
Winslow, Kenelm, 1599-1672
Alden, John, circa 1600-1687
Disbrowe, Nicholas, circa 1612-1672
Jenney, Samuel, working 1633
Mason, Roger, working 1635
Dix, Samuel, working 1637
Lindsey, Daniel, working 1637
Storey, William, working 1637
Johnson, Jonathan, prior 1700
Poor, Samuel, prior 1700
Ward, Miles, prior 1700
Allis, Capt. John, working 1702
Townsend, Job, 1699-1765
Gautier, Andrew, 1720-1784
Savery, William, 1721-1787
Goddard, John, 1723-1785
Townsend, John, circa 1730-1800
Frothingham, Benjamin, circa 1734-1790
Tuttle, James C. working 1740
Egerton, Matthew, 1739-1802
Gostelowe, Jonathan, circa 1744-1795
Randolph, Benjamin, working 1762-1792
Richmonde, , working 1763
Willett, Marinus, 1740-1830
Seltzer, John, 1749-1831
171
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST
Mclntire, Samuel, 1757-1811
Rank, Johann, 1763-1828
Toppam, Abner, 1764-1836
Egerton, Matthew, Jr., 1837
Goddard, Thomas, 1765-1858
Phyfe, Duncan, 1768-1854
Chapin, Aaron, working 1783
Ash, Thomas, working 1786-1815
Connelly, Henry, 1770-1826
Mills & Deming, working 1790
Rawson, Joseph & Son, working 1790-1800
Burling, Thomas, working 1790-1800
Webb & Scott, working 1790-1800
Lawton, Robert, working 1794
Wadsworth, John, working 1796
Buttre, William, working 1810
Seymour, John & Son, working 1800-1810
Fredericks, Charles, working 1815
Brown, William Jr., working 1818
Cowperthwaite, 'John K., working 1818-1825
Palmer, William, working 1818
Hitchcock, Lambert, working 1818-1843
Allison, Michael, working 1820
Hubon, Henry, working 1820
Lincoln, Thomas, 1778-1851
Douglas, Stephen A., 1813-1861
Tweed, William Marcy, 1823-1878
172
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF
AMERICAN CLOCK MAKERS
Bogardus, Everadus, working 1698
Davis, William, working 1683
Souers, Christopher, working 1724
Parmalee, Ebenezer, working 1726-1740
Duffield, Edward, working 1730
Cheney, Benjamin & Timothy, working 1745-1780
Rittenhouse, David, working 1751-1770
Lister, Thomas, working 1760-1802
Harland, Thomas, working 1773-1830
Willard, Benjamin, 1743-1803
Willard, Simon, 1753-1848
Willard, Aaron, 1757-1844
Willard, Ephraim, working 1777-1805
Hanks, Benjamin, working 1778-1785
Terry, Eli, working 1793-1818
Willard, Alexander T., working 1800-1840
Thomas, Seth, 1785-1859
Hoadley, Silas, 1786-1870
Jerome, Chauncey, 1793-1860
Willard, Simon, Jr., 1795-1874
Willard, Benjamin F., 1803-1847
Jerome, Noble, working 1820-1840
Willard, Aaron, Jr., working 1823-1863
Willard, Philander J., working 1825-1840
Willard, Zabdiel A., working 1841-1870
173
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND INDEX
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beard, Charles A. & Mary R., The Rise of American
Civilization. New York, 1927.
Belknap, Henry Wyckoff, Artists and Craftsmen of Essex
County Massachusetts, Salem, Mass., 1927
Bradford, Gov. William, History of the Plymouth Set-
tlement. Edited by Harold Paget, New York, 1920.
Bryce, James, The American Commonwealth. London,
1891.
Burgess, Frederick William, Antique Furniture. New
York, 1915.
Carrick, Alice Van Lear, Collectors* Luck. Boston, 1919.
Cescinsky, Herbert, English and American Furniture.
Grand Rapids, 1929.
Chippendale, Thomas, The Gentleman and Cabinet
Maker's Director. London, 1754.
Cornelius, Charles O., The Furniture Masterpieces of
Duncan Phyfe. New York, 1922.
Early American Furniture. New York, 1926.
de Bles, Major Arthur, Genuine Antique Furniture. New
York, 1929.
Douglas, Stephen A., Autobiography. Edited by Frank
A. Stevens, Springfield, 111., 1913.
Dyer, Walter A., The Lure of the Antique. New York,
1910.
'Early American Craftsmen. New York, 1915-
177
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eberlein and McClure, The Practical Book of Period
Furniture, Philadelphia, 1914.
Fiske, John, The Beginnings, of New England. Boston,
1889.
Gould, George Glen, The Period Furniture Handbook.
New York, 1906.
Halsey and Cornelius, A Handbook of the American
Wing. New York, 1924.
Hayden, Arthur, Chats on Old Furniture. New York,
1906.
Hepplewhite, A. & Co., The Cabinet Maker and Up-
holsterer's Guide. London, 1788.
Jerome, Chauncey, History of the American Clock Busi-
ness for the Past Sixty Years. New Haven, 1860.
Lockwood, Luke Vincent, Colonial Furniture in America.
New York, 1913.
Lockwood, Sarah M., Antiques. New York, 1925.
Lynch, Denis Tilden, Boss Tweed. New York, 1927.
Moore, N. Hudson, The Old Clock Book. New York,
1911.
New York Directory and Register, 1792, 1794 and 1800
to 1828.
Nutting, Wallace, A Windsor Handbook. Saugus, Mass.,
1917.
Furniture of the Pilgrim Century. Framingham,
Mass., 1924.
Furniture Treasury. Framingham, Mass., 1928.
Shackleton, Robert and Elizabeth, The Quest of the
Colonial. New York, 1907.
Sheraton, Thomas, Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's
Drawing Bo ok. London, 1791.
178
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sheraton, Thomas, Cabinet Maker s Dictionary. London,
1803.
Singleton, Esther, The Furniture of our Forefathers.
New York, 1901.
United States Census, 1790, 1810, 1840 and 1850.
Weedon, William B., Economic and Social History of
New England. Boston, 1890.
179
INDEX
A
Adam Brothers, 86
Alden, John, 22-24, 2 5? IC *3
Alford, Alfred, 118
Alford and Company, n8
Allis, John, 32
Allison, Michael, 97
Allyn Chest, 31, 32
Ash Thomas, 109, 155
A very, 129
B
Banjo clocks, 126, 133-136
Barnum, P. T., 141
Bedsteads, early, 28
Belden & Allis, 33
Belknap, Henry W., cited, 115
Bogardus, Everadus, 129, 131
Boston rocker, 119
Bradford, William, quoted, 22
Brazer, Clarence W., cited, 43
Brewster chair, 29, 104
Brown, William, Jr., 114
Burling, Thomas, 96
Buttre, William, 114
Camp, Hiram, 142
Camp, Walter, 142
Camp chair shops, 118
Carver chair, 104
Cermenati and Bernarda, 98
Chair making, 46, 103-121, 158
Chait parts, in
Chairmakers' Society, ii4n
Chairs, early, 25, 29; Windsor, 40,
105-113; "fancy," 105, 113-119;
rocking, 105, 119-120
Chapin, Aaron, 41, 58
Cheney, Benjamin and Timothy,
130
Chest of drawers, 33
Chests, 30-33
Chests, dower, 99
Chippendale, Thomas, 39
Chippendales, American, 37-59
Clock makers, 125-142; Willard
family, 126, 133-135; Connecticut
makers, 126, 136-142; statistics,
127
Colden, Cadwallader D., quoted,
i*4n
Connecticut chests, 30
Connelly, Henry, 93
Cowperthwaite, John K., no, 114
Cradle, ill., 154
Crehore, Charles, 135
Darrow, Elijah, 138, 141
Davis, William, 129
Del Vecchio, Charles, 98
Deming, Simeon, 94
Derby, Elias Hasket, mansion, 92
Desks, 49
Disbrowe, Nicholas, 31-32
Dix, Samuel, 27
Douglas, Stephen A., 146, 149-155,
159; cradle made by, ilL t 154
Dower chests, 99
Duffield, Edward, 45, 131
E
Egerton, M., & Son, 95
Egerton, Matthew, 95
Egerton, Matthew, Jr., 95
Elliot, John, 59
Fancy and Windsor Chair makers',
Employers' and Journeymen's so-
cieties, 65
"Fancy" chairs, 105, 113-119
Fiske, William, 135
Fitch, John, 130
Franklin, Benjamin, 119
181
INDEX
Fredericks, Charles, 114
Frothingham, Benjamin, 41, 53-55
Furniture making, census statis-
tics, 87
G
Gautier, Andrew, 41, 55, no
Gentlemen Cabinet and Chair
Makers, 44
Goddard, John, 41, 49-52
Goddard, Thomas, 52
Gostelowe, Jonathan, 41, 43-46, 104
Grinnell, Peter and Son, 97
H
Hadley chests, 30, 32
Hagen, Ernest, 66, 73, 158
Hanks, Benjamin, 132
Harland, Thomas, 136
Hepplewhite, George, 74, 86, 95
Highboys, 39
Hitchcock, Alford & Co., 117
Hitchcock, Lambert, 117-119
Hitchcock chair, 119
Hoadley, Silas, 137
Hubon, Henry, 115
Jacques, Stephen, 27
Jenney, Samuel, 25
Jerome, Chauncey, 137-142
Jerome, Noble, 138, 141
Jerome Manufacturing Company,
141
Johnson, Edward, 27
Johnson, Jonathan, 104
McBride, no
Mclntire, Samuel, 91
Mclntire, Samuel F, 92
Mills and Deming, 94
Mirror-makers, 59, 97, 98
Morgan, Arthur E., cited, 146
N
New England furniture makers,
early, 22-33, 104
New Haven Clock Company, 142
Newport furniture makers, 41, 49,
5i, 52, 9^
New York furniture makers, 41,
55, 68, 94, 96, 97, 109, no, 114,
129, 155
Painted furniture, 98
Palmer, William, 114
Parker, Nahum, 151
Parmalee, Ebenezer, 130
Pennsylvania Dutch furniture, 98
Philadelphia chairs, 106
Philadelphia furniture makers, 41,
42, 43, 46, 93, 108, 131
Phyfe, Duncan, 63-81, 91, 159; fam-
ily, 67,* signature, 69; property,
71, 78; bill of, 73; style, 74;
will, 78
Phyfe, Duncan & Son, 76, 91
Poor, Samuel, 104
Prime, Alfred C., cited, 42
Providence, R. I., furniture mak-
ers, 41, 58, 96, 97
Kidder and Carter, 98
Knowlton, Caleb, 152
Lawton, Robert, 96
Lincoln, Thomas, 146-149, 159
Lindsey, Daniel, 27
Lister, Thomas, 132
Lockwood, Luke Vincent, 31; cited,
32
M
Mason, Roger, 27
Master Chair Makers Society, 114
Randolph, Benjamin, 41, 46-49
Rank, Johann, 99
Rawson, Joseph and Son, 96
Rhode Island desks, 49
Richmonde, 108
Rittenhouse, David, 131
Rocking chairs, 105, 119, 120
Savery, William, 41-4.3, 104, 120
Seltzer, John, 99
182
INDEX
Seymour, John and Son, 97
Sheraton, Thomas, 74, 75, 86, 113
Sideboards, 93, 94.
Sillcocks, Isaac G., 96
Sciiers, Christopher, 130
Statistics, furniture making, 87;
clock making, 127
Storey, William, 27
Tables, early, 28
Terry, Eli, 136, 137, 142
Terry, Thomas and Hoadley, 137
Thomas, Seth, 137, 143
Toppan, Abner, 92
Townsend, Christopher, 41, 51,
52
Townsend, Job, 41, 50, 51
Townsend, John, 41, 52
Trade organizations, 44, 65, 114
Tufts, Thomas, 41, 104
Tuttle, James C., 106
Tweed, Richard, 109, 155
Tweed, William Marcy ("Boss"),
109, 146, IS5-I59
Union Chair Company, ntf
Unionville Chair Company, 118,
"9
W
Wadsworth, John, 108
Walcott, William Stuart, Jr., cited,
94
Walter Heywood Chair Company,
112
Ward, Miles, 104
Washington, George, 54, 108
Webb and Scott, 41, 58
Willard family, clock makers, 126,
133-135
Willard, Henry, 135
Willard, Simon, 133-135
Willard, Zabdiel A., 135
Willett, Marinus, 41, 55-58, 104
Willett & Peasey, 58
Windsor chairs, 40, 105-113
Winslow, Kenelm, 24-26
Winslow chair, 25
Woodhouse, Samuel W., Jr., cited,
47
183
