Connecticut Valley Furniture by Eliphalet Chapin And His Contemporaries, 1750-1800:

Connecticut Valley Furniture E liphalet Chap in and H is Contemporaries, I750- I8oo

Thomas P Kugelman and Alice K Kugelman with Robert Lionetti

Foreword by Patricia E . Kane Essays by Susan P. Schoelwer Robert F. Trent and Philip D . Zimmerman

Edited by Susan P. Schoelwer

Connecticut Historical Society Museum Hartford D istributed by University Press of New England Hanover and London

Connecticut Historical Society

museum

Publi shed by Connecticut Hi storical Society Mu seum 1 Elizabeth Street, H artford, Connecticut 06IOS-2292 www.chs.org Di stributed by University Press of New England One Court Street Leban on, New H ampshire 03766

© 200S by Connecticut Hi storical Society Museum, Hartford, Connecticut. All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. ISB N : 1-881264-0 8-4 LCCN :

20 04II S66S

D esigned by: W ynne Patt erson, Pitt sfield, Vermont Ed ited by: Catherine E. Hutchins, M orrisville, Vermont Typeset by: Aardvark Type, H artford , Conne cticut Prepress by: K+L Color, White River Jun ction, Vermont Print ed and bound by: T ien Wah Press in Singapore Published in conjunction with the exhibition Connect icut Valley Furniture by Eliphalet Chapi n an d H is Contemporaries, I7so-I800

organized by the Connecticut Hi storical Society Mu seum. Concord Museum, Concord, Ma ssachusett s, January 28- June S, 200S Connecticut Historical Society Museum, Hartford, June 23, zooj- j anuary IS, 2006

Th efurniture presented here represents an irreplaceable segment of our nation's cult ural heritage. This book is dedicated to th e many private owners and caretakers w hose willing cooperation greatly enriched its content.

Contents The H artford C ase Furniture Survey

Director's Foreword by David Kahn

Vl

..

Project Supporters

Vll

Acknowledgments

Vlll

Forewo rd by Patricia E. Kane

XlI

I ntroduction by A lice K Kugelman

I

Methodology and Presentation of Findings

4

O verview

I2

Catalog Entries 1 . Prologue: Experimenting with the Queen Anne Style, 173 0-1750 Paint-japanned group Spool-foot group Walnut-v eneered group William Manley group MAJOR CONNECTICUT VALLEY STYLE CENTERS, 1750-1800

2 . Wethersfield Style

49

WETHERSFIELD

Porter-Belden group Francis group Wi llard group Stocking group W i N D SO R

9J

Timothy Loomis group HARTFO RD

I0 6

Butler-Cheney group John Roberts group MIDDLETOWN

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Comstock group Wilcox group Brown group

3. C hap in Style E liphalet Chapin shop, East Windsor Chapin school

ru

CON TEN T S

IJ 2

Perspectives on Connecticut Valley Furniture

4 . C olchester Style

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Lord group Samuel Loomis group Calvin Willey group James Higgins group Oth er Colchester sty le shops

The European Origins of Eighteenth-Century New England Case Pieces by Rob ert F. Trent

4 I9

Connecticut River Valley Woodworking Dynasties with Chapin Connections by Robert F. Trent

432

Writings on Eliphalet Chapin: A Case Study in American Furniture History by Susan P. Schoelwer

443

460

5. Springfield-Northampton Style

283

O. Combinations and Variations

3I 2

HARTFORD Talcott group

3I 3

GLASTONBURY St ratton group Isaac Tryon group

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A Craftsman's Life: New Evidence on Eliphalet Chapin by Susan P. Schoelw er and Dawn Hutchins Bobryk

477

SUFFIELD Suffield carve r group Other Suffield shops

334

Method in Early American Furniture Identification by Philip D. Zimmerman

488

FARMINGTON VALLEY

344

Beyond Regionalism: Town History and Connecticut Furniture by Susan P. Schoelwer

7. Epilogue: End of an Era, I79O-I8ro

354

Maps

509

HARTFORD Aaron Chapin shop John L Wells shop Kn eeland and Adams shop

355

Glossary

Sf3

Selected Cabinetmaker Biographies, compiled by Julie M. Muniz

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HARTFORD COUNTY Oliv er D eming group Benjamin N ewb erry group Eben ezer Williams shop Other Hartford County shops

3 SI

Selected Bibliography

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Photography Credits

540

Contributors

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BEYOND HARTFORD COUNTY Erastus Grant shop Amos Bradley shop Silas Rice group

396 List ofTables

542

Index

543

CONTENTS

v

Director's Foreword

In th e 1840S and 18S0S the Connecticut Historical Society Museum acquired its first pieces of Connecticut furniture, including several "ancient" chests and chairs, of which one remarkable turned chair is believed to be among the oldest surviving examples made in the Briti sh American colonies. In the more than one and one-half centuries since those initial acquisitions, our organization has been fortunate enough to assemble the largest and finest collection of Connecticut furniture in existence. While countless individual donations and curatorial acquisitions have contributed to this accomplishment, two particularly significant benefactors helped to guarantee the primacy of our holdings: for the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the extensive collection amassed by antiquarian and preservationist George Dudley Seymour, bequeathed to the museum in 1945; and for the later eighteenth century, the superb collection of Queen Anne and Chippendale furniture formed by Frederick K. Barbour, donated to the museum beginning in 1958. To this day, we continue to seek out important examples of case, seating, and other form s of furniture produced throughout the state. Complementing our institution's rich legacy of collecting and preserving Connecticut furniture, the CHS Museum has also played a major role in supporting scholarship on the topic. Over the course of the twentieth century, the museum served as a major contributor to Connecticut furniture exhibitions organized by our sister institution, the Wadsworth Atheneum. Those exhibitions included Three Centuries of Connecticut Furniture (1935); Connecticut Furniture: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1967); and The Great River: Art and Society in the Connecticut Valley, I63S-I820 (1985). The CHS Museum Bulletin and other publications have an unparalleled record of publicizing Connecticut furniture research, much of which has been conducted in our library. Archival holdings richly support furniture study, with thousands of period account books and other manuscripts, family histories, and extensive research files compiled by twentieth-century furniture historians, including William Lamson Warren, Houghton Bulkeley, Newton Case Brainard, Thompson R. Vl

Harlow, and most recently received, cabinetmaker and furniture restorer Paul Koda. Now the CHS Museum is pleased to build, and expand, upon all of those pioneering undertakings with this landmark publication, Connecticut Valley Furniture: Eliphalet Chapin and His Contemporaries, I7so-I800, and the accompanying exhibition. We anticipate that the book will quickly become the key reference volume on the fascinating topic of eighteenth-century Connecticut furniture and furniture makers. The many individuals who have contributed their time and ideas towards the realization of this project are credited elsewhere in this publication. I do, however, want to express my personal thanks to Thomas P. Kugelman, Alice K. Kugelman, and Robert Lionetti, the co-authors whose years of careful research provided the foundation for our exhibition and this book. Susan P. Schoelwer, the CHS Museum's Director of Museum Collections, did a superb job of editing the book, refining the conceptual organization and balancing readability with the highest standards of scholarship. Kate Steinway, our Deputy Director for Interpretation, oversaw the development of creative strategies for exhibiting eighteenth-century Connecticut furniture so that it might be appreciated by laymen as well as connoisseurs. I also thank Desiree Caldwell, Director of the Concord Museum, Concord, Massachusetts, for graciously hosting Connecticut Valley Furniture by Eliphalet Chapin and His Contemporaries, I7so-I800 from January through early June 2005, prior to the exhibition's appearance at the CHS Museum from late June through October 2005. Finally, it is my pleasure to express my institution's deepest gratitude to the many foundations, government agencies, corporations, dealers, collectors, and other supporters listed on following page. Their donations made possible the realization of both our exhibition and this book. David M . Kahn Executive Director Connecticut Historical Society Museum DIRECTOR'S

FOREWORD

Project Supporters

L ead Contributors

Sustai ners

The Henry Luce Foundation The Connecticut Humanities Council The National Endowment for the Arts

Skinner Nicholas and Laurie Marechal Anonymous Mary B. Walton Laura Beach and Joshua A . Kalkstein Robert M. Rosenberg Ann Abram and Steve Novak Put and Nanni e Brown Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Dickson Nadeau's Aucti on Gallery Dr. and Mrs. Arun Singh William W . Upton, in honor of Robert L. Aller W inter Associates

Benefactors

The Edward C . and Ann T. Roberts Foundation The Americana Foundation The Hartford Steam Boiler In spection and In surance Company Mr. and Mrs. John L. McGraw The Paul Foundation Marguerite and Arthur Riordan Donna and Marvin Schwartz Thomas and Alice Kugelman

Donors Patrons

Furthermore: A Program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund Mr. and Mrs. Frederick C. Copeland, Jr. Marion Houghton Hepburn Grant Publication Fund Susan B. Aller Ronald Bourgeault, Northeast Auct ions The Alexander A. Goldfarb Memorial Trust Leigh Keno Nathan Liverant and Son Wayne Pratt and Company The Shoreland Foundation Sotheby's

PROJECT

SUPPORTERS

Anonymous Christie's Mr. and Mrs. Jame s F. English, Jr. Adolf O . Fuchs D eborah A. Laird Samuel and Patricia McCullough Mr. and Mrs. Allyn Seymour Anne H. and Frederick Vogelm Mr. and Mrs. Dudley D . Johnson Mary Beth and Stephen D aniel Dr. Nancy Kollisch and D r. Jeffrey Pressman Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Lefkowitz Mr. and Mrs. William F. Schoelwer Jewish Communal Fund Mr. and M rs. Siro Toffolon Roger Gonzales Ann Humphreville Mary Jeanne A . Jones Jon and Rebecca Zoler

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Acknowledgments

Publication of Connecticut Valley Furniture has been, in every sense, a collaborative effort. From the beginnings of the Hartford Case Furniture Survey (HCFS) in 1990, the project has relied upon the participation and cooperation of countless colleagues . The collective support of individuals and institutions, collectors and dealers, museums and auction houses has made it possible for us to pursue the research presented in this volume and the accompanying exhibition. In 2000 the Connecticut Historical Society Museum became a formal collaborator in the Hartford Case Furniture Survey. Under the leadership of Executive Director David M. Kahn and Director of Museum Collections Susan P. Schoelwer, and with the blessing of the Board of Trustees, the CHS Museum has provided the institutional backing required for fundraising, field photography, mounting an exhibition, and publishing this book. Dr. Schoelwer, a scholar in her own right, guided the project and imposed strict standards of scholarship and presentation on the authors, warning us away from shaky ground and unwarranted assumptions, pointing out errors and contradictions. Most important has been her ability to help organize material in logical sequence, making it more coherent for readers. The project owes much of its integrity to a supportive Board of Advisors with vast collective experience in American furniture scholarship: Patricia E. Kane, Friends of American Arts Curator, American Decorative Arts, Yale University Art Gallery; Robert F. Trent, independent museum consultant, furniture historian, and upholsterer; Philip D. Zimmerman, decorative arts and museum consultant and antique furniture broker; Philip Zea, President, Historic Deerfield; Gerald W. R. Ward, Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Art of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Brock Jobe, Professor of American Decorative Arts, Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library; and Morrison H. Heckscher, Lawrence A. Fleischman Chairman of the American Wing, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Evidence of their

Vllt

love of furniture was manifest in the joy they expressed in rolling up their sleeves to join the team in a case furniture inspection. Other contributions ranged from setting up workshops where we tested our initial findings, to intensive brainstorming sessions at which we worked out both broad philosophical issues and nitty-gritty details of presentation, to reading versions of the manuscript as it evolved. Several individuals were invaluable in the development of the project. Robert's father and grandfather, Joseph C. Lionetti and John S. Walton, taught critical lessons on how to examine a piece of furniture not only for aesthetic merit but also for the wealth of information that lies beneath the skin. Tom and Alice's daughter, Margaret K. Hofer, Curator of Decorative Arts, New-York Historical Society, offered her parents original and fruitful suggestions throughout the project. Long-time friend and counselor Marguerite Riordan opened her gallery and photo archives to HCFS research and, with her husband Arthur, opened their home to introduce the project to a community of dedicated furniture collectors. Her continuing professional and personal support paved the way for the generosity of many others. One of the most daunting challenges of publishing a case furniture study is the enormous and costly task of gathering photography. We have benefited greatly from the skills and dedication of two talented photographers, Arthur Vitols and David Stansbury; the results of their labors are evident throughout the book. The latter served as primary field photographer, bringing good humor, patience, and resourcefulness to the mission of photographing the very rarest furniture in private homes and local collections, much of it for the first time and under challenging conditions. Additional professional photography came from numerous dealers, owners, and auction houses, many of whom supported the project by waiving production charges and permission fees; their courtesy is acknowledged with gratitude in the photography credits.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Examples examined in the study and presented in the catalog entries derived from three major sources: private homes, auction hou ses, and institutional collections, both small and large. About a third of the object s we inspected are privately owned and previously unpublished. The anonymous owners, to whom this book is dedicated, deserve high praise for dealin g with concerns of privacy, potential damage, and the logistics of inspection and photography. They emptied out drawers, watched as we disassembled treasured pieces, and helped move other furniture around in order to clear work space. In most cases thi s disruption occurred a second time when the photography team arrived . Many owners dug through family papers, provided family trees and legend s, and helped decode mysterious inscriptions. The project assembled a critical mass of objects in part because of the participation of auction hou ses. We are grateful to the following for alertin g us to potentially important material and providing special access: Andrew Brunk, Dean Failey,John Hays, Susan Kleckner, and Martha Willoughby at Christie's; Edwin J. Nadeau, Jr., of Nadeau's Auction Gallery (Windsor, Connecticut); Ronald Bourgeault and M. L. Coolidge at Northeast Auctions; Stephen L. Fletcher and Martha Hamilton at Skinner; Andrew Holter, Leslie Keno, John Nye, and William W. Stahl, jr. , at Sotheby's. Many organizations and institutions graciously provided access to object s and information in their keeping: Albany Institute of History and Art, Antiquarian and Landmarks Society, Brooklyn Museum, Chipstone Foundation, Cincinnati Art Museum, Clermont County Historical Society, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Connecticut Governor's Residence Conservancy, Connecticut Valley Historical Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Fairfield Historical Society, Hartford Steam Boiler In spection and Insurance Company, The Henry Ford , Historic Deerfield, Historic New England, Litchfield Historical Society, Longmeadow Historical Society, Christopher Leffingwell House Museum (Norwich, Conn.), Los Angeles

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

C ounty Museum of Art, Lucy Robbins W elles Library, Lyman Allyn Museum, Manchester (Co nn.) Historical Society, Mattatuck Museum, M etropolitan Museum of Art, Middlesex County (Conn.) Historical Society, Milwaukee Public Museum, Missouri Historical Society, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, New Haven Colony Historical Society, N ewYork Historical Society, Newingt on Historical Society and Trust, Noah Webster House/West H artford H istorical Society, Oliver Ell sworth H omestead, Peabody Essex Museum, Rhode Island School of D esign , Sim sbury Historical Society, Suffield Historical Society, Town and County Club (Hartford), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Webb-Deane-Steven s Museum, Wethersfield Historical Society, Windsor Historical Society, Winterthur Museum, G ard en, and Library, Wood M emorial Library (South Windsor), Worcester Art Museum, and Yale University Art Gallery. The Connecticut State Library provided an indi spen sable base for our research in vital record s and other primary sources, which we augmented with trip s to the probate and town clerk's offices in numerous Connecticut towns, especially Hartford, N orwich, Suffield, West Hartford, and Windsor. Conservator Nickolas Kotul a, an initial partner in th e HCFS, helped establish high standards for furniture inspection and data collection. Dawn Hutchins Bobryk , Director of Sim sbury Historical Society, conducted an exhaustive search for primary sources on Eliphalet Chapin. William N . Hosley, Jr., whose 1985 exhibition, The Great R iver, championed the concept of regionalism, generously shared his broad experience with all aspects of the Connecticut Valley and its culture. Many mu seum staff, curators, conservators, caretakers, and scholars assisted with the logistics of furniture in spection, research, and assembling ph otography: Linda Agnew, Peter Arkell, Jeffrey Arnstein , D onna K. Baron, David L. Barquist, Geoffre y Beard, Peter Benes, Karen Blanchfield, Joseph and Ruth Bonito, Randi Joseph Brandt, W. Scott Braznell, David R. Brigham,

xx

Michael K. Brown, Carol Bruce, Gail N. Colglazier, David H. Conradsen, Edward S. Cooke, Jr., Wendy A. Cooper, Eileen Cormier, Susan Crombie, Abbot Lowell Cummings, David Dangremond, Amber E. Degn, Thomas Andrew Denenberg, Ellen Endslow, Nancy Goyne Evans, Jonathan L. Fairbanks, Monique Foster, Donald R. Friary, Elisabeth Donaghy Garrett, Beatrice W. B. Garvan, R. Bruce Hoadley, Ronald L. Hurst, Jeannie A. Ingram, Sylvia Inwood, Jennifer Jacobs, Ruth Janson, Jean Kelsey, Peter M. Kenny, John T. Kirk, Jean Klein, Joshua W. Lane, Penny Leveritt,Jack L. Lindsey, Judith Livingston Loto, Dionne Longley, Beverly Lucas, Virginia Macro, Danielle M. Mann, Lance Mayer, Johanna McBrien, James McCabe, Jo McKenzie, Thomas S. Michie, Brenda O. Milofsky, Robert D. Mussey,Jr., Susan Newton, Richard Nylander, Nicole Pelto, Karin E. Peterson, Nancy Pexa, Michael Podmaniczky, Betty Ring, Martha W. Rowe, Frances Gruber Safford, Judith Lefebvre Schiffer, Robert Silliman, Joseph Peter Spang III, Ann Y. Smith, David Smith, Lester Smith, Nancy A. Smith, Beth Ann Spyrison, Kevin Stayton, Mark Sutcliffe, Nancy Swallow, Mabel Swanson, Kevin M. Sweeney, Ann Trodella, Amy Trout, Grady T. Turner, Pamela Wakeham, Donald P. White III, Wilson Wilde, Anne Woodhouse, and Kenneth Joel Zogry. In addition, we are especially grateful to the many colleagues, clients, and friends who supported our endeavor by their continuing interest and words of encouragement throughout fourteen years of field research: Robert and Susan Bivin Aller, Nancy Ames, Marvin S. Arons, Thomas Barbour, Brian Bartizek, Marvin and Jill Baten, William Bartley, Mr. and Mrs. John Birden, Mrs. Jerome W. Blum, Philip Bradley, Peter B. Brainard, Daniel P. Brown, Jr., John Buck, Peter Bulkeley, Doris Burgdorf, Guy Bush, H. L. Chalfant Antiques, Robert C. Cheney, Harold Cole, Jeffrey W. Cooley, Frederick C. Copeland, Mary G. Dowling, Peter H. Eaton, Mr. and Mrs. James F. English, j-, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas M. Evans, Jr., Kevin Ferrigno, Patricia and Peter Findlay, John H. Forsgren, Alison

x

Barbour Fox, Charles Geiger, Roger J. Gonzales, Anne Ellsworth Grant, Ellsworth S. Grant, Benjamin A. Hewitt, Shepherd M. Holcombe, Sr., Philip Holzer, Sallie Roberts Howard, Marybeth Keene, Leigh Keno American Antiques, Don and Patti Kirkpatrick, Sarah Breckenridge Knauft, Paul Koda, Mark Laracy, Deanne Levison, Bernard Levy, S. Dean Levy, Frank Levy, Arthur Liverant, Israel N. (Zeke) and Johanna Liverant, William W. Lyman, Nicholas and Laurie Marechal, Lucinda Matthews, Samuel and Patricia McCullough, Donald F. Moylan, Dr. and Mrs. Matthew Newman, E. J. Nusrala, Mr. and Mrs. William B. Palmer, Geoffrey S. Paul, Mr. and Mrs. Dexter Pond, Patricia Porter, Wayne Pratt Antiques, Jeffrey Pressman, C. L. Prickett Antiques, Robert and Beverly Raymond, Livingston L. Rice,Jean Taylor Elmer Robinson, Robert Rosenberg, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Russell, Albert M. Sack, Harold Sack, Robert Sack, G. W. Samaha, Jennifer Schoelwer, William F. Schoelwer, David Schorsch, Melissa Sirick, Henry G. Spellman, Suzanne Standish, Richard Stiner, Mary Szabat, Jeffrey Tillou, Jonathan Trace, William Upton, Mary Walton, Suzanne Warner, Kemble Widmer II, Willington Antiques, Mr. and Mrs. William F. Wiseman, Richard K. Wolbers, and Eleanor Wolf. The CHS Museum had served as a kind of home for the HCFS since the study's beginnings, about 1990; then Director Christopher P. Bickford, Curator Robert F. Trent, and Registrar and Curator Elizabeth Pratt Fox shared their experience and provided us with access to the library and furniture collections. More recently, three members of the CHS Museum staff merit particular notice for their substantial contributions. Julie M. Muniz, Project Coordinator, became an indispensable member of the team in 2001, capably taking in hand the critical tasks of managing myriad photographs and research files, obtaining permissions, fact-checking, and compiling information for the cabinetmakers' biographies. Assistant Director of Museum Collections Richard C. Malley literally did the heavy

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

lifting as he coordinated field photography, negotiated exhibition loans, and personally implemented the installation of objects at two exhibition venues. Genealogist Judith E. Johnson untangled many seemingly hopeless family lineages/histories, vital work in our efforts to identify and date cabinetmakers and owners. Other staff members assisted at various stages of the project. Nancy Milnor, Nancy Finlay, Elizabeth 1. Blakelock, Frances A. Hoxie, Barbara Austen, Sharon Steinberg, and Katherine Hunt aided in research and manuscript preparation. Graduate museum studies intern Andrea Howell Wulffieff established the initial research and photography organization. Interns Joel Brooks, Elizabeth Kaeser, Laura Schuyler, Sean Owen, Sandra Rogalla, Stephanie Viens, and Catherine Enders Wright assisted with research and fact-checking. Karen M. Hudson and Diane Carpenter Lee shot digital photographs and scanned images into digital files. Arthur J. Kiely, Jr., photographed archival materials. Marion Leonard spearheaded foundation appeals; Joanne Eudy coordinated other development efforts. Amy Sailor and Rachel Rogers planned enticing public programming; Aaron Wartner and Lisa Miceli Feliciano enthusiastically promoted all aspects of the project. Kate Steinway and Andrea Rapacz worked with Whirlwind Designs to present our findings in an engaging exhibition. James Jensen and Elizabeth Lewis adroitly condensed our catalog entries to produce concise and accessible exhibit labels as well as appealing and informative videos. Leigh Keno and Leslie Keno generously contributed lively commentary for the exhibition videos; Leigh Keno American Antiques graciously hosted a New York preview for this book. Desiree Caldwell and David Wood of the Concord Museum, Concord, Massachusetts, hosted the initial venue for the exhibition, providing a much welcome opportunity to showcase Connecticut valley furniture outside its home region. M. Ellen Wickham and Richard Abel of University Press of New England provided critical encouragement and assistance in accepting this book, at an early stage

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

of its development, for distribution by the University Press of New England. Catherine E. Hutchins accomplished the herculean task of editing our material, transforming a much longer manuscript into an intelligible publication. Susan Karpuk brought a fresh and enthusiastic eye to the task of indexing, vastly increasing the accessibility of information. Finally, Wynne Patterson resolved countless design challenges with skill and patience, successfully integrating a complex assemblage of text, documentation, and imagery to create a graceful and effective presentation. Much of the research leading to Connecticut Valley Furniture has been a labor of love. The substantial costs of field photography, manuscript development, book and exhibition design and production have been underwritten by the Connecticut Historical Society Museum, with generous financial contributions from foundations, government grant programs, and corporate and individual donors, recognized in the listing of project supporters, above. We hope that this volume will serve as lasting tribute to the extraordinary furniture produced by late eighteenth-century Connecticut Valley craftsmen, and that our efforts will inspire future researchers and collectors to pursue the topic with renewed enthusiasm. Thomas P. Kugelman Alice K Kugelman Robert Lionetti

Xl

Foreword

The H artford Ca se Furniture Survey CH C FS) by Thomas and Alice Kugelman with Robert Lionetti is based on a rigorous physical analysis of surviving objects as well as complementary scholarship on the lives of makers and users. I have watched thi s study develop over some fourte en years. On a few occasions I was th e staff member at the Yale University Art Gallery who supervised the Kugelmans'visits to study examples, and durin g these I was impressed with the discipline that they and their furniture expert collaborators, first Nickolas Kotula and th en Robert Lionetti, brought to th eir work. It was instructive to peer over their shoulders as they evaluated and recorded, both on paper and ph otographically,dovetails, timb er dimensions, markings, backboard construction, amon g many other det ails of ornament and construction. Their systematic gathering followed step-bystep enumeration s of data on field research forms, and th e obvious teamwork was enviable. It was exhilarating to share th eir glee when th ey identified a particular quirk that enabled them to relate a case piece at Yale to other objects that th ey had examined. Their study took them to museums, private collections, the homes of inheri tors, and auction previews. When I ran into them on some of these occasions, they would often share their latest discoveries, and the se events engendered respect in me for th e dedication with which th ey pursued their research. The disciplin e and detail of th e HCFS recalled the exhaustive study of region al characteristics of federalperiod card tables undertaken in the 1970 S by Benjamin H ewitt and th e detailed analysis of N ewport, Rh ode Island , furniture mad e by Michael Moses. Hewitt's research resulted in the 1982 publication and exhibition, Th e Work of Many Hands: Card Tables in Early America, at th e Yale University Art Gallery. Unlike the HCFS he focused solely on one form of a specific stylistic type. But like thi s survey, his involved very detailed and methodical gathering and analysis of information on a large sample- nearly 400 tables in H ewitt's case and nearly 500 pieces of case furniture in the present stud y. On each table Hewitt collected 176 items of information. His sample, which included 75 documented table s,

xu

was divided into straight-leg tables and turned-leg table s, and th e data about th e und ocumented and th e docum ented tables were analyzed quantitatively to bring together clusters of tables sharing clusters of statistically significant region al characteristics. H ewitt 's stud y sensitized me to nuances in the making of an object, such as the absence or presence and number of leaf-edge tenons, and to contemplate what the se items meant in term s of shop practices and the quality of the finished product. Regrettably H ewitt's work never received critic al scholarly review, but the demand for th e book remains high among scholars, dealers, and collectors. Michael Moses publi shed M aster Craftsmen of N ew port: Th e Townsends and Goddards in 1984, just two years after Hewitt's book, and thi s study is similar to the HCFS in its goal of differentiatin g different shop traditi on s within a given region through th e examination of hundreds of examples. His technique, developed in collaboration with his wife, Liza, was also based on an analysis of docum entation, ornamentation, and construction techniques. If a piece had distinctive characteri stics from all three classes he categorized it as "made by"; if features were present from only two classes, he categorized it as "authenticated to" and if th ere were distinctive feature s from only one class, he categorized it as "associated " with the family of a particular craftsman. The study treats the work of John Townsend in great detail, John Goddard somewhat less fully, and other shop tradition s in more abbreviated form. The Kugelmans have likened th eir study to detective work in which there is a phase of evidence collection, comparison of the known with the unknown, and development of a classification system to make the data useful to others. A problem with any exhaustive study like thi s and th ose conducted by Hewitt and M oses is how vast amounts of information can be presented to th e end user in a digestible format. The HCFS solution is to define "significant index feature s" for th e various groups identified, and the device used in th e publication is to present these features in bulleted lists, juxta-

FOR EWORD

posed wh ere appropriate with other lists of "singular features" that are specific to an individual object within th at group. This device may prove to be more user friendl y than the presentation of results in Hewitt and Moses, and certainly the current stud y goes farther than the previous two in inte gration of information on makers and users in interpreting the objects. Each of th ese studies undertook exh austive research into a chosen form or school of furniture making and each has made valuable contribution s to th e scholarship on American furniture. What is striking about all three is th at th ey were undertaken by individuals wh ose professional fields were ones other th an th e decorati ve arts. Another similarity is th at th e principals in each case were interested in building personal collections of th e material being studied and were frustrated in their effort s to do so. Clearly th ere is a message here about conditions in the field of decorative arts stu dies that should not be overloo ked. At th e tim e the se studies began, th ose in the antiques trade failed to connect client s to existing scholarship and were very casual in making attributions to particular individuals or regional schools. The marketplace mentality of selling "brand names" consistently overrode careful study and th ereby eroded buyer confidence. One might contemplate why professionals in th e field have not undertaken more studies like th ese. Collecting information on hundreds of pieces of furniture and documentary evidence requires significant hum an and financial resources and th e long peri od of tim e th at passes as examples come to light; however, few museums, historical societies, and other education al institutions have th e resources to look after their own collections, keep up th e gate through exhibitions, and run large research projects at th e same tim e. M ost struggle just to publish and disseminate information on th eir own holdings. An exception is the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, which instituted a research program in 1965 and has recently publi shed some of the fruits of that program, Th e Furniture of Charleston, I680-I820 by Bradford Rauschenberg and

FOREWORD

John Bivins, Jr., a monumental study th at presents documentation for 440 objects and 679 makers. As the preface to that publication relays, even with institution al commitment to broad-b ased research, other institutional demands from time to time diverted th e authors' time and attention and delayed the publicati on of research results. The field of American decorative arts scholarship is young. For most medi a in most areas authoritative resources documenting th e lives of craft speople and th eir work are lacking. It is of param ount importance to know who the players are and to have accurate assessments of what was made wh ere and when before sound interpretative work can be undertaken. H ewitt, M oses, and the Kugelmans noted th e gap and addressed it in areas that had personal appeal to th em. The present pattern, in which institutions play th e role of disseminator of study results, as the Yale University Art G allery did in th e case of Hewitt and th e Connecticut Historical Society M useum is doing with th e HCFS, may use resources wisely. Institutions forego the expense of research and concentrate fund s in areas of institutional expertise disseminating information in publications and exhibitions. While such arran gements have merit and benefit th e field as a whole, they put institutions in the position of responding to research initi atives rather th an generating th em. The field may come of age and put th e fundamentals of scholarship in order, if the work of independ ent scholars is supplemented by research programs at decorative art s institutions fund ed by private donors, the government, and foundation s. I laud th e part ners in th e Hartford C ase Furniture Survey for th eir eloquent advancement of American decorative arts scholarship. Pat ricia E. Kane Friends ofAmerican Arts Curator American D ecorat iv e Arts Yale Univ ersity Art Gallery

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The Hartford Case Furniture Survey

Introduction to The Hartford Case Furniture Survey

The H artford Ca se Furniture Survey was born out of love for C onnecticut furniture. Starting first as collectors, my husband, Tom, and I eventually created thi s project becau se we were drawn to the variety and beauty of the remarkable objects made by C onnecticut craftsmen in the eighteenth century. W e want ed to learn who the makers were, where they lived, and wh at inspired them. We wanted to prove th at C onnecticut furniture needs to be approached and judged on its own merit s and not as a pale imitation of Boston , Newport, or Philadelphia work. Feeling a bit protective, we hoped to put th e lie to the cliche "if it's quirky, and cherry, it must be from Connecticut" and to provide a solid empirical basis upon which to make attributions. To accompli sh thi s we established a disciplined, open-end ed survey that proceeded with th e help of a third partner, Robert Lionetti. The survey results led us into new territory, where we developed a scientifically based methodology. Thus th e data led to a broad classification system for furniture styles, maker s, and schools of cabinetmaking based on specific criteria. By 1990 we had assembled a personal collection of Connecticut furniture made between 1750 and 1810, most of it from Hartford County, th at part of th e lower Connecticut River Valley in which we live. Som e of th e pieces we collected were signed; some were documented to local families. Gradually we began to achieve as much satisfaction from learning as we had in simply collecting. This is fortunate, since, like almost all collectors, we can never afford to collect all that to which we aspire. We reside within a few miles of many towns in which great Connecticut furniture was made in th e eighteenth century. Some of thi s furniture is still to be found in th e houses for which it was mad e. Yale University Art Gallery, the Connecticut H istorical Society Museum, th e Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and Historic Deerfield all have rich holdings. The Connecticut Historical Society Museum Library and the Connecticut State Library are both centers for primary and secondary documentary research.

INTRODUCTION

A n auction purchase in 1973 was a turning point in our odyssey as collectors. From the estate of an early tw entieth-century H artford collector, Malcolm A. N orton, we acquired an un exceptional-looking cherry federal wing chair (see fig. n). Up on stripping off its twentieth-century upholstery, we found th at Norton in 1916 had written its history on the back of the chair. But, far more exciting, we read on th e crest rail the signature ''Aaron Chapin & Son / Jeremiah C. C leveland."! Finding th e signature provided an adrenalin rush, which proved to be addictive. W e fueled our study of A merican decorative arts atending the annual workshops spo nsored by the Frie nds of American Arts at Yale. Charles F. Montgomery had established the friend s group as a way of getting suppo rt for his cause; he believed in th e teaching of the decorative art s, and he saw Yale as a center for training these future teachers. G etting to know some of the other collectors in th e group, th eir passions as well as their collection s, was to pour gasoline on our collecting fire. We were captivated by M ontgom ery's brand of enthusiastic connoisseurship. By assemblin g gro ups of similar objects, say, wrou ght iron candlestand s, he invited his students to make observatio ns: similarities and differences, proportion , aesth etic quality, workmanship. M ontgomery and Patri cia E . Kane, now Friends of American Arts Curator American D ecorative Arts at Yale University Art G allery, helped furni ture scholar! collecto r Benj amin A. H ewitt undertake a groundbreaking furniture study that culminated in Yale's 1982 exhibition, The Work ofM any H ands: Card Tables in Federal America. Although limited to card tables, we consider the catalog one of th e most useful references on American furn iture. H ewi tt, a collector, shared some of our frustrations. In th e preface to his catalog, he lam ents "costly mi stakes because I didn't have enough knowledge to question th e origin and date on some of the price tags. . . . I reached th e conclusion th at the empirical information I was reading and picking up from talks with dealer s and collectors might be unreliable because it could not be verified." O ver a ten-year

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perio d he identified and entered into a computer database several hundred index characteristics on each of some 400 card tables, 75 of them labeled or documented, to establish statistically verifiable data about thi s specific furniture form. Hewitt used signed or documented examples to make comparisons to others that are unsigned. Hewitt's efforts resonated with us when we became troubled by the lack of specific criteria for attribution of furniture to Connecticut's cabinetmakers. Eliphalet Chapin, for example, was the best known maker, but man y name s, his included, were attached to variou s pieces of furniture without any firm basis. Historically th ese att ributions relied heavily on family histories and legend s, town s of association, and other questionable evidence. Al so, discovery of a signature on a piece of furniture quickly led to th e general adoption of that person as th e maker of any and all similar pieces. One of our goals, therefore, was to establi sh criteria for reliable attribution of Connecticut furniture to a maker, shop, town, or region. In th e summer of 1990 we embarked upon the Hartford Ca se Furniture Survey. A team approach cemented what became an enormous commitment, and it balanced our interpretations. The makeup of personalities in any team effort is an unseen but important element. It affects th e way we look at things, and then deal with the information aft erwards. Our personalities are very different. Thoma s P. Kugelman is a physician, was trained in scientific methods, and has a vast memory for objects and facts. Ev er since his first visit to Winterthur M useum in 1959, he has been fascinated by furniture styles and th eir transition s. H e serves as HCFS photograph er, having taken more than 8000 photographs to date. Embracing the challenge of validating (or disproving) th e family histories th at accompany so man y of th e pieces of case furniture in the survey, Tom also doggedly searches for clues to help identify the likely first owners and possible makers. In undertaking thi s project, Tom and I knew we lacked technical expertise. We needed an accomplished

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cabinetmaker to teach us to interpret con struction details, someone wh o could get inside the head of the cabinetmaker. We also needed help in addressing issues of authenticity. For more than fourteen years Robert Lionetti, furniture con servator and consultant, has filled this important role. He assumes responsibility for deciding whether a piece is sufficiently intact to be a viable object for study. There is a fine line between a piece that has discernable restorations, but still offers information, and one in which alterations have obscured the original. Robert interprets the techniques used in a piece, especially if they are unu sual. He also shares the dealer's perspective, important in understanding why furniture is viewed the way it is today. M y contribution as a creative, intuitive person is to bring ideas and people together in new ways. As a personal property apprai ser, I am used to recording observations in both the art-historical and market contexts, hence I became the scribe who fills out th e survey form s. My limited knowledge of cabinetmaking turn ed to occasional advantage when the trio tacitly agreed that, in this endeavor, there was no such thing as a stupid question. Sometimes a fresh or naive look can lead to a key observation. (Other times it may lead to the oft -repeated conclusion that the questioner is not spatially oriented). I hope that if I, as a layperson, can understand what to look at, and how to look at it, then I might be able to explain it to others. Furniture conservator Nickola s Kotula helped get the survey off the ground. He was an aircraft engineer prior to becoming a cabinetmaker, and his experience in the painstaking discipline of aircraft inspection is reflected in the structure and thoroughness of th e form s on which we record our dat a. He impre ssed us with the concept that it is possible to observe a single piece of furniture from across the room for hours at a time and learn more and more from it. This produ ced an attitude change, making the point about how little we all are accustomed to "seeing." We decided to focus on case furniture because a cabinetmaker has more choices to make than he has in

KUGELMAN

a table or chair, and because it offers greater opportunity to find signatures. We planned to seek out documented examples first. We agreed to commit one day a week to the project, usually a Wednesday, to inspect a piece of furniture . In the beginning each inspection required three or four hours. After several hundred sessions a complex double case piece still requires about two hours. At first we concentrated on furniture from Hartford County, especially East Windsor and Eliphalet Chapin. By 1995 we had publi shed our initial findings in Maine Antique Digest.2 Our coverage area then expanded to the major style centers ofWethersfield and Colchester, and eventually to sampling all of Connecticut and nearby Massachusetts, to brin g the work of Hartford County into focus. As the survey approached ten years it reached a natural plateau. New objects suitable for inclusion surfaced less frequently; those that did tended to be similar to ones already in the files, and thus of limited interest, unless they came with documentation or filled in a gap in some other way. We turned our attention toward interpreting our findings in this book. Originally intended as a quantitative study, using a computer database to sort the frequency of occurrence of construction characteristics, the survey instead became highly analytical, focusing on the comparison and grouping of objects. There are certain parallels to the investigation of a crime scene- which are explained in the following essay, introducing the Hartford Case Furniture Survey's methodology and presentation of findings. Our hope for the future is that others will realize that Connecticut River Valley furniture from the eighteenth century is worthy of considerably more attention than it has received, that there is high artistic achievement, even occasional genius, there. This book now provides a reference work to identify and learn about this remarkable body of work. It is but a springboard for others who want to take our study to higher levels. We hope that our efforts will aid readers in developing

INTRODUCTION

a certain literacy for looking at furniture, much in th e same way they look at cars or paintings, so that th ey can enjoy it as much, and also that the principles of scholarship developed here will prove applicable in other regional investigations. Alice K Kugelman I.

"Co llector's Note s," A ntiques II3, no. 5 (May 1977): 936.

Kugelman & Kugelman, "H artford Case Furniture Survey," Kugelman, Kugelm an, & Lionetti, "C hapin School," and Kugelman, Kugelm an, & Lionetti, "Ox bow."

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Methodology and Presentation of Findings

As described in the introduction, the Hartford Case Furniture Survey (H C FS) was conceived as a meticulous exploration of case furniture from Hartford County, Connecticut. The study team planned to select well-documented objects for study, continuing to inspect one every week for as long as necessary. In the process we would determine, by trial and error, which observations are meaningful for a database, collect that information, take photographs, and write down our findin gs. We planned to create a computer database, sort th e dat a, and write up the results. The process of gathering data through the inspection of objects extended over fourteen years. It continues to thi s day. As time went by th e survey evolved into a broad investigative and analytical study, rather than a narrowly quantitative, computer-based one. Information gathering proved to be only the first of three parts of th e task. The others were the application of corroborating documentary evidence and the construction of a classification system. In order to organize the material and arrive at meaningful conclu sions, we sought an appropriate methodology. The issue that served as a springboard and dominated the initial design of the survey was our concern about existing attributions of furniture to Eliphalet and Aaron Chapin. How did people making these attribution s know which was which? In thinking about this and paying attention to other attributions in the field of American furniture, we observed that there was no apparent basis for man y of them and often not even the simple element of plausibility. For example, an early advertiseme nt for a Chapin-attributed high che st applied a date range in which the maker would have been seven to seventeen years old!'

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Th eforensic model Since the HCFS is basically detective work , a convenient, engaging way of explaining how scientific methods apply to furniture study is by exploring how forensic investigations are handled. Drs. Henry Lee and Jerry Labriola, well-known criminologists, teachers, and gifted writers, explain the required elements in Famou s Crimes R eoisited? There are a surprising number of shared elements, including data/evidence collection, comparison of the unknown with the known, analysis and interpretation of the data, and a classification system or matrix in which to organize the data so that it will be of use to others. This simile, likening the HCFS to a murder investigation, may impl y that our work is a scientific, laborat or y-l evel investigation usin g DNA and electron microscopes. On the contrary, our study is low-tech. It is ba sed on numerous simple, direct observations backed up by primary and secondary documentary research. From this evidence, hypotheses can be developed and tested to obtain a logical, plausible result. Very little can be proven with absolute certainty. Conceptually, the five key activities in a forensic investigation are recognition, comparison, identification, individualization, and interpretation. These activities are also applicable to the HCFS. R ecognition is defined by Drs. Lee and Labriola as the

"ability to separate important and potentially informative facts from all background and other unrelated materials."3We select HCFS study objects not for th eir beauty, rarity, or the connoisseurship feature s that drive the market in antique furniture, but for their potential in providing information. They must make a point, either because they relate to other objects , contain a signature, or have a convincing history. At a higher level, "recognition" is being able to look at a piece of furniture and discern which characteristics (significant index features) are potentially important, such as the outward splay of a Hartford County ogee foot. We did not reach this level of informed recognition right away.

M ETHODOLOGY

Over time, it was the fruitfulness of this intellectual approach that led us to set aside the computer database in favor of the memory bank and sorting capacity of the human brain. Comparison. Signed, labeled, or otherwise documented

examples of furniture provide valuable physical evidence that serves as a basis for understanding other pieces. Commonalities in design and construction techniques result from patterns of behavior. Both the craftsman and the criminal are prone to repeat themselves. As we examined more furniture, we became keenly attuned to similarities and differences in shop practices, what was familiar and what seemed unusual, through associations or recall of objects that we had already seen. We sharpened our focus by writing down under "Grouping/relation to other pieces" both concrete observations and hunches about connections to previously studied pieces. Once we had a critical mass of data, we were able to do homework prior to a scheduled inspection and pull files on already examined objects that looked like the ones coming up. Nothing is more useful during an inspection than photographs of construction details on a related piece. Identification involves the creation of a classification

scheme that allows the subjects of study to be "assigned to categories containing like items and then given names."4 Starting with obvious and existing groupings, the HCFS developed an elastic classification scheme that reflected cabinetmaking practices between 1730 and 18ro, including such factors as geography (location), styles (design and decoration), individual shop characteristics (construction methods), and shop traditions or schools of cabinetmaking. The scale of the classification scheme proposed by the HCFS breaks new ground for regional furniture study. The strength of this system is its ability to group and identify shop production even without knowing who the players are. For example, Benjamin Burnham, Samuel Loomis III, and Calvin Willey are gathered under one stylistic umbrella

METHODOLOGY

(the Colchester style), from which Burnham literall y disappears and Willey, a second-generation craftsman, becomes a major player. As an aid to memory, the HCFS named the groups, using the full name of the shop master or cabinetmaker, when known, and otherwise the last name of an early owner of a prominent object in the group. Identifying singularity means demonstrating how a "particular object is unique, even among members of the same class."5Many of the bulleted lists found in the catalog entries in thi s book point to singular features that set one object apart from others in the same group. Such differentiation also allows us to judge the degree of variation acceptable to anyone cabinetmaker among the objects made at his shop.

Individualization.

Interpretation. This culminating step in any investiga-

tion involves integrating and giving meaning to the physical and documentary evidence of a piece. Interpretation is the most demanding aspect of a methodology, in part because certain elements may be missing. Hypotheses must be developed and tested. Data gained from genealogies of putative makers and owners, newspaper ads, court and land records, account book entries, probate inventories, maps, and narrative town histories must be assimilated. Dead ends, contradictions, and unverifiable information are commonplace; yet unless all leads are pursued important clues may be overlooked. The goal of interpretation is a plausible attribution or hypothesis, recognizing that reasonable doubt and room for challenge may still exist.

Information gathering Sources of objects. Objects selected for study resided in

many places: private homes, museums, local historical societies, dealers, and auctions. Overall, the database is about equally divided among public collections, privately owned pieces, and the marketplace, including dealer inventories. Auction venues, in particular, have

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proved extremely important, since examples in public collections are necessarily limited. The HCFS views the marketplace, including auctions, as a kind of conveyer belt on which objects appear briefly as opportunitie s for study, only to disappear again ." This is the principal reason a survey such as this requires many years to accomplish its goals . Insp ection and data form s. The integrity of objects selected for study is critical. Pieces that are inappropriately restored or altered are no better at providing information than tampered evidence from a crime scene. The HCFS consequently relie s on a careful initial screening to eliminate questionable objects. The six case furniture form s-bureaus, chests-on-chests, desks, desks and bookca ses, dre ssing table s, and high chests-that are th e focu s of the study have specialized 6- to Iz-page packets with specific prompts for information, such as yes/ no check boxes, multiple choice que stions, detailed queries about measurements, and white space for text and sketches . Over time we modified the form s to incorporate new observations that proved useful (such as the doubling of the bottom board in the Colchester style) and eliminate others that did not (such as drawer locks). Experience taught us that writing a traditional description of the object was an exercise with little value. In stead, we substituted two text boxes. One is labeled "Grouping/relation to other pieces" to prompt recall of similar piece s already examined, or to reference others that may have been published, and another is a space labeled "Possibly significant index characteristics."7 Both of these windows are filled out after the inspection, with input from all three team members while th e experience is still fresh. The object entries in this book present only a limited number of index features. This selectivity belies th e intensive examination and recording of many additional feature s and mea surements that we subsequently determined are not as essential for attribution. It is easy to become overwhelmed by detail. For example, in the beginning we concentrated on tool marks, hoping

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these would help identify the hand of th e maker. Indeed they might, but other, more objective, inform ation proved more practical to classify, In the field, the team carrie s a tool kit in a fitted canva s case that contains blank data form s, a clipboard, tape measures, protractor, flashlights, screwdriver, tape, a dust rag, and some glue. Specialty tools include a hinged auto mechanic's mirror with a handle, a small light on a flexible probe for ob serving ina ccessible spaces, and a palette knife with a very thin flexible blade for probing joints. Photography. Visual documentation through ph otography ha s been an invaluable tool in the study. Even a modest picture is un surpassed for identification and comparison purposes. During an inspection a team member take s at least one overall view of an object, plu s as many as two to three dozen snapshots of details, using a standard 3S mm sing le len s reflex camera equipped with a macro -zoom len s and high-speed color print film. Light is provided by a soo-watt ph oto flood lamp on a folding stand, which can be augm ented by an inexpensive handheld light with an aluminum shade. (A black light was tried a few time s but not found particularly useful; most deciphering and pho tography of handwritten ch alk, ink, or graph ite inscriptions was done with the assistance of th e handheld light at a raking angle to the surface.)

Documentation The original intent of the study- to establish th e date, place of origin, and possibly the identity of the cabinetmaker by comparing unequivocally docum ented furni ture with examples of unknown origin- quickly encountered imp ediments. Much of the existing documentation is questionable and inappropriately applied.f For example, some cabinetmaker's signatures have been interpreted as that of an owner, and some owner's brands have been assigned to a maker (see cat. I7S). Over time the study team became adept at approximatin g the time period of an inscription, deciphering

METHODOLOGY

words, and tracking down genealogical or other data to identity the writer. We also learned that signatures (especially those that were initials or first name only written on an inner surface prior to the assembly of the objects) tended to belong to apprentices.? The so-called jelly label, that sticker with red borders often glued to furniture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and other labels and inscriptions often provided additional information, but of varying quality. Some are simple name tags attached during a loan to a major exposition or a local exhibit of "antiquities." Others may indicate the past or future intended inheritance of an object. Many provide clues to the maker ("made by Grandfather Rice"),"? The occasional shipping label may shed light on an object's movement within a family.II Important case pieces often have family histories attached to them-some factual, some fanciful. Yet many stories contain at least an element of truth, so finding the likely original owner was like fitting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The search required following typical lines of inheritance-matrilineal for high chests and bureaus, patrilineal for desks or desks and bookcases-residence in the family homestead, unusually long life spans (especially of unmarried daughters), and a targeted logical time and place of origin for the object. For example, knowing that Eliphalet Chapin worked from 1771 to 1797 in East Windsor, and that his patrons were mostly his neighbors, meant that the original owner of one of his high chests is likely to have been married and/or built a new home in the vicinity of East Windsor during those years. By establishing the ancestral tree for a known descendant, we often found it possible to identify an individual meeting these criteria. The challenge in many cases is that inheritance of an object through female lines or collateral relatives is difficult to trace because published genealogies often include male lines only. Probate inventories and estate distributions present another useful tool. Although listings are often not specific enough to guarantee that the object in the

METHODOLOGY

inventory is the one under scrutiny, unusual features, such as a mahogany desk (see cat. 53) increases plausibility. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries men owned the personal property, but their widows and unmarried daughters continued to use and often inherited it. This frequently overlooked fact has led to many · erroneous cone I usions on "provenance. "

Classification The HCFS created a classification system based on grouping objects that have shared physical characteristics. We did not invent the idea of grouping furniture but have taken it to a different level by making groups part of a larger scheme, increasing the number, naming them, and greatly expanding the quantity and specificity of criteria for inclusion." A group may be as small as two objects that appear to be from the hand of a single shop or cabinetmaker. Large groups of furniture, especially when they involve the work of multiple craftsmen, signify the existence of a shop tradition or school of cabinetmaking. A style center includes multiple shop traditions, generally within a relatively limited geographic area. This framework enables us to sort the work of both known and unknown cabinetmakers. Groups of furniture produced by individual shops within a region as well as by those that were part of cabinetmaking schools and shop traditions combine in this classification scheme to form a matrix for the identification and- attribution of Connecticut valley furniture. Underlying the classification of furniture by its physical characteristics is a fundamental concept: a strong craft tradition, based on English antecedents, prevailed in the lower Connecticut River Valley during much of the eighteenth century. Shop masters in the region taught their apprentices to use a recognized pattern of designs and construction techniques.f During the "golden age" of Connecticut cabinetmaking (IJ50-I8oo), successful master craftsmen such as Eliphalet Chapin and Samuel Loomis stayed in one place and trained multiple generations of craftsmen.

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Immigr ation of master craftsmen from outside the region remained low, so there were few radical departures from existing practices. Speciali sts, such as japanners, carvers, and gilders, remained in more lucrative coastal cities, such as Boston. D espite the geographic and socioeconomic stability, grouping C onnecticut valley furniture required that the HCFS create flexible formulas that could accommodate th e variety of shops, traditions, man agement practices, and form s being produced. Eliphalet Chapin's shop, for example produced the same high chests for almost twenty years; th e only variation being in the carved decorations. For the Chapin shop, design and construction techniques cannot differentiate an "early" high chest from a "late" one; the y can, however, docu ment a dramatic shift that occurred in the 1780s: the shop began producing ogee-foot oxbow bureaus and chests-on-c hests.P By contrast Wethersfield style furniture has an identifiable design continuum. And furniture produc ed in Suffield and Glastonbury exhibits even greater variation in design, as neither town had a dominant shop or sho p tradition. Abo ut 1790 cha nge filtered through the cabinetmakin g shops in the Connecticut valley. Population grow th in the urb an centers up and down the valley att racted new and fully trained cabinetmakers, who found a sizeable customer base. Some of the se men, like Samuel Kneeland and L emuel Adams, had trained elsewh ere. Others, like John 1. Wells, apprenticed locally and th en sought additional training in New York. The cha nging workplace tested the elasticity of th e H CFS classification system, for the lines separating sho p tradition s and styles blurred, which made the furniture more difficult to classify and group. A related and imp ortant ph enomenon was the outmigration of talented former apprentices, such as Calvin Willey, who after completing their training moved west, north, and south to produ ce C onnecticut furniture in shops located well outside the Connecticut valley.IS

cabinetmakers recombined familiar elements from their own or other local traditions or schools, or joined the national march towards the creation of a more homogeneous federal style. Each section contains chapters arranged by town and/or region, and within these the entries are separated into specific cabinetmaking groups or shops. Like objects are arrayed by form and cross-referenced to facilitate comparisons both within the group and to other groups. Significant indexfeatures, design and construction elements shared by each group of objects, are presented as bulleted lists in the introductions to the various groups . These lists synthesize dozens of recorded observations on individual objects and single out the features that set each group apart from others. Individual entries open with a header containing the name of the object and information about its origin (including probable or possible maker and first owners) as well as current location, and close with a footer containing physical data (materials, dimensions, period in scriptions, condition) , exhibition and publication information, and HCFS number. In between these components falls the text in which the object, its histor y, and related objects are discussed. The extent of thes e elements is described below.

Presentation offindings

Lo cation. In Connecticut and Massachusetts, as in much of New England, the word "town" refers to a political entity encompassing a sizeable geographic area that includes both villages and rural lands (similar to a township in many parts of the country). In this catalog locations are identified using the then-current town names and geographic boundaries. If boundaries of a town changed during the years covered by the entry (for example, Chatham separated from Middletown in 1767, East Windsor from Windsor in 1768, and

The entries in th e catalog are pre sented more or less chronologically in three sections. The first, "Experime nting with th e Qpeen Anne Style," covers the period of experimentation, from 1730 to 1750. The second, "Majo r C onnecticut Valley Style Centers," traces th e growth and output of four major clusters of shop traditi on s whi ch flourished side by side, from 1750 to 1790. The final section, "End of an Era," encompasses th at complex period between 1790 and 1810 in which

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HEAD ER

Maker. Most eighteenth-century Connecticut valley cabin et shop masters did not sign or label their work. In larger shops multiple craftsmen, including appren tices and journeymen, worked on an object simultaneously; most signatures found in this study appear to be those of junior craftsmen. For thi s reason, the HCFS eschews the phrase "attributed to" and instead uses "school," or "shop." The words "possibly," "probably," and "by" signify levels of certainty. Objects that bear no signature but possess physical evidence suggesting they are by the same hand as a signed or otherwise documented piece are considered to be from the same shop.

METHODOLOGY

East Hartford from Hartford in 1783), this is noted in the text discussion. No state names are specified if a town is located in Connecticut, and they are also not specified for Springfield and Northampton, two important furniture-producing towns located along the Connecticut River in Massachusetts. Dates. Ranges are kept as narrow as possible, recognizing that errors, both early and late, are inevitable. Five elements are taken into account: life dates of the cabinetmaker; period inscriptions, some of which include a date or a name (often of an apprentice); life dates of the likely first owners; dates of significant events, such as weddings or new house construction, that could/might occasion the purchase of new furniture; and datable features on the furniture itself, for example, cut nails (post1785) or stamped brasses (POSt-I790). Cabinetmakers: Life dates are used rather than working dates, since a piece may date from apprenticeship years in another craftsman's shop, and "retirement" dates are usually unknown. Inscribed dates: If an inscribed date appears plausible and the handwriting is of the period, that date is considered the date of production. Marriage dates: If a plausible first owner is identified, a marriage date is considered when assigning a date of production for high chests, chests-on-chests, dressing tables, and bureaus, as these objects were often part of the dowries for many well-to-do brides in the Connecticut valley.16 TEXT

Entries open with one or more paragraphs that focus on the object and evidence that points to its production in a particular geographic locale or by a shop or maker. This generally includes mention of how the object fits within the relevant group, either temporally or physically. The discussion often alludes to the significant index features stipulated in the introductory section for the entire group. Singularfeatures of this specific object are itemized, generally in a bulle ted list. This list stipulates elements that differentiate a particular object from others in the same group. If a visually similar object deviates in a significant number of index features from others in the group, it is termed an outlier, a designation that connotes production in a different shop (for example, cats. 34A, 82, 131). Captions that accompany the adjacent illustration(s) of the object are

METHODOLOGY

designed to point out elements visible in the images, especially those that might be easily overlooked. On the whole captions endeavor not to repeat information provided in the text. Details about ownership are included if they are relevant to understanding the origin of a piece . Dealer and collector histories are usually excluded. Identification of the initial owners is based on a combination of family documentation and plausible inheritance patterns that are supported by wills, probate inventories, estate distributions, account book entries, and other period and secondary sources.'? All such ownership attributions are to some degree conjectural, since heirlooms then, as now, pass through a family in a non-linear fashion and early records are often insufficiently detailed to identify a specific object conclusively. Many entries close with mention of one or more related examples, objects connected to the piece under discussion, and some of these are illustrated. Related examples fall into one of four categories: I) Duplicates: objects that differ from the principal object only in minor respects and probably are by the same maker or shop. They may be repetitive, have condition problems, were unavailable for complete inspection, or lacked photography. 2) Other furniture forms from the same shop: these include non-case furniture pieces that have physical or documentary evidence linking them to the same maker as the principal object. 3) Look-alikes: objects that display close visual similarity to the piece under discussion but manifest sufficient differences to be considered products of another maker or shop. 4) Objects with shared family history or other documentary connection: in selected instances pieces owned in the same family, but otherwise unrelated, are included to enhance broader understanding of furniture consumption patterns.

Related examples that have been inspected by the study team bear an HCFS number. Others are designated as "limited inspection" or "photo inspection only." Publications are listed when applicable, along with pertinent observations regarding the example's significance and relationship to the main entry. FOOTER

Materials. Wood identification is based on visual inspection.V Primary words are listed first, separated from secondary woods by the preposition "with."

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M easurements. Dimensions are given to the nearest eighth of an inch, and three to seven dimensions are provided for each object. Overall height, used for pieces that have separable cases, extends from the floor to th e top, exclusive of removable elements (such as a cartouche or finial) and glides . Upper case height is the distance from the case bottom to the case top or top of pediment (exclusive of cartouche or finial). Lower case height is measured to the top of the leg post or bottom of th e midmolding. Width and depth are of the case only, not maximum mea surements. Frame measurements are determined in the same manner as for a lower case. Bureaus or dressing tables top s are measured at maximum width and depth. Exceptions, as for serpentine tops, are noted in specific entries. Condit ion notes. Elements that have altered the appearance of an object or affected its classification in a group are stipulated. Specific reference is made to finials, brasses, drop pendants. Omitted from the listing are such items as replaced drawer runners, glue blocks, and iron hardware, or repairs such as shims and patches, all of which do not alter the appearance and cannot be used in classification. A part (such as a foot or finial) th at has been broken and repaired is deemed a restoration. A similar part that is new is termed a replacement. A feature or element not on the object originally is labeled an addition. Brasses are considered original if th e backplates and handles look old, there is no evidence of an earlier set, and one pair of post holes is pr esent. Surface assessment is included only in instances when it is con sidered original or relevant to th e classification , as in th e paint-japanned group.

nied exhibitions cited in the previous category are not repeated. In most books and articles the object is illustrated as well as discussed. As many objects have been or still are in private collections, the listings also include illustrations from dealer advertisements and auction sales.

HCFS designation . The HCFS team assigned a number to each object that received an inspection. That number ties the object with data entered on the examination forms, the photographs taken during th e inspection, and ancillary information drawn from various primary and secondary sources. I. Shreve , Crump & L ow advertiseme nt, Antiques 30, no. 5 ( ovem ber 1936), back cover.

H enry L ee and Jerry Labri ola, Famous Crimes R ev isited ' From Sacco-Vanzetti to OJ Simpson (Southi ng to n, C on n.: Publ ishing Direction s, Strong Books, 2001), pp. 261-64. 2.

3. Le e and L abri ola, Famous Crimes R ev isited, pp. 261-64. 4. Le e and Labriola, Famous Crimes R ev isited, pp. 261-6 4.

5. Le e and Labriola, Famous Crimes R ev isited, pp. 261-64. 6. Su ch obje cts are identifi ed as locati on unknown in the catalog entries. 7. We are indebted to Rob ert Tr ent for sugg esting th e term "signifi cant index cha racteristics." 8. It is helpful, for exampl e, to be able to differenti ate eighteenth- , nine tee nth-, and twentieth-century handwriting jn order to know how to use the information it provides. 9. For example W.F. or William F lagg on cats. 67, 68, 69, NS on cat. 167. A n im po rtan t clue to th is ph enomenon was finding multiple nam es on th e same piece, see cats. 67, 167)' 10. This was the first clue th at led to the discovery of cabi netma ker Silas Rice (cat. 187)'

Exhibitions. Selected listings include the most important exhibitions, many ofwhich occurred at institutions located in the Connecticut valley. These are presented in chro nological order.

II. T he mos t inte restin g of th ese is a graphite inscription reading "Rev. H ine, Higganum, 7 pieces" (cat. 62). L on g assume d to mea n th at the piece was made in H igganum, the inscript ion recorded inste ad a shi pmen t to Rev. H ine's househ old from his elde rly mother-in-law in Eas t Windsor, wh o was moving in with her daughter, Mrs. Hine.

Publications. Selected titles include only major publication s, in chronological ord er; catalogs that accompa-

12. Som e Wethersfield catalog entries in th is book are based on gro ups first identified by Kevin Sweene y, "Furn itu re in Weth ersfield." In N ew L ondon County Furniture , Myers and Mayhew

IO

METHODOLOGY

used drawer construction as the basis of a grouping process that included Colch ester. 13. See Trent, "Connecticut River ValleyWoodworking Dyn asties," elsewhere in thi s volume. 14. Kugelman, Kugelman, & Lionetti, "Chapin School"; Kugelman, Kugelman, & Lionetti, "O xbow." IS. For other examples of relocation, see tables 3 & 8, listin g Chapin school craftsmen . This mobility resulted in some Connecticut furniture being made in New York State, Ohio, North Carolina and other locales between 1790 and 1820. 16. Alth ough such datin g arguably creates an early bias, considerable evidence exists for wedd ing furniture as a major component of the eighteenth-c entury home. Twelve of the entries that follow provide specific documentation in the form of an inscription or label that indicates produ ction for a marria ge (see cats. I , 38, 46, 64, 96, 97, IS2, IS9, 161, 173, 177). Six sets of chairs, including thr ee sets made by Eliphalet Chapin for the wedding of Ann Gr ant and John M arsh, can be similarly documented. For additional documentation on the produ ction of wedding furniture see Margaret K. H ofer, "The Tory Joiner of Middleborough, M assachusetts: Simeon Do ggett and Hi s Community, 1762-1792" (Master's thesis, University of Del aware, 1991), p. 40ff; for a general discussion of women's marriage portions, see Toby L. Ditz, Property and K inship: I nheritance in E arly Con nect icut, I750-I820 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), and Barbara M cLean Ward, "Women's Prop erty and Family Continuity in EighteenthCentury Connecticut," in Ea rly A merican Probate In v entories, ed. Peter Benes, Dublin Semin ar for New En gland Folklife: Annual Proceedings 1987 (Boston: Boston University, 1989), pp. 74-8S. 17. Included are published family genealogies, town and church records; internet web sites such as FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com; manu script genealogies in various publi c repositories, includin g the Connecticut Hi storical Society Museum; probate, church, and vital records, especially those on file alphabetically at the Conn ecticut State Lib rary, Hartford; and th e federal census records for 1790, 1800, and I8ro (available in a variety of printed and microfilm formats). 18. Mi croanalysis of wood had been done previously on many objects in major museum collections.

MET HOD 0 LOG Y

II

Overview

The Hartford Case Furniture Survey (HCFS) propo ses a more systematic framework for identifying, studying, and interpreting furniture made in the Connecticut River Valley in the decades immediately before and after the American Revolution. This framework distinguishes four major local style centers, identified with the towns of Wethersfield, East Windsor, and Colchester in Connecticut, plus the SpringfieldNorthampton section of Massachusetts. Chapter I serves as prologue to the discussion of the se four main style centers. HCFS findings suggest that during the 1730S and 1740S Hartford County workshops, long accustomed to producing joined furniture with designs and construction techniques passed down from the seventeenth century, adapted to new designs and techniques for making Queen Anne case furniture with cabriole legs. At least four distinct variations have been identified, ofwhich two, associated with Windsor, ju st north of Hartford, were truly innovative-the "paint-japanned" and "spool-foot" groups. A third, the "walnut-veneered" group, was closely based on contemporary Boston models and likely came from Hartford. These three versions failed to take root, but the fourth, associated with cabinetmaker William Manley (17°3-8 7), proved eminently successful, evolving to become the basis of the long-lasting and widely emulated Wethersfield style. Chapter 2 focuses on the Wethersfield style, distinguished by subtle balancing of forms and minimal surface ornamentation. Case pieces, particularly high chests, tended to be visually high and light, an effect achieved in part by the proportions of relatively tall, slender legs. The features were inspired primarily by coastal Massachusetts interpretations of Qpeen Anne design, which Manley likely introduced about 1730, when he migrated from Charlestown, Massachusetts, to Wethersfield, just south of Hartford. By 1760, the Wethersfield mode prevailed throughout Hartford County-so much so that it has generally been considered the epitome of Connecticut furniture. In Wethersfield, it remained continuously in production for at

I2

least six decades, purchased by prominent local citizens well into the 1790s, long after workshops and consumers elsewhere in the region had adopted the Chippendale style. A second local style center emerged in the 1770S in East Windsor, which had separated from the original town of Windsor in 1768. As discussed in chapter 3, this furniture is more ornamented than Wethersfield style work, and its primary design inspiration is the sophisticated Chippendale styling popular in Philadelphia in the 1760s and 1770S, disseminated in the Connecticut valley by Eliphalet Chapin (1741-18°7). In contrast to the tall, slender elegance of Wethersfield high chests, Chapin style examples have a lower center of gravity, with legs that are shorter, fuller, and more curvilinear. Surface decoration is more abundant than in Wethersfield, including carved shells, applied vines, fluted corner columns, latticework pediments, and asymmetrical cartouches. East Windsor pieces display an extremely high degree of uniformity-in large part because production emanated from a single shop, established by Chapin about 177!. Chapin's oeuvre, transmitted via the apprenticeship system, survived to become an important element in the development of late eighteenth-century furniture throughout Hartford County-and beyond, following the migrations of Chapin-trained craftsmen. The third local style center, showcased in chapter 4, developed around Colchester, located on the valley's rim, in the uplands southeast of Wethersfield. Colchester case furniture displays elaborate and highly creative surface decoration and strong, even muscular forms, with a preponderance of massive chests with blockfront facades. Design inspiration from Rhode Island sources is most evident in Colchester work. HCFS data suggests that a distinctive Colchester aesthetic probably developed around 1770, and that considerable variation within the style occurred between the products of at least four major workshop traditions. Chapter 5 presents the fourth and last major style center, which flourished in the towns of Springfield

OVERvIEW

and Northampton, to the north in Massachusetts. The most ambitious Springfield-Northampton case pieces display blocked facades flanked by distinctive vinecarved pilasters; examples without vines can be linked by their inclusion of shared index characteristics. The blockfront pieces echo the formal architectural stance of coastal Massachusetts Chippendale furniture, while later forms, especially oxbow bureaus, are strikingly similar to Eliphalet Chapin shop work. The consistency of design and construction features in SpringfieldNorthampton work suggests that it largely represents the output of one continuous workshop tradition, as in the Chapin school, rather than of multiple contemporary shop traditions, as in Wethersfield or Colchester. Chapter 6 examines variations on the four main styles, produced by workshops located in nearby communities-in the river towns of Hartford, Glastonbury, and Suffield, plus several farming communities in the Farmington Valley, north and west of Hartford. Prior to the Revolution, the majority of case pieces that can be traced to these towns were interpretations of the Wethersfield style. By the 1780s craftsmen in these areas began producing local versions by selectively combining features from the major style centers, just as the workshops that produced those styles had selectively adopted features from urban centers outside the valley. The final chapter serves as epilogue, suggesting some of the significant changes that transformed both the output and organization of cabinetmaking in the Connecticut valley after 1790. Stylistically, at least three major trends can be discerned. Some valley workshops continued to produce familiar versions of late Queen Anne and Chippendale forms; others combined distinctive local decorative elements with designs more self-consciously drawn from published Chippendale designs, which were becoming increasingly available even as they were outmoded by newer fashions; and a third group of forward-looking craftsmen introduced new forms and designs in the Federal style, with smooth veneered surfaces, straight or tapering legs, neoclassical ornament, and inlaid decoration in geo-

OVERVIEW

metric patterns. In this era of change, Hartford emerged as the dominant regional center, eclipsing the four earlier style centers and attracting increasing numbers of craftsmen from elsewhere. The pace of craftsman mobility quickened, and production became more competitive and standardized, with ready-made stock, furniture warehouses, and published pricelists of available options. Labeling and other forms of documentation increased, so that many more of the furniture groups identified for this period can be linked to named cabinetmakers. By r820 the persistent and relatively closed local shop traditions associated with particular towns had been supplanted by more fluid urban shops, less consistent construction techniques, and more rapidly changing styles. With even more dramatic changes looming in the industrial era just ahead , the "golden age" of Connecticut valley case furniture came to an end.

IJ

PROLOGUE

Experimenting with the Queen Anne Style, 1730-1750

The years between 1730 and 1750 were a time of transition from locally made joined oak chests and cupboards, dominant in the Connecticut valley since about 1670, to the cherry cabriole-Ieg styles made in Connecticut's golden age during the last half of the eighteenth century. The approximately two dozen surviving examples of case furniture from this brief twenty-year period provide valuable evidence of the creative experimentation that was part of the transition. Out of four stylistically distinct groups that surfaced during these decades, two drew upon recognizable antecedents made in coastal Massachusetts; the other two were original to Windsor. And while three of the styles died out, one laid the foundation for the Wethersfield style that dominated the valley for much of the second half of the eighteenth century. Craftsmen in the Connecticut valley belonged to a tradition that by 1730 had been in place for more than half a century.' Like the English guild system, this valley craft tradition served to protect turf and keep outsiders at bay. It controlled access to apprenticeship and ensured adherence to high technical standards. The resulting quality of workmanship equaled in every respect that of coastal Massachusetts-and was, in some cases, superior. But most important of all, the tradition nourished local stylistic innovation. The trumpet-shaped turned legs of the William and Mary style popular in England and coastal Massachusetts in the early decades of the eighteenth century failed to find favor in the Connecticut valley. By 1720 residents and craftsmen wanted something other than heavy oak chests that had been the staple for so long. In response, joiners north of Hartford-in Windsor and its eastern parish that later became East Windsor-came up with two highly original interpretations of the incipient Queen Anne cabriole leg. The first appeared on a group of high chests, dressing tables, and chests with

elaborately painted decoration, the local version of japanning. The cabriole legs on them are exaggerated and rest on large, hockey puck-shaped feet. Examples are discussed in the next section as the paint-japanned group. The second interpretation appeared in high chests and dressing tables whose cabriole legs end in a unique spool-shaped turned foot. These are discussed as the spool-foot group. Although radically different in design, the two groups share the same interior construction methods and the same primary and secondary woods. Some patrons preferred a third option-locally produced imitations of the prevailing Boston walnutveneered style. Standing on conventionally shaped Queen Anne legs and feet, made of local woods, and aesthetically uninspired, this small group of furniture was most likely produced in Hartford. Craftsmen in the more affluent and conservative town of Wethersfield, south of Hartford, developed a cabriole leg style that was more graceful. Under the probable leadership of cabinetmaker William Manley (17°3-87), who had moved from Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1730, this aesthetic adapted Boston and Salem prototypes and proved to have great staying power. Over subsequent decades it evolved into a triumph of cyma curves, balance, and proportion that ultimately defined the Connecticut valley Queen Anne style. It is not clear what social or economic factors made patrons in the valley receptive to such experimentation and variety in their furniture. But this eagerness to acquire a new look paved the way for the major styles that dominated the region during the second half of the century. For more on this closed craft tradition, see Robert F.Trent, "Connecticut River Valley Woodworking Dynasties with Chapin Connections," elsewhere in this volume.

1.

EARLY

QUEEN

ANNE

TAB LEI

Distinguishing Features of Early Queen Anne Groups

Gro up

Paint-japann ed Cats. 1-4

Spool-foot Cats. 5-ro

Walnut-veneered Ca ts. II-I3

W illiam M anley Cats. 14- 17

Town of origin

Windsor

Windsor

H artfordlWindsor

W eth ersfieldlWindsor

Facade decoration

Paint japanning

Painted bandin g around drawers; figured maple

W alnut veneer with crossbandin g

Primary wood (painte d or stained)

Cornice

Small, 1"-2"

Tall, thr ee-p art , 4"+, with frieze drawer

Intermediate, 2"-3 "

Intermediate, 2"-3 "

D rawer configuration, Upper-case top row

Two narrow drawers flanking a wide drawer

Two narrow drawers flanking a wide drawer

Two drawers

O ne or two drawers

D rawer configuration, Lower case

Single row

D ouble row

Single row

Single row

Mid molding

Two-p art, split between upper and lower cases

Two-pa rt , split between upper and lower cases

Two-p art, split between upp er On e part, attached and lower cases; or one-part to lower case

Apron shaping, front

Hi gh center arch flanked by drop pend ant s and double ogees

Hi gh center arch flanked by drop pendants and flatt ened arches

Hi gh center arch flanked by drop pendants and double ogees

Cyma curves with high center arch, no pend ant s

Apron shaping, sides

Paired double ogees with center drop pendant

Paired flattened arches with center drop pend ant

D ouble ogee

Cyma curves with high center arch

Cabriole leg profile

Exaggerated curve at top with sharp angles

Rounded knees, straight legs

Conventional Qp een Anne cabriole leg

Conventi onal Qu een Anne cabriole leg

Foot

Large flat pad

Pad with mid rib on a turn ed spool

Bowl- shaped pad foot

Bowl-shaped pad foot

Backboards

Nailed in rabbets

Nailed in rabbets

Set in grooves

Nailed in rabbets

Dr awer dividers and muntin s

Thin, in groove; double-astragal facing

Thick, dovetailed; double cock-bead facing

Thin, in groove; double-astragal facing

T hick, exposed dovetails; no facing

Dr awer front s

Taper inward, no lip

Taper inward, no lip

Flush, no taper or lip

Lipp ed

Drawer bott oms

Nailed from below on 4 sides

Nailed from below on 4 sides

Nailed from below on 4 sides

In groove in front and sides

Dr awer-side dovetails

Protrude in back

Protrud e in back

Flu sh in back

Flush in back

D ovetail pins

Average size and angle; present at top and botto m

Average size and angle; present at top and bottom

Average size and angle; present at top and bottom

Large and widely spaced; present at top only

Probable date range

' Five of th ese bear dates between 1735 and 1738.

EAR L Y

QUE E NAN N E

IS

Paint-Japanned group

Perhaps the most familiar and widely exhibited of all early Queen Anne Connecticut valley case furniture is the group of paint-decorated high chests and tall chests from the Windsor area, specifically dated to the late 1730S. They are a deliberate imitation of Boston japanned furniture and sport brightly painted figures on a red and black ground. Five of the seven objects have dates between 1735 and 1738 painted on the case side. The lower cases and dressing tables have exaggerated cabriole legs with large, disklike flat feet. The virtually square upper cases topped by a short cornice present an unusually squat appearance. The charming painted decorations-animals, plants, flowers, and human figures-played a role in their survival. Parallel objects in the spool-foot group, also painted in some manner, lacked the figures and were resurfaced over time (see cats. 5 & 6). The lower Connecticut valley did not have the trained japanners that Boston had during the early decades of the eighteenth century. 1 Instead of creating raised three-dimensional figures with gesso, gilding, and adhesives, local craftsmen simply painted colorful naturalistic figures on a dark ground; thus the Connecticut versions are dubbed the paint-japanned group. Although less elaborate than their Boston counterparts, and lacking some of the oriental flavor, these representations are just as whimsical. Collector-turned-author Irving W. Lyon in 1891 described and illustrated the paint decorated high chest he had found (cat. 2) along with a matching dressing table. In 1938 J. L. Cummings published three similar examples (including cat. 3), probably all high-chest upper cases converted into bureaus in the nineteenth century." Along with catalog 1 and another high-chest upper case, catalog 3A, this group has been well researched and published. The paint-japanned group (cats. 1-4) and the spoolfoot group that follows (cats. 5-10) share many design and construction features, which open the possibility that the two groups came out of the same or related shop s. While both groups date from the twenty years

I6

between 1730 and 1750, one of the paint-japanned group is dated 1735 and two are dated 1738, making it likely that this group is the earlier one. In each group four of the objects have histories in Windsor) I. For Boston examples, see Fales, "Boston Japanned Furniture," Pp·49-75·

2 . Lyon, Colonial Furniture, p. 87 & fig. 36; Heckscher, American Furniture, no. 152; Cummings, "Painted Chests from the Connecticut Valley," pp. 192-93; the dates painted on these are 1735, 1737, and 1738. The dressing table that Lyon mentioned may be cat.2A.

3. That Cummings found three examples in the Massachusett s stretch of the valley raises the possibility, albeit an unlikely one, that another shop produced similar pieces.

EARLY

QUEEN

ANNE

SIGNIFICANT

INDEX

FEATURES: CATS.I-4

D esign and D ecoration

Constru ction

o

o

Surviving early finishes are black paint over a red ground, with freehand plants, flowers, animal s, bird s, and other naive figures in bright colors covering the front and sides of the case; five

o o

Cornice molding is short, about IW' tall

o

D ouble-astragal moldin gs are applied to the case around the

o

Comple x midm oldin g is divided between the upper and lower cases

o o o

Full cover over th e lower case rests on a rabbet in the midm oldDrop pendants are attached to th e front and side apron s with a dovetail (rather th an a round tenon ), an unu sual featu re

double ogees with a central drop pendant

o

Cock bead is applied to the underside of the apron

Single medial runner, ten on ed into th e backboard , suppo rts each lower-case dr awer

Exaggerated cabriole legs have sharp edges and a small convex

o

knee return applied under the apron

o

Upper-case drawer runners are nailed to th e case sides ing and suppo rts th e upp er case

Front apron has a simple semicircular arch at the center, flanked by a drop pendant and double ogee; side apron s have paired

o o

Drawer dividers are thin, about W' thi ck, and rest in groove s in th e case sides; a double -astragal facing stri p conceals the joint

drawers and to th e draw er divider s and muntins

o

Full-d epth wedge- shaped panels, which function as drawer guide s, back the muntin facings

short drawer in the center

o

Upper-case backboards are nailed in rabbets in th e case sides and top

Two narrow drawers flank the wide, top center drawer in the upper case; lower case has a single row of three drawers with a

o

Ca se and drawers mad e of relatively thin stock that is well finished and joined; drawer sides about W' thi ck

high chest tops have a date painted on the side

o o

M aple and yellow pin e as primary wood s; secondary woods pre dominantly yellow pine, occasionally tulip poplar

Drawer fronts are chamfered to tap er inward on the top and

Large, round, disklike foot resembling hockey puck emerge s

sides, providing a snug fit in the opening; draw er front is rabbet-

from the leg at about a 90° angle and rests on a wide, truncated

ed to accommod ate th e dr awer bottom, which covers th e drawer

cone supporting pad

sides and back and is nailed from underneath; drawer-side dovetails and the drawer bottom protrude in back, acting as drawer stops

o

Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pin s are of average size and angle; pin s are present at top and bottom; bot tom pin is rabbeted to accom modate the dr awer bottom

PAINT-JAPANNED

GROUP

q

I8

EAR L Y

QUE E NAN N E

CATAL OG

r

Flat -top high chest Probably Windsor, I7J6 Probablyfirst owned by Ma ry Grant and Gershom Loomis of Windsor (east of the riv er) Winterthur Museum , 54.507

This paint-j apanned high chest is by far the best preserved and most securely documented surviving example of this early Connecticut valley experiment with Queen Anne design and chinoiserie- inspired decoration. Although the colors have faded with tim e, the overall effect . . remains engagmg. The r736 painted on th e left side of the upp er case strongly suggests th e high chest was made for th e June r736 marriage of G ershom Loomis (170I -38) to Mary Grant (1702-80) . The extensive invent ory of G ershom's estate, taken just two years later, lists a "Case of Drawers" at the extraordinary value of [S. ro.o, makin g th is one of th e first high chests menti on ed in th e probate records of H artford Co unty. Mary Grant L oom is, first cousin of wealthy E ast Windsor merchant (and later Eliphalet Chapin patron) Eb enezer Grant (1706 -97), inherited th e high chest from her husband and passed it on to her only surv iving child , Amasa L oomis (r73r93) , coincidentally th e owner of a dressing table from th e shop of Eliphalet Chapin (cat. 65). The high chest, listed in Amasa Loomi s's probate invent ory as "one old case with drawers" valued at 2 0S., passed next to his young daughter and mother's namesake M ary Loom is (r78r -r812), th en to M ary's siste r Clarissa (r77r-r8s8), th e wife of Ar odi Higley (r770- r832), and, finally, their son Job Loomis Higley (r80r-8r). South

W ind sor farm er Oliver Jone s (r837- r9r6) became the next owner, and it remained in his family until H . F. du Pont purchased it in r946 .1 A related example is a high chest top (conver ted into a bure au) th at is stripped of its painted decoration and embellished with a later carved shell.' It is still owned in East W indsor by descendants of the Rockwell family for who m it was made . Dimensions: overall H 61"; upper case W 33%" D 19"; lower case W 37%" D 2Ira" M ateri als: maple with yellow pine Condition notes: drop pendants replaced; brasses original Inscription: "1736" painted in the upper left corner of the left side of upper case Exhibition : Connecticut Tercentenary 1935, no. 44a Publications: Downs, Queen Anne and Chippendale, no. 186; H ummel, "Queen Anne and C hippe ndale Furniture," P: 897; Fales, American Painted Furniture, p. 62, fig. 88; Richards & Evans, N ew England Furniture at Winterthur, no. 161 HCFS 146

W arren, "More about Painted Chests," pt . 2, p. 52; Fir st National Bank of Hartford, adverti sement, Antiques 50, no. 3 (September 1946): 147.

1.

2.

JA

P A N NE D

G R 0 U P

II2.

CA T A LOG I A The date painted on the upper case of cat. I is the year that the presumed first owners, M ary Grant and Gershom Loomi s, married .

CAT A LOG I T his high chest sports brigh tly colored painted figures of fanciful animals, plants, and people, but the figures are not raised in gesso in the Boston fashio n. The exaggerated cabriole legs and large flat feet are typical of the group. The unusual center drop pendant on the side apron also appears on spool-foot group furniture.

P A I N T -

HCFS

I9

C A T ALOG

This is the most widely exhibited and published pre-I?50 Connecticut high chest. The painted decoration, despite restoration, still reflects the imagination, skill, and effort of the maker in adapting to the new Qpeen Anne style. He replicated in two dimensions the three-dimensional gesso-based japanning, then so popular in Boston. I~ is the only undated high chest in the group; the date may have been overpainted during restoration. In design and construction this high chest exhibits only minor variations from catalog r: the profile of the cornice differs, and small wedges secure the drawer dovetails. Lyon stated that the high chest came from Windsor and had a matching dressing table (possibly cat. 2A), but provided no details. Anecdotally, the high chest came from the section of Windsor east of the Connecticut River.I A related example is a dressing table in the Shelburne Museum collection. This table has long since lost its paint japanning but in other respects looks typical of the group. It has an unverified history in the Phelps family of Windsor and may be the matching dressing table that Lyon mentioned.'

2

Flat- top high chest Probably Windsor, IlJ O-Il40 M etropolitan Museum ofArt, 4 6.I94.J, gift ofM rs.} In sley Blair, I94 6

D imen sions: overall H 62"; upper case H lower case H 31Vz" W 371,4" D 22"

30~"

W 3314" D 19¥!";

Materials: maple with yellow pine Condition notes: surface heavily overpainted; drop pendants and brasses replaced Exhibiti on: Metropolitan Museum of Art 1933, no. 4; Wadsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 75; Wad sworth Atheneum 1985, no. 90 Publi cations: Lyon , Colonial Furniture, p. 87, fig. 36; Cu mmings, "Painted Chests from the Conn ecticut Valley," pp. 192- 93; H eckscher, American Furn iture, no. 152 HCFS 121 CAT A LOG 2 This dramatically decorated high chest, although overpainted, communicates the flavor of th e paintjapanned grou p: th e brightly colored figures are a creative imitation ofjapa nning; the squat case, exaggerated cabriole legs, and large flat pad feet are early regional interpretations of the Queen Ann e style.

I. Lyon, Colonial Furn it ure, p. 87; Hel en K. Pelton, East Windsor historian, to the authors, 1993, HCFS files.

2 . Assessment based on photo inspection only; published in "Shop Talk," Antiques 67, no. 2 (February 1955): 104.

CAT A LOG 2 A T his may be the dressing table that Lyon mentioned in 1891 as th e one that matched the high chest (cat. 2). T he surface has been overpainted, th e brasses are replaced, and the drop pend ants are missing, but in other respects it looks typical of the paint -japanned group. Shelburne Museum 3.1-7.

20

EAR L Y

QUE E NAN N E

CATALOG

3

High - chest upper case Probably Win dsor, p ossibly the A mh erst, Massachusetts, area, IlJ8 Lo cation unknown

This remarkably well-preserved upper case matches other paint-japanned examples in all surviving details. According to J. L. Cummings it came to light near Amherst; however, its index characteristics suggest a Windsor origin. A related example is another high-chest upper case in the Connecticut Historical Society Museum (cat. 3A). It survived the ravages of time with much of its originallively paint japanning and identical 1738 date at one time hidden by overpaint.' Dimensions: overall H 36W'; case H 30%" W 33l,4" D

20VS "

M aterials: maple with yellow pine Co ndition notes: base added; brasses original In scription: "1738" painted on th e upper rear corn er, right side Publications: Cummings, "Painted Chests from the Co nne cticut Valley," 192- 93, fig. 1 (image flopped ); Soth eby's, sale 7420 (January 21-22, 2000), lot 514 HCFS 378

I. H CFS 152. Exhibited at W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 55, with inappropriate overpaint; published in W arren "M ore about Paint ed Ch ests," p. 52, fig. 9.

CAT AL 0 G 3 This upper case retains much of the original painted decoration and like catalog 3A has a 1738 date. T he base IS new.

CAT AL 0 G 3 A The plants and animals differ in detail from tho se on the other high chests, but appear to be by th e same hand. The original paint -japanned surface is restored, bottom drawer is replaced, and the feet are added. T he base molding is the upper -case port ion of a high -chest midmo lding. Connecticut Historical Society Museum , 1959.3.4.

P A I N T -

JA

P AN NED

G R 0 U P

2I

4 This tall chest is similar in conception to other examples in the paint-japanned group, but the construction methods and the execution of the painted figures indicate production in a different shop.

CAT A LOG

22

EAR L Y

QUE E NAN N E

CATALOG

4

Tall chest Possibly Windsor, I730-I750 M etropolitan M useum ofArt, 45-78.3, gift ofM rs.J Insley Blair, I945

Tall chests of drawers are relatively uncommon in Connecticut throughout the eighteenth century, in contrast to lift-top or blanket chests. Unlike catalogs 3 & 3A, this chest is too tall to have been the upper case of a high chest, and it has always had turned feet. The painted decoration, ground, and construction details indicate it is the product of a different shop and artist than the preceding examples but the overall conception is the same. This piece was purchased early in the twentieth century from a branch of the Stoughton family in East Windsor.I

S INGU LAR

t> Tall chest form t> Shor t cornice and the base molding differ in profile from oth-

ers in the group t> Front edges of the drawer dividers and muntins are rounded; a

single narrow half-round strip is centered on the front of the case side; others in the group have a double-astragal molding surrounding the drawers t> D rawer bottoms have runn ing str ips applied in the Rhode

Island and E nglish manne r t> D rawers are reverse-dovetailed in back (for other examples see

cats. 105-108) t> D rawer sides are flat on top and have chamfered edges; dove-

Di mensions: H 493,4" W 43" D 17"

tail pins are large and widely spaced with average angle; pins

Materials: yellow pin e and ma ple with oak (two drawer runners)

are present at the top and bottom of the drawer side

C onditi on note s: feet possibly original; brasses replaced Exhibition: Wadsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 56 Publications: D owns, "Recen t Additions," p. 72; Fales, American Painted Furniture , fig. 87 HCFS 243 1.

M etr opolit an Museum of Art object files.

P A I N T - ] A PAN NED

FEATU RES

G R 0 U P

2]

Jpool-root group

The spool-foot group of high chests and dressing tabl es represents a rare flowering of an original, if short-lived, style produced in one shop, probably located in Windsor's second society, east of the Connecticut River. That the community accepted this style and a parallel one (the paint-japanned style) in the 1730S and 1740s-and went on to embrace the spectacular accomplishments of Eliphalet Chapin in the 1770S and 1780s-may not be a coincidence. The area had provided fertile ground for dozens of cabinetmakers and joiners since the mid-seventeenth century,' The spool-foot group of furniture is characterized by tall, slender embryonic cabriole legs with large rounded, almost hamlike, knee returns and small, ribb ed feet resting on a turned spool, reminiscent of Louis XV design . The massive cases, with heavy cornices, perch lightly on their legs. The work is competent and secure, the product of an experienced craftsman. The traces of original paint and scribe lines suggest he decorated the drawer fronts with painted bands, possibly to simulate herringbone-pattern veneer. This group likely dates to the decade of the 1740S. The heavy cornice, thick drawer dividers, and use of cock bead instead of double-astragal applied moldings suggest that spool-foot pieces postdate the paintjapanned furniture of the late 173os.2 Secure family histories of two high chests (cat. 6 and the related example of cat. 5) reinforce this conclusion. The six objects that constitute the spool-foot group include three flat-top high che sts and three dressing tables, a remarkably large sample given the early date, small geographic area, and short time span. Although the shop master for this group has not been identified, the initials SS on the backboard of catalog 6 suggest Samuel Stoughton II (17°2-89) as a candidate. Stoughton was the cousin of the owners of two of the high chests (see cat. 5). The inventory of his

estate, taken following his death at the advanced age of 87, does not list joiners' tools, but his father, Samuel I (1665-1717), and three uncles, John (1657-17II), Israel (1667-1736), and Thomas IV (1662-1748), were documented joiners.'

1.

Lane and White, Woodworkers ofWindsor.

2. This sequence follows that recently identified in London-made Queen Anne case furniture; see Adam Bowett, "A New Chronology for English Walnut-Veneered Furniture 1670-1740," Antiques 161, no. 6 (June 2002): ro8-15.

3. Lane and White, Woodworkers ofWindsor, 57-58.

EARLY

QUEEN

ANNE

SIGNIFICANT

INDEX

FEATURES: CATS. S-10

Design and Decoration

Construction

o

o

o

Cases of highly figured maple and birch; scribe lines and evidenee of old paint on two suggest banding on drawer fronts that

secondary wood, but eastern white pine and tulip poplar were

simulated herringbone veneer

also used

Almost square upper case with a heavy, 4" to S" tall, three-piece cornice concealing a frieze drawer (an element not seen elsewhere in Hartford County)

o

o o o

Upper case has narrow drawers flanking a wide center drawer in the top row; the lower case has a two- over-three drawer configulow because of the high center arch Applied double-bead moldin g surrounds the drawers Midmolding divided hori zontally into two parts and attached to

o

o o o

Front and side apron s shaped with flattened arch at the sides; center arch flanked by drop pendants identi cal to those on the

o

Full-depth, wedge-shaped panels function as drawer guides and Drawer dividers, about :j4" thick, are dovetailed to the case side; Upper-case drawer runners nailed to the case sides Full cover for the lower case rests in a rabbet in the midmolding Each drop pendant is attached to th e apron with a dovetail rather than a round tenon

o

Single, medial drawer runner, ten oned into the backboard, support s each drawer in the bott om row of th e lower case

side aprons have a central drop pendant; front apron has a high

o

Upper-case backboards nailed in rabbet s at top and sides

double cock-beaded facing strip conceals the joint

the upper and lower cases, respectively

o

Thin wood stock: drawer sides only W' thick

back the muntin facings

ration, with the center drawer in the lower row being quite shal-

o o

Maple and birch as primary wood s; yellow pine predominates as

o

Drawer fronts are chamfered to taper inward on the top and

sides; aprons have cock bead applied to the lower edge

sides; each drawer front is rabbeted on the lower inside edge to

Rudimentary cabriole legs with rounded, almost hemispherical

accommodate the drawer bottom, which covers the sides and

knees end in small feet, each has a raised center rib and stand s

back and is nailed from underneath; drawer side dovetails extend

on a turned spool; this configuration is a defining element of the

in back to act as drawer stops; the drawer bottom may extend as

group (see cat. SA)

well

Drawers have cotter-pin brasses (those on cat. 8 & the related

o

Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pin s are of average size

example of cat. S may be original); brasses on the long drawers

and angle, with pins at top and bottom; lower edge is rabbeted to

are inset, creating a waisted effect

accommodate the drawer bottom

SP 0 0 L - F 0 0 T

G R 0 U P

25

26

EAR L Y

QUE E NAN N E

CATAL OG

S

Flat-top high chest Probably Windsor, I740-I750 Possiblyfirst owned by J erusha Stoughton and Benj am in N ewberry Wadsworth Atheneum Museum ofArt, I944 .I6o, bequest ofAlice (M rs. Clarkson N ) Fowler

This, th e best preserved of th e three surviving high chests, provides index features for the spool-foot group. Scribe lines on the drawer front s and residual black paint suggest it originally had banded decoration simulating th e herrin gbone pattern used on walnut-veneered cases in the 1730S and IJ40S. The high chest descend ed th rough the Fowler family of H artford. It was given to th e W adsworth Atheneum along with an acco unt book of shoemaker Samuel Fowler (17IO-99), who had moved from Newport, Rhode Island, to H art ford .I The high chest probably en tere d th e fami ly th rou gh th e success ive marriages of Fowler's great-grandson, H enry Fowler (IJ91-1871), to three daughters ofW eth ersfield cabinetmaker Benjamin N ewb err y (b. IJ6S): Mehita ble (1795-1846), Martha (1806-50), and Abigail (1802-84) . T he th ree women's grandparen ts, Jerusha Stoughton (1730-94) and Benjamin Newberry (IJ21-1804), grew up in th e parish of East Windsor and married on Febru ary 13, 1745. Jerusha's father was a cousin of Samu el Stoughton II , th e possible shop master of th e spoolfoot group. A related example is a virtu ally identical high chest of which th e upper case survives in unr estored condition, including engraved cotter-pin br asses and evidence of painted banding around th e perim eter of th e drawer fronts. (T he lower case underwent exte nsive alteration in th e nineteenth century with conversion to a desk.)" According to family traditi on , th e probable first owner was Jerusha Stoughto n's cousin Benjamin Stoughton (IJo1-79), who married Elizabeth Bartl ett (IJ07-67) ofW ind sor's eastern parish, on D ecemb er 28, IJ44. H e was also related to Samuel Stoughton II (see cat. 6).

of Windsor

C AT A LO G 5 A Detail of catalog 5 showing spool foot.

Dimension s: overall H 70~ " ; upper case H 35" W 33Y.!" D 19lh"; lower case H 35~" W 3714" D 20W' Ma terials: maple, birch (legs) with yellow pine Co ndition notes : drop pendants probabl y original; traces of black paint on case sides and drawer front s; brasses replaced Exhibition: Wa dsworth Atheneum Museum of Art 1967, no. 78 HCFS no

1.

Wad sworth Atheneum Museum of Art object files.

2 . HCFS n6. The high chest remained in family hand s when examined in June 1993; its current location is unkn own.

CA T A LO G 5 In addit ion to spool- turned feet that are the hallmarks of the group, this flat- top high chest has stro ngly figured maple drawer fronts, a tall cornice with a frieze drawer, slender and rather straight legs, and identica l dro p pendants on the front and side aprons.

SP 0 0 L - F 0 0 T

G R 0 U P

27

CATALOG

6

Flat- top high chest Probably Windsor, £740-£7So, probably ca. £740 Probablyfirst ow ned by Elizabeth Elmer and Samuel Gojfe Moore of Windso r Wood M emorial L ibrary , I98o.S07- 2

This high chest possesses all the index features of the spool-foot group and is quite close in dimensions to catalog 5. The initials "SS" painted in black on the backboard may represent the maker, possibly Samuel Stoughton II . According to family tradition, the high chest has always been owned in the Moore and Pelton families of Ea st Windsor. 1 The probable first owners, Samuel Goffe Moore (1715-74) and Elizabeth Elmer (1718-98) married circa 1740. At his death Samuel owned a "C ase of draws in the North Chamber" valued at a substantial £5. Both Samuel and Elizabeth were related by marriage to Samuel Stoughton II. D imensions: overall H 70 * "; upper case H 35Ys" W 34Vs" D 19 3.4"; lower case H 35%" W 3ih" D 21W' Materials: maple with yellow pine Condition notes: drop pendant s probably original; shell added; brasses replaced Inscription: "55 " painted in black on the outside of backboard H C F5 108

I. Doris Pelton Burgdorf, a family descendant, to the authors, April 20 02, HCF5 files.

C AT A L O G 6 This flat- top high chest has a tall and complex cornice, long slender legs with ribbed pad feet supported by turn ed spools, and divided side aprons with central drop pendants. It is virtually identical to catalog 5, except for the knees, which are fuller, rounder, and have a convex return . The carved shell is a later embellishme nt.

28

EAR L Y

QU E E NAN N E

CAT ALOG

7

Dressing table Probably Windsor, I740-I750 Collection ofJ onath an T race

Near the end of her life Sarah Halsey Hayden (1821- 1908) of Windsor wrote on a tag that she placed inside a drawer: "Formerly owned by Jonathan Ellsworth (1668-1749) grandfather of Oliver Ellsworth, descending through lines of Gile s and Roger to Mrs. Sarah Halsey Hayden by whom it is loaned." This history remains unconfirmed and is suspect because patrilineal descent through three generations is not a typical eighteenth-century pattern.' The first owners were more likel y from th e generation of Giles Ellsworth (17°3-1768), Jonathan's son. In any case, all th e related families lived in Windsor, which coincides with the evidence presented by th e design and construction features .

SINGUL AR FEATURES I>

Single row of three small drawers with no rail above

I>

Above-edge fillet and ovolo on all four sides of the top

I>

Front and side aprons have double ogees, rather than flattened arches, and no cock bead on the underside

I>

Mu ntins are backed by full-height, rather than wedge-shaped, front- to-back vertical panels that separate the drawers

CA T A L OG 7 Although typical of th e spool-foot group in most respects, this dressing table has a distinctive dr awer arrangement and an apron shaped with a doubl e ogee rather th an a flattened arch .

Dimensions: H 29" W 28%" D 19%"; top 313,4" X 22" M aterials: maple with yellow pine and eastern white pine Co nditio n note s: drop pendants pro bably orig inal; brasses replaced HCFS 135

r, A search th rough pro bate records of various members of the .Ellswor th family has failed to identify a dressing table th at can be traced in a direct line of inheritance to Hayden.

SP 0 0 L - F 0 0 T

G R 0 U P

29

C AT ALOG

8

D ressing table Probably Windsor, I74o- I750 Locat ion unknown

C AT A LO G 8 This spool- foot dressing table has drawer fronts made of strongly figured maple. The single, wide top drawer has no rail above it. The knees resemble those of catalog 5. The drop pendants and spools are appropriate replacements.

SIN GUL AR FEA T URE S I>

Above-edge reverse-ogee molding on all four sides of top

I>

Single, wide, top drawer rather than two drawers

This dressing table is almost 4" wider than the preceding one. It is otherwise typical of the group. On the remnants of an early twentieth-century typewritten note the words "ELIZABETH WALKER" and "[FR]AMINGHAM, MASS" are legible. The dressing table, however, has no early history, and Elizabeth Walker remains unidentified. D imensions: H 29%" W 321,4" D 2034 "; top 36" x 2234 " Materials: maple with yellow pine Condition notes: spools and drop pendants replaced; brasses probably original Publication: Skinne r, sale no. 1691 (J anuary 14, 1996), lot 57

HCFS 238

JO

EAR L Y

QUE E NAN N E

CATALOG 9 Dressing table Possibly Windsor or Ha rtford, I740-I750 Privately owned

C A T A LOG 9 Although thi s dr essing table lacks dro p pendants on th e side apro ns as well as spools below the feet , it is quite sim ilar to catalog 8. The shape of th e side apron arch differ s from th at of th e fron t arch .

S INGULAR FEATURES I>

Primary wood is birch; secondary woods include tulip poplar and yellow pine

I>

Side aprons have two double ogees and no drop pendants

I>

Front drop pendants are att ached with a round teno n

I>

Knees and knee returns are somewhat slimmer and shaped more like a convent ional cabriole leg

The dressing table has a history of ownership in the prominent Pitkin family of Hartford's eastern parish, including William Pitkin (1694-1769), who served as governor, and his nephew, Richard Pitkin (1738-1799), who obtained from the state legislature an exclusive twenty-five-year license to manufacture glass. Pitkin Glass Works operated from about 1783 to 1830, mostly producing bottles. Other Pitkin family members married into the Stiles and Morton families of East Windsor. The information is insufficient to identify the original owners. The piece was sold by a descendant in the late twentieth century, along with a mid-nineteenthcentury Pitkin account book and a watercolor family coat of arms dated 1807.1

SPOOL-FOOT

GROUP

Di mensions: H 28¥.!" W 31%" D 203,4"; top 351,6" x 23" M aterial s: birch with yellow pine, tulip poplar, and eastern wh ite pme C ondition not es: drop pendants probably original; brasses repla ced; knee-to-foot me asurem ents suggest th e table orig inally h ad spoo ls Publicati on : H arold E. C ole A ntiques, A utumn Pond A ntiques, advertisement, M aineAntique D igest 24, no. 1 (J anu ary 1996): IIC HCFS 261

Great R iver, no. 300; H arold Cole to th e aut hors, Ju ly 24, 1996, HCFS files.

I.

JI

C A T ALOG 10 Flat-top high chest Probably SuiJield, possibly Springfield or Northampton, Q4S-q6S, possibly Q6I Probablyfirst owned by Olive N ott of Westfield, Massachusetts, and Hezekiah Spencer ofSuiJield Privately owned

This well-documented but heavily restored high chest provides an important link between the spool-foot group and the post-1750 Connecticut valley Queen Anne high chests. It has stylistic features from both as well as construction characteristics broadly associated with case furniture from Suffield. The tall cornice has multiple parts: two above and one below the frieze drawer. The cuffed Spanish feet are highly unusual for case furniture made in the region, but the shape of the cabriole leg reflects the local experimentation in shaping that characterizes the spool-foot group. The massive case perches on slender legs that have a marked curve near the knees, which are slimmer than other spool-foot example s. The most prominent post-1750 features are cherry as the primary wood and th e carv ed shell (pos sibly alte red) . Features typical of post-1750 Suffield work include th e following: heavy stock with drawer sides %" thi ck; tops of drawer sides and back are molded with a wide astragal and fillet; dovetail pins of average size and angle, with a pin at both top and bottom; bottom "tail" at back of drawer is missing, creating the "Suffield notch" (see Suffield carver group). Still owned in the Spencer family of Suffield, this high chest has a twentieth-century label that reads: "T his high chest is the property of [name of owner] and was originally owned by her great great grandfather H ezekiah Spencer [1740-97]." Hezekiah Spencer's estate inventory lists a "chest with drawers " valued at $4. H e had married Olive Nott (1735-71), on March 4, 1761, a date th at seems a little late for this high chest. Nott came from We stfield, whi ch raises the possibility tha t th e high chest originated in W estfield or Springfield. A closely related high chest lends some support to this hypothesis; however, th e weight of the remaining evidence , from catalog IO and a related tea table, points to a Suffield origin.

]2

SINGULAR

FEATU RES

t> Flattened-arch front and side aprons have rudimentary central

drops and a band of inlay above the edge

c- Backboards set in grooves in t~e upper-case sides c- Drawer dividers and muntins attached with a half dovetail t> Lipped drawer fronts t> Very wide wedge-shaped lower-case drawer runners

C AT A LOG lO A The cornice, drawer configur ation , side apron with a center drop, and cuffed feet of thi s flat-top high chest are similar to th ose on catalog 10, which may have been made a decade later. The drop pend ants are probably replacement s. Location unknown .

EARLY

QUEEN

ANNE

C AT A LO G I 0 This high chest illustrate s a stylistic transition: the tall cornice with frieze drawer, drawer configur ation , divided side apron s with drop pendants, and legs are elements of the spool-foot style; the use of cherry as the primary wood, the carved shell, and the lipped drawe rs are feature s of the mature Qpeen Anne style. Additional unu sual feature s in the lower case include a flattened-arch apron with a band of inlay, rudimentary secondary drops centered in the flats, and cuffed Span ish feet.

SPOOL-FOOT

GROUP

~

CAT A LOG lO B This rare, elegant, tray top tea table has legs and cuffed Spanish feet th at are very similar to th ose of catalog IO . Co llection of Samuel and Patricia M cCull ough.

The first related example (cat. lOA) is a flat-top high chest that is visually quit e similar to catalog 10. Its likely first owners, Martha Hunt (1725-86) of Northampton and Rev. Stephen Williams (1722-95) of Longmeadow, married in 1748, thirteen years before Nott and Spencer. The maker may have been working in Springfield or Northampton.' The second related example is a tea table that has an unverified history of ownership in Suffield (cats. lOB, roc). It dates from 1745 to 1765 and has an unu sual mix of primary and secondary woods: cherry, walnut and birch with eastern white pine . The legs and feet are quite similar to tho se on catalog 10. 2 The third related example is a mapl e dressing table (cat. lOD) that is outwardly similar to cat alog 10 . Specific design and constru ction details ind icate th at it came from a different shop in th e region at about th e same time ) D imensions: overall H 743.4"; upper case H 39V
CAT A LOG I 0 c Ca briole leg furn iture made in the Co nnecticut valley rarely had Spanis h feet. The double-cuffed ankle, rounde d toe, and wide- lobed webs on catalog IOB are of a different design than those crafted for turne d chairs in the region.

Exhibitions: W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 77 Publi cations: Bissell, Suffield Furniture, p. 53, pl. 18; Bissell, "Furniture and Cabinetmakers of a New England Town," Antiques 69, no. 4 (April 1956): 328 HCFS 263

Publ ished in "Frontispiece," Antiques 18, no. 3 (September 1930): 204-6. Assessment based on photo inspection only. Additional examples with No rtham pton histories reportedly are located in private collections. 1.

2 . Inform ation reported by Nathan Liverant & Son to the owner. Published in Bissell, Suffield Furniture, pl. 16; [Kirk], Connecticut Furniture, no. 156.

3. HCFS 267; exhibited at W adsworth Athene um 1967, no. 174; published in Rand all, American Furn iture, no. 44.

C AT A L O G I 0 D This dressing table, although visually similar to catalog IO , came from a different shop, as the shell carving, apron, leg, and foot shaping , as well as the drawer construction, all differ significantly. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 29.155, gift of Dudley Leavitt Pickman.

34

E AR L Y

QU E E NA N N E

Walnut- Veneered group

Walnut-veneered case furniture in the Qpeen A nne style made in th e lower C onnecticut valley probably dates from 1730 to 1750, about th e same period as th e paint-japanned and spool-foot groups. It is imitative of Boston design but less sophisticated; it makes use of local woods and lacks th e decorative detail of coastal Massachusetts wo rk. Som e we althy fam ilies in th e region turned to Boston and Salem for th is furn iture, and those pieces may have served as models for th e region's cabinetm akers.' The sample of locally made walnut-veneered furniture is small: a mat ching high chest and dressing table originally owned by Samu el Talcott (17II-97) of H art ford, a high chest owned in th e nin eteenth century in the Phelps family ofWindsor; and a related high chest with a general history in Windsor. All are basic forms devoid of embellishments such as recessed shells or scrolled cornices. The construc tion details imply th ey came from different shops; th ey share as many feature s with their Boston counterparts as th ey do with one another. Both th e Gays and Kings of Suffield had ma tchi ng venee red high chests and dressing tables. For th e G ay fami ly ~ieces se~ Sack, A merican Antiques, 7=1944- 45, P5296. For th e King fam ily pieces, now owned by the Peabo dy Essex Museum (nos. 13818 7, 138188 ), see "Noteworthy Sales," Catalog of Antiques and Fin e Arts 2, no. 5 (autu m n 2001): II.

1.

SIGNI FICANT

I NDEX

FEA T UR E S: CA T S.

II -13

D esign and D ecorat ion

o

Book-matched walnut veneer applied to the case facades and dressing table top; crossbanding around the perimet er of the drawers and top

o Cornice has no frieze drawer; cornice height varies o Two drawers in the top row of the upper case; a single row of three drawers in the lower case

o

M idmolding divided horizontally and attac hed to the upper and lower cases

o Cabriole legs that imitate Boston design but are relatively straight and heavy with small, flat pad feet Const ructi on

o Walnut veneer used only on the facade and dressing table top, maple and sycamore are used elsewhere as prim ary woods; yellow pine the predominant secondary wood

o o

T hin stock; drawer dividers and sides about J,.2" thick Upper-case backboards set in grooves in the case top and sides, unlike the paint-japanned and spool-foot groups and unlike the Boston practice of nailing them int o rabbets

o Full-dep th cover on the lower case o Drawer dividers inserted in grooves in the case sides and faced with a double-astragal moldin g

o Lower-case muntins are backed by full-depth wedge-shaped panels tha t act as drawer guides

o D rawers construc ted in the manner of the paint -japanned and spool-foo t grou ps, with the drawer front rabbeted on the underside and the drawer bott om nailed to all four sides from underneath ; drawer fronts do not taper inward as in the other two groups

o D rawer sides are flat on top; dovetail pins are of average size and angle; pins are present at the top and bottom of the drawer side

WA LNUT -VENEE R E D

GROUP

~

C ATALOGS

II

&

12

Flat -top high chest & Dressing table P robably H artford, Il30- I750, possibly I739 F irst ow ned by Mabel Wyllys and Samuel Talcott of Hartford Priv ately ow ned

CA T A LO G 1 1 This walnut-veneered high chest displays th e expert craftsmanship of a Hartford cabinetm aker's imitation of Boston designs.

S ING ULA R FEATU RE S [>

A Ilh" high- chest cornice is much shorter than contemporary Boston examples

[>

Dressing table has no rail above the top drawer

[>

Well-arti culated legs and feet

C AT A LOG lI B The lower case of catalog II has a fulldepth cover, as do all the high chests in th e early Queen Anne groups. The upper case rests in a wide rabbet in the lower part of the mid molding. These group s also feature a single medi al drawer runner for each of the lower case small drawe rs. The muntins are backed by full-depth wed ge-shaped panels that act as drawer guides. N ote th e absence of a top rail, and the doubl e-astragal molding around th e dr awers. CAT A LOG 1 1 A Backboards in th e upp er cases of the two walnut-veneered high chests are set in grooves cut in th e underside of the top board and inner edges of the case sides, a H artford-area technique. Craftsmen of the Chapin schoo l and the C olchester school's Lord group later adopted thi s practice, but most others workin g in New En gland nailed the backboards into rabbets.

]6

EAR L Y

QUE E NAN N E

This high che st and dr essing table, whi ch have an impeccable history, constitute th e only matched pair made in the region pri or to 1750 that survives togeth er.I In design and construction they reflect Boston practices, but the details and woods indicate local production. They represent the best high-style walnut-ven eered furniture made in the region. The history of ownership by th e Talcott family of Hartford is continuous to th e present day. The first owners, Samuel Talcott (I7II- 97) and M abel W yllys (1713-75), married M ay 3, 1739. H er fath er, H ezekiah, served as secretary of th e colony und er Samu el's fathe r, G overnor Joseph Talcott, and likely provided th ese as part of his daughter's dowry. They are listed in Samuel Talcott's inventory as "Case dr awers and Dressing Table" valued at 65. each."

CAT A LOG I 2 This dressing table has unu sually long legs that are the same height as those on the matching high chest. T he drop pendant s are inapprop riate replacements.

Di mensions: high chest: overall H 621,4" ; upper case H 31:j4" W 35%" D 19%"; lower case H 30th" W 3ils" D 20W'; dressing table: H 29¥S" W 28:j4" D 1i A"; top 32:j4" x 22" Materials: walnut veneer; maple, and sycamore (case sides) wit h yellow pine and tulip poplar C ondition note s: drop pendant s and brasses replaced H CFS 20 (high chest) & 123 (dressing table)

See cat. rated.

1.

CAT A LOG I 2 A H erringbone crossbanding accentuates the book-ma tched walnut-veneer panels of the dressing table top. The above-edge molding extends around all four sides.

WALNUT-VENEERED

GROUP

2

for a possible pain t-japanned pair that has been sepa-

2. H e also owned a London-made clock movement housed in a locally made tall case (cat. 438), and a silver tankard made by Jacob H urd (17°3-58) of Boston, which he had inherited from his father (C HS Museum 1982.68.1). T hirty or so years after acquiring thi s suite, Talco tt, by then a wealthy merchant and landowner, commiss ioned a matching blockfront desk and bookcase, a cheston-c hest, and a bureau; see cat. 144.

37

C AT ALOG

13

Flat -top high chest Probably H artford or Windsor, QJ o-Q50 Possiblyfirst owned by Sarah Nichols ofHartford and R eturn Strong of Windsor Windsor H istorical Society, 86· 75·55, gift of Marguerite Mills

I 3 Well-executed bookmatched panels and herringbone crossbandin g on the drawer fronts of this sophisticated high chest suggest the hand of a craftsman familiar with Boston cabinetmaking practices. It differs from catalog II in several respects: the cornice is taller, the one-pie ce mid molding much simpler, and the leg and foot profile markedly different. C AT A LOG

J8

EAR L Y

QUE E NAN N E

The maker of this high chest, like that of catalog II, consciously imitated Boston design. Indeed, the doubleastragal molding on the drawer sides in the upper case could well be the work of a Boston-trained cabinetmaker working in a Connecticut valley shop. Design and construction details suggest that this is not from the same shop as catalogs II & 12. Drawer construction differs significantly between th e upper and lower cases (as it does in cats. 146, ISO). Differences include the drawer-side top molding, which is a double astragal in the upper case, flat in the lower; longer kerfs in the upper case; heavier stock in th e upper case; and drawer backs that are frame sawn in th e upper case and jack planed in the lower case. The drawer fronts appear the same, as do the dovetails and wood selections. The dovetail pins are consistently of average size and angle. On balance, the piece ha s integrity, and the disparities suggest the drawers were assembled by two different craftsmen. Ellen Ellsworth (1829-1916) and her husband Timothy Samuel Phelps (1821-1910), both of Windsor, owned the chest at the beginning of the twentieth century. Most of their ancestors lived in Windsor, and four of them owned high chests in the eighteenth century. The most likely first owners are Ellen's maternal grandparents, Sarah Nichols (IlI8-1801) of Hartford and Return Strong (1712-76) ofWindsor, who married January 19, 1744; Return Strong's probate inventory include s a "case with drawers" assessed at an unusually high £2. If correct, thi s ownership argues in favor of a Hartford origin for thi s piece. The design is unlike any other furniture produced in Windsor at the time.

A related maple flat-top high chest with no veneer possesses a strong visual similarity to the others in th is group. It has a history of ownership in Windsor, and its design elements, especially the double flatten ed-arch side apron, support a Windsor origin. The cornice is shorter than catalog 13, the midmolding more complex, and the legs heavier and straighter. It reportedly has a highly unusual secondary wood: tamarack or eastern larch.' S INGU LA R

FEATU RES

t> A 31,4" cornice, significantly taller than that on catalog

II

t> Evidence of paint on the cornice and case sides t> Simple midmolding attached to the lower case only t> Apron shaping similar

to

that of the paint-japanned group,

except that the side apron has a single, wide, double ogee without a center drop pendant t> No cock bead applied to the apron t> Lower-case muntin s are backed by full-depth wedge- shaped

panels that are dovetailed into the top of the backboard t> Stiff cabriole legs with knee return s that are applied to the

front of apron; legs are less well shaped than on catalogs II & 12

t> Small, cup-shaped pad foot, supported by trun cated cones

Dimen sion s: overall H 6iW' ; upp ercase H 331'8" W 34* " D 181,4"; lower case H 331'8" W 36Y.2" D 191'8" M aterials: walnut ven eer, maple, and sycamo re with yellow pine, eastern white pine, and tulip poplar Condition note s: drop pendants replaced; engraved cotter-pin brasses original HCFS 148

I. Location unknown; assessme nt based on ph oto inspection only; exhibited at W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 76.

WALNUT-VENEERED

GROUP

~

William UVlanley

group

In th e prosperous and urbane town of Wethersfield, south of H artford, Queen Anne style furniture evolved differently from the towns to the north. During the I730S and I740S cabinet shops in Wethersfield followed coastal Massachusetts design much more closely. Boston-trained William Manley (I703-87) likely introduc ed the designs about I730 when he arrived in Wethersfield, where he remained for about fifteen years before moving on to Windsor.' He trained other cabinetmakers, including Return Belden (1721-64), in Wethersfield and possibly later in W indsor. Given M anley's presumed dominant role, this group of high chests and dressing tables is referred to as the William Manley group. The Wethersfield style emphasizes curves and graceful lines and stands in marked contrast to the rectilinear design s emerging from Windsor. The emphasis is on form, not decoration. Aprons feature a series of cyma curves; the cabrio le leg matures earlier than elsewhere in the valley. Cock-bead drawer surrounds and complex midmoldings do not interrupt the clean flow of th e lines, nor are surfaces veneered or paint decorated. Even the earliest examples display lipped drawers and plain surfaces. By th e I750S the Manley-inspired Wethersfield style dominated the entire region, supplanting the localized Windsor experiments. Of the five high chests and dressing tables in the entries that follow, at least one (cat. 16) has a Windsor history and probably reflects M anley's move to that town . As with the walnut-veneered group, variations in design and con struction within the group imply that multiple shops produced these objects.

SIGNI FI C A N T

Swee ney, "Fu rniture and Furniture-Making," p. IIS6.

F E ATU R ES :

CATS.

14 -1 7

D esign and D ecorat ion

o o o o

Cases are un embellished but some may have been painted H igh chests have a shor t cornice Upper cases have four or five drawers of graduated height Lower cases of high chests and dressing tables have one row of th ree drawers

o

Front aprons are cyma curved with a high center arch; side aprons have eith er a high center arch or double ogee; no pendant drops

o

Knee return s have a simple rounded profile and are applied to the front of the apron

o C abriole legs and pad feet are more gracefully shaped and better articulated th an in th e walnut-veneered group; th e foot has a supporting pad with angled sides (a truncated cone) Construct ion

o

Maple, sycamore, cherry, and tulip poplar as primary woods; second ary woods include eastern white pine, yellow pine, tulip poplar, and oak

o

W ood stock of average thickness: 3,4" for drawer dividers; l;2" for drawer sides

o

Upp er- case backboards nailed in rabbet s in the case top and

o

Drawer dividers and muntins attached with dovetails, exposed

o o

Upp er-c ase drawer runners are nailed to th e case side

sides in front Simpl e one-piece cyma- reversa midmolding attached to th e top of lower case

o

Drawer construction is unlike th at in th e other early Qu een Anne groups in the region . Drawer front s are lipped; drawer bottoms are inserted in grooves in th e drawer sides and front ; und erside of the drawer bott om exhibits frame-saw marks

o 1.

IND E X

Drawer side moldings vary; dovetail pins, present at th e top only, tend to be large and widely spaced, with littl e angle

4°

EARLY

QUEEN

ANNE

C A T ALOG

14

Flat- top high chest Probably Wethersfield, I7JO-I750 Webb-Deane -Stevens Museum, I977IO gift of Viola R obbins Wh ite in memory of R ichard W R obbins

This early Wethersfield high chest exhibit s up-to-d ate Boston Queen Anne design features. By comparison, the paint-japanned and walnut-veneered high chests produced during the same 1730-1750 period possess the shorter stance and cornice and busy sur faces that derived from an earlier era. This high chest descended in the Robbins family of Wethersfield .I John Robbins (1716-97) and M artha Williams (1715- 70), both of Wethersfield, who married January 13, 1737, may have been the first owners. The inventory of John Robbins's estate included a "case of Draws, Old" valued at $3 . 10 . S INGULAR

I>

FEATURES

Tulip poplar as a primary wood and oak as a secondary wood, both uncommon usages, suggest the cabinetmaker painted the high chest before it left his shop

I>

2"

cornice is taller than those in the paint-japanned and wal-

nut- veneered groups but shorter than later William Man ley group examples I>

Split top drawer plus an additional long drawer in the upper

I>

Cyma-curved side apron has a high center arch

case produce a tall stance I>

Each drawer in lower case has a single medial runner

I>

Wedge-shaped full-h eight drawer guides (panels) lie behind

I>

Cup-shaped pad feet are flattened on one side

I>

Tops of drawer sides are flat; dovetail pins are large and of

the muntin s flanking the lower case center drawer

average angle

I 4 T he gracefu l cyma-curved front and side aprons and long slender legs of this high chest are hallm arks of the W illiam M anley gro up. The lipped drawers and th e one -piece midmo lding are significant index features.

CAT A LOG

D imen sion s: overall H 68Vs" ; upper case H 37Vs" W 34¥S" D I61's"; lower case H 31" W 3i4" D 19%" M aterials: tulip poplar and maple (legs) with eastern white pine and oak Condition not es: traces of red paint , possibly original; some cotter-pin brasses may be original Publication: Sweeney, "Furn iture and Furniture-Making," p. uS6, fig. I HCFS 70 I.

W 1 L L I A M

MAN LEY

G R 0 U P

4I

Object files, Webb-Deane-Steven s Museum .

C ATALOG

IS

Flat-top high chest Possibly by William Manley Probably W indsor, q 5o-q60 P robablyfirst owned by Eliz abeth Wetmore ofMiddletown and Bez aleel L at imer ofWetherifield Priv ately ow ned

This high chest, the most mature and best crafted in the group, is significant, along with its related example, because of a possible link between its likely owners and the cabinetmaker, William Manley. It probably first belonged to Elizabeth Wetmore (I730-181Z) of Middletown and Bezaleel Latimer (1730-86) of Wethersfield, who married December ZI, 1749, and moved to Windsor's Wintonbury parish in 1755. The connection to Manley occurs in the Wintonbury church records, where the June 14, 1767, baptism of Elizabeth Latimer (prob ably Elizabeth and Bezaleel's daughter) is accompanied by the curious notation, "an apprentice to Captain ManIey.?' M anley, like the Latimers, was a Wintonbury resid ent, having removed there from Wethersfield about 1745. At his death Bezaleel owned a "redd case of draws" valued at £z.ro, his most expensive piece of furniture. "Redd" suggests the red wash often used on Connecticut valley furniture. Elizabeth and Bezaleel's granddaughter Hannah Latimer (1784-1853) of Windsor married Jeremiah Woodford (1783-1848) of Farmington in 1807. The high chest remained in their family until 1988.

A virtually identical high chest base, almost certainly by the same maker, descended in the Higley family of Simsbury. An early twentieth-century label tacked inside a drawer indicates that it likely was made for the April 7, 1757, wedding of Esther Owen (1739-181Z) and Brewster Higley (1735-18°5). The surviving account book kept by Esther's father, John Owen, dates from 1767, and it records a commission of furniture from "Captain William Manley of Windsor" for the 1769 wedding of Esther's younger sister Hannah. Given Manley's presence in the Wintonbury parish of Windsor, just east of Simsbury, it is likely that a similar purchase accompanied Esther's wedding. " Dimensions: overall H 6SW'; upper case H 32r's" W 34" D lower case H 32r's" W 36" D 18:j4"

18 1A";

M aterials: cherry with tulip poplar and yellow pine Condition notes: brasses appear original Exhibition: W adsworth Atheneum 1997, temporary loan HCFS 293

It is possible that Elizabeth was apprenticed to M anley's household to learn the "art of housewifery."

1.

2. Simsbury Historical Society, 1999.007; HCFS 428. The authors are indebted to Executive Dire ctor Dawn Hutchins Bobryk for her research on the John Owen account book, also owned by Simsbury Hi storical Society, and its connection to Willi am Manley.

EARLY

QUEEN

ANNE

CAT A LOG I 5 T his sma ll hig h che st is perhaps the mo st successful of th e examp les in th e W illiam Manley group. The cabine tmaker refined all aspects of th e design, from the cornice pro file to th e pad feet, and int egrat ed them into a simple but highly satisfying unit.

S INGULAR FEATURES t>

C herry as primary wood, which implies a date of production of 1750 or later

t> Uppe r case projects over back oflower case: a molding strip

applied to outside of lower case backboard provides support

c- Side apron has high center arch t> Each side drawer in the lower case has single medial runn er;

center drawer has pair of runners /guides t> Pad foot support has small projecting disk on the bottom, also

used by the Porter-Belden group and other later Wether sfield style work (see, for example, cats. 40

&

44)

t> D rawer sides are flat on top wit h both inner and outer edges

chamfered; dovetail pins are large, widely spaced, and have Iittle angle

W IL L I A M

M AN L EY

G R 0 U P

43

CATALOG 16 Flat-top high chest Probably Windsor, £745-£760, possibly £750 Probablyfirst owned by Mary Palmer and Phineas Wilson of Windsor Privately owned

T his unusually small high chest differs in many details from the other pieces in th e William M anley group, but its basic form is th e same. T he high chest descend ed in th e family of th e original owners . T he prese nt owner traces it to Sally Phelps (1799-1863) of W indsor, her grea t-grandmo ther, but the likely origi nal owners were Sally's matern al grandparents, M ary Palmer (1728- 1814) and Phineas Wilson (1728-1804) also of W indsor, who marri ed N ovemb er 21, 1750. At his death Phineas left "One case of draws" valued at $7.

SINGULAR FEATURES t> Short cornice, only IlIz" tall t> Unusually thick U's") upper case backboard; chamfered at the

edges in the Suffield carver group manner (see cats. 154-156) [>

Pairs of runner s support each lower case drawer

t> D rawer dovetail pins are large and widely spaced, with little

angle

Dimension s: overall H 63Vs"; upper case H 29Yz" W 31Y's " D 1834" ; lower case H 33Y's " W 34%" D 2 0 " M aterials: cherry with eastern whi te pine and tulip pop lar C ondition note s: knee returns missing; brasses replaced

HCFS 169 CAT A LOG I 6 This high che st, virtually indi stinguishable from those made in Wethersfield, has a solid history of owner ship in Windsor. It may reflect the circa 1745 move of cabinetmaker W illiam Manley from Wethersfield to Windsor. Like catalog IS, it has four upper-case drawers rather than the five of catalog 14. T he lower case retains the three-drawer configuration. By 1753 some W ind sor makers had added a long drawer and a carved shell to the lower case (see cat . 38).

44

EA R L

Y

QU E E NAN N

E

C ATALO G

17

D ressing table Possibly by Return Belden Probably Wethersfield, IJ40-IJ6o, possibly IJ47 Probablyjirst own ed by Lydia Belden and Charles Churchill of Wetherifield Connecticut Historical Society Museum, I945.I.II27, bequest of George Dudley Sey mour

I 7 This rare, early dressing table exhib its th e apron curves and cabriole legs characteristic of the William M anley group. No teworthy is the double ogee on the side apro n; most Weth ersfield examples have a high center arch. The top is a replacement .

CAT A L O G

W ILL I A M

MAN LEY

G R 0 U P

45

This dre ssing table was originally owned in the Churchill family of Newington parish, Wethersfield. G eorge Dudley Seymour, himself a Churchill descendant , purchased it from author and collector Irving W . Lyon , wh o had acquired it from another relative.' Charles Churchill (1723-1802) married Lydia Belden (1725- 18°5) on November 19,1747. At his death fifty-five years later Churchill owned a dressing table that the invent ory-takers valued at $1. Joiner Return Belden likely completed his apprenticeship with William Manley in Wethersfield in 1742, five years before his younger sister Lydia married. " The attribution to him is based on his kinship to the original owner. A related example is a virtually identical dressing table in th e Porter Phelps Huntington Historic House Museum collection in Hadley, Massachusetts. The probable first owners were Elizabeth Pitkin (1719-98) of H artford and Moses Porter (1722-55) of Hadley, Mass achusetts) They married in 1739, a plausible date for the dressing table; Elizabeth likely brought it with her as a wedding gift from her father. Another related example is the doorway from the Churchill hou se in Wethersfield, which Return Belden may have produced for his brother-in-law a decade or more later (cat. 17A).

CA T A LOG I 7 A This doorw ay from the Charles Churchill hou se has a scrolled pedim ent, Ionic capitals, rosette s, and sixpoint stars. It rank s among the finest mid -eighteenth-century examples in the region and may have been produ ced by Return Belden, perh aps between 1754 and 1763.

D imensions: H 27¥s" W 271;2" D 181;2" Materials: sycamore and maple (legs) with eastern white pine and yellow pine Condition notes: top and knee returns replaced; brasses replaced Publi cation: Seymour Collection, p. I28 HCFS 66 1.

S ING ULA R

F E A T UR ES

I>

Sycamore as primary wood

I>

Rail above the top drawer

I>

Pairs of runners support each drawer

I>

Tops of drawer sides have double astragal (a molding common in Massachusetts work); dovetail pins are of average size and

Sey mour Collection, p. 128.

angle

2 . Return Belden has been confused with George Beld en (1770- 1838), a distant relative.

3. A ssessment based on phot o inspection only; illustr ated in Great R iv er, no. 93; Sweeney, "Regions and the Study of M aterial Culture," p. ISS, fig. 9.

46

EAR L Y

QUE E NAN N E

Major Connecticut Valley Style Centers,

1750-1800

In the 1750S Connecticut furnituremaking entered a half century of development, growth, and expansion. Residents of river towns between Middletown and Springfield prospered as a result of commercial agriculture, flourishing trade with the West Indies, and provisioning of troops during the Seven Years' War (1756-63) and American Revolution (1776-83). Their prosperity combined with rising standards of gentility to greatly increase demand for case furniture, especially high chests, dressing tables, desks, and desks and bookcases. Some residents imported furniture from outside the region, but many patronized local craftsmen. Although artisans still looked to England and the major American seaports for signals of changing styles and innovations, distance allowed Connecticut cabinetmakers to become relatively independent of Boston and London influences. During these decades four major style centers dominated furniture production in the valley-Wethersfield, East Windsor, Colchester, and Springfield-Northampton. Workshops located in other communities produced smaller quantities of furniture that were generally related to those produced in the major style centers but sometimes highly idiosyncratic. The Wethersfield style emphasized form and proportion with a minimum of decoration. It appeared about 1730, following the arrival in Wethersfield of Charlestown, Massachusetts, cabinetmaker William Manley. This style achieved a position of dominance throughout Hartford County by 1750, and reached its zenith in the 1770S and 1780s with the production of elegant bonnet-top high chests and scalloped-top dressing tables by numerous shops both in Wethersfield and in surrounding towns. The East Windsor style originated some fifteen miles northeast ofWethersfield. About 1771 Eliphalet Chapin introduced skillfully abstracted Philadelphia designs in both case and seating furniture: rococo latticework, scrolled pediments with asymmetrical carved ornaments, and claw-and-ball feet on shortened cabriole legs, all in sharp contrast to the prevailing Wethersfield

M A

J0

R

STY L E e E N T E R S

47

fashion. Chapin's design gained considerable influence over the next two decades and flourished alongside that from Wethersfield. At about the same time, twenty miles to the southeast ofWethersfield, Samuel Loomis of Colchester and others established an entirely different aesthetic whose origins remain some thing of a mystery. Emphasizing mass and lively surface decoration, their Colchester style combined the closed bonnet of Wethersfield with carved rosettes, elaborate shells, columns, and clawand-ball feet. It also incorporated the blocked facades and flattened-arch aprons of Boston and Newport. The Colche ster style, too, became popular and widespread, with multiple second-generation shops appearing in surrounding towns; considerable variation in design and con struction implies that production was less tightly controlled than in East Windsor or Wethersfield. A fourth major shop tradition emerged north of the Connecticut border, in the Massachusetts part of the valley around Springfield and Northampton. Heavily influenced by coastal Massachusetts work, it is represented by blockfront desks and bookcases and high chests embelli shed with stylized vine-carved pilasters. Popular Boston forms, such as the bureau table (kneehole desk), were adapted and produced with skill and consistency. The principal shop masters remain unidentified. Substantial amounts of case furniture also were produced by workshops in other Hartford County town s. In Glastonbury, originally the eastern section of W ethersfield, cabinetmakers drew inspiration from two or more style centers and blended elements in interesting and successful ways. By contrast, furniture from Suffield, located between Windsor and Springfield, is highly individualistic, with relatively little relationship to th e four main styles. Each of the major style centers achieved, in its own way, a highly successful integration of design elements th at make s a clear, easily recognized statement. The evident proliferation of Ea st Windsor and Colchester

products suggests that the size and affluence of a community was less important for the development of a major style than the presence of a highly gifted and well-organized shop master. Neither Hartford nor Middletown, the leading port towns on the Connecticut River, succeeded in becoming a center of furniture production before 1790; this failure probably reflects the absence of a dominant craftsman more than a lack of patrons for his products. As a whole, the approximately 130 entries representing Connecticut valley case furniture from the four major style centers demonstrate their makers' extraordinary level of creativity and skill. These often magnificent products of independent spirits display a synthesis of diverse elements adapted by a century-old craft tradition to the taste s of the patrons who purchased them.

MAJOR

STYLE

CENTERS

2 Wethersfield Style

The Wethersfield Queen Anne style of cabinetmaking embodies an aesthetic of great simplicity and purity of line . This style dominated furniture production in Hartford County during the third quarter of the eighteenth century, prior to the emergence of competing style centers in East Windsor and Colchester. Well into the I790s, cabinetmakers turned out furniture that embodied the principles of thi s style at dozens of shops from Middletown to Glastonbury to Suffield, and beyond th e valley. The basic elements of the Wethersfield style are simple cyma-curved front and side aprons with a high

REG I ON- W I DE

S IGN IF IC AN T

I ND E X

center arch, and long graceful cabriole legs on pad feet standing on truncated con es. By 1750 a shell had repla ced the front center arch , and with limited modifications to the cyma curves of the apron, the few embellishments included carved shells, sunbursts or pinwheels, and fylfots. Bonnet top s seem to have appeared on high chests after 1770. There are countless examples of th e style, especially the ubiquitous flat-top high chest, produced in towns primarily west of the Connecticut River (cats. 17, 38, 39). Windsor pieces, in particular, are virtually indi stinguishable from those originating in Wethersfield itself.

F EATURES

High Chests and Dressing Tables Designand Decoration

Construction

o

o

Simplicity and elegance are foremost features: well-proportioned

After 1760 primary wood is predominantly cherry, occasionally

cases with cyma-curved front and side aprons, slender cabriole

with birch legs (earlier examples include mahogany, walnut, and

legs, and pad feet; carved embellishme nts include shells, sun-

maple as primary woods); seconda ry woods are usually eastern white pine and tulip poplar"

bursts, pinwheels, and fylfots; colum ns, pilasters, and claw-andball feet are rare

o

Ap ron shaping includes two distin ctive features that set th e work

o o o

o

D rawers in the lower case of high chests usually measure the same depth as th ose in the upper case; as a result, they are not

composed of two opposing scrolls'

o

D rawer runn ers in upper case are nailed to case sides; in lower case they are tenoned into, but not through, the backboard

cyma curves (in Salem furnitu re these are usually angled, form ing a point or "tooth"); Weth ersfield aprons do not have center drops

Drawer divider s and muntins are attache d with exposed dovetails th at are visible from the front

apart from similar-ap pearing products made in Salem, M assachusetts: small horizontal s (W' to W') separate, or interrupt, the

Backboard s of upper case are nailed int o rabbets in case sides

Bowl-shaped circular foot rests on a pad with angled sides th at

deep enough to extend all th e way to the back, leaving a large

form a trun cated cone

gap between th e drawer backs and th e back of the case

o

D rawer sides are rounded on top ; drawer dovetail pins are average in size and angle; drawer bottoms usually display frame-saw marks, rath er than those of a jack plane

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

49

William Manley's 1745 move from Wethersfield to Wintonbury, th en part ofWindsor, may be responsible for thi s strong connection. In th e thirty-nine entries that follow, more than seventy examples of Wethersfield style case furniture are organized into ten groups, based on empirically observed characteristics identified by the HCFS as significant index feature s. These groups are in turn associated with four town s-Wethersfield, Windsor, H artford, and Middletown-based primarily on histories of ownership. M ost groups include the work of more th an one sho p, quite possibly the result of production spreading from an originating master's shop to his apprentices and journeymen as well as his competitors. Other town s with well- docume nted Wethersfield style case furniture include Chath am (cat. 49), Gla stonbury (cat. 146), Suffield (cat. 157), H arwinton (cat. 34), and C olebrook (cat. 25), th e last two located more than th irty miles to th e northwest in Litchfield County, Co nnecticut.

50

The region-wide ind ex feature s of the Wethersfield style listed above are based on high chests and dressing tables, forms that dominated production from 1750 to 1770, when the style was preeminent. Index features of desks and desks and bookca ses are discussed separately (see pp. 86-87)' I. The auth ors are indebted to furniture scholar Kemble Widmer II for making this observation. See Sack, A merican Antiques, 6:1556 no. P4617, and 7=1921 no. P5297 for Salem examples.

2. A limited sample suggests th at use of maple as a primary wood persisted longer in W indsor th an elsewhere in the valley (see cats. 39, 4 1) .

WETHERSFIELD

STYLE

Wethersfield

The earliest as well as the most sophi sticated example s of Wethersfield style furniture have histories pointing to the town ofWethersfield as their place of origin. The wealth and prominence of this town and its citizens readily supported such production. Of the handful of pre-In5 examples of mahogany or walnut furniture in the Connecticut valley, most have a provenance from either Wethersfield or Middletown, its neighbor to the south (cats. 18-20,53). Historian Kevin M. Sweeney's exhaustive scholarship on Wethersfield furniture identified five groups of case furniture made by at least ten anonymous craftsmen working between IJ30 and IJ80. r The HFCS has added a number of examples to Sweeney's groups, some with good documentation, but the identity of most shop masters continues to remain elusive. Sweeney's first two groups predate IJ50; together they correspond to the HCFS William Manley group (see cats. 14-17). His other three groups correspond to the PorterBelden, Francis, and Willard groups, dating from the IJ50S into the IJ90S (see cats. 18-21, 22-26, & 27-34, respectively). The HCFS has also identified additional groups associated with Wethersfield. The Stocking

WETHERSFIELD

group consists exclusively of desks-on-frames from 1710 to 1800 (cats. 35-37). The output from two previously unidentified Wethersfield shops date s from the I79os-the Oliver Deming and Benjamin Newberry groups; their cabinetmakers combined earlier form s with elements of the new federal style that transcended not only towns but regions (see cats. IJ5-I80). Features distinguishing high chests and dressing tables in the William Manley, Porter-Belden, Fran cis, and Willard groups are summarized in table 2. Sweeney's research included an analysis of 786 probat e invent ories dating from th e r8th century and an examination of dozen s of objects with local histories; see Sweeney, "Furniture and Furn iture-Making," pp. IIS6-63; Sweeney "Furn itu re and th e Domestic Environment," pp. ro-39.

1.

TABLE 2

Distinguishing Features of Wethersfield High Chests and Dressing Tables

Grou p

Willi am M anley C ats. 14- 17

Porter-Belden Cats. 18-21

Francis Cats. 22-26

Willard Cats. 27-34

Approx. dates

1730-1760

175 0-1775

1760-1780

1770-1 800

Forms

Fl at-t op high chest, dressing table

Flat-top high chest, dressing table

Flat -top high chest, dressing table including scalloped-top

Flat-top high chest, bonnet-top high chest, dressing table

Primary woods

Tulip poplar, maple, cherry, sycamore

M ahogany, walnut, cherry, maple

Cherry

Ch erry, birch

Secondary woods

Eastern white pine , yellow pine, oak

Eastern white pine , tulip poplar

Eastern white pine, tulip poplar

Eastern white pine, tulip poplar

High chest: upper-case drawer configuration

4 or 5 long drawers of

Paired small drawers flanking shell-carved center drawer over 3 or 4 long drawers of graduated height

5 long drawers of

Flat-top: insufficient data Bonnet-top: short rectangular drawers flanking shell- or ±ylfotcarved tall drawer over 4 long drawers of graduated height

graduated height

graduated height

H igh chest: cornice height

Short (-2")

Tall (-3")

Short (-2")

Intermedi ate (-2lfl")

Dr essing table: rail above top drawer

Present

Absent

Absent

Present

Front -apron center shaping

Hi gh center arch

Pair of small pendant semicircles

Pair of small pendant semicircles

Pair of interm ediate pendant semicircles

Side-apron shaping

Hi gh center arch or double ogee

High cente r arch

Hi gh center arch or double ogee

Hi gh center arch

Carved decora tion

None

Wide-lobed concave shell with brass pull above; recess in apron below shell

Small shell with convex rays and brass pull above shell; recess in apron below shell

Fylfot or large shell with convex rays; sunburst or fylfor in center plinth; no apron recess

Knee return

Applied to front of apron

Applied to front of apron

Applied to front or underside Applied to und erside of of apron, canted apron, ogee shape, canted

Sweeney's group designation

Fir st and second

Third

Fourth

52

WET HER S FIE L D

Fifth

STY L E

Porter-CJ3elden group

This group is named for a well-documented matching mahogany high chest and dressing table believed to have belonged to Abigail Porter (I737-98) and Thomas Belden (I732-82) of Wethersfield. The group includes four high chests (all flat top s), three dressing tables, and one tea table, all dating from I750 to I775. That imported mahogany and walnut were used to make four of th e objects in this group speaks to the pro sperity of Wethersfield patrons.

S IGN IF ICANT

I ND E X

The high che sts and dres sin g tables have wellcarved, deep, wide-lobed shells in th e center dr awers; their cyma-curved aprons and long, slender legs became the standard for the Wethersfield style. Although th e makers remain unidentified, differenc es in details of design and construction suggest that even within th e town of Wethersfield itself more than one shop produced this formal case furniture.

FEATU R ES : CATS . 18 - 2 1

D esign and D ecorat ion

Construction

o

o

High chest upper cases have a tall cornice and a shell-car ved

white pine and tulip poplar predomin ate as secondary woods

center drawer flanked by pairs of small drawers above three or four long drawers

o

Upper- and lower-case carved shells usually have ten wide, con-

o o

recess in th e apron below the lower-case shell (see cat.

20A)

Front and side apro ns are cyma-curved; pair of small pendant

o o

o

20B)

Upper-case backboard s nailed in rabbet s at the case sides Drawer dividers attached with exposed dovetails, visible from the

o

Pad supporting the foot has a protruding center disk approxi-

o

Drawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pin s are of average size

mately lh" in diameter (also found on cat. 44A)

Well-shaped cabriole legs end in bowl-shaped pad feet on a tru ncated cone supporting pad (see cat.

o o

Full-hei ght and full-d epth vertical panels behind the muntin s

front

half-rounds are centered in the front; high center arch on the sides

Full-d epth dustboard/ support for th e upper-case small drawers enclose the upper- case shell drawer

cave lobes (creating an undulating outer border), and a curved

o

Cherry, maple, walnut, and mahogany as primary woods; eastern

Knee return s applied to th e front of the apron

and angle; drawer bottoms show frame-saw, rather th an jack-

Brasses line up vertically with those on the small drawers; a

plane , marking s (see glossary)

matching pull, placed on both center drawers above th e shell, is crowded in a small space

WETHERSFIELD: PORTER-BELDEN

GROUP

5]

C ATALOGS

18

&

19

Flat - top high chest & D ressing table P robably Wethersfield, I750-I775,po ssibly I753 Possibly first owned by Abigail Porter and Thomas Belden of Wethersfield Bro oklyn M useum ofA rt, I4.7I3, I4. 7I4, H enry L. Batterman Fund

These are unique survivors in Wethersfield case furniture-a matching high chest and dressing table, made en suite and of mahogany. They remained together in th e same house from the time they were made until the early twentieth century. Well-designed and wellconstructed, they typify Wethersfield work in the mid dle years of the eighteenth century; however, the choice of mahogany was unusual in the Connecticut valley in thi s peri od. Although once thought to have been owned by Ezekiel Port er (IJo2- 7S), thi s high chest and dressing table first appear in the estate inventory of Col. Thomas Belden (IJ32-82), who married Abi gail Porter (IJ37-98), Ezekiel's daughter, on August I, IJS3. 1 It is likely they were part of Abigail's dowr y. When the colonel died, "I Mahogany chest with drawers [valued at] £3.IO.O" and "I Mahogany dressing table £ 1.40" stood in the north chamber of their home. Three related examples-a tea table in the Bayou Bend collection, a scalloped-top tea table at the WebbDeane-Stevens Museum, and a balloon-seat side chair in the Garvan collection, also have a history of ownership by Abigail Porter and Thomas Belden (cats. I9A, I9B, I9C). The first is likely the "I Square Cherry Table [valued at] £1.4.0" in the north front room, the second is th e "I Scollop'd Table [at] 9s.," and the third, one of "I2 Cherry chairs [at] 416." The chair has the initials AP incised on the front rail." Two other related examples are a mahogany dressing table th at looks identical to the Porter-Belden dressing table, and a visually similar cherry and maple flat-top high chest that differs in several details from

the Porter-Belden high chest) These differences are sufficient to suggest that the high chest came from another shop. Dimensions: high chest: overall H 70Yz"; upper case H 35" W 35" D 18Vs"; lower case H 35Vz" W 3th" D I9¥.!"; dressing table: H 33\4" W 28¥s" D It A"; top 331's" x 20¥.!" M ateri als: mah ogany with eastern white pine and tulip poplar C ondition notes: brasses original Exhibition: W adsworth Atheneum 1967, nos. 81, Il9 Publi cations: L ockwood, Colonial Furniture, 1:100, fig. 98; Sweeney, "Furniture and Furniture-Making," p. II58, fig. 4; Sweeney, "Furn itur e and the Domestic E nvironment," p. 31 , fig. IS; Greene, A merican Furniture, p. 37 HCFS 90 & 91

L ockwood, Colonial Furniture, I: 100, fig. 98, is in error about the ownership.

I.

2 . Assessment of the first based on photo inspection only; see W arren et al., Bay ou Bend Collection, F63. T he second was exhibited at the W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 157; Concord Antiquarian Museum 1982, no. lIO; and illustrated in Brown, "Scalloped- top Furn iture," p. 1092. The chair has been exhibited at W adsworth Atheneum 1985, no. IIl, and published in Kirk, Ea rly American Furniture, no. 108; Kirk, American Chairs, no. 186; Kane, American Seating Furn itu re, no. 58; and Trent, "New London County Joined Chairs," pp. 43-44, fig. 5.

3. Assessment of dressing table (privately owned) based on photo inspection only; see Sotheby's, sale 7350 (October IS, 1999), lot 87, and Nathan Liverant & Son advertisement, A nt iques 157, no. I (J anu ary 200 0) : 28- 29. The high chest (location unkn own, HCFS 88) was published in Sotheb y's, sale 6392 (Janu ary 31, 1993), lot lI04·

C AT A L OG I 8 This mahogany high chest epitomizes the W ethersfield cabinetmakers' restraint in form and decoration. The relatively short upper case has a tall cornice and shells with wide deep lobes. The brass pull above the shell is a Wethersfield characteristic.

54

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

..

WETHERSFIELD: PORTER-BELDEN GROUP

55

I 9 The matching dressing table shares the same construction det ails and brasses as the high chest. There is no rail above the top drawer. The shape of the recess below the shell is typical of the Porte r-Belden group. C A TAL 0 G

56

WET HER S FI E L D

STY L E

CA TAL 0 G I 9 A An oth er piece owned by Abigail Port er and Thomas Belden, thi s cherry tea table has the same apron and leg profile as the high chest and dressing table; the heavy molded edge of the top parallels the cornice of the high chest. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Bayou Bend C ollection , B 69.349, gift of M iss Ima H ogg.

CATA L 0 G I 9 B T he apro n profile and legs of a second cherry tea table th at belonged to th e Beldens are different from th e other pieces and suggest another maker. The table is a triumph of design: a cyma curved top with no straight line visible on any edge. Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum , 1939.2, museum purchase.

CATA L 0 G I 9 c The Port er-Belden side chair may be the most successfully conceived of all Connecticut Qu een Anne chairs. A n unu sually tall back, slender splat, and the absence of stretchers give it except ional lightness and grace. C onstruction techniques associated with Ph iladelph ia appea r in this seat railhorizontal tenons for th e front legs and through - tenons for the rear, with a separate moldin g strip applied to the top edge. The small spur on each side of th e junction between the upper and lower part s of the splat is a Weth ersfield charac teristic. The needlework on the seat cover is original. Yale Un iversity Art G allery, M abel Brady G arvan C ollection , 1963.IO.

WETHERSFIELD: PORTER-BELDEN GROUP

57

C ATALOG

20

D ressing table Probably Wethersfield, I750-I775, possibly I76I Possiblyfirst owned by Hopeful Robbins of Wetherifield and Joseph Moseley of Glastonbury Privately owned

2 0 This rare walnu t and maple dressing table is similar to the Port er-B elden dressing table (cat. 19), but a num ber of subtle differences suggest production in another shop : the presence of a rail above the top dr awer; the shaping of the apron, legs, and feet; and th e dimensions-this table is 2" shorter and wider. C A TA L 0 G

58

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

Although visually similar to the Porter-Belden dressing table (cat. 19), design and construction discrepancies indicate this dressing table was produced in a different shop. The Buck family of Wethersfield owned this dressing table until 2003. The inventory of the estate of Winthrop Buck (1784-1862), the last owner's greatgrandfather, lists a dressing table, probably this one; the first owners may have been the grandparents of Winthrop's wife, Eunice Moseley (1793-1862): Hopeful Robbins (1735-1826) of Wethersfield and Joseph Moseley (1735-1806) of Glastonbury who married December 10 , 1761. Among the goods in Jo seph's estate was a dressing table valued at $1. I

°

CA TAL 0 G 2 A Shells with deep, wid e, concave lobes and undulatin g borders are typical of th e Porter-Belden group as well as contemporary exampl es made in Windsor and H artford. The entire shell is conc ave and has a conforming recess in th e apro n below. A later owner of the dressing table added a knob th at has since been removed.

S INGULA R F EAT U RES t> Walnut (top and drawer fronts) and maple (sides and legs) as

primary woods-an unusual combination t> Two-piece book-matched walnut top molded on four sides;

originally attached with eight pegs; the underside is chamfered to make it appear thinner

e- Rail above the top drawer t> Drawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins large and widely

spaced

D imensions: H 3r*" W 30th" D r8Vs"; top 35" x

°

CA T AL 0 G 2 B The bowl shape of the foot on thi s dressing table is typical of Wethersfield design: a gradual curve at th e ankle and supporting pad with angled sides th at form a truncated cone with a W' chamfer around the bottom edge.

22 "

M aterials: walnut and maple (sides and legs) with eastern white pine Condition notes: brasses replaced Publ ication: Sweeney, "Furniture and Furniture-Making," P: II58, fig. 5 HCFS 42

The Buck family owned a second dressing table (cat. 33), dating from r770-90, that also could be th e one to which the se estate inventories refer.

1.

WET HER S FIE L D : PORTER-BELDEN GROUP

59

60

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

21 Flat- top high chest Probably Wethersfield, possibly Hartford, I7S0-I77S, possibly ca. I7S9 Probablyfirst owned by Olive Smith and Abraham Deming of Wethersfield Privately owned CATALOG

The design and construction of this high chest are similar to the Porter-Belden high chest (cat. 18), but multiple differences in details indicate production in yet another shop.The location of this shop is uncertain. The original owners may have been Olive Smith (1739-1831) and Abraham Deming (1738-76), both of Wethersfield, who se circa 1759 marriage is a likely date of production for the piece. After Abraham's death, Olive married widower David Webster (1721-1806), a prominent Wethersfield lawyer. The estate inventories of both men list a high chest, quite likely the same object as Webster specifically designated the "case with draws" (valued at $5) go to his widow. Olive Smith Deming Webster lived to the age of 92, and her ownership of the high chest for almost three quarters of a century contributed to its fine state of preservation. The high chest then passed through female lines of the family before being consigned to auction in 2003.1 A related example, a flat-top high chest, is virtually identical to catalog 21 and almost certainly by the same maker. It descended in the Cheney family of East Hartford, having stood for many years in the homestead of clockmaker Timothy Cheney (1731-95) .2 Cheney's 1758 marriage to Mary Olcott (1738-86), also from Hartford's eastern section, is a plausible date for the high chest. His estate included a "case draws" valued at a hefty £5. This strong history of ownership raises the possibility that the craftsman who made both high chests had moved to Hartford after finishing his training in Wethersfield.

CATAL 0 G 2 I This well-proport ion ed flat-top high chest, in extraordinary condition, has a strong history of ownership in Wethersfield. It has a shor ter cornice th an the Porter -Belden high chest (cat. 18) and an extra long drawer in the upp er case.

WETHERSFIELD: PORTER -BELDEN

GROUP

Dimen sion s: overall H 71:j4"; upp er case H 36" W 35" D I7'Vs"; lower case H 353,4" W 3i/s" D 193jg" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine C ondition no tes: brasses original Publication: Sotheby's, sale 7865 (J anuary 16, 2003), lot 556 HCFS 415

In a January 13, 2003, conversation with the authors, the daughter of the previous private owner traced the histo ry of th e high chest as far back as th e mid roth century.

1.

2. HCFS 215; privately owned. The last family owner (the daughterin-law of Emily Cheney [1864-1952], who was the great-greatgranddaughter of M ary and Timothy Cheney) to th e autho rs, 1994, HCFS files. For a dressing table belonging to th e Cheneys, see cat. 45.

S INGU LA R FE ATURES t> Two-piece cornice of intermediate height (234"), above four

long upper-case drawers t> Rear leg post is "full-depth" of the stock, so that the knee does

not project to the rear behind the backboard (see cat. 21A) t> Supporting pad of the foot has vertical (rather than angled)

sides, no chamfer around the bott om, and no evidence to suggest it ever had a protruding disk on th e underside t> Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are small and of

average angle

CA TAL 0 G 2 I A A s seen in a side view of catalog 21, some cabinetmakers chose not to shape th e back of the knee on the rear legs, a treatment th at permitted this high chest to stand flush against the wall.

6I

:Francis group

T he Francis group illustrates th e evolution of Qpeen Anne design in W ethersfield from the Porter-Belden high chests and dressing tables of th e 1750S and 1760s to the final expression of th e style, exemplified in the bon net- top high chests of the Willard group of the 1780s and 1790S'The group is named for a flat-top high chest (cat. 22) in th e Capt. James Francis House, the only example in this group with a convincing W eth ersfield hi stor y. Sweeney ably argu es that this piece is th e produ ct of a different Wethersfield shop tha n th e objects in th e Porter-B elden group and that it probably dates from 1760- 80. Two other flat-top high ches ts and three scalloped- to p dressing tables have similar feature s. The two high chests (cats. 25, 26) were

S I G N IF I C A N T

INDEX

FEATUR ES:

CATS .

pr obably made elsewhere by W ethersfield-train ed craftsmen. The Francis group overlaps and shares features with both the Porter-Belden gro up and th e Willard group th at follows (cats. 18- 21 & 27-34); however, differences in overall prop orti on , apron shaping, and shell carvin g help to differentiate th ese three W ethersfield groups.

22 -26

D esign and D ecoration

Constru ction

o o

o

Smaller and simpler cornice th an in the Porter-B elden group appearance

o

Small, tigh tly carved shells with convex rays rather than widelobed shells

o o o

Dre ssing table top s have relatively littl e overhang No rail above the top drawer of dressing tables Knee retu rns applied to the fron t of the apro n, as in th e Port erBelden group, or applied under the apron and cante d, as in the

C herry as the predominant primary wood; eastern white pine and tulip poplar as secondary woods

Additional long drawer in the upper case, giving it a less boxy

o o o o o o

Upper-case backboards nailed in rabbets in the case sides Drawer dividers and muntins attached with exposed dovetails Upper-case drawer runners nailed to case sides Lower -case drawer runners tenone d into backboard No small center disk projects from pad under th e foot D rawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins of average size and angle; frame-saw marks on drawer bottoms

Willard group

W ETH ER S FI E LD

S TY LE

CATALOG

22

Flat-top high chest Wethersfield, q60- I780, p ossibly I762 Probablyfirst ow ned by Elizab eth H anmer and Timothy Francis of Wethersfield Wethersfield H istorical Society, Capta in]ames Francis Hou se, F7

This important middle period high chest has an unin terrupted history of ownership in Wethersfield.The tall cornice and wide-lobed shell of the Porter-Belden group have been supplanted in the Francis group by a smaller cornice, a compact shell with convex rays, and an additional upper-case drawer. The side apron profile is a double ogee, unu sual in Wethersfield furniture . SIN GULAR

I>

FE AT U RES

Small shell with tight rays above a recess that is narrower than the shell

C A TA L 0 G 2 2 This flat-t op high chest stands as one of the best-preserved and best-documented examples of Wethersfield high chests from the middle period (1760-80). It differs from the Porter -Belden high chest (cat. 18) in having a shorter cornice, a small recessed shell with tight convex rays, and ogee-shaped canted knee returns attached to the underside of the apro n. The finish may be original, a rarity.

WETHERSFIELD:

FRANCIS

GROUP

I>

Side-apron profile is a double ogee

I>

Ogee-shaped canted knee returns are applied under the apron

The probable first owners, Elizabeth Hanmer (1733-1814) and Timothy Francis (1732-1807), both of Wethersfield, married on March 10, 1762, which is a likely date for this piece. The inventory of Timothy's estate lists a "case of draws" valued at $3.50. Presumably Elizabeth kept the high chest until her death, after which it went to her son James (1767-1852), a house joiner who in 1793 built the hous e in which the high chest still stands. In 1795 James Francis was one of fifteen joiners living in Wethersfield. His account book indicates that he also made simple furniture, although none has been attributed to him specifically. He began working in 1789, which makes it unlikely he would have made this high chest, as by then its design was long out of date. ' Sally Griswold (b. 1790), whose name is inscribed on the side of the third drawer, was the daughter ofJame s's sister Lucy Francis (1765-1849) and her husband Caleb Griswold (1762-1837).

63

D imensions: overall H 70 rs"; upper case H 34rS" W lower case H 36" W 37I,4" D 20"

34~"

D 18th" ;

Materials: cherry with eastern whit e pine Con dition notes: left front leg side knee return missing; finish possibly original; brasses original Inscripti on: "Sally Gri swold" in graphite in nineteenth-century script inside left side third drawer Publication: Sweeney, "Furniture and Furniture-Making," p. II59, fig. 7 H CFS 64

James Francis, Account Book, 1789-1836, CHS Museum Library. Hi s house and its cont ent s remained in the family until Weth ersfield Hi storical Society acquired them in 1969. Wethersfield tax assessments, 1795, Connecticut Assessors, Warren Colle ction. Francis's account book documents case furniture purchases (a desk and two "case drawers") from Wethersfield cabinetmakers Benjamin Newberry and Israel Porter. Francis evidently did not own a lathe , as he regularly obtained turned elements from Newberry. This evidence supports th e view that Francis was not the maker of cat. 22. 1.

CA T AL 0 G 2 2 A The shell on the Francis family high chest typifies post-r zeo Wethersfield-area carving: small in relation to the available surface area of the drawer. The curved recess below the shell is narrower than the shell itself, and the pendant semicircles are small. Placement of the blind escutcheon above the shell is a common Wethersfield practice.

64

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

CATALOG

23

Scalloped-top dressing table H artford County, p ossibly Wethersfield, I76o-q80 L ocation unknown

Scalloped tops on dressing tables, tables, and bureaus are a quintessential design feature of the Connecticut valley aesthetic during the second half of the eighteenth century. Makers working in shops from Middletown to Deerfield offered shaped tops as an alternative to conventional rectangular ones. The design varies somewhat from town to town, but those attributed to the Hartford area are, for the most part, similar. I This particular scalloped-top dressing table with a handsome old finish is one of a cluster of dressing tables that display Franci s group characteristics but lack histories of ownership; they likely were produced in multipl e Hartford County shops.' There are three related examples, all scalloped-top dressing tables. One has nearly identical dimensions, but the shell and feet differ) A small raised disk on the underside of the foot is similar to that on the PorterBelden group. Dowels join the two boards of the top .

SI NGU LAR FEATURES [>

Side apron with high center arch

[>

Knee returns applied to the front of the apron

[>

D ovetail pins of average size but little angle, appearing almost square

D imen sion s: H 3IIh" W 301h" D 161h"; top 36" x 2I%" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine C ondition notes: bra sses replaced Publi cation: Sotheby's, sale 6954 (J anua ry 16, 1997), lot 203 HCFS 279

I. Brown, "Scalloped- top Furniture," p. I092. For an atyp ically shaped top see cat. 52C.

2 . This dressing table attracted wid e attention when it sold at Sotheby's on J anu ary 16, 1997, for $387,500 . D avid H ewett, "Winners, L osers: What 's H ot, What's N ot in 1997," M aine A nt ique D igest 26, no. 2 (February 1998): lB.

3. The nearly identical one is publi shed in Christie's, sale 8578 (J anua ry 18, 1997), lot 157; HCFS 283 , locati on unknown . The second is privately owned and assessed by photo inspection only; publi shed in Nutting, Furn iture T reasury, I: pl. 40 2; Cle arin g H ouse Au ction Gallery, De cemb er 9, 1982, lot 187; and Sweeney, "Furn itu re and Furn itu re- Making," p. n60, fig. 8. T he assessment of th e thi rd one, location unknown, is based on ph oto inspection only; publi shed in Sack, Fine Points, p. 196.

WET HER S FIE L D :

F RAN CIS

G R 0 U P

CA T A L 0 G 2 3 The scallo ped top of th is unu sually wellpre served Wethersfield style dressing table is typical of H artford County design. The apro n and leg sha pes, th e shell, and the absence of a rail above the top dr awer are all charac teristics of cabriole leg furniture from Wethersfield pro pe r. The overall effect is highly successful.

65

CATALOG

24

Scalloped- top dressing table Probably H artford County, possibly Glastonbury, £770-£790 Conn ecticut Historical Society Museum, I99I.J6.0, g ift of Ellsworth S. Grant

The front apron shaping and absence of a recess below the shell are features that overlap with the Willard group and suggest that this dressing table is somewhat later in date than catalog 23. Hartford collector H orace R. G rant acquired th is dressing table in the 1930S, possibly from th e H ollister family who lived in th e Eas tbury section of Gl aston-

bury. H e also purchased a chest-en-chest and another dressing table, which belonged to th e W arner family of Bolton and Gl astonb ury, who were related by marriage to th e H ol1isters (cat. 152).1Although this dressing table is quite unlike th e W arner family pieces, a Gl astonbur y origin is possible. Di mensions: H 31Yl" W 30Ys" D 17Y8"; top 35Yl" x 23V8" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine

S ING ULA R F EATUR ES [>

[>

Single board top, 7'8" thick, with rounded edges on three sides;

Condition notes: brasses replaced

attached with pegs

Exhibition : W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. ISO

Single semicircular drop in the center of the front apron

Publication: Brown, "Scalloped- top Furniture," p. 1094

(rather than a pair of small pendant semicircles); wider than

HCFS 120

normal center arch on the side [>

No recess in the apron below the shell

[>

Knee returns applied

to

1. Ellsworth S. Grant to the authors, 1993, HCFS files. Ownership of the dressing table in the Hollister family could not be verified.

the front of the apron

[>

Feet shaped by hand tools rather than turned on a lathe

[>

Drawer dovetail pins are large, with little angle

c;, -- - - - - - - - ....

°

C ATAL G 2 4 A T hese scalloped- top dressing tables (left cat. 24, right cat. 52) are the products of two different unident ified Hartford County shops. Knee returns are applied to the fro nt of th e apron on one and under the apron on the ot her. T he dressing table on th e right is slightly taller and wider, but shallower. The front-apron patt ern s are close but not identical. Perhaps the mos t striking differen ce is in the legs; th e ones on the right are slenderer and taper to almost nothing at th e ankle .

66

CA TAL a G 24 B View of one dressin g table (cat. 52) inverte d atop th e other (cat. 24) shows that the tops of the two dressing tables share the same design bu t are from different templates. The wider but shallower top of catalog 52 is made of two board s.

WET H ER S F IE L D

STY L E

2 4 This scalloped- top dressing table is a tour de force with endless curves, a top made of a single 2' wide board , and feet shaped with hand tools. Atypical shaping on the front and side apron s intimates that the maker worked in one of the smaller shops, probably outside Weth ersfield. CA TA L 0 G

WET HE R S F IE L D :

F R A N C IS

G R 0 U P

67

CATALOG

25

Flat-top high chest Possibly Colebrook, q8S-I8oo, probably q87-q92 Probablyfirst own ed by Wealtban Mills and Arah Phelps of Colebrook Privately owned

According to family tradition an itin erant craftsman made this high chest on site for Ara h Phelps's inn at Colebrook, Litchfield Coun ty, more th an thirty miles northwest of H artford, th e maker staying th ere with other workers during th e inn's construction in q8 7.1 Five years later Ar ah Phelps (q61- 1844) married his neig hbo r W ealthan Mills (1773-1 841), daughter of Keziah Filley (q48-1819) and Samuel Mills (Q45-1814), the marriage supplying ano the r likel y occasion for acquiring a high chest.' S INGUL A R FE ATURES I>

Upper-case center drawer has a sunburst placed below the center (rather than a shell) flanked by pairs of small drawers as in the Porter- Belden group

I>

Canted knee return s have an atypical weak agee shape and are

I>

Underside of foot is rounded; supporting pad is small and has

applied under the apron vertical sides I>

Dovetail pins are large, with little angle

Dimensions: overall H 72%"; upper case H 35%" W 34" D 18"; lower case H 36W' W 36W' D 19%" Materials: cherry wit h tulip poplar and eastern white pine Condition notes: brasses missing or replaced Publi cation : Nancy Phelps Blum, "A. P helps Inn at North Co lebrook," A ntiques 95, no. 3 (M arch 1969): 404-7; Skinner, sale 2258 (August 15, 2004), lot 87 HCFS 390

ancy Ph elps Blum (1914- 2001), great-granddaughter of Arah Phelps to the autho rs, October 8, 2000, HCFS files.

1.

2. The high chest is of a style appropriate for the 1766 wedding date of W ealth an's parents; they (like Phelps) had lived in Windsor prior to moving to Colebrook. H igh chests produced in Windsor in the 1760s are unlike thi s example (see cats. 39-41).

68

CA TAL 0 G 2 5 Probabl y made by a Wethersfield-trained craftsman working in northwestern Connecticut in 1787-92, this flat-top high chest displays feature s that had become fashionable about twenty years earlier. It resembles Francis group examples; however, it has an atypical below-cent er sunburst that originally had a brass pull or escutche on above it. The shape of the knee return and foot is unlike most Wethersfield work.

W E T H ER S FI E L D

STY L E

CATALOG

26

Flat-top high chest Probably H artford County, I770- I8oo Pr ivately ow ned

This elegant, tall high che st with original pierced brasses exhibits variations in its index features typical of high chests made relatively late in the period by accomplished craftsmen working in many town s in the Connecticut valley and elsewhere . Although easily recognizable as Wethersfield in style, details differentiate it from Wethersfield shop work. No early ownership history is available. Ebenezer Hall, who signed his name in chalk on the backboard, may be the Ebenezer H all (1731-1803) of Chatham who married Abigail Bailey (1730-r806) of Middletown in 1767; however, neither a high chest nor cabinetmaker's tools are listed in his estate inventory. No other Connecticut residents by that name lived in the region in these decades. S INGULAR FEATURES I>

Secondary wood is exclusively tulip poplar

I>

Cyma curves of the front apron are shallow

I>

Knee returns are rounded (not agee-shaped) and not canted

I>

Supporting pad of the foot has vertical, rather than angled, sides

I>

Dovetail pins are smaller than average with a sharper angle

D imensions: overall H 73*"; upp er case H 37l.h" W 36%" D 17%"; lower case H 361,4" W 38W' D I9l.h " M aterials: cherry with tulip poplar Condition notes: brasses original I nscription : "E ben' Hall" in chalk on backboard of the lower case

CA TA L 0 G 26 W ell-proportion ed and expertly crafted with a skillfully executed shell, th is high chest is representative of the output of man y Hartford C oun ty sho ps after 1770 . The apro n curves are shallower th an others in the gro up , and th e knee returns are convex rather th an ogee -shape d.

HCFS J9I

WET HER S FIE L D:

F RAN CIS

G R 0 U P

69

Willard C]roup

The Willard group represents the ultimate expression of mature Wethersfield production during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. It is the only Wethersfield group to include bonnet-top high chests. Their sweeping curves and arches as well as unparalleled grace and proportion set this group apart from other Wethersfield groups and epitomize the regional Wethersfield style. Ten bonnet-top high chests, two flat-top high chests, one high-chest base, and three dressing tables constitute the Willard group. The great preponderance of bonnet-top high chests in this group probably reflects both the popularity of the form by the 1780s and the success of a specific shop master. Despite the large number of surviving examples, some with good histories of ownership in Wethersfield, the shop master remains unidentified. The HCFS labels this the Willard group for the likely first owner of the best preserved and documented example (cat. 27). In the context of Connecticut valley cabinetmaking, Willard group pieces have great significance. The substantial number of virtually identical high chests suggests production in a large shop with several well-trained apprentices and/or journeymen. Just as Eliphalet Chapin was offering a limited choice in decoration between vine- or shell-carved drawer fronts, plus variations in the center plinth and finial design, so this Wethersfield shop offered choices between shell- or fylfot-carved drawers and between sunburst or f)rlfot carving in the center plinth of the bonnet. Additional embellishments, such as columns or claw-and-ball feet, evidently were not offered. The sole exception to the standard

formula is a high chest with two sunbursts in the tympanum and a pinwheel in the center plinth (cat. 29). References to bonnet-top high chests appear in Wethersfield probate inventories as early as 1757. 2 Data drawn from the surviving furniture, however, suggest that most Willard group objects date from the 1780s, raising doubt that locally made bonnet tops predate the

177°s. Notably, only two major museum collections have examples of this important group. Such underrepresentation may owe much to a simplicity that did not attract the attention of major collectors in the early twentieth century. Neither Lyon nor Lockwood included examples in their publications. Another factor may be misguided late nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury attempts to make Willard group high chests look like ones produced in Salem, Massachusetts) The side plinths and corkscrew finials found on several of the high chests represent "improvements" based on such misunderstanding (cat. 30). 1.

Sweeney, "Furniture and Furniture-Making," p. n60.

2. The Henry Ford Museum owns a Willard group high chest (cat. 30) and Colonial Williamsburg owns another (CWF 1994.84, discussed in cat. 27). For a Salem high chest, see Sack, American Antiques, 3:631 no. P1420, or Kemble Widmer and Judy Anderson, "Furniture from Marblehead, Massachusetts," Antiques 163, no. 5 (May 2003): 98, pI. 3.

WETHERSFIELD

STYLE

S IGN IFICANT

I ND E X

FEATU RES :

CAT S .

27-3 4

D esig n and D ecorat ion

Constructio n

o

o

o

Exceptionally well-p roporti oned cases with steep broken- arch bonn ets

used for legs; eastern white pine and tulip poplar predominate as

Corni ce moldin g wraps int o the bonn et cavity about 6" (rather

secondary woods

th an termin ating in a scroll or rosette in th e East Windsor or

o

Back of the bonnet cavity is closed with a slightly arched back-

o

and rabbets in th e case sides

over the cavity (see cat. 27A) Center plinth rises between two cutout circles, extends almost to the top of the bonnet opening, and is shaped to include a circular

o o

No side plinths Simp le pinecone -shaped finials, turned in one piece with a central plint h

Uppe r-case drawer runners nailed to the case sides

o

Tops of th e leg posts usually show a 41" chamfer on the inside

o

Lower- case drawers are th e same depth as th ose in th e upper case, leaving a large gap between the drawer back and th e back-

drawers have a matching fylfot in the center plinth; only one

board of the deep er lower case

o

Weth ersfield groups, which have a backplate with handle or an escutcheon above th e shell) D ressing tables have a rail above the top drawe r Fron t and side aprons are cyma curved, th e sides with a raised center arch; the fron t with pend ant half circles at th e cente r, which are larger than in earlier groups and extend below the horizontal plane of th e apro n Ogee-shaped knee returns are applied to th e und erside of the apron and are canted on the inside Long, slender cabriole legs end in pad feet shaped like a shallow bowl; well-d efined trun cated cone supporting pad is chamfered around the bott om edge

WETHERSFIELD:

WILLARD

GROUP

Drawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins of average size and angle; fram e- saw marks visible on underside of drawer bottoms

Brasses on the upper-case long drawers may be aligned vertically drawers have only small mushroom pulls (unlike earlier

o

Lower-case drawer runn ers are tenoned into, but not through,

wheel or sunburst in the center plinth; those with fYlfot-carved

with those on the small drawers, or may be inset; the carved

o

the lower-case sides betwee n the leg posts

th e backboard

Bonn et-top high chests with shell-carved drawers have a pin -

(cat. 30) has a sunburst and fylfor combination

o o

to

edges , visible when upp er case is removed

o

with a four-lobed fylfor

o

Up per case rests on the corners of the leg posts and on spacers tha t are nailed

Uppe r- and lower-case center drawers are embellished eithe r with simple carved shells of approximately twenty convex rays or

o

D rawer dividers and muntins are attac hed with exposed dovetails

o o

spool-shaped base, are moun ted at the front corners and on the

o

Full-d epth dustboardlsupport for the uppe r-case small drawer s tha t are visible from the front

midsection carved with a pinwheel, sunb urst, or fYlfot

o o

Topm ost backboard , whi ch covers th e bonnet area as well as the upp er th ird of the case, is nailed to the vertical bonnet supports

board that conforms to the curve of the bonn et arch; no roof

o

Bonn et has a pair of front -to-b ack vertical supports; the bonnet skin term inates at th is point

Colchester fashion)

o

Cherry as the predomin ant primary wood; birch occasionally

7I

C ATALOG

27

Bonnet-top high chest Probably Wetherifield, I770-I790 , possibly I78J Probablyfirst owned by Rhoda Welles and Daniel Willard ofWethersfield Privately own ed

This bonnet-top high chest has survived with minimal restoration, having escaped such later "improvements" as side plinths and elaborate finials. It conforms to all th e design and construction feature s listed in the group introduction. An early twentieth-century handwritten label glued to the drawer bottom of the lowest upper-case long drawer states: "This highboy belonged to Rev. John Willard's grand mother." That grandmother, Rhoda Welles (1756- 1827), had married fellow Wethersfield resident Daniel Willard (1753- 1817) on April 24, 1783. He was a prosperou s farmer in Newington pari sh and deacon of the church.I She was a sixth-generation descendant of colonial governor Thomas Welles (1598-1660). The Willards moved into the home that Daniel's greatuncle Jo siah (1691-1751) built in 1732, still standing on Willard Avenue in Newington. At his death in 1817 Daniel owned a "case of drawers" valued at $3. The high chest descended in the family to Rev.John Willard (1826- 1913), who moved from Hartford to Chicago, and ultimately it went to his grandson William Dayton Willard (1901-84), who moved from Chicago to Crystal Lake, Michigan, near Traverse City, where the high chest remained until 1988.2 There are six related examples: four bonnet-top high chests and two flat-top high chests . Three of the bon net top s are quite similar to each other and to the Willard family high chest. That at Colonial Williamsburg is essentially identical except for the placement of th e escutcheo ns and bra sses) That at the Alexander King H ouse, Suffield, has "T B" in white paint on the

CA TAL 0 G 2 7 This well-pre served bonnet-top high chest epitomizes the simple grace and elegance of the Wethersfield style. Placement of the knee returns und er the apron enhances the verticality. Form and proport ion prevail with orna ment limited to the finials, brasses, and simple carved sunburst and shells. The brasses on the long drawers are not inset. The cente r finial is a replacemen t.

2 7A In the W illard group the backboard closes th e bonn et cavity, which has no roof. On this high chest the carved sunburst on the center plinth mirrors the shell on the center drawer. The finial, plint h cap, and ring pull below the shell are replaced. T he dark spots above the shell are in the finish and do not signify the earlier presence of an escutcheon. C A TAL 0 G

upper-case backboard as well as the incised initials "BDM" (cat. 27E). Its singular feature s-a center plinth I" taller and W' wider than other Willard group examples, rounded rather than ogee-shaped knee returns, and pad feet with a wider supporting pad-suggest production by a Wethersfield-trained craftsman working outside the main Willard group shop. Joiners whose dates and location fit the initials TB are Timothy Boardman (1727-92) of Middletown and Thomas Bulkley (1758-97) of Farmington. Boardman, a Wethersfield native and uncle by marriage of cabinetmaker Benjamin Newberry (b. 1765) is a plausible candidate, but work attributed to him bear s little resemblance to thi s high chest. Bulkley was born in

WETHERSFIELD

STYLE

WET HER S FIE L D:

W ILL A R D

G R 0 U P

73

CATA LOG 27 B The W illard high chest never had side plinth s. The spool-shaped base of the finial rests directly on the cornice and bonnet skin, held in place with a round tenon inserted into a hole drilled into the case top.

CAT A L 0 G 2 7 c The four sides of the bonnet cavity consist of tympanum, two front-to-back vertical supports for the bonnet skin, and backboard. The cornice extend s about 6" into the bonnet cavity, thu s framing the center finial. The wood grain of the conforming supporting block for the center plinth runs vertically, opposite to that of the plinth itself Shrinkage over time may crack the plinth at its narrowest point, leading to often inappropriate restorations.

Wethersfield too, but his output remains unidentified. "BD M" also is unidentified but could be an abbreviation of Boardman. In the nineteenth century the high che st reportedly belonged to Emilley Hathaway (1795-1879) of Suffield and her husband Parkes Loomis (1792- 1869) of Westfield, Massachusetts; however, genealogical research has failed to identity plausible original owners among their ancestors.t One related flat-top high chest has five long drawers and no shell in the upper case. Its probable first owners, Mary Welles (1753-1825) and Epaphras Stoddard (1748-92), both of Wethersfield, married November 25, 1773. The inventory of Stoddard's estate taken nineteen years later lists "I case of draws" valued at £2, a substantial amount. The name of their daughter, Harriet Stoddard (1790-1863), is inscribed on the back of a drawer's D imension s: overall H 8IW'; upper case H 451h" W 35" D 17%"; lower case H 35* " W 3714" D 19" Ma terials: cherry and birch (legs) with eastern white pine Condition notes: side finials original; center finial, plinth cap, and some brasses, includ ing the ring pulls, replaced

C AT AL 0 G 2 7 D This Willard group shell is typical of tho se found on Wethersfield style high chests and dressing tables produ ced throu ghout H artford County in the last quarter of the eighteenth centu ry. Containing a varying number of rays that converge on an uncarved semicircle, their execution is often labored and imprecise. There is no escutcheon or pull above the shell as on earlier Weth ersfield pieces. The apron below the shell has no recess; the semicircular pendant drops, flanked by short horizontal sections, extend below the horizontal plane of the apron. The ring pull is a replacement.

Publications: G KS Bush advertisement, Antiques 135, no. 2 (February 1989): 356; Northeast Auctions, April 16-17, 1994, lot 560 H CFS 150

74

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

William L. Willard, "A Few Lin es Concerning th e Town , and It s People and Interests," typescript , Febru ary 9, 1917; copy on file at Newin gton Public Library.The auth or, a great-grandson of Daniel W illard, lived in Newin gton.

I.

2. D ealer Bernard G . Plomp to Guy Bush, August 20, 1992, copy in HCFS files. 3. Colonial Williamsburg 1994.84; HCFS 385. Another bonnettop high chest has added side plinths and an inappropriately restored lower-ca se double shell; Middlesex (Co nnecticut) H istorical Society 1956.1.8; HCFS 75; see Sweeney "Region s and the Study of Material Culture," pp. 157- 59, fig. 16. Another one, auctioned in 1997, has finials, the upper half of the center plinth, knee returns, and brasses incorrectly replaced, and side plinth s added; HCFS 302; published in R. Peter M ooz and Caro lyn J. Weekley, "American Furniture at th e Virgini a Museum of Fine Arts," Antiques II3, no. 5 (M ay 1978), p. 1056; Northeast Auction s, Augu st 2-3, 1997, lot 501. 4. HCFS 236. See H ostess H ouse, n.p. For an example attributed to Boardman, see Great R iv er, no. 99. Emilley H ath away's father came from Suffield; her mother came from Bennington, Vermont. Ho stess H ouse, the catalog celebrating th e 250th anniversary of the settlement of Suffield, posits Elihu Kent (l73rI814) as the original owner (one of his descendants was a different E mily H athaw ay), but offers no documentation. 5. Assessment of the privately owned Stodd ard family high chest based on photo inspection and report of Leigh Keno; see But terfield and Butterfield Aucti on s, N ovember 4, 1997, lot 5574, and Northeast Au ctions, Augu st 6-7, 1994, lot 628.The other related flat-top high chest has a shell-carved drawer at the top of the upper case that is flanked by pairs of small drawers as in the Porter-Belden group, but is otherwise similar to the Stodd ard family high chest; location unknown, assessment based on photo inspection only; see Sack, N ew Fine Points, p. 189.

CAT AL ° G 2 7 E This hand some and impo sing bonnet-top high chest, initialed "T B" and "BDM," is similar to W illard group high chests; however, features like the taller and wider center plinth and the rounded knee returns suggest it is the product of a different shop. T he side plinth s and all three finials are incorrect replacements. Suffield H istorical Society, Alexander King H ouse, 95.43-I.

WET HER S FIE L D:

W ILL A R D

G R 0 U P

75

C ATALOG

28

B onn et-top high chest Probably Wethersfield, I770- I790 Possiblyfirst owned by Th ankful Belden and Gershom Bulkeley ofWethersfield P riv ately ow ned

The center-plinth pinwheel, which has swirling rays instead of the more common sunburst, distinguishes this Willard group high chest. The finials incorporate a flatt ened ball similar to ones produced in Eliphalet Chapin's shop during the r770s and r780s (cats. 59, 6r). According to early twentieth-century family records, the high chest originally belonged to Gershom Bulkeley (17r4-r800) of Wethersfield, whose inventory lists a "case of drawers" valued at a modest $2. This and the "G B" inscribed on the backboard support the tradition al history, which mean s he must have acquired it long after he and Thankful Belden (172r-94) married in 1743.1 A wedding gift for the 1790 marriage of their dau ghter Chloe (r765-r8 25) to Frederick Boardman (q65- r82r) is plausible also. Thankful Belden Bulkeley was related to at least three woodworkers, being a cousin of joiner William Blin (r772-r844), a second cousin of cabinetmaker Return Belden (172r-64), and a more distant relative of cabinetmaker George Belden (r77o- r838). N one of the se family connections points

with any certainty to the maker of this piece. The high chest descended to the Bulkeleys' great-granddaughter Mary Boardman Webb (r829-r900), who in the r890s sold it to a distantly related member of the Bulkeley family, among who se descendants it remains.' Dimensions: overall H 8rW'; upper case H 45lh" W 35" D r8W'; lower case H 36" W 37lh" D 20 " Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Cond ition notes: finials original; top long drawer rebuilt; brasses replaced In scription: "G B" incised on upper-case backboard HCFS 289

1. The auth ors did not observe the inscription, which was reported in an appraisal document among the Bulkeley family papers (copy of the appraisal in HCFS files). Wethersfield tax assessments for 1795 (Co nnecticut Assessors, Warren Collection) list W illiam Blin among the fifteen joiners. 2.

Bulkeley family records, copy HCFS files.

CATA L 0 G 2 8 A pinwheel rather than the conventional sunburst embellishes the center plinth and the unusual finials incorpora te a flatt ened ball similar to th at used by Eliphalet C hapin (see cats. 59, 6r). The top long drawer is a replacement, the original report edly having been "kicked in" by a horse intent upon eating th e apples stored inside.

76

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

WETHERSFIELD:

WILLARD

GROUP

77

C A T ALOG

2 9

Bonnet-top high chest Probably Wethersfield, I770- I790, possibly I789 Probablyfirst owned by M ehitable Wilkeson and William Goodrich of Wethersfield Privately owned

Two large unique sunbursts in the tympanum, rather th an cutout circles, distinguish thi s high chest.' The small pinwheel in the center plinth swirls like that of the Gershom Bulkeley high chest (cat. 28); in other respects it conforms to characteristic features of the Willard group.

This example belongs to a seventh-generation descendant of the original owners, Mehitable Wilkeson (also spelled Wilkinson, 1765-1819) and William Goodrich (1760-1837), both of Wethersfield, who married January I, 1790. William, a blacksmith by trade, owned both a "high chest" and "case of drawers" at his death. D imensions: overall H 8IrS"; upper case H 4534" W 34rS" D I8W'; lower case H 36Ys" W 3rls" D 2 0 " M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: side plinth s added; lower-case long drawer rebuilt; finials and brasses replaced

HCFS 175 Eldred Wheeler Reproductions has used a similar design in its reproduction W ethersfield high chests.

1.

CATAL 0 G 2 9 This W illard group bonn et-top high chest has two large sunbursts carved in the tympanum. Alth ough dramatic, this detail alters the aesthetic effect by creating a much larger surface for the tymp anum. The side plinths are added, and the finials are replacements.

78

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

C AT ALOG

30

Bonnet-top high chest Possibly by Timothy M iller, fr. Probably Wethersfield, possibly Granv ille, M assachusetts, I770-I795 The Henry Ford, Jo.7I.8.I

This high chest, perhaps the mo st familiar of all Wethersfield bonnet tops, has been in the public eye repeatedly since the 1920S and was included in the bicentennial exhibition of colonial furniture that traveled to London's Victoria and Albert Museum in 1976.I It is identical in design and construction to other Willard group high chests, but it is distinctive in combining the rylfot drawer carvings with a center-plinth sunburst. Like so many examples, it was altered man y decades later by the addition of side plinths and Massachusetts style corkscrew finials. "Timothy Miller of Granville" written in chalk on a drawer back is intriguing. The character and placem ent of thi s inscription, like others found on eighteenthcentury case furniture made in the Connecticut valley, is more in keeping with that of a maker or apprentice than an owner. The words "of Granville" suggests the craftsman was at a distance from his home at the tim e he wrote the inscription. Granville is located justacross the Massachusetts state line twenty-five miles northwest of Hartford. The early settlers included two Timothy Millers, a father and his son. Timothy I (ca. 1740-1816), grew up in Middletown, Connecticut, and married there in 1765, but moved soon after, as his first child was born in Granville circa 1767. Timothy II (1771-1842) lived hi s entire life in Granville, marrying in 1798. There is no record of either one working as a cabinetmaker in Granville, but it is possible that Timothy II apprenticed in Wethersfield, near his parents' home turf, between 1785 and 1792, a plau sible date rang e for this high chest.

°

C A TAL G 30 This superbly prop ortioned high chest exhibits on its center drawers the Willard group's decorative alternative to the shell: the fylfot . Both designs are found in the Willard group in appr oxim ately equal numbers. Unlike other f)rlfot-decorated exampl es, however, thi s high chest displays a sunburst (rather than a third f)rlfot) on the center plinth. The side plinths are later additions; the M assachusett s style corkscrew finials are inappropri ate replacements.

WET H ER S FI E L D:

W ILL A R D

G R 0 U P

79

°

Four related examples have carved fylfots on the drawer fronts. Three are bonnet-top high chests that are virtually identical to each other (see cat. 30A). Unlike catalog 30 they all have a fylfot carved into the center plinth. The fourth is a dressing table that is essentially identical to the lower cases of the three high chests (cat. 30b).2

CA T A LOG 3 A This high chest , typical of W illard group design and construction, is noteworthy for th e absence of inappropriate restora tions. The brasses and finials appear original. Privately owned .

D imensions: overall H 81%" ; upp er case H 453,4" W 35" D I8lA"; lower case H 357'8" W 37lh" D I9%" Materials: cherry with tulip poplar and eastern white pine Condi tion not es: finials repla ced; side plinths added; br asses original Inscripti on s: "75 Timoth y Miller of G ranville" in chalk on outside of back of first long drawer; "Aaron" and other illegible inscription s on other dr awer backs Exhibitions: W adsworth A theneum 1967, no. 85; Yale University Ar t G allery 1976, no. II2 Publication s: N utt ing, Furniture T reasury, I: pl. 384; G reene , A merican Fu rniture, p. 42 H C FS 177

1. See Nutting, Furniture T reasury , I: pI. 384. L ond on was the second venue for Towards Indep endence, organized by Yale University Art Gal lery. 2. T he bonnet- top high chest (cat. 30A) was publi shed in Bonh am

& Butterfields, sale 74469 (J une 23, 2003), lot 1040. One of the other two (locatio n unknown ; H CFS 77) was publi shed in C hristie's, sale 7526 (Oc tober 24, 1992), lot 213. The other one (also privately owned; HCFS 72) was publi shed in Cle aring H ouse Auction Gall eries, W eth ersfield, August 6-7 , 1982,lot 250; "Clearing H ouse Sale in Old W ethersfield, Conn.," A ntiq ues and the Arts Weekly 15, no. 34 (August 20, 1982): 64, which shows it with pineco ne finials and no side plinths prior to restoration; and Sweeney, "Furn iture and Furniture-Making," p. II60, fig. 9, which shows it with corkscrew finials and side plinths two years later. The dressing table with £)olfot decoration (cat. 30B, HCFS Ina) is displayed with cat. 30 at th e Henry Ford Museum, although th ey may not have been made en suite; see HCFS files and th e Jul y 15, 1985, note by Ph ilip Z ea in th e H enr y Ford Museum object files. Assessmen t of th e d ressing table is based on a limited inspection augmented by dat a in th e H enr y Ford Museum objec t files.

80

°

CA TAL 0 G 3 B T his dressing table is one of two with a £)olfot carved on th e center drawer. It is likely from the same shop as th e high chests in this group, but its rarity suggests th at the sho p did not produce ma ny dressing tables. The Henry Ford, 30 .71.7.

WET H ER S F I E L D

STY L E

CATALOG

This high chest may have been conceived as a bonnettop and altered at the last minute at th e patron's request, perhaps because full bonnets were going out of fashion. Scribe lines and shadows on the back of the pedim ent and on the top board of the case behind the cutout circles are located where cabinetmakers would have placed the vertical front-to-back supports for a bonnet; however, there are no nail holes on either th e pediment or the top board to indicate attachment of a bonnet skin. Two horizontal glue blocks support the pediment from the rear. The backboard covers th e full thi ckness of th e top board. The front apron template is identical to th at on the Willard family high chest (cat. 27). A chalk inscription implies that H. B. Butler of South Hanson, a small town in Plymouth County in southeastern Massachusetts, once owned thi s high chest. Butler remains unidentified; however, as Hanson did not incorporate as a separate town until 1820, he is unlikely to have been the first owner. Histori c Deerfield record s state that the high chest belonged to the Hartshorn and Trumbull families ofTaunton, in Bristol County about twenty miles southwest of Hanson. Isabelle Trumbull (b. 1834) of Worcester, who married G eorge Hartshorn (r829-I90I) of Taunton in 1855, was the great-granddaughter of Obedience Belden (17 22-1804) and Jo seph Trumbull (1708-61) of Enfield, Connecticut.' How th e high chest made its way from Wethersfield to Enfield, Taunton, or South Hanson remains a mystery.

31

High chest w ith broken-archp ediment Probably Wethersfield, I 780-I80 0 His t oric D eerfield, III]

Dimensions: overall H 8r"; upp er case H 44:Vg" W 35" D 17\12"; lower case H 36Ys" W 37¥g" D r9%" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine C ondition notes: side finials missing; cente r finial and brasses appear original In scripti on : "H B Butler / South Hanson / M ass" in chalk on the lower-case backboard Public ation: Fales, Furn iture ofH istoric D eerfield, no. 447 HCFS r60

Obedience Belden was th e aun t of cabine tma ker George Belden and more distantly related to Return Belden, but neither connection points to a maker for thi s high chest.

1.

CA TAL 0 G 3 r This bonnetless high chest with a brokenarch pediment may have been altered between conception and delivery, at th e request of the buyer. Aside from an unu sual finial-a small corkscrew on a compressed ball-it is typical of th e Willard group. It originally had side finials.

WETH ERSFIELD:

WILLARD

GROUP

8I

CATALOG

3 2

D ressing table P robably Wethersfield, I770-995 Possiblyfirst owned by Sarah Saltonstall of N ew London and Daniel Buck of Wethersfield Priv ately owned

The drawer arrangement and short legs of this dressing table are unique, presumably a special order. In other respects it is typical of the Willard group. This dressing table has a long history of ownership in the Buck family of Wethersfield, along with an earlier dressing table (cat. 20). The first owners may have been Sarah Saltonstall (1754-I828) and Daniel Buck (1744- I808), who married December 3, I775. His estate inventory lists a great deal of furniture but no dressing table; however, the unusual drawer configuration may have prompted the inventory takers to use another name. Another possible set of owners are Eunice Welle s (I768-I8u) and Abner Moseley (1766-I8u) of Wethersfield who married in 1792. Their daughter Eunice (1793-I8I2) married Sarah and Daniel's son Winthrop Buck (1784-I862), whose probate inventory does list a dressing table. I D imensions: H 30Vz" W 29Vz" D

I7~ " ;

top 34" x 20Ys"

Ma terials: cherry with eastern whit e pine Condition notes: brasses original Publication: Sweeney, "Furniture and Furniture-M aking," p. n 6I, fig.

IO

HCFS 45

CA TAL 0 G 3 2 The decision to put an additional long drawer in this dressing table required that the cabinetm aker shorten the legs. The brass pull for the center drawer is aligned with the escutcheons on the long drawers.

1. M ore likely the dressing table in Winthrop Buck's inventory is cat. 20 .

82

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

CATALOG

33

Dressing table Probably Ha rtford County, I770-I790 Connecticut Historical Society Museum, I964.JJ .J, gift of Frederick K and Margaret R . Barbour

C A TA L 0 G 3 3 This dr essin g table is one of three in the Willard group (see cats. 30b, 32), and th e only one wi th a she ll on th e center drawer. The shell is sm alle r and carve d d ifferently than th ose on th e hi gh chest s. The top ha s an unu sually wide overhang that m ake s the case appear smaller.

SI NGU LAR FE ATU RES t> Top has an unu sually a genero us overhang and is ovolo molded

on four sides t> Small shell with tightly carved rays t> Pron oun ced chamfer on th e inside edge of th e front and side

aprons (as in the H artford John Robert s gro up, cats. 46-48) t> Drawer dovetail pin s are larger th an norm al, with a sharper

angle and long, coarse kerfs

This dressing table is the only Willard group example with a conventional shell on the center drawer. Like catalogs 27C and 31, it has a history of ownership some distance from Wethersfield. Construction and design details suggest the hand of a second -generation Wethersfield-trained craftsman. The dres sing table reportedly descended in the Bicknell family of Ashford in northeastern Connecticut.' Zachariah and John Bicknell lived there in 1790, and both married women from local families. None of the known cabinetmakers in thi s region worked in the Wethersfield style.

WET HER S FIE L D:

W ILL A R D

G R 0 U P

Dimen sions: H 313,4" W 301h" D !81h"; top 39Vs" x 221h" Materials: che rry with eastern white pine C ondition notes: brasses orig ina l Publications: Ba rbour Collection, P: 44; Ginsburg, "Barbour C olle cti on," p . 1099 HCFS 67

CHS Museum object file. N o suppo rting docu ments accompanied this assertio n .

I.

8]

84

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

CATALOG

34

Flat-top high chest Probably L itchfield County , I77o-I790, p ossibly q 8S Possiblyfirst owned by Candace Catlin and L ewis Catlin of Harwinton L itchfield Historical Society, I929.02.46

This high chest shares many features with the Wethersfield style generally, and the Willard group specifically. However, the shape of the apron and other details are unlike Wethersfield work, and it has a history of ownership in Litchfield County, more than thirty miles northwest of Hartford. Like the Phelps Inn flat-top high chest (cat. 25), this one was likely made by a Wethersfield-trained craftsman working in Litchfield County. Features shared with high che sts made in Wethersfield shops include the design and proportion (cornice, drawer arrangement, legs, and feet). The shared basic case and drawer construction features include frame-saw marks on drawer bottoms; shaped and canted knee returns applied to the underside of the apron; and lower case drawers that do not extend to the back of the case. According to a label attached to one drawer, Litchfield Historical Society found the high chest among the furni shings of the Tapping Reeve house, which the society acquired from the Woodruff family in 1929. The house had been purchased by Lewis B. Woodruff (1809-75) , and it s contents reportedly descended in his family, all of whom were Litchfield area residents, for three generations. This high chest reportedly belonged to Lewi s's mother, Candace Catlin Woodruff (1786-1871), whose parents, Candace Catlin (1767- 1845) and second cousin Lewi s Catlin (1758-1839), had married on June 26, 1785, a plausible date for the

SINGULAR FE AT U RES I>

Front and side aprons incorporate a series of flat arches and pendant drops, as in the Springfield- Northampton style (cat. 129)

I>

Drawer dovetail pins are large and have little angle

CA TAL a G 3 4 The maker of thi s sophisticated flat-top high chest was intimately familiar with Wethersfield shop practices; however, he created an unusual front apron with pendant drop s. The grain painting probably dates from the ninete enth century.

WETHERSFIELD:

WILLARD

GROUP

high chest. 1 The Catlins were from Harwinton, eight miles east of Litchfield. A related example, a bonnet-top high chest with a similar front and side apron profile, has no ownership history (HCFS 140; cat. 34A). Its drawer dovetail pins are large, widely spaced, and of average angle, but in other details of design and construction, th e high chest, which never had side plinths or finials, conforms to Willard group practices. Dimension s: overall H 71"; upp er case H 35" W 35" D 18I,4" ; lower case H 36" W 37Yz" D 19¥!" Materials: cherry with eastern white pin e C ond ition notes: grain painting probably nineteenth century; pend ant drops replaced; brasses original Exhibition: Lit chfield Hi stor ical Society 1969, no. 47 HCFS 3I7

Ownership history based on informati on in Litchfield Hi storical Society files; copy HCFS files.

I.

CA TAL a G 3 4 A T his Weth ersfield style bonn et-t op high chest is one of many, made th roughout H artford Co unty and beyond, that are difficult to place. It follows W illard group design and construction closely, except for the anomalous apro n shaping and pend ant drops. T he maker probably learn ed his trade in Weth ersfield. Privately owned.

Jtocking group

The Queen Anne bandy-leg desk-on-frame and deskand-bookcase-on-frame enjoyed a surge of popularity throughout Hartford County during the second half of the eighteenth century. Their production was most heavily concentrated in the towns south of Hartford and in Suffield to the north; the preference for a frame instead of a fixed base appears to have been a local phenomenon. A number of desks with attached bases are documented to Hartford proper, the Chapin school, and the Colchester style. The Stocking group, named for Luther Stocking, an early owner, includes four very similar desks-on-frame plus a related scalloped-top table with drawer. All five are exceptional in their quality of design and execution, and the desks are particularly notable for their complex, fitted interiors and their secret compartments-making them quite unlike other case furniture forms from Wethersfield. Although commonalities among the desks suggest that one or more shops specialized in making them, the shop master or masters remain unidentified. One desk has a strong history of ownership in the Kensington parish of Berlin, making a group attribution to cabinetmaker Aaron Roberts (1758-r83r), the only joiner identified in the 1797 Berlin tax list, very tempting.' Much case furniture has been attributed to him with little corroborating evidence. Born in Middletown, he is believed to have trained in Wethersfield and would presumably have worked in the Wethersfield style; however, the only piece of furniture linked to Roberts, based on an unconfirmed history in his family, is a

86

chest-orr-chest in the Colchester style." Without further concrete evidence, an attribution of the Stocking group of desks to Roberts would be based solely on his geographic proximity, a shaky proposition at best. Luther Stocking's second cousins, Eber Stocking (1756-r828) and Steven Stocking (1758-r817), joiners in Chatham, are less plausible candidates. No furniture has been attributed to them specifically. Connecticut Assessors, Warren Collection. Berlin was incorporated as a town in I785 and included the Kensington parish of Farmington plus sections of Wethersfield and Middletown; Barber, Connecticut Historical Collections, p. 65. In the r8th century the town was distinguished by its tin manufactories. Today, much of what was then Kensington is in the city of New Britain, incorporated in r850. I.

2. Bulkeley, "Aaron Roberts," pp. 1-2. For a discussion of misattributions by Luke Vincent Lockwood and subsequent genera tions of dealers and collectors, see Bulkeley, "Aaron Robert s' Attributions," p. 7. See [Kirk], Connecticut Furniture, no. 98, for the Roberts family chest-on-chest, which was unavailable for examination by the HCFS team .

3. Two desks-on-frame, one with a bookcase, have a similar arcaded apron on both the front and sides but little else in common with the Stocking group: one (HCFS 359, privately owned) remains unpublished but has a history of ownership in Norwich; the other, illustrated in Sack, American Antiques, 7:I773 no. P5oo7, is also attributed to Norwich.

WETHERSFIELD

STYLE

SIGNIFICANT IND EX

FEATUR E S:

CATS.

35-3 7

D esign and D ecoration

Construction

o

o

Three desks rest on virtually identic al frames with a front apron

and dressing tables (see. p. 47)

of repetitive evenly spaced scallops flanked by spurs, and a

o o

double-agee side apron with the same flanking spurs) The fourth frame has a cyma- curved apron with a central shell

o

o

Backboards are nailed in rabbets in th e case sides and top Drawer dividers and muntins are attached with exposed dovetails that are visible from th e front

Two desks have an interi or layout similar to that of Boston desks-double row of drawers below a row of valanced pigeon -

o

Drawer runners are nailed to the case sides

holes, flanking a prospect; two have an amphitheatre inter ior

a

Drawer construction varies: two desks have rounded drawer sides

with a single row of drawers

and large average-a ngle dovetail pins; two have flat drawer sides

All four desks have an identical, unu sually complex series of

and large dovetail pins with little angle; bottoms show jack-plane

secret compartments and drawers behind the prospect, with a

marks rather th an frame-saw marks found on most other

well below th e writing surface behind the top long drawer-

W eth ersfield pieces

features highly unusual for Conn ecticut desks (see cat. 35D)

o

Case construction is similar to that of W eth ersfield high chests

Three desks have carved shells in the prospect with pricked decoration outlining the perimeter; th e shells vary but are similar in execution

o

Three desks have similarly turned split spindles frontin g false

o

All four desks have simple rounded knee return s applied

o

Three desks have well-arti culated c1aw-and-ball feet in front and

document drawers to

the

front of the apron pad feet in back; one has square pad feet that are fluted on top

WETHERSFIELD

STOCKING

GROUP

CA T A L 0 G 3 5 The Stockin g desk-an-frame represents the ultimate expression of this form in the Wethersfield style: a complex interior, arcaded apron, claw-and-ball feet, and original pierced brasses. Wethersfield cabinetmakers used claw-and-ball feet mostly on desks.

88

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

CATALOG

35

D esk-on-frame Possibly Berlin or Middletown, q 80-Q95 Probablyfirst ow ned by Luther Stocking of Berlin Connecticut Historical Society Museum, I9601 7' gift of Frederick K and Margaret R. Barbour

From the meticulous execution of the interior to the oversized pierced brasses and elaborate frame, this is as fine a desk as a patron could obtain. It is the only one in the group with a shell-carved prospect door. Luther Stocking (I752-r83r), a tanner who served as tax collector for the town of Berlin, is the probable first owner of the desk; one of his tax rolls was found in a secret compartment. In I797 his tax was $I7, an average rate for a trade sman.I His occupation and modest tax assessment make ownership of such an elaborate desk a little surprising; however, Stocking grew up in a wellconnected and affluent Middletown family. There are two related examples. One appears nearly identical to Stocking's desk-on-frame, with minor difference s in the desk interior (cats. 35c, 35D). The other, a scalloped-top table with drawer (cat. 35E), was possibly produced in the same shop. "

C A TAL 0 G 3 5 B The frame has well-carved clawand- ball feet in front and W eth ersfield style pad feet in the rear. The toes have rounded undefined knuc kles; the ball shape is tall, like a D elicious apple. T he sideapro n profile is a double ogee flanked by an arch and spur. The knee return is applied to the front of the apron. The base moldi ng repeats the profile of the midm olding used on W ethersfield high chests. This frame has no suppor ting struts, so the desk rests on the leg posts and rails.

CA TAL 0 G 3 5 A The layout of the Stocking desk interior is similar to those made in coastal M assachusetts. The wedge-shaped carved shell has pricked decoration at the perimeter. The flankin g split spindles are applied to false document drawer s. The deceptively simple prospect exterior belies an amazing complex of concealed compartments and drawers.

CA TA L 0 G 3 5 c This desk-on -fr ame has a shell-carved drawer below two valanced pigeonh oles (instead of a prospect door) and simp ler spindles and brasses but is otherwise identical to the Stocking desk (cat. 35). Privately owned.

WET HER S FIE L D:

S T 0 C KIN G

G R 0 U P

89

CA TAL 0 G 3 5 0 T he entire prospect of catalog 35C, which is ident ical to th at of catalog 35, can be pulled out of the center of th e desk interior once a concealed catch is depressed. This provides access to the drawers and pigeonholes on the back of the unit, and to a well below the writin g surface located behind the top long drawer. The several small boxes could hold coins, jewelry, or other valuables. Even the most extravagant Conn ecticut desks and bookcases rarely provide such intric acies.

Dimensions: overall H 43~"; desk H 33¥.!" W 38¥.!" D frame H lOY.!" W 42Y.!" D 2I~"

18 ~ " ;

Materials: cherry with tulip poplar, eastern white pine, and maple Condition notes: brasses original Exhibition: Concord An tiquarian Museum 1982, no. 93 Publicati on: Barbour Collection, pp. 58-59 HCFS 79

Co nnecticut Assessors, W arren Collection. Stocking's wife, Sarah Goo drich (1753-1829) came from W eth ersfield. For a contemporaneous Weth ersfield style bonnet-top high chest possibly made in Middletown or C hatham for A nna Sheldon and ] ozeb Stocking (Lu ther's cousin) , see cat. 50.

1.

2. Assessmen t of the related desk-on-frame based on photo inspection only.T he table was exhibi ted at W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 162, and published in Barquist, American Tablesand L ooking Glasses, no. 38. For a similar table, see Brown, "Scallopedtop Furniture," p. 1094, fig. 3.

90

C ATA L 0 G 3 5 E This scalloped-top table with a drawer displays the grace and liveliness of W ethersfield craftsmanship at its very best, and may have come from the same shop as the Stocking desk-on-frame. The arcaded apron is similar. The scalloping of the top echoes th at on many dressing tables (see, for example, cats. 24,52, or 117). The unfinished back implies th at it was intended to stand against the wall rather th an in th e middle of a room . Yale Un iversity Ar t G allery, M abel Brady Garvan Collection, 1930.2604.

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

CATALOG

36

D esk-on-frame Possibly Berlin or Middletown , q 80- I8oo Wadsworth Atheneum Museum ofArt, I92I.370, gift ofMrs. Gurdon W Russell

Although the interiors are laid out differently catalogs 35 and 36 have similar valance and split-spindle designs as well as identical secret compartments and frames. These combine to suggest that the two desks came from the same shop. This desk-on-frame belonged to Gurdon W . Russell (1815-1909), a prominent Hartford physician. His ancestors included members of the Wadsworth and Wright families whose roots stretched to Middletown, Wethersfield, and Hartford.

S ING ULAR F EAT UR ES I>

Int erior configured as an amphitheatre with a single row of

I>

Carved shell has incised rays, as in the Colchester style

I>

No prospect door

I>

Wide horizontal board across the front part of the frame

drawers (see also cat. 37)

rabbeted into the side rails to support the desk I>

Drawer sides are flat on top; dovetail pins are large and with Iittle angle

°

CA TA L G 3 6 This desk-on-frame includes all th e complexities of the Sto ckin g desk-on-frame (cat. 35) plus an amphitheatre interior. The carved shell with incised rays resembles th ose on Colchester style furniture.

Dimensions: overall H 441,4"; desk H 34" W 40" D 193/8"; frame H 101,4" W 42h" D 20 3,4" M aterials: cher ry with eastern white pine Cond ition notes: knee returns and brasses replaced Exhibition: W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 122

HC FS 233

WET HER S FIE L D:

S TOe KIN G

G R 0 U P

9I

C AT ALOG

37

D esk- on-frame Possibly Berlin or M iddletown, q8S- I8oS Yale Un iv ersity A rt Gallery, I95£·S6.I, gift ole. Sanford B ull, B.A. I893

This unu sually designed desk-on-frame is tied to the Stocking group by numerous shared index characteristics and especially its secret compartments. The design of th e frame, however, is closer to Nathaniel Brown's desk-on -frame (cat. 53) than to the other examples in the Stocking group. Neoclassical motifs (in this case, Ionic capitals) and a blend of disparate design elements (blocked facade, cyma- curved apron, and square pad feet fluted on top) are hallmarks of furniture production in th e 1790S' The added weight of luxurious and unu sually den se mahogany put considerable stress on the frame and bandy legs. Di mensions: overall H 44J,4"; desk H 341,6" W 361,4" D 18"; frame H 9:y.j" W 38W' D I9W' M aterials: mahogany with eastern white pine and tulip poplar Con dition notes: base molding and brasses replaced Exhibitio n: Wadsworth Atheneum 1967, no. rr6; W adsworth Atheneum 1985, no. !O7 Pub lications: W ard, American Case Furniture, no. 161; Kirk, Early American Furniture, pp. 162-63 , fig. 167

HCFS 418

CA T AL 0 G 3 7 T his mahogany desk-on-frame displays a virtually unique reverse-blocked facade, featuring recessed outer panels topped by Ionic capitals with simple volutes. Aside from the serpentine side drawers, the amphitheatre interior is quite like th at of th e Russell desk-on-frame (cat. 36). T he apron profiles and bandy legs are pure Wethersfield design, although the square and fluted feet are atypical.

92

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

Windsor 'Timothy,(gomis group

By the I750S the rich period of experimentation with the Queen Anne style that characterized Windsor cabinetmaking during the preceding decades had run its course. William Manley, who had likely established a successful version of the style in Wethersfield, moved north to Windsor around 1745. A 1753 dated high chest, attributed to Windsor cabinetmaker Timothy Loomis III (1724-86), exhibits all of the design features of the Wethersfield style (cat. 38).1 From the early 1750S until the 1771 arrival of Eliphalet Chapin, case furniture made in Windsor is virtually indistinguishable from that made elsewhere in Hartford County. Timothy Loomis III played a major role in Windsor furnituremaking during this period. His account books paint a fascinating picture of the varied activities of a mid-eighteenth-century Connecticut valley joiner, and his 1759 and 1760 price lists for furniture provide an illuminating comparison with the Hartford cabinetmakers' 1792 price list . Furniture historian William N. Hosley, Jr., attributed a pair of flat-top high chests to Loomis based on their histories of ownership in Windsor (see cats. 39, 41).2 The HCFS study identified two other high chests, a desk-on-frame, and several clock cases from this period that also have convincing Windsor histories (cats. 38, 40 , 42, 43). A flat-top high chest cut off at the knees, but still owned by a direct descendant of the original owner, persuasively links several of these objects to Timothy Loomis's shop (cat. 38). Painted in large letters on the upper- and lower-case backboards are the initials and date "TL / 1753," the earliest dated inscription on a piece of Wethersfield style case furniture . The initials match none of the current owner's ancestors but do match Timothy Loomis III, then 29 years old . A closely related high chest dated 1760 (cat. 39), which descended in a branch of the Loomis family, strengthens the attribution. The group also includes early clock cases attributed to Loomis (cat. 43).

WINDSOR : TIMOTHY

LOOMIS

GROUP

Two other high chests and the desk-on-frame (cats . 40, 41, 42) are sufficiently dissimilar from the above and from one another that they are likely not from the Timothy Loomis shop . Furthermore they are from differen t parts of the town-one from the northern section (present-day Windsor Locks), one from Windsor itself, and one possibly from East Windsor. Since Loomis and most other joiners in these years were not full-time cabinetmakers, each buyer likely turned to the most accessible craftsman. As the Timothy Loomis group includes work from multiple shops, index features are described in each entry. 1. For Manley, see Sweeney, "Furniture and Furniture-Making," p. IIS6. The similarities of thi s high chest to those in the William Manley group (see cats. 14, 16, 17) suggest that Lo omis apprenticed with Manley or worked as a journeyman in his shop.

2. Ho sley,"Timothy Loomis," pp. 127-51, price list p. ISO. A third furnituremaker known to have been active in Windsor in the 17SOS and 1760sis Zebulon Hoskins (1727-68); his ledger (1749-68, CHS Museum Library) include s furniture transactions, althou gh no specific pieces have been traced to him.

93

CATAL OG

38

Flat-top high chest P robably by Timothy Loomis III Probably Windsor, I753 Probablyfirst owned by Sarah Strick land Timothy Strong of Windsor Pri vately owned

of Simsbury and

This amp utee is an important document, th e earliest surviving dated example of th e W ethersfield Queen Anne style. The inscription s "T L / 1753" on both upp erand lower-case backboard s and "Sarah Strong" in a drawer establish the presence of th e W ethersfield style in Windsor and tie it to an identified cabinetmaker. T he high chest survives in th e family for which it was made, largely ign ored by outsiders because of its crippled condition. According to Timothy Lo om is's 1759 price list, a map le high ches t such as this sold for £2.9. 0, and a cherry one went for 5S. more.' The design is quite close to th e W ethersfield PorterBelden group high chests (cats. 18, 21), except that the cornice is smaller and a split top drawer has replaced the paired small drawers flankin g a tall shell drawer. S I GN IF I CA NT INDEX FEATURES

o o o

Mapl e and sycamore as primary woods Full-depth dustboardlsupport below the top drawers Drawer dividers and muntins dovetailed through the case sides and drawer divider, respectively, are visible both from the front and from the side

o

Paired struts (front-to-back support s) for the upper case rest in cutouts in the lower-case backboard and on the front rail

o

Upper part of the rear leg post is full depth (as viewed from the side), so that the knee does not protrude beyond the case back, allowing the case to be flush against the wall (as in cat. 2IA)

o Crude drawer construction; heavy stock and rough finish o Tops of the drawer sides have double astragal, not always complete (as in cat. IS); dovetail pins of average size with little angle;

CA TAL 0 G 3 8 The virtually square upper case has a heavy cornice and four rows of drawers. The lower-case shell and apron profile are typica l of the Wethersfield style and very similar to the contemporary Porter-Belden group. The high chest is virtuall y unre sto red, although it long ago lost its four legs. Paint originally covered the map le and sycamore facade ,

no frame-saw marks

94

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

This high chest was almost certainly made by Timothy Loomis III (1724-86) for Sarah Strickland (q24-69) of Simsbury, west of Windsor. She married Timothy Strong (qr9-r803) of Windsor, on December 26, Q53 . Their daughter, also named Sarah (1758-r8r6), moved with her family to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, by 1786, without taking the high chest. Abi Strong (1773-r86o), Timothy's daughter by his second wife, Abi Gowdy (r742-92), married Benjamin Grant (Q68-r849) in Q9r and moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, by r8r2, also leaving the high chest behind. It descended in the family of Benjamin's only close relative in Ea st Windsor: cousin Roswell Grant (1746-r834).2 Dimensions: upper case H 32¥.!" W 35Ys" D 18W' ; lower case

W 37%" D 19¥.!" Ma terials: maple and sycamore (rails and drawer dividers) with eastern white pine Co ndition notes: all four legs are missing from the knee down; brasses original (one missing above the shell) Inscriptions: "T L / I?53" in black paint on upper- and lower-case backboards; "Sarah Strong" in ink, on an upper- case drawer side Publication: Kugelman & Kugelman, "Hartford Case Furniture Survey," p. 36A H C FS IS

1. Loomis's price list offers round tables, desks, and high chests both in maple and cherry; see H osley, "T imothy Loomis," pp. ISO-51, or Great R iver, p. 214, for a transcripti on.

2. Stiles, Windsor, 2:316 , 754; present owner to the auth ors, March 20, 1991, H CFS files.

WINDSOR: TIMOTHY

LOOMIS

GROUP

CATAL 0 G 3 8 A T he "TL" painted on the upper- and lowercase backboards of the high chest likely stand s for cabinetmaker Timoth y Loomi s III and th e "I?53" for the year he made the high chest for W ind sor bride Sarah Strickland Stro ng, whose name is inscribed on a drawer side. This image has been digitally enh anced to increase th e legibility of th e inscription.

95

96

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

CA T ALOG

39

Flat-top high chest Probably by T im othy Loomis III P robably Win dsor, I760 P robably first ow ned by Jane Allyn and Odiah Loom is of Windsor P riv ately ow ned

With "176o" inscribed on the upper-case backboard and a sound history of ownership in the Loomis family of Windsor, this handsome and well-crafted high chest is likely also the work of Timothy Loomis III (1724- 86). It provides an instructive comparison with the "T L / 1753" high chest (cat. 38). The significant differen ces between the two high chests might reflect either the seven years between their production or the presence of multiple hands in the shop. In 1908 a photographer took a picture of the "quaint old furniture" in the bedroom of the Loomis family home stead in Windsor, including the upper case of this flat-top high chest on an inappropriate frame . In the early 1980s William N. Hosley, Jr., while researching Timothy Loomis III, found the lower case in the attic, a discovery that led to reuniting the two parts.' Based on its history of ownership in the family homestead, the likely first owners were Jane Allyn (1716-1805) and Odiah Loomis (1705-1794), both ofWindsor, who married November I, 1739, twenty-one years before the high chest was made (Odiah was a second cousin of Timothy Loomis III). The "AD 176o" chalked on a backboard does not correspond to any wedding date in the famil y or to known dates of renovation of the house.' The "CM" incised on one backboard may be the initial s of an apprentice in the Timothy Loomis shop.

COMPA RAT IVE FE ATURES OF T HE

1753

AN D "1 76 0 " HIGH CHES TS (CATS . 3 8

&

39)

c- In conception and execution the "1760" high chest is more refined t> Primary wood of the later piece is cherry; that of the "1753"

high chest is maple, a less expensive option t>

D esign of the upper cases is very different: the "1760" high chest has a more complex cornice profile, paired short drawers flanking a tall shell drawer, and an additional long drawer, making it 5" taller

t> Shell on the upper case of the 1760 example has the convex

rays associated with the Wethersfield style beginning in that year; the wide-lobed earlier style shell on the lower case is essentially the same in both high chests t> Drawer dividers are half-blind-d ovetailed to the upper-case

sides in the later piece and through-dovetailed on the earlier one; muntins are through-dovetailed on both t>

Full-depth rear leg post, front-t o-back supports for the upper case, and drawer construction, including the uncommon doubleastragal drawer-side molding, are similar in both high chests

M aterial s: cherry and maple (rear legs) with eastern wh ite pine C ondition notes: knee returns replaced; lower- case brasses original In scription s: "AD 1760" in chalk on inside of upp er- case backboard; "CM" incised on inside of upper-case backboard Exhibiti on: W adsworth Atheneum 1985, no. 95 Publications: Hosley, "Timothy Loomi s," pp. 139-41

Di mension s: overall H 72%"; upp er case H 37%" W 35" D ql.h" ; lower case H 34%" W 37:}4" D 19%"

°

CA TAL G 3 9 This tall and refined flat-top high chest is th e earliest dated example (q60) with paired small drawers flanking a tall shell drawer in the upper case, a configuration commonly associated with the Wethersfield style. De spite some differences from th e "T L / 1753" high chest (cat. 38), thi s piece also is attributed to T imothy Loomis III of Windsor. The shell in the upper case has th e narrow convex rays of post-r -eo work; th at in the lower case has the deep spoo n-shaped concave lobes of th e q 50S and I760s.

WINDSOR: TIMOTHY

LOOMIS

GROUP

HCFS 16 Loomi s, D escendants ofJ osep h L oom is, p. 156, illustrates th e 1908 image. William N . H osley, j r., to th e authors , 1984,H C FS files, recounts findin g the pieces.

1.

2. The subsequent inhabitants of the homestead were Odiah's son Ozias Lo omi s (q46-96) and his wife Sarah Robert s (1747-1820), sister of H artford cabin etmaker John Robert s II. Sarah and O zias married in 1771 and were th e probabl e first owners of a H artford flat-top high chest (H C F S 423, a related example of cat. 48).

97

98

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

CATALOG

40

Bonnet-top high chest Probably Windsor or E ast Windsor, I770-I790, possibly I774 P robablyfirst owned by J erusha Wolcott and Samuel Wolcott of East Windsor Priva tely owned

This bonnet-top high chest, with a convincing East Windsor history, is an exceptional survivor in virtually untouched condition. It still belongs to the family for which it was made and may be one of the earliest surviving Wethersfield style high chests with a bonnet top. Like the two dated high chests attributed to Timothy Loomis III (cats. 38, 39), this high chest displays the pervasive influence of Wethersfield design. Its index features, however, point to a shop other than Loomis's. Jerusha Wolcott (1755-1844) and her second cousin, Samuel Wolcott (1751-1813), both of East Windsor, who married on December 29, 1774, are the likely first owners. Jerusha's father, Gen. Erastus Wolcott (1721-93), went on to serve as Speaker of the House in the Connecticut legislature, a representative to Congress, and a judge. He could afford to order an exceptional high chest for his daughter's wedding to Samuel, already a wealthy merchant. Samuel and Jerusha's daughter and son-in-law Elizabeth (1791-1873) and Erastus Ellsworth (1790-1879) inherited the chest, and it has remained in their family to the present day. Samuel Wolcott's estate inventory included two "case draws," one valued at $17, the other at $9, both high valuations, in addition to a "clock-and-case" and a desk and bookcase (see cats. 62, 75). Like the se pieces much of the surviving top-of-the-line furniture made in Windsor and Ea st Windsor can be traced to members of the prosperous and influential Wolcott family.

°

CA TA L G 4 0 A The corn ice has a slight flare at th e corners (negative slope) , a design elem ent rarely used by H artford C ounty cabinetma kers. The cen ter plinth is un embellished. A sunburst similar to th ose on the Joh n Robert s group (see cat. 46), rather than a shell, decorates th e center dr awer. A large dovetail attaches th e tympanum to th e case sides.

SIGN IF ICANT I ND EX FEATU RES

a a a a

Bonnet cornice flares at the corners No side plinth s or finials Relatively small uncarved center plinth Sunbu rst, rather than a shell, on upper-case center drawer (as in the John Roberts group of Ha rtford, cat. 46)

o

Runn ers for top row of drawers are supported by a brace across the back of the case

a Apron shaping and decoration similar to the Wethersfield Dimensions: overall H 80 3A"; upp er case H 451,6" W 351'8" D r83,4"; lower case H 351,4" W 381,4" D 201,4"

Francis group, with a recess below the shell.

a Knee return s rounded, applied to the underside of the apron,

Materials: cherry wit h tulip poplar (drawer sides) and eastern white pine

and canted on the inside (see cats. 27E, 34A, &, in the John

Cond ition notes: mahoganized surface possibly original; finial and brasses original

o Feet finished in the Wethersfield manner, but with a smaller,

Roberts group, 46-48) trun cated cone-shaped supporting pad chamfered around the

HCFS r28

bottom edge, and with a small protrud ing disk on the underside

o Dr awer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins of average size and angle; frame-saw marks on the drawer bottoms

CATA L 0 G 4 0 This unr estored mahoganized high chest has a history of ownership in East W ind sor. It differs from Willard group bonnet-top high chests in several respects: a shallower bonn et arch th at flares at the corne rs; a smaller center plinth; a carved sunburst in th e upper case; and rounded knee returns.

WINDSOR: TIMOTHY

LOOMIS

GROUP

99

CATALOG 4r Plat-top high chest Possibly Windsor, q60-I790, possibly I769-I774 Possiblyfirst owned by Elizabeth B issell of Windsor and [abe z H askell of R ochester, Massachusetts Wadsworth Atheneum Museum ofA rt, I98o.8, bequest of Barbara A llen Terhu ne

This high chest, alth ough similar in basic design to contemporary W ethersfield style examples, possesses idiosyncratic features th at differentiate it from other Windsor high chests (cats. 38, 39, 40 ) and identify it as the product of a small-scale or part-time joine r's shop that was prob ably located near th e first owners' home in th e northern part of town (present-day Windsor Locks) .' "Samuel," prob ably an apprentice, wh o insc ribed his nam e on two dr awers, rem ain s unidentified. T he last private owne r traced th e high chest back to her ancestor H erleigh H askell (1780 - r858), wh o spent his entire life in the house of his father, Jabez H askell (r746-r8r6) .2 T he elder H askell came from Rochester, Massachusetts, married Elizabeth Bissell (1747-r833) of Windsor, on N ovemb er ra , 1769 , and built the hou se in r774, which provides a plausible date range for th e high chest. S IGN IF I CAN T I ND EX F EATUR ES

°

o M aple as the primary wood, as in the "TL / 1753" high chest (cat. 3S); the multiplicity of secondary woods is highly unusual

o o

Unusually complex cornice molding made in two pieces Atypical shell (carved in a shallow recess) with the rays termi-

CA TAL G 4 I This maple high che st has multiple idiosyncrasies, including the cornice and shell design, that imply it is the product of a small or part-time shop. The use of maple as a pr imary woo d persisted longer in Windsor tha n elsewhere in H art ford Co unty.

nating at a raised central semicircle; the recess contin ues through the apron

o Upper-case sides dovetailed to the top and bottom boards, so the ends of the dovetails are visible from the top and bott om, rather than from the sides

o

Drawer sides rounded on top; crude dovetails with large pins of

Dimension s: overall H 711,4"; upper case H 36" W 35%" D IS"; lower case H 351;4" W 38'h" D 19th" Materials: maple with chestnut, birch, oak, and eastern whit e pine Condition note s: midmolding replaced; brasses original

average angle

Inscript ion: "Sarn' l" in chalk in two drawers Publication: H osley, "Timothy Loomis" pp. 139-40, fig. 6 H C FS 78

I. H osley, "T imothy Loomis," pp. 139-40, attributes thi s high che st to Timothy Loomi s II I.

2. Trust Officer Charles L. Bertini, Jr., Midlantic National Bank , Montclair, N .)., on behalf of donor Barbara A. Terhune to W adsworth Atheneum, January 16, 1980, photocopy HCFS files; Stiles, W indsor, 1:520-21 .

IOO

WET H ER S F IE L D

STY L E

CATALOG

42

D esk-on-frame Probably Windsor, possibly Suffield, I76o-IJ90 Probablyfirst owned by Roger Phelps of Windsor Windsor H istorical Society, I986·75·54, gift ofMarguerite Mills

T his desk, which has a frame embellished with shaped dro ps rather th an th e cyma curves pr eferred in W eth ersfield and Middletown , a simple interior, and no carved decoration or secret compartments, typifies th ose originating in th e towns north of Hartford. It shares a number of features with desks produced in th e neighboring town of Suffield, including heavy stock, especially for th e backboard, which is deeply chamfered at the edges; a simple interior, consisting of a row of pigeonholes above a single row of small dr awers; shaped valances cut from a single strip of wood; and no knee returns (see cats. 155, 156, ISS) . Its stro ng history of owners hip, large size, and index feat ures, however, point to an origin in W indsor. Its features do not correspond to the work of other recognized Windsor shops (see cats. 3S-41) The desk descend ed in th e Phelps family of Windsor to Marguerite E . Mills (1903-SS), who gave it and other furnishings from th e family homestead to Windsor H istorical Society. H er grea t-great-grandparents were D eborah Filley (1743-92) and Roger Phelps (I73S-ISn). Roger, wh o had a desk valued at $S in his estate, was th e likely first owner. S IG N I F I CA NT I NDEX FE AT U RE S

CA TAL a G 4 2 This sim ple desk-an-frame is typical of those produ ced in th e town s north of H artford. T he interior con sists of a row of pigeonholes, with valances cut from a single strip, above a corresponding row of small dr awers . The apron profile is straigh t with a center drop. The legs have no knee returns.

o Interi or drawers rest on a board with a molded edge (rather than the writing surface); the outermost ones do not project for-

o

ward as in Suffield

D imensions: overall H 43Vs"; de sk H 34Vs" W 35%" D 16W'; frame H 9" W 3rls" D 17%"

Valance strip has a double arch over each opening (rather than a

Materials: cherry with eastern white pine

single arch)

o

Top edge of the lid is angled to fit the vertically cut top board when closed; ovolo molding rests against the top but does not

C ondition notes: bra sses rep laced HCFS I49

overlap

o Lopers are approximately half the height of the top drawer o Backboard set in grooves in the case sides and top (instead of being nailed in a rabbet)

o

Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins of average size with little angle

WI ND SOR : T IM OTHY

L OOM I S

GRO UP

IOI

CATALOG

43

Clock case Possibly by T imothy Loomis III Probably Windsor, I7so-I770 Probablyfirst own ed by Ebenez er Grant of E ast Windsor Priv ately owned

Tall-case clocks were among the most valuable furnishings in late eighteenth-century homes, possessions of the very affluent. Those with money enough to buy th e works could also afford a fancy case, even of maho gany. Clock cases became a specialty of some cabinetmakers, including Timothy Loomis III, who around 1752 painstakingly copied a measured drawing of a case into his daybook. He filled orders from other cabinetmakers such as Zebulon Hoskins (1728-68) of Windsor, and presumably supplied cases to his clockm aker neighbor Seth Youngs and possibly the Cheney brothers across the river in the eastern section of Hartford. I

S INGULAR

FEATURES

c- M ahogany is the primary wood t> H ood has capped, fluted pilasters topped by wooden ball finials

with residual steeples [>

Tympanum is embellished with a raised wide- lobed shell mirroring the larger shell in the raised panel of the base

t> Free-standing spiral- turne d colum ns, which swell in the center,

flank the dial and echo the half colum ns at the front corners of the trunk; fluted quarter colum ns tucked into the back side corners of the hood; capitals and bases have similar complex turnings, continuous with the rest of the column t> Base has a carved wide-lobed shell on a raised panel, virtually

the same as those on the "1753" Loom is initialed high chest and the lower case of the "1760" Loomis family high chest (see cats. 38, 39) t> Two superimposed horizontal strips, molded at the top, widen

and stabilize the base, which is built around a dovetailed box of yellow pine

C A TA L 0 G 4 3 This early clock case from Windsor has inset spiral- tu rne d half colum ns th at are excepti on al in th eir quality and execution. The use of mah ogany is highl y unu sual in thi s pe rio d. The fini als appear to be original but are redu ced in height. The original movement is lost.

I02

WET HER S F IE L D

STY L E

This clock case belongs to a direct descendant of the original owner, Ebenezer Grant (IJo6-97) of East Windsor.' A wealthy merchant, Grant likely commissioned the clock about the time he had his house built in IJ57. The clock remained in the Grant homestead more than 150 years. Between IJ88 and IJ91 clockmaker Daniel Burnap (IJ59-1838) charged Grant 6s. a year "to Care ofyour Clock"; however, it is unlikely that Burnap

CA TAL 0 G 43 A The wide-lobed shell with an undulating border on Ebenezer Grant's clock is similar to those on both Wethersfield and Windsor high chests of the 1750S and 1760s (cats. 18,38,39).

had made the movement-like the case, it probably dated from thirty years earlier. Burnap's account book indicates that he had contracts to service other clocks in town as well.J Five other clock cases have virtually the same design. Four are near duplicates and vary only in decorative details. They may be the work of Timothy Loomis III. The fifth, a built-in, is somewhat different in appearance.t Together the six cases are remarkable for I) their high quality and sophistication; 2) their striking simi-

WINDSOR: TIMOTHY

LOOMIS

GROUP

larity in design with different decorative elements; 3) the geographic spread of their owners; and 4) the number of different clockmakers using the same model of case. Overall the joinery is less standardized, and often executed with less attention to detail, than that of other case furniture forms . Each has a pagoda-shaped top, tombstone-shaped door, and footless molded base, all conventionally proportioned for the day. They also share specific details such as an arched glazed door and tombstoneshaped glazed side windows in the hood; a cove molding that decorates the arch of the roofed-over pagoda top, caps the plinths, and then continues around the corner to the back of the case; a slender door in the trunk that has a deeply chamfered raised panel with molded surround. All but the built-in clock have inset spiral-turned half columns with cock-beaded housing that flank the door. The spiral turnings consist of alternating rounded ropelike and sharp arrislike strands; these columns are unique in the region and predate the fluted quarter columns on other case furniture forms. One of the related clock cases is also made of mahogany and holds a movement by London clockmaker Marmaduke Storr (w, IJ60-74) (cat. 43B).5 Currently privately owned, it first belonged to Samuel Talcott (IJU-97), whose niece, Sarah Talcott, was married to Timothy Loomis III. Following Samuel's death the clock was valued at £12. 6 The second, also privately owned, is made of cherry, and houses a movement by Seth Youngs (IJII-61) of Windsor. The case, which probably dates from IJ5o-60, has an inlaid compass star in the tympanum and a base built around a blind-dovetailed pine box that incorporates the backboard." The third clock case, which has a movement by Timothy Cheney (IJ31-95) of Hartford, also has an inlaid compass star but may be a decade later in date. In 1930 it belonged to Sara Huntington of Hartford.f

I03

The fourth example has a Seth Youngs movement, a case that may be maple, and fretwork in the pagoda resembling that on the Talcott family clock. In 1935 Henry Wood Erving of Hartford owned it.? The final related example is a cherry clock case that has no movement (cat. 43C). It is built into the parlor wall of clockmaker Timothy Cheney's home, and the design features suggest that it is the work of a different maker than the others in thi s group. '? Dimensions: H 84" W l81h" D 9%" Materials: Mahogany with eastern white pine and yellow pine C ondition notes: wooden finials prob ably original but reduced in height; works replaced Exhibition: Wadsworth Atheneum 1985, no. 96 Publication : Hosley,"T imothy Lo omis," p. l43 HCFS 4IOG

H osley, "Timothy Lo omis," pp. l43-44, fig. 2.The source of the drawing remains unkn own.

1.

2. Hosley in "Timoth y Loomis," pp. 143-44, and Ze a, no. 96, in Great R iv er, both thought G en. Era stus Wolcott (1722-96) of Ea st W ind sor to be the original owner and son-in-law Roswell Grant (1746- l834) to be the second owner; however, Erastus Wolcott's prob ate inventory and distribution make no menti on of a clock. Roswell Grant, the second owner, was the son of Eb enezer Grant. 3. Miller, Connecticut Valley D oorw ays, p. 34, fig. 29; for an l890 ph ot ograph, see Lionetti & Trent, "New Inform ation about Chapin Chairs," p. I090' For the account book entrie s, see Hoopes, D an iel Bu rnap, pp. 45-47-

CA T A L 0 G 4 3 B This clock case, also of mah ogany, is remarkably close to catalog 43. Ori ginally owned by Samuel Talcott of Hartford , it houses an original "Marm'd Storr, London" movement and likely dates from 1760 to l774. The finials are missing. Privately owned.

I04

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

4. On none of the related example s was a det ailed examination possible. 5. HCFS 4IOT; for Storr, see Baillie, Clutton, & Ilbert, B ritten's Old Clocks, p. 479. The phen omenon of placing London-m ade movement s in locally made cases is well recognized in colonial port cities but not the C onnecticut valley. For a similar Marmaduke Storr movement in a Boston case with carving attributed to John Welch (17II-89) , see Miller, "Roman Gusto in New En gland," figs. 32-34. 6. Nearly a century later someone had painted a verse on the inside of the clock door: "1750. / I'm old and worn as my face appears, / for I've walked on time for IOO years. / Many have falle~ since my race began; / many will fall e'er my race I've ran . / I've buried the world with its hope s and fears, in my long, long march, of IOOyears. / 1880." The poem parallels the anthropomorphic sentiments expressed in Gran dfather's Clock, which Middletown poet & comp oser Henry Clay Work (1832- 84) wrote in 1876 while working in Hartford. For additional Talcott furniture, see cats. II, 12, 144.

7- HCFS 4IOY; limited inspection. 8. Location unkn own; assessment based on photo inspection only ; see H oopes, Connecticut Clockmakers, no. 35. 9. Location unknown; assessment based on photo inspection only; exhibited at Connecticut Tercentenary 1935, no. 200; publi shed in H oopes, Connect icut Clock makers, no. 33. IO. For additional examples of built-in case furniture, see cats. 68, 69.

CAT AL 0 G 4 3 c This unique clock case, built into the parlor wall of the home of clockmaker Timothy Cheney, is made of cherry. The case is simpler in design than the other examp les; it has fluted pilasters rather than spiral columns and no embellishments, eith er on the front of the pagoda or on the base of the case. The finials are missing. Manchester Historical Society, Cheney H omestead C ollection, 05IO-002.

WIN D S 0 R : TIMOTHY

LOOMIS

GROUP

IDS

Hartford

'Butler-Cbenev group

The city of Hartford, despite its political role as a colonial capital and county seat, did not become dominant socially and economically until after the Revolution. With a population of 3,027 in 1756, it ranked behind Middletown, Windsor, and Farmington. During much of the eighteenth century its cabinetmakers remained in an imitative mode. Unlike craftsmen in the towns to the north and south, they did not indulge in experimentation. During the 1750S and 1760s, they followed the lead of William Manley (1703-87) and other Wethersfield cabinetmakers and produced furniture with cyma-curved aprons and graceful cabriole legs. Their output is all but indistinguishable from that of shop masters working in neighboring towns. Three groups of furniture made in the last half of the century have histories pointing to Hartford. The first, the Butler-Cheney group, consists of two dressing tables dating from the 1750S and 1760s. They are identified by their cyma-curved aprons with a straight center section below distinctive wide-lobed shells. Although related to the Porter-Belden group from Wethersfield and the Timothy Loomis group from Windsor, their histories of ownership suggest they came from Hartford; the group is named for two probable owners. The second, the John Roberts group, named for a Hartford cabinetmaker, is larger and dates from a generation later, the 1770S to the 1790S. Like the earlier group, the furniture shows close adherence to regional design and construction formulas, but the front apron also exhibits, as a trademark, a straight section under the shell. The third, the Talcott group, named for the owner of one of the pieces, was inspired by Boston designs and is discussed in chapter 6, cats. 144-145.

These two dressing tables, whose index features and histories of ownership suggest they originated in different shops located on opposite sides of Hartford (presentday East Hartford and West Hartford), are linked by similarities in their appearance and their dates of production. Both are delicate, exceptionally well crafted, and attest to the high standards in place in cabinet shops throughout the region. The Cheney family dressing table is probably the earliest surviving example with a scalloped top. Despite the large number of high chests dating from the 1750S and 1760s, not one displays the characteristics of this group. Index features are included in each entry.

I06

WETHERSFIELD

STYLE

C AT ALOG Dressing table

44

Probably Hartford, £750-965 Probablyfirs t owned by Joanna Cadw ell and Z accheus Butler of H artford P rivately owned

This early dressing table, one of the jewels of the HCFS, displays exceptional quality of design, impeccable credentials, and immaculate condition. Its design connects it to the Cheney dressing table (cat. 45) in this group as well as two dressing tables (cats. 19, 20) in the Porter-Belden group of Wethersfield, all of which also date from the 1750S and 1760s. This dressing table has a reliable history that traces its descent through seven generations of a We st Hartford family until zooo.' The probable first owners were Joanna Porter Cadwell (1734-1813) and Zaccheus Butler (1741-9I), both from the West Division of Hartford, who married on December 18, 1763. Joanna and her first husband, Jonathan Cadwell (1734-60), grew up in the Wintonbury parish of Windsor (present-day Bloomfield), but moved to the adjacent parish in Hartford following their circa 1754 marriage. The dressing table could date from that marriage; however, its design is more in keeping with the later date and a Hartford origin. Jonathan's estate was not probated. The first mention is in Zaccheu s's inventory: a dressing table valued at 12 S.

C AT AL 0 G 4 4 This dressing table is perh aps the finest surviving example from H art ford's Qpeen A nne period . It s graceful cyma-curved apron s, long slender legs, and genero usly overhanging top epitomize the success of thi s design. The wide-lobed shell and deep recess are typi cal of th e period. The flat cen ter of the front apron connects it to both th e Cheney family dressing table (cat. 45) and to the John Roberts group furniture pro duced in Hartford a decade or so later (cats. 46-48).

Dimension s: H 34" W 28" D 181's"; top 333,4" x 23%" M aterials: cherry and birch (legs) with eastern white pin e and tulip poplar C ondition note s: eng raved cotter -pin brasses original

SIGN IFI CANT I ND EX FEATU RES

o H eavy wood stock; case sides r'' thick rather than :W' o Single-board top; above-edge molding on three sides; underside

Publication: Marguerit e Riord an A ntiques advertiseme nt, A nt iques 159, no. I (January 2001): 17 HCFS 382

of front edge chamfered to make it appear thinn er; top attached Butler family paper s, 79.23, N oah W ebster H ouse, W est H art ford Historical Society.

with six pegs

o o o

1.

Rail above the top drawer Small drawers supported by a single medial drawer runner Carefully articulated, saucer-shaped foot rests on a slender pad with arris (pointed) sides; the underside of the pad is gouged, creating a concave recess around a prominent central disk, about I" in diameter, that lifts the piece an additional Vs" (see cat. 44a)an exaggerated version of the Porter-Belden group foot

o

Drawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins are large with little CATAL 0 G 4 4 A D etail of foot of th e dressing table.

angle; frame-saw marks on drawer bott oms

HARTFORD: BUTLER-CHENEY

GROUP

I07

CATALOG

45

Scalloped- top dressing table P robably Hartford, £750- £77°, possibly £758 Probablyfirst owned by M ary Olcott and Timothy Chen ey ofHartford M anchester Historical Society, Cheney Homestead Collection, OOOS-OOI

This dres sing tab le shows design similar ities to the Butler fami ly dress ing table (cat. 44), which descended in a West Hartford fami ly, as well as to a high chest that the C heneys also owned (discussed at cat. 21). The two Cheney pieces pro bably came fro m what is now Eas t H art ford or Manches ter, but th ey were th e products of different sho ps.' T he dressing table descended in th e family of clockmaker T imothy Cheney (1731-95), who marri ed M ary Olcott (1735-86) on January 19,1758, a plausible date for the dres sing table. Both resided in th e sectio n of H art ford east of the river. T he 1795 inventory of Timothy's estate lists a "low case draws" valued at 245. The dressing table still stands in the front parlor of his hou se." S IGN IF ICANT I ND EX F EAT URE S

o o o o

No rail above the top drawer Single medial runner below each of the three small drawers Carved shell has eight lobes (rather than the six of cat. 44) Shaping of the leg and foot is close to Weth ersfield practice;

CA TAL 0 G 4 5 A The pattern of scalloped top s on Hartford C ounty tables and dressing tables is remarkabl y similar, considering th at the y are the products of multiple shops, each using different templates (see, for exampl e, cat. 24B). On thi s table the design echoes the curves of the front and side apron s. The scalloped top s of bureau s and dressing tables from the Massachusetts part of the valley are shaped and molded in different patt erns entirely.

supporting pad is a trun cated cone with no protruding disk

o Drawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins of average size and angle; frame-saw marks on drawer bottoms

Dimension s: H 3I" W 30lh" D 17lh"; top 36lh" x

22 VS"

M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine C ond ition notes: brasses replaced H CFS 306

I. The Cheney family high chest (H C FS 215, a related example of cat. 21) has a carved shell with IO lobes amo ng other features that link it to th e Porter-Belden group of W eth ersfield.

2. The house contains many othe r family heirlo om s, including the largest known intact set of Chapin schoo l diamond-splat clawand- ball-foo t cha irs, a built-in case for a tall clock (cat. 43C), and a pair of bureaus (cat. 172).

I08

CA T AL 0 G 45 B The center-drawer shell has eight wide concave lobes and is similar to tho se carved throu ghout the region during the 1750S and 1760s. Originally the drawer may have had a brass pull above the shell in the Wethersfield manner.

WET HE R S F IE L D

STY L E

CA TA L 0 G 45 T he cyma-curved front and side apro ns as well as the shaping of the legs and feet on this early scalloped- top dressing table are typical of the C onnecticut valley region dur ing the I750S. The straight section of the front apron below th e shell is associated with shops in H artford . T he brasses are inappropr iate replacemen ts.

CA T A L 0 G 4 5 c The single medial run ner for the lower drawers is an early construct ion feature, generally dating before 1760. The case has midheigh t drawer guides on each side of the center drawer, knee returns applied to the front of the apron, and no rail above th e top drawer.

H A R T FOR D : BUTL ER -CHENEY GROUP

I09

'John CJV!,berts group

"Jo hn Roberts" written on the underside of the top of one flat-top high chest (cat. 48), associates a craftsman's name with an important group of case furni ture. Empirical similarities indicate that most objects in thi s group are the work of a single shop in Hartford; however, pinning down the identity ofJohn Roberts and/or th e shop master is another matter. A John Roberts advertised for "one or two journeymen cabinetm akers" in the Connecticut Courant in November 1776 and June 1778. At least four individuals with that name lived in the region at the time.' The most plausible candidate for the one who placed the adverti sement is John Roberts II of Windsor (1737-81) who married Mary Humphrey (b. I743) in I759. 2 His sister and brother-in-law, Sarah Roberts and Ozias Loomis, owned a John Roberts group high chest (H C FS 423, a related example of cat. 48), and ano ther sister, Ann (b. I750)' married Windsor joiner Timothy Loomi s IV. Unfortunately for scholars, the occupation of thi s John Roberts is unspecified in eighteenth-centur y record s. The placement of John Roberts's name on a concealed surface of catalog 48 suggests that he was not the shop master but an apprentice or journeyman who signed the top to identify his work. Many other mideighteenth-century cabinetmakers' names are associated with Hartford, but as yet no case furniture has been documented to any of them ) Timothy Phelps III (I725-76) best fits the known facts. He operated a large shop on Main Street and died just before Roberts's first advertisement. It is possible that Roberts was working for Phelps when he signed the high chest and then took over after the master's death. Since the association between Roberts and Phelps is presumptive, the group name is derived from the signature. The John Roberts group includes eleven objects: four bonnet-top high chests, three flat-top high chests, and four dressing tables. Five of these pieces have strong histories of ownership in Hartford. They are contemporaneous with the Willard group of Wethersfield, dating predominantly from the 1770S and I780s.

IIO

The group is easily recognized. Its design signature is the flat (horizontal) center of an otherwise cymacurved front apron. O ther visible design features are the simple convex knee returns applied to the underside of the apron, and the cylindrical pad upon which the foot rests. Shells are of the Wethersfield type, with varying numbers of small convex rays. A peculiarity of this shop is extensive chamfering on concealed inner edges of the lower case, not only the back of the apron, which is common practice, but the edges of the leg posts, glue blocks, and backboard as well. [Brainard , Harlow, and Bulkeley], "Co nnecticut Cabinetmakers," pt. 2 , p. 10, lists a John Roberts but misidentifies him. That Roberts (1744-1837) lived in Durham and Middletown, not Hartford, and did not work as a cabinetmaker (Judith E. Johnson, genealogist, CHS, to the auth ors, 2001, HCFS files). A second John Robert s (1744- 1814) lived in East Hartford but was unable to sign his name (Ha rtford land records, CSL). A third John Robert s was a bricklayer from Wales, was unrelated to other Robert s families in the area, and married Sarah Clapp, ca. 1780 (Barbour, Families ofE arly Ha rtford, p. 707; H artford land records, CSL; Roberts family genealogical mss., CH S M useum Library). 1.

2.

Stiles, Win dsor, 2:646.

3. Hoopes, "Notes," pp. 171-72.

WETHERSFIELD

STYL E

S IGN IF IC ANT

I ND EX

FEATU RES:

CATS .

4 6-4 8

D esig n and D ecoration

Const ruction

o

o

Overall design and proportion similar to th e W illard group of

secondary woods

Wethersfield

o

Bonnet cavity open in back (also seen in Gl astonbury Stratton

o

Vase-shaped, unembellished center plinth conforms to th e circu-

o

Upper-case backboards are nailed in rabbets in th e case sides and

o

Drawer dividers are attached to case sides with exposed dovetails

to the vertical bonnet suppor ts

lar bonnet cutouts (W illard group plinth s swell to include a circle carved with a sunburst or fylfot)

o o

visible from the fron t

Urn-s haped finials have hooded spires Side finials rest on capped rectangu lar plinths (Willard group finials mount directly on the case top)

o

o o

reversa instead of an astragal, fillet, and cove (see cat. 48A)

Uppe r- case drawer runners are nailed to the case sides Drawers assembled in th e conven tional H artford County manner: drawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins of average size

Molded cornice on flat- top high chests has a different pro file

and angle; jack-plane marks on drawer bottoms

than the bonne t tops; th e lower portion consists of a cyma

o

Front-t o-back vertical supports for bonnet form th e sides of th e cavity th at is open in back

group)

o

Cherry as prima ry wood; eastern white pine and tulip poplar as

o

The most noteworthy idiosyncrasy is extensive chamfering of

Flat -top high chests have no small drawers or carved embellish-

inner (unexposed) edges on the underside of the lower case: front

ment in the upper case; lower-case cente r drawer is also unem-

and side aprons, backboard, glue blocks, knee return s, leg posts

bellished (see cat. 48)

o

Bonnet-t op high chests have carved sunburst on upper- case center drawer

o

Carved shells and sunbursts with small convex rays are well executed and similar to Francis and Will ard groups

o

Dr essing tables have above-edge molded tops att ached to th e case with pegs and have no rail above the top drawer

o

Front-apron profile has a straight (hor izontal) center section below the center drawer-r-a signatu re feature of th e Joh n Roberts group

o o

Side aprons have a high center arch, as in Weth ersfield groups Knee returns are rounded rather than ogee shaped, not canted, and applied to the underside of the apron

o

Supporting pad for the foot has vertical rather th an angled sides

HARTFORD

JOHN

ROBERTS

GROUP

III

4 6 & 47 Bonnet-top high chest & Dressing table CATAL OGS

Probably Hartford, £77°-179°, possibly ca. £785 Probablyfirst owned by Mary She/don and R oderick Sheldon of Hartford A ntiquarian and Landmarks Society, Butler-McCook H ouse & Garden,

19& 6.253, /9&·6.243

4 6 The secure family history of this high chest point s to a H artford origin. Features that set thi s piece apart from objects made in Windsor and Wethersfield are a bonnet cavity th at is open in the back, urn finials with a hooded spire, capped side plinths, a carved sunburst on the upper-case center drawe r, a front apron with a straight section below the shell, and convex knee returns applied to the underside of the apron . C A TA L 0 G

II2

This high chest and dressing table reside in th e sole surviving eighteenth-ce ntury house in H art ford .I T hey provide the ind ex of significant design and construction feature s for th e John Roberts group. The history of ownership of both stretches without interruption thr ough the Sheld on, Butler, and M cCook families of Hartford from the tim e the two were made until th e death of th e last descendant in 1971, at which tim e th e Antiquarian and Landmarks Society acquired th e home stead and its contents. Initially opened as a museum in 1972, th e house underwent extensive renovation and reinter pre tation pr ior to a reopening in 2002, only to be devastated th at August by a reckless dr iver who crashed a spor t utility vehicle th rough the front wall and into th e parlor, severely damaging this high chest and other objects in its path . Chalk inscriptio ns on the upper- and lower- case backboards indi cate th at th e high chest was probably made for Mary Sheldon (1769- 1853) upon her marriage to her first cousin, Roderick Sheld on (1760-1812), about 1785.2 The inventory of Roderick's estate lists an "O ld case drawers" valued at $2 . M ary Sheldon's sister Sarah (1757- 1812) was marri ed to D aniel Butler (1751-1812) in wh ose house th e high chest now resides. The families intermarried several times during th e nineteenth century, obscuring th e exact line of descent) Late nin eteenth- and early twentieth-century family record s do not describe th e high chest and dressing table as a matched pair, and th ey may have been in separate homes for a number of years." The details of execution and th e survival of an almost iden tical matched pair from th e same shop argue strongly th at they were made at th e same time and were intended to be used together. Related examples include th e above-mentioned set, whic h is privately owned. T he high chest has side plinths th at are positioned at th e outermost corners of th e cornice (rather th an in line with th e case front and sides) and brasses th at are inset on th e long drawers of th e upp er case.5

WE T HE RSFIEL D

STYLE

Dimensions: High chest: overall H 82Vs"; upper case H 46%" W 361,4" D 17W'; lower case H 35~ " W 38th" D 19'!ll"; dressing table: H 33W' W 30lJl" D 17~" ; top 36" x 19W' Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes (prior to August 2002 damage to the high chest): high chest: finials original; brasses replaced; dressing table: knee return missing from right front leg; brasses replaced Inscription: "Miss Mary Sheld on" in chalk on outside upper - and lower-case backboards of high chest Publications: Kugelman & Kugelman, "Ma ry Sheldon Hi gh Che st and D ressing Table," pp. 12-14 (both); "The Landmark News," The Landmark, Antiquarian and Landmarks Society (Summer 1993): 12 (high chest); Kugelman, Kugelman, & Lione tti, "Chapin Schoo l," 12D (high chest); Beverly J. Lucas, "History in H ouses: the Butler-McCook Hou se and Garden in H artford, Connecticut," Antiques 162, no. 2 (August 2002): 88- 95, pl. 10 (high chest) ; and Antiquarian and Landmarks Society, Annual R eport, 1989, p. 17(dressing table) HCFS 7, 6 CA TAL 0 G 4 7 The Sheldon family dressing table is identical to the lower case of the Sheldon family high chest (cat. 46) but on a smaller scale. T he shell has five more rays than that on the high chest.

Other related examples include two nearly identical bonnet- top high chests-one of which has a history of ownership in the Bliss family of H artford , and th e other of which was offered at auction in 1993. 6 The three related dressing tables include catalog 47A, which is virtually the same as the Sheldon one) A second dressing table has a slightly narrower top, smaller shell, and chamfering only on the inner edge of th e front apron. The third related dressing table has a backboard with an ovolo-molded outside edge, like that on catalog 47A.8

1. Butler-McCook homestead contains the furnishings and archives of the Butler and M cCook families who occupied the house since it was built by D aniel Butler (1751-1812) in 1782. The successive generations accumulated an astoni shing variety and quantity of furnishings, toys, documents, and other treasures.

2. Hartford's Second Church records from this period are lost. 3. Antiquarian and Landmarks Society (ALS), accession and genealogy records. 4. Butler-McCook archives; ALS Associate Director and Curator Karin Petersen to the authors, 1993, HCFS files. 5. Clearing Ho use Auction Gallerie s, May 27, 1987, lot 260, briefly inspected at auction house. 6. Loca tions unkn own; assessments based on photo inspections only; Clearing H ouse Auction Ga lleries, Ap ril 18, 1970; and Alex Cooper Auctioneers, Septembe r 19-20, 1993. 7. H C FS 268. 8. For th e second related dressing table, H C FS 398, location unknown, see Skinner, sale 2°76 (June 2001), lot 95; for the third, HCFS 421, privately owned, see Sotheby's, sale 7905 (May 22, 2003), lot 799. CA TAL 0 G 4 7 A This dressing table is virtually identi cal to the Sheldon dressing table (cat. 47); the shell is a little smaller and has two fewer rays; the dovetail attaching the muntin to the drawer divider extend s through the divider, and the bott om outside edge of the backboard is finished with an ovolo molding. The brasses are oversized replacements. Privately owned.

H A RT F O R D:

J

0 H N

RO B E R T S

G R 0 U P

II]

C ATALOG 48 Flat- top high chest Signed by John Roberts Probably H artford, I76o-IJ90 Priv ately ow ned

SINGULAR

FEATU RES

t> No shell on the center drawer t> Glue blocks, instead of pegs, secure the mortise-and-tenon

joints of the lower case to the leg posts (the Eliphalet Chapin shop used similar glue blocks to join the front and side aprons to the legs)

The placement of the inscription "John Rob[erts]" on the underside of the top board implies that Roberts was working as an apprentice or journeyman, but just who ran th e shop remains uncertain. The similarity to the design and construction of the Sheldon family high chest and dressing table (cats. 46, 47) supports a Hartford origin. A broad date range is assigned because of th e un certainty of Roberts's identity and the prevalence of thi s form during the se decades. The high chest is still owned in the family for which it was likely made. The early twentieth-century owners were Mary Gertrude Hanmer (r87r-r904) of W ethersfield and John Latimer Way (r860-r954) of Hebron, who married in r891.I Her ancestors hailed from Wethersfield; his came from eastern Connecticut. Intermarriages between the Hanmer, Dix, and Crane families of Wethersfield make it difficult to trace the preci se ownership of the high chest through earlier generations; no Hartford family connection could be documented. Two virtually identical flat-top high chests share minor variations in index features: muntins attached to th e drawer divider above with through dovetails (as in cat. 47A); mortise-and-tenon joints of the lower case

II4

4 8 The index features of th is signed flat-top high chest connect it to th e Sheldo n family high chest and dressing table (cats. 46, 47), which have stro ng histories of owners hip in H artford. These features include th e flat section of the apron below th e center dr awer, th e convex kne~ returns applied to the und erside of the apron , and th e absence of a shell on th e lowercase center dr awer. C A TAL 0 G

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

secured with pegs rather than glue blocks; and the bottom outside edge of the lower-case backboard finished with ovolo molding. ' One high chest (Windsor Historical Society) has a history of ownership in the family of Abigail Loomis (1815-98) and Hezekiah Sidney Hayden (1816-96) of Windsor, who married in 1849. Abigail's grandparents, Sarah Roberts (1747-1820) and Ozias Loomis (1746-96), the likely first owners, married in Windsor on October 14, 1771. Sarah's brother, John Robert s II may have been the Hartford cabinetmaker who signed catalog 48. Thirty-four years old when his sister married, he could well have provided this traditional wedding gift, which would also account for the family's high chest having a Hartford rather than a Windsor origin. D imensions: overall H 71fs"; upper case H 35fs" W 36Vs" D 19"; lower case H 36" W 38Y.2" D 20tA"

CA TAL 0 G 4 8 A The profile of the one- piece cornice on the high chest differs from the Joh n Robert s group bonn et-t op high chests and from W ethersfield shop work. It has a simple cyma reversa in its lower porti on instead of an astragal, fillet, and cove (see also cat. 27).

M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine and tulip poplar Con dition notes: brasses original Inscription: «John Rob[erts]" in graphite on und erside of top Publications: Kugelman & Kugelman, «Mary Sheld on Hi gh Che st and Dre ssing Table," pp. 12- 14; Kugelman & Kugelman, «Ha rtford Ca se Furn itur e Survey," p. 37A HCFS 8

Current owner to the authors, November 2002, HCFS files. For much of the twenti eth century it shared a house in Gilead, part of H ebron, with catalog 120.

1.

2.The first high chest, HCFS 248 (privately owned), is published in Ch ristie's East, sale 7353 (Oc tober 19, 1993); David and D ale Bland Antiques advertisement, Ma ine Antique D igest 24, no. 2 (February 1996): 41A. The second, HCFS 423 (Windsor Historic al Society), was published in Nade au's Auction G allery, September 20,2 003, lot 50. C atalog 47A and HCFS 421 (a related example of cat. 47) also have an ovolo-molded lower outside edge of the backboard.

H ART FOR D:

J

0 H N

ROB E R T S

G R 0 U P

IIS

Middletown

Middletown led Connecticut town s in population in q 56 with 5,664 inhabitants. Like C olch ester, it was part of H artford C ounty until q 85. It was also the mo st impo rta nt port on th e river with merchants actively engaged in th e West Indies trade. Residents achieved great prosperity and had access to expensive imported goods, including household furn ishings. Furniture scholars have had a difficult time with Middletown. Relatively few objects with histories of ownership surv ive. D espite its size and wealth, the community failed to develop a distinctive furniture style, but th e output of local sho ps took the Weth ersfield style to a new level, with a remarkable mix of sophistication, ostentation, and creativity. Three small groups of Wethersfield style objects with Middletown histories have been identified and named for early owners. The first, the Comstock group, consists of three high chests; the second, the Wilcox gro up, contains four high chests and three dre ssing tables; and th e third, th e Brown group, includes thre e desks- on -fram es and tw o de sks-and-bookcases-onframes. The key to unlocking the furniture history of eighteenth-century Middletown lies in understanding its position midway between two stylistic powerhouses: W ethersfield and Colchester. Middletown included land s on th e east side of the river until 1767 when Chath am (now divided into Portland and East Hampton) became an independent town separating Middletown from Colchester. The tastes of the town speople appear to have been divided among those preferring th e conservative Wethersfield style (Wilcox and Comstock groups), and those inclined toward the more flamb oyant Colchester style (Higgins group in Chatham , see cats. 1q-II9). Yet another stylistic pull was th e preference of some citizens for "imports," from Boston, N ew York, and abroad . Wealthy merchant Richard Al sop (1726-76), for example, purchased a

II6

mahogany desk and bookcase from Boston .I Given this competition, locally made pieces may reflect any or all of these influences and thus escape neat classification as "Middletown" work. A desk and bookcase owned in the Pratt family of Middletown, for example, displays a combination of local and Boston- inspired features (fig. 2 .1) . 2 Many of the well-documented objects are Wethersfield style desks or desks and bookcases, presumably ordered by wealthy merchants for their own use rather than for their daughters' dowries . Trade with the West Indies provided a good supply of imported mahogany, and more mahogany furniture is found here than elsewhere in the Connecticut valley. None of the four know n M iddletown joiners of the last quarter of th e eighteen th century has been connected to any of these groups, although they are likely suspect s. They are Timothy Boardman, Jr. (1727-92) , Zachariah Paddock (Q2r1800), Wait Plum (Q41-1802), and William Rus sell (Q 6r 1838). Plum and Russell were related by marriage) 1. D etroit In stitute of Arts, 66.r3r; see cat. 144D; his widow, M ary Wright Alsop (1740- r829) later commissioned Ralph Earl to paint matching portraits of herself and her mother, see Kornhauser, Ralph Ea rl, nos. 45, 44. 2. Pratt family desk and bookcase assessment based on a limited inspection , photographs, and information supplied by Bernard and S. Dean Levy. Two related examples, one with a secure history in the Lyman family of Middletown, are illustrated in Great R iv er, no. 99 , and Kenneth H ammitt advertisement, Antiques r29, no. 6 (June r986): !I7l.

3. The shops of Boardman, Padd ock, and Plum were located on Middletown's M ain Street in the early 1770S' These are identified on the conjectural plan, drawn by Joseph Barratt (r796-r882), and published in r836 in Barber, Connect icut H istorical Collections, p. 508. Russell's second wife, Sarah Plum (r778- r838) of Middletown, was W ait Plum 's niece.

WETHERSFIELD

STYLE

FI G U R E 2 . I Hi storically owned in the Pratt family of Middletown, thi s mahogany and cherry desk and bookcase displays several feature s that support a local origin-shallow bonnet arch, carved pinwheel, and use of cherry as a primary wood. H owever, the blocked facade, bracket feet, and inte rior layout are closer to Boston design than other document ed M iddletown examples. The rounded blocking on the top drawer creates an almost semicircular profile. Privately owned.

MIDDLETOWN

II7

Comstock group

This group of three bonnet-top high chests, easily recognized by th eir di stinctive front- and side-apro n profiles, is closely related to th e Wethersfield Willard group both in design and con struction. The Comstock family of Chatham (pre sent-day Portland and East H ampton), across the river from Middletown, owned one of them for many generations. The second and third have less secure histories but may have been

S IGN IF I C ANT

I ND E X

F EA T U RES :

CA TS.

owned in Middletown. The shop and master th at produced them remain unnamed; all three probably date from 1770 to 1800. Two possible candidates are Eb er Stocking (1756-1828) and his brother Steven Stocking (1758-1817), joiners in Chatham and second cousins of the probable first owner of catalog 50, Jozeb Stocking. No furniture has been attributed to them specifically.

4 9- 5 0

D esign and D ecoration

Construction

o o o o

o C her ry and birch (legs) as primary woods; eastern white pine and

o

Overall design similar

to

W illard group high chests

tulip poplar as seconda ry wood s

Bonnet cavity closed in th e rear by arched backboard

o

No side plin ths on two high chests (as in the Willard gro up) C ent er dr awer fronts embellishe d with carved shells or fJlfot s as

back vertical supports; top backboard tha t closes th e back of the

in th e Willard group; carving is deep, crisp, and expertly don e

bo nnet cavity also covers a portion of the upper-case back

Front apron has paired shallow cyma curves with rudimentary C -scrolls at both corners, and a raised semicircle in th e center;

o o o

Side aprons have eit her a high center arch or a double ogee

o

apron (see cat. 49A)

o

and case; retu rn s are attac hed to th e und erside of th e apro n and

Uppe r-case drawer runners nailed to th e case sides; lower-case runners tenoned int o, but not th rough, th e backboard

Knee retu rns arch at th e top and scroll at th e bottom, a distr acting extra shaping th at interrupts the natural line between legs

D rawer dividers and munti ns attached with exposed dovetails th at are visible from th e front

flanke d by C -scrolls at th e corne rs, sim ilar to th ose on th e front

o

Full- depth dustboardlsupport below the top row of small drawers Up per-case backboards nailed to rabbets in the case sides and to th e vertical bonnet suppo rts

thi s is a signatu re feature for th e Comstock gro up

o

Bonnets construc ted in th e Wethersfield manner with front -t o-

Drawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins of average size and angle; frame- saw marks on drawer bott om s

are canted in back

o

Well-shaped legs and feet; supporting pads shap ed as truncated cones, similar to the W illard group

II8

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

49 Bonnet-top high chest Possibly Middletown or Chath am, £775-£800 Collection of M r. & Mrs. J erome W Blum CATALOG

This high chest, on which the index characteristics of the Comstock group are based, has a typewritten history (prepared late in the twentieth century) claiming patril ineal inheritance of this high chest from Jabez Comstock (1753-r812) of Chatham who married Almy Greene (r75r-r837) of Warwick, Rhode Island, in 1784.1 Such male inheritance through six generations is both atypical and improbable. Indeed, neither jabez's extensive probate inventory nor that of his son Franklin (179o-r845) lists a high chest. More likely, the high chest entered the family through Adeline Strong (r8r 2-80), who married Jabez's grandson William Greene Comstock (r8ro-99) in r834. Her parents and grandparents were all from Chatham." A related example is a bonnet-top high chest with an unverified history of ownership in the Bulkeley family, most of whom lived in Wethersfield or Colchester. This high chest has a double-ogee side apron like catalog 49 and carved shell decoration like catalog 50 .3 Dimensions: overall H 82:}4"; upper case H 46W' W 35l.J1" D 18"; lower case H 361J1" W 37W' D 19lh" M aterials: cherry and birch (rear legs), with eastern white pin e Co ndition notes: center plinth pieced and may have had a carved center section originally; side plinths possibly added; finials and brasses replaced HCFS 122

CA TAL 0 G 4 9 A The doubleogee side apron of the high chest lower case is flanked by the same C- scrolls and knee return s as on th e front apron. The well-shaped legs and feet are very similar to those of the Willard group.

MIDDLETOWN :

COMSTOCK

GROUP

CAT AL 0 G 4 9 The overall design of this high chest is very much in keeping with W eth ersfield practices, especially the Willard group; however, th e apro n profile- shallow cyma curves flanked by C-scrolls at the corners around a small center archdistinguishes it from the W illard group. The knee returns are scrolled in a correspond ing mann er. The fylfots are unusually deep and crisply carved. The side and center plinths may be restorations. The finials are replacement s.

I.

Ph otocopy in HCFS files.

2. Adelin e Strong's parent s, Susannah Cook (I779- 1820) and Henry Strong (I779- 1828), married in 180I; her paternal grandparent s M ary (Polly) Kellogg (1747-1822) and Adonijah Strong (1749- 1824), married in 1772; and her maternal grandparent s Elizabeth Cone (1744- 1808) and M oses Coo k, married in 1765.

3. Location unkn own. Assessment based on a photo inspection only; see Butterfield & Butterfield auction advertisement, Ant iques and the A rts Weekly 22, no. 13 (April I, 1994): 126, for auction M ay IO, 1994; G KS Bush advertisement, Antiques 147, no. I (January 1995): 4·

C A TALOG

50

Bonnet-top high chest Possibly Middletown or Chatham, I77S-I79S P robablyfirst owned by Anna Sheldon of Hartford and [o z eb St ocking of Middletown L ocat ion unknown

This high chest shares the same front-apron and kneereturn design s as th e Comstock family high chest (cat. 49). Construction details indicate they are from th e same shop. The differences are minor: here the side aprons incorporate the high center arch of the Willard group. The carved center plinth and absent side plinths are also in keeping with Wethersfield practice. The Barney family of Farmington traces the high chest back to Danford Newton Barney III (1859-1936). His father's family came from New York, but hi s mat ernal grandmother was Emily Stocking (1793-1833) of Middletown, whose parents, Anna Sheldon (1759- 1828) and Jozeb Stocking (1754-1841) married June 5, 1775, and built a large new house in Middletown in 1790.I Both a wedding and a new house are occasions for the acquisition of a new high chest. Based on the documentation of similar high chests, the later date is more likely. A "case draws" valued at $2 is listed in the inventory ofJozeb Stocking's estate. D imensions: overall H 81%"; upp er case H 45%" W 34I1z" D 18I1z"; lower case H 36I1z" W 36'Vs" D 2 0 " Materials: cherry with eastern white pine and tulip poplar Condition notes : finials and brasses replaced Publication: Northeast Auctions, Novemb er 7, 1999, lot 886 H C FS 377

I. For the Stocking house, see Ad ams, Middletown Upp er H ouses, p.686.

CATA L 0 G 5 0 Similarities between this high chest and the Comstock family high chest (cat. 49) indi cate that the same shop mad e both. The sunburst-carved center plinth, the absent side plinths, and the side aprons with a high center arch are all characteristics shared with the Willard group of Wethersfield.

I20

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

W ilcox group

The W ilcox group includes two examples th at epito mize th e perfection in design attained by craftsmen working in th e W eth ersfield style: a high chest (cat. 51) th at descend ed in th e W ilcox family in th e W estfield sectio n of Middletown; and a scalloped-top dressing table (cat. 52) with no early history. The unidentifi ed

SI G NI FICANT

I N DEX

FE A T U RE S :

maker of both probably appren ticed in W eth ersfield, for most of th e index feature s are th ose of the W illard group. Five relat ed examples-three high chests and two dressing tables-lack early histories but exhibit shared design features that suggest th ey were produced in a separate sho p.

CATS . 51 -53

D esign and D ecorati on

Construction

o

o

Overall design similar to th at of W illard group high chests;

and tulip poplar as secondary woods

however, proportion s are slightly different in th e high chest, the legs being about

o

1"

shorter and both center drawers 2 " wider

o Bonnet const ructe d in the W eth ersfield manne r with front -t oback vertical supports; the arched backboard th at closes the back

Center plint h incorporates an unembellished diamond-shaped

of th e bonnet cavity also covers part of the upper-case back

center section

o

No side plinths; side finials are chip-carved pinecones on an urn

o

Large center drawers are carved with exceptionally well-executed

o

Upper-case backboards nailed to rabbets in the case sides and

o

Up per- case drawer runners nailed to the case sides; lower-case

o

Drawer dividers and mun tin s attached with exposed dovetails

o

Drawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pin s of average size and

to the vertical bonnet supports

Wether sfield style shells

o

Signature front apron is scalloped with arches of equal height

runners tenoned into, but not through , the backboard

flanked by a single spur on each side

o

Less th an full-dep th dustboard/support below th e top row of drawers

inserted directly int o the top of th e case

o

Cherry and birch (legs) as prim ary woods; eastern whit e pine

Side aprons are shaped with a flattened arch with inverted corners, as in the Springfield-Northam pton style (cats. 129,

th at are visible from the front

133) ,

rather than a high center arch

o o

Ogee-shaped knee returns attached to the underside of the apron

o

Well-fo rmed legs with unusually slender ankles; saucer-shaped

angle; frame-saw marks on drawer bottoms

No rail above the top drawer of dressing table and canted in back feet with supporting pads shaped as truncated cones

MID D L ET 0 W N :

W I L eO X

G R 0 U P

I2I

C A T ALOG 51 Bonnet-top high chest Probably Middletown, I770-I790, possibly £785 Possiblyftrst owned by M arian Bacon and]oseph Wilcox Priv ately owned

ofMiddletown

This ranks as one of the greatest bonnet-top high chests in th e W ethersfield style. The cabinetmaker refined and tweaked the basic Willard group formula, modifying the proportions slightly, altering the front and side apron shaping, and improving the execution of th e shells and finials. It has an unbroken history of ownership in the Wilcox family of Middletown. The Wilcoxes were early settlers of the We stfield parish, and their descendants married locally. The first owners may have been M arian (M iriam) Bacon (1762-1825) and Joseph Wilcox (1741- 1832), who married in Middletown on November 30 , 1785. Three related examples, two bonnet-top high chests and a flat-top high chest, share the complex fron tapron shaping of the Wilcox high chest, but numerous differences indicate they are not from the same shop (cats. SIB, SIC).! C A TA L 0 G 5 I A D etail of finial of catalog 51.

CA T A L 0 G 5 I This high chest documents the close stylistic connection between Middletown and W ethersfield cabinetry. The skillfully executed details range from chip-carved finials and shells to gracefully shaped legs and feet. T he center plinth is unembellished. The large, elaborate brasses are more opulent th an usual.

I22

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

Dimensions: overall H 82"; upper case H 4SVz" W 3S%" D 19%"; lower case H 36Vz" W 37%" D 20%" M aterials: cherry with eastern whit e pine and tulip poplar Co ndition notes: left rear leg broken and wired together; otherwise in a remarkable state of preservation including original finials and brasses HCFS 94

I. One of the bonnet-top high chests is HCFS 2ssa (cat . SIC); the other (cat. SIB) has been exhibited at Wadsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 84, and published in Sack, A merican Antiques, 4:862 no. P6S6, & 6:13 no. PII8S; Sack, N ew Fi ne Points, p. 199; and Stillinger, H ennage Collection, pp. 21, 96-97' The flat-top high chest is privately owned and unpublished. Assessments of the second bonnet-t op high chest and the flat-top high chest are based on photo inspections only.

CA TA L 0 G SIB This bonn et-top high chest sports a double shell, an embellishment found on the Tryon group furniture in Gl astonbury (see cat. ISO); the carved sunburst in the center plinth and the high center arch in the side apro n are Wethersfield features. Although the high chest has a front-apron profile similar to the Wilcox high chest (cat. SI), several other features are significantly different : capped side plinths, sunburst- carved center plinth, and front apron shaped from a different template . The differences point to production in a separate shop. The finials and brasses are replaced. Colonial Williamsburg Found ation, 1991.62.

CA TAL 0 G SIC This flat-top high chest bears the signature apron of the Wilcox group-scallops of equal height flanked by spurs- but no bonnet. The upper-case drawer configuration is typical of the W ethersfield style after about 1760; the apron and carved shell suggest a date at least a decade later. Privately owned.

MID D L E T 0 W N:

W I LeO X

G R 0 U P

I2J

a G 5 2 This scalloped- top dressing table shares its tall graceful legs and flattened-a rch side apron with the Wilc ox family high chest (cat. 51). The lively front apron has deep, central, pendant half circles, and the well-shaped legs have unusually slim ankles. Termin ating the knee at the lower edge of the apron gives the case greater lift. For subtly different treatment of these elements, see catalog 24. CA T AL

I24

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

CATALOG

52

Scalloped- top dressing table H artford County, p ossibly Middletown, £770-£790 Pri vately owned

The front-apron profile of this dressing table lacks the small arch and spur found on each side of the Wilcox family high chest (cat. 51). The use of basswood is unusual. In other respects, it closely resembles the Wilcox high chest. I There are two related dressing tables: one with a scalloped top, the other with a porringer-shaped top (cats. 52B, 52C). 2 Di men sion s: H 32Vz" W 31" D I6Vz"; top 37Vz" x 21" M aterials: cherry and birch (rea r legs) with easte rn white pine and basswood Co ndition not es: brasses replaced Exh ibition : W adsworth Atheneu m 1993, p. 3 Publication s: Christie's, sale 6536 (January 23, 1988), lot 304; J ohn Walton advertisement , Antiques 134, no. I (July 1988): 4; M arguerite Riordan Antiques adverti sement, Antiques 155, no. 5 (May 1999): 673 HCFS 104

C A TA L 0 G 5 2 B This scallope d- to p dre ssing table is virtually identical to catalog 52 except for the sha ping of th e front apro n with a single sem icircular drop in th e center (as on cat. 24). It ha s a hi story of ownersh ip in Berlin, which abuts th e northwestern corner of Middlet own, and was purcha sed from a family th ere in 1941. Collection of Peter and Barb ara G oodman.

I. For a scalloped- top dr essing tabl e m ade at app roxim atel y th e same tim e elsewh ere in th e county, possibly Glastonbury, see cat s. 24A, 24B.

2. The related scalloped- top dressing table sold at G arth's Au ction, Delaware, Ohio, Jul y 24, 1987, lot II; ph ot o in spection only. The porringer-shaped-top one was published in Nathan Liverant and So n adverti sem ent, A ntiques 150, no. 4 (O ctober 1996): 417; limited inspecti on.

CA T AL 0 G 5 2 A The table relies on Wethersfield style construc tion techniques. Four pegs attach th e top , one at each corn er. Drawer run ner s rest on the front rail s and are ten oned into, but not through , the backboard . T he knee return is canted . There is no rail above the top dr awer. The front-to-back drawer guides, nailed to th e case side between the leg posts, are basswood , un common during thi s period.

MID D LET 0 W N:

W I L COX

G R 0 U P

CA T AL 0 G 5 2 C This dre ssing tabl e h as a distinctively sha ped top with cyma-c ur ved corne rs th at call to m ind th e porrin ger corners of some tea tables. In other respec ts it closely resembles cat alog 52. Pri vatel y ow ned .

£25

'Broum group

Three desks-on-frames and two desks-and-bookcaseson- frames constitute the Brown group. They possess virtually identical desk interiors, carved decoration, and cyma-curved aprons with a central recessed shell. In other respects, however, the se pieces are remarkably different from each other. The two bookcases are as highly decorated as any in the Connecticut valley, one with tombstone-style relief-carved pilasters, the other with recessed shells behind paneled doors . In the past, objects from this group have been attributed to places as far afield as Hampshire County in western Massachusetts.I However, Nathaniel Brown's ownership of one desk-on-frame (cat. 53), points to a Middletown-based shop; the group is named after Brown (1735-1806) becau se the shop master remains unidentified. The wealth and sophistication of Middletonians is reflected in the extravagant display of these objects. Furthermore, three of the pieces are made of mahogany, a luxury wood used

S IGNIF ICANT

IN DEX

FE ATU RES :

CA TS .

infrequently north ofWethersfield until the last decade of the eighteenth century. The dramatic design differences in the two bookcases, as well as in the shaping of the aprons, speak of a cabinetmaker of great skill and imagination with a career spanning thirty to forty years as defined by the early features of catalog 56 and the inscribed date 1787 on catalog 54. The Brown group relates in concept to th e Porter-Belden group from Wethersfield, and probably spans the decades from the 1750S to the 1780s. Two Middletown joiners who lived long enough to have worked in these decades are Timothy Boardman, Jr., and Zachariah Paddock. Both men had shop s located on Main Street in the 1770S, but as yet no work can be attributed firmly to either.' 1.

H osley, "Regio nal Furniture/Regional Life," p. 19.

2 . See Great Riv er, no. 99, for more on Boardman. For th e locations of the shops see the map, drawn decad es later, in Barb er, Connecticut H istorical Collections, p. 508.

54 -5 6

Design and D ecorat ion

Constructi on

o

o M ahogany and cherry as primary woods; eastern white pine,

Unus ually bold architectur al forms: gracefully arched bonnets,

yellow pine, and tulip poplar as secondary woods

tom bstone-paneled bookcase doors, and scalloped desk frame

o C ase, frame, and drawer construction are in the Weth ersfield

aprons with a variety of curves and decorative element s

o Bon net cutou t openi ngs are small with variatio n in th e shaping of th e center plinths

o

D esk interio rs have two rows of blocked drawers und er a row

th at are visible from the front

of valanced pigeonh oles th at flank a prospect door

o Prospect doors have similar wide-lobed shells and carved spandrels in th e upp er corne rs

o

manner (see p. 47)

o Backboards nailed in rabbets in th e case sides and top o Drawer dividers and muntins attached with exposed dovetails o Drawer runn ers nailed to the case sides o Frame joined by single morti se-and-tenon joint s; desk rests on th e rails and tops of th e leg posts

Prospect con tains thr ee drawers flanked by split spindles

o Sha ping of the front apro n and its decorati on vary, but th e shells

o Tops of drawer sides are rounded; dovetail pins are large with littl e angle; drawer bottom shows frame-saw marks

on th em are similar (that on cat. 56 is invert ed)

o Bandy legs and pad feet are similar to those from the Stocking group (cats. 35-37); the suppo rting pad is a trun cated cone

o Knee returns are applied to th e front of th e apro n

I26

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

CATALOG

53

D esk-on-jrame Probably Middletown, q 6o-Q75 Probablyfirst ow ned by N athaniel Brown ofMiddletown Brooklyn Mus eum ofArt, 64.87, Dick S. R amsay Fund

The use of mahogany on thi s desk-on-frame is consistent with Middletown's role in the West Indies trade. The yellow pine and "early" wide-lobed shell suggest a . pre-I770 date, contemporaneous with the PorterBelden group in Wethersfield. SINGULAR F EAT URES I> I>

Facing of the valance drawers is shaped with a central drop Lower-row interior drawers are double width, appearing as two drawers

I>

Wide-lobed shells are the simplest in the group and are similar to the Porter-Belden high chest and dressing table (cats. 18, 19)

I>

Apron below the shell is straight rather than curved, a feature associated with frame aprons in Middletown (the straight section in the front apron of high chests and dressing tables from H artford does not incorporate a shell)

This desk-on-frame has the most secure provenance in thi s group. The probable first owner was Col. Nathaniel Brown (1735-1806), whose 1770 commission as a captain in Connecticut's Sixth Militia Regiment survived with the desk.' Born in Middletown, Brown married Sarah Merriman there in 1756. His probate inventory lists "I Mahogany Desk" valued at $30, surely the same desk. A related example is another mahogany desk-onframe that looks identical to catalog 53. 2 Dimension s: H 4Slh"; upp er case H 34*" W 38lh" D 20W'; frame H 10* " M aterials: mahogany with eastern white pin e, yellow pine (bo ttom board ), and tulip poplar Condition notes: knee returns missing; brasses replaced Exhibition : W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. IIS

C A TA L 0 G S 3 This desk- on -fram e mad e of mah ogany exemplifies the expensive taste of patrons in M iddletown . The cyma- curved front and side aprons are comparable to W eth ersfield, but the incorporation of a carved shell above a straig ht section is a M iddletown trait. The interior drawers in the lower row are double -width. The valance s conceal small dr awers.

r. The survival of the com mi ssion document is ment ioned in

[Kirk], Connecticut Furniture, no. IIS; C onnecticut M ilitia records, CSL, confirm that thi s was a Middletown unit. 2. L ocation unknown; assessment based on pho to inspection only; see Jairus Barnes and Moselle Taylor Meals, American Furniture in the Western R eserv e, I680-I830, exh. cat. (Cleveland: W estern Reserve Histori cal Society, 1972), no. 7S.

Public ation : Com stock, A merican Furn it ure, fig. 198 HCFS 92

MID D LET 0 W N:

B ROW N

G R 0 U P

I27

C ATALOG

54

Desk- on-frame Possibly M iddletown, I770-I790, probablyI787 M etropolitan Museum ofArt, IO. I25· 76, gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, I909

The exaggerated cyma-curved front apron of this deskon- frame lacks the central carved shell of the other desks in the Brown group and gives it an appearance closer to the W illard group. The interior layout, however, is similar to others in the Brown group, including doublewidth drawers in the lower row (see cat. 53). The 1787 dat e inscribed on the prospect, makes it likely that this desk-on-frame is the latest of the three in the group.

S INGULA R FEA T U RE S

c- Cherry as primary wood t> No prospect door; removable prospect unit provides access

to the document drawers from the rear t> Double ogee shaping of the valance drawer fronts t> Frame contains two horizontal boards that support the desk t> Knee returns are canted and applied under the apron in the

W illard group manner t> Dr awer sides flat on top; dovetail pins are unusually large

with little angle

D imensions: overall H 44%"; desk H 35Ys" W 35Ys" D 18"; frame H 9th" W 37%" D 19%" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine C ondition notes: possible restoration s to th e decorative rosette and shell drawers in the prospect; brasses replaced Inscripti on: "Oc tober 6 J?8i' in chalk on right side of pro spect unit

°

CA T A L G 5 4 Although similar to th e other desks in th e Brown group, thi s desk- on-frame displays front and side aprons th at are closer to th ose in th e Willard group and canted knee returns attached to th e und erside of th e apron in th e W eth ersfield manner. This is th e only desk-on -fr ame in th e Brown group made of cherry, rather than mah ogany.

Pu blication: H eckscher, American Furniture, pp. 266, 354, no. 173 H CFS 242

I28

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

CATALOG

55

D esk-and-b ookcase-on-frame P robably M iddletown, £770- I790 Priv ately owned

SINGULAR FEA TU RE S OF BOOK CAS E I>

Cut out openings in the bonnet are larger than on catalog 56; cavity is not enclosed in the back (like cat. 51)

I>

Unembellished vase-shaped center plinth

I>

Capped side plinth s

I>

Tombstone-shaped doors flanked by unfluted quarter columns

I>

Bookcase interior has thirty-two valanced pigeonh oles, five small drawers, and two carved recessed shells behind the arches

I>

Candle slides below the doors of the bookcase

This grand Connecticut valley desk and bookcase is rivaled in complexity only by catalogs 56, 135, 144. It has by far the most elaborate bookcase interior and is one of only two with recessed carved shells in the tympanum behind the doors (see cat. 135). Although the unfinished top of the desk is mahogany and the secondary woods are pine in the bookcase and tulip poplar in the desk, the integrity of the piece is without question. The treatment of the bonnet and the use of columns rather than pilasters are features that suggest that this desk and bookcase was made at least a decade after the following example (cat. 56), presumably by different hands at work in the same shop. Aside from minor differences in decorative details, the design of the desk is identical to catalogs 53 & 56. The long drawer dovetails

CA T A LO G 5 5 A The carved open- lobed shells and spandrels on the desk int erior are virtually identical to th e Brown desk (cat. 53).

C A T A L 0 G 5 5 This extravagan t mahogany bon net- top desk-and-bookcase- on-frame has few rivals in the Co nnectic ut valley. C ontemporary Boston design in spired th e book case, but the bandy-le g fram e with its cyma-curved apro n and carved shell belong to the valley alone.

are similar to those on catalog 53 and unlike th ose on catalog 56. Dimension s: overall H 90+'8" ; upp er case H 46%" W 33+'8" D 12"; lower case H 35" W 35~ " D 2 1~ "; fram e H 9" M aterials: mah ogany with tulip poplar (desk) and eastern white pine (bookcase) Condition notes: repairs to th e frame; possibly later gilding of the finials; brasses repl aced Publication : Sotheby's, sale 7253 (J anu ary 17,1999), lot 829

HCFS 349

MID D LET 0 W N:

B ROW N

G R 0 U P

I 29

CATALOG

56

D esk-an d-bookcase-on-fram e Probably Middletow n, q6S-q8o The H enry Ford, S7-76. I

CA TAL a G 5 6 This lively desk and bookcase sports carved pilasters, reminiscen t of the dramatic doorways of the Connecticut valley.The flat leaves attached to a single vine on a stippled ground also evoke the carved decorations on oak chests and boxes datin g from the late seventee nt h century. The We thersfield style cyma curves of the frame and desk int erior as well as th e compact bonnet are enriched by iconic decoratio n. D espite the obvious differences in the design of th e bookcase, th e desk closely resembles the others in th e Brown gro up. Note that the apro n shell is inverted and that the supporting pads of the feet are redu ced in height.

IJO

WET HER S FIE L D

STY L E

S IN GUL A R

FEAT U R E S

D esk sect ion and fra me

Bookcase section I>

I>

Spiral-turned finials are one piece with a reel-shaped base;

I>

Arched shape of the facing of the valance drawers

no side plinths as in Willard group

I>

Incised ribs in the convex rays of the shell embellishing the prospect door

Center plinth is tall and shaped so that the cutouts form a nearly full circle

I>

Front apron has a wide center drop with an inverted shell

I>

Cornice extends to back of bonnet cavity

I>

Frame has horizontal boards nailed to the front and back

I>

Tympanum is carved and molded with a conforming panel I>

Long drawers have protruding dovetails in the back; dovetail

that closes the pediment, somewhat similar to those found in I>

members to support the desk

Newport bonnets, but with soft chamfered edges

pins of average size and angle; dovetail pins on both top and

Rectangular bookcase doors contain narrow raised tombstone

bottom of drawer sides

panels I>

Pilasters, relief-carved with stylized sunbursts, vines, and flowers on a stippled ground, flank the doors

I>

Bookcase interior has functional long compartments with shaped dividers similar to those in the desk interior

This unique desk-and-bookcase-on-frame displays an exciting and sophis ticated combination of Connecticut valley decorative elements.' The foliage- and sunburstcarved pilasters flanking the tombstone paneled doors of the bookcase rise above the cyma curves in the frame and desk interior. The cyma curves are from We thersfield; the pilasters are part of the decorative vocabulary in the Springfield-Northampton style (cats. 129-136). The bonnet is possibly the latest feature in the piece, as none has been securely documented to Hartford County before the 177os.2The circular cutout openings are much smaller than on later Wethersfield style bonnets. The conforming cutout in the backboard at the rear of the bonnet is unique. This desk and bookcase has an unverified history of ownership in the Hubbard family, many of whose members were from Middletown. The identity of]WL, who carved his initials on the top board, remains unknown .

MID D LET 0 W N:

B ROW N

G R 0 U P

Dimensions: overall H 8iA" W 39" D 21lh" M aterial s: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: two finials original; right front foot restored; supporting pads of the feet reduced in height; two small draw ers in the prospect missing; brasses replaced In scription: "]WL" carved on the top board Exhibition: Wadsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 125 Publication s: Henry Ford Museum issue: "T he Furniture," Antiques 73, no. 2 (February 1958): 156, fig. IS; C om stock, American Furn itu re, fig. 202; H osley, "Regional Furniture/Region al Life," p. 19, fig. IS

HCFS q6A

1. A s only a cursory examination was possible, informa tion is dr awn from the museum files and from photograph s taken by HCFS team.

2. H osley, "Regional Furniture/Regional Life" pp. 18-20. The design of the pilasters relate s to tomb stone s and doorw ays such as tho se attributed to Alexander Grant (I735-I8 or) who worked in both East Windsor and We stfield, Massachusetts; for additional tombstone example s see Great Riv er, nos. 331- 41; Miller, Connecticut Valley D oorways, nos. 29, 63. See also cats. 40, 144 and p. 70 for dating of bonnets in the region.

I]I

Chapin Style

In th e early 1770S a new, Philadelphia-inspired aesth etic, with streamlined rococo carved ornamentation, emerged in the Connecticut valley, challenging the dominan ce of the Wethersfield Queen Anne style. Evidently originating in th e East Windsor shop of Eliphalet Chapin, the new style became influential in th e region for more than twenty years; by the 1790S, cabinetmakers as far south as Silas Rice (1770-1852) in Wallingford and as far north as Julius Barnard (1769- post 1812) in Northampton were using elements of th e Chapin idiom (see cats. 77, 187-191). In th e early twentieth century, Chapin became one of several "big-name" cabinetmakers to whom countless easy attributions were made. Examination and extensive analysis of Chapin style case pieces by the HCFS points to three levels of production, distinguished by a decreasing number of shared index features.' The first level, the Eliphalet Chapin shop group, is represented by entries for nin et een pieces, who se remarkably con sistent pattern of index traits suggests that th ey came from the same sho p, albeit with multiple craftsmen at work (cats. 57-75). The second level comprises the Chapin school group, represented by example s that display some but not all of the index characteristics (see cats. 76-92). These pieces were made by craftsmen who were intimately famili ar with Eliphalet Chapin shop design and construction methods, but wh o modified these methods to suit th eir needs and customers' demands. Chapin schoo l work presumably was produced by men who appren ticed or worked as journey me n in Eliphalet's Eas t Windsor sho p, including hi s second cou sin Aaron, who subsequently established his own shop and trained yet another generation of craftsmen (see chapt. 7). Beyond th e Eliphalet Chapin sho p and Chapin schoo l groups is the third level, designated as Chapininfluence d, which consists of pieces that display Chapin -inspired design eleme nts- for example, latticework pediments, applied vine carving, or asymmet-

£]2

rical cartouches. However, close examination reveals few, if any, construction chara cteri stics shared with the shop and school groups (see cat. 82). This derivative Chapin-influenced work comes mostly from cabinet shops in or near the C onnecticut valley and clearly reflects the popularity of the Chapin aesthetic. For an earlier discussion of this conceptual framework, see the thr ee-part series on the survey, published in M aineA ntiqueDigest: Kugelman & Kugelman, "Hartford Case Furniture Survey," Kugelman, Kugelman, & Lionetti , "C hapin School" and "Oxbow."

I.

CHAPIN

STYLE

8liphalet Chapin Jhop, East Windsor

Eliphalet Chapin (1741-1807) was, by all accounts, the Connecticut River Valley's preeminent cabinetmaker during the second half of the eighteenth century. With the arguable exception of the unidentified creator of the Colchester style, no other individual in the region exerted such a profound influence on case furniture design and construction. Between 1771 and 1797 furniture based on Chapin's abstractions of the Philadelphia rococo aesthetic filled both the needs and aspirations of his clients and came to influence the entire region. The cabinetmakers who trained as apprentices or worked as journeymen in Chapin's large and productive shop perpetuated the style and applied many of his practices after they went out on their own, extending Chapin's influence into the early decades of nineteenth century. I On April 25, 1771, Chapin purchased one-half acre of land on Main Street in East Windsor (present-day East Windsor Hill section of South Windsor). He was almost 30 years old and had recently returned from Philadelphia, where as a journeyman, he had absorbed both the aesthetic and the methods of that city's cabinetmakers.' Soon after, he opened his shop and began producing furniture . Three years later second cousin Aaron Chapin (1753-1838), fresh from his own apprenticeship, joined Eliphalet. Business prospered. Aaron subsequently built a house next door to Eliphalet's and in 1777 married Mary King (1756-1829), member of a well-connected East Windsor family. The two Chapins worked together for nine years, and then at the age of 30, Aaron decided to establish his own shop-this one in Hartford-and moved on (see chapt. 7).3 Eliphalet Chapin remained in East Windsor. Like most master craftsmen in that era, he had both apprentices and journeymen working in his shop. When the first federal census was taken the Chapin household included four males: Eliphalet, his son Wight (1779-1803), and two apprentices.i

EAST ELIPHALET

WINDSOR:

CHAPIN

SHOP

Several of the craftsmen associated with the shop over the years have been identified through a combination of physical and documentary evidence. In addition to Aaron Chapin, these include Israel Porter, Simeon Loomis, Eli Roberts, Julius Barnard, John Burges, and William Flagg as well as Benjamin Newberry,Jonathan Birge, and Erastus Grant (table 3). Roberts, Porter, Barnard, and Flagg are placed in the shop by inscriptions on furniture pieces exhibiting the index characteristics of Eliphalet Chapin shop work (cats. 59,67,69, 70). Loomis signed a high chest identified as a Chapin school product, in addition to being credited for producing clock cases for East Windsor clockmaker Daniel Burnap (cats. 74-75). John Burges, identified by Eliphalet Chapin as a runaway apprentice in 1788, and Jonathan Birge, a craftsman who went on to become East Windsor's leading cabinetmaker at the beginning of the nineteenth century (cat. 65E) are two different individuals.5 Birge, Newberry, and Grant are presumed to have trained with Chapin, based on analysis of their known work as well as close family connections. Neither Eliphalet nor Aaron Chapin signed a piece of furniture; however, their apprentices and journeymen did, and this evidence suggests that in both shop s multiple men worked on various parts of the same object." Accordingly Chapin case furniture is here assigned to the shop of each master rather than to an individual. Attribution is based on a combination of inscriptions, written documentation, credible histories of ownership, and analysis of physical evidence. Together these factors enabled the HCFS team to establish index characteristics that function as criteria for attribution to Eliphalet Chapin's shop. The most reliably documented Eliphalet Chapin objects are four sets of chairs made for East Windsor patrons Ebenezer Grant (1706-97) and Alexander King (1749-1831), recorded in a 1775 daybook entry and a 1781 bill of sale (the latter now lost but noted by early

IJ]

furniture historian Irving W. Lyon in Eliphalet Ch apin Cr I89I).7The King family chairs have long 2 Large dining Tables @38/ [shillings, each] I stand Table 251 provided the starting point for Chapin 81 [each] 2 Candle stands scholarship; they possess superbly I Bed Sted (sacking Bottom) wi carved cabriole legs and claw-and-ball 2 Cherry Bedsteds long posts Claws &c 401 [each] feet, Philadelphia through-tenon conI Breakfast Table 301 stru ction, and other characteristic I Bed Corni sh [cornice] wi details (see cat. 57D). I screen Frame [pole screen?] 31 lh doz Claw Foot Cherry Ch airs 241 [each] Bottom'g @2/6 [each] The Grant daybook entry (right), lh doz ditto 25 /ditto ditto discovered by furniture historians in the lh doz molbor'o ditt o 25/ditto I Ir O [each] I960s, lists a total of thirty-one pieces of 2 arm'd Chairs one 361 t'other 3?!Bottg @2/6 [each] furniture (tables, beds, and three sets of Stuffing for the Bott oms 119 chair s) delivered by Eliphalet Chapin on packing the Same 12 / 6 December 5, I775, the day before Grant's Most of the twenty chairs in this order have been daughter, Ann (q48-I838) married John Marsh located, along with the stand table.'? Other items are (Q42-I828), pastor of Wethersfield's First Congregaunaccounted for but can be represented by correspontional Church.f ding examples that can be credibly attributed to the Six tables, three beds, twenty chairs, and one screen Chapin shop: a dining table, two candlestands, a bed, frame for a total charge of £41.1 .3. 9 A fine dowry and a breakfast table ." This furniture illustrates what indeed! 3 . I This elaborate and sophisticated stand table has the low stance and splayed legs typical of Hartford County trip od stands. The turned edge of the top is less commo n than serpentine, dished, or simple rounded edges. The cleats have ogeeshaped end s. The rounded legs and scribe lines on the shaft between the legs are comm on on Eliphalet Ch apin shop and Chapin schoo l produ cts. The superbly executed claw-and-ball feet and complex ring turnings are also characteristic. Privately owned. FI G U R E

IJ4

C HAP INS T Y L E

FI G U R E 3. 2 This side chair belongs to the less expensive set of claw-foot chairs in the Gr ant-Marsh commi ssion. Its scroll-interlaced splat is a Philadelphia design that the Chapin shop used more often than any other. The round , or stump, rear legs are another Philadelphia feature. On this and at least two other sets with over-the-rail uphol stery, Chapin used a recessed seat frame of pine to support the webbing and to minimize tacking into the rails. Connecticut Hi storical Society Museum, 1959.8.2, gift of Frederick K. and Margaret R. Barbour.

FI G U R E 3. 3 These diamond-splat chairs with over- the-rails upholstery are from the more expensive of the two sets of "Claw Foot Cherry Ch airs" in the Grant -Marsh commission. The splat design appears on several sets of Ch apin schoo l chairs and on chairs produ ced in New York and M assachusetts. The clawand-ball armchairs, grander in scale th an the side chairs, are among the Eliphalet Chapin shop's most successful creations. Connecticut Hi storical Society Muse um, 1960, 7.6.,1960, 7.5, gift of Frederick K. and Margaret R. Barbour.

FIG U R E 3. 4 This side chair with an upholstered slip seat is one of the six "molbor'0" chairs in the Gr ant-Marsh commission. The X-interlaced splat is the most elaborate of the Eliphalet Chapin shop designs and the pierced carved brackets are labor inten sive, explaining why this chair with straight legs cost as much as one with carved claw-and-ball feet. Privately owned.

E A ST ELIPHALET

WIN D S 0 R :

CHAPIN

SHOP

IJ5

th e Grant-Marsh commission encompassed as well as what such objects from Eliphalet Chapin's shop would have looked like (see figs. 3.1-3.n). Together the King and Grant-Marsh family pieces provide a sound basis for identifYing cabriole-leg case furniture-high chests and dressing tables-made at Eliphalet Chapin's shop (cats. 57-66). Two high chests and a dressing table, which descended in the King fam ily, display legs and feet that are virtually identical to th ose on the chairs, arguing per suasively th at all were produ ced in the same shop (cats. 57, 58,66). In turn the construc tion-based index features identified on the Eliphalet Chapin shop cabriole-Ieg case furniture also appear on later ogee-foot form s-bureaus, desks, and chests-on-c hests (cats. 67-75)-with sufficient consistency to indi cate shared origin s. While the decorative details vary betwe en the cabri ole-Ieg and ogee-foot for ms, th e persistence of construction techniques demon strates th at th e sho p's output included both types (for significant index features shared by both types of Chapin shop furniture, see p. 143). In all about two dozen case pieces plus a dozen sets of chairs and a half-d ozen table s and stands meet physical crit eria for attribution to the Eliphalet Chapin shop. Inscripti ons or histories of ownership in Windsor and Eas t Windsor familie s exist for 8 high chests, 2 dressing tables, 2 desks and bookcases, I che st-onchest, 2 clock cases, 2 tables, and multiple sets of chairs. These data complement the physical evidence and corrobora te th e shared origins of both the cabriole-Ieg and ogee-foot furniture in Eliphalet Chapin's shop. All furniture attributed to the shop shares an astonishing level of quality and con sistency rarely equaled in New England with the possible exception of the Goddard and Town send sho ps in Newport. The high chests, for example, are virtually identical in design and construction, exhibiting variation only in their carved decoration and turnings. Individually, non e of Eliphalet Chapin's construction practices is un ique to his shop. Together, they form an easily recogni zable signature representing a blend of Philadelphia and Connecticut valley techniques. From Philadelphia he adopted th e mortise-and-tenon joint for attaching muntins and drawer dividers, the substituti on of glue blocks for pegs in securing the lower-case joints of high chests and dressing tables, and the quartercolumn design. In contrast his backb oard attachment and drawer construction followed local practices, as did th e small scale of his pieces and his reliance on cherry as the primary wood . H e placed great emphasis on a clean

T his 46" wide dining table probably first belonged to Eli M oore (1753- 1800) , an East Windsor neighbor and contem porary of A nn Grant M arsh. T he leaves have notched corners and the side apro n is recessed between the leg posts, both features associated with Ph iladelph ia design . T he inner edges of the leg posts are thu mb- molded, flanking the inset apron and knee retu rns. The apro n has a single arch at the cutout rather th an a double arch as on a dressing table. T he legs and feet are unu sually well carved in the Eliphalet C hapin shop manner. W ood Memorial Library, 1980 .5° 7.1. FI G U R E 3 . 5

look, concealing his joinery by eliminating or avoiding exposed dovetail s, nails, and pegs on visible surfaces; midmoldings on high chests, for example, are nailed from the inside. Eliphalet Chapin's geniu s lay in his creative ability to capture Philadelphia's rococo design and decoration and to convert the se into a product that appealed to his conservative patrons (see cats. 57c, 65D) . The Chapin aesthetic-heavy, short-legged casework, restrained rococo carved decoration, inset fluted quarter columns, and latticework closed pediments-marked a radical departure from the slender, tall, and graceful W eth ersfield style that had prevailed since the 1750s.

CH APIN

STYL E

3 . 6 The shaft of this claw-and-ball-foot candlestand closely resembles that found on the Gr ant-Marsh stand table (fig. 3.1), particularly the ring and compressed ball turnin gs with scribe lines between the legs and chip carving at the base. The stand exhibits the same low stance and rounded legs. The large mahogany cleat is an inappropri ate replacement. The candlestand has an unverified history in the Hal e family of Coventry. Privately owned.

FI G U R E 3 . 8 Conn ecticut valley candlestands often had scalloped or serpentine shaped tops and sometimes a doubleended candle drawer, as on th is example. The stance is similar to Ann and John Marsh's stand table (fig. 3.1), but the turn ings on the shaft are simpler. Three long wooden pegs on each side of the drawer extend through the full height of the cleat/drawer support, presumably to keep it from splitting. The drawer dovetail pins resemble tho se of the Eliphalet Chapin shop, but the drawer side is not beaded on its outside edge. Privately owned.

FI G U R E

3 . 7 Claw-and-ball feet are uncommon on Connecticut valley candlestands. The execution of those on figure 3.6 is similar to those on the Grant-Marsh stand table (fig. 3.1), but the toes are less well articulated. Unlike the foot on a high chest or chair, the ball is grasped from the side; however, like a chair foot, the talons are carved as small pyramidal wedges. F I GU R E

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FIG U R E 3 . I 0 The leg and foot of figure 3.9 closely resemble those on chairs and high chests from Eliphalet Chapin's shop (see cat. 59F). The knee bracket is attached to the inside of the leg and is independent of the rail. As on quarter columns from Chapin's shop, the foot post has a visible seam where the rounded termination of the flutes extends into the separately turned base (see cat. 59B) .

FI G U R E 3. 9 Although this bed has no early history, the form is sufficiently rare that it could be one of the "2 Cherry Bedsteds long posts Claws" that belonged to the Marshes. The carving of the feet and the fluted column foot posts point to Eliphalet Ch apin's shop. The simpler head posts have a plain column finished with base turnings like tho se on the foot posts, and a simple turned swelling leg. Connecticut Historical Society Museum, 1982.47.1. FIG U R E 3. 1 1 Still owned by a direct descendant of Ebenezer Grant, thi s breakfast table was likely made for Eben ezer's son Roswell Grant (1746-1834), who married Flavia W olcott (1754- 1827) of East Windsor in 1783. Breakfast tables had drop leafs but not the shaped top s of pembroke tables. Pierced stretchers were a favorite embellishment in the region . Drawer constru ction and other details indicate this example is probably Ch apin schoo l work, possibly made by a former apprentice. Privately owned.

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C HAP INS T Y L E

I. See the Benjamin Newberry and Silas Rice groups, cats. 178-180, 18 7-191.

2. East W indsor Lan d Records, 1:68, Town H all, East Windsor; Davis, "Eliphelet C hapin," p. 172. In 1768 the eastern parish of W indsor had become the indepen den t town of Eas t Windsor. The presence of P hiladelphia features in Chapin's work has been widely noted; see Schoelwer, "Writings," elsewhere in this volume. Extensive research has not revealed where or with whom C hapin worked in the Qpaker City. 3. H oopes, "Aaron Chapin," pp. 97-98. Ma ry King C hapin's brothe r Alexander King (1749-1831) became one of Eliphalet's most important patro ns in the early 1780s. 4. The federal census of 1790 lists three males over age 16 (one of whom must be Eliphalet Chapin himself) plus one under 16 (who has to be Eliphalet's only son, Wight ) in th e household. T hat the extra two men lived with the Chapins suggests they were apprentices rather than journeymen. 5. Connecticut Courant, January 15, 1788. Birge's reputation is noted by Stiles, Windsor, 275

6. Unconfirmed and implausible Chapin signatures have been reported, for example, a mahogany desk with a paper notation, probably applied by a later owner, stating that it was made by "Eliaphet Chapin" in 1802; see "T he Ed itor's Attic: A Signed Eliphalet Chapin Desk," Antiques 39, no. 2 (February 1941): 847. Lyon, Colonial Furniture, p. 171; Kane, American Seating Furniture, no. 117. 8. Ebenezer Gran t daybook, Wood Memorial Library; see also Lionetti & Tren t, "Chapin Chairs," pp. 1089,1091, figs. 8-13. Adams & Stiles, Wetbersfield, 1:338-39, describes the weddi ng: "The social standing of Cap t. Grant, as th e leading citizen of (East) Wi ndsor, and the beauty and accomplishments of the bride, rendered this marriage [on December 6, 1775,] an event of great eclat. The guests were numerous, many from Boston, Springfield and other distant places, and after the ceremony, cake and wine were passed around, and followed by th e then invariable custom of dancing at weddings, which was joine d in by all present-except the ministers. A rich supper followed; and after dinner, the next day, a large company attended the newly married couple across the river to W ethersfield, where they were met by twenty gentlemen, on horseback, who, opening to the right and left, escorted them and introduced them to the house in which they afterwards spent their wedded life-one for 45, th e other for 61 years. Two bridesmaids, a M iss Chapman, from Boston , and a Miss Buckminster, from Springfield, remained with them as guests for three mon ths." 9. Case furniture, so often part of a well-to-do Connecticut father's wedding gift to his daught er and her husband , is notabl e for its absence from this order. No Chapin shop case furnitu re has descended in the family. Both Ebenezer G rant and John Marsh had strong ties to Massachusetts, and G rant ordered at least some case furniture from Boston, including a desk and bookcase he gave to Mars h at the time of the wedding; illustrated in Fales, Furniture ofHistoric Deerfield, no. 477; see also Adams & Stiles, Wethersfield, 1:340, 732, for this and other case pieces.

to receive various objects. Furni ture surviving from the G rantM arsh commission includes the following: Stand table (fig. 3.1): exhibited at Saint Louis Art Museum 1999, no. 19;published in Bernard & S. D ean Levy advertisement, Antiques 126, no. 5 (Novem ber 1984): 961; Bernard & S. Dean Levy, An American Tea Party (New York: by the authors, 1988), fig. 23; Lionetti & Trent, "Ch apin C hairs," p. ro88, fig. 13; Dowling, "Enigmatic Eliphalet Chapin," no. 91. Side chair with scroll-in terlaced splat, cabriole legs, and overthe- rails upholstery (fig. 3.2): Barbour Collection, pp. 12-13; Kirk, American Chairs, no. 196, Lionetti & Trent, "Chapin Chairs," fig. 9; D owling, "Enigmatic Eliphalet Chapin," no. 26. Armchair and side chair with diamond-interlaced splat, cabriole legs, and over-the-rails upholstery (fig. 3.3): exhibited at Metropolitan M useum of Art 1963, nos. 20, 21; Wadsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 239 (armchair); Concord Antiquarian Mu seum 1982, no. lor (side chair); published in Adams & Stiles, Wetherifield, 1:732 (armcha ir); Barbour Collection, pp. 14-15; Bishop, American Chair, fig. 205; Kirk, American Chairs, nos. 197-98; Lionetti & Trent, "C hapin C hairs," figs. ro-rr; D owling, "Enigmatic Eliphalet C hapin," nos. 18, 25. These chairs were owned by the same descendants ofJoh n Mars h as the side chair with marlborough legs and slip seat upholstery (below) but were sold about twenty years earlier, following th e death of great-g reat-g randson C harles Woodward M arsh (1878-1955) . Side chair with X-in terlaced splat, marlborough legs, and slipseat upholstery (fig. 3.4): published in Bernard and S. D ean Levy advertisement, Antiques 105, no. I (January 1974): ro; Bernard and S. D ean Levy, Catalog (1975), p. 50; C hristie's, sale 7820 (January 21-22, 1994), lot 253; Barry G . Friedma n advertisement, Ma ine Antique Digest 22, no. 5 (May 1994): 47D . This chair and three others from the set descended to Lorraine Pratt Tubbs (1889-1972), great-grea t-grea t-granddaughter of th e Marshes, who sold them in 1972: two are privately owned and two are in the collection of the Western Reserve H istorical Society, Cleveland (see Lionetti & Trent, "C hapin C hairs," fig. 12; D owling, "En igmatic Eliphalet C hapin," no. 22). n . Furn iture represen ting forms included in the Grant-Marsh comm ission includes th e following: D ining table (fig. 3.5); Dowling, "Enigmatic Eliphalet C hapin," no. 101. Candlestand with claw-a nd-ball feet (figs. 3.6, 3.7); Clearing H ouse Auction G alleries, August 6-7, 1982, lot 291; D owling, "Enigmatic Eliphalet C hapin," no. 95. Candlestand with drawer (fig. 3.8): Sotheby's, sale 6350 (October 25, 1992), lot 460; Israel Sack, Celebrating Our 90th Anniversary (1993) , p. 50 , P6490. Bed (figs. 3.9, 3.10): N ew York T imes, O ctober 24, 1982, Connecticut section; D owling, "Enigmatic Eliphalet C hapin," no. 103. Breakfast table (fig. j .n), A related dining table (privately owned) is 54" wide and has a hinge stamp ed WS, possibly for W illiam Stoughton, Eliphalet C hapin's neighbor and blacksmith ; for selected transactions with Chapin recorded in Stoughton's account book, see Davis, "Eliphelet C hapin," pp. 172-75.

10. Ann and John's unmarrie d daught er Lydia (1786-1880) remained in her parents' Wethersfield home until her death , keeping their cherished furnit ure intact. She left detailed instructions about which of her nephews and nieces and their children were

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TAB L E 3 CabinetmakersAssociated with the Efipha fet Chapin Shop Na me

Birthplace/ date

Apprenticeship Work history years'

Eliphalet Chapin

Somers 1741

1755- 62

Aaro n Chapin

Ch icopee parish of Sprin gfield

Selected data

Purchased land in East Windsor, 1771 Unknown, 1762-6 7 Philadelphia, 1767- 71(?) Documented chairs, tables and beds, 1775, 1781 Ea st Windsor, 1771-97 Documented in account books of Grant , Burnap, and others, 1770S-90S Advertised, 1788, 1795, 1797 Listed in E ast Windsor, federal census of 1790 Listed in East Windsor tax assessments, 1795, 1797 Sold shop, 1798 Listed in Ea st Hartford, federal census of 1800 Died in East Windsor, 1807 E ast Windsor, 1774-83 H artford, 178r 1830s

Purchased land & married in East Windsor, 1777 Advertised in Hartford, 1783-1820 Sold land in E ast Windsor, 1787 For subsequent activities, see table 8 (chapt. 7)'

E ast Windsor, ca. 1780-90 Wethersfield, 179o-1800s Middletown, 1800s-post 1830

"P Israel" inscribed on Ch apin shop desk and bookcase, ca. 1788 D ocumented clock cases made for Burn ap, 1788 Listed in Wethersfield, federal census of 1790, 1800 D ocumented high chest, 1791 Listed in Wethersfield tax assessment, 1795 Chairs mad e by Port er menti oned in Wolcott will,1799 Listed in M iddletown, federal census of 18ro, 1820,1830 Death unkn own

1753 Israel Port er

Eas tern parish of Windsor 1759

Benjamin Newberry Eas tern parish of Windsor 1765

E ast Windsor? Wethersfield, 1779-8 6 1787- 18ro or later

D ocumented high chest, 1794 Listed in Wethersfield tax assessment, 1795 Documented desk, bedpo sts, made for Francis, 1797 "Benjamin" inscribed on desk and bookcase, ca. 1800-18ro Listed in Wethersfield, federal census of 1800, 18ro Death unknown

Simeo n Loomis

E ast Windsor 1781- 88

"Simeon Loomis" inscribed on Chapin school high chest, ca. 1790 D ocumented clock cases, made for Burn ap, 1790-93 Labeled clock case, ca. 1795 Listed in E ast Windsor, federal census of 1800 N o record of work after 1800 Listed in Enfield, federal census of 1860 Died in Enfield, 1865

Eas tern parish of Windsor 1767

E ast Windsor 1790-93 Lansingburgh, NY. 1794-1800? Ea st Windsor, 1800-

' Apprenticeships are presumed to run from ages 14 to 21

I40

C HAP INS T Y L E

Name

Birthplace/ date

Apprenticeship Work history years'

Selected dat a

Eli Roberts

Eastern section of Hartford 1767

East Windsor 1781- 88

East Hartford 1795-

"Ely Roberts / - - - Windsor" inscribed on Chapin shop high chest, ca. 1782 Listed in East Hartford tax assessments 1795, 1797, 1798 Listed in East Hartford, federal census of 1800 No record of work after 1800 Death unknown, possibly Albany, N.Y., 1830

Jonathan Birge

Bolton 1768

East Windsor 1782- 89

East Windsor, 1789- 1820

Listed in East Windsor tax assessment s, 1795, 1797, 1798 Documented clock cases, made for Burn ap, 1800- 180 2 Listed in East Windsor, federal census of 1800 , 1810, 1820 Died in East Windsor, 1820

East W indsor 1783-90

orthampton 1792- 1801 H anover, N.H. 180r Windsor, Vt, 1802-7 Montreal, Can. 1809-12

Signed Chapin shop desk and bookcase Mentioned in Burn ap's accounts with E. Ch apin, 1788- 90 Adverti sed in Northampton area 1792 Listed in Northampton, federal census of 1800 Advertised in New H amp shire, 1801 Adverti sed closing of shop in Montreal, 1812 Death unknown

Julius Barnard

John Burges

East Windsor

Somers 1771

Named as runaway apprentice in E Chapin advertisement 1788 John Burgess listed in Sprin gfield, federal census of 1810 Died in Longmeadow, 1818

1785- 87

William Flagg

Eastern section of Hartford 1772

East Windsor 1786-93

Erastus Grant

Westfield, M ass. 1774

E A ST ELIPHALET

Hartford 1796 East Hartford 1797Providence , R.I. 1826

"WF" and "William Flagg" inscribed on Ch apin shop bureau s, 1787-95 "WF" and "WFlagg" inscribed on Chapin shop desk and bookcase (built-in), 1788-1795 "WF" inscribed on Ch apin shop desk and bookcase, ca. 1788 Adverti sed in Hartford 1796 Listed in Hartford tax assessment 1796 Listed in East H artford tax assessments 1797, 1798 East Hartford land records, 1801-1832 Listed in Providen ce city directory, 1826 Listed in East H artford, federal census of 1850 Died in East H artford, 1858

East Windsor 1788-95 Lansingsburgh, N.Y., ca. 1795? Westfield, Mass. 1795-

"E. Grant / Westfield" and "EG " inscribed on Ch apin school desk and bookcase, 1795- 1800 "G rant Novr znd 1799" inscribed on bureau, 1799 "E Grant" inscribed on hood of tall case for clock labeled "Lomis & Pelton, Lan singburgh," ca. 1795 Listed in Westfield, federal census of 1810, 1820, 1850, 1860 D ied in Westfield, 1865

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Sliphalet Chapin Jhop Cabriole-Leg Case :Furniture

Ten examples of cabriole-Ieg case furniture-eight high che sts and two dressing tables-share enough index features to merit attribution to the Eliphalet Chapin shop. All have corroborating family histories, linking them to either East Windsor, or its parent town of Windsor, on the opposite bank of the Connecticut River. They range in likely production dates from the mid I770S to about 1790, with the majority evidently originating in the 1780s. Among the most striking aspects of this cabriole-leg furniture are its meticulous workmanship and remarkable con sistency. The eight high chests are virtually identical in construction and design, exhibiting minor variation only in their carved decoration and turnings. These traits suggest that Chapin must have been a painstaking master, insisting that his workmen adhere closely to established shop practices and standards. Options for individualizing the standard model high chest appear to have been limited to the carved elements-central cartouches, plinths, finials, cauliculi, and center drawer fronts. Cartouches survive in "rooster" or "sea horse" form s, both of which are stylized abstractions of asymmetrical rococo designs (see cats. 57, 59, 62).1 Center plinths are split cylinders decorated with either rococo ornament (a scalloped rosette enclosing a low-relief X) or neoclassical flutes. The rosettes terminating the scrolled pediments are all based on a cauliculus (cabbage form), but each pair differs slightly from the others, illustrating the flexibility and expertise of the carver. The side finials display slight variations on two main types, with either an urn or a compressed ball turning. The center drawers are ornamented with either carved shells or applied intertwined vines (one high chest has both a shell and a vine carving, and one dressing table displays a unique configuration of vines arranged to form the first owner's initials; cats. 61, 65). Credible histories of surviving cabriole-leg rococostyle high chests, dressing tables, and chairs generally point to Eliphalet's shop rather than Aaron's as their

place of origin. No examples of cabriole-leg forms have been documented to Aaron's shop in Hartford. By the time it opened in 1783, the ogee-foot bureau and cheston -chest were appearing on the scene, and Aaron's lengthy, detailed advertisements from the I780s notably fail to mention high chests or dressing tables. I. The majority of existing rooster cartouche s are replacements based on the original example on the King family high chest at Winterthur (cat. 57). The sea horse cartouche survives in fragmentary form only on two high chests (cats. 59, 62); that on the Strong family built -in chest- on-chest (cat. 68) is likely original.

CHAPIN

STYLE

S IGN IF ICANT I ND EX FEATU RES OF A L L CASE F UR NI T URE FORM S : CA TS . 57-7 5

o

o

Ch erry as primary wood; eastern white pine as predominant sec-

two designs-a deeply carved three-d imensional shell or applied

ondary wood

interlocking vines with eight leaves each-skillfully executed

Quarter columns constructed in three parts (capital, fluted shaft, base); similarly turn ed capitals and bases incorporate th e rounded

with no two exactly alike (see cats. 57B, 60A)

o

each with four flutes with round ed terminations

ends of th e four flutes; turn ings show little variation

o

In set thre e-part quarter columns on both upp er and lower cases,

Backboards of upper cases and bureaus are chamfered and set in

o

Front aprons have a scalloped outline, all made from th e same

o

Short cabriole legs with four fully carved claw-and -ball feet echo

grooves in case sides and top (see cat. 59C)

templ ate; side aprons have a flatten ed double arch

o

Drawer dividers and muntins are attached by single or double morti se-and-t enon joints (see cat. 70B)

the proporti ons of their Philadelphia counterparts; uncarved

o

Drawers sides are carefully and consistently finished with a bead

knees; knee returns, shaped with cyma reversa, are nailed to the underside of the apron

along the outside upper edge; drawer dovetail pin s are relatively small and have little angle; no frame- saw marks on drawer bot-

o

Each foot clasps a slightly flattened ball, with short wedge-shaped

o

Brasses are placed high on each drawer front so that th e bottom

talon s terminating each toe

toms (see cat. 67C)

o

Additional In dex Featu res ofH igh Chests

of the bail aligns with the vertical center of each drawer; brasses

D esign and D ecorati on

on the long drawers of the upper case are inset

Closed pediment (separated from the case by a straight cornice molding across the facade); scrolled corn ice incorporates carved latticework and terminates in naturalistic and freely carved

Constru ction

o

o

(see cat. 59A)

from the back in front of th e backboards; a full dustboard may

Carved asymmetrical cartouches, of which two designs survive-a

be set in the same groove

rooster and a sea horse (see cats 57A, 68); there were prob ably

o

more. These are clean, uncluttered abstractions of ornate rococo

the quarter columns (see cat. 70B); muntins are attached to

them they are mounted so th at they tilt forward . Each is secured

drawer dividers with single tenons

o

of wood, are nailed to the case sides, with nails recessed in

Center plinth is a half cylinder with a separate molded cap.

counter-bored holes. Inte grated one-piece runners/guides for the

Whether fluted (see cat. 57A) or relief-carved with a symmetrical

center drawers are tenoned through the backboard, visible from

design (see cats. 58, 59A), it sits in front of the one-piece lattice

the back as a fat upside-down T-shape in the upper case and an

Paired side finials are turned in one of two basic designs, incor-

irregularly shaped block in th e lower case (see cats. 59C, 65C)

o

porating an urn or a compressed ball; they rest on small, cubical,

inside surface of th e midm olding

o

Ident ically molded cornices about zW' in height; most have a

o

Top board is chamfered behind the lattice, permitting a narrower

o

Stacked vertical glue blocks, rath er th an pegs, secure front and side mort ise-and-tenon joints in th e lower case (see cat. 59G)

triangular pine core (see cat. 59D)

Additional Index Featu res ofDressing Tables

border and greater penetration oflight throu gh the latticework

o

(see cat. 60B) Top row of thre e tall drawers above four long drawers of graduated height in the upp er case; a long drawer over a row of three

o

Midmolding is nailed to the sides and front of the lower case from the inside; nails are recessed in pockets gouged on th e

uncapped plinth s (see cat. 59B)

o

L- shaped side drawer runners and guides, cut from a single piece

rear of the plinth cap

board that is supported from behind by a vertical trapezoidal block

o

Drawer dividers are atta ched by single tenons to the vertical quarter-column housing and by dovetails to th e case sides behind

carvings that appear on their Phil adelphi a counterparts, and like with a Z- shaped iron plate screwed to an angled cutout in the

o

D ovetailed, horizontal , interior back brace is positioned below either the first or second long drawer of upper case; it is slid in

cauliculus, with two or thr ee spoon-shaped leaves in th e center

Top has an on-edge moldin g, overhangs all four sides, and is attached

o

to

the case with screws from below

Coved cornice moldin g below the top, as on Ph iladelph ia dress-

drawers, the center one of which is deeper, in the lower case

ing tables. Nailing to the case side is concealed by toeing- in the

Center drawers in upper and lower cases decorated with one of

nails from the top surface of the cornice

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57

H igh chest with scrolled p ediment Probably Eliphalet Chap in shop E ast Windsor,possibly I78I Probablyfirs t owned by Abigail Olcott and Alexander King of East Windsor Wi nterth ur Museum, 93.55

Possessing all the index features of the Eliphalet Chapin shop, this high chest is of exceptional quality and condition and is among the most securely documented. Abigail Olcott (1760-1837) and Alexander King (1749-1831), the probable first owners, married May 7, 178r. He was a farmer who co-owned a saw mill, and like Chapin he lived on East Windsor's Main Street. At his death King's estate included this "case of draws [valued at] $2.-" The couple's daughter Harriet (1795- 1884) continued to live in the homestead for the next half century, and the inventory of her estate included two high chests: this one and another that is slightl y later in date (cat. 58). This high chest went to Harriet's great-nephew Frederick A. King (1833-1923) and ultimately to Deborah King Walker (1911-93 ), Frederick's granddaughter, the last private owner,' Chapin also supplied Abigail and Alexander King with a set of six claw-and-ball foot chairs in 1781 (cat. 57D), and, near the end of the decade, a dressing table (cat. 66).2 Only East Windsor merchant Ebenezer Grant and the Wolcott family seem to have provided Chapin with this level of patronage (see pp. 133-35 & cats. 62, 64, 75).

C AT A L OG 5 7 A This rare cartouch e, resembling a rooster, may be the only surviving original example of this design , which was much copied in the twentieth century. It exemplifies Eliphalet Chapin's preference for simple abstractions of rococo design rath er th an th e highly ornate rocaille work from Ph iladelphia. There is slight variation in the carving of the two cauliculi and in the weaving of th e latti cework. The fluting of the center plinth is rounded off in the plint h cap, a separate piece.

CAT A LOG 5 7 B The undulating three-dimensional carving is of a quality unsurp assed in the region. All Eliph alet Chapin shop carving is consistent in quality but flexible and confident in details such as leaves and scrolls. In the shells the rays usually extend th e semicircular arc beyond 180°.

C AT A LO G 5 7 This high chest exhibits all of the features associated with the Eliphalet Ch apin shop, including exceptionally well-executed three-dimensional shells on the drawers and a fluted center plinth. It has had no significant restoration.

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I45

CAT A LO G 5 7 c Eliphal et Chapin borrowed many elements from Ph iladelphia and reint erpreted them int o a Conne cticut aesthetic . This high chest by Thomas Tufft of Philadelphia dates from 1773-1785 and has the same latticework pedim ent, cauliculus scrolls, quart er columns, and relative prop orti ons that Chapin was incorporating in his own designs. Philadelphi a Museum of Art, 1991.54.1, purchased with fund s contributed by the Barra Founda tion; Mrs. Henry W. Breyer, Sr.; H. Richard Dietrich, Jr.; Mr. and M rs. John J. F. Sherrerd; Mr. and Mrs. E. Newbold Smith; anonymous donors; and museum funds, 1991.

C AT A LOG 5 7 D Eliphalet Ch apin's shop made six side chairs for Alexander and Abigail King in 1781, likely the same year as the high chest; the legs and feet on the chairs are strikingly similar to those on the high chest. The carved ears and shell on th e crest rail are similar to those on other Ch apin shop sets. This chair is lighte r and slenderer than th ose he made for Ebenezer Grant in 1775 (see fig. 3.2). Like all chairs from Chapin's shop these have side rails tenoned throug h the rear leg posts and rounded vertical corner blocks both glued and nailed in place. Through -tenons and rounded corner blocks are Philadelph ia techniques, although they are also seen on chairs from other shops in th e county (see, for example, cat. 19C). Yale University Art G allery, M abel Brady Garvan Collection, 1930.2516.a-b.

D imensions: overall H 80rs" (with cartouche 861h"); upper case H 49Vs" W 36Ys" D 17Ys"; lower case H 31'h" W 381,4" D 18Vs"

1. In 1777 Alexander's sister M ary (1756-1829) had married Aaron Chapin. M ember s of the King family occupied the house until it burned in 1924. Deb orah King Walker to the auth ors, June 9, 1991, HCFS files.

M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Con dition notes: finials, plinths, cartouche, and the stamped, Birmingham-made brasses are original Exhibi tions: Connecticut Tercentenary 1935, no. 164; Winterthur Museum 1994, pp. 84-85; W inter Antiques Show, New York City, January 2002 (Wintert hur exhibit)

2. Irving W . Lyon purchased a pair of the claw-a nd-ball-foot chairs (now at Yale Un iversity Ar t Gallery) from H arriet King, and according to Lyon's son, King showed him the 1781 receipt for th e entire set; see Kane, American Seating Furniture, p. 138.

Publ ications: Zea, "Dive rsity and Regionalism," pp. 92, 93, fig. 34; Richards & Evans, New Eng/and Furnitu re at Winte rthur, no. 174 H CFS 26

I46

C HAP INS T Y L E

CATALOG

58

High chest w ith scrolled p edim ent Probably Eliphalet Chapin shop E ast Windsor,possibly I790 Yale Un iv ersity A rt Gallery, Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, I930.2I24

In design and construction this high chest is virtually identical to catalog 57; only the center plinth-a half cylinder embellished with rectangles separated by relief-carved vertical and horizontal bars-differs.1 The provenance of this high chest and a dressing table (cat. 66) traces ownership back to Harriet King (1795-1884), Abigail and Alexander King's daughter. Harriet bequeathed them to her great-niece, Mary

Vibert (1852-92), from whose family Franci s P. G arvan purchased them in the 1920S.2 According to family tradition, the Kings owned two high chests, the other being catalog 57. The 1790 chalked on a drawer of thi s high chest suggests it is the later of the two. It may be contemporaneous with the dressing table, which has ring-and-bail brasses that the Chapin shop was using by 1788 (see cat. 66). D imen sions: overall H 80rs"; upper case H 493/s" W 36Vs" D li A"; lower case H 311h" W 381h" D 181h" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: finials and brasses original; cartouche replaced In scription: "1790 " chalked on outside back of upper-case bottom drawer Exhibiti on: Conn ecticut Tercent enary 1935, no. 161 Public ations: Kirk, Early A merican Furniture, pp. 103, 105, fig. 85; Ward, A merican Case Furni ture, no. 146; D owling, "E nigma tic Eliphalet Chapin," no. 64 HCFS 13

1. There is conflicting informa tion about the design source for the replaced cartouche. Ward, American Case Furniture, no. 146, states that H artford cabinetmaker Paul Koda carved the cartouche in 1966- 67, copying the one on cat. 63. D eborah King W alker believed it to be a copy of the one on cat. 57, which she owned (Walk er to the authors, Jun e 9, 1991, HCFS files). 2 . An early twentieth-century photo, showing the two on display side-by-side, is labeled "Vibert formerl y King highb oy and lowboy" (photo privately owned; copies in HCFS files and Yale University Art G allery object file). The distribution of H arriet King's estate is among the King family papers. According to family tradition , the second high chest (probably this one) was purchased from "a neighb or."

C AT A LO G 5 8 This high chest is typical of those attri buted to Eliphalet Chapin's shop. The finials and carved shells are similar to catalog 57. The front of the center plinth is relief-carved with a double row of rectangular panels. Brasses are positioned so that the bottom of the grip aligns with the vertical center of the drawer. The cartouche is a replacement .

E A ST

ELIPHALET

WIN D S 0 R :

CHAPIN

SHOP

I47

CATALOG

59

H igh chest w ith scrolled p edim ent Probably E lip halet Chapin shop, sign ed by Eli Roberts E ast Win dsor, p robably q82-q88, possibly I782 Probablyfirst ow ned by Sarah Mather of Windsor and Asa hel Olcott ofEast Windsor Priv ately owned

This high chest typifies Eliphalet Chapin shop work; its only singular feature is the absence of a dustboard in the upper case. Eli Roberts, who signed one drawer, was born in 1767 in Hartford. He married about 1788, identified him self as a cabinetmaker during the 1790S, and remain ed in the East Hartford community until at least I803. Although the level of his participation in the creation of this high chest remains unknown, the placement of the inscription and the ownership history suggest the high chest dates from his apprenticeship years.I The probable first owners of the high chest, Sarah Mather (1757-I817) of Windsor and Asahel Olcott (1754- I83I) of East W ind sor, married on December 2, q82, a likely date for the high chest. (Asahel's sister,

CAT A LOG 5 9 A The center plinth design , includ ing the molded cap and scalloped rosette, appears on other Eliphalet Chapin shop chests (cats. 60, 61, 63).The cartouche, the right part of which is original, likely was a sea horse (as on cats. 62, 6S). O ther cabinetmakers copied thi s motif well int o th e nine teenth centu ry; see catalog ISO. The carving of the cauliculus scrolls is similar to th at on other E liphalet Chapin shop high chests. T he vines are glued on, not carved from the solid.

I48

CAT A L OG 5 9 B This finial, one of two basic designs in C hapin's shop, has a compressed ball reminiscent of Philadelphia furniture. The small, cubical, uncapped plinth is aligned with the case side and front. The round ed termin ations of the quarter-column flutes are in the capital segment.

Abigail, and her husband, Alexander King, also owned several Chapin shop pieces; see cats. 57, 58,66). Asahel's estate included a "case of draws." It descended to Frances O. Mather (1795-I877), Sarah and Asahel's granddaughter, then to her son, Addison H . Smith (I857-I92I) of We st Springfield, and finally to Addison's grandson, who consigned it to auction in I978.2

CA T A L OG 5 9 c Backboards are chamfered and slid into grooves cut in case sides and top, allowing them to expand and contract freely; nails attach th e lowest backboard to the case bottom . The fat upside-d own T-shapes are the ends of the center runners for the small drawers.

C HAP INS T Y L E

C AT A LOG 5 9 Several decorative elements on thi s high ches t serve as hallmarks of Eliphalet Ch apin shop design : applied vine carvings on the drawers, center plinth relief-carved with an X within a scalloped rosette, and th e remnan ts of a sea horse cartouche.

E A ST ELIPHALET

WIN D S 0 R :

CHAPIN

SHOP

I49

CATALOG 59 D Eliphalet Chapin shop cornices are identically molded, about 2J,.2" in height, and most have a triangular pine core.

RIGHT REAR LEG POST PINE CORE

PRIMARY WOOD

C AT A L OG 59G Stacked glue blocks secure the front and side mortise-andtenon join ts in the lower case.

D imensions: overall H 80W'; upper case H 49Vs" W 35*" D Ir is"; lower case H 31" W 3814" D 18%" Ma terials: cherry with eastern white pine Cond ition notes: right side of cartouche original; finials and brasses original In scripti ons: "Ely Robert s / - - - Windsor" in graphite on outside back of small drawer on left side of upper case; "9, 27, 82"on th e same surface, possibly by a different hand Publ ications: Soth eby Parke Bernet, sale 4180 (November 16-18, 1978), lot 1006;Joh n W alton advertisement, Antiques 133, no. I (Jan uary 1988): 4; Dowling, "Enigmatic Eliphalet Chapin," no. 62; Kugelman & Kugelman, "Hartford Case Furniture Survey," p. 36A, fig. I; Kugelman, Kugelman, & Lionetti, "Chapin School," pp. 12-13D, fig. 2 CAT A LOG 5 9 E "Ely Roberts" and "Windsor" are legible in raking light; the illegible lett er before Windsor may be an "E" or "S." The numbers above the name appea r to be contemporaneous and may represent a date, price, or calculation. Robert s, age IS when the high chest likely was made at the C hapin shop, would only have been an appren tice.

H C FS 18

1. Although he signed it "Ely," Roberts's first name is spelled Eli in vital records.

2. Martin A. Smith to Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1978, photocopy, H C FS files. T here was a second high chest in the O lcott family, listed in the probate records of Asahel's younger brother Eli (1756-1826), that could have been from the Eliphalet C hapin shop. Eli married Abigail Cook (1760-1832) of East W indsor on April 7, 1784, and th eir high chest descended to granddaughter Cl ara M ath er Olc ott (1836-1903). Clara was the maternal aunt of Addison Smith , who was listed as her heir. The location of the other high chest is unkn own.

CAT A LOG 5 9 F T he leg and foot of this high chest (left) and a King family side chair (right) from the same set as catalog 57e, made about the same time, are nearly identical. This despite th e sharper curve necessitated by the chair's lower height. C hair privately owned.

ISO

C H AP INS T Y L E

C AT ALOG

60

H igh chest w ith scrolled p ediment Probably Eliphalet Chapin shop Ea st Windsor,possibly I78I Probablyfirst owned by Mary Ellsworth and Chaun cey N ewberry ofE ast Windso r Priv ately ow ned

The exceptionally crisp carving and bold brasse s give this high chest great presence. Its only atypical feature is an angled hole in the center plinth cap for attaching th e now-missing center ornament; other Chapin shop high chest cartouches are attached with a Z-shaped iron plate. The reputed first owners, Mary Ellsworth (QS9-r829) of Ea st Windsor and Chauncey Newberry (Qso-r829), married on December 26, r781.1 Chauncey's younger brother was Benjamin Newberry (b. Q6S), who may have been an apprentice in the Chapin shop at the time thi s was made; he later set up shop as a cabinetmaker in Wethersfield (see cats. q8-r8o) . Dimensions: overall H 82%"; upper case H 5ollz" W 36W' D 171,4"; lower case H 31%" W 38+'8 " D 18l1z" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Conditi on notes: cartouche replaced; finials and brasses original Publication: Frederick K. Barbour, T he Stature of Fin e Connecticut Furniture (Hartford: Conn ecticut Printers, 1959), n.p. HCFS 127

CA T A LO G 6 0 Unu sually bold brasses give th is Eliphalet Chapin shop high chest great visual impact. W ith the exception of the replaced cartouche, it is in exceptional condition .

I. Frederick K. Barbour to Mrs. Claude And erson, August 4, 1959, photocopy, C HS M useum object file 1971.35.3.

CA T A L OG 6 0 A T he front edge of the top board is chamfered behind the bott om row of latti cework, allowing ligh t to pass. The round hole drilled int o th e plinth cap and supporting block angles forward. Other Eliphalet Ch apin shop high chests with original cartouches have a Z-shaped iron plate screwed to an angled cutout in the back of th e plinth cap. The difference suggests this high chest had a different type of center ornament (see cat. 67).

E A ST ELIPHALET

WIN D S 0 R :

CHAPIN

SHOP

ISI

C ATALOG 6r H igh chest with scrolled pediment Probably Eliphalet Chapin shop E ast Windsor, £775-£795, possibly I785 Possiblyfirst owned by Anna Palm er and Efiakim Marshall ofWindsor Wadsworth Atheneum Museum ofArt, I993-52 , gift of Society for Savings, fo unded by D aniel Wadsworth in I8I9, and Bank ofBoston, Connecticut

The only atypical feature present on this example is the cornice mold ing, which is cut from a single piece of cherry, rather than cherry glued to a pine core. This high chest was sold at auction in r930 to settle the estate of Richard H. Mather (1856-1930), a bachelor who had lived in the family homestead in Windsor for seventy-four years. The most likely original owners were his maternal great-grandparents, Anna Palmer (1762-r842) and Capt. Eliakim Marshall (1754-1831), who married December 27, 1785, a date in keeping with the features of the high chest. At his death the captain left "1 Chest with draws" valued at $3 . If this is the same object, it is one of the few instance s of ownership of an Eliphalet Chapin shop high chest in Windsor, west of the river.' Dimensions: overall H 81"; upper case H 49Ih" W 36" D 17"; lower case H 31Ih" W 381,4" D 18Ih" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine C ondition notes: cartouche replaced; finials and brasses original Exhibiti on: Wad sworth Atheneum 1993, p. 3 Publi cation s: Sack, Fine Points, p. 188; Israel Sack advertisement, A nt iques 57, no. 5 (M ay 1950): 315 HCFS 28

Robert M . Reid & Son , auction, M ay 30, 1930; photocopy, HCFS files. Cats. 68 & 69 are other examples owned in Windsor.

1.

CAT A LOG 6 I The combination of a vine-carved uppe rcase drawer and a shell on the lower-case dr awer is a unique feature of th is Eliphalet C hapin shop high chest. The finials are similar in design to catalog 59, and the center plinth resembl es that on catalogs 59, 60 , & 63.

I52

C

HAP

INS

TY

L E

CATALOG 62 H igh chest w ith scrolled p edim ent Probably Eliphalet Chapin shop East Windsor, possibly I774 Probablyfirst owned by J erusha Wolcott and Samuel Wolcott of East Windsor Priv ately owned

This high chest is likely the earliest of the shop 's surviving high chests, perhaps produced just three years after Eliphalet Chapin purchased land in East Windsor.The early date may account for its atypical features. Original ownership in the Wolcott family of East Windsor is inferred from a graphite inscription inside the lower-case long drawer : "7 pieces / Rev. S. Hines / Higganum." Rev. Sylvester Hine (1818-99) came from New Haven and his family lived in Fairfield County; however, his wife, Ann Grant Skinner (1823-19 02), came from East Hartford. Her grandparents, Jerusha (1753-1844) and Samuel Wolcott (1755-1813) of East Windsor were cousins who married December 19, 1774; they owned a high chest that at Samuel's death in 1813 was described as "I Case Draws" and given an unusually high value: $17- True to custom, widow Jerusha retained lifetime use of the furnishings, after which the high che st passed to her daughter Ursula Wolcott Skinner (1788-1869). Ur sula lived in East Windsor from 1840 to 1851 and then moved to Higganum to live with her daughter and son-in-law, Ann and Sylvester Hine, which is when the inscription was likely added as shipping instructions.' High chests often constituted part of a well-to-do Connecticut bride's dowry, so it seems reasonable to assign thi s high chest the date of 1774. The Wolcotts were a well-known and wealthy East Windsor family; three served as governors of Connecticut and two, one of whom was Jerusha's father, Erastus Wolcott (1722-93), attained the rank of general in the Revolutionary War. Samuel's sister Naomi Wolcott also received a Chapin high chest when she marri ed (cat. 64).

S INGULAR

I>

FEATURES

D im en sions: overall H 82"; upper case H 50" W 36Ys" D 17* "; lower case H 32" W 38Vs" D 19" M ateri als: cherry with eastern white pin e and yellow pi ne (back oflower case) C ondition not es: on ly th e lower porti on and iro n attachment plate of the original carto uche survive; fini als and brasses original Publicati on s: Sotheby's, sale 6IJ2 (February 2, 1991), lot 1573; Lei gh Keno adverti sem ent, Antiques 141, no. 5 (May 1992) : 707; Sotheby's, sale 6763 (O ctober 22, 1995), lot 300 HCFS 9

Yellow pine as one of th e secondary woods (infrequent in post- r- oo H artford County furniture)

I>

Large side plinth s: 13,4" wide rather th an 11;.4"

I>

Scribed line surrounds the carved shells (similar to th at on cat. 87); rays do not undulate

I>

C A T A L OG 6 2 This circa 1774 high ches t is th e earliest kn own surviving example attributed to th e E liphale t C ha pin sho p. The shells are simpler th an th ose on later high chests. A fragm ent is all that rem ain s of the origina l sea h orse cartouche.

Drawer dovetails are small, with little angle

E A S T WINDSOR : ELIPHALET CHAPIN SHOP

1.

Stile s, Windsor, 2:814.

C ATALOG

63

High chest with scrolled p edim ent Probably Eliphalet Chapin shop East Windsor, £775-£795 Wadsworth Atheneum Museum Mr. an d Mrs. Rob ert P. Butler

ofA rt, I964.I4 6, gift of

In the r920S two branches of the Stoughton family of East Windsor lived across Main Street ("The Street") from one another, and each owned one part of this high chest. C ollector Robert P. Butler arranged to reunite the two parts.' A few years later dealer Charles Woolsey Lyon enthusiastically (but unsuccessfully) advertised the restored piece for sale: "The mallet of Eliphalet Chapin .. . wrought thi s exqui site cherrywood Highboy in which th e inborn arti stry of the master Colonial craftsman reache s its highest peak. .. . From the quaint littl e workshop in Windsor, this famous piece eventually found its way into the private collection of Robert P. Butler,"? Although Butler did not name the family members, brothers Wyllys Stoughton (q96-r867) and Francis Stou ghton (r8or-83) and their descendants are likely candidates ) Wyllys had married Mary Birge (r800-r883), dau ghter of Jonathan Birge (q68-r820), a cabinetmaker wh o prob ably trained in Chapin's shop. Francis had married Olive Loomis (r8rr-44), daughter of Jon ath an Birge's much younger half brother Chauncey L oomis (q84- r873) and granddaughter of Amasa Loomis (see cat. 65). The high chest could have come from either side of the family. Dimensions: overall H Br"; upper case H lower case H 3II,4" W 38" D 18"

49 ~"

C AT A L OG 6 3 By far the best known example of this genre, this high chest conforms in every respect to the criteria for attribution to the Eliphalet Ch apin shop.

W 35I,4" D 16%"; pI. 16; D owling, "E nigmatic Eliphalet Ch apin," no. 61; G reene, American Furnit ure, p. 68

Materials: cherry with eastern whit e pine Condition notes: finials original; ends of pediment cornice restored; strip added to top behind latti ce board; supporting block for center plinth missing; carto uche (att ached with a wooden block) possibly replaced; midm olding and brasses replaced

HCFS 38

W adsworth Atheneum Museum of Art object file. Experts hold differing opinions about the extent of the restorations to the upper case, pediment, and cartouche. In all likelihood the pediment was removed for a tim e and the upper case used as a bureau. During reassembly compensations were made; the center plinth is reduced in height, and too much of the lower edge of the lattice board is visible. Cabinetmaker Paul Koda and others consider the cartouche authentic; the HCFS team considers it a replacement because, despite the breaks and repairs, its execution and attachment are quite different from cats. 57,59, 62. 1.

Exhibition: W adsworth A theneum 1967, no. 93 Publications: Nutting, Furniture T reasury, I: pl. 370; Charles Woolsey Lyon advertisement, Antiquarian 15, no. 5 (November 1930): 3; M aynard, "Eliphalet C hapin: Resolute Yankee," pp. II, 14-16; Ph ilip John ston, "Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Furni ture in the W adsworth Atheneum," A nti ques II5, no. 5 (May 1979):1018, pI. 4; H arold Sack, "The D evelopment of the American H igh C hest of Drawers," Antiques 133, no. 5 (May 1988): II25,

2. Lyon advertisement, A nt iquarian 15, no. 5 (November 1930): 3.

3. Author and historian D oris Burgdorf of East W indsor to the auth ors, July 2001, HCFS files.

I54

C HAP I N S T Y L E

CATALOG

64

H igh chest w ith scrolled p ediment Probably Eliphalet Chapin shop E ast Windsor, p robably q 80 Probablyfirst owned by Nao mi Wolcott of Ea st Windso r and William Rob inson of Southington Privately owned

According to family tradition this is the "Robinson Highboy in which was carried the trousseau of Naomi Wolcott Robinson when she journeyed as a bride from East Windsor to Southington, Connecticut, in 1780." Naomi Wolcott (1754-82) died only two years after her February 8, 1780, marriage to Rev. William Robinson (1785-1825). Over the next six generations the high chest descended from daughter to daughter (and one niece) to the present owner. I Naomi's sister-in-law, Jerusha Wolcott, had also received an Eliphalet Chapin shop high chest about the time of her marriage six years earlier (see cat. 62). Dim ensions: upper case W 36" D 17"; lower case H

31~ "

W 381,4" D 18¥s" Ma terials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: entire pediment-cornice, plinths, finals, and cartouche-and brasses replaced Exhibition: Conn ecticut Tercentena ry 1935, no. 157 Publication: Bertha Smith Taylor, D escendants of R ev. William R obinson (Hartford: privately print ed, 1936), facing p. 47 HCFS 74

A label attached to th e back of a small drawer details the family history and restoration by Anton Mislovits in 1928. There are physical traces of an earlier pediment and cornice. 1.

CA T A LO G 6 4 This high chest is securely documented to the W olcott family of East Windsor. The undulating shells are executed with exceptio nal finesse. The entire pedime nt, replaced in 1928, has an un-Chapinesque slope.

E A ST ELIPHALET

WIN D S 0 R :

CHAPIN

SHOP

ISS

C AT ALOG

65

D ressing table Probably E liphalet Chapin shop E ast Windsor, possibly I78J Probablyfirst ow ned by Priscilla Birge and Amasa Loomis of East Windsor Connect icut H istorical Society Museum, I97I-JS-J, in memory of Elizabeth Noble Anderson

A brilliant abstraction of Philadelphia rococo design, thi s dressing table possesses all the index characteristics of Eliphalet Chapin shop work and is the finest surviving dressing table in the Chapin shop tradition. The applied vine carving on the center drawer incorporates a monogram, an embellishment common on eighteenthcentury silver but rare on furniture, especially in New England. Amasa Loomis (1737-93) of East Windsor is the likely ''AL'' for whom the dressing table was made. I Loomi s married twice-first in 1763, well before Eliphalet Chapin opened shop, and again on February 6, 1783. At the time of his second marriage, his bride, wid ow Priscilla Birge (1742-1816), had a Is-year-old son (J onathan, 1768-1820) probably apprenticing in Eliphalet Chapin's shop. She may have selected an elegant, personalized, dressing table as a gift because it was a form that neither of them had among their hou seh old goods. Amasa and Priscilla's only son, Chauncey Loomis (1784-1850), married Olive Elmer (1779- 1812) in 1806. 2 This dressing table, a candlestand with th e initials OE incorporated into the decoration (fig. 6SE), and Olive 's needlework descended through female heirs in the Stoughton and Noble familie s of East Windsor into the mid twentieth century) D imension s: H

3 I ~"

CHS Annual R ep ort (1972), pp. 34-35, 37- There is no information to suggest that dressing tables in the eighteenth century were gender-specific; indeed, men spent considerable time on their groo ming and appearance. On th e use of dressing tables, see Eli sabeth D onaghy G arrett, At H ome: Th e American Family, I750-I870 (New York: Abrams, 1990), pp. 128-30; Richards & Evans, New E ngland Furn iture at W interthur, pp. 295-97; and Trent , "Euro pean O rigins," elsewhere in thi s volume. It is possible to read th e carvings as a cypher or a thre e-lette r monog ram, possibly including the lett er "N" in the center; however, extensive research in the family history has failed to locate any initials corresponding to such readings. 1.

2. Stiles, W indsor, 2: 75, 443, 447. Priscilla had been a widow for several years; her first husband, Jonath an Birge, Sr. (1734- 76), had died in the battl e of White Plains. 3. The family may also have owned cats. I & 63; for the lines of descent on th ese objects, see CHS Museum object files.

W 32l.f.!" DI 8"; top 34¥.1" x 21%"

Materials: cherry with eastern white pin e Co ndition not es: brasses origi nal Exhibition : Wadsworth A theneum 1985, no. III Publications: C HS Annual R ep ort (1972), 37; Ginsburg, "Barbour Co llection ," pp. lIOI; D owling, "E nigmatic Eliphalet Chapin, " no. 82, Kugelm an, Kugelman, & Lionetti, "Chapin School," pp. 12-IJD , fig. 3A; Greene, American Furniture, p. 70

C AT A LOG 6 5 A T hese vines are finer and their spoone d leaves more articulated than are those on high chests from the Chapin shop.

H C FS I

£56

C HAP INS T Y L E

CAT A LOG 6 5 This Eliphalet Chapin shop dressing table stands in a class by itself, with every detail of design and construction meticulously executed. The decision to configure th e applied vines as a monogram may have been sparked by the marriage of Amasa Loomis to widow P riscilla Birge.

E A ST ELIPHALET

WIN D S 0 R :

CHAPIN

SHOP

157

C AT A LOG 6 5 B The graceful backward extension of the coved cornice molding supports the rear overhang of the top, a feature not used on a slightly later dressing table (cat. 66). This view shows the Chapin shop's side-apron profile: a flat center flanked by a double arch. The claw-and-ball feet are finished in back on all Chapin shop high chests and dressing tables.

CA T A LO G 6 5 D Philadelphia dressing tables, such as this one made by cabinetmaker Thomas Tufft, ca. 1773-85, possess the same overall proportions as Chapin used during the decades after his return from the Quaker city (cat. 65). Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1955.87.1, gift of Edgar Wright Baird, Jr., in memory of his moth er Mrs. Edgar W. Baird, 1955.

IS8

CAT A LOG 6 5 c The dressing table back shows irregularshaped blocks that provide the center support for the bottom row of drawers. The center drawer is I" deeper than the side drawers.

C ATALOG 65 £ Jonathan Birge may have made this cherry candlestand for the September 26, 1806, wedding of his half brother Chauncey Loomi s, to Olive Elmer. At the time Birge was East Windsor's leading cabinetmaker. Like other Ch apin school stands this one has a wide splay and a distinctive rounding of the legs and feet and chip carving at the base of the shaft . Birge used a simple vase-shaped shaft, rather than the compressed- ball turnings of the 1770Sand 1780s. Connecticut Historical Society Mu seum, 1971.35.1,in memory of Elizabeth Noble Anderson.

C HAP INS T Y L E

CATALOG

66

Dressing table Probably Eliphalet Chapin shop East Windsor, q85-I795 P robablyfirst ow ned by Abigail Olcot t and A lexa nder King ofEast W indsor Yale Univ ersity Art Gallery, Mabel B rady Gar van Collection, I930.2I25

This dressing table and a high chest (cat. 58) have a shared history of ownership in th e Alexa nder King family of East W indsor and appear togeth er in an early twentieth-ce ntury photograph.' Di ssimilar brasses and differences in workmanship suggest the two were not made en suite, although the inscribed date of 1790 on the high chest correlates with th e Eliphalet Chapin shop's shift to ring-and-bail brasses, used here. The dressing table differs from catalog 65, th e only other dressing table attributed to the Eliphalet Chapin shop, in four respects: it has a shell, which includes a cent ral eight-petal floral device, in place of applied vines; the coved cornice molding ends flush with th e case back; there is no kicker to keep the top drawer from tilting down when opened, and the tops of drawer sides are rounded rath er th an beaded, highly unu sual in work from the Elip halet C hapin shop (see also cat. 69). Dimensions: H 32:)4" W 321,2" D IlIA" ; top 34:)4" x 19%" Material s: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: brasses original Exhibition : Connecticut Tercente nary 1935, no. 87; Wadsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 186; Florida Cen ter for the Arts 1984, no. 71 Publication s: Dowling, "En igmatic Eliphalet Chapin," no. 83; Ward, American Case Furniture, no. 108 HCFS

CAT A LOG 6 6 This is one of only two dressing tables attributed to the Eliphalet Chapin shop. The undul ating shell include s a central floral device but is otherwise typical for the shop. The persistence of Philadelphia stylistic influences is apparent in the coved cornice molding below the top, relatively short cabriole legs, and deep cyma-curved fron t apron . The ring-andbail brasses point to production well after the 1781 weddin g of the probable first owners, Abigai l Olcott and Alexander King.

2

1. Alexander King's probate inventory included a dressing table valued at $1.5 0. Copie s of the photograph in HCFS and Yale University Art Gallery files. See cat. 58 for the shared provenance .

E A ST ELIPHALET

W IN D S 0 R :

CHAP IN

SH O P

I59

Sliphalet Chapin Jhop Ogee-:Foot Case :Furniture

By the mid-rzxos cabriole-Ieg high chests and dressing tables began to be replaced in the Hartford region by new forms with ogee feet-oxbow bureaus, chest-onchests, and desks and bookcases. The Hartford cabinetmakers' 1792 price list described the first of these new forms as "swell'd front bureaus with swell'd feet."! Systematic criteria for attributing ogee-foot forms to the Eliphalet Chapin shop have not heretofore been recognized, largely because the characteristic design of the cabriole leg has been central to previous Eliphalet Chapin attributions. The HCFS's identification of a con stellation of construction techniques consistently found both on Chapin shop cabriole-leg furniture and on ogee-foot furniture made a connection possible, demonstrating that the shop produced both types of case furniture. Nine examples of ogee-foot furniture-two desks and bookcases, a chest-on-chest, four oxbow bureaus, and two tall clock cases-bear the unmistakable design and construction features of the Eliphalet Chapin shop. All except the bureaus have corroborating family histories, linking them to either East Windsor or Windsor. They range in likely dates of creation from the mid I780s to the mid I790S, shortly before the shop ceased production. Construction-based index features shared by the cabriole-leg and ogee-foot furniture include the assembly of three-part quarter columns, with rounded-off flutes extending into the turned capitals and bases; the methods of attaching backboards, drawer dividers, and muntins; and the articulation and finishing details of drawer dovetails, sides, and bottoms (see Significant Index Features of All Case Furniture Forms, p. 143). Innovative elements associated with the ogee-foot form s include oxbow facades, the introduction of cockbeaded drawer surro unds, and the replacement of lattice work pediments with a new design featuring carrot-shaped openings with balls (cats. 67, 69).

I60

A key construction feature of Chapin shop ogeefoot furniture is the exclusive and ubiquitous use of a quadrant base, a sophisticated system for constructing and mounting ogee feet. Each foot is dovetailed together and attached to a quadrant-shaped horizontal block; the whole assembly is then nailed to the base molding or bottom board (see glossary). The quadrant base provides strong and secure support for the inherently weak, splayed and curved ogee foot. Hartford-area quadrant-base furniture has generally been attributed to cabinetmaker George Belden.' However, this feature appears on a signed desk and bookcase with the index characteristics of Eliphalet Chapin shop production (cat. 67). Likely produced in 1788, this desk and bookcase predates the end of Belden's apprenticeship by three years; it suggests that the quadrant base may have been introduced to the Connecticut valley in Eliphalet Chapin's shop. From there, it was perpetuated and disseminated by Chapintrained craftsmen throughout the Hartford region and beyond. Surviving examples are signed by William Flagg, Erastus Grant, John Porter, and Amos Bradley, in addition to Belden. At least one was produced by a craftsman who otherwise worked in the Colchester style (see cat. 127). 1. Hartford cabinetmakers' price list, 1792. 2. Bulke1ey, "Belden and Gr ant ," pp. 72-81. 3. H artford cabinetmakers' price list, 1792, names the pediment but does not define it. 4. This term also is in the 1792 price list.

5. See Thomas Chippendale, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers Dire ctor (jd ed., London 1762; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1966), pl. 91.

CHAPIN

STYLE

SIGN I F I C A N T

IND EX

FEAT UR E S

OF

aGE E-FOOT

CASE

D esign and D ecoration

o o

o

6 7- 7 5

o

Quadrant base used to attach ogee feet. Key components include

Scrolled "balls" pediment (the period term for a design that

blind-dovetailed front feet and large quarter-round supporting

includes carrot-shaped openings within which rest small

blocks inte grated with the feet; and a shaped support bracket for

spherules) closed by a small cornice. Carved decoration usually

the rear foot that is attached with a row of small dovetails (see

limited to pediment orn ament s, which may include finials, small

glossary). In the Eliphalet Ch apin shop thi s assembly was nailed

pinwheel rosettes, and urn s (see cat.

to a three-sided frame incorporating the base molding.

6 7A)3

Bookcases have "mitred doors" (doors with overlapping knife-

o

O xbow drawer fronts are shaped with a gouge on the inside so tha t the top edge conforms to the facade and the bottom edge

67B)4

Popular English glazing pattern used in bookcase doors!

to the rectangul ar drawer bottom .

Desks and bookcases have bosom (or rounded) long drawer at bottom of bookcase section, and secretary drawer above three drawers of equal height in the desk section (see cats. 67c ,

o o o

C AT S .

Construction

Oxbow facade predominates

edges; see cat

o o

F UR NITUR E:

6 7 E)

Cock-b eaded drawer surrounds Ring-and-bail brasses; keyhole drive escutche ons Ogee feet with prominent knee bracket s, usually augmented with an extra piece of wood for shaping; relatively small spur. Where blocking of the facade extend s into the verti cal portion of the foot, it creates an everted lip, or flange. Pad of the foot is molded with an astragal flanked by fillets. Measured from the rear, the feet splay outward approximately i from the vertical (see cat. 67D)

E A ST ELIPHALET

WIN D S 0 R :

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SHOP

I6I

C AT ALOG

67

D esk and bookcase with scrolled p ediment Probably E liphalet Chapin shop Signed by William Flagg,]ulius Barn ard, and probably Israel Porter Eas t Windsor, q86-q90, possibly q88 Possiblyfirst ow ned by John Watson of East Windsor Privately owned

This impo sing ogee-foot desk and bookcase provides critical keys to understanding the full range of production by Eliphalet Chapin's shop. Most importantly, it links earlier and later phase s of Chapin shop work, displaying index feature s found on more familiar cabrioleleg furniture. It also bears inscriptions pointing to the identification of three craftsmen-William Flagg, Julius Barnard, and Israel Porter-who evidently trained with Eliphalet Chapin and subsequently became instrumental in carrying on the shop tradition linking Chapin shop and Chapin school production. It suggests th at the ubiquitous Connecticut valley oxbow bureau and the quadrant base construction technique may have gotte n thei r start in the Connecticut valley in Eliphalet Chapin's shop. Finally it connects Eliphalet's later shop production to furniture made in Aaron Chapin's and other federal period Hartford shops, exemplifying many of the design elements itemized in the Hartford cabinetmakers' 179 2 price list. I The three cabinetmakers' inscriptions locate and date the desk and bookcase during the years between 1786 and 1790. Ea st Windsor clockmaker Daniel Burnap's account book explicitly place s Julius Barnard (1769- post 1812) in Eliphalet Chapin's shop, leading to the conclu sion that the other two men whose signature s appear on the piece worked there as well. Assuming that Barnard and William Flagg (1772-1858) trained as

I62

CA T A L OG 6 7 A The Hartford cabinetmakers' 1792 price list include s a "Book- Case .. . with pediment head, mitred doors, and balls," phr asing th at describes this constellation. "M itred doors" are th e overlapping, knife-edge, cente r mullions (ident ified by the diagon al separation visible at the top of th e door). "Balls" refers to the sphe rules placed in the carrot-s haped pediment open ings. The urn -shaped finials and triglyph with gu ttae applied to the center plinth, quotations from D oric friezes, are neoclassic decorative elements th at became widely popul ar early in th e federal period. The center urn , attached with a verti cal round tenon, appears to tilt forw ard like the cartouches on rococo high chests attributed to th e Eliphalet Chapin shop.

SI NGULA R

FEATU RES

t> Great height : 102 3,4" plus the center urn t> Urn-shaped finials and center ornament , the latter carved out

of three pieces pinned together, to give it the appearance of tilting forward even though it is mounted vertically t> Small cornice below lower case top, similar in profile to that

on cats. 65, 66, nailed from the top in a rabbet in case side t> Shaped front edges on fixed vertical bookcase dividers t> Lower-case drawer fronts shaped on the outside only; cherry

facing is screwed to a dovetailed pine box

C HAP INS T Y L E

CAT A LOG 6 7 Displaying what the H artford cabinetmakers' 1792 price list terms a "balls" pedim ent and "secretary" drawer, this monum ental desk and bookcase probably dating from 1788 also bears the signatures of two apprentices and a journeyman cabinetmaker working in the Eliphal et Ch apin shop: Julius Barnard, William Fl agg and Israel Porter. Its construction characteristics conn ect it directly to that shop's output of cabriole-leg furniture, while design and form announce the arrival of new fashions: the English secretary and bookcase, the oxbow bureau with ogee feet, and neoclassical decorative motifs. The quarter columns are identical to those on Eliphalet Ch apin shop high chests. The voluptuously rounded bosom drawer below the bookcase is a feature of furniture from Eliphalet Ch apin's shop and that of his cousin Aaro n Ch apin.

E A ST ELIPHALET

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I6J

apprentices between the ages of 14 and 21, as was then typical, then the earliest year these two could have been in Chapin's shop together is 1786. Burnap's account book places Israel Porter (b. 1759) in East Windsor in 1788; thirteen years older than Flagg, this East Windsor native likely was working as a wage-earning journeyman. By 1790 the federal census documents that he had moved to Wethersfield, where he remained for more than a decade. This narrows the span in which all three could have worked together to four years: 1786 to 1790.2 C AT A L O G 6 7 B The overlapping knife-ed ge mitred door was a sophisticated exercise in cabinetmaking, especially with th e many glass panels whose supporting mullion s had to be tenoned int o th e angled door frame. It is a device rarely used elsewhere. The bookcase has no center vertical support; a rectangular cutout in th e left door mullion accomm odates the door lock. The result is an aesthetic tour-de-force.

Although the desk and bookcase lacks an early history, circumstances point to John Watson (1744-1824) as the likely first owner. Its 9' height (including finial) made it too tall for most house s in East Windsor. The exception is the federal- style man sion designed and built for Watson in East Windsor Hill in 1788-89 by Thomas H ayden (1745-1817) of Windsor. The first floor of this house has 12' ceilings; moreover,Watson's estate inventory lists a "Secretary and Book case" at $15, the most valuable piece of furniture in an estate assessed at $50,000 ) The function of thi s large desk and bookcase with glazed doors is display, first and foremost, probably for Watson's libr ary, which grew to 130 books. From a working standpoint, the piece is impractical. There is no accommodation for oversized papers or items ofvarious sizes in the secretary unit; the fixed shelves of the bookcase cannot hold tall account books. The 351;2"

I64

CA T A L OG 6 7 c The bookcase's shallow bosom drawer has typical Eliphalet Ch apin shop dovetails on the side: relatively small pin s with littl e angle. Also visible is the bead on the top outer edge of the drawer side. The drawer front is shaped from a solid cherry board left straight on the inside to accommodate the rectangular drawer bott om.

C AT A LOG 67 0 This base molding and ogee foot are typical of the Eliphalet Ch apin shop. The base molding consists of a cove flanked by fillets, the same profile as the midmolding. The foot splays outward about 7° from the vertical, and the knee bracket spur is relatively small, midway between typical Boston and Newp ort types. The pad is molded with an astragal flanked by fillets.

C HAP INS T Y L E

writing height and constricted leg room make sitting at the desk awkward. In form and construction, this example relates closely to three other desk and bookcases-catalog 69 signed by Flagg; catalog I67 dated I79I and signed by George Belden (I770-I838) working in Aaron Chapin's shop in Hartford; and catalog I83 signed by Erastus Grant (I774-I865), a former Eliphalet Chapin shop apprentice working in We stfield, Massachusetts, circa I795-I800 . All evidence suggests that this desk and bookcase predates the others and served as the prototype.! Dimensions: overall H I02*"; upper case H 563,,4" W 41*" D 93,,4 "; lower case H 46" W 42Ys" D 18lh"; writing height 351;2" Materials: cherry with eastern whit e pine and maple (secretary drawer-front reinforcement ) Condition notes: finials probably original; upper third of pediment including rosettes replaced; brasses replaced Inscriptions: "WF" incised on back part of lower- case top (under bookcase); "Julius Barnard" in graphite on inside of third drawer bott om; "P. Israel" in graphite on inside of lower-case backboard

C AT A L OG 6 7 E The secretary drawer became popular in Hartford County in th e early 1790S, along with other types of fitted drawers (as in cat. 72). With a small writing surface, limited storage capacity, and no carved decoration, columns, or secret comp artment s, th e interior is much plainer than a top-of-the-line slant- front desk. The only conceit is the two-drawer facing on a single wide drawer at bott om left .

Publication: Kugelman, Kugelman, & Lionetti , "Chapin Schoo l," pp. 12-13D , fig. 2 HCFS 3

1. H artford cabinetmakers' price list, 1792. 2. H oopes, D aniel Burnap. pp. 45, 46, 78-79. Barnard worked in the Chapin style when he returned to his hometown of North ampton and set up shop ca. 1792 (see cat. 77). Flagg also signed the desk and bookcase built into the Strong house, W ind sor (cat. 69) as well as two bureaus (cats. 70, 90). Porter's identification is presumptive, since the signature has only his first name and the initialletter of his last name; he is identified separately in Burn ap's account book twice in 1788. 3. Great Riv er, no. 24. W atson was a close friend of Rev. John & Ann Gr ant M arsh, who acquired a large group of Eliphalet Ch apin furniture at the time of their 1775 weddin g, see pp. 133- 39).

4. H ought on Bulkeley identified case pieces with quadrant-base construction by George Belden and E rastus Grant (including cats. 167, 183; see "Belden and Grant," pp. 72-8 1. Subsequently others have misattribut ed many unsigned pieces to these two cabinetmakers.

E A ST ELIPHALET

WIN D S 0 R :

CHAPIN

SHOP

I6S

CATALOGS

68

&

69

Built- in cbest- on-chest w ith removable scrolled p ediment & Built- in desk and bookcase w ith scrolled p edim ent Probably E liphalet Chapin shop, desk and bookcase signed by William Flagg Probably E ast Windsor, q88-q95 First owned by Elisha St rong ofWindsor Ha rtford Steam Boiler I nsp ection and Insurance Company

The chest-orr-chest form, oxbow facade, removable pediment, and secretary drawer, all became fashionable in th e Hartford region during the late 1780s and the 179os.1 The appearance of William Flagg's initials and signature on the desk and bookcase suggest that it and th e chest-o n- chest (built into different rooms of the same house) were constructed during Flagg's years as an apprentice or journeyman in Eliphalet Chapin's sho p, 1786- 95. Given Flagg's age, a post-1790 date appears likely. Together these two built-ins provide a small dictionary of Eliphalet Chapin shop ornament, illustrating feature s from his earlier high chests combined with new elements that would become part of the standard vocabulary in Hartford shops until about 18ro-carved rosettes, balls pediments, and neoclassical ornament such as the urn and triglyph with guttae.

I66

CA T A LOG S 6 8 & 6 9 The built-in chest-on-chest and desk and bookcase, shown here in their current installation, originally were mounted in the walls of separate rooms in the Elisha Strong house in Windsor. Only their facades are finished; the sides and backs are roughly framed with unfinished boards. The desk and bookcase is signed by William Flagg, likely then an apprentice or journeyman in Eliphal et Ch apin's shop. Although there are differences in the pediment designs, ornamentation, and cornice moldings, the very similar construction techniqu es make it probable that the two are contemporaneous products from the same shop.

Aside from fretted C-scrolls in place of basketweave latticework, the decorative motifs in the cheston-chest pediment are identical to those on Eliphalet Chapin shop high chests, especially catalog 59, which dates from the early 1780s. The Strong built-in is the

C HAP INS T Y L E

C AT A L OG 6 8 A The chest-en-chest has the only removable pediment attributed to th e Eliphalet Chapin sho p. The carved cauliculi, center plinth de sign, and sea horse cartouche are sim ilar to those on Eliphalet Chapin shop high chests, espec ially catalog 59. Fretted C-scrolls, rather than latticework, also appear on a clock case (cat . 74). Because th e pediment is flush with the wall thi s chest-en-c hest has no side plinths or finial s.

only Hartford area chest-on-chest with an oxbow facade in the upper case, a design decision that resulted in a somewhat monotonous appearance. In other respects this piece follows Chapin shop construction practice, making allowance for variations dictated by the unfinished back and sides." The desk and bookcase has all the requisite components of the form, but the configuration of the bookcase front aligned flush with the desk must have rendered it difficult to use. The bookcase doors are in the face of anyone who sits at the desk; the shallow writing surface is marginal, at best; and there is no place for a light. Like its prototype (cat. 67) this piece was, in all probability, intended primarily for display and storage . Elisha Strong (q47-1826) supplied clothing to the Continental army during the Revolution, constructed a house in Windsor in 1781, and married Mary Beebe (1766- 1831) the following year) The two built-ins remained in separate rooms in the Strong house until sold at auction in 1990.

C A T A LOG 6 8 B Built- in furniture pre sented th e cabine tma ker with opportunities to save time and ma terial s. The back and sides of th is che st-on- che st consist of roughl y finished vertically oriented pine boards that are nailed in place. Through -ten on s secure th e top and bottom board s. The back and sides extend to th e floor; a filler board across th e front of th e base completes a box th at suppo rts th e en tire piece. The fro nt foot is simply a molded facing applied to the front of th e box.

Dimensi on s: chest-on-chest: overall H 90~ " ; upper case H 431h" W 411h" D 21 ~"; lower case H 36:W' W 41" D 2 1~ " ; pediment H lO 1'g" W 40Va" D 20"; de sk and bookcase: overall H 90"; upper case H 48'-h" W 40~" D 7~ " ; lower case H 41'"h" W 40W' D 181,4" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pin e Condition notes: ches t-o n-c hest: carto uche probably original; pad of left foot restored; br asses repl aced; desk and book case: center ornament original; tra ces of early grain painting; bottom ofleft foot restored; brasses repla ced In scriptions (de sk and bookcase only): "WF" incised on unfinished top of lower case; "W Fl agg" in graphite on back of secretary dr awer, alon g with "- -erd" (Barn erd?) and " - -lding" Publicati ons: Skinner, sale 1332 (June 16, 1990), lots 57, 58; Connecticut M asters, pp. 248-50 HCFS J4, 35

See cat. 167, and the Silas Rice and Benjamin Newberry groups, cat s. 178-180, 187-191, for oth er case furniture with rem ovable pedim ents. I.

S INGULA R FEATU RE S O F T HE D E S K AN D BOO KC A S E [>

Originally built into wall of house

[>

Bookcase set flush with lower case front

[>

No bosom drawer, the transition from flat to oxbow occurs

[>

Turn ed center finial is split so its flat back butts the wall;

in the secretary drawer vase-shaped center plinth [>

Drawer sides flat on top, lacking the customary bead on the outside edge (see cat. 66 for another exception)

EAST ELIPHALET

WINDSOR:

CHAPIN

SHOP

2. For others with a straigh t upper case and oxbow lower case, see cats. 140, 168. Pieces with sim ilar features often h ave been attributed to George Belden , an Aaron Chapin tr ainee, who opened a sho p in Windsor in 1793. Although Beld en's signed work is very similar, th ese pie ces likely predate hi s arrival in W ind sor.

3. Stile s, Windsor, 2:745; Amber Degn, cur ator, Windsor Histor ical Society, to the authors, July 30, 200 2, HCFS files.

C ATALOG

70

Oxbow bureau Probably Eliphalet Chapin shop, signed by William Flagg Probably E ast Windsor, possibly Hartford, q87-I795 Priv ately owned

CA T A LOG 7 0 Signed by W illiam Flagg, this oxbow bureau displays features typical of Eliphalet Ch apin shop production, includin g a below-edge molded top and an everted flange on the vertical inner edge of the foot. The contour of the knee brackets is unusually bold.

C AT A L OG 7 0 A D etail of incised initials "WF" on case bottom.

Since the oxbow form became popular late in Eliphalet Chapin's career, only a small number can be attributed to his shop. William Flagg, who signed a drawer and initialed the case bottom of this bureau, probably finished his apprenticeship in 1793; he advertised his services as a cabinetmaker in Hartford in I796, and appeared in the Ea st Hartford tax lists in 1797- 1 The bureau most likely date s from his apprenticeship, as the heavy stock and the use of cock-bead on drawer surrounds are features of bureaus made before 1795; the design elements and construction techniques are typical of tho se used in Eliphalet Chapin's shop. " A related example, a similar oxbow bureau, differs from catalog 70 in three respects. It is 2" taller, the top is molded on all four sides, and the drawer fronts are

I68

laminated with an inner surface of pine, as in catalog I64 from Aaron Chapin's shop. Di mensions: H 35I,4" W 33%" D 17%"; top 35%" x 20 1,2" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: lower third of all feet replaced; brasses replaced In scriptions: "W illiam Flagg" in graphite on inside top-dr awer back; "WF" incised on case bott om Publ ication: Kugelman & Kugelman, "Hartford Case Furniture," P· 36A HCFS 1.

12

Flagg similarly signed a drawer and initialed the case of cat. 69.

2. For a related example (location unkn own, HCFS 422), a similar oxbow bureau, see Sotheby's, sale 7906 (May 22, 2003), lot 253.

C HAP INS T Y L E

C AT ALOG

71

Oxbow bureau Probably Eliphalet Chapin shop orA aron Chapin shop Probably East Windsor or Hartford, I78S-I79S Mu seum of FineArts, Boston, 32.278, bequest of Charles Hitchcock Tyler

CAT A LOG 7 1 This small oxbow bureau resembles those produced at both C hapin shops. It is the only example of this small size th at has inset fluted quarter columns. The brasses are placed high on each drawer so that the grip falls in the vertical center. The atypical molded edge may indicate the top is replaced.

Except for the optional quarter columns and atypical molded edge of the top, thi s bureau is essentially identical to catalogs 70 & 164, attributed to the shops of Eliphalet and Aaron Chapin, respectively. The drawer dovetails are closer to tho se executed by Aaron's trainee George Belden (cats. 164, 165, 167), rather than those by Eliphalet's trainee William Flagg (cat. 70), but no evidence tips the scales decisively in favor of one shop or the other,'

EAST ELIPHALET

WINDSOR:

CHAPIN

SHOP

Di mensions: H 32Ys" W 33'>2" D 18%"; top 36'>2" x 221,4" M aterials: cherry with eastern wh ite pine Condition note s: top glued in place and possibly a replacement; brasses original Public ation: Randall, American Furnit ure, no. 32 HCFS 57

For a very similar oxbow bureau, see Florene Maine advertisement, Antiques 101, no. 5 (May 1972 ) : 750.

1.

CATAL OG

72

Oxbow bureau Probably E liphalet Chapin shop Probably East Windsor or H artford, I78S-I79S Hartford Steam B oiler Inspection and I nsurance Company

This bureau was designed and assembled according to the shop practices used by both Eliphalet and Aaron Chapin. Unusual scribe lines around th e vert ical glue blocks supporting the ogee feet are identical to lines on catalog 67. T he top dr awer contains a folding mirror and numerous small covered compartme nts design ed to hold person al item s for groo ming. In th e late nin eteenth or early twen tieth century, writers dubbed such bureaus "Beau Bru mmels," after E nglishman G eorge Bryan Brummel (1778-1840), wit, leader of fashio n, and confida nte of th e prince regent (later G eorge IV); however, thi s use of th e term postd ates by several decades the furni ture form to which it is applied. I D imension s: H 32lh" W 32h" D ISh"; top 35'Vs" x 22" M aterials: che rry and possibly birch (top) with mahogany (topdrawer fittin gs) and eastern whi te pine CAT A LOG 7 2 T his oxbow bureau is small in scale and extremely well crafted. Other bureaus attributed to the Chapin shops have a top molded below the edge; this one has the molding on the edge itself

Condition notes: brasses replaced Exhibition: Wad sworth Atheneum 1967, no. 66 Publi cation s: Connecticut Masters, pp. 252-53; Sack, American Antiques 1:109, no. 315 HCFS 31 For the appellation of Brummel's name to fashion, see Oxford English Dictionary (jd ed.), Webster's Third I nternational Dictionary, which cite th e first appearances of th e terms "Brurnmelisrn" and "Beau Brummel" to the mid nineteenth century and beyond. 1.

CAT A LOG 7 2 A A dressing drawer with fittin gs signified high-end refinement in the 17905. Each of the numerous compart ments could hold a personal grooming item. The mahogany covers and mirror frame are original.

I70

C HAP I N

S T Y L E

CATALOG

73

Oxbow bureau Possibly Eliphalet Chapin shop or A aron Chap in shop Probably East Winds or or Hartford, I785-I795 Collection of M r. & Mrs. J erome W Blum

C AT A LOG 7 3 This small oxbow bureau has only three drawers and a conforming top. T he design and construction, including the under-edge top molding and splayed ogee feet with everted inner edge, are comparable to oth er examples attributed to the Chapin shops.

Only two other Chapin shop oxbow bureaus with three drawers have been identified; this one is unusual in having a conforming (rather than rectangular) top, and cherry drawer fronts that are augmented on the inside by a laminated piece of pine. In other respects it matche s the designs and construction techniques used in both of the Chapin shop s.1

I. See cat. 165 for other three-drawer bureau s. Similarly laminated drawer front s appear on an Eliphalet Chapin shop desk and bookcase (cat. 67), a George Belden signed bureau (cat. 164), and an unsigned Chapin shop bureau (H C FS 422, a related example at cat. 70).

Dimensions: H 311'8 " W 34%" D 1712"; top 36W' x 20% " M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: carrying handle s original; drawer brasses replaced HCFS 33

E A ST ELIPHALET

WIN D S 0 R :

CHAPIN

SHOP

I7I

C A T A LOG 7 4 Tall clock case Probably E liphalet Chap in shop or by Simeon Loom is E ast Wi ndsor, I790-I795 Mo v ement by Daniel Burnap, East Windsor Historic D eerfield, 78.I44

In most instance s the maker of a clock case is anonymous, and the design and construction are sufficiently different from other case furniture forms as to make attribution to a shop difficult . This case and the one that follows are notable exceptions. Musical or "chime" clocks were complicated to make and expensive to purchase. Only six Daniel Burnap chime movements are known out of a total of more th an fifty tall clocks and thirteen additional dials listed in his shop record s between I786 and I805. Burnap's record s indicate th at he made all but one of his chime clocks between 1790 and 1795, thus providing the date range for thi s case. He sold a conventional eight-day clock for £ 3 and a musical clock for £ 22, without the case. By comparison, a desk and bookcase with all the options sold for about £I4 in I792. 1

CAT A LOG 74 T his tall clock features a fine rococoengraved silvered-brass dial and a musical movement by D aniel Burnap of East Windsor in a case attributed to either the shop of Eliphalet Chapin or his former apprentice Simeon Loomi s. In an exceptional state of preservation, the case has an early finish and gilding on the quarter-column capitals and bases. The case design and construction follow closely other Eliphalet Ch apin shop case furn iture forms, for example, the finials have similar turnings to those on catalogs 59 & 61; the fretwork is similar to th at on catalog 68; and the moldings, columns, feet, and base con struction are similar to catalog 67, with accommo dations made for th e size and scale of a clock case. The unusual height of the base molding resembles those typically found on footless clock cases.

I72

C

HAP INS T Y L E

Burnap (1759-I838) and Eliphalet Chapin were neighbors, and their careers overlapped for about twelve years, during which time Burnap kept a running ledger account. The ledger documents that Burnap commissioned clock cases from several craftsmen, including former Chapin apprentices Simeon Loomis (between I790 and 1793) and Jonathan Birge (between I800 and I802). Eliphalet Chapin is not listed as supplying Burnap with clock cases; however, between 1788 and 1795 Burnap provided services to Chapin valued at £I2.6.3. In I795 Burnap issued Chapin an unexplained credit for £I1.4.9, a figure equivalent to the cost of two "best" clock cases." The exceptional workmanship and index features of this clock case point to the Eliphalet Chapin shop. Given the similarity of Simeon Loomis's high chest (cat. 76) to those from Eliphalet Chapin's shop, it is possible, but less likely, that this clock case is one of the twelve that Loomis (b. I767) made between 1790 and 1793. The index characteristics correspond to those on Eliphalet Chapin shop high chests, bureaus, and tripod stands made after 1785. Dimensions: H 94" W 201,4" D 10%" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: finials and fretwork original Exhibition: Metropolitan Museum of Art 1992, no. 44 (dial only) Publication: Fales, Furniture ofHistoric Deerfield, fig. 510

CAT A LOG 74 A This movement by Connecticut's most prolific eighteenth-century clockmaker contains ten graduated bells and a mechanism that plays six different user- selected tune s. The dial is made of sheet brass, which is silvered and expertly engraved, probably by Burnap himself, who was also a silversmith.

HCFS 141D

1. Hoopes, Daniel Burnap, pp. 37, 44-52, 80; clock prices from Burnap's shop records; Hartford cabinetmakers' price list, 1792; Kate Van Winkle Keller, "Musical Clocks of Early America and Their Music," Bulletin ofthe National Association ofWatch and Clock Collectors 24, no. 3 (June 1982): 252-312.

2. Hoopes, Daniel Burnap, pp. 56-62, 78-80.

E A ST ELIPHALET

WIN D S 0 R :

CHAPIN

SHOP

I73

C ATALOG

75

Tall clock case Probably E liphalet Chapin shop Possibly by Simeon Loom is or Aaron Chapin shop Probably E ast Windsor,possibly Ha rtford, Q 8S-Q90 Mo v ement by E nos Doolittle, H artford Probablyfirst owned by Samu el Wolcott ofEast Windsor Priv ately ow ned

Enos Doolittle (1751-1806) opened his clockmaking business in Hartford in 1772, after apprenticing with his uncle Isaac Doolittle (1721-1800) in New Haven, but the construction features, such as the quadrant base and the similarity to catalog 74, indicate that the case in which this movement rests likely postdates 1785. The slightly old-fashioned brass spandrels and composite dial of the movement suggest 1790 as the terminal date. In 1787 Enos established a brass foundry and went into the bell-casting business; he made few, if any, clock movements thereafter. I This clock case is a virtual carbon copy of catalog 74, th e principal difference being the base molding, which on thi s one is of conventional height for an ogee-footed case. D espite the Hartford origin of the movement, design and construction feature s as well as ownership history point to an East Windsor origin for the case, mos t probably Eliphalet Chapin's shop. Simeon Loomi s, a Chapin trainee, also made clock cases; however, the earliest would date from 1788, a year after D oolittle changed careers. The Aaron Chapin shop in Hartford is another, but less likely, possiblility." This clock is still owned by the family for which it was made. It likely first belonged to wealthy merchant Samuel Wolcott (1751-1813), whose estate included a "clock and case [valued at] $12." In 1891 his grandson Erastus W. Ellsworth (1822-1902) had it restored )

C A T A L O G

75

T his tall clock case is very similar to catalog 74. T he design and constructi on details are typical of Eliphalet C hapin shop practices. The fretwork and finials are inappropriately replaced.

CHAPIN

STYLE

Dimensions: H 89" W 20%" D lOrS" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine (case) Condition notes: fretwork, finials, and door brasses replaced Exhibition: Wadsworth Atheneum 1985, no. 235 HCFS 141C

Hoopes, Connecticut Clockmakers, pp. 66-70; Robert Ch eney, clockmaker, to the authors, Augu st 6, 2002, HCFS files.

1.

2. The front feet on this clock are mitred without dovetails. As construction of the feet on cat. 74 could not be examined for comparison, whether this is a typical treatment remain s unkn own. 3. A label att ached to the inside of the case door reads: "thi s clock set running March 4th 1891 ... by E. W. Ell sworth. " The Wolcott families were respon sible for commissioning mu ch of the important surviving furniture from Windsor and East Windsor; see, for example, cats. 41, 62.

CA T A LOG 7 5 A Enos Doolittle of Hartford made this standard eight-day brass movement, moon 's age mechanism, and dial. The mariner's compass around the second hand is unusual. The brass spandrels at the corner s are earlier in style than Burnap's engraved brass dial on catalog 74.

E A ST ELIPHALET

WIN D S 0 R :

CHAPIN

SHOP

I75

Chapin Jchool

Eliphalet Chapin's style exerted a profound influence on cabinetmaking in the Connecticut valley. His construction techniques distinguished his joinery from other shops in the region. The consistency of his shop output demonstrates he imposed strict and high stan dard s on his trainees, far greater than most shop masters in the region. Many of his former apprentices adopted both his designs and construction practices but modified them over time; consequently their output often can be distinguished from the master's shop. In cabinetmaking a "school" is an individual or group trained or employed by a craftsman who works in a recognizable style that they perpetuate. A "generation" of cabinetmakers is the time (7-10 years) it takes an apprentice and then journeyman to learn a craft and practice it independently. Through this long-established system craftsmen learned both designs and ways of dealing with construction issues. Most continued to work in the manner they had been taught, a phenomenon termed "workmanship of habit."! When methods are sufficiently idiomatic (as quadrant-base construction) they become recognizable features of a school. During the twenty-six years (1771-97) Chapin operated his shop, he may have trained about a dozen apprentices and employed several other craftsmen, including his second cousin Aaron, as journeymen. Perhaps half of these are known through inscriptions on shop furniture or can be surmised from other docu mentary or circumstantial evidence (see table 3). Aaron Chapin (1753-1838) worked at Eliphalet's shop from 1774 until 1783. Then he moved to Hartford and started his own shop where he trained his younger brother Amzi (1768-1835) and later his son Laertes (1778- 1847). There, at least in the beginning, he likely used the templates and construction methods he had used for nearly a decade in East Windsor. By the 1790S, however, a global change in both style and cabinetmaking practices had begun. Consequently, the output of Aaron's trainees is far less consistent than that of Eliphalet's "graduates."

As a group, cabinetmakers who trained in the shops of Eliphalet and Aaron constitute the Chapin school. Not all of them had successful careers, and some left Connecticut to ply their trade elsewhere. Although the Chapin style was passe by 1820, a sizeable body ofwork dating mostly from 1785 to 1810 demonstrates the persistence of Chapin shop design and construction practices. The connection is obvious in the furniture of Simeon Loomis (cat. 76), Julius Barnard (cat. 77), and George Belden (cat. 165), but less so in that of Erastus Grant (cats. 183, 184) and Benjamin C. Gillett (cat. 169). The entries in this section present both cabriole-Ieg and ogee-foot furniture, made largely prior to 1800 by men who had trained with Eliphalet Chapin and set up shop in Connecticut or western Massachusetts. (For federal style objects and objects made by Aaron Chapin's shop and trainees, see cats. 164-169, 183-184.) In the absence of clear documentation, the assignment of an object to the Chapin school rather than Chapin shop is occasionally arbitrary. "Chapin school" products generally deviate from Eliphalet Chapin shop practice in at least three major index characteristics." They are grouped by form and maker (when known), and the deviations are listed as singular features. A number of additional objects show Chapin "influence" in a single feature but exhibit few other commonalities with Chapin shop work. Such Chapininfluenced pieces are not considered a distinct group , and most are discussed in entries for other furniture from the same town or shop (see cats. 82, 126, 158). I. Benno M. Form an defined workman ship of habit as "the product of training ingrained by custom"; see his American Seating Furniture. See also Philip D . Zimmerman, "Wo rkmanship as Evidence ," 287-89.

2. See "M ethodology and Presentation of Findings," above; also Kugelman, Kugelman , & Lionetti, "C hapin School," p. I3D. The rule works best with a formula-driven form , such as a high chest, for which there are many surviving examples; with other furnitur e forms the rule is more difficult to apply, but even there it serves as a guide.

CHAPIN

STYLE

76 H igh chest w ith scrolledpediment Chapin school, signed by Simeon Loomis East Windsor, I782-94, possibly IJ90 Privately owned CAT ALOG

Simeon Loomis (r76rr865), who signed the backboard of this high chest, likely completed his apprenticeship in Eliphalet Chapin's shop in 1788. Afterwards he remained in the area, as East Windsor clockmaker Daniel Burnap ordered a dozen clock cases from him between 1790 and 1793. The next year Loomis moved to Lansingsburgh (present-day Troy), New York, returning to East Windsor in r800. 1 This high chest came on the market in r954 with a history of ownership in the Page family ofWoodstock, a small town in the northeast corner of Connecticut.' A cluster of Pages living in Woodstock and neighboring Putnam trace their ancestry to Henry Arnold Page (r829-r9IO) who married Mary Cordelia Vinton (b. r834) of East Windsor. Mary's father, William Vinton (1785- r847), had a "case drawers" in his estate inventory. The first owners could have been Mary's maternal grandparents, Chloe Bisbee Payne (b. 1760) and Constant Crandall (b. 1769), both of Tolland, who married December 30, 1790. At that time Loomis was working independently in East Windsor, which then bordered Tolland to the east) Dim ensions: overall H (with cartouche) 88"; upp er case H 55W ' W 36th" D 17"; lower case H 32%" W 38¥S" D 18" Ma terials: cherry with eastern white pine

C AT A LOG 7 6 Sign ed by E ast Wind sor cabinetmaker Simeon L oomis, thi s high chest exhibits two readily visible clues th at it represent s Chapin school produ ction (rather th an C hapin shop): th e absence of quarter colum ns and the placement of th e brasses so they line up vertically rath er th an being inset on the upp er- case long drawers. In most respects it closely adheres to Ch apin shop practices. The carto uche, finials, and side plinths are replaced.

Condition notes: cartouche, finials, and side plinths replaced; brasses original Inscription: "Simeon Loomis" in graphite on the backboard of the upper case Exhibiti on: Rhode Island School of Design 1985, no. 13 Publications: John S. Walton advert isements: A ntiques 65, no. 4 (April 1954): 252; and Ant iques lI O, no. 5 (November 1976): 840; Sotheb y's, sale 6133 (February 2, 1991), lot 1301; Kugelm an, Kugelman, & Lionetti , "C hapin School," pp. 12-13D , fig. 5

S INGULAR FEATURES I>

No quarter columns

I>

Vertically aligned brasses

I>

Upper case rests on a brace that runs diagonally from the right side of the lower case to the backboard

I>

Center supports for the small drawers in the lower case are separate (rather than combined into one piece)

HCFS 10 1. H oopes, D an iel B urnap , pp. 47-48,54. D escendants of Joseph L oomis, p. 189; also Stiles, Windsor, 2:445. .

2. John S. Walton advertisement, Antiques: 65, no. 4 (April 1954): 25 2. 3. In 1786 the eastern parish of Ea st Windsor became the independent town of Ellington, separating E ast Windsor and Tolland.

CHAPIN

SCHOOL

Il7

I78

C HAP INS T Y L E

CATALOG

77

High chest w ith scrolled p edim ent Chapin school, pro bably by Julius Barnard P robably No rth ampton, I790-I800 Probablyfirst ow ned by Gov ernor Caleb Strong ojNorthampton Historic D eetjield, 6J .I64

Once owned by Caleb Strong of Northampton, this high che st ha s long been attributed to Eliphalet Chapin; however, its variant index characteristics demonstrate that it is a Chapin school product. Julius Barnard, the likely maker, grew up in Northampton, apprenticed with Chapin in East Windsor in the I780s (see cat. 67), and by I792 had returned to Northampton where he opened his own shop. He removed to Windsor, Vermont, about 1802. I Caleb Strong (I744-I8I9) had served on the Northampton Committee of Safety during the I770S, along with Julius's father Abner Barnard and Samuel Clarke, the father-in-law of Julius's sister Anna (1750-74). Strong went on to serve the Commonwealth as United State s senator from I788 to 1796 and governor of Massachusetts from 1800 to 1807.2The stylistic features of the high chest suggest it dates from the I790S rather than from Strong's marriage to Sarah Hooker (I758-I8I7) in I777.

S INGU LAR F EAT U R E S I>

pediment I>

Side finials rest on large square, capped plinth s

I>

Carved shells lack the three-d imensional shaping of those from the Chapin shop

I>

Qu arter columns embellished with brass capitals, bases, and infilled stop flutes

I>

No dovetailed brace across the back of the upper case

I>

Legs and feet carved differently from the Eliphalet Chapin shop

I>

Drawer sides rounded on the top; drawer dovetails angled on one side only, an unusual feature

CAT A LOG 7 7 This powerful C hapin schoo l high chest, attributed to Juliu s Barnard of Northamp ton, is unique in having added applied brass capitals, bases and stopped flutes embellishing its quarter columns. The center orn ament is a turned finial, rather th an an asymmetrical carto uche, resting on an atypi cally fluted center plinth. The capped side plinths are larger than tho se produced in Eliphalet Chapin's shop. The carving is comp etent and secure.

C AT A L OG 7 7 A Probably first owned by Samuel Barn ard of De erfield, th is side chair and its two mates date from late in th e eighteenth century. The legs and feet appear to be by th e same hand as th ose on th e high chest Juliu s Barna rd made for Governo r Strong (cat. 77) and are subtly different from tho se on a similar chair documented to th e Eliphal et Chapin shop (fig 3.2 & cat. 77B). The ball of the Barnard chair is taller, the claws are slightly more attenuated, and the leg curves are less pron ounced. Hi storic D eerfield, 57-22.

C HAP I N S C H 0 0 L

Turn ed finial rather th an cartouche as center ornament in the

I79

Related examples from the same shop include a set of chairs (cat. 77A) that belonged to Julius's cousin Samuel Barnard (1746-1826) of Deerfield, and possibly a stand table and armchair (privately owned) that belonged to Joseph Clarke (1746-1828). Clarke, the widower ofJulius's sister, remarried in 1787 just as Julius neared the end of his apprenticeship in Eliphalet Chapin's shop. Although the stand table and armchair show similarities to furniture in the Grant-Marsh commission, differences in the splat design and carving suggest these were not produced in the Chapin shop (see figs. 3. 1, 3.4).3 Dimensions: overall H 82W'; upper case H lower case H 32~" W 38%" D 181,4"

49~"

W 363fs" D 17";

1. Keno, "Checklist," p. rroa, 2. Whitmore, "Wedding Furniture of Anna Barnard," pp. 369-71. Benjamin W . Dwight, Th e History of the Descendants ofElderJohn Strong ofNorthampton (1871, reprint: Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1984), pp. rr87-88. 3. The original owner of the set of side chairs was once thought to be Joseph Barnard (1717-85), Samuel's father. The assessments of the stand table and armchair are based on photo inspection only; they were celebrated in a 1926Antiques article, which fancifully described them as part of the wedding outfit of Anna Barnard, erroneously dating them to 1772 and attributing them to Abner Barnard (Julius and Anna's father). There is no evidence that Abner was a cabinetmaker, and the purported wedding outfit was clearly produced by several different makers. See Whitmore, "Wedding Furniture of Anna Barnard," p. 369; reprinted by Sack, American Antiques, 2:389, nos. 984-86. Stand table exhibited at Wadsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 169.

Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: finials and brasses original Publication s: American Art Association, Colonial Furniture, Silver, & D ecorati ons . . . the Collection ofthe Late Philip Flayderman, sale 3804 (January 2-4, 1931), lot 501; Stein, "The Chapins," p. 23; Fales, Furniture of Historic Deerfield, p. 215, fig. 440; Zea, "New England Furniture," p. 660, fig. 12; Dowling, "Enigmatic Eliphalet Chapin," no. 63; Kugelman, Kugelman, & Lionetti, "C hapin School," pp. I2-I3D, fig. 4

CAT A LOG 7 7 B The difference in execution between a chair attributed to the shop of Eliphalet Chapin in 1775 (fig. ].2) and the chair attributed to his apprentice Julius Barnard a dozen or so years later (cat. 77A) is most easily observed in a comparison of the two crest rails. The Chapin shop shell carving (right) is more three dimensional, with a crisper contour. The Barnard shell (left) has shallower alternating lobes and rays and is less expertly carved. In both cases, the carving does not extend into the splat.

HCFS 32

I80

C HAP INS T Y L E

C ATALOG 78 H igh chest with scrolledpediment Chapin school Possibly Worcester County, M assachusetts, I790- I8IO Possiblyfirst own ed by Susannah Sanderson ofPetersham and William Ward ofShrewsbury, M assachusetts Wood M emorial L ibrary

This high chest belonged to the Stoughton family of East Windsor during the twentieth century. Its credible history of early ownership in north central Massachusetts traces inheritance through female lines as far back as Mary Jones Ward (b. 1797), who in r82r married Aretas Ferry (r800-r878) of Granby, Massachusetts. I Mary's mother, Susannah Sanderson (r775-r829) of Petersham, Worcester County, was the likely first owner of the high chest, and her 1796 marriage to William Ward (176rr827) provides a plausible date for production. In the mid-nineteenth century Mary's daughter, Susan Sanderson Ferry Clark (r822-97) brought the piece to Hartford and bequeathed it to Lucy Wetmore Stoughton (r868-r960), the daughter of her first cousin and the aunt of the last private owner, L. Ellsworth Stoughton (r898-r99r). The convoluted line of inheritance is fairly typical, with most high chests following matrilineal paths of descent. A Mas sachusetts origin for the high chest is reason able since none of the owners had a connection to the Hartford area prior to the r844 marriage of Susan Sanderson Ferry; however, the high chest does not resemble work by Julius Barnard of Northampton (cat. 77), and no Chapin-trained craftsman in Worcester County has yet been identified by name. C AT A LOG 7 8 This is one of two Chapin school high chests with convincing histories in M assachusett s, each by a different craftsman (see cat. 77). Although the maker followed Ch apin shop construction practices closely, the design and decorations show many minor deviations. Mos t apparent are the single turn ed finial and th e simple W eth ersfield style shells.

S INGULA R

FEATURES

t> Flat latticework without carved basket weaving t> Flutes on center plinth squared at plinth cap and not rounded

Dimensions: overall H 831,4"; upper case H 511,2" W 35*" D 16*"; lower case H 31*" W 38I,4" D I8IA" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: finial and gilded brasses original

at top; no side plinths and finials

e- Turned center finial instead of a carved cartouche

Publ ication: Dowling, "E nigmatic Eliphalet C hapin," no. 67

t> Claw-and-ball feet taller and differently shaped than in

HCFS 27

Eliphalet Chapin shop I. R. W. S. to L. E . S. [L. Ellsworth Stought on], 1990, Wood Memorial Library files; copy in HCFS files. The lett er provides very specific details and include s inform ation about other furniture not inherited with the high chest.

c- Drawer sides rounded on top

C HAP I N S C H 0 0 L

I8I

C AT ALOG

79

H igh chest with scrolled pediment Chapin school, possibly Eliphalet Chapin shop Possibly East Windsor, q8S-I8oo Collection ofPeter and Patricia Findlay

This high chest displays many of the distinctive methods of th e Eliphalet Chapin shop and is an instance where assignment to "shop" or "school" production is difficult; however, the large drawer dovetail pin s, large side plinths, placement of drawer pulls, and absence of quarter columns argue that a second-generation crafts man made this high chest. It spent much of the twentieth century in Hartford but has no early history. D imensions: overall H 81:J4"; upp er case H solh" W 3SYs " D 16W'; lower case H 311,4" W 38" D 18" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition not es: carto uche replaced; finials and brasses original Publi cations: Nutting, Furn iture T reasury, I : pl. 374; Sotheby's, sale 4338 (J anuary jo-February 2 , 1980), lot 1633 HCFS 63

CA T A LO G 7 9 M any Eliphalet Chapin sho p traits persist unchanged in thi s exemplary Chapin school high chest. It varies primarily in det ails: the front corners lack quarter column s, and the ring-and-bail bra sses, common after 1790 , are vertic ally aligned. Subtler differences includ e side plinths W' larger th an norm al, and a brass pull placed on each of th e center drawers.

I82

C HAP INS T Y L E

C AT A LOG 7 9 A All Ch apin shop and Chapin school cauliculus scrolls differ somewh at; this is the only one carved as a continuous spiral without leaves in the center.

CA T A LO G 7 9 B This rear view of the center plinth illustrate s many Eliphalet Chapin shop practice s, including a trapezoidal supporting block behind the half-round center plinth. The lattice board is a single piece across the front and is sandwiched between the plinth and its supporting block. The attachment area for the metal plate securin g the cart ouche is angled to produ ce a forward tilt . The chamfer of the top board behind the latti cework allows light to pass through th e bottom row of openings in the lattic e.

CAT A LOG 7 9 D One of Chapin's idiosyncrasies was a passion for concealing his joinery. He preferred a clean look, and did not want his facades cluttered with obvious nails, dovetails, or pegs. One technique was to nail the midmolding to the lower case from the inside. In the center of the photo is a small thumbnail-shaped pocket in which the nail was inserted . In the corner is the vertical glue block that secured the mortise-and-tenon joint between the case side and front leg post, eliminating the need for pegs. CAT A LOG 7 9 c This interior view shows additional Chapin shop practices that this maker continued to use. The full-depth dustboard below the second long drawer is backed by a horiz ontal brace dovetailed in from the rear. Drawer dividers are double tenoned to the case sides; the drawer runners are nailed to the case sides.

C HAP INS C H 0 0 L

I8]

C A T ALOG

80

H igh chest w ith scrolled p edim ent Chap in school Probably H artford County, IJ90-I8IO Priv ately owned .

SINGU LAR

FEAT URE S

t> Vertical hole drilled in center plinth suggests original ornament

was a turn ed finial (rather than a canted cartouche) t> Center plinth cap is a simple molding that squares off the

separate fluted column t> Brasses are vertically aligned and positioned in the vertical

center of the drawer t> Midmolding is nailed from the outside t> Subtle differences in shaping legs and feet, with flatter ball,

different position of knuckles, and rear feet flattened in back t> D rawer sides rounded on top

C AT A LOG 8 0 A In contrast to Eliphalet Chapin shop practice (see cat. 57A), the flute s of the plinth of catalog 80 do not exten d int o th e plinth cap.

CA T A LOG 8 0 This Chapin school high chest deviates from Chapin shop products in several min or respects. Immediately visible clues are the unembellished front corners with out quarter columns; the aligned brasses, each centered vertically on its drawer, and the subtly different shaping of the legs and feet. In Eliphalet Chapin's shop no nails, dovetails, or pegs were permitted to show, but thi s maker nailed th e midm olding from th e out side.

I84

C HAP I N S T Y L E

Although this high chest comes with no early family history, construction and design details suggest it originated in Hartford County in the decades around the turn of the century, made by a craftsman familiar with the Chapin shop produ ct. I A related example is a visually similar high chest on which the quality of workmanship is less precise than most Chapin school products (cat. 80B). It has several atypical features: cut rather than wrought nails; no glue blocks or pegs to secure the mortise-and-tenon joints of the lower -case sides; cutout notches rather than counter-bored holes to accommodate nailing the drawer runners to th e sides of th e lower case; taller feet that are rounded underneath; and crude, uneven drawer dovetails.' Dim ensions: overall H 80rs"; upper case H lower case H 313,4" W 38 ~ " D 1814"

49 ~"

W

35~ "

D 16Vs" ;

M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Conditi on notes: fitted with full bonnet at one time (removed in the 1980s); side plinths, finials, and cartouche replaced; brasses original Publication: Dowling, "Enigmatic Eliphalet Chapin," no. 66 HCFS 17

1. Own er to the authors, April 10, 1991, and Nickolas Kotula to the authors, 1991 (both HCFS files) noted that the cartouche is a copy of that on cat. 63.

2 . HCFS 30; the pediment, plinths, finials, cartouche, and brasses are probably all replaced; published in Christie's, sale 6144 (May 31, 1986), lot IOl ; Dowling, "E nigmatic Eliphalet Chapin," no. 68; Conn ecticut Masters, p. 238.

°

C AT A LOG 8 B An other example produc ed in the region during the 1790S, this high chest is virtually indistinguishable in design from other Ch apin schoo l high chests. The flatt ened ends of the pediment and reverse orientation of the cartouche are incorrect restorations. Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company.

C HAP INS C H 0 0 L

I8S

C A TALOG

81

H igh chest with scrolled pediment Chapin school Probably H artford County, I78S-I8oo L ocat ion unknow n

This high chest show s close adherence to Chapin shop construction practices. The principal differences are in th e assembly and attachment of the balls pediment: it is nailed into a rabbet in the top board and secured with glue blocks from behind, has no chamfering behind the pediment openings, and has a one-piece cornice molding. The carving of the rosettes is similar to catalogs 69, 183; the vine-carved upper-case drawer and shellcarved lower-case drawer recall catalog 61, although the shell is less expertly carved.

D imensions: overall H 81"; upper case H 49th" W 35:)4" D 17IA"; lower case H 31th" W 38" D 18%" Ma terials: cherry with eastern white pine Co ndition notes: side plinths, finials, and center-plinth applied orna ment, all missing; cartouche, center-plinth cap, and brasses replaced Publication: Christie's, sale 7824 (January 22, 1994), lot 492 HCFS 143

CAT A LOG 8 I Typical of many high chests that appeared aroun d H art ford in th e 1790S, this example has constructio n techniques suggesting th at its maker trained in one of the Ch apin shops. The pad feet, unusually shaped apron and combination of a "new" balls pedim ent with "old" decorat ive elements-applied vines and a carved shell- point to a second-g eneration maker. The carto uche is an inappropriate replacement.

I86

C HAP INS T Y L E

CATALOG

82

High chest with scrolled p edim ent Possibly H ampsh ire County, Massachusetts, I790 - I8IO Privately owned

C AT A L OG 8 2 This high chest typifies style conflations that occurred in the 1790S. The drawer configuration, applied vine decoration, and scalloped front apron look like the work of Eliphalet Chapin's shop. The short cabriole legs and claw-and-ball feet were out of fashion by 1790. The pediment has a more timely design, but the cornice molding, rosettes, and center triglyph are small for th is heavy case. The side apron shaping, drawer side moldin g, and case construction suggest th e maker lived or trained in the M assachusetts stretch of the valley.The center ornament is an inappropriate replacement. S INGULA R

I>

This high chest exhibits "Chapin influence," that is, it contains recognizable elements of Eliphalet Chapin's style, but the maker did not understand how Eliphalet Chapin's shop assembled a high chest . According to family tradition the first owners were Ruth Wilson (1755-r827) and Timothy Phelps (1748-r827) .1 Both of Windsor, the couple married in r785, a date stylistically at least ten years too early for this piece. Either they acquired it later, or the family tradition is incorrect. The physical evidence suggests a Massachusetts origin, or perhaps a maker who learned his trade there. A related example is a visually similar high chest with a balls pediment, applied vine carving, atypical apron shaping, and claw-and-ball feet." A flat-top high chest pays homage to Eliphalet Chapin in drawer configuration and front apron shaping but differs in its proportions and construction details ) It is slightly taller and narrower, ha s a Wethersfield style side apron, pad feet, and carved shell, features that generally point to Hartford County. The maker was a competent craftsman, but not one who had trained in Chapin's shop .

Dimensions: overall H 801,4"; upper case H 49%" W 35¥s" D 18%"; lower case H 30%" W 37W' D 19%" M aterial s: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: side plinths and finials missing; center plin th orna ment replaced; portions of right front corn ice moldin g missing; bra sses original

FEATU RES

Pediment is tenoned into the case sides and supported with

HCFS 168

glue blocks from the rear I>

Drawer dividers and runners are slid into a groove from the rear; the dovetail joint is not visible from the front

I>

Full-depth dustboard/support is slid in from behind, below the top row of drawers

I> I>

Upper-case backboard is nailed into rabbets in the case side Runners for the lower-case center drawer, but not the guide,

Phelps was a distant cousin of Hartford cabinetmaker Timoth y Phelps III (1725-76).

1.

2. Location unknown; assessment based on ph oto inspection only; see Keyes, "Individuality of Connecticut Furniture," p. II2 , fig. 6.

3. Locati on unknown; HCFS I02; Anthony Werneke advertisement, Antiques 159, no. 5 (May zoor): 693.

are tenoned through the backboard I>

Drawer sides have double astragal on the top (common in Massachusetts case furniture); dovetail pins are unusually large C HAP INS C H 0 0 L

I87

C AT A LOG

83

Flat-top high chest Chapin school Probably H artford County, I77S- I8oo L ocation unknown

One of th e most intriguing features of this Chapin school high chest is the chamfering of the top board behind the cornice molding, as if the cabinetmaker originally intended to add a latticework pediment. Failure to add fluting to the quarter columns is a curious omission. A visually similar flat-top high chest in the collection of East Hampton Historical Society, Long Island, has fluted quarter columns.I

SINGU LAR FEATURES t> Tulip poplar as one of the secondary woods

e- Unfluted quarter columns t> Vertically aligned brasses t> Small drawers of the lower case supported with a separate center

runner/guide for each drawer rather than a combined unit

e- Nails secure the tenons holding the front apron t>

Vine-carved decoration is applied to a channel chiseled in the surface of the drawer

t> Atypical feet c- Drawer sides are flat on top and lack a bead on the top edge

Di mensions: overall H 72rS" ; upp er case H 4I¥S" W 36Ys" D I6W'; lower case H 3I~" W 38W' D 18" Materials: cherry with tulip poplar and eastern wh ite pine

C AT A L OG 8 3 At first glance this high chest looks like an Eliphalet Chapin shop product without a pedim ent-a strippeddown model; however, numerous design and constru ction details point to producti on by a second-generation cabinetmaker.

Condition not es: brasses replaced Publications: C hristie's, sale 7924 (June 22, 1994), lot 183 H C FS 165

I. Acc. no. 774.4.147; assessment based on photo inspection only; published in Jay A. G raybeal and Peter M . Kenny, "T he William Efner Wheelock C ollection at th e Ea st Hampton Historical Society," Antiques 132, no. 2 (August 1987): 237, pl. 15; D owling, "Enigmatic Eliphalet C hapin," no. 69.

I88

C HAP INS T Y L E

CATALOG 84 Flat-top high chest Probably Chapin school, possibly Eliphalet Chapin shop Probably East Windsor, I7P-I8oo, possibly IJ77 Possiblyfirst owned by Esther Elmore and John Morton ofE ast Windsor Antiquarian & L andmarks Society, Phelps-Hatheway House & Garden, Suffield, 2002. 2.I

D espite a history of ownership in East Windsor and close adherence to Eliphalet Chapin shop practices, this high chest is classified as a Chapin school product on the basis of design differences from the knees down. The presumed date of production is relatively early (1777), but it postdates a circa 1774 high chest with a scrolled pediment (cat. 62) and the 1775 Grant-Marsh chairs (figs, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4). By the mid 1770S the shaping and placement of the knee return, leg, and foot were well established, making it improbable that such differences could be explained on the basis of a chronological change in design. This high chest remained in the family for which it was made until it sold at auction in 2001. The ancestry, through female lines, points to Esther Elmore (also spelled Elmer; 1751-1818) and John Morton (1753-1820), who marri ed about 1777, as the first owners. John's estate inventory lists a "chest of drawers $10." Esther's nephew Theodore Elmore was related by marriage to three Chapin-trained cabinetmakers: William Flagg, John Porter II, and Israel Porter, and her niece Olive Elmer married Chauncey Loomis, half brother of Chapin-trained Jonathan Birge (see cat. 65) .

CAT A L OG 8 4 This high chest displays the overall propo rtions, cyma-curved apron, and construction details of the Eliphalet Chapin shop; however, the placement of the knee returns on the front of the apron and th e relatively long leg with flat pad feet are not feature s of his shop. The well-executed carved shells, although typical of the Hartford area, are simpler than C hapin's.

D imensions: overall H 723A"; upp er case H 41" W 351J1" D I6lh" ; lower case H 3I¥!" W 37Y.!" D 171'8" Ma terials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: brasses original Publication: Pioneer Aucti on advertisement, A nt iques and the A rts Weekly, December 14, 20 0 1, p. 86 HCFS 365

C

HAP INS

C

H0 0

L

I89

85 Flat-top high chest Chap in school Probably Hartford County, possibly E nfield, Il7S- I8IO Location unknown C ATALOG

This high chest follows Eliphalet Chapin shop design and construction practices in many respects; however th e singular feature s point to production by a secondgeneration craftsman. A related example, which descended in the family of Edward Field (1777-1840) of Enfield and Sarah Bald win (1785-1808) of Waterbury, who married in 1807, bears a close similarity to catalog 85 and may also be from the same shop. Its apron design is comparable to catalog 85, as are the large pad feet with rounded sides. I Differences include an applied-vine drawer front and a conventional three-drawer configuration in the lower case. The use of cut nails suggests a post-1785 date of production.

SINGULAR

FEATURES

c- Carved shell lacks an undulating three-dimensionality t> Absence of a deep middle drawer in the lower case required

modifications to the front apron shaping [>

Large cup-shaped pad feet with a truncated-cone supporting pad

t> D rawer sides flat on top and lack a bead on the outside edge;

dovetail pins present at top and bott om of drawer sides; pins have a greater angle than those of the Eliphalet Chapin shop

Dimensions: overall H 72Vs"; upper case H 41" W 36W' D I6W'; lower case H 3IVs" W 381'8 " D qlh" Materials: cherry with eastern white pin e Condition notes: brasses replaced Publication: Nadeau's Auction Gallery, September

29, 2 0 0 1,

lot roo

H C FS 403

I. Privately owned; HCFS 184. The high chest, now in two parts, belo ngs to brothers wh o are in a direct line of predominately male descend ant s of th e likely first owners. Sarah Baldwin's dem ise at th e age of 23 may account for thi s unusual patrilin eal descent.

CAT A LOG 8 5 This is th e only Chapin schoo l flat-top high chest with two long dr awers in th e lower case. D espite th e simplicity, it is com petently made and follows C hapin shop practices quite closely.

I90

C HAP INS T Y L E

CATALOG

86

D ressing table Chapin school H artford County, possibly East Windsor, Priv ately owned

I 7 80-I800

This dressing table, which has an unverified history of ownership in the Stoughton family ofWindsor, resembles catalogs 65 & 66, both attributed to Eliphalet Chapin's shop .' Like catalog 65 it has a coved cornice molding that extends in back to support the overhanging top; however, the maker was less meticulous than Chapin in matters of design and construction. Dimensions: H

32~"

W 32¥s" D 17%"; top 343,4" x

I9 ~ "

M aterials : cherry with eastern wh ite pine Condition notes: brasses repla ced Publi cation: Clearing H ouse Auction Gall eries, Septemb er 20, 1963 HCFS 96

Historian D ori s Burgd orf, Ea st Windsor, to th e autho rs, Ju ne 2002, HCFS files.

1.

CA T A LOG 8 6 This dressing table is similar in conception to th e two Chapin shop dressing tables (cats. 65, 66) but differs enough in its singular features to suggest it is th e work of a second-generation craftsma n.

S INGU LA R F E AT U R E S t> Cyma curves of these aprons are not from the same templates

used on catalogs 65, 66 t> Less sophisticated carving of shell and feet

e- No quarter columns t> No vertical glue blocks to secure the mortise-and-teno n joints

and hold the case sides to the leg posts t> D rawer sides round ed on top; dovetail pins are larger than

those of the Chapin shop

C HAP I N S C H 0 0 L

I9I

CATALOG

87

D ressing table Chapin school Probably Hartford County, q8S- I8oo Location unknown

The absence of a cornice molding below the top and use of pad, rather than claw-and-ball, feet are unique features among the handful of dressing tables attributed to the Chapin shop and Chapin school. They recall the traditional Wethersfield style, although the apron shaping and deep center drawer leave little doubt as to the Chapin shop's primary stylistic influence. Construction also follows Chapin shop practice closely.

SINGULAR FEATURES

e- Mahogany as the primary wood e- No cornice molding below the top c- Flat carving of the shell (resembling that on cat. 62) t>

Cup-shaped pad feet with trun cated-cone supporting pad

t> Dr awer dovetail pins have a greater angle than those of the

Eliphalet C hapin shop

CAT A LOG 8 7 T his dressing table differs from C hapin shop examples in several respects. It is significantly wide r, made of mahogany, lacks a cornice molding below the top, and has pad feet . These feature s, plus th e ring -a nd-bail brasses, place thi s in a second-ge neration sho p, mos t likely in th e 1790s.

D imensions: H 31%" W 35" D 161,4" ; top 391,4" x 18W' Materials: mahoga ny with eastern wh ite pine Condition notes: brasses original P ublication: C hr istie's, sale 8578 (J anuary 18, 1997), lot 151

HCFS 282

I92

C HAP INS T Y L E

C AT ALOG 88 Oxbow bureau Chap in school Probably Northern Ha rtford County, I790-I8oo Pri vately ow ned

CAT A LOG 8 8 This is a Hartford C ounty oxbow bureau at its best, with compact prop ort ion s and a mor e verti cal stance than most. The blocking of th e facade ends sho rt of the draw er side and knee bracket, a feature not usually found with column corn ers. The draw er fronts are scribe- mo lded, and the brasses are unu sually orn ate.

The skilled cabinetmaker who made this bureau was intimately familiar with Chapin shop practices but modified them in several ways. A related bureau (cat. 88A) differs in three respects: the top is attached with screws to a subtop made of three cross-struts; backboards are nailed in rabbets in the case sides; drawer fronts are not shaped on the inside.' A second related oxbow bureau (cat. 88e) displays the top-of-the-line "Columns, claw feet, and carv'd mouldings" specified in the 1792 Hartford cabinetmakers' price list. The four claw-and-ball feet are

e

HAP INS C H 0 0 L

SI N G UL A R F E AT U R E S t> Above-edge molded top attached on a sliding dovetail (as in

cat. 89), a techniqu e commonly used in Ma ssachusetts, rather than screwed to a full or partial subtop

c- Decorative rail above the top drawer t> Qu adrant-ba se construction is modified by the use of triangular

blocks t> Drawer fronts are scribe molded, replacing the cock bead on

drawer surrounds-a shortcut that achieved a comparable look with considerably less work t> Dovetail pins are present at top and bottom of drawer side;

pins are of average size with little angle

I93

carved similarly to those from the Eliphalet Chapin shop, but with exaggerated knuckles; the rear feet are finished on two sides only. A gadroon strip (carv'd moulding) is applied to the underside of the base molding between the front feet. Other differences from catalog 88 include attachment of the top to a two-part subtop and the shaping of the inside faces of the drawer fronts to conform to the oxbow exterior. Clawand-ball foot oxbow bureaus are uncommon in Connecticut, in part because of the late appearance of the oxbow form, and the distinct preference for the splayed ogee foot. "

Dimensions: H 333,4" W 353,4" D I934"j top 38" x 2IY2" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes : brasses original Publication: Sotheby's, sale 7085 (January 18,1998),lot 1758 HCFS 328

1.

HCFS 48. Barbour Collection, pp. 36-37'

2. HCFS I45aj Sotheby's, sale 6527 (January 30-31,1994), lot 1259. For a similar example combining oxbow front, gadroons, and clawand-ball feet, see Sotheby's, sale 5429 (January 30-31, 1986),lot 633 ·

CAT A LOG 8 8 B This view of the drawer front of catalog 88a shows that leaving the inside of the drawer front flat rather than shaping it to conform to the exterior necessitated deeply gouged pockets for the brass posts . It also added to the weight and skewed the balance of the drawer.

CAT A LOG 8 8 c This oxbow bureau, by yet another Chapin school cabinetmaker, is elaborately adorned with expensive options . That the inside faces of the drawers conform to the oxbow shape points to a post-I795 date of production. Location unknown.

CAT A LOG 8 8 A This bureau, by another Chapin school maker, differs from catalog 88 in subtle ways. Its 2" shorter stance makes it appear wider, and the oversized replacement brasses create a visual distraction from its otherwise elegant appearance. Connecticut Historical Society Museum, I969.33.IO,gift of Frederick K. and Margaret R. Barb our.

I94

C HAP INS T Y L E

CATALOG

89

Straight-ftont bureau Chapin school Probably northern Hartford County, I790- I8oo P riv ately owned

Although the maker of this chest used a double mortiseand -tenon joint to attach the drawer dividers and quadrant-base construction for the feet, he did not employ Chapin shop methods throughout. Given that small variations in design and con struction were applied routinely in many shops throughout Hartford County and adjacent towns in Massachu sett s at the end of the century, this example has no feature s permitting attribution to a specific town or shop. It was purchased by an early twentieth-century Hartford collector from an unidentified family in the Windsorville section of East Windsor.

C AT A L O G 8 9 The splayed ag ee feet and cosmetic rail above the top dr awer give thi s bur eau th e unmistakable "look" of H art ford C ounty, despit e th e straight facade, The extra overhang of the top makes it a littl e more stylish .

S INGULAR FEATU RES I>

Sliding dovetail, visible from the rear, joins top to case (as in cat. 88); this method is common in M assachusetts but uncommon in Connecticut, except in the Lord group of Colchester and the Kneeland and Adams shop in H artford

I>

No subtop, but the cabinetmaker placed a rail above the top drawer, presumably for aesthetic reasons (as in cat. 88)

I> I>

Backboards are nailed in rabbets in the case sides (as in cat. 88A) Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are mediumsize triangles with pins present at the top and bottom of drawer side

D imensions: H 32%" W 32~" D q r's"; top 36Ys" x 191,6" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pin e Co ndition notes: brasses replaced HCFS 24

C AT A LOG 8 9 A This quadrant base lacks th e three -sided frame used in the Eliphalet Chapin shop (see glossary). The base molding is nailed to the bottom board on th e front and sides. This required adding a bottom rail, or divider, under th e lowest drawer so that th e drawer clears the base molding. The qu adrant block is large, but in other respects the base construction is typical, with blind-dovetailed front feet and an outward splay of about i .

C HAP INS C H 0 0 L

I95

CAT ALOG

90

Serpentine bureau Chap in schoo/, probably by William Flagg, possibly Eliphalet Chapin shop Probably East Hartford, possibly East Windsor, I790-I8oo Privately owned

C AT A L OG 9 0 This majestic bureau, probably th e wo rk of William Flagg, is the only exampl e of th e serpe ntine form attributed to th e Chapin schoo l. Both the serpe ntine facade and claw feet were uncommon choices. The embellishments-fluted half columns at the corners and a complex top edge molding-make thi s bureau the best of its kind. The maker followed Chapin shop con struction practices consistently.

S INGU L A R

t>

FE ATU RES

Bureau is shaped with flared rounded corners and a conforming top

t>

O n-edge molding of top is a cove flanked by a fillet and bead, similar to catalog Il l, attributed to John 1. Wells

t>

H alf columns at front corners are designed in the Eliph alet Ch apin shop manner

t>

Claw-and-ball feet project at the front corners with rounded

This exceptional bureau with a serpentine facade and claw-and-ball feet demonstrates the capacity of Chapin school cabinetmakers to execute formal forms other than the oxbow, even in the 1790S (see cats. 171, 173). William Flagg likely made this after he completed his apprenticeship with Eliphalet Chapin in 1793, as several details are unlike those from Chapin's shop and from catalogs 67 & 70, which Flagg had signed earlier.

knees and brackets that are attached to the foot with a double mortise-an d- teno n joint. This foot assembly is nailed to a conventional th ree-sided frame. The rear feet and knees are fully carved, including the projecting knee in back t>

t>

D im en sion s: H 3th" W (at back) 40W' D (maximu m) 211,4"; top 4 2" X 21" (at cent er) Materials: cherry with eastern whi te pine

Drawer front s are shaped so that the inside runs straight across

C ondition not es: brasses original

and flares forward at the corners

In scripti on s: "WF" (F incomplete) incised on bottom of case; "Eas t - - -" (H artford?) in graphite

Drawer sides are beaded on the top outside edge; dovetail pins

Publicati on : Northeast Au ctions, August 1-3, 2003, lot 758

are narrow triangles

HCFS 347

I96

C HAP INS T Y L E

CATALOG

91

D esk- on-frame

Chapin school Probably Hartford County, I78o-I795 Yale University Art Gallery, I953.50.I, gift ofC. Sanford Bull, B.A. I893

This desk -on-frame amalgamates many design elements from Eliphalet Chapin shop dressing tables and high chests. The way that they are integrated points to a maker from the Chapin school. A related example is a desk-on-frame that is outwardly similar but so extensively altered that the original form is now impossible to establish. I A second related example is a desk-and-bookcase-

on-frame. The desk-on-frame portion is similar in appearance to catalog 91; however, it also has a bookcasewith geometrically decorated paneled doors and a scrolled latticework pediment with three turned finials-incorporated as an integral part of the desk. The overall form is improbable and has the characteristic s of a nineteenth-century colonial revival conflation. " CA T A L OG 9 I T his desk- onframe with a Ch apinesque apron is basically a writing-desk box on a dressing table, an uncommon alternative to the popular full-height desk on a bandy-leg frame with a shaped apron (see Brown and Stocking groups). The maker was familiar with Chapin shop practices, but th e many small differences suggest someone other than Eliphalet Chapin. The interior layout and valance design are simple and comparable to those in th e secretary drawers of Chapin shop desk and bookcases (see cats. 67, 69). The legs, feet, and knee return s applied to the front of th e apro n are unlike those from th e Chapin shop.

C HAP I N S C H 0 0 L

I97

SINGULA R

F E A T UR E S

c- Butternut as a secondary wood c- Lower-case center drawer aligned with the flanking drawers (rather than dropped), requiring a reshaping of the apron

e- Carved shell, although well executed, lacks the finesse of those from Ch apin's shop t> Side apron shaped with single (rather than a double) arch on

either side of a flat center t> Heavy cabriole legs, less well-shaped than on Chapin shop

dressing tables t> Knee returns are applied to the front of the apron t> Saucer-shaped pad feet with an unusually wide, truncated-cone

supporting pad

e- Secret compartment, concealed within the backboard of the lower case, pulls out from below t> Drawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins of average size with

little angle

D imensions: H overall jx'c"; upp er case W 34%" D I?W'; frame W 36%" D ISW' Materials: cherry with eastern white pin e and butternut (lowercase back, some interior part s) C ondition notes: brasses replaced Exhibition: W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. II? Publications: Kirk, Ea rly American Furn iture, fig. 146; Ward, American Case Furniture, no. 155

C AT A L O G 9 I A This rear view shows th at the maker constructed the desk port ion like the upp er case of a high chest, with the backboard set in grooves in the case top and sides. The small dovetail openin gs in the middle of each side are for the insertion of the writing- surface board , which also serves to brace the case. The lower-case back shows the through-tenoned center drawer runners (upside-down T-shapes) and the location of the secret drawer. The lower- case backboard is butternut, a wood that H artford Coun ty cabinetmakers rarely used.

H C FS 105

H istoric D eerfield; HCFS li S; see Fales, Furniture of H istoric D eerfield, fig. 463, and Kenn eth Hammitt advertisement, Antiques 74, no. 2 (August 1955): 116. I.

2 . Location unkn own; assessment based on ph oto inspection only; see Lockwood, Colonial Furn itu re, I: fig. 250, and Keyes, "Individuality of Connecticut Furniture," fig. 7.

I98

C HAP INS T Y L E

C ATALOG 92 D esk and bookcase with scrolled p edim ent Chapin school, p ossibly Eliphalet K ing shop Probably E ast Windsor or Suffield, I790-I8IO P robablyfirst owned by Alexander K ing ofEast Windsor P riv ately ow ned

This desk and bookcase is representative of much case furniture produced between 1790 and I8IO. Its maker was intimately familiar with the Chapins' design and construction methods, but lacked the finesse of the master.The Chapin shop features include the following: case construction, including the mortise-and-tenon attachment of muntins and drawer divider s, and chamfered backboards set in grooves; "mitre'd doors" in the bookcase; midmolding nailed from inside; and the shape and splay of the ogee feet. This desk and bookcase has an uninterrupted histor y of ownership in the family of Alexander King (q49-I83I) of East Windsor until the mid-twentieth century. " Even though Alexander King was Aaron Chapin's brother-in-law and bought furniture from Eliphalet Chapin, this desk and bookcase is not from either of the Chapin shops. The neat, stylized "EK" carved on the backboard corresponds to the initials of two of Alexander King's grandsons- Edwin (b. 1816) and Edward (1818-88), but both moved west and neither owned this desk and bookcase. A more likely candidate is Eliphalet King (q43-I82I) of Suffield, who was unrelated but an established cabinetmaker who se account book survives. He made desks and bookcases and did business with an Alexander King in q8S , but that customer was another Alexander King (1737-1802), who lived in Suffield) S INGU LAR

FEATURES

c- Inlaid (rather than carved) rosettes' t> No molding strip above the doors to close the pediment and

separate it from the bookcase doors t> Two rows of small drawers under the pigeonholes in the desk

interior t>

Qu adrant base does not have blind-dovetailed front feet; stacked blocks are used for reinforcement

t> Drawer sides rounded on top

CHAPIN

SCHOOL

C A T A L O G 9 2 This des k and bookcase consists of a slantfront desk and a bookcase with a balls pedimen t. T he open pediment, stylized triglyph , and sma ll rose ttes were fashionab le statements for th e 179os; th e slant- front desk was a traditional alternative to th e newer secretary or wri ting drawer. T he splayed ogee feet are typical of H artford Co unty work.

Eliphalet King was only two years younger th an Eliphalet C hapin and could not have trained with him, but he may have hired a Chapin trainee as a journeyman at some point, whic h would explain th e presence of Chapin shop construction methods. Dim ensions: overall H 8i~4 " ; upper case H 45%" W 36rs" D 91,4"; lower case H 421,4" W 383.4" D 181,4" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine; inlay C ond ition not es: finials origin al; pediment repaired, upper part, includin g rosettes, possibly restored; plinth caps added; brasses replaced Inscripti on: "E K" carved on upper case backboard Exhibition: Conne cticut Tercentenary 1935, no. II2 HCFS 129

Since the pedim ent appears to have been broken at one time, it is not certain that the veneered rosettes are original. They are, however, plausible for the period .

1.

2. When exhibited at the Connecticut Tercentenary in 1935, greatgranddaughter, Mabel Delia King Green (1879-1954) owned it; she also owned and lent one of the Alexander King claw-and -ball foot side chairs (see cat. 570 for a chair from the same set). King's probate invent ory lists a "desk and bookca se" at $2, the same value placed on his Chapin shop high chest (cat. 57)'

CA T A L OG 9 2 A The int erior of thi s desk is simple but similar to examples from the Ch apin shop. The valance design is the same as Eliphalet Ch apin's.

3. Stiles, Win dsor 2:424-25. The "WF" on cats. 69, 70 are similarly stylized with serifs. Extract s from Eliphalet King account book (Kent Memorial Library, Suffield), Great River archive, Wadsworth Atheneum (microfilm copy, Connecticut Hi storica l Society).

CA T A LO G 9 2 B These deliberate and carefully executed initial s may be tho se of the cabinetmaker. The only cand idate identified to date is Eliphalet King of Suffield.

CA T A LO G 9 2 c The stacked blocking of the splayed ogee feet is a unique adaptation of quadrant-base construction: there is no thre e-sided frame, and the front feet are not blind dovetailed together. The degree of splay and rear foot brace attachment are typical for Hartford County.

200

C HAP I N S T Y L E

Colchester Style

C olche ster case furniture brims with originality and dynamism. The bonnet-top high chests, chests-onchests, and desks and bookcases display steep, almost vertical bonnets; applied cylindrical rosettes and centerplinth ornaments; and elaborate carved shells. Where th e Wethersfield style emphasizes purity of form and refinement, the Colchester style sports heft and rippling mu scles. Its carvers animated the forms with lively reflected light and shadow, using a creative vocab ulary th at included spiral- turn ed columns and finial s, shells, pinwheels, detailed punchwork, stippling, chip carving, intaglio tendrils, and stemmed leaves. C olchester craftsmen drew inspiration from N ewport cabinetmakers who worked with blocked facade s embellished with carved shells. The result is not a regional or "country" imitatio n of an urban design ; it is a well-developed, livelier, and enduring style that conveys a very different message. Where N ewport designs tend to be repetitive, each C olchester object offers something new. The case furniture is large: mo st notably, monumental chests-on-chests and desks and bookcases often supported by massive frame s (cat. 104) and shell-carved blockfront bureaus. Postrevolutionary pro sperity apparently spurred the construction oflarge houses, which in turn stimulated the demand for large, elaborately decorated case furniture. I The purcha sers tended to be men of wealt h wanting obje cts for di splay, rather than fathers putting together dowri es for their daughters. Curiously, no documented tables or chairs have been identified in th e C olche ster style. L ocated twenty-four miles southeast of Hartford, the town of Colchester had about 3,000 inhabitants in 1782, a population similar to that of contemporary W eth ersfield or East Windsor. Unlike the other towns encompassed in the Hartford Ca se Furniture Survey, it was not situated along the Connecticut River, but in

COLCHESTER

STYLE

the uplands several miles to the east . C olchest er became part of New London County in 1783, and its furniture has been considered in the context of N ew London County and the thriving port city of Norwich, sixteen miles east of Colchester.2 However, the original residents of Colchester came primarily from Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor, and the town's econo mic and social links to Hartford remained strong) Ju st as cabinetmaking in Norwich clearly exerted a powerful influence on the Colchester style, so the latter exerted an equally profound effect on furniture production in th e river towns southeast of Hartford. The Isaac Tryon group in Glastonbury, for example, blended C olch ester decorative motifs with the more restrained and elegant Wethersfield forms and created a substyle unique to th at town (see cats. 150-153). C on sideration of C olchester style furniture is thus essential to any effort to understand late eighteenth-century Hartford C ou nty furniture .t Putting together the pieces of the Colchester puzzle, trying to identify its cabinetmakers and their work, has long challenged furniture scholars. The distinctiveness of the style implies it originated from a single creative genius, but hi s identity remains undiscovered. Much like Eliphalet Chapin in East Windsor, this sho p ma ster made a radical departure from the existing aesthetic. Two examples, a desk dated 1769 and a pre- I770 high chest with steps (cat s. 93, 120), argue that he set up shop in the 1760s. Based on working dates, the most logical candidate for the creator of th e style is C olch ester-b orn Amos Wells (1735- 1801), who trained during th e early 1750s. Although no furniture ha s been documented to hi m, Wells's probate inventory itemizes a full complement of joiner's tools, and his 1798 tax assessment was high er than th at of other Colchester cabinetmakers.i Benjamin Burnham (1739?-1773), and Samuel Loomi s III

20I

(1748-1814), two other craftsmen who figure prominently in the region and in historians' accounts, may have worked for Wells as apprentices or journeymen but are unlikely to have initiated the style. Burnham worked only briefly in Colchester before dying at sea in 1773, and his signed desk, although an acknowledged masterpiece, is also in many ways anomalous (cat. 93).6 Loomis was too young, completing his training only about 1769. Whoever the master was, Colchester style furniture became widely disseminated, produced by shops throughout the surrounding area, from East Haddam in the south to Hebron in the north and Chatham in the west (see map 3). Chatham (present-day Portland and East Hampton) played a particularly significant role. Originally the eastern parish of Middletown, this important shipbuilding port became a separate town in 1767 and by 1782 had a population of almost 3,000. Its craftsmen, including Amos Ransom (1760-1842) and James Higgins (1766-1827), supplied furniture for wealthy merchants engaged in the West Indies trade. By the 1780s and 1790S the second and third generations of cabinetmakers working in the Colchester style had settled in towns in western Connecticut, the Berkshires, and central New York. In Lenox, Massachusetts, East Haddam-born cabinetmaker Calvin Willey (1769-post 1831) produced in the early 1790S a critical mass of Colchester style furniture, objects that are entirely consistent with those actually made in Colchester area shops (cats. 108, 109, lIO). An analysis of the design and construction features of Colchester style objects identified four major shops with clearly defined index featu res (see table 4).7 The first and largest group is named for a probable early owner, Epaphras Lord, Jr. (1743-1819). The other three

202

groups have specific cabinetmakers associated with them: Samuel Loomis III, Calvin Willey, and James Higgins. Only two groups (Lord and Samuel Loomis) were likely produced by craftsmen working in the town of Colchester itself; the James Higgins group probably came from the neighboring town of Chatham; and the Calvin Willey group from an unidentified Connecticut shop as well as Lenox, Massachusetts, an area that attracted numerous Connecticut emigrants. During the most productive period of the Colchester style (1775-95), the Lord, Samuel Loomis, and Calvin Willey group furniture emerged from multiple shops operating simultaneously. Colchester style furniture exhibits dramatically greater variation in design, decoration, and construction than its counterparts from Wethersfield and East Windsor, especially Eliphalet Chapin's shop. Classification is consequently far more difficult. In addition to the significant index features that link all examples in a group, each Colchester style piece typically displays a number of idiosyncrasies that distinguish it within the group. These are listed in the entries as "singular features," encompassing both innovations and elements found in other groups. A few Colchester style pieces could not be assigned to any of the four major groups. The most important of these is the extraordinary blockfront desk signed by Benjamin Burnham, which is, quite literally, in a class by itself (cat. 93). Another small cluster of notable pieces suggests the presence of an accomplished shop in the town of Hebron (cats. 125, 126). By the 1790S craftsmen working in the Colchester style, like other Connecticut valley cabinetmakers, frequently mixed and matched elements from different shop traditions, making precise classification difficult.

COLCHESTER

STYLE

SI G NI FIC ANT

I ND EX

FEATUR E S :

CA T S .

93-12 8

D esign and Decoration

o Large case forms, especially chest-an-chests and elaborate desks and bookcases, many with blocked facades

o Full bonnets; bonnet cavity closed in back but not roofed over o Steeply rising scrolled cornice terminatin g in large, cylindrical,

1. See Trent, "C olchester School," P: 1I7- The history of a chest-on che st-en-frame owned by Alice Skinner and Jon ath an D eming (cat. 104) suggests that Colchester cabinetmakers may have int roduced this form a dec ade or mor e prior to its appearance in Wethersfield or Chapin style production (cats. 68, 168, In InA) . The earlier appearance of this form in C olch ester might in turn explain its relative preval ence th ere, in contrast to a lower num ber of high chests.

relief-carved rosettes attached with a carved center peg

o Capped side plinth s at front corners on bonnet tops o Finials, most spiral-turned, some thistle- shaped, stand above a reel

o Circular bonnet cutouts, notched near the top under the cornice o Applied center-plinth ornament is fluted and/or reeded shell that extends down into tympanum

o Large shells on upper- and lower-case center drawers; chip- or gouge-carved decoration at shell perimeter

o Front corners of case often embellished with full or inset quarter

Trent, "Colchester School ," pp.

II 2- IS .

3. Colchester was part of H artford C ounty wh en the town was incorporated in 1698, tran sferred to New L ond on Coun ty in 1699, back to Hartford C ounty in 17° 8, and finally back to New Lond on C ounty in 1783. 4. Cabinet shops in towns to th e east of C olche ster in New

London C ounty develop ed their own styles and were influenced much less by Colchester craftsmen; Myers & M ayhew, New L ondon County Furnit ure, no s. 56, 58, 60. 5. Connecticut A ssessors, W arren Collection .

columns that are fluted or rope-turned; pilasters, fluted or stop-

6. See Bulkeley, "Benjamin Burnham," pp. 28- 33.

fluted, used occasionally

7. Myers & M ayhew, N ew L ondon County Furniture, pp. 4-8, provide a similar grouping system, based primarily on drawer construction and doveta il shaping , using the designation s "X ," "Y," and "Z ." The HCFS team expanded the criteria for inclu sion by adding case construction and design features as indi cated in th e lists of significant index features.

o Front and side aprons shaped with flattened arches and drop pendants

o

2.

Knee returns and brackets are scrolled or curled (except on ogee feet in Lord and James Higgins groups in which a simple spur is used)

o Claw-and-ball front feet often paired with either pad or ogee rear feet

o Ankle hock above the heel of pad foot o Ogee feet lack astragal molding at the bottom Construction

o Varies widely among the groups; see group introdu ctions for details and table 4 for a summary

C O L C H EST E R

STY L E

20J

TABLE 4

Distinguishing Features

ofColchester Style Groups

Lord

Samuel Loomis

Calvin Willey

James Hi ggins

Cats. 94- 103

Cats. 104- 107

Cats. 108-n6

Cats. l17-n9

Approx. dates

1765- 1795

1770-1795

1780-1 800

1780-1 800

Scrolled pediment

Very steep

Moderate slope and height

Very steep

Not applicable

Scroll rosette

Fylfot leaves carved with

Varied: wreath with leaves,

Fylfot leaves scribed

Not applicable

carvrng

3 concentric ridges

punchwork,

in ground

Ground embellished with

geometric patterns

Floral device

gouged crescents

No fylfot

between leaves

Group

Central carved peg

Central carved peg Back of bon net

Saddle shape

Straight across

Saddle shape

Not applicable

Carved shells

Midribs incised in rays

Narrow convex rays with

Light midrib s to

Newport type convex

Punched border around

"Loomis tail" at bottom

scribe mark

and concave shells

outside

Each shell is unique

Interlaced chiselwork

Serrated border around concave shells

Single scribe outline

Blocked facades have

around outside

H orizontal flutes at

contrasting wide-lobed

Large punch dots

base of shell and

shells in center panel

Serp entine convex rays with hourglass center

in apron

Contrasting shells with wide concave lobes or convex rays Co lumns

Knee-bracket

Fluted quarter columns

Simple spur

returns

Spiral-turned or fluted,

Spiral-turned or fluted,

full or quarter column s

full or quarter column s

Scrolled

Scrolled

("Colchester curl")

("Co lchester curl")

None

Complex scroll on front return, simple spur on side return s

Leg/knee carving

Fluting and spiral

None

None

None

Straight or ogee bracket

Front and back feet

Claw-and-ball front feet;

identical

tall ogee rear feet

Ankle hock

Not applicable

carving in front Feet

Front and back feet often different

Pad foot

Ankle hock

Not applicable

204

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

G roup

Claw-and- ball foot

Lord

Samuel Loomis

Calvin W illey

James Hi ggins

Cats. 94- 103

Cats. 104-107

Cats. lOS- lI6

Cats. 1I7- lI9

Slightly flatten ed ball,

None observed

Tall elongated ball,

Slightl y flatt ened ball,

similar in shape to a

similar in shape to

M acintosh apple

Delici ous apple

a M acint osh apple

Web shaping extend s up leg

Articulated knu ckles

Pointed talon

Uniform thickness

Not applicable

Covered in back

M olded edge and cornice;

similar in shape to a

Bonnet skin

Uniform thickness

Variable thickness for shaping

Top board of case

Covered in back

Edge visible in back

nailed to full-depth subtop Upper-case

H oused in grooves

H oused in grooves

Exposed dovetails

Not observed

Nailed in rabbet s

H oused in grooves

backboard Drawer divider

D ovetails usually covered

D ovetails covered by a

by a facing strip

facing strip

Drawer runn ers

In a sliding dovetail

N ailed to case sides

N ailed to case sides

In a sliding dovetail

Ogee feet (front)

Exposed dovetails

Exposed dovetails

Blind dovetails or mitr es

Not applicable

Drawers

Tops of sides rounded

Tops of sides have

Tops of sides flat

Tops of sides rounded

Small triangul ar

double- astragal molding

or round ed

Large trian gular dovetail

Small triangular

D ovetailing varies

pins closely spaced

dovetail pins

dovetail pins D ovetails reversed in back

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

205

'Benjamin 'Bu rnham 'Desl: CATALOG

93

Blockfront desk Sign ed by Benjamin Burnham Probably Colchester, I769 M etropolitan Museum ofArt, I8.IIo.s8,]ohn Stewart Kenn edy Fund, I9I8

T his spectacular, frequently exhibited, and widely published desk bears an inscriptio n th at makes it an imp ortant tool in attributing other objects to th e C olchester area.' As is often the case, the desk has been subject to overinte rpre tation, and a large corpus of work has been attributed to Burnham (1739?-73) and his "P hiladelphia connection" based on very little evidence. As furniture historian and curator M orri son Heckscher persuasively argues, th e accepted reading of the inscription as evidence th at Burnham trained in Philadelphia is not borne out by physical evidence. D espite design elements pointing to a Colchester origin, th e desk is constructed with considerable reliance on Boston area techni ques." These include th e drawer bottom s with front-to-back woo d grain orientation and applied running strips beneath, and a giant dovetail joining th e apron to the bottom board . In most ways thi s desk doe s not conform to th e construction practices of the major Colchester style shops. Little factua l informa tio n conce rn ing Burnham's career has surfaced. H e may be one of two Benjamin Burnhams born in or near Ip swich, M assachu setts, in the late 1730S, and he is believed to be th e Benjamin Burnham wh o marr ied C ath erine Trumbull (1731-1803) of Colchester in 1770 or 177!. According to family tradition, he departed for England before 1773 and was never heard of again, presumably lost at sea.3 H e evidently worked in Colchester for only a few years, very likely as a jo urneyman in a shop other th an his own, as he has not been document ed as a sho p master. M ore-

206

over, a close look at his carving and joinery, along with his miscalculation of th e desk's interior drawer placement, suggests he was not an especially gifted craftsman. Under whose leadership Burnham worked remain s an unanswered question , as does his connection to Colchester cabinetmaker Samuel Loomis III, who se furniture design s have been compared with Burnham's. Numerous differences between the Burnham desk and the Eliphalet Bulkeley desk, attributed to Loomis and possibly signed by him, argue against th e th eory th at Loomis apprenticed with Burnham (see table 5, cat. 99). Furthermore, Burnham's incorporation of several features found on Lord group furniture-n otably, the blocked facade, pilasters, and claw-and-b all feet with scrolled and carved knee brackets-suggests th at th e Colchester style of cabin etmaking was firmly established before 1769. A flat-top high chest with "Benjamin Burnham" chalked on the upper-case backboard has a walnutveneered facade with crossbanding around the drawer fronts and relatively straight legs with small pad feet, all of which are features pointing to coastal Massachusetts production between 1730 and 1760.4 If the prevailing assumption about Benjamin Burnham's Ip swich origin s is correct, then he could have mad e this high chest in the 1750S before moving to Colchester. There is nothing about its appearance to suggest that it was mad e in C olchester and, furthermore, no assurance it is by th e same Benjamin Burnham.

COL CH EST ER

S T YL E

S IGN IF ICANT

I ND E X

FEATURES:

CAT.

93

D esign and D ecorat ion

Construction

o

o o

Elabo rate compass inlay on th e lid, prob ably inspired by coastal M assachu setts work (other examples in th e region include Amphitheatre interior with valance drawers and three ranks of

o

o

Co lchester style desks

o

Drawer bottom s are oriented with grain ru nning fron t-to-back and have app lied running strips (bo th more common in M assa-

Convex por tion of blocked facade roun ded at top corners

chusetts tha n in C onnecticut )

Stop-flute d pilasters flank the long drawers and surround the lopers; pilaster design differs from other Colchester style examples

Cock- bead decorated dr awer dividers are dou ble tenoned to pilaster housing and case side; secured with vertical glue blocks

Shell carving on the valance drawers imprecisely executed bu t reminiscent of Rh ode Island wor k; no shell on top cen ter drawer

o o

Front feet carved fro m a three- piece lamin ated block (highly un usual in C onnecticut )

small drawers, twenty-eight in all; ge neral layout similar to other

o

Giant dovetail joins base molding to bottom board (a coastal M assachusetts technique rarely used in Connecticu t)

cats. ISO, 158)

o

Backboard s nailed in rabbets in th e case sides and top

o

Drawer sides flat on top; dove tails small and triangular

(cats. 96, 97, lor)

o

Molded, scribed, and carved knee returns simila r to othe r Colchester style work (cats. 96, 100, lor)

o

Claw-and-ball feet have scrolled knee brackets on the fro nt and sides; th e ogee feet have a simple spur (as do pieces in the Lord grou p)

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

207

CAT A LOG 9 3 Signed and dated by Benjamin Burnham, thi s desk demonstrates th at the Colche ster style of cabinetmakin g was firmly established by 1769. It s C olchester design element s are associated with the Lord group: blocked facade, pilasters, and claw-and-ball feet with scrolled and carved knee brackets. The desk also displays many coastal M assachusett s features. O f particular note is the compa ss star inlay, an element rarely added to C onnecticut furniture during thi s period.

208

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

CA T A LOG 9 3 A The waterfall int erior arrangemen t is justifiably famous as one of the most ambitiously conceived of any in colonial America. The basic layout is similar to other Co lchester style desks, including th at made for Eliphalet Bulkeley (cat. 99), but Burnham's bravado in incorporating twenty-eight drawers, many of them tiny, is unp aralleled. There are so many drawers that he miscalculated the depth needed for th e outer ones and had to scoop out a section of the lid in order for it to close.

Dimensions: H 49* " W 40W' D 223,4" M aterials: cherry and unidentified inlay with eastern white pine, tulip poplar Conditi on notes: rear feet possibly replaced; brasses replaced In scription: "T his D esk was maid in the / year of 1769 Buy Benj" Burnam / that sarvfed his time in Felledlfay" in ink on underside of bottom board Exhibitions: Conn ecticut Tercenten ary 1935, no. 219; W adsworth Ath eneum 1967, no. 121; Lyman Allyn Museum 1974, no. 32; M inneapolis Institute of Arts 1989, no. 43 Publications: Lyon, Colonial Furniture, p. 121, fig. 50; Bulkeley, "Benjamin Burnham," fig. 8; H oughton Bulkeley, "Benjamin Burnham of Colchester, Cab inetmaker," A ntiques 76, no. I (July 1959): 62-63 ; H eckscher, A merican Furniture, no. 178; Trent, "Colchester School," pp. II3-16 HCFS 201

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

1. M yers & M ayhew, New L ondon County Furniture, nos. 31-34; Trent, "Co lchester School," no. 43.

2. Heckscher, A merican Furniture, no. 178, provides an excellent balanced analysis and review. 3. Bulkeley, "Benjamin Burnham," pp. 28-33. Burnham's marriage was conducted by the local ju stice of the peace, Epaphras Lo rd, Sr., trad itionally regarded as the first owner of cat. 94. 4. 1. M . Wiese advertisement, Antiques 105, no. 2 (February 1974): 277. Although not examined by the HCFS team, it is reliably reported that the high chest and its inscription belong together; Roger G onzales, cabinetmaker, to the authors, 1999, HCFS files. A less plausible related example is a writing-d esk-on-dressingtable, very likely a centennial-era conflation, th at once belonged to Walter H osmer, an early zoth-century collector, dealer, and restorer in Hartford. The desk inte rior is a miniaturized version of the Burnham desk, but with only sixteen drawers and a carved shell on the top center drawer. The base has three drawers (the center of which has a shell similar to th at on the desk interior), a cyma-curved front apron , cabriole legs, and pad feet. Lockwood, Colonial Furniture, I: fig. 248.

209

,(grd group

Furniture in the Lord group, the largest and probably the earliest of the Colchester groups, is named for Epaphras Lord, Jr. (1743-1819), the probable first owner of catalog 94. This group represents the output of a long shop tradition extending from approximately 1765 to 1795, with multiple generations of craftsmen having a hand in its remarkable output. The master may have been Amos Wells, whose working dates, longevity, and estate inventory replete with joiner's tools and expensive furniture support his candidacy; however, no objects can be attributed to him specifically.I At least five case pieces (cats. 94, 96, 97, 99, IOI) in the group have histories of ownership in the town of Colchester. Others have histories of ownership suggesting that the second- or third-generation craftsmen from this shop went into business in nearby towns such as Chatham, Hebron, and Haddam.

2IO

Lord group forms include high chests, chest-onchests, desks and bookcases, and blockfront bureaus. Notable design features include very steeply sloped pediments, horizontal flutes below or at the base of large and often dissimilar shells, knee brackets with simple spurs, and dissimilar front and back feet. 1. For a summary of the contents of Wells's estate, see Myers & Mayhew, New London County Furniture, pp. 128-29. A Calvin Willey group high chest has "Wells" inscribed on the backboard, but no connection to Amos Wells could be established (cat. III).

COLCHESTER

STYLE

SIGN IFICANT

INDEX

FEATURES :

CATS .

94-103

Designand Decoration • Bonnets have an unusually steep arch; rosettes appear discon-

o

nected from cornice (see cat. 94A) • Rosettes are relief-carved fylfors with four leaves that have thre e

o

cylinder on which the rosette is carved is attached to the tympa-

• Tall, attenuated ogee feet end with inward-raking base (C hapin school foot has astragal); bracket has a prom inent spur that does

num with a central wooden peg that protrud es slightly, the head of which also is carved (see cat. 94A)

not curl

App lied carved ornament on center plinth ; designs vary

o

Cubical, capped side plinth s stand at the front corners of th e case (in contrast to Weth ersfield cases, which lack side plinths and

o

o

foot extends int o th e lower third of the leg above

a reel below

Construction

Unroofed bonnet cavity is closed in the rear by a backboard th at

o

has saddle-shaped dip (Wethersfield backboards have a slight

poplar, chestnut, and occasionally birch or sycamore as secondary woods

In the upper cases of bonnet- top high chests and chests-on-

o Bonnets have conventional fron t- to-bac k vertical suppo rts for th e skin. The skin may overlap th e vertical supports in th e center

to conform to th e bonn et arch (unlike W eth ersfield where th e

(but does not roof over th e center cavity), and end shor t of th e

flanking drawers are rectangular); in flat-top high chests the top

side cornice (see cat. 98A)

row has three tall drawers of equal height (as in the C hapin

• Upper-cas e backboards set in grooves in the case sides (as in th e Chapin schoo l); in bonnet tops th e back edge of th e upper-ca se

Shells in the upper- and lower-case drawer fron ts often are carved differently: concave wide lobes that form an undulating

top board is concealed by the backboard

o

border on one; small convex rays-usually with incised midribsand gougework around th e perim eter on the other; both cover

in fron t

the shell drawer

Front ogee feet are dovetailed togeth er; dovetails are visible from the side (see cat. 98B)

• Wed ge- shaped rear brace for each ogee foot is attac hed to the

Amphitheatre desk interiors have a row of valanced pigeonh oles over two rows of small drawers; in th e center a shell-carved drawer sits over a horizontall y fluted bott om drawer

o

dovetail; th e groove is visible from th e back (see cat. IOIB)

o

H orizontal flutes are cut below th e shell and in th e apro n und er

Drawer dividers and muntins are attached with dovetails exposed

• Upper-case drawer runners are attached to case sides in a sliding

much more of the drawer surface th an in Weth ersfield or E ast W indsor

o

Mahoga ny or cherry as primary wood; eastern white pine, tulip

arch) (see cat. 94A)

school)

o

Ball of claw-and -ball foot is slightly flatt ened; articulation of the

O ne-p iece finials usually have convex spiral turni ngs on top and

chests, th e small drawers flanking the shell drawer are shaped

o

Front and rear feet are often different : a claw-a nd-ball/pad foot combination on high chests, claw-and -balllogee foot on bureaus

o

have finials insert ed directly into th e case top)

o

C abriole leg comes to a point above th e heel of a pad foot, forming a "hock" (see cat. 95B)

concentric ridges in each and freehand carving between them;

o o

Front surface of th e knee on cabriole legs may be carved with flutes and spirals (see cat. 94C)

foot with a sliding dovetail and nailed at th e small end • Drawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins, usually small triangles, are oriented in th e conventional manner

Front and side aprons of high chests have flattened arches • designates key features for distinguishing among Colchester style groups

LOR D

G R 0 U P

2II

C AT A L O G 9 4 Flamboyant features of this high chest includ e a very steep bonnet with fylfat-carved rosettes, fluted center-plinth ornament, oversized dissimilar carved shells, and rear feet that differ from the front ones. When compared with Weth ersfield style and Ch apin school high chests, the overall effect is of great mass with heavy emphasis on surface decoration.

2I2

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

CATALOG

94

Bonnet-top high chest Probably Colchester, I76S-I78S Probably first ow ned by Patience Lo rd and Epaphras Lord, [r., of Colchester Connecticut H istorical Society Museum, I964.]].I, gift of Frederick K and Margaret R . Barbour

From the Lord family of Colchester, this spectacular high chest serves as the signature piece for the group, exemplifying most of the significant index features. It shares construction and design elements, including a closely spaced dentil course in the cornice molding, with the chest-on-chest and desk and bookcase belonging to Dorothy Champion and Julius Deming that also probably originated in Colchester (cats. 96, 97). According to tradition this high chest initially belonged to Epaphras Lord, Sr. (1709-99), a Hartford native who graduated from Yale College in 1729 and in 1742 settled in Colchester and married Lucy Bulkeley (172r- r800). H e represented Colchester in the legislature from 1743 to 1754.1 His estate included a "Case with draws" worth $3.34. While a man of Lord's wealth and status might have acquired thi s high chest late in life, it is more likely that it instead belonged to his son, also named Epaphras (1743- r8r9), who married his cousin Patience Lord (1746-r836) of Colchester on December 8,1766, an early but possible date for the high chest. At his death Epaphras II owned a "case draws" valued at $5, a more appropriate value for this piece.

S INGULA R

Ribbed convex rays alternate with flutes on center-plinth

[>

Oversized upper- and lower-case shells are markedly different

ornament from each other but similar to others in the Lord group: deep, wide, concave lobes in the upper-case shell, and a double shell with ribbed convex rays in the lower case (see cat. 120C and the Isaac Tryon group of Glastonbur y for other double shells)

D imensions: overall H 82Ys"; upp er case H 46Ys" W 35%" D 17?'s"; lower case H 36" W 38" D 191,4" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: bonnet skin and drop pendants replaced; finials and brasses original Exhibiti ons: Lyman Allyn Museum 1974, no. 40; M inn eapolis In stitute of Arts 1989, no. 49 Publi cation: Barbour Supplement, pp. 16-17 HCFS 207 D exter, Graduates ofYale, 1:386. As ju stice of th e peace Ep aphras Lord, Sr., presided over the marriage of his niece C atherine Trumbull to cabinetmaker Benjam in Burnham, ca. 1770; Bulkeley, "Benjam in Burnham," p. 30; see also cat. 93. 1.

LOR D

G R 0 U P

FEATURE S

[>

2IJ

CAT A LOG 9 4 A The bonn et arch has an almost vertical pitch, and the large separate cylindrical rosettes are not well integrated into the cornice. The X-ca rved peg th at attaches each rosette to th e tympanum is clearly visible. Other significant index features of th e Lo rd group include the saddle in the backboard at the rear of the bonne t cavity, th e small notch on each of the circular cutouts, and the flanking top drawers conforming to the bonnet slope. The large wide- lobed shell on the center drawer resembles those on Colchester style shell-carved blockfront bureaus (cats. lOO, lOOA).

CAT A LOG 9 4 B An elaborate double shell exhibits the undu lating scribed-and-punched border and incised midrib s of many Colchester style shells. The inner shell is carved on the same surface. The drop pend ants are replacemen ts.

CAT A LOG 9 4 c Linear carving with scrolled termin ations appears on the front of the knee in a number of Lord group pieces.

2I4

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

C ATALOG

9S

Flat-top high chest Probably Colchester or Chatham, I76S-q8S, possibly I77S Possiblyfirst own ed by Penelope Eddy and Simeon Penfield of Chatham Privately owned

Relatively few Colchester style flat-top high chests survive, perhaps because this basic household storage container had gone out of fashion by the I770s. This example has the case construction, drawer configuration, shell carving, scrolled knee returns, and ankle hock of the Lord group. The likely first owners of this high chest, Penelope Eddy (I7SI-ISrr) and Simeon Penfield (I7S4-IS44), both of Chatham, married on August ro, I77S, a plausible date for the high chest. Whether the maker lived in Chatham or the neighboring town of Colchester remains unknown. The high chest descended through

CAT A LOG 95 This flat-top high chest is a base-level model, th e price of which allowed only limited embellishments. The well-executed shells on both cases are similar to tho se on the D eming chest-o n-ches t (cat. 96), while the top row of tall drawers is a configuration Eliph alet Chapin's sho p used. The brasses sit high on th e tall drawer front s.

S INGUL A R FEATU RES I>

Sycamore as one of the primary woods (cats. 96 & 97 have sycamore as a secondary wood)

LOR D

G R 0 U P

I>

Brasses mount ed unusually high on taller drawers

I>

Knees not carved; all four feet the same

2I5

female lines to Elizabeth Belden (1914-93) of Hartford, the last family member to own it. A related high chest is similar in conception but the product of another hand (HCFS 85; cats. 95A, 95B) . The wood stock is heavier and the construction details differ in several respects : upper-case backboards are nailed in rabbets in the case sides and top; drawer runners are nailed to the case sides (rather than in a sliding dovetail); drawer sides are flat on top; and dovetail pin s are not triangular.

Dimensions: overall H 72Vs"; upper case H 36" W 35:J4" D 17%"; lower case H 36Vs" W 37lh" D 19" M aterials: cherry and sycamore (case sides) with maple (top) and eastern white pine C ondition notes: drop pend ant s replaced; brasses original Publications: Sotheby's, sale 6589 (January 2r 24, 1994), lot 559; Nath an Liverant and Son advertisement, Antiqu es 159, no. I (J anu ary zoor): 41 HCFS 166

C AT A LOG 9 5 A Although similar in conception to catalog 95, construction details suggest this related high chest is from a different shop in the region . The shells have chip carving above each ray. T he lower case has an unu sually shallow top dr awer, and an uncommonly prominent ankle hock. The brasses and drop pendan ts are original. Privately owned. C AT A LOG 9 5 B A distinctive design feature of Lord and C alvin Willey group cabriole legs is the ankle hock above a pad foot, as on the high chest in catalog 95a. The back of the leg is shaped so that it comes to a point above the heel.

2I6

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

CATALOGS 9 6

&

97

SINGULAR FEATURES

Bonnet-top chest- en-chest & Bonnet-top desk and bookcase Probably Colchester, I770-I795, p robably q8I Probably first owned by Dorothy Champion of Colchester and Julius D eming of Lyme H istoric D eerfield, I959' I979

These two well-documented objects demonstrate the flexibility in design afforded cabinetmakers in Colchester shops, a marked contrast to the uniformity of Eliphalet Chapin's shop output. Probably made en suite, these share the same case joinery and drawer construction, similar carved decorations, sycamore bonnet skins that end short of the case sides, and birch as a secondary wood. The principal index features of both are typical of the Lord group. In 1883 Lucretia Deming (1804-87) attached to the bookcase a label stating that her parents-Dorothy Champion (1759-1830) and Julius Deming (1755-1838)had purchased the se pieces in Boston shortly after their August 7, 1781, Colchester wedding; however, design and construction detail s indicate a local origin. Immediately after their marriage the Demings moved from Colchester to Litchfield. Julius's estate included a "Library Ca se" and "Bureau," each with the high value of $20- probably these pieces. I Historic Deerfield founder Henry Flynt acquired both from descendants living in Litchfield. Two related example s survive: one is the base of a chest-en-chest now fitted with a top; the other is a desk and bookcase. The former relates closely to catalog 96, but is 4" wider and 2" deeper. Its shell has wide concave lobes and the cabriole legs end in four claw-and-ball feet, an unusual feature. " The latter (cat . 97A) is similar to catalog 97, differing mainly in details of decoration. It has a convincing history of ownership in the famil y of William Torrey (1744-1820), who moved from Middletown to Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he married Hannah Wheeler (1746-1824) on April 13, In!. The work differs significantly from that of Calvin Willey, who produced Colchester style furniture in nearby Lenox during the early 1790S (see cats. 108, 109, 110). Although the desk and bookcase could have been ordered from a Colchester shop, it may well be by another, unidentified, Colchestertrained cabinetmaker working in the Berkshires.3

Cbest- on-cbest I>

Bonn et area has no applied center ornament and edges of cutouts are not beaded

I>

Flanking small drawers in upper case are rectangular

I>

Upper- and lower-case shells of similar design

I>

Lower case assembled using frame construction

I>

M olded and carved apron with short cabriole legs D esk and bookcase

I> I>

Bookcase doors conform to the bonnet arch Plain bookcase interior with fixed shelves and shaped vertical dividers

I>

Candle slides visible from the underside of the bookcase, not concealed by a bott om board (similar to cat. 98)

I>

Stop-fluted quarter columns at the front corners of the desk

CA T A LO G 9 6 A The shell on th e che st-en-c hest exhib its typi cal L ord group features and has expertly executed tight, convex rays th at termin ate at a raised semici rcular arch. Eac h ray has an inci sed midrib. The shell is surro unded by an undulating border with a wide ho rizont al flute below. T he apro n, leg, and foot are similar to th ose on two bur eaus in th e L ord group (cats. 100, 101). Dimension s: ches t-e n-c hest: overall H 813,4"; upper case H 46W' W 35th" D I7W'; lower case H 351,4" W 37th" D 181,4; desk and bookcase: overall H 833,4"; upp er case H 441,4" W 38" D n"; lower case H 39th" W 39:j4" D 21 " M aterials: cherry (chest-e n-chest), mah ogany (desk and bookcase); both with eastern wh ite pine, sycamo re, birch, and chestnut Condition note s: finials original; chest-e n-c hest brasses replaced Publication s: D eerfield Issue: "T he Furniture," Antiques 70, no. 3 (September 1956): 228, 229; Bulkeley, "Aaron Roberts' Attributions," p. 16, fig. 4; Fales, Furniture of H ist oric D eerfield, figs. 439, 478 H CFS 191, 192

LOR D

G R 0 U P

2IJ

C A T A LOG 9 6 This highly embellished chest-en-chest, proba- , bly made en suite with the desk and bookcase, illustrates well the variation in design and decoration practiced by this cabinetmaker. Especially noteworthy is the lower case, joined with frame con struction, like the lower case of a high chest, rather th an the more common carcase construction of a bureau. The small drawers in the upper case are rectangular, unlike the Lord family high chest (cat. 94). The upper- and lower-case shells are similar rath er than contrasting.

2I8

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

C AT A L O G 9 7 This small mah ogany desk and bo okcase exhibits all the de sign feature s of the Colchester Lord group. The bookcase doors are sha ped to conform to the bonnet arch and are flanked by sto p- fluted pilaster s th at terminate in fluted applied semici rcles. The de sk interior is di stinguished by the large carved shell on th e top cent er drawer and horizontal flutes on the bottom center dr awer. The ogee feet have a simple Massachusetts type spur.

CA T A LOG 9 7 A Th is cherry desk and bookcase differs from catalog 97 mainly in decorative details. Th e ownership history suggests it could be the product of a Colchester-trained craftsman working in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Brasses and finials are original; bottom 1:)4" of the feet has been restored. Privately owned.

For D orothy's ancestry, see De stler, "Co lonel Henry Champion," pp. 52-64; for ano ther Deming family chest-o n-c hest, see cat. 104.

I.

2. HCFS 200; locati on unknown; see Skinner, sale 1625 (January 15, 1995) lot 124B. 3. The related desk and bookcase was available for limited inspection only and supplemented by a Nathan Liverant and Son report to the owner, November 25, 1998 (copy, HCFS files). Barber, Massachusetts Towns, p. 104, discusses the many settlers who came to Williamstown from Colchester. For a Colchester style bureau with history of ownership in th e Williamstown region, see cat. 99A.

LOR D

G R 0 U P

2I9

CATALOG 98 Tombstone- shaped doo rs and the drawer in th e tympanum give this desk and bookcase a distinctive appearance. The inte riors, both of the bookcase and the desk, resemble those of the D eming desk and bookcase (cat. 97), and the shell carving is virtually iden tical. T he space beh ind the arched tops of the bookcase doors is awkward and inaccessible-an unusual arrangement .

22 0

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

C ATALOG

98

Bonnet-top desk and bookcase Probably Colchester, 9 70-9 85 Webb-Dean e-Stevens Museum , I926.2, g ift of Miss Harriet Devotion and Mrs. J am es A . Sh earer in memory of Eliz abeth White Osgood

CAT A LOG 9 8 A T his typical Lord group bonn et shows the characteristic rosette carving and the saddle in the backboard. This maker chose quarter columns , rather th an pilasters, to flank th e doors. The bonn et skin stops short of the side cornice.

This desk and bookcase displays all the basic index characteristics of the Lord group. ' It shares with the Deming desk and bookcase (cat. 97) similar layouts of both desk and bookcase interiors, virtually identical shell carvings, and exposed candle slides underneath the bookcase. Singular features di stinguishing this example within the Lord group include the tombstoneshaped panel doors, the absences of a dentil course in the cornice and of side plinths and finials, the presence of a drawer in the tympanum, the use of unfinished mahogany for the top of the desk, and irregular drawer dovetails, the last of which suggests work by a relatively untrained hand. Dimensions: overall H 91%"; upper case H 461,4" W 37:Vs" D 9%"; lower case H 44:VS" W 40%" D 193.4" M aterials: mahogany with eastern white pin e, chestnut (back and desk bott om), tulip poplar (desk drawers) Conditi on notes: finial original; valances missing; brasses prob ably replaced Publications: Nutting, Furniture T reasury, I: pI. 724; Co mstock "Aaron Roberts," p. 441, fig. 8; Susan Finlay Watkins, "T he Webb-Deane-Stevens Mu seum," Antiques I09 , no. 3 (Ma rch 1976): 536, pl. 2 HCFS 65 H artford furnitur e historian H ought on Bulkeley believed that this piece descended in the Devotion family from Ebenezer Devotion III (1740-1829) of Scotland in W indh am Coun ty; H oughton Bulkeley Papers, CHS Museum Library. No additional evidence has been found in support of thi s provenance.

I.

CA T A LOG 9 8 B The front and side faces of the front ogee foot are joined by dovetails that are exposed on th e side, showing a pin at th e top and bottom. The ogee foot lacks a defined vertical pad at the base. C AT A LOG 9 8 c Lord group cabinetma kers often used a horizontal, triangular supporting block with ogee-foot base construction; unlike Chapin shop quadrant-base assembly, the block is not tongued into th e foot . The wedge-shaped rear brace fits in a sliding dovetail, here parti ally concealed by the glide. The small cutout near the tip of the triangle is for nailing, a technique also used on the James Hi ggins group. The vertical glue block at the front foot is a replacement.

C AT A LOG 9 8 D As in the bookcase of catalog 97, the candle slides remain exposed und erneath the bookcase; most other cabinetmakers concealed them with the bookcase bott om board.

LOR D

G R 0 U P

22I

222

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

CATALOG

99

Blockfron t desk Probably Colchester, I767-q8S Probablyfirst owned by Eliphalet Bulkeley of Colchester Wadsworth Atheneum Museum ofArt, I99I·44, gift ofEdward R. Bulkeley in memory of his parents, Morgan Gardner Bulkeley,]r. , and Ruth Collins Bulkeley

This extraordinary lower case of a desk and bookcase has long been compared to the signed Benjamin Burnham desk (cat. 93). The "Lornis" inscribed on a drawer has been attributed to cabinetmaker Samuel Loomis III, giving rise to the hypothesis that Loomis apprenticed with Burnham and made this desk as his "proof piece" about 1769, the year Burnham signed his desk.' Evidence fails to support thi s appealing theory on three grounds: I) despite the similarity of the elaborate amphitheatre interiors, the design and construction of the two desks are quite different (see table 5); 2) this desk is quite unlike two pieces that are more firmly attributed to Loomis (a desk and a chest-on-chest, see cats. 104, 104C); and 3) the handwriting and orthography are different from those on documents signed by Loomis." While the maker of this desk well might have seen the Burnham desk-perhaps even imitated it-the two are almost certainly from different shops. Stripped of its pilasters and waterfall interior, the Bulkeley desk fits squarely in the Lord group. The Burnham desk, in contrast, exhibits an amalgam of Colchester design feature s and Boston area construction techniques. On the bottom of the case of the desk is a complex incised compass device, identical to one on the bottom board of the related bureau (cat. 99A). It may represent a cabinetmaker's "signature." The reported original owner of thi s desk and its now-absent bookcase was Colchester-born Eliphalet Bulkeley (1746-1816) who married his cousin Anna Bulkeley (b. 1747) in 1767. The Bulkeleys took the desk and bookcase with them when they moved to WilkesBarre, Pennsylvania, about 1800.3 It remained in the family until 1991. The related shell- carved blockfront bureau has essentially identical case construction in addition to the signature compass device inscribed on the case bottom (cat. 99A).4

LORD

GROUP

C AT A L OG 9 9 Only the desk port ion remains of an extravagant C olchester style desk and bookcase. The exterior is made of mahogany with ivory-inl aid pilasters flankin g the blocked facade. The waterfall interior is exceeded in grandeur and complexity only by the Benjamin Burnham desk (cat. 93). Although enhanced by double- ogee drawer fronts and an extra row of small drawers, the basic layout as well as th e valances and shell design are similar to other Lord group desks (cats. 97, 98). The claw- and-ball feet with scrolled knee brackets are typical of C olchester work.

SINGULAR [>

FEATURES

Complex amphitheatre interior

t> Fluted pilasters with ivory inlay at top and bottom t> Backboards nailed in rabbet in case sides t> Inside face of long drawers is flat, not shaped to conform to

blocking

22]

C AT A L OG 9 9 A This shell-ca rved blockfront bureau, possibly by th e same maker as catalog 99, conforms to Lord group design and construction practices but differs from other bureaus in th e group: the legs are 2" shorter, th e knee scrolling patt ern is atypical, and th e shell carving is by a different hand . The brasses are replaced. H artford Steam Boiler In spection and In surance Company.

D imension s: H 4iA" W 40" D 21" Materials: ma hogany and che rry (rear part of desk top and desk interior) with ivory inl ay and with tulip poplar and eastern white pine Condition notes : bookcase and its supporting molding missing; row of nail holes at perim eter of front and sides of desk top indicates a midmolding has been removed; panel on th e lid probably of later date; brasses replaced Inscripti on: "Lo rnis" in graphite on bottom of lowest central interio r drawer; compass design scribed on outside of bottom board of case

2. Samuel Loomi s signed his full name, spelled with a double 0, as an assessor in C olchester in 1798; C onne cticut Assessors, Warren Colle ction. For further discussion of differences in handwriting and orthography, see Myers and Mayhew, N ew London County Furniture, no. 31.

3. Bulkeley, "Benja min Burnham," pp. 28-32.

Exhibition: Lyman Allyn Museum 1974, no. 32

4. The related bure au (H C FS 189) has an unverified history of ownership in the D anforth family of Pitt sfield, M ass.; Sack, American Antiques, 3:598, no. 1364; Sotheby's, sale 5810 (Jan uary 26-28 , 1989), lot 1509; Connecticut Masters, p. 257.

Publications: Bulkeley, "Benjami n Burnham, " pp. 31, 32; Tr ent, "Colchester Schoo l," pp. II9, 120 H C FS 188

TABL E 5

1. Bulkeley, "Benjamin Burnham," pp. 28-3 2; M yers & M ayhew, N ew L ondon County Furniture, no. 31; Trent , "Co lchester School," pp . II9-20. The inscripti on is illustrated by M yers & M ayhew, New L ondon County Furniture, no. 31. Because th e small drawers of th e desk have been wired closed, the inscription was not reexamined.

Distinguishing Features of Bulkeley and Burnham D esks Bulkeley Desk (cat. 99)

Burnham D esk (cat. 93)

C onvex blocking of facade

Squared at top corners

Rounded at top corners

Pilasters

Fluted, with cap and base; end below loper

Stop-fluted; surround loper

Int erior d rawer front shap ing

D ouble ogee with flat in center

D ouble ogee

Pigeonh ole valances

Sh aped (do uble ogee), no dr awers

C oncave shell-carve d dr awers

Base molding

D ouble ogee and fillet

Compl ex

Base molding attachment

Nailed

Knee facade and bracket

D ouble and reverse scroll, uncarved

Two reverse scrolls, carved

Side knee bracket , front leg

Simple spur

Scroll

to

front of bottom board

G iant dovetail

Cab riole leg

Long

Short

Claw-and- ball foot

Shallow carving

De ep, articulated carving

Long drawe r, inside face

Flat

Conforms to blocking

Long drawer, bo ttom grain orientation

Side to side

Front

to

back

D rawer-b ottom attac hment

In serted in grooves

Na iled in rabbets

D ovetails

Narrow trian gles

Medium triangles

Kerfs

224

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

C ATALOG

r o o

Shell-carved blockftont bureau Probably Colchester, I76S-I79S Privately owned

CA T A LOG I 0 0 Although comparable in overall design to the larger James Hi ggins group of shell-carved blockfront bureaus, the det ails of execution suggest that thi s example was produ ced in another shop, probably in C olchester. The shell and knee carving is similar to that on catalogs 94, 96 . Short cabriole legs with claw-and-b all feet in th e front paired with tall attenuated ogee feet in th e rear is th e favored combination for C olchester style blockfront bureaus. The feet raise th e bureau abou t 6" higher than its Newport counterparts and achieve a striking visual effect.

Of the dozen or so surviving three-drawer, shell-carved blockfront bureaus made in the Colchester style, this one mo st closely corresponds to Lord group work, especially catalogs 94, 96.1 Although its design echoes numerous shell-carved blockfront bureaus in the James Higgins group, the carving and joinery are dissimilar from tho se pieces (see cats. Ill, uS , U9).

SINGULA R

Dimensions: H 38fs " W 3ils" D 18%"; top 40 " x 1931s" M aterial s: cherry with eastern white pine, chestnut, and tulip poplar C ondition not es: brasses original Publ ications: Freund, M asterp ieces, pp. 3, 54-55; Sotheby's, sale 6801 (January 20, 199 6), lot 215 HCFS 239

FEATU RES

[>

Top nailed to full-depth subtop from above

[>

Facing strip on front edge of case side conceals drawer divider dovetails

[>

Blind, rather than through-bored, scrolls on knee returns

[>

Pronounced inward taper on pad of rear feet

LOR D

G R 0 U P

225

A virtually identical bureau, almost certainly from the same shop, is in the collection of Los Angeles County Museum of Art. " Another related example (cat. IOOA) has four drawers, closer to Newport work in conception; it is otherwise remarkably similar in both design and construction to catalog IOO. The well-carved shells on both bureaus are virtually identical and the secondary wood combination is the same. The top is attached with a sliding dovetail in the Massachusetts manner (as on cat. I02).3 A second four-drawer example has fluted quarter columns and claw-and-ball feet." 1. The bureau was reported, without further documentation, to have a history in the Carew family of Norwich; Freund, M asterpieces, pp. 3, 54-55· 2.

L.83.21.16; assessment based on limited inspection.

3. HCFS 209; published in Barbour Collection, pp. 38-39; Comstock, "Diversity," p. 66; [Kirk], Conn ecticut Fu rn it ure, no. 61.

4. Privately owned; illustrated in Lockwood, Colonial Furn it ure, I: fig. 133; owned at that time by Hartford collector Henry Wood Erving.

°°

CAT A LOG I A Connecticut cabinetmakers produced few shell-carved blockfront bureaus with four drawers, the common Newport configuration. The size of these shells required that the top drawer be taller than the others . Furthermore, the concave shell is much wider than the two convex ones . The ogee feet and gadroon strip may be inappropriate replacements. Connecticut Historical Society Museum, 1961.9,5, gift of Frederick K. and M argaret R. Barbour.

226

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

C ATALOG 101 Shell- carve d blockfront bureau Probably Colchester, IJ80- I79S, possibly ca. I788 Probablyjirst owned by Ruth Lyman of Glastonbury and L ebbeus Porter of Colchester Webb- Deane- Stevens Museum , I9SS·2 , gift of M rs. Frederick H L ooejoy in memory of Mrs.Joseph R . Ensign

The case construction of this bureau, including backboard attachment, drawer divider and runner attachment, and drawer construction are typical of Lord group practices. Variations, especially in the proportions and carving, suggest that the craftsman is not the one who made the other shell-carved bureaus in the group (cats. 99A, 100, 100A) but is instead a second generation maker working in the region. The front feet, carved knees, scrolled returns, and pilasters of this bureau resemble those on the desk signed by Benjamin Burnham (cat. 93), although the execution is very different.' The likely first owners, Ruth Lyman (1765-183°) of Gl astonbury and Lebbeus Porter (1742-1819) of Colchester, settled in New York City after their circa 1788 marriage. In 1834 one of their sons, Henry Charles Porter (1795- 1858) moved his family, and presumably this bureau , to Wisconsin. It descended to his greatgranddaughter Jes sie Margretha Porter (1889-1958), who married Louis Asa Avery (1877-1931) in 1913.2 SINGULAR

FEATURES

[>

Pilasters (more common on other furniture forms)

[>

Each outside shell has shallow convex rays and a weak center; the wide concave lobes in the center shell are equally uninspired. Alth ough somewhat like Samuel Loomis group shells

C AT A LO G I 0 I This is the only known shell-carved blockfront bure au with claw- and-ball feet th at has flanking pilasters. It conforms to L ord group con stru ction practices in most respects but is likely by a different hand th an th e other shell- carved blockfront objects in the group. It ha s sho rter legs but a taller case and weakly carved shells with narrow convex rays.

in design, these lack clarity and definition [>

Overall proportions differ from other blockfront bureaus in the Lord group (this one is 2 " taller and r'' wider, but its legs are r'' shorter) as well as those in the James H iggins group

[>

Dr awer-side dovetails are closely spaced large triangles, similar to those in the James Higgins group

LORD

GROUP

227

CAT A L OG 1 0 1 A The knee carving-vertical flut es over a spiral-is typical of the L ord group. The carvin g and the slightly flattened ball of the foot are virtually identi cal to th ose on catalog 100.

CA T A L OG 1 0 1 B The trapezoidal openings in the rear edge of th e case side are used to insert the drawer runners. T he case side also has a groove, not visible, into which the backboard is slid from below, effectively sealing the drawer-runn er channe l. This elegant meth od eliminates the need for nails in the case side and redu ces th e likelihood that th e case side will crack owing to shrinkage.

D imensions: H 39" W 36%" D 19"; top 39Ys" x 20%"

I. [Kirk], Connecticut Furniture, fig. 62, and M yers & M ayhew, New London County Furniture, no. 33, attribute thi s object to Burnham on th e basis of these similarities.

Materials: cherry with eastern white pine and yellow pine (glue blocks) Condition notes: side knee brackets of front feet missing; rear feet and brasses replaced Exhibitions: W adsworth A theneum 1967, no. 62; Lyman Allyn M useum 1974, no. 33 Publication: John Kenn eth Byard advertisement , A ntiques 62, no. 6 (Dece mber 1952): 443

2 . According to W ebb-Deane-Stevens Museum files, the last private owner was Mrs. Louis A. Avery ofJanesville, Wisconsin. Ruth Freymann to the authors, August 17, 2003 , HCFS files, clarified details of the family history. Freymann, a Lyman descendant , is a second cousin of D onald P. Avery, Jessie Porter and Louis A. Avery's son.

HCFS 197

228

COL C H E S T E R

STY L E

CATALOG

102

Straight-jront bureau Probably Colchester, I770-I8oo Priv ately ow ned

The only Colchester style bureau without a shaped facade , thi s example feature s a cove-molded top with a generous overhang. A sliding dovetail , a construction technique commonly used in Massachusetts, attaches the top to the case (see cat. IOOA); a decorative (nonstructural) rail lies above the top drawer. The ogee feet are better articulated than others in the Lord group; dovetails joining the front feet are visible from the sides. Di mensions: H 35"W 3r1,4" D r81,4"; top

37~ "

x zr"

Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition no tes: brasses orig inal P ublication : Sotheby's, sale 7590 (Janu ary r8-r9, 200r), lot 708 H C FS 394b

CAT A L OG r 0 2 The 3" overha ng of th e top accentuates the slim prop orti on s of thi s simple straig ht-front bureau, wh ich conforms in all respects to Lo rd group construction practice s. In comparison to others in th e gro up, th e ogee feet are well executed.

LOR D

G R 0 U P

229

C AT ALOG 103 Shell-carved blockfront bottle chest Probably Colchester, I77S-I79S Winterthur M useum, S6.9I

This bottle chest, a rare form in American furniture from thi s period and possibly unique for Connecticut, possesses Lord group design and construction features. Its carving lacks the refinement of the shell-carved blockfront bureaus in the group (cats. 100, 100a). E . Foote, probably an owner's name, painted on the bottom, may be related to Joseph Foote (1755-1834), a documented Colchester cabinetmaker who likely finished his apprenticeship in 1776 but to whom no work has been attributed. In 1777 he married his second cousin Betty Foote (1753-1844); Joseph's sister Eunice (1766-1851) married in 1785; and Betty's sister Esther (b. 1771) married in 1791, so th ere are multiple candidates with names that fit the inscription.' Another possible maker is one ofJoseph's second cousins, Stephen Foote (1758- 1843), who also worked as a joiner in Colchester.' I 0 3 This unique bottle chest has a hinged-box upp er case and a conven tionally built two-drawer lower case. The design and construction features are th ose of th e Lord group; the horizont al flutes below th e shells and th e scrolls on the knee returns are similar to th ose on th e Bulkeley desk (cat. 99). C A T A L OG

D imensions: overall H 39¥.!"; up per case W 2S'Vs" D ISlh"; lower case W 28" D I6lh"; top 28 x I6Vs" Materials: che rry with eastern white pine Condition not es: brasses replaced In scrip tions : "E . Foo te," "N Q IS," and "T his Sid e up," in black paint on th e outside of th e lower- case bottom board Publication s: "T he Editor's Attic: The Frontispiece," Antiques 19, no. 6 (June 1931): 434-36; Richard s & Evans, N ew England Furniture at Winterthur, no. 183

S IG N IF IC ANT

o

I ND E X

FEATU RES

M olded top and attached cornice are similar in design to Lord group shell-carved blockfront bureaus, such as catalog 100

o Convex shells, carved out of the solid, are similar to those on I . The name appears to be conte mpo rary with th e ches t, but its application in paint on a conspicuous surface is incon sistent with the typ ical appearance and location s of artisa ns' signatu res. Fur thermore no Colches ter cabinetma ker has been identified with a first name beginn ing with th e letter E. A n Eb ene zer Foot e (b. 1782) of Middle H add am (C ha tham) served an apprent iceship with his uncle Ezra Brainard (1769-1833), a joiner, but is too young. See Ezra Brain ard account boo k, CHS Museum Library; Richards & Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, pp. 373-74.

The bac k of a long dr awer in a privately owned desk is inscribed "Natha niel Emmerson Forster / C oleche ster / Au g 24 1799 / Age d / 19 years IO months + 20 days"; a second lon g drawer is inscribed "September S 1799 / Apprentice to Stephen / Foote A t th e - - - - - - / Aged 20 years wanting a / month"; handwritten copy of th e inscription in H CFS files. The desk was not inspected by the HCFS team . 2.

230

catalog 100

o Concave shell and horizont al fluting relate to those on the Lord high chest and Deming desk and bookcase (cats. 94, 97)

o

Upper case is a dovetailed box with a hinged lid; bottom board set in groove in the sides and front and is nailed to the back like a high chest upper-case backboard; interior has vertical grooves to receive bottle dividers

o Lower case with two long drawers is joined, like a bureau; rabbeted backboard set in grooves in sides

o Knee scrolls and feet shaped like those on the Bulkeley desk (cat. 99), although legs are longer

o Dr awer construction is typical of Lord group with small triangular dovetail pins

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

J amuel f.go mis g roup

Samuel Loomi s III (1748-r8r4) spent most of his life in the southern part of Colchester (present-day Salem) . His output as a cabine tma ker is iden tified on th e basis of an inventory notation , "Saml. Lomi s's work ," referring to several case pieces, tables, and chairs owned by Jonath an D eming of Colchester (see cats. I04, I04C). In addition to being central to th e attribution of furniture to Colchester, th e pieces attributed to Lo omi s are masterpieces of the style.I A gifted craftsman, he possessed the ability to manipulate carved decoration and infu se movement into massive blockfront case forms. His relief carving exploits light and shadow and incorp orates a plethora of det ail: intaglio tendrils, fronds , wreaths, and berries as well as strings of punch decoration around th e perimeter of many shells and within some rosettes. Loomis's furn iture exhibits less consistency in construction details th an th at of the L ord group or of th e major shops ofWeth ersfield and East Windsor. Perhaps some of th e men who worked for Loomi s had apprenticed elsewh ere; or perh aps Loom is was less concerne d with maint ainin g uniformity in his shop production." His identified output of major case pieces is relatively small, and of th e five objects assigned to thi s group, one may be the work of a form er apprentice. Loomis him self has previously been suggested as having served his apprenticeship to Benjamin Burnham; however, that the ory rests upon two blockfront desks whose ind ex feature s indicate th ey are products of different cabin et sho ps (see cats. 93, 99). Neither desk exhibits characteristics of th e Samuel Loomi s group.

S IGNIF I C AN T

I N D EX

FEATU RES :

CATS .

1°4-1° 7

D esign and D ecoration

o Bonn et incorporates a scrolled pediment of conventional proportions. The slope is less steep than in the other Colchester groups and closer to the Wethersfield Wi llard group (see cat. 104A) • Top of backboard closing the bonnet cavity runs straight across (rather than saddle shaped as in the Lord and W illey groups or arched in the Weth ersfield fashion)

o Finials are spiral-turned with a rounded button on top; center finial may be a different design

o Relief-carved, applied cent er-plinth ornament is reeded or fluted with incised ribs above a waist and convex ribs below • Shells consist of narrow convex rays or broad concave lobes, often with incised midrib s, a vertical "hourglass" center lobe, and two scrolls extending below the center arch (the "Loo mis tail"; see cat. 104A) • Punchwork-e-a-d ot square and 8-point asterisk-embellishes rosettes, tympanum, and shell surrounds (see cat. 105A)

o Cornice incorp orates one or two dentil courses • Full or quarter columns at the front corners are either roped or fluted and have spool-turned capitals and bases • Spur on bracket foot possesses a distincti ve inward scroll ("Colchester curl"; see cat. 105D) that is also found on C alvin W illey group furniture Constructi on

o Ma hogany and cherry as primary woods; tulip poplar, eastern white pine, chestnut, and sycamore as secondary woods • Bonnet backboar d rests on top board of upper case rather than covering it as in the other Colchester groups • Variable thickness of bonn et skin enables roof to conform to pediment shape (see cat. 105C)

Bulkeley, "'Aaron Robert s' Attribu tion s," p. 10. L oomis's paren ts came from Windsor; Windsor and E ast W ind sor cabinetma kers Timothy L oomi s III and Simeon Loomis were di stant cousins. I.

• Backboard housed in grooves in case sides (as in Lord and James H iggins groups but not Calvin Will ey group) • Drawe r runners are nailed to sides of case

M yers & Mayhew, N ew L ondon County Furniture, p. 123 , no tes th at one apprentice was his future brother-in-l aw Amos Ransom, who opened a shop in the neighb oring town of Chath am; see cat. 104c. 2.

• Ogee feet are joined with exposed dovetails visible from the side (as in Lord group; see cat. 105D) • Drawer sides have double astragal on top, a M assachusetts techni que; drawer dovetail pins are small triangles and at the back of the drawer are reversed, leaving them visible from the back rather than the side; drawer construction details are less uniform than in most other groups (see cat. 105B) • designates key features for distinguishing among Colchester style groups

SAM U E L

L 0 0 MIS

G R 0 U P

2]I

2J2

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

C ATALOG

104

Bonnet- top cbest-on-cbest-on-frame Probably Samuel L oomis shop Probably Colchester, I770-I788 Probablyfirst owned by Alice Skinner of Colchester and Jonathan D eming of Lyme Wadsworth Atheneum Museum ifArt, I96?I40, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur L. Shipman, J r.

This chest-en-chest epitomizes the creative genius of the Colchester style in general and the Samuel Loomis group in particular. The imposing and massive stance, amazing variety of decoration, and originality set it apart. Everything about thi s piece contributes to its exuberance, from the elliptical twisted finials and double dentil course at its top to the elaborately curved apron and inverted central shell of the oversize separa te frame at its base. The dynamically carved upper shells surrounded by tendrils and floral devices stand unrivaled among their peers. The likely initial owners, Alice Skinner (1747-1824) of Colchester and Jonathan Deming (1743-88) of Lyme, married Dec ember 30, 1767, and the next year built a new home in Colchester, designed by I saac Fitch (1734-91) of Leb anon. Jonathan's estate inventory lists a "case drawers" valued at £16 and designates it and several other pieces as "Sam l Lomis's work."! Loomis (1748- 1814) likely completed his apprenticeship in 1769, so the chest-on-chest-on-frame probably dates from shortly thereafter, when the couple furnished their new home. If thi s assumption is correct, then thi s piece suggests th at Colchester style cabinetmakers were producing thi s form a decade or more earlier than the first example attributed to the Eliphalet Chapin shop (cat. 68). It descended in the Deming family to their great-great-grandson Arthur L. Shipman, Jr., of Hartford (1906-83), the last private owner.' A related example is a mahogany desk with no early history (cats. I04B, I04C).3 The striking similarity of its carved shells, spiral columns, base design, and drawer construction to the corresponding elements on the chest-on-chest suggests it is the desk valued at £14 in Jonathan Deming's estate inventory and specifically CAT A LOG I 0 4 The relentlessly creative Samuel Loomis enlivened the facade of this masterful mahogany chest-o n-cheston-frame with three full-h eight blocked shafts topped by shells that spill light and energy like a fireworks display. Framing spiral columns also carry energy upward to be spewed out by the finials, while spiral rosettes sparkle like pinwheel s.

SAMUEL

LOOMIS

GROUP

identified as the work of"Saml Lomis." The inner surface of the case reportedly ha s "A mos L oomi s[?]" chalked on it. The only Amos Loomis in th e region at the time was born in 1768, making him too young to have worked on this desk; furthermore, th ere is no record he ever worked as a cabinetmaker. A s th e inscription is not wholly legible, the last name may be a misreading of "Ransom" for Amos Ran som, a known Loomis apprentice and later his brother-in-law, who subsequently set up shop in the adjac ent town of Chatham. The presence of Ransom's signature would narrow the date range for thi s desk to his likely years in Loomis's shop: 1774-81. Dimensions: overall H 84%"; upper case H 49r's" W 38" D 22IA"; lower case H 34:j4" W 41" D 23%" M aterials: mah ogany with tulip poplar and eastern white pine Condition notes: finials original; surface faded; brasses replaced Exhibitions: Connecticut Tercentenary 1935, no. 220; W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. IO I ; Lyman Allyn Museum 1974, no. 35; Minneapolis In stitu te of Ar ts 1989, no. 44 Publi cations: Nutting, Furniture Treasury, I : pl. 318; Bulkeley, '''Aaro n Roberts' Attributions," pp. 12- 15; Comstock, "Aaron Roberts," p. 438, fig. 2; Linda Ayres, ed., The Spirit of Genius: Art at the Wadsw orth A theneum (New York: Hudson Hill s Press in association with W adsworth Atheneum , 1992), pp. 132- 33, pl. 48; Kirk, A merican Fu rn itu re, fig. 174 HCFS 155

I. Bulkeley, "'Aaron Roberts' Attributio ns," pp. 12-14. Paneling from a room in the Deming house survives in the American Museum in Bath, England ; see William L. W arren, Isaac Fitch of L ebanon, Connecticut: M aster J oiner IJJ4-I79I (Hartford: Anti quarian & Landm arks Society, 1978), pp. 24-26.

2. The exact line of descent is deta iled by Bulkeley, "'Aaron Roberts' Attributions," p. 14.

3. Exhibited at Lyman Allyn Museum 1974, no. 36, and Norwalk Historical Society 1979; published in Israel Sack advertisement, Antiques 69, no. 4 (April 1956): 276; H enry Ford Mu seum issue: "T he Furn itur e," Ant iques 7J, no. 2 (February 1958): 159. D esign and construction elements of the related desk also reinforce the HCFS contention th at Samuel Loomis did not make the Bulkeley desk (cat. 99).

2]]

C AT A LOG I 0 4 A Samuel Loomi s group bonnets slope less steeply than th ose of the other Colchester group s. The capped, reverse double-twist finials stand on waisted plinths, well-integrated with the rope-turned columns below. The applied center ornament spreads itself into the plain tympanum. Tails curling below the bell- shaped center arch of the shell are a shop trademark. Added flourishes include the secondary, inner shells and the freehand tendril s and leaves at the perimeter.

CA T A LOG I 0 4 B This blockfront desk, probably also owned by Jonathan Deming, is every bit as impressive as the chest-on-che st. The centers of the convex and concave shells on the two pieces are of different designs, but the degree of variation is in keeping with Samuel Loomis's individuality and ingenuity. The rope-turned columns swell in the middle echoing the entasis of classical prototypes. The H enry Ford, 56.103.1.

C AT A L O G I 0 4 c The desk interior of catalog 104B, although similar in conception to those made by the GoddardTownsend schoo l of Newport, displays both different prop ortions and altered valance and shell design s. In particular the three shells are quite small in relation to the surface area of the drawer fronts and door. The overall effect is surprisingly restrained, especially in comparison to catalogs 93, 99.

2J4

C OL C H EST E R

STY L E

C ATALOG

10 5

Bonnet-top cbest- on- cbest Probably Samuel Loomis shop Probably Colchester, q8a- I8aa Connecticut Historical Society Museum, I959.8.I, gift if Frederick K and Margaret R . Barbour

This chest-an-chest, although not as grandiose as the Jonathan Deming chest-on-chest-on-frame (cat. 104), displays equally lively decoration and detailed execution. The drawer and case construction as well as the great skill demonstrated in the execution of the carved decoration point to Samuel Loomis as its creator. Dimensions: overall H 8oW'; upper case H 471h" W 36Vs" D 181h"; lower case H 331,4" W 39" D 19¥.!" M aterials: cherry with eastern whit e pine, chestnut, and sycamore Co ndition notes: finials and brasses original Exhibition: Lyman Allyn Museum 1974, no. 37 Publications: Nutti ng, Furn it ure Treasury, I : pI. 316; Sack, F ine Points, p. ll5; Israel Sack advertisement, Antiques 69, no. 5 (Ma y 1956): 372; Sack, American A ntiques (January 1957) 1:14, no. 53; Barbour Collection, pp. 56- 57; Barbour, "Some Conne cticut C ase Furniture," p. 435, fig. 5; Gin sburg, "Barbour Collection ," p. 1094; Sack, New Fine Points, p. 121 HCFS 164 CA T A L aG I 0 5 A The upper and lower sections of the applied center-plinth orna ment are carved with different designs th at play against the rosette sunbursts above and serpentine rays of the shells below. The pun ch decoration around the perimeter of the shell and the separate min iature sunburst in the center appear repeat edly in Loomis shop furniture.

SAM U ELL 0 0 MIS

G R 0 U P

235

lOS In design , execution , and condition thi s small chest-o n-chest is flawless. T he tall top dr awer with th ree false-drawer fron ts is an uncom mon feature . The ring-and-bail brasses imply a post-q8S production date. CAT A LOG

2J6

COL C H E ST E R

STY L E

S INGU LAR FE ATU RES [>

Single (rather, than double) course of closely spaced dentils, terminating in sunburst-carved rosettes

[>

Thi stle-shaped center finial

[>

Spiral-turned side finials stand on capped and fluted rectangular plinths that are attached to the case with a rectangular tenon extending from one corner of each plinth

[>

Tall top drawer, consisting of three false drawer fronts carved with sunbursts on the flanking panels and a remarkable Loomis shell in the center; star-punch embellishments at perimeter of each shell

CA TALOG r05B Drawer side moldings in the Samuel Lo omi s group are most oft en a double astragal, also commo nly used by M assachu setts cabinetmakers. The dovetail pins are small and of average angle.

°

C AT A L OG r 5 c The back of the bonnet rests on the top of the case, rather than covering it in the Lord group fashion. It run s straight across at the top with no dip or saddle. The variable thickness of the bonnet skin is another Loomi s group feature. The lighter colored hori zontal strip below the top board is an early restoration to compensate for backboard shrinkage.

SAM U ELL 0 0 MIS

G R 0 U P

CAT A LOG r 0 5 0 The ogee foot in the Samuel Lo omi s group differs from that in the Lord group (compare cat. 98), having a more pronounced curve, a better defined supporting pad, and an inward scrolling spur ("Colchester curl "). The faces of th e front feet are dovetailed together with th e dovetail s visible from th e sides , as in the Lord group.

237

C AT ALOG

106

Bon net-top cbest- on-cbest Possibly Samuel Loo mis shop P robably Colchester, IJ70- I8oo Col/ection ofMr. & M rs.J erome W Blum

This chest-on-chest with inset fluted quarter columns offers yet another illustration of an affluent Colchester patron's predilection for an ostentatious shell-carved blockfront case. Despite its minor variations-rosettes carved with veined leaves emanating from a central wheel (rather than a geometric pattern or spiral), top row drawers of equal height, and plain bracket feet attached directly to the bottom of the case-it falls well within the parameters of the Samuel Loomis group. The seamless integration of applied rosettes into the scrolled cornice demonstrates the cabinetmaker's prowess. D imensions: overall H 827'8"; upp er case H 49%" W 37%" D 20 3/s"; lower case H 33%" W 39" D 21%" Materials: cherry with eastern white pin e, chestnut, tulip poplar, and oak (glue blocks) Condition no tes: side plinths possibly replaced; finials and brasses replaced P ublications: John S. W alton advertise ment, Antiques 96, no. 4 (Oc tobe r 1959): 270; Sack, New Fine Points, p. 121 H CFS 154

CAT A LOG I 0 6 This elegant chest-o n- chest is a slimmeddown version of th e Jon athan D em ing chest-o n-chest-o n-frame (cat. 104). It differs in having rosettes enlivened by seven veined leaves in pinwheel forma tio n, simpler shells th at are less skillfully carved, fluted quarter columns, and bracket feet attached directly to the case. The finials are ina ppro pria te replacemen ts.

2J8

COL C H EST E R

S T Y L E

CATALOG

107

Bonn et-top chest-en- chest I 7 80-I800

Pri v ately own ed

This chest-on-chest shares most of the characteristics of th e other pieces in the Samuel Loomis group, but differences in the details of execution suggest thi s is the product of a second-generation craftsman working in an unknown location.

S INGU LAR [>

FEATU RES

Imp rints made by a different punch (the 8 points are wedgeshaped, not spoke shaped)

[>

Corner-column capitals and bases have a single reel turni ng (rather than the double reel of cat. ro6)

e- Applied center-plinth ornament contains only simple vertical reeding [>

Shell has a "Loomis tail" but other elements of its design are atypical for the group

[>

Feet and base molding are sawn out of a single board, one for both front feet and one for each side

[>

Case sides and back extend downward beyond the bottom board to serve as support and back brace for the feet; front foot facings are not dovetailed together but are secured with supplementary vertical glue blocks

[>

Drawer sides rounded on top (no double astragal); dovetail pins are small triangles; dovetails reversed at the back of drawer

Dimension s: overall H 827'8"; upp er case H 477'8" W 38" D 1734"; lower case H 35" W 397'8" D 19" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Cond ition notes: finials prob ably original; br asses replaced Publi cation: John Walton adverti sement, Ant iques 62, no. 2 (Jul y 1952): 6 HCFS 153

C A T A LOG I 0 7 Multiple differences in design and constructio n suggest th at thi s che st- on-chest is th e pro duct of a second-generation craftsman. It shares many design eleme nts with catalog 106, including leaf- carved rose ttes, punch decoration, and inset, fluted quarter columns.

SAM U ELL 0 0 MIS

G R 0 U P

239

Calvin Willey

group

The Calvin Willey group comprises about a dozen objects, including several ofvery high quality, produced in multiple shops after 17So. Significant index features include elements drawn from both the Lord and Samuel Lo omi s groups-for example, the steeply sloping pediments, saddle-shaped backboard tops, and horizontal flutes of the former; the scrolled knee returns and spiralturned columns of the latter. This incorporation of elements from other groups suggests that the makers were second- and third-generation craftsmen, only some of whom trained in a Colchester shop. The originator of this group is not known, but he is likely to have been a Colchester-trained craftsman working in a nearby town (for example, Chatham or East Haddam). Cabinetmaker Calvin Willey (q69-post IS3I), for whom the group is named, is associated with it on the basis of his signature on two pieces, both with secure histories in the area of Lenox, Berkshire County, Massachu setts (cats. IOS, 1I2C). Willey was born in East H addam, south of Colchester, and is documented in Lenox in q9I; he subsequently moved further north to New Haven, Vermont.' While in Lenox, he made at least four pieces of highly sophisticated and expertly crafted Colchester style case furniture for Peirson Place, a homestead in nearby Richmond, Massachusetts (cats. IOS, I09, IIO). Two additional pieces, one signed and with a Lenox area history, have shared index features (cats. III, lIZ). Yet another desk and bookcase bears the inscription "Calvin" and may be a product of Willey's apprenticeship years at an unidentified Connecticut shop (cat. II3).

Five additional objects not attributed to Willey himself share common design and construction features and probably were made in shops near Colchester, perhaps in East Haddam or Chatham. Although the Calvin Willey group includes some of the best examples in the Colchester style, none of these pieces has a history of ownership in the town of Colchester itself. The group thus represents the diaspora of Connecticut-trained cabinetmakers seeking employment elsewhere at the end of the eighteenth century. It also provides a symbolic warning: some "Connecticut" furniture was not made in Connecticut at all. I.

Bulkeley, "A aron Roberts' Attributions," pp. 21-

COLCHESTER

STYLE

23 .

S IGN I F ICANT

I ND E X

FEATU RES:

C AT S .

10 8 -11 6

D esign and D ecorati on

Construction

• Steep bonnet with scrolled pediment; cornice often includes a

o Cherry as the predomin ant primary wood; secondary woods

course of closely spaced dentils; backboard th at closes the bonnet cavity is saddle-shaped (as in Lord group)

include eastern white pin e and tulip poplar, but not chestnut • Backboards are nailed in rabbets in case sides

• Carved rosettes are attached to th e scroll board by a cent ral peg,

o Drawer dividers and muntins are attached with dovetails; divider

the protruding end of which is carved (as in Lord group). The

dovetails may be concealed with a facing strip on the front of

four lobes of th e fylfot are scribed petals; between th em the

case side, a technique often used in M assachusett s

ground may include a lightl y incised leaf on a stem (resembling a

• Drawer runners are nailed to case sides

lollipop); the remaining surface is variously pricked or pun ched

• Obj ects with ogee feet are constructed with a distinctive platform base: a second bott om board is nailed to the case bottom and

(see cat. IlIA) o Applied center-plinth ornament has a stop-fluted conforming

projects at the sides and front to become part of and support the

upper part; the lower part flares to become an inverted scallop

base molding; th e board is rabbeted to heavy ogee feet that are

shell that extends into th e tympanum

jo ined in front with blind dovetails; no glue blocks are used. The

o Carved shells may have serpentine convex rays similar to the Samuel Loomis shell, but lack its fluidity. Rays emanate from a bell in relief and have lightly incised midrib s th at extend halfway into the shell and term inate at pricked point s on a compass-

platform and foot assembly function like a permanently attached frame. This featur e is hard to observe since th e backboard and platform usually conceal th e actual case bott om (see glossary) • • Drawer sides may be rounded or flat on top; dovetail pins are

drawn arc. Int erlaced crescent gouges outline the shell and form

usually small with average angle; dovetails are oriented in con-

a chain that diminishes to a single line trailing down to th e edge

venti onal fashion (unlike th e Samuel Loomis group in which the

of the drawer. "Links" of this chain contain pairs of pun ched or

rear dovetails are reversed)

pricked dots. Some shells have horizontal flutes below them, as in the Lord group. W ide-lobed concave shells with incised midribs emanate from a similar bell-shaped center with an outwardly curling tail (see cat.

II2B )

• Knee brackets and return s are scrolled to form a "Co lchester curl" as in Samuel Loomis group

CALVIN

• design ates key features for distinguishing among Colc hester style groups

WILLEY

GR OUP

2~

CAT A LOG I 0 8 The design and construction of this signed oxbow bureau exhibi t many Colchester style traits, notably the curled return on the knee brackets, as well as a feature commo nly associated with M assachusetts design: the absence of a rail above the top drawer.

242

COL C H EST E R

STy L E

C AT ALOG 10 8 Oxbow bureau Signed by Calv in Willey Probably L enox, Mas sachusetts, I790-I793 Probablyfirst owned by Hannah Howell and N athan Peirson ofRichmond, Massachusetts Privately owned

This bureau is one of two object s inscribed with the full name of East Haddam-born cabinetmaker Calvin Willey. Its ogee feet with scrolled knee bracket spur s are characteristic of the Colchester style, although it was evidently made in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, where numerous Colchester residents had relocated beginning in the IJ60s . The feet are rabbeted to a platform base, an important feature of the Calvin Willey group (see glossary). The original owners were Hannah Howell (IJSrI822) and Nathan Peirson (1748- 1826), a prosperous tanner and tavernkeeper. The Peirsons moved from Bridgehampton, Long Island, to Richmond, in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, where their country estate, Peirson Place, was built betwe en 1783 and 1790 (cat. 108B).I Upon completion of th e hou se (of locally fired brick), th e Peirsons purchased furniture , mostly from local craftsmen. Surviving Peirson Place furniture includes several striking case pieces in the Colchester style- a bonnet-top high chest, desk and bookca se, and tall clock case (cats. 109, 110, 1I0B). Following the deaths of Hannah and Nathan in the 1820S, Peirson Place became a time capsule occupied by a succession of female descendants. Most important among th em was Catherine H. Peirson (1796-1888), the couple's youngest dau ghter, who pre sided over the mansion and its furni shings for more than half a centur y and initially ensured their remarkable state of preservation. Subsequent residents followed her lead for the next century, until the last of them, seventhgeneration descendant Margaret Mace Klingman (1912-97), arranged to have mu ch of the furniture, including thi s bureau, offered at auction.'

C AT A LOG I 0 8 B Peirson Place, the 1790 home of H annah and Nathan Peirson , as it appeared about a century later. From H istory ofBerkshire County, M assachusetts, w ith B iog rap hical Sketches ofIts P rom inent M en (New York: J. B. Beers & Co., 1885), 2: 494.

Co nnecticut Hi storical Society Museum Library.

SINGULAR

FEATURES

[>

Bureau is deep in relation to its height and width; proportions

[>

Top is attached with a sliding dovetail, and has no rail above

accentuated by the overhang of the top top drawer,features commonly associated with bureaus of Massachusetts origin [>

Dr awer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are present at top and bottom of drawer sides and are of average angle

Dimensions: H 34" W 34" D 201,4"; top 38'h" x 23" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine C ond ition notes: brasses original In script ion : "C alvin Wyley" in graphite on inside of top drawer bottom Publ ications: Robert H erron , sale, M ay 24, 1997; Rita Easton, "Auction Action at Austerlit z, New York," Antiques and the Arts Weekly 24, no. 24 (J une 13, 1997): 88-89 H CFS 304

1. Kath arine H. Annin, R ichmond, Massachusetts (Richmond, M ass.: Richmond Civic Assn., 1964), pp. 54-55. Peirson (also spelled Pierson) had several other business ventures; see Peirson Account Book, Berkshire Atheneum, Pittsfield. When the first federal census was taken in 1790, he had 18 men over the age of 16 in his household.

2. Jessie N . M ace (b. 1888), whose stamp appears on one of the drawers, was a great-great-g reat-granddaughter of Nathan and H ann ah Peirson and th e mo ther of the last private owner.

CAT A LOG I 0 8 A C alvin Willey spelled his last name in various ways. On the inside of the top-d rawer bottom he wrote "C alvin W yley."

CALVIN WILLEY GROUP

2~

CATALOG 1 09 Bonn et - top high chest P robably by Calvin Willey P robably L enox, Massachusetts, I790-I79J Probably first owned by H an nah H ow ell and Nathan Peirson ofR ichmond, Massachus etts Privately owned

T he mo st sophisticated and fully develop ed of th e pieces Ca lvin W illey produced for Peirson Pl ace, in Richmond, Massachusetts, thi s high chest testifies to the diffusion of th e Colchester style. Without its history in western Massachusetts, it would be difficult to distinguish from coun terpar ts actu ally made in or near Co lchester itself The elaborately inscrib ed "W" on th e back of th e upp er case shell drawer may be th e cabinetmaker's signature. It is orthographically similar to the "W" in th e inscrip tion on th e oxbow bureau drawer (see cat. raSA). This high chest was sold at auction in 1997 with other Peirson Place furn iture (for shared history, see cat . toS}. Dimension s: overall H S4:j4"; upper case H 4SW' W 36Yg" D 19"; lower case H 36W' W 3SVs" D 20" M aterials: cherry with tulip pop lar and eastern whi te pine C ondition notes: finials and knee returns original; pendant drops replaced I nscription s: "W " in graphite on inside back of upper- case shell drawer; othe r writing illegible Publicati on s: see catalog lOS HCFS 296b

S INGULAR

I>

F EA TUR E S

Loomis type upper-case shell has tight convex rays and tails in the center; perimeter is scribed with alternating undulatin g lines with central pricks

I>

Lower-case shell has wider rays with incised midrib s; below the shell are horizontal rays, also with incised midribs (rather than Lord group flutes)

I>

Inset fluted quarter columns in the upper case with slight chamfer above and below

I>

Single diagonal brace stabilizes lower case; it is dovetailed into backboard and extends to right side of the case (as in cat. III)

I> I>

Claw-and-ball feet have unusually pronounced knuckles

CAT A LOG 1 0 9 T his amb itiou s high chest exhibits the full vocabu lary of Calvin Willey group embellishment. The overall effect is a highly successful blend of pomp and sophistication.

Dr awer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins, present at top and bottom of drawer sides, are of average size and angle

244

COL C H EST E R

S TY L E

CATALOG 110 Bonnet-top desk and bookcase Possibly by Calvin Willey Probably L enox, M assachusetts, I790-I79J Probablyfirst ow ned by H annah Ho w ell and N athan Peirson if R ichmond, M assachusetts Connecticut Gov ernor's R esidence Conservancy, Hartford, I6J

This unsigned Peirson Place desk and bookcase displays a mixture of sophistication and curious economies. The center-plinth ornament, stop-fluted pilasters, prospect-panel shell, and candle-drawer lopers are deftly carved. By contrast, the unfluted quarter columns, sparsely carved rosettes, and desk interior are plain. Despite some differences in decorative details and construction, the overall conception and characteristics of the carving support an attribution to Calvin Willey, who signed other Peirson Place furniture (cats. lOS, 109). The desk and bookcase was sold at auction in 1997 with other Peirson Place furniture (for shared history see cat. lOS).

SINGULAR FEATU RES I> No front- to-back vertical supports for the bonnet; bonnet skin

is nailed to the backboard and tymp anum only (as on the Burr desk and bookcase, cat. II3) I> Stop-fluted pilasters flanking the bookcase doors lack applied

ornamen ts at top and bottom I> Arrangement of desk interior is more typical of Ma ssachusett s

than the Colchester style; carved shell is on a removable panel that conceals a prospect I> a gee feet are attached directly to the case with conventional

horizontal and vertical glue blocks; front feet are joined with a mitre; no platform base I> Dr awer construction is like that on the Peirson Place oxbow

bureau and bonnet-top high chest (cats. 108, IOg), except that dovetail pins are placed only at the top of the drawer sides

C A T A L OG I I 0 Like the Peirson Place bonnet-top high chest (cat. 109), thi s desk and bookcase displays a fully developed C olche ster style bonnet. Odd econ omi es includ e th e omission of carved orna me nt above and below the bookcase pilasters and the unflured qu arter colum ns.

CALVIN

WILLEY

GROUP

2~

CATALOG IIOA An exceptional feature of this desk and bookcase is the candle drawers (boxes with sliding covers and pinwheel-carved fronts) that take the place of lepers. They held extra cand les that could be lit and placed on the candle slides of the bookcase.

A relate d example is a tall clock case th at also came from Peirson Pl ace (cat. n OB) . The cherry case is likely by the same hand as th e desk and bookcase. It, too, has fylfot-carved rose ttes, uncarved center- plinth ornament, and plain columns (on both th e hood and th e trunk) . Its bonnet lacks fron t-to-back vertical supports. The clock has a Stephen Sibley movement. Born in Sutton, Massachusetts, Sibley (1759-r829) grew up in a family of clockmakers. H e ini tially worked in N orwich, Connecticut, but by 1790 had relocated to G reat Barrington, Massach usetts, whe re he rem ain ed until at least 1795, bracketing the years th at C alvin Willey worked in nearby L enox.I

CAT A LOG I lOB The bonnet and feet on this Peirson Place clock case are typical of Colche ster style design, and the details closely match those on catalog no. The rosettes are sparsely carved and the columns of the hood and trunk are unfluted. T he face plate is inscribed "Ste Sibley / Gr Barrington." Privately owned.

Dimensions: overall H 943,4"; upper case H 483,4" W 391,4" D IOYs"; lower case H 46" W 4IVs" D 19:Vs" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine and tulip poplar Condition notes: bookcase glazing possibly later; finials and brasses original (except ring pull) Publication: see catalog 108 H CFS 296a

1. Sibley is listed as a resident of Great Barrington in the federal census of 1790, and he advertised in the local newspape r in 1795. Subsequently he moved to nearby Stockbridge and then to Grafton , Ohio. Henry N . Flynt and Martha Gandy Fales, The H eritage Foundat ion Collection ofSilv er (Old Deerfield , Mas s.: H erit age Foundation, 1968), p. 323 . Sibley's presence in Great Barrington provided an important clue in establishing the local origin of the Peirson furniture.

246

C OL C H EST E R

STY L E

CATALOG

III

Bonnet-top high chest Possibly by Calv in W illey I785-I800 Pr iv ately owned

This high chest exhibits uncannily strong similarities in det ails of design and execution to C alvin Willey's documented work. The carving of the rosettes and both shells is virtually identical to those on the Peirson Place high chest (cat. 109), as is the use of a diagonal dovetailed brace across the top of the lower case. This piece is more basic, lacking side finials, dentil cour se, beading at the bonnet openings, center-plinth ornament, quarter columns, and claw-and-ball feet. The partially legible " Wells " on the backboard is likely a shop inscription, but th e writer's identity is open to speculation. The first name is not Amos (ruling out Colchester cabin etmaker Amos Wells). The piece has a twentieth-century history of ownership in Altamont, New York, near Albany; however, the information is insufficient to establish whether the high chest was made nearby, in the Massachusetts Berkshires, in C onnecticut, or possibly in Vermont, to which Calvin Willey removed after 1795. C AT A L O G IlIA These carved rosettes and shell are typical of C alvin Willey group decoration s: a rather stiff f}rlfot, pun ched dots, and a lightly incised leaf on a stem (lollipop) in the ground between th e petals. T he protruding end of th e peg, used to attach th e rosette, form s th e center. T he Samuel L oomis type shell has serpentine convex rays, incised midribs, and trailing tails that emanate from a raised bell int o the recess below. Outside the shell is a chain with pairs of dots inside each link.

C AT A LOG I I I A ttri buted to Calvin W illey on the basis of design, construction, and decorative details, thi s beautifully preserved high chest never had side plint hs or finials, which is unusual in the C olchester style. T he ankle hock on the rear foot also is a Lord group characteristic.

SI N G U L A R

FEATURES

[>

Exposed drawer divider dovetails

[>

Large, saucer-shaped pad feet with prominent ankle hock (as in the Lord group), and wide supporting pad

[>

Dr awer sides are flat on top; dovetail pins of average size and angle, with pins present at top and bottom of the drawer sides (as on the W illey-signed oxbow bureau, cat. ro8); drawer bottoms have frame-saw marks on the underside

Di mensions: overall H 82"; upp er case H 46" W 36" D 179'8"; lower case H 36" W 38" D 191,4"

In script ion: "- - - Wells" in chalk upside down on an uppercase backboard

Ma terials: cherry with eastern white pine

Publi cation : Christie's, sale 8894 (Jun e 18, 1998), lot 137

Condition notes: pendant drops replaced; finial and brasses original

HCFS 345

C ALVIN

WILLEY

GROUP

247

C AT A LOG I I 2 This desk, possibly made by Calvin Willey in Lenox, Ma ssachusetts, has a shell-carved blocked facade that is exceptionally well executed. The square terminations of the blocking and the unlipped desk lid are features found on the signed Will ey desk. The shells have the tight convex rays and tails often associated with Samuel Loomis's work.

248

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

C ATA LOG

112

Shell- carve d blockfront desk Possibly by Calvin Willey Possibly L enox, M assachusetts, I78o-I8oo, possibly I790-I793 Connect icut Histo rical Society Museum, I96I.9.2, gift of Frederick K and Ma rgaret R. Barbour

This desk ranks among the most ambitious Colchester style examples of the form, rivaled only by the Benjamin Burnham desk and the Samuel Loomis group desk owned by Jonathan Deming (see cats. 93, I04C). The interior is well integrated with the blocked facade and ogee feet. With a history of ownership in New York state, not far from Lenox, Massachusetts, and clear similarities to two Calvin Willey signed pieces-the oxbow bureau from Peirson Place in nearby Richmond, and the desk and bookcase made for Judge William Walker of Lenox (cats. I08, II2c)-this desk may be yet another of Willey's Berkshire creations. The design of the two desks is essentially the same, including the unlipped lid, interior layout, shell carving , and squared blocking termination of the top drawer. Both desks have platform-base construction. This desk surfaced in the twentieth century "in New York State just across the line from Great Barrington, Mass." It has the name "Conklin" and the date "1875" among the several nineteenth-century inscriptions. Conklin, a common surn ame in Columbia County, New York, adjacent to the Massachusetts Berkshires, remain s unidentified.' The related desk and bookcase (cat. II2C), signed "Calvin W yley" on at least two drawer bottoms, has an impeccable history in Lenox, Massachusetts. Its probable first owner, Judge William Walker (1751-1831), C AT A LOG I I 2 A T he conventional, Colchester style amphitheatre inte rior has a shell-carved top center drawer and a horizontally fluted center bottom drawer. It is far more elaborate than the Peirson desk interior (cat. I10).

moved to Lenox from Rehoboth, Massachu sett s, about 1770. He completed a new home in Lenox in 1794, at about the end of Calvin Willey's tenure th ere." The bookcase section of Walker's piece is virtually identi cal to that on the Peirson Place desk and bookcase (cat. IIO), the main differences being the absence of both stopfluted pilasters and glazed door panels.

C AT A L O G 1 1 2 B Shell drawers: from catalog I12 (left) and catalog I13 (right). Simil arities in th e tight serpentine convex rays with midribs, the tails trailing from a bell-shaped center, and th e int aglio chain with ellipt ical links suggest th at th e same han d carved both . The drawer on th e right is inscribed "Calvin." C AT A L OG 1 I 2 C O rigina lly owne d by Jud ge W illiam W alker of L enox, M assachu setts, this Calvin Willey-signed desk and bookcase combines a rather plain bookcasemuch like th at created for Peirson Pl ace (cat. I1o)-with an extravagant shell-carved blockfront desk that includ es rope- turned columns in addition to featu res used on catalog I12. Privately owned.

D imen sions: H 441'8" W 38W' D 19:j4" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine C ondition notes: brasses replaced Exhibition: Lyman Allyn Museum 1974, no. 38 Publ ications: Barbour Collection, pp. 60-61;Co mstock, "Diversity," p. 64, fig. 2; Ginsburg, "Barbour C ollection ," p. II04 HCFS 183

1.

CHS Museum object files; federal census of 1880.

2. The desk and bookcase rem ains in the family to the present day. Assessment based on ph ot o inspection and data from the H oughton Bulk eley Papers, C H S Museum Library. See also Bulkeley, '''Aaro n Robert s' Attributions," pp. 19-21; Comstock, "Aaron Roberts," p. 439, figs. 4, 5·

C A L V I N WILLEY

GROUP

~9

C A T ALOG

113

Bonnet-top desk an d bookcase P robably Colchester area, p robably Q8S-Q9 0 Probablyfirst ow ned by Th addeus Burr of Fairfield Connect icut H istorical Society Museum , I96J .6.I, gift of Frederick K and M argaret R. Barbour

This desk and bookcase may illuminate the origins of th e Calvin Willey group. Its design and construction is similar to Willey's output in Lenox, Massachusetts, but its history of ownership in Connecticut points to production during his apprenticeship years, 1783-90. The inscription of the first name "Calvin" inside the shell drawer is consistent with other apprentice and journeyman signatures.I The shop in which he trained-as yet unidentified-may be the principal one for this large group of exceptional Colchester style pieces. In 1779 British troops burned the Fairfield home of Thadd eus Burr (1735-1801) along with its contents; his large new home was completed about 1790 . When Burr died eleven years later, he owned "I Cherry Tree Desk and Bookcase" worth $20, the most highly valued piece of furniture in a large estate. " If the traditional history-

SINGULAR

FEATU RES

CO>

Bonnet lacks front-to-back vertical supports (as in cat. no)

CO>

Stop -fluted pilasters have applied carved demilunes at top and bottom

CO>

Elaborate bookcase interior has shaped dividers, valances, and a center section with removable shelves

CO> CO>

Serpentine desk facade Cock-bead facing strip on front edge of case sides covers drawer divider dovetails; dividers have cock bead as well

CO>

Scrolled brackets on front feet termin ate in a carved volute

CO>

D rawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins, present at top

CA T A L OG I I 3 This elegant desk and bookc ase displays an unusual serpentine facade. Like other Calvin Willey group bookcases, th e doors are rectangular rather th an shaped. Stop-fluted pilasters with applied demilune caps and bases are com mo n Co lches ter style emb ellishm ents. The front feet have an exaggerated scrolled bracket. The brasses are inapp ropr iate replacemen ts.

and bottom, are of average size and angle

th at Burr ordered this desk and bookcase to furnish his new hou se-is correct, then this piece represents a singular insta nce of a resident of Fairfield County, in southwestern Connecticut, purchasing a major piece of case furniture from a distant shop in the Connecticut River Valley. No comparable examples are known with Fairfield County histories. A clo sely related desk with a serpentine facade differs from catalog II3 principally in the absence of

250

cock bead around the drawers and lopers.' The desk has no history of ownership but bears an early Railway Express shipping label from (or to) Canaan, Connecticut, a town about twenty miles south of Lenox, Massachusetts. The label raises the possibility that Calvin Willey made the desk in Lenox in the 1790S; however, the unusual serpentine facade makes it more likely that the desk is a product of the Colchester area shop in which he trained.

COLCHESTER

STYLE

C AT A LO G I I 3 A Despite its valanced pigeonholes and moveable shelves, this bookcase int erior is functi onally simple, typical of tho se in the Colche ster style. The amphitheatre has the customary carved shell on the center drawer and horizontal flutes on the bottom drawer. The valance design differs from that used on Lord group pieces. CA T A L OG I I 3 B In platform-base construction the lower of two boards is nailed to the case bottom from above. Here there are no case dovetails visible, and no glue blocks to support the feet. The front feet are joined with blind dovetails. Oversized braces for the rear feet are attached with sliding dovetails and nailed at the small end .

C AT AL O G 11 30 This well-shaped ogee foot fits well with the serpentine facade of th e desk and has a carved volute that emphasizes the bracket curl. The small vertical pad at the base of the foot is typical of the Calvin Willey group.

C AT A L OG I I 3 c When platform-base construction is viewed from the back, the lower of the two bottom boards projects beyond the case sides and rests in a rabbet, in the side facing of the integrated base molding and foot. The true bottom of the case is hidd en behind the backboard, making this feature difficult to identify. Dimensions: overall H 87Ys"; upper case H 44:Vs" W 351,4" D 91,4"; lower case H 43lh" W 37lh" D 19Ys" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: finials original; side plinths and brasses replaced In scription: "Calvin" in graphite on inside of shell-drawer back Exhibitions: Wadsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 130; Lyman Allyn Mu seum 1974, no. 39 Publications: Barbour Collection, pp. 66-67; Barbour, "Some Connecticut Case Furniture," p. 435, fig. 4; Gin sburg, "Barbour Collection," p. n 07

1.

In scription discovered by cabinetmaker Nickolas Kotula.

2. CHS Museum object files; Barbour Collection, pp. 66-67; Charles B. Todd, GeneralHistory ofthe Burr Family . . . (1878; 4th ed.: New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1902), pp. 54-63. Burr was wealthy and well-connected. John Singleton Copley painted his portrait (1758-60; Saint Loui s Art Museum); John H ancock married at Burr's home. 3. HCFS 416; location unknown. Sotheby's, sale 7865 (January 16, 17, 19,20° 3), lot 526. The desk has had the lower part of both front feet restored, and the valances and brasses replaced; the bracket scrolls of the front feet are missing.

HCFS 181

C A LVI N

W ILL E Y

G R 0 U P

25 I

CATALOG

114

Bonnet-top blockfront cbest-on-cbest Probably Colchester area, £780-I800 Conn ecticut H istorical Society Museum , I965.I0.I, gift ofMr. and Mrs. John A v ery Ingersoll

This chest-en-chest is similar in concept to, and may have been made in imitation of, th e Jon ath an D eming chest-on-chest-on-frame attributed to Samu el Loom is (cat. I04) .1 H owever, differences in both design and construction point to a maker in th e Calvin Willey group, probably in th e Colchester area shop in which W illey trained (see cat. II3). The carved decoration is virtually identical to th at on th e desks attributed to W illey (cats. II2, II2C) and th e drawer and base construction are quite unlike th ose of th e Samuel Loomis group.

S INGU LA R FE ATU RES t> Drawers in the top row are of equal height and proportionately

taller than those on Samuel Loomis's chest-on-chest-on-frame t> Blocking is much narrower in the convex outer sections than in

the concave center section, significantly altering the visual effect and size of the corresponding shells t> Feet are laminated with molded ogee facing applied to a simple

supporting frame that is attached to lower bottom board of the platform base t> Drawer sides are flat on top; dovetail pins are small, nearly tri-

angular, and oriented in the conventional manner (unlike the Samuel Loomis chest-on-chest)

D imen sion s: overall H S5W'; upper case H 5014" W 3714" D 2214"; lower case H 35¥S" W 40 ¥S" D 23~ " M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine (tulip poplar used in restora tion) Condition notes: case extensively restored; bonnet skin, finials, side plinths, and brasses replaced Exhibitio ns: C onn ecticut Tercentenary 1935, no. 223; Yale University Art G allery 1976, no. 101; C arnegie In stitute 1990, no. 45

CAT A LOG 1 I 4 A The shells on th e drawers of catalog II4 (top) and th ose on the lid of the blockfront desk attributed to Cal vin W illey (bottom, cat. II2) are nearly identical. Although competently executed, both lack th e freedom and flair of Samuel Loomis 's work (see cat. 104).

Publication s: Lockwood, Colonial Furniture, 1:122-23, fig. 120; Bulkeley, "Aaron Roberts' Attributions," p. II HCFS 15S

1. Lockwood, Colonial Furniture, 1:122-23, fig. 120; Trent, "Co lchester School," pp. 120- 23.

C AT A L O G 1 I 4 B The shape of thi s ogee foot with scrolled bracket is typical of the Calvin Willey group. The blocking of the facade carries through the middle of the bracket. The unusually complex base molding is formed from a single piece of wood that rests on the protruding lower bottom board of the platform base. This permits placement of the feet beyond the vertica l sides and front of th e case, thereby improving stabi lity and proportion .

252

C OL C H EST E R

STY L E

C AT A LO G I I 4 This imposing chest-o n-chest features narrow convex blocking that creates a virtual pair of pilasters flanking a wide central niche below the oversized concave panel and central shell. The rope-turned columns slim the massive case and inten sify its verticality, as does the unu sually tall top row of drawers. Although outwardly similar to the Jonathan Deming cheston-chest-e n-frame att ributed to Samuel Loomis (cat. 104), the design and construction details place it in the Calvin Willey group. The finials are recent copies of tho se on catalog 104.

CAL V I N

W ILL E Y

G R 0 U P

25]

C AT ALOG

115

Bonnet- top cbest- on-cbest P robably Colchester area, I78o- I8oo Priv ately ow ned

The conservative design of this chest-on-chest includes ample use of Colchester style embellishments. Although less ostentatious than catalo g II4, it is as finely crafted as any example in th e Calvin Willey group and may be from th e same shop as that chest-on-chest or the Burr desk and bookcase (cat. II3). A similar bonnet-top chest-on-chest in the Henry Ford Museum lacks columns at the corners, platformbase construction, and a facing strip on the front of the case sides to conceal th e drawer divider dovetails. "Ebeneze r" is chalked on a lower-case drawer, likely the name of an apprentice.' SINGULAR FEATURES t> T histle-shaped flanking finials (rather than the more common

spirals); the floral lollipop device has sprouted an additional elliptical leaf t> Quarter columns have five flutes in the lower case and four

flutes in the upper case, an unusual combination; chamfered blocks at the top and bottom of each column t> Drawer runners tenoned into the drawer divider in front and

nailed to the case side in back t> D rawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins of average size

CAT A LOG 1 1 5 Restrained in design by Colchester style standards, thi s chest-o n-c hest has num erou s features typical of th e Calvi n Willey gro up. Elements distinguishing it within the gro up include th e thr ee identi cal th istle finials and th e execution of the quart er colum ns, with five flutes on the lower case and only four on the upper case.

and angle

D imensions: overall H 81%"; upp er case H 46W' W 36W' D 181'8"; lower case H 341'8" W 38%" D 19~" M aterial s: cherry with eastern white pin e

I. HCFS 178; The H enry Ford, 29.1236.8. The finials are original, but one of the original side plinths may have been used to heighten the center plinth; the side plinths and br asses replaced.

Co ndition notes: finials original; some dentil elements missing; brasses replaced Exhibitions: Co nnecticut Tercentenary 1935, no. 145; W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 99 Publications: Bulkeley, "Aaron Roberts' A ttributions," p. II H C FS 193

254

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

CATALOG

II6

Blockfrontbureau Possibly Colchester area, I78o-I8oo Historic D eerfield, 54.IO

.' The combination of molded top with cornice, four drawers, and ogee feet align this blockfront bureau closer to Newport designs than most Colchester style examples; however, the rope-turned columns and scrolled foot bracket signal a likely Connecticut origin. The disproportionately narrow convex blocking, comparable to that on catalog II4, accentuates the vertical stance. Although closely related in its design and case con struction to other objects in the Calvin Willey group, details of base and drawer construction suggest production by a different second- or third-generation craftsman .

S INGULA R FEATURES [>

Molded edge of the top combines with the supporting cornice to create a distinctive profile (unlike profiles of Lord and James H iggins groups)

[>

Wood pegs attach the top to a full-depth subtop

[>

Absence of carved shells

[>

Instead of platform-base construction, feet are mounted on a three-sided frame that incorporates the base molding (as in the Ch apin school); blind dovetails join the heavy front feet; side facings of the front and rear feet are cut from a single piece

C A T A LOG I I 6 This tall, slender blockfront bureau, with C olche ster style rop e-turned columns and wide ogee feet with scrolled brackets, has th e vertical stance of catalog II4. The absence of shell carving and use of four draw ers, rather than thre e, are atypical features. The brasses are inappropriate replacem ent s.

of wood [>

Blocked drawer fronts are cut from the solid; the inside face of drawer is flat (and does not conform to the blocking)

[>

Tops of drawer sides are rounded; dovetail pins are large and triangular; pins are present at the top and bottom of the

Di mension s: H 37~ " W 34Ih" D 18Ih"; top 37W' x 20" M aterial s: cherry with eastern white pine Condition note s: brasses replaced Publication s: John Kenn eth Byard advertise me nt, Antiques 64, no. 6 (D ecember 1953): 427; Fales, Furniture ofHistoric D eerfield, fig. 394

drawer sides

HCFS

CALVIN

WILLEY

GROUP

255

16 1

'James %ggins

group

Colchester style cabinetmakers and their patrons, like their Newport counterparts to the east, fancied bureaus and desks with blocked facades capped by carved scallop shells. At least two dozen Connecticut examples survive, and their histories of ownership point to production in towns between Norwich and Middletown. Most are made of cherry, have three drawers, and stand on short cabriole legs with claw-and-ball feet, in contrast to the mahogany, four drawers, and ogee feet favored in Newport. Six examples are Lord group products (see cats. 99, 100, 101); eight virtually identical bureaus-the James Higgins group-came from a separate shop; the remaining examples are known only through photographs and cannot be grouped. One bureau (cat. 117) bears the signature of cabinetmaker James Higgins (1766-1827) and the date 1789. Higgins grew up in Chatham and later operated his own shop there, but where he worked in 1789 remains uncertain.' As his is the only cabinetmaker's signature, this group of shell-carved blockfront bureaus is named

for him. How many of the eight are from his hand cannot be determined. Although they are closely linked in construction and design to the Lord group, physical and historical evidence points to production in an independent shop, possibly located in Chatham, active during the 1780s and 1790S. The unusually large sample in the James Higgins group, comparable in size to the high chests in the Willard group of Wethersfield and Eliphalet Chapin shop in East Windsor, implies that a relatively large shop had developed a highly successful formula for the form. Its popularity may reflect a change in fashion during the 1780s from the high chest to the bureau. Ownership histories are insufficient to conclude whether these bureaus, like high chests, were purchased as part of dowries. Evans, "When the Top Came Off," pp. 26-2 7B. Higgins lived in Chatham the following year when the first federal census was taken.

1.

COLCHESTER

STYLE

SIGN I F ICAN T

I N D EX

FEATU RES :

CAT S .

II 7-11 9

D esign and D ecoration

Construction

o

Above-edge molded top with cove- molded cornice below, in th e

o o

o

T hree drawers of almost equal height, with convex and concave

Newport mann er blocking extending th rough the base molding

o Convex and concave shells very similar to on e anot her and to

o o

Full-d epth subtop (as in Elipha let C hapin shop constructi on) Co nvex shells applied to top drawer and nailed in place from th e front, th rough th e carving

teen); convex rays converge to form an hourglass in th e cente r

• Backboard rabbeted and set in grooves in th e case sides

(see cat. lI S)

o

Drawer-d ivider dovetails covered with a facing strip, in the M assachu sett s manner; thi s feature is also found in th e Calvin'

• Serrated border around the center con cave shell, a decorative

W illey group but is uncommon elsewhere in H artford County

detail th at is a sho p "signature" (see cat. lIS) Complex base molding; a strip between th e fron t knee returns

• Drawer runners inserted from th e back on sliding dovetails (as in Lord group)

augmen ts the molding

o

Top nailed or pegged to the cornice from above on the front and sides

Newport design; most have eleven convex rays (cat. lI9 has thi r-

o

C herry as primary wood; eastern white pine as secondary wood

Short cabriole front legs with claw-and-ball feet; slighdy flattened ball; long narrow talons with promin ent tend ons extending

halfway up th e leg; tall, attenuated ogee feet in th e rear • Identic al scrolled returns on th e uncarved front knees; unscrolled spurs on the side return s and brackets similar to those in th e

o

In side face of lower two drawers confor ms to th e blocking of facade

• Wedge-shaped rear foot brace attached to foot with a row of small dovetails in the Eas t Windsor/Hartford manner; narrow end of the brace has a right-a ngle cutou t for nailing to the bottom board

Lord group

• Drawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins are large, triangular, and closely spaced (see cat. lISA) • design ates key featur es for distinguishing among Colc hester style groups

JAM E S

H I G GIN S

G R 0 U P

257

C A TALOG

11 7

Shell-carved bloclifTont bureau Signed by J ames H igg ins Probably Chatham, q89 W interthur Museum, 59.775, bequest ofH enry Fran cis du Pont

Typical in every respect of the Connecticut cabinetmakers' interpretation of a popular New England form, this bureau wa s made relatively late in the period, tw enty year s aft er the earliest documented blockfront facade in the region, the 1769 Benjamin Burnham-signed desk (cat. 93). The large number of surviving similar examples suggests production by a sizable shop, probably for affluent merchants living in port town s on both banks of the Connecticut River. The essentially identical design, dimensions, and decoration are as close to a formula or mass production as any case furniture form in the region. James Higgin s, wh o wrote his name twice and the date 1789 once on the subtop of this bureau, worked in that shop. He was only 23 years old and possibly still a journeyman, so he cannot be credited with creating this form. He married the following year, lived in Chatham (im mediately west of Colchester, corresponding to present-day East Hampton and Portland), and had two males under the age of sixteen, possibly apprentices, in his household. In 1799 he purchased a hou se and shop close to th e river in Chatham's Middle Haddam section. ' A decade later he moved to Hamilton, New York. The master who taught Higgins was intimately familiar with Lord group design and construction methods; however, some feature s on the bureau-full-depth subtop, attachment of the rear foot brace, and exclusive relian ce on eastern white pine as secondary woodare Chapin school practices. Several factors point to Chatham as th e likel y location for this shop: the inscriptions by Higgins, who lived there; the similarity of thi s bureau to a chest-on-chest that has a secure history in that town (cat. 127); and the proximity of the important port of Middletown.' Of the five related examples-virtually identical shell-carved blockfront bureaus-two are in public collection s, three are privately owned. Four share the same design and con struction details, while the fifth has four claw-and-ball feet as well as typical curving of the scrolled return and feet (see cat . 117B). None of the original owners is known)

C AT A L OG 1 1 7 This shell-carved blockfront bureau, flagship for the group, bears the signature of cabinetmaker James Hi ggins and the date 1789. The three-drawer facade on short cabriole legs with claw-an d-ball feet was the preferred Connecticut design , bringing the impressive shells closer to eye level than Newport bureaus. The legs and scrolled returns add lift and grace to an otherwise massive case. The attenuated rear ogee foot with a simple spur is similar to that on Lord group bureaus.

C AT A L O G 1 I 7 A The cabriole leg and foot of catalog II7 are well carved. Long slender toes and talons grasp a slightly flattened ball, and articulated tend ons extend halfway up the leg. The knees are uncarved. The shaping of the knee scrolls as well as that of the leg and foot are essentially identical on all the bureaus in this group.

COLCHESTER

STYLE

Dimensions: H 363/.!" W

35~"

D I8%"; top 38lh" x 201h"

M aterials: cherr y with eastern white pine Cond ition notes: brasses replaced In scripti on: "James H iggins" (twice) and "q89" in chalk on concealed surface of subtop Publ ication s: Frances Cl ary M orse, Furniture ofthe Olden Tim e (New York: M acmillan, I926), pp. 42- 44, fig. 25; D owns, American Furniture, no. q2; Kirk, Early A merican Furniture, no. 94; Evans, "When the Top Came Off," pp. 26-27B; Richards & Evans, N ew E ngland Furniture at Winterthur, no. I82 HCFS 269 1. Federal census of I790. The Middle H addam house and shop still stand at 60 M oodu s Rd .; see Lu cy G. Pott er and W illiam A. Ritchi e, Th e H istory and Architecture ofEast H ampton (M iddletown: G reater Middletown Preservation Trust, I980), pp. 80-81.

C AT A LOG I I 7 B This bureau is the only one in the group with four claw-and-ball feet; the rear feet are carved on two sides only.The center shell has three concentric serrated rings, the innermost being discontinuous between the lobes of the shell. The shaping of the scrolled return s and foot differs only slightly from catalog Iq . The brasses are inappropriate replacements. Conn ecticut G overnor's Residence Conservancy, I91.

JAM E S

H I G GIN S

G R 0 U P

2. Amos Ransom, six years older than H iggins, worked in Ch ath am, but as a former Samuel Loomis appre ntice, his techniques would have been closer to Loomis's, rendering it unlikely that he was the shop master under whom H iggins worked. Brothers Eber and Steven Stocking were also joiners in Chatham; their work remains unid entified. 3. The bureau in the Henry Ford Museum (61.I67.ro) has been published in Joe Kindig, Jr., advertisement , Antiques 38, no. 5 (November I940): cover; Comstock, American Furniture, no. 300. That in the Conne cticut Governor's Residence (HCFS 346a; cat. Iqb) was published in Sotheby's, sale no. 7I64 (June I9, I998), lot 2I40. The first privately owned exampl e (HCFS I75a) has been exhibited in Lyman Allyn Museum I974, no. 34; published in Israel Sack advertisement, Antiques 88, no. 2 (August I965): cover. The second privately owned piece was published in Soth eby's, sale 43I6 (De cember I, I979), lot qo1. The third privately owned bureau has no publication history, and its current location is unknown, but according to family tradition , it belonged to M arie Antoinett e Willis (b. I805) and Charles Allen (I803-6I) of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Although neith er W illis nor Allen has ancestors with apparent connections to the Colchester region, the close corresponden ce of the details on this bureau to those on the others makes Berkshire origin improb able. Assessment of the Henry Ford Museum bureau based on photo inspection only; two of th e three bureaus in private hands were available for limited inspections.

259

CATALOG 118 Shell-carved bloclifTontbureau Probably Chatha m, I779- I8oo Probablyfirst owned by Hannah Clark and Th omas Harland ofNor w ich Pr iv ately owned

This bureau, which is essentially identical to the bureau signed by Jame s Higgins (cat. Iq), has a convincing history of ownership by Norwich clockmaker, Thomas H arland (ca. 1735-18°7). I This history has been cited by H oughton Bulkeley and others to argue for the presence of a Colchester-trained cabinetmaker in Norwich; however, very little evidence supports thi s theory-only one other Colchester style piece has an unverified history in Norwich, a shell-carved blockfront bureau in the Lord group (cat. IOO) . Thomas Harland married Hannah Clark (q54-1816) in 1779. Her mother, Hannah Leffingwell (q26-8I), was from Norwich, but her father, Elisha Clark (qI8-I804) of Wethersfield, had lived with his first wife Mary Cl eveland (q24 - 51) in Ea st Haddam, just south of Chath am. Elisha might have purchased the bureau as part of Hannah's dowry. Alternatively, Thomas Harland might have acquired it later, by bartering a clock. The inventory taken following his 1807 death lists "I Cherry Beauro" worth $10 . The Harlands' unmarried daughter Fanny (q8rI859) and then their grandson Edward (1832-1915) lived in the family home. Following Edward's death, his niece Irene E. Harland (b. 1841) dispersed the contents of the hou se." D imensions: H 37" W 351h " D I8lh"; top 383,4" x 201,4" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: brasses replaced Exhibitions: Co nnecticut Tercentenary 1935, no. 225 (not illustrated); Norwich H istorical Exhibiti on 1965, fig. 14, no. 33 Pub lications: Hel en Co mstock, "Cabinetmakers of the Norwich Area," Antiques 87, no. 6 (June 1965): 697; Bulkeley, "No rwich Cabinet makers," p. 44; [Kirk], Connect icut Furn iture, no. 63; Sotheby's, sale 5094 (Oc tober 21- 22, 1983), lot 321; David Stockwell advertisement, Antiques 127, no. I (January 1985): I; Soth eby's, sale 6957 (Jan uary 17, 19, 1997), lot 943

CA T A LOG I I 8 A D issimilar front and rear feet are common in th e Colchester style. The 10" height allows an elegant and well-shaped cabriole front leg; the attenuated rear ogee foot is a less successful design. The simple bracket spur is also a Lor d group feature. The large, closely spaced, triangular dovetail pins on th e drawer sides are an index characteristic of th e J ames Hi ggins group. Bulkeley "Norwich cabinetmakers." H arland is arguably the single most import ant figure in the history of Co nnecticut clockmaking. H e emigrated from England in 1773 and opened a shop in Norwich, where he became quite successful and trained, among others, D aniel Burn ap (1759-1838; see cat. 74) of East Windsor, who in turn trained Eli Terr y (1772-1852), originator of mass-produced wooden shelf clocks in th e roth century. I.

2 . Chris H . Bailey, "Des cendants ofThomas H arland of Norwich, Conn ecticut, Clockmaker," typescript, CHS Museum Library. Irene H arland signed the September 30, 1916, sales receipt for the bureau (copy, HCFS files).

H C FS 280

260

COLCHESTER STYLE

CAT A LOG I I 8 This blockfront bureau displays typical James Higgins group carvings: convex shells generally have eleven rays that converge to form an hourgla ss at the top, and the concave shells have a serrated border around the perimeter. These shells, unlike those from other major Colchester shops, are inspired by Newp ort design and are similar to those on a knee-

JAM E S

H I G GIN S

G R 0 U P

hole desk signed by Edmund Town send (M useum of Fine Arts, Boston, 41.579). The molded edge of the top and the caved cornice are also Newport elements not typically used in the C onnecticut valley.The inappropriate large brasses cover holes left by nineteenth-century replacement knob s.

26I

C ATALOG

119

Shell- carv ed blockfront bureau Possibly Chatham, I77S-I79S Probablyfirst owned by D eborah Champion ofColchester and Samuel Gilbert ofH ebron Museum ofFine A rts H ouston, Bayou B end Collection, B. 69.26, gift of Miss Ima Hogg

C AT A L OG I I 9 This shell-carved blockfront bureau, perh aps the finest in the Hi ggins group, has original Chippendale style plate brasses which suggests it predates others in the group. The concave shell in the center and its blocking are a direct quote from the classical shell-headed niche. The flanking shells and their blocking are reversed.

This bureau, one of the finest and most skillfully executed Connecticut example s, has differences in carving and construction that suggest an earlier date of production than others in the James Higgins group, before the formula had become standardized. Deborah Champion (1753-1845) of Colchester and Samuel Gilbert (1734-I8I8) of Hebron, who married September 3, I775, probably were the original owners. I Although the bureau may date from I775, Samuel more likely purchased it a few years later when he and Deborah lived in Hebron, north of Colchester and northeast of Chatham. The inventory of his estate includes a "Bureau" valued at $7, which in the distribution went to his daughter, Sarah Gilbert Post (1789-I87I). It

descended to her grandson, whose widow sold it to Hartford collector Malcolm Norton (I857-I937).2 Dimensions: H 37" W 3S¥.!" D 17%"; top 38¥.!" x I8¥.!" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: side knee bracket spurs on front feet missing; brasses original (except the mushroom pull) Exhibition: Minneapolis Institute of Arts 1989, no. 47 Publi cation s: Norton, "More Light on the Blockfront," pp. 63-66; Nutting, Fu rniture Treasury , I: pl. 270; Ginsburg & Levy advertisement, A ntiques 32, no. I (July 1937): 4; Warren, Bay ou Bend, no. 128; Warren, Brown, et al., Bay ou Bend Collection, no. FI36 HCFS 298

COLCHESTER

STYLE

Other Colchester Jtyle Shops

S INGULAR

FEATURES

D>

Convexshells with thirteen rather than eleven rays

D>

Concave shell has short midribs; no serrated border at perimeter

D>

No facing strip covers the drawer divider dovetails

D>

Rear feet have a horizontal triangular supporting block similar

D>

Chippendale style plate brasses

to that commonly used on the Lord group

I. Gilbert's first wife Lydia Post (1734-75), whom he married in 1760,was a first cousin once removed of Abne r Post, his futur e son-in -law. For G ilbert's career as a local official and judge, see Dexter, Graduates ofYale, 2:582-83. For Deborah's ancestry, see Destler, "Co lonel He nry Champion," pp. 52-64. D eborah's sister Dorothy married Julius Deming, see cats. 96, 97.

2. T he history that No rto n wrote on the bureau contains several factual errors: "This three shell blockfront belonged to the old Post family of H add am, C onn and was inh erited by Mr. Frank Wade of #17 H ancock St Westfield M ass who is a memb er of the Post family of H addam. I purchased it from Mrs. W ade in June 1919[.] M alcolm A. Nort on." The authors thank researcher Lucinda M atthews of H ouston, Texas, for determining the appropriate connection between the Post and Wade families and for supplying much of the genealogical information: Sarah's husband, Abn er Post (1783-1856), had been born in Middle Haddam (part of Ch ath am), where cabinetmaker James Hi ggin s later had a shop. In 1817the Posts moved to Westfield, Massachusett s, where their daughter M ary Esther (1815-82) married Thoma s Sawyer Wade (18u-87) and had a son, Edw ard Thomas (1852-1925), from whose widow Norton acquired the bureau. No rton prized this bureau and long maintained that Conn ecticut blockfront bureaus were the precursors of Newport ones and every bit th eir equal in quality; Norton, "More Light on the B1ockfront, " pp.63 - 66.

OTHER

SHOPS

This section is comprised of a diverse group of objects that have readily recognizable Colchester design features, although they cannot presentl y be assigned to any of the identified groupings. They range from a small cluster of high chests with steps (cats. 120, 120B), which probably predate the signature Colchester bonnet-top high chest, to a tall chest probably made by a Connecticut-trained craftsman working in central New York state (cat. 128). Also included is an import ant cluster of major case pieces from a single shop, possibly located in Hebron, ju st to th e north of Colchester (cats. 125, 126). With th e excepti on of th e early "steps" high chests, the se pieces are by second- and third-gener ation craftsmen working in the Colchester style, often blending features from other sho p tradition s, for example, the applied intertwined vines of the Chapin school that adorn a chest-on- chest (cat. 126). Many of th ese objects postdate 1790, yet retain th e form and decoration of earlier work. They are grouped here, rather th an in chapter 7, to assist the reader in comparing th em to earlier Colchester style work.

C ATALOG r 20 Flat-top high chest w ith steps Signed by Samu el B rown Probably H ebron, £760- £780, possibly I769 Probablyfirst owned by Mary Bill and John H Welles ofH ebron Priv ately owned

One option that Connecticut cabinetmakers offered patrons in the middle half of the eighteenth century was an ornamented superstructure, usually referred to as "steps."! Most of these probably predate the widespread adoption of full bonnets. Those identified by the HCFS have little surface area for the display of objects and most likely served a decorative function. Only a handful survive intact. This high chest with steps has an uninterrupted history of ownership in Gilead parish of Hebron, north of Colchester, and is one of the earliest objects identified in the Colchester style. It exhibits most of the design and con struction characteristics associated with the style, including shell design, scrolled knee returns, and prominent ankle hock. Although predating the Calvin Willey group by a generation, the maker employed similar case construction techniques, including backboard and drawer runner attachment and drawer construction. Samuel Brown wrote his name on a drawer side, and the location of the inscription suggests he was a shop apprentice. A likely candidate is the Samuel Brown wh o was born in Hebron in 1748, married Prudence Sawyer at the age of 20, and moved to Norwich, Vermont, the following year; however, no records have been found identifying him as a cabinetmaker. According to family tradition, this high chest has only left the house in which it stands once-a twelveyear hiatus in St. Louis, Missouri. The probable first owners are Mary Bill (1744-94) and John Howell W elles (1744-r826), both of Hebron, who married on N ovember r6 , 1769. John's father, Edmund Welles (172r- r805), had built the house five years earlier. Both 1764 and 1769 are plau sible dates for the high chest. John Well es's r826 estate inventory included two high ches ts: "r Dark Colourd Case of drawers" valued at $3 .0 0 , th e other "d jitt]o at $2.25."

S INGULA R F EAT U R E S I>

Backboards nailed in rabbets in case sides and top

I>

Drawer runners nailed to case sides

I>

Saucer-shaped pad feet with sharply angled supporting pad and prominent ankle hock

I>

Dr awer sides flat on top; dovetail pins are small triangles

A mo ng th e earliest pieces associated with C AT A L O G I 2 0 th e C olchester style, thi s flat-top high chest features removable steps. The high chest itself is similar to others in the C olchester style: top row of thr ee tall dr awers, carved shells above a horizontal flute , scrolled knee returns, and prominent ankle hocks. T he condition is exemplary, with origin al finials, drop pendants, and brasses.

CA T A L OG I 2 0 A The joinery, woods, and finish history confirm th at th ese steps, both of whi ch are dovetailed boxes, were made to accomp any catalog 120 . The more elaborate upper step incorporates a full bonnet with scrolled, carved rosett es, a center finial, and saddle-shaped backboard that closes th e bonn et cavity; th e bonnet skin has no front-to-back center suppor t. The plainer lower step has small side finials, whi ch look like invert ed drop pendants, insert ed at th e front corners.

COLCHESTER

STYLE

o

THE R

S HOP S

265

Two related examples have similar step s. One lacks side finials and has inset brasses on the upper-case long drawers, but otherwise looks identical, which suggests that it came from the same shop."The other (cat. 120b) differs in a number of details, including drawer proportion s, shaping of the bonnet opening, and carving of the shells, which implies that it originated in another shop in the region ) A third related example , thi s one a bonnet-top high chest, probably first belonged to Hannah Pomeroy (1752-1814) of Hebron and Rev. David McClure (1748-1820) of North Hampton, New Hampshire, who married on December 10, 1780 (cat. rzoc). Although similar in many respects to catalog 120 and quite possibly from the same shop, it was dressed up with a number of decorative feature s: a full bonnet that flares at th e corne rs, a double shell similar to th at on the Lord family high chest (cat. 94), plus carved knees , and fluted pad feet. The three tall dr awers in the top row and visible top board below th e tympanum suggest th at th e bonnet was added at the patron's reque st in much the same way as the steps of catalog 120.4 Dimension s: overall H 8IrS"; upper case H 35rs" W 35%" D 17th"; lower case H 361A" W 3f A" D 19"; steps H 9* " W 281;2" D 14%" Materials: cherry with tulip poplar, basswood, and eastern white pine Condition notes: steps, finials, drop pendant s, and brasses original Inscription: "Samuel Brown" in graphite on drawer side of top drawer, lower case HCFS 19 CAT A LOG I 2 0 B Although similar in appearance to catalog 120, this example came from a different shop. The many disparities include the bonnet opening, design of the shells, relative proportions of the drawer openings, drawer construction, and placement of the brasses. Finia ls, knee returns, drop pendants and brasses are replacement s. The H enry Ford, 29.II26.I09

266

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

1. For most of the zoth century they have been termed "china steps"; Gaines, "Step-Top Highboy," pp. 332-34. 2. Location unknown; assessment based on photo inspection only; see G .K.S. Bush advertisement, Antiques 129, no. 3 (March 1986): 471.

3. HCFS 176; exhibited at Wadsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 86; published in Gaines, "Step-Top Highboy," p. 334, fig. 6; Comstock, American Furniture, fig. 182; Harold Sack, "The Develop ment of the American High Chest of Drawers," Antiques 133, no. 5 (May 1988): rrzo, fig. 5. 4. Assessment based on photo inspection only. See also William Lamson Warren, "The Pomeroy High Chest of Drawers: An Exercise in Attribution," Connecticut Antiquarian 32, no. I (June 1980): 4-9; Nathan Liverant and Son advertisement, Antiques 148, no. 5 (November 1995): 577·

CAT A LOG I 2 0 c The substitution of a full bonnet with flared corners for the steps significantly altered the proportions of this otherwise similar high chest. The cabinetmaker further embellished it with a large double shell in the upper case, a recessed fluted apron below the lower-case shell, carved knees, and fluted front feet, elements suitable for the home of an important clergyman. In 1786 its owners, Hannah Pomeroy and David McClure, moved to East Windsor, where Reverend McClure occupied the pulpit of the first Congregational Church whose meeting house stood just doors away from Eliphalet Chapin's house and shop. Collection of Samuel and Patricia McCullough.

o THE

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267

CATALOG

121

Bonn et-top high chest Possibly Haddam, q 80-I795 Connecticut Historical Society Museum, I958·44·2 , gift of Frederick K and Margaret R . Barbour

The overall design of thi s high chest gene rally follows Lord group practices, but index features reveal it to be an outlier, the product of a craftsman who was influenced by th e Colchester style. Al tho ugh it does not have a verifiable family history, it was found in H igganum, part of th e town of H add am on th e west side of the Connecticut River, a plausible locat ion for such a shop . A related example, a bonn et-top high chest th at has survived in virtually unrestored condition, shares the same design and cons truc tion idiosyncrasies, pointing to production in the same shop (HCFS 384; cat . 12IB). D imensions: overall H 8SW'; upp er case H 50" W 381,4" D 18"; lower case H 3SYs" W 39~ " D I9Ys" Materials: che rry with eastern wh ite pin e and tulip poplar C ondition not es: finial and drop pendants original; side plinths and finials missing; brasses repl aced Pu blicati on s: Barbour Collecti on, pp. 48-49; Barbour, "Some C onnecti cut C ase Furniture," p. 434, fig. 2 HCFS

2 II

S IGN I F ICAN T I NDEX F EA TUR ES

o

Upper case set back on the lower case to accommodate projecting stop-fluted pilasters

o Rosett es positioned well below the arch of the cornice o Ce nte r plinth supported by front -t o-b ack triangular brace o Shells with incised midrib s that are less expertly carved than other examples; no raised center; no horizontal flute below

o Upper-case backboards nailed in rabbets in case sides o D rawer runn ers nailed to a full-h eight vertical stanchion at rear corners of upper case; their front ends rest on the drawer divider, leaving a large gap between the runner and case side behin d the pilaster

o Complex th ree-p art midmolding divided between upper and lower cases

o Knees carved with wide, incised, vertical ribs on both front and sides of front legs

o o

Four claw-and- ball feet Drawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins are small triangles

268

CA T A L O G I 2 I A nu mb er of feature s set thi s high ches t apart from th e major C olch ester style groups: th e entire upp er case is set back to accommo da te the bold sto p- fluted pilaster s with projecting capitals and bases; th e rosette s are positioned well below the top of the arch of the heavy cornice; the stiff cabriole legs end in four claw-and-b all feet. The side plinths and finials are mISsmg.

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

CA T A L OG 1 2 1 A The base of the stop- fluted pilaster is surrounded by a complex midmolding, part of which is attached to the upper case of catalog 121, a practi ce uncommon in the region after 1760. Carving on both the front and side surfaces of the knee is unu sual, and the small scroll on the return is unlike that from mainstream Colchester shops.

C AT A LO G 1 2 1 B This related bonnet-top high chest retains its side plinth s, finials, brasses; aside from the design of the finials, it is identical to catalog 12I. Chipstone Foundation, 1997.5 .

o THE

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S HOP S

269

CAT A LOG I 2 2 The mass of this high chest echoes the bulk of the Samuel Loomis group Jonathan Deming chest-on-chest (cat. 104), while its hybrid decorative features suggest production by a second- or third-generation craftsman working at some distance from Colchester. The overall design and dissimilar center shells conform to Lord group practice. The complex shaping of the front and side aprons and the absence of an ankle hock are unusual for any shop working in the Colchester style. The high chest never had pendant drops; the brasses are inappropriate replacements.

270

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

CATALOG

122

Bonn et-top high chest Possibly Cornw all, I78o-I8oo Connecticut Historical Society Museum , I9S8.44.I, g ift of Frederick K and M argaret R . Ba rbour

This massive high chest is a hybrid with a mix of features from the Lord and Samuel Loomis groups. Oak as a secondary wood and a tradition of ownership in Cornwall in Litchfield County are clues that suggest this is the product of a second- or even third-generation craftsman working in western Connecticut. I Since the basic construction techniques and some of the decorative motifs are tho se of the Samuel Loomis group, the maker may have trained in that shop. The cabriole legs have weakly scrolled returns and cup-shaped pad feet with no ankle hock. (A craftsman working in Colchester likely would have put claw-and-ball feet on such a well ornamented high chest, as on cat. 94.)

C AT A L OG 1 2 2 A Samuel Loom is gro up featur es includ e the carved pinwheel rosett es and shell, and a bonn et cavity backboard th at is flat at th e top. L ord group features include the steep bonn et, pilasters with inverted applied shells, conforming flanking drawers, and horizontal flutin g below th e shell.

S IGNIF ICANT I N D EX FEATURES

o Multiple primary and secondary woods are unusual, especially oak used for the upper-case top and bott om; however, oak is relatively common as a secondary wood in furniture from western Connecticut

o Construction of upper case follows Samuel Loomis group practices closely

o D rawer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins are small triangles; dovetails reversed on the back of the drawer, as in the Samuel

Dim ension s: overall H 841;2"; upp er case H 481,4" W 36" D 20 "; lower case H 361Jl" W 381Jl" D 2IVs"

Loomis group

M aterials: cherry and mahogany (applied pilaster orn aments) with tulip poplar, eastern wh ite pine , chest nut, oak (upp er- case top and bottom ), and birch Condition notes: finials original; caps for apron drop s missing; bonn et skin and brasses replaced

HCFS 172

Public ation s: Barbour Collection, pp. 50- 51; Barbour, "Some Connecticut C ase Furniture," p. 435, fig. 3; G insburg, "Barbour C ollection ," cover & p. n02; [Kirk] , Connect icut Furn iture, no. 88

1.

o

THE R

S HOP S

CHS Museum object file reveals only th at it was owned in C ornwall, Litchfield C ounty.

27I

CATALOG

1 23

D ressing table q80- I8oo Priv ately ow ned

The rarity of dressing table s with Colchester style char acteristics suggests the form was less popular in that region than elsewhere . The few that survive have proporti on s closer to Newport design than to Wethersfield or East Windsor. Although this example displays many features of the Colchester style, the atypical knee return and foot make it difficult to speculate on the geographic location of the shop. 1 A related dressing table has cyma-curved front and side aprons, a treatment seldom used in Colchester style furniture. The carving of the shell and knees is similar to catalog 123, although the scrolls on the knee returns are shallower.2

S IGN IF ICANT I N D E X FEATURES

o Unusual drawer configuration- pairs of small drawers flank the shell drawer, which results in a tall case with proportionately short legs

o Cove-mo lded cornice underneath the edge of the top adds to height of case

o Four claw-and-b all feet with deeply scrolled knee returns; front face of knee has fluting (rather than Lord group spiral carving)

o

D rawer dovetail pins form neat small triangles

C A T A L OG 1 2 3 Surviving examp les of C olchester style dressing tables are relatively large, have pairs of small drawers flanking th e center drawer, and have short legs. The cove molding below th e top is a Newport design feature . T he shell and th e scrolled knee returns are typical of Co lchester work. A thi ck web with wide flutes covers mu ch of th e ball clasped by th e foot; th e toes are relatively shor t as a result . The carving differs from th at associated with the major Co lchester style shops.

Di mension s: H 32¥.!" W 36" D 22"; top 39¥.!" x 24¥.!" Materials: cherry with eastern wh ite pin e Condition notes: drop pend ants and brasses replaced HCFS 409a

Assessme nt of thi s dressing table based on limited inspection and inform ation from dealer Pet er Eaton (copy of Eaton's O ctober 20, 2001, letter in H CFS files). For Rh ode Island examples see Joseph O tt , T heJ ohn Brown H ouse L oan Exhibition of R hode Island Furniture (Prov idence: Rh ode Island Histori cal Society, 1965), no. 64, and Bernard and S. De an L evy, Vanity and E legance, no. 25 . 1.

212

2. Locati on unknown; assessment based on ph oto inspection only; see Bern ard and S. D ean Levy, Vanity and E legance, no. 37, or Bern ard and S. D ean Levy, Catalog no. 6 (1988), p. 100.

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

C AT ALOG

124

Bonnet-top b1oclifTont desk and bookcase Probably I790-I8IO Connecticut Historical Society Mu seum, I969.44.2, gift of Frederick K. and M argaret R. Barbour

C AT A LOG 1 2 4 M any variations in design mark this as an outlier of the Colchester style. The punch dotted panel behind the bonnet cutouts, blind-fretted strip in the tym panum, and molded panels on the doors are uniqu e elements that suggest a date of produ ction betwe en 1790 and 1810, an era in which art isans combined elements from a variety of sources.

o

THE R

S HOP S

273

At first glance this powerful well-proportioned desk and bookcase stands as a straightforward example of Colchester style cabinetmaking: steep bonnet, spiralturned columns and finials, stop-fluted center-plinth ornament, and blocked facade, But it has additional unique decorative elements: polka dot punched panels closing the bonnet front; rosettes carved with a sixlobed fylfot plus crudely incised willow leaves and prickwork; fretwork in the tympanum; raised door panels; and a Chapinesque vine applied to the lid. Such features make this piece an outlier, only loosely connected to the Calvin Willey group. Its cabinetmaker, generally familiar with Colchester shop practices, was mo st likely a third-generation craftsman working no earlier than 1790 and possibly well after 1800. The location of his shop, whether in Connecticut or elsewhere, remains unknown.

SIG NI FI CA NT I ND EX FEATU RE S

o Bonnet constructed with out front-to-b ack vertical support (as in cats. II] , IIO); skin is attached with wooden pegs; bonnet is closed in front with a shaped board nailed to the tympanum and decorated with fine punchwork

o De sign of the finials, rosettes, applied center ornament and column s resembles that of the Colch ester style but details differ from major groups

o Fretwork strip in the tympanum, molded panels on the bookcase doors, and vines on the desk lid are unique

o Amphitheatre desk interior follows Colchester practice, but the blocked prospect panel and absence of horizontal flutes on the center drawer are atypical

o Backboard of the desk is nailed in a rabbet and extends down to form a brace for the rear feet (see cats. 107, 128)

o O gee feet have a recessed supporting pad and are laminated-a molded facing is applied to a pine inner portion (as in cat. II4); front feet are joined with blind dovetails. They are attached to a heavy (IV:!" high ) three- sided frame that incorporates the base molding

o Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are of average size and almost triangular; pins are present at top and bott om of drawer side

Dimensions: overall H 89V:!"; upper case H 44V:!" W ] 6" D lOlA"; lower case H 45" W 37r's" D 20},l" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition note s: finials original; bra sses replaced

C AT A L OG I 2 4 A The interior desk dr awer s are narrower in th e back th an in the front, po ssibly to ease the return of a dr awer to its compart ment. The backs of the small drawers are reverse dovetailed , but the lon g dr awer s in the case of the desk are no t.

274

Publication s: O . Rundle Gilbert, Garrison-on -Hudson, N.Y., sale of Katharine S. Countryman estate (Febru ary 7-8 , 1969), lot F- 58o; Barb our Supplement, pp. 22- 25; Ginsbur g, "Barbour C ollection ," p. IIo6 HCFS 212

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

C AT ALOG

125

Bonnet- top cbest- on-cbest Possibly H ebron, q8S-Q9S Connect icut H istorical Society M useum , I964.]] .II, gift ofFrederick K and Margaret R. Barbour

An exceptionally gifted cabinetmaker crafted and imaginatively decorated a small group of second-generation Colchester style pieces, including this and catalog 126. The mix of design and construction features and the intricate decoration are consistent with a post-r-eo date of production. An inscription on catalog 126 suggests Hebron as a possible location for this shop. The maker's talent is revealed particularly in the bonnet area. The vertical rays of the three-dimensional, applied center-plinth ornament narrow at the top and spill out at the bottom. The uncarved lobes of the rosette f)rlfots stand in sharp contrast to the intricately CAT A LOG I 2 5 T he ma ker of th is ches t-o n-c hes t stretche d the limi ts of C olch ester design by elabor atin g on each of the elements with extra flourishes. The fluted center-plinth ornament tapers and flares conspicuously at th e base to integr ate with the bonnet cut outs. The tightly carved shell has th irty rays, each with chip-ca rved decorati on at th e end. The feet have a simp le L ord group spur.

S IGN IF ICANT I ND EX FEATU RES

° Bonnet lacks front-t o-b ack vertical support; backboard that closes the bonnet cavity lacks a saddle; circular cutouts in tympanum have no notch below rosett e

o Backboards are nailed in rabbets in the case sides o D rawer runners rest on drawer divider and are tenoned into backboard

o

Feet have a simple bracket spur (as in the Lord group); horizontal board on each side serves as a block to support both the front and back feet

o Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are narrow triangles

o

THE R

S HOP S

275

CAT A LOG I 2 5 A The chip-c arved urn-on-reel finials on catalog 125 are unlike any others in the C olchester style. They are relatively short in relation to the tall, capped, reeded plinths. T he design of the den til course is typical: each tooth is an astragal flanked by fillets. Qu art er columns with seven flutes are uncommon.

CAT A L OG 1 2 5 B T his small bonn et-t op desk and bookcase shares many design and decorative elements with catalog 125, especially in the bonnet area. It s amphitheatre interior and ogee feet are characteristic of the Colchester style. T he embellishme nts are elaborate, particularly th e five th ree-dimensional f)rlfot lobes and the double shell in the desk interior. The scalloped door panels, rare in Connecticut valley bookcases, suggest post- r- eo production. L ocation unkn own .

turned and chip-carved finials. The shaped top drawers tightly conform to the upward sweep of the bonnet. The in set quarter columns contain seven flutes (the usual number is four) and have a chamfered block above and below. A closely related bonnet-top chest-on-chest has fylfot carved rosettes with crosshatched lobes, five long drawers in the upper case, and no shell.' A small desk and bookcase (cat. 12SB) shares multiple design elements with catalog 125: steep bonnet with no front-to-hack support, flaring center-plinth orna ment, tall side plinths, and ogee feet with a simple spur. The amphitheatre interior has a central double shell and horizontally fluted bottom drawer,"

276

Di men sion s: overall H 82Vs" ; upp er case H 46%" W 36t,4" D 18 3,4"; lower case H 351;2" W 381;2" D 19%" Materials: cherry with tulip poplar, eastern white pine, chestnu t C ondition notes: finials original; brasses replaced Publi cation : Barbour Supplement, pp. 18-19 H C FS 171 L ocation unkn own ; assessment based on photo inspection only; see Sack, F ine Points, p. II4; Wayne Pratt advert isement, Antiques 130, no. 4 (Oc tober 1986): 627. I.

2. H CFS 257a; Sotheby's, sale 3981 (April 27-30, 1977), lot 981; Christie's, sale 9268 (Octo ber 14, 1999),lot 192. Limited inspection.

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

C ATALOG

1 26

Bonnet - top cbest- on-cbest Possibly H ebron, I79I Priv ately ow ned

CAT A LOG I 2 6 This chest-an-chest reveals an imaginative cabinetmaker at his most ambitious. H e enhanced the traditional Colchester style formula by substitu ting a Ch apin style applied vine for the usual shell and embellished the side plinths to mimi c the design of the center plinth. In most other respects thi s chest-an-chest replicates catalog 12 5 .

o THE

R

S HOP S

277

CATALOG 126A The vine-carved drawer front of catalog 126, indistinguishable from those on Chapin style chests, works well with the elegantly shaped inverted shell above it. The waisted and fluted side plinths are ingenious modifications. The rosettes, more elaborately carved than on catalog 125, have cross- hatched fylfot lobes and punch-decorated backgrounds.

Instead of the usual Colchester style shell, this fascinating example incorporates an intertwined-vine drawer front-the earliest dated example of this popular Chapin school device being adopted by another shop tradition. This chest-on-chest unquestionably derives from the same shop as catalog 125, from which it differs only in minor details: the side plinths, which are hourglass shaped, fluted, and capped to echo the center plinth; the rosettes, which are more elaborately carved; and the drawer front decoration. Construction differences include the attachment of the muntins with a single tenon rather than a dovetail and the use of conventional Colchester style blocking for the feet. The date written in chalk is quite legible, "April 25, I791"; however, the accompanying graphite inscription, including the initials and location of the probable owner, is only partially legible. Interpretation of the town name as Hebron and the similarity of the lower case of the related high chest (cat . 126B) to catalog 120 support the hypothesis that the maker's shop might have been located there.

Three related examples confirm that the combination of design elements on catalog 126 was not a fluke. Two chests-on-chests display similar vine carvings and likewise differ from catalog 125 in only minor details. One lacks the shaped side plinths and has the Colchester style notch in the bonnet opening below the rosettes. The other has unembellished fylfots and a notch in the bonnet cutouts but no dentil course in the cornice molding. I A third related example is a bonnet-top high chest (cat. 126b) with "July 4, I791," inscribed in chalk on the backboard, written in the same hand as the chalkinscribed date on catalog 126. The upper case is almost identical in appearance to catalog 126, and the lower case is similar to catalog 120. The shell is embellished with incised midribs and horizontal flutes below, like that on catalog 125.2 The inscribed date indicates that production of this high chest occurred just 2~ months after catalog 126, suggesting that both the older style high chest and the newer chest-on-chest were in production simultaneously in the same shop.

COLCHESTER

STYLE

Dimensi ons: overall H 81 3,4"; upper case H 46Vz" W 353,4" D 173,4"; lower case H 351,4" W 38Vs" D I8 ~" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Inscription: "April 25, 1791" in chalk and "Mrs EEW/He[bron?] " in graphite, both on upper-case backboard Cond ition notes: finials and brasses original Exhibition : Connecticut Tercentenary 1935, no. 90 Publication: Bulkeley, "Aaron Roberts' Attributions," pp. 17, 18 HCFS 288 1. Both location s unknown; both assessments based on photo inspections only; see Kimball Arm s Company advertisement, Antiques 39, no. 3 (March 1941): lO8, for the first; and David Stockwell advertisement, Antiques 85, no. I (January 1964): I, for the second. 2 . The authors are indebted to independent furniture scholar M artha Willoughby for supplying inform ation on this high chest; see also Houghton Bulkeley Papers, CHS Museum Library.

CAT A LO G I 2 6 B The importance of this high chest lies in its combination of features from catalogs 120, 125, 126 and its inscribed date of 1791. Although some customers wanted the newer chest-on-chest form, others still preferred the older high chest. The finials and pendant drop s are replaced. Privately owned.

o

THE R

S HOP S

279

C A T ALOG

1 27

Bonnet-top chest-o n-chest Possibly Chatha m, £785- I800, p ossibly £79I Probablyfirst owned by P rudence Dixon and Z ebulon Penfield ofChatham Priv ately ow ned

De spite a firm history in Chatham, this small Colchester style chest-on-chest exhibits a blend of design and construction elements that set it apart from the Jam es Higgin s group ofblockfront bureaus believed to have been made in that town. Other cabinetmakers active in Chatham at the time were Amos Ransom and brothers Eber and Steven Stocking; however, no connection could be documented. This chest-on-chest reportedly remained for many generations in the home that Jonathan Penfield (1715-94) built about 1760 in Chatham. The likely first owners were Jonathan's son, Zebulon (1765-1860), who married Prudence Dixon (1769-1864) on May 14, 1791. 1 It passed to their equally long-lived granddaughter, Loui se Matilda Penfield (1841-1930), and is now owned by her great-granddaughter.

S IGN IFICANT

I N D E X

FEATURE S

o Lower case has three drawers (a configuration often used by cabinetmakers who trained in Wethersfield or with Eliphalet C hapin)

o Backboards set in grooves in case sides o Drawer runners are nailed to case sides o Unusually tall ogee feet have exaggerated bracket scrolls that resemble those on the front feet of the Burr desk and bookcase in the Calvin W illey group (cat. II3)

o Rear foot bracket is attached with a row of small dovetails in the manner of the James Hi ggins group and Ch apin school

o Qpadrant- base construction (an Eliphalet Ch apin shop technique rarely used by Colchester craftsmen)

o Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are large widely spaced equilateral triangles

Di mensions: overall H 78% "; upper case H 463tf' W 361,4" D I71J1"; lower case H 317'8" W 3834" D I8h" Materia ls: che rry with eastern wh ite pin e

C AT A LOG I 2 7 T he overall design of this small chest-onches t, owned in Chatham, recalls furniture in th e Ca lvin W illey group, especially in th e bonn et configura tion and scrolled ogee feet; th e exaggerated brac ket scroll is similar to th at on the Burr desk and bookcase (cat. II3). In contrast, th e th ree-drawer lowercase configura tion is more common in work from W eth ersfield or th e Chapin schoo l.

Fl orence Bent z Penfield, compo and ed., The Genealogy of the Descendants of Samuel Penfield . . . (Reading, Pa.: H arris Press, 1963), p. IS· 1.

Condi tio n notes: finials and bra sses original H C FS 182

280

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

C ATALOG 12 8 Shell-carved tall chest Probably Ontario County, N ew York, I 7 9 0-I8£O, p robably ca. I 80 0 Probablyfirst ow ned by Ly dia Farrar and N athaniel Cudwo rth ofB ristol, N ew York Privately ow ned

Several feature s of thi s tall chest connect it to the Colchester style, notably, the shell, the bracket spurs on the feet, and the neat small triangular dovetail pins on the drawers; however, tall chests with carved shells are rare in Connecticut. The scarcity of the form combines with other features, including the heavy stock and tulip poplar secondary wood, to support an inscribed history that this piece was made in central New York. Presumably its cabinetmaker had trained in Connecticut. According to an inscription, written on the underside of the shell drawer, the tall chest originally belonged to Lydia Farrar (1775- 1858) and Nathaniel Cudworth (1772-1859) , both of Freetown, Massachusetts, who married on November 12, 1795. The couple moved to Bri stol, Ontari o C ounty, New York, early in 1798, where they had this chest made. I The heavy migration from New En gland to New York state during the I790S supports this history." The tall chest descended to Clara Ellis Beach (1865-1931), who, as the directions in the inscription stipulated, passed it to her daughter, Katherine Ellis Hamilton (1890 -1978) of Onondaga County, New York, the last surviving descendant. A related tall chest with no ownership history has a frieze below the cornice, an additional long drawer, and more intricate scrolling on the front foot brackets and apron. It could be by the same maker.'

OTHER

SHOPS

S IGN IFICANT

o

INDEX

FEATU RES

Carving of th e shell similar to that on a Lord gro up blockfront bureau (cat. lOI)

o

Paired small drawers flank the shell drawer (as in the Wethersfield style and on the dressing table in cat. 123)

o o o

Lowest backboard extends to th e floor to form the braces for

o

C ase sides extend to th e floor to suppor t the facing of the feet

Drawer dividers attached with exposed dovetails Backboards nailed in rabbets th e rear feet (as on cats. 107, 124) (as on cat. 107, a Sam uel Loomis gro up chest-on-chest)

o

Knee brackets have double spur (similar to cat. 99A, a Lord grou p blockfront bureau)

o

Front feet are joined with exposed dovetails, a common Colchester style practice

o

Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are small triangles

C AT A L O G I 2 8 This unusual tall chest with Colchester style features has a convincing history in central New York, where it was likely produ ced by a transplanted Conn ecticuttrained craftsman. The carved shell with alternating convex rays and concave lobes and the foot brackets with double spurs are among the Colche ster features. Dimensions: H 6i h" W 371'8" D

Ii'

Materials: cherry with tulip poplar and eastern white pine Condition notes: spurs on front face of feet and lower two-thirds of the rear feet restored; brasses original HCFS 226

1. The full text of the inscription is as follows: "T his case of drawers was made for my M oth er Lydia Cudworth soon after she came int o this Coun ty (then a wilderness) in the spring of 1798 made - - - of a mechanic who came - - - the town - - at about that time and was made from the cherry - -- growing on their own grounds. This was - - - by moth er before her death - - - in fall of 1858 but did not come into my possession 'til 1872. After my death they are to go to my daught er Lucy Ellis Balch if she survives me - - - . If - - - a daught er survives her then they - - - to her. If not they are to be given to my granddaughter Clara Ellis Beach and never to be disposed of except - - - my mother's descendants. Lucy Cudworth Ellis['] Syracuse [N .Y.] Aug. 1879." The writer, Lucy Cudworth Ellis, married Frank Balch; her sister, Harriet Isabella Ellis, married William Augustus Beach. 2 . The tall chest could have entered the family anoth er way: Lydia and Nathaniel's daughter Lucy (1812- 84) married James Ellis (18ro- 90), th e son of John Ellis (1764- 1820) from H ebron and Submit Olds (1775-1843) of Pitt sfield, M assachusett s, who married in 1796.

3. Location unkn own; assessment based on photo inspection only; John Walton, advertisement, Antiques III, no. 2 (February 1977): 254·

282

COL C H EST E R

STY L E

5

Springfield-Northampton Style

During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a fourth distinct Connecticut valley style center flourished along the fifteen-mile stretch of the Connecticut River immediately above the southern border of Massachusetts. Cabinetmakers in the Hampshire County towns of Springfield and Northampton created a striking cluster of tall case pieces, many of them with blockfront facades and pilasters embellished with characteristic stylized carved vines.' As tastes changed in the late 1780s, Springfield-Northampton cabinetmakers adapted, eliminating the carved vines and substituting sinuous oxbow facades for blocking and pediments for bonnet-tops. Beneath these outward changes, however, they persisted in using a recognizable set of construction practices. Hampshire County's two commercial centersSpringfield and Northampton-were located about twelve miles apart on opposite sides of the Connecticut River. In 1781 each of these towns had approximately 1,700 inhabitants-about half as many as in the Hartford County towns of East Windsor, Wethersfield, or Colchester.' As befitting the location along the Connecticut River in central Massachusetts, SpringfieldNorthampton furniture displays strong resemblances to other Connecticut valley style centers to the south as well as coastal Massachusetts production to the east. Many Springfield-Northampton pieces have been misidentified as Chapin school furniture because of the strikingly similar shaping of scroll pediments and ogee feet as well as beading on the outside edges of the tops of drawer sides. Oxbow bureaus from SpringfieldNorthampton appear especially close to Chapin models; however, careful examination reveals a number of distinguishing features (see table 7 at cat. 143). Most Springfield-Northampton construction features do not match Hartford County practices, and the overall aesthetic, especially of the blockfront pieces with bonnet tops, has more in common with the formal, architec-

SPRINGFIEL D-NORTHAMPTON

STYLE

tural quality of Boston furniture than with contemporary Connecticut valley design. Other coastal Massachusetts features include the flattened-arch apron shaping and the shell design. In combination, these features suggest that the original master may have trained in or around Boston before moving to Springfield or Northampton) Like the Chapin style centered in East Windsor, Springfield-Northampton production represents the output of one continuous workshop tradition, or school, likely encompassing more than one shop and multiple craftsmen. The design and construction features display remarkable uniformity, suggesting that the master who originated the style tightly controlled all aspects of instruction and production in his shop, resulting in work of high quality and great consistency. Multiple generations of apprentices and journeymen followed suit, comprising a Springfield-Northampton school that continued to utilize standard shop practices with only minor variations (see cats. 132, 136). Finally, as with the Chapin style, other craftsmen in the area adopted particular design features, producing visually similar pieces that lack the characteristic construction features. Differences in carving and construction reveal that some Springfield-Northampton style pieces were produced by cabinetmakers who probably did not train in the Springfield-Northampton shop tradition (see, for example, cat. 131). The distinctive vine-carved pilasters found on some Springfield-Northampton casework have long been recognized by collectors and scholars.t The index characteristics shared by a majority of cases also appear on a larger number of examples without this embellishment (including high chests, a dressing table, chestson-chests, desks and bookcases, dining tables, and a group of oxbow and straight-front bureaus), which can thus be identified as products of the same workshop tradition. Together, these forms comprise a surprisingly

S IGN IF ICAN T

I ND EX

FE A TUR ES :

CATS.

129-143

Design and Decoration:High Chests, Chests-on-Chests,

Design and Decoration: Desks and Bookcases, Bureaus

and Dressing Tables

o

high chests

• Bonnets have a broken-ar ch pediment with the cavity open in the back. In side the bonnet opening, a coved one-piece corni ce

o

• Bookcase doors are tomb stone shaped with conforming raised

extends about 4" toward s the back. The vase-shaped cent er

panels, the pair flanked by carved pilasters like those on the high

plinth is unembellished

chests; the domed recess behi nd the arch of each door may be embellished with shell carving

Scrolled pedim ents in late example s (post-q8S) are pierced: each

o

side has three curved carro t-s haped openings with sphe rules

o

Bookcase bonn ets, plinths, and finials are the same as those on

Bureaus have conforming tops with molded edges. Blockfront s

inserted in them (balls pediments); the rosette s are geometrically

have an above-edge moldin g; oxbows, a below-edge molding;

(rather tha n naturalistically) carved around a central button

th e dressing table (cat. 133 ) and bureau table (see cat. 141) have notched front corners

Fini als are in two parts, a turned corkscrew or spire above a flatt ened disk and reel (see cat. 129A ) or sphere (cats. 134, I40 B) .

o

139.

(pre- ryco) and have bracket feet; later ones have straight or

Early examples stand on capped cubical side plinths; late

examples top fluted cylinders (cats.

oxbow front s with ogee feet

132, 14 0 )

• Embellishm ents on upp er cases of the early high chests includ e

• D esks have a small coved exten sion of the slanted area of the case sides flankin g the writing surface next to the lower corner

relief-carved architectur al pilasters with molded caps and bases,

of the lid when closed (see cat.

and a vine th at rises from four short verti cal flutes at the base of th e pilasters and undulates upw ard, connecting groups of three elonga ted and spoone d leaves (see cat.

129C) .

Facades of desks and bureau s are blocked in early examples

o

134 B)

Front of the top drawer on blockfront desks extends laterally past th e drawer sides to conceal th e loper muntins and to maint ain

De corations on

upper cases of later chests include spiral- turned or fluted quarter

uniform vertical blocking • D esk int eriors are blocked if th e facade is blocked; removable

columns at th e front corners • Shell on the center drawer front is carved with varying number of narrow convex rays th at converge on a center point, the whole

prospect door is a panel atta ched with two pins at the bott om and a lock at th e top

within a raised border. Each shell has a conforming recess, about I"

high , below it (see cat.

• designates key featur es for distinguishing Sprin gfield-N orth amp -

r29B)

o

Small drawers flankin g the upper- case center drawer are

o o

D rawer surro unds have a cock bead run out of the solid

ton style

rectangula r Front and side apro ns of high ches ts and dressing tables have a flat center arch flanked by ogees • Ca briole legs are heavy; pad feet are disk shaped and have an undercut heel and an unu sually tall conical supporting pad (see cat.

o

133B)

Knee returns are applied to th e front of th e apro n and have a notch on the und erside.

284

S P R I N G FIE L D - NOR T HAM P TON

STY L E

S IGN IF ICANT

IN DEX

F EAT UR E S:

CATS .

12 9 -14 3

o

Constructio n: A ll Forms

o

o

secondary wood front-to-back supports for the bonn et skin rest on th e top board

side of the drawer fron t. In oxbow facades the inside of the

of th e case and form th e sides of the central cavity. Unlike

drawer front is gouged so th at the upper edge confo rms to the

Weth ersfield, the cavity is open at th e back, and the back of the

oxbow, in th e Eliph alet C hapin sho p ma nner, and the lower edge

bonnet rests on the top of th e case leaving the back edge of the

is straight to accept a rectangular drawer bottom

top board visible from the rear (cat.

o

135A)

bookcase section or the upper case of a high chest about 14"

corne r joint of th e fron t feet is cham fered in a cha racteristic way: square at the top (nearest th e case) and rounde d at the bottom

above the lower case (see cat. 135 B)

(nearest th e floor), with a gradual transition from top to bottom

Lower case of high chests and chests-o n-c hests has a full-d epth

(see cat. 14 0B) . The rear foot suppor ting brac ket is arched and attached with a sliding dovetail

cover th at suppor ts the upper case • Drawer dividers have a cock bead run out of the solid and are

o

Blockfront bases have simple bracket feet secured with horizontal and vert ical glue blocks. T he vertica l glue block supporti ng the

Upper-case backboards are nailed in rabbets

• D ownward protruding dovetail pins act as spacers to raise the

o

In blockfronts, th e interior of th e drawer fronts confo rms to the facade, and the drawer botto m is nailed in a rabbet on the under-

• Bonnets are constructed in the Weth ersfield manner: vertical

o

D ressing table and dining table tops are attac hed by a row of small glue blocks positioned at th e perime ter of th e frame

Cherry as primary wood; eastern white pine as th e predo minant

• O xbow and straig ht-front cases have splayed ogee feet mounted

dovetailed to the case sides, with dovetails visible from th e front;

on a bottom board without a th ree-sided frame or quadrant

dovetails have an unu sually sharp angle; joint is concealed when

blocking. The front feet are blind dovetailed together. T hey are

quarte r columns or pilasters are present

supported with vertical and horizontal glue blocks, and the verti-

Drawer runners are nailed to the case sides unless th ere are quar-

cal blocks are chamfered in th e same way as for bracket feet (see 14 0 A) . The

rear feet are shape d and finished in back. T he rear

ter columns or pilasters th at distance the sides from th e drawers,

cat

in which case the drawer runner/guid e rests its front end on th e

foot supporting bracket is like th at used on bracket feet

drawer divider, and th e back end of the runn er is tenoned into

• Drawer sides have a bead on th e top outside edge, as in Eli phalet Ch apin's sho p; dovetail pins are small, neat triangles; drawer-s ide

the backboard

dovetails protrude in th e back to act as drawer sto ps

large group; many examples remain in private hands and have not previously been published. The Sprin gfield-Northampton entries that follow suggest an evolution of form s through a period of relatively rapid style change . Most of the examples in this group appear to date from the 1780s onward, although the possibility that some may date to the InOS cannot be ruled out. About half of the identified examples have a full bonnet and/or a blocked facade, features that probably predate 1790,while about one-third have a straight or oxbow facade with ogee feet and/or a balls pediment, features that postdate I78S. Several display a S P R I N G FIE L D - NOR T HAM P TON

STY L E

mix of features marking them as transitional between the "early" and "late" subgro ups (see, for example, cats. I30, I39).5 Three of the objects have a history that points to an origin in Springfield and three have a history that suggests an origin in Northampton. The probable dates of production for all six overlap. The originating shop could be in either town, as the pieces share the same construction techniques and identical design s: the high chests have similarly carved shells with a raised border and pad feet that rest on unusually tall truncated conical supporting pads; the desks and bookcases have an 285

identical blocked desk interior and a blocked facade with bracket feet; both high chests and desks and bookcases feature the trad emark vine-carved architectural pilasters. Other example s, with histories in Connecticut towns near the Massachu setts border or elsewhere in H artford County, illustrate the geographic spread of the Springfield-N orthampton style (see cats. 129D, 13 6, 137)· Although several cabinetmakers are known to have worked in th e Spr ingfield-Northampton region, as yet none of their work can be tied to thi s distinctive group. Eliakim Smith (1735-75) has lon g been regarded as th e most likely candidate for master of this group; in the years before the Revolutionary War, he ran a successful shop in Hadley, the town east of the river from Northampton." However, during Smith's twenty-year career, the dominant case furniture form in the region was th e flat-top high chest, ofwhich no surviving examples display the distinctive Springfield-Northampton ind ex feature s. None of Smith's account book entries make reference to bureaus, chests-on-chests, or desks and bookcases-the prevalent form s in the SpringfieldNorthampton group. Furthermore, none of those surviving forms has a history of ownership in H adley or a connection to any of Smith's known customers) O f th e other Hampshire C ounty cabinetmakers, Abner Leonard (1744-93) of Springfield was th e right age and longevity, but his output remains unidentified and no furniture can be tied to him. William Mather (1766-r835), who worked in Whatley, two town s north of Northampton, signed a bonnet-top high chest with Springfield-Northampton design features . Not only is he is too young to have been the originator of th e style, but the construction techniques used on his signed high chest make it clear that he did not train in the main Springfield-Northampton shop tradition.f Also too young is Julius Barnard (1769-post 1812), who opened a shop in Northampton about 1792, after working in Eliphalet Chapin's shop in East Windsor, and stayed in Hampshire C ounty less than a decade. The consistency of Springfield- Northampton furni ture production results in a dauntingly long list of significant index features. Of th ese, a handful of easily recognized construction traits are especially helpful in makin g identification s. Bonnets, when present, have open back cavitie s and backboards that rest on th e exposed upp er-case tops. Drawer dividers are cockbeaded and are attached to the case sides with exposed dovetails that have an unusually sharp angle. The dovetail pin s that secure the bottom board of an upper case

to the sides protrude below the bottom board to lift the upper case slightly. The rear ogee feet are fully shaped and finished in back. The rear foot supporting bracket is arched and attached to th e rear foot with a sliding dovetail. Drawer sides are beaded on the outside edges; drawer dovetails have small triangular pin s, and th e dovetails extend in th e back to act as drawer stops. I. T he stylized vines and floral motifs on this furniture strongly resemble gravestone carvings by local stonecutters-Nathaniel Ph elps (1721-89) in No rthampton, and Joseph W illiston (1732-68) and Ez ra Stebbins (1731-96) in Springfield; see Great R iv er, nos. 336,340, 341. (T he geome trically carved rosettes on pediments are especially close to Stebbins's work.) For more on this tightl y knit, family based craft tradition that originated in the towns around Hartford, see Kevin M . Sweeney, "W here the Bay M eets the River" in M arkers;: The j ournal of the Associationfor Gravestone Studies, D avid W alters, ed. (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985), pp. n-12 .

2. Population figures from Gr eene & H arrington, American Pop ulat ion before the Federal Census ofI790. For the growth of these two communities, see Louis Everts, H istory of the Connecticut Va//ey in Massachusetts (P hiladelphia: L. H . Everts, 1879), 1:lOr8. 3. T he intersection of Connecticut valley and coastal Massachusetts influences in H ampshire County has been investigated by numerous scholars; for an introduc tion to this literature see especially Great R iv er and Peter Benes, ed., The Bay and the R iver: I60o-I900, Dublin Semina r on New England Folklife, Annual Proceedings 1981 (Boston: Boston University, 1982). Boston was connec ted to Springfield by a primary road and to Northampton by a combination of primary and secondary roads; for a map, see Edward M . Cook, Jr., The Fathers of the Towns: Leadership and Community Structure in Eighteenth-Century New England (Baltimore: Joh ns H opkin s University Press, 1976), p. xviii. 4. Nutting, Furniture Treasury, I: pIs. 313, 697, illustrates the vinecarved pilasters. 5. The Hartford cabinetmakers' price list of 1792 lists bookcases with "mitred doors" and "balls." The datin g of both oxbows and balls pediments is based on H artford County examples, e.g., cat. 67; th e time span for bonn et tops is less clear, but most associated with lower Conn ecticut valley style centers likely date from 1775 to 1795, e.g., cats. 40, 109, n o, 126. 6. O pinion of Rev. C lair Franklin Luther as cited in "T he Edi tor's Attic," Antiques 32, no. 6 (Decem ber 1937): 287-88; Great R iv er, no. 106; Zea, "D iversity and Regionalism," pp. 92, 94, fig. 35. 7. Eliakim Smith's account book, now lost, was partially transcribed by th e nineteen th-century historian Sylvester Judd (1789-1860); see Judd manuscript, 3: 94-109, Forbes Library, No rthamp ton; also Schrenk, "Eliakim Smith," app. 3 & fig. 7. 8. D iscussed as related example to cat. 131.

SPRINGFIELD-NORTHAMPTON

STYLE

C ATALOG

1 29

Bonnet-top high chest Probably Northampton or Springfield, I77o-I790 Possiblyfirst owned byJoseph Clarke of Northampton Location unknown

Well-preserved and superbly crafted, this high chest exemplifie s the Springfield-Northampton style and probably is from the primary shop . A well-shaped bonnet, tall corkscrew finials, and carved trailing vines relieve the rectilinear aspect, accentuated by pilasters, cock-beaded drawer surrounds, flattened-arch aprons, and relatively straight legs. This high chest has a history of ownership in Northampton. Family tradition accorded first ownership to Mercy Lyman (1729-1806) and jurist Joseph Hawley (1723- 88), who married in 1752, a provenance that is a generation earlier than the style of the high chest. Their adopted son, Joseph Clarke (1749-1828), married twice: first, in 1772, Anna Barnard (1750-74) and second, in 1787, Lydia Cooke (1765-1815).1The two weddings bracket the years in which thi s high chest might have been made. There are two related examples. One is a virtually identical bonnet-top high chest that possibly first belonged to Lucy King (1753-1831) and Daniel Norton (1751- 1814), both of Suffield, who married in 1790 (cat. 129D ).2 The second high chest looks similar but has small claw-and-ball feet that usually are not associated with the Springfield-Northampton style ) Although no other example s with claw-and-ball feet have been identified, the design otherwise appears to be typical of the group.

SPRINGFIELD-NORTHAMPTON

STYLE

D imen sions: overall H 86%"; upper case H 49V8" W 36%" D lower case H 3ih" W 38W' D 19318"

If A";

M aterials: cherry with eastern whi te pine and tulip poplar Condition note s: finials, drop pend ant s, and brasses original Publi cations: G ood and Hutchin son advertiseme nt, Antiques lI5, no. 4 (April 1979): 660; Christie's, sale 8746 (Oc tober 8, 1997), lot 50; Soth eby's, sale 7756 (Janu ary 17-18, 2002), lot 423 HCFS 310 1. Sotheby's, sale 7756 (January 17-18, 2002), lot 423; Stiles, A ncient Windsor, 2:834. See also cat. 77 and Whitmore, "Wedding Furniture of Anna Barnard," pp. 369- 71. An na's brother, Julius Barn ard (1769- post 1812), trained with Eliphalet Ch apin and likely made some of the Chapin schoo l furniture th at Clarke owned; the pieces published as Anna's wedding furniture likely postdated her death in 1774. 2. HCFS 356; see Saint Lou is Art Museum 1999, no. 26; Clearing H ouse Auction Galleries, November 29, 1974; Bernard and S. Dean Levy, Catalog (1979), p. 27; Bern ard and S. D ean Levy advertisement, A ntiques 107, no. 4 (April 1975): 561.Although high chests were typically associated with brides, in th is case th e groom's mother, Rebecca Sheldon (1714-93), came from North ampton. 3. Location unkn own; assessment based on photo inspection only; see Ginsburg and Levy advertisement, A ntiques 65, no. 6 (June 1954): 445·

288

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CAT A LOG 1 2 9 This is the best preserved of the known bonnet -t op high chests with stylized vine-carved pilasters. The case is comparable in size to those from Colchester and about 6" taller than a Weth ersfield style high chest; the pilasters and corkscrew finials enhance its verticality. CAT A LOG 1 2 9 A This finial was turn ed in two parts and joined at the base of the corkscrew, a practice common in Massachusetts . CAT A L O G 1 2 9 c The stylized vine emerges from the innermost of four short vertical flutes gouged at the base and curls upward within the confines of the pilaster. T he pilaster base is carried through the midm olding.

C ATA LO G 1 2 90 Virtuall y identical to catalog 129, thi s bonnet-top high chest is also a product of th e principal shop for thi s group. Ch aracteristic features includ e the bonnet cavity open in back, the shells with raised border and recess below, and th e tall pad feet. The cent er finial and drop pendant s are replaced; the side finials and plinths are missing. Privately owned.

S P R I N G FI E L D - NOR T HAM P TON

ST Y LE

C AT A LOG 1 2 9 B T his shell design is characteristic of Springfield-No rthampton high chests, dressing tables, and chestson-c hests. T he molded border is relief carved and the many convex rays converge at a center point. T he shell is placed relatively high on the drawer front and incorporates a I" tall uncarved recess below.

289

C A T ALOG

1 30

Bonnet- top high chest Possibly Springfield or Northampton, q8S-Q9S Privately owned

This high chest demonstrates that decorative embellishments, while helpful in attributions, provide an insufficient basis for assigning an object to a specific cabinetmaker or shop. Although it has rope-turned quarter columns rather than vine-carved pilasters, all the other featu res conform to Springfield-Northampton index feature s (with the exception of the alterations dictated by the design change: the shape of the bonnet and cornice, and the attachment of upper-case drawer runners and guides). Quarter columns, favored more than pilasters as an embellishment on Chapin school furniture, bec ame prevalent on furniture made in the M assachusetts part of the Connecticut River Valley about 1790. 1 D imensions: overall H 85%"; upper case H 48%" W 37%" D 18"; lower case H 37" W 40" D 19%" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: finials and drop pend ant s probabl y replaced; escutcheon and center drawer pulls replaced P ublication: Sotheby's, sale 7705 (O ctober

II ,

2001), lot 244

H C FS 407

1. Spiral- turned columns of somewhat different design were popular in Colchester and Glastonbury (cats. 104, 105 & 151, 152, respectively).

°

CAT A LO G I 3 The use of rope-turned quarter columns (rather th an vine-carve d pilasters) required modifying the bonnet slope to eliminate the flat area above the pilasters on this Springfield- No rtham pton style high chest. This change makes the upper case look wider; however, in all other respects, it resembles the Cl arke family high chest (cat. 129).

290

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CATALOG 131 Bonnet-top high chest PossiblyHaifield, Massachusetts, I770-I790 Possiblyfirst own ed by Oliver Smith ofHatfield Historic Deerfield, 94.2

Given the uniformity and consistency of work in th e Springfield-Northampton school, thi s high chest ranks as an outlier made by a craftsman who did not train in the main Springfield-Northampton shop traditi on . Although previously attributed to cabinetmaker Eliakim Smith (1735-75) of Hadley, who conceivably could have made it near the end of his short career, this bonnet-top high che st more likely was produced a decade or more after his demise. I

S INGULAR F E AT U R ES t> Upper case is 3" taller th an catalog 129; both the pilasters and

tympanum are extended upward, creating more surface area in the tympanum t> Center plinth is tall and narrow t> Drawers flanking the upper-case shell drawer conform to the

bonnet shape

c- Carving on the pilasters has a stippled grou nd; fewer repetitions of the vine motif t> Bonnet backboard conceals edge of top board of upper case t> D ovetail pins of upper-case sides do not protrud e through the

bottom board t> Centr al transverse board across top of lower case provides sup-

port for upper case t>

Cup-shaped feet have a small supporting pad

c- Drawer sides are rounded on top (rather than beaded on the outside edge); dovetail pins are of average size and angle

CA T A LO G 1 3 1 This bonnet-top high chest was made by a cabinetma ker wh o did not train in th e same shop as the creator of the Cl arke famil y high chest (cat. 129) but simply borrowed the main decorative element: vine-carved pilasters. In addition to carving that is by another hand, dissimil ariti es include the taller tympanum, narrower center plinth, dr awers in the top row that conform to the pediment, and no tall conical pad below each foot.

S P R I N G FIE L D - NOR T HAM P TON

STY L E

29I

According to family tradition, thi s high chest first belonged to Oliver Smith (1766- 1845) of H atfield, located imm ediately north of N orthampton. A lifelong bachelor, he reportedly bequeathed the high chest to his niece Sophia Smith (179 6- 1870) , founder of Smith College in No rthampton. The high chest could date from Oliver Smith's early adulthood in the late q80s; however, no high chest is listed in the inventory of his estate. One is listed in the probate records of his father, Samuel Smith (qI5-67) . The elder Smith could have bought a high chest from Eliakim Smith, whose working years stretched from 1757 to 1775, but it is more likely th at he would have acquired a flat-top high chest about the tim e of his marriage: 1747.2 Yet another possibility is th at Sophia Smith might have inherited it from her parents, L ois White (1769-1824?) and Joseph Smith (1758-1836) wh o married in Hatfield in 1789. There are two related high chests. One, which in 1937 belonged to Benjami n B. Hinckley of Northampton, has unusual claw-and-ball feet but otherwise looks similar enough to have been mad e by th e same shop as catalog 131. 3 The other related example is a more radical outlier to the Springfield-Northampton style, a bonnet-top high chest th at probably dates from 1790-1810 and displays th e full panoply of eighteenth-century decoration: full bonnet, vine- carved pilasters on th e upp er case, inset fluted quarter columns on the lower case, carved shells with pun ch decoration and horizontal flutes in th e Colchester manne r, a pendant shell in the middle of the front apron, and rud imentary claw-andball-feet . Signed by cabinetmaker William M ather (1766- 1835), who worked in Whatley, north of Hatfield, it present s a summary of a half-century of decorative element s in what was by then an antiquated form ." As on catalog 131, the vine-carved pilasters are simply borrowed embellishments.

Di mensions: overall H 85"; upper case H 52" W 36th" D 17IA"; lower case H 33" W 38'h" D 18"Vs" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine and butternut (lowercase backboard) Condition notes: finials, knee returns, and brasses original Pu blications: Soth eby's, sale 6527 (January 28-31, 1994), lot 1301; Zea, "D iversity and Regionalism," p. 94, fig. 35 H C FS 145

I. See Springfield-Northampton introdu ction and Schrenk, "Eliakim Smith" pp. 14-17. 2. Schrenk, "Eliakim Smith," pp. 15-16. Oliver Smith, founder of Smith Charities, is unrelated to Eliakim Smith and does not appear in the surviving records of the latter's customer s.

3. Location unknown; assessment based on photo inspection only; see "T he Ed itor's Attic," Antiques 32, no. 6 (Decem ber 1937): 288. 4. Loca tion unkn own; see frontispiece, Antiques 31, no. I (January 1937): 8; Bernard and S. Dean Levy, Catalog no. 6 (1988), p. 85; Bernard and S. Dean Levy, Vanity and Elegan ce, no. 43. The furniture created by Silas Rice, Ma ther's contemporary, also displays stylistic conflations; see cats. 18r19I.

SPRINGFI ELD-NORTHA MPTON

ST YL E

CATALOG

132

H igh chest with scrolled p ediment Possibly Hampsh ire County , Massachusetts, I790-I8IO Priv ately owned

The Springfield-Northampton shop tradition endured into the federal period , but this late high chest is scarcely recognizable as one of its products. The piece is slim, light, and vertical. The bonnet has become a delicate scrolled pediment, and the carved pilasters have become narrow, fluted quarter columns. Neoclassical decorative elements, such as the triglyph and guttae, abound . Other elements that point to post-I78S construction include the scrolled balls pediment with carved rosettes; the removable, cylindrical fluted side plinths; and the shift from carved pilasters to fluted quarter column s, capital s, and bases. Along with the conspicuous chan ges, familiar feature s of Springfield-Northampton work endured, such as the characteristically carved shells and the dovetail pins that protrude at the base of the upper case. The drawer sides are beaded on the outside edge; dovetails pins are small triangles; and the dovetails at the back extend past the end of the drawer. Other diverse elements are blended in as well. There are echos of the Wethersfield style in the cyma curves of the front and side apron s and in the canted knee returns applied to the underside of the apron. The lower-case backboard is dovetailed to the leg posts, a technique more often found on Rhode Island furniture. The cabriole legs are fixed to the lower case with glue blocks only (now often termed "removable" legs). The cabinetmaker who made thi s high chest, most likely a second- or third-generation craftsman working in the Springfield-Northampton style, may have opened his shop some distance from where he trained; how ever, his choice of woods and his fairly close adherence to earlier practices suggest a location still in the Connecticut valley. Di mensions: overall H 85"; upper case H 48" W 3ih" D I7W'; lower case H 37" W 39l1z" D 19" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condit ion notes: guttae at the base of the center plinth missing; midmolding and brasses replaced

C AT A L O G I 3 2 This high chest is typical of those produced durin g the federal period: a traditional form-a high chest with cabriole legs and carved shells-updated with a fashionable balls pediment , applied triglyph with guttae at the center, and, for good measure, a carved pinwheel in the front apron.

HCFS 133

S P R I N G FIE L D - N O R T HAM P TON

STY L E

293

C A T A LOG

1 33

D ressing table Probably No rthampton or Springfield, I770-I790 Lo cat ion unknown

C AT A LOG 133 This Springfield- No rtham pton style dressing table shares most of the index featu res of the high chests (cats. 129, 1290 , 130) but on a smaller scale. The molded top with notched corners is similar to that on the bureau table (cat. 141). The drop pend ant s are missing, but the large brasses are original.

This is the only Springfield-Northampton style dressing table in thi s stu dy. In both design and construction it conforms to the lower cases of the high chests produced by thi s shop tradition. The relatively small overhang of the top and the 32" height and width give it a boxy appearance. The histor y of the dressing table can be traced no further than its ownership by sculptor Joan Hartley (1892-19 84) of Buckland, Massachu setts, about twenty miles northwest of Northampton.1 There are two related example s, identical drop-leaf dining tables (cat. 133A). Their tops are attached in the same manner as the dressing table top: nails at the four corne rs and numerous square blocks glued around the perimeter of the frame . The knee returns, legs, and feet are typical of Springfield-Northampton design and construction (cat. 133B). An unusual feature, a single wedge near th e inner edge of th e fixed rail on each side, allows th e swing legs to rotate but requires that the rails meet th e fram e at a slight angle ."

SINGULAR FEATURES

e- Above-edge molding runs along on three sides of the top; notched front corners t> Top attached with nails into each leg post, as well as nineteen

small triangular glue blocks aligned at the interior edges of the case t> Rail above the top drawer has cock bead run along the lower

edge t> Carved shell lacks a raised border t> D rawer bottom is chamfered on its front edge and let into a

groove in the drawer front, rather than nailed in a rabbet

D imensions: H 32" W 32" D 18Vs"; top 34¥!" x 20" Materials: cherry with eastern white pin e Co ndition not es: brasses original; drop pendants and caps missIng Pub lication : North east Auctions, Novem ber 2-3 , 2002, lot 647 H C FS 414

C AT A LO G 1 3 3 B The pad foot of the drop- leaf table displays th e characteristic undercut heel and tall, cone-shaped, supporting pad. C AT A LO G 133 A This drop-l eaf table is attributed to Springfield-No rthampto n on the basis of the shaping of the knee return, leg, and disk-shaped foot on a tall, conical suppor ting pad. The leaves have a rounded edge. The side apron is ogee shaped with the notched knee return applied to the front of the apron rath er th an the leg itself Privately owned.

H artley belonged to the "Philadelphia Ten," an artists' collective active dur ing th e interwar years; see Peter H astings Falk, ed., Who Was Who in American Art (M adison, Co nn.: Sound View Press, 1985), p. 266.

1.

2. Cat. 133A published in Skin ner, sale 2195 (November 1-2, 2002), lot 752. T he other (location unkn own) differs only in condition; see N ortheast Auctions, November 2-3, 2002, lot 696.

SPRINGFIELD-NORTHAMPTON

STYLE

CATALOG

134

Bonnet-top desk and bookcase P robably Springfield or Northampton, I78S-I790 Probably first owned by Richard Salter Storrs ofLongmeadow Longm eadow Historical Society

De spite its losses, this desk and bookcase makes an imposing statement. Although produced after 1785, it conforms to all the index features of early bonnet-top pieces produced by Springfield-Northampton cabinetmakers, which suggests that it is from the original master's shop. The desk and bookcase possesses a convincing history of ownership by Richard Salter Storrs (1763-1819), long-time pastor of Longmeadow's First Congregational Church. Storrs grew up in Mansfield, Tolland County, Connecticut, and following his 1783 graduation from Yale moved to Longmeadow, newly carved out of Springfield as a town. In 1785 he married Sarah Williston (1765-98), whom he had met in New Haven, and the following year built a house (present-day location of Longmeadow Historical Society). The desk and bookcase dates from Rev. Storrs's early years in that town and now stands in his home. I There are three related examples, all bonnet-top desks and bookcases similar to the one Rev. Storrs owned. One has had extensive restorations." The second reportedly has had the lid replaced and restorations to the bonnet and feet. It bears an 1836 inscription written by then-owner Philip Preston Potter (b. 1811), who lived in Wilbraham, immediately east of Springfield) The third has inappropriately replaced finials.t

C AT A L OG I 3 4 The vine-carved pilasters flanking the tomb stone-paneled bookcase doors are identical to those on the Clarke family and related high chests (cats. 129, 129D). The blocking of the facade begins with tightly rounded corners at the top drawer of the lower case and carries down through the feet. De spite th e loss of the finial tops and lower part of the feet, presumably to accommodate a low ceiling, this desk and bookcase is well preserved.

S P R I N G FIE L D - NOR T HAM P TON

STY L E

295

CAT A LOG 1 3 4 A T he inter iors of both sections are more elaborate th an C ha pin schoo l and Wethersfield style examples. The bookcase has an uncarved recess behind th e arch of the door; the fixed hori zontal and vertical dividers ha ve sha ped edges. The desk int erior is laid out in typical Massachusetts fash ion: a row of valanced pigeo nholes over two rows of dr awers, and blocking tha t echoes the exte rior. T he remova ble prospect panel tilt s outward on two pins at th e bottom and closes with a lock at th e top, a signi fican t featu re of thi s gro up.

Dimen sions: overall H 881,4"; upper case H 481h" W 39" D 121,4"; lower case H 393,4" W 41Vs" D 211,4" M ateri als: cherry with eastern white pine C ondition note s: upp er part of finials, lower part of feet , and six valances missing; mos t br asses original Exhibiti on: C onnecti cut Valley Museum 1990, no. 3 HCFS 82

L on gmeadow Historical Society files. Sarah's fath er was from Springfield . Sarah was born in W est H aven, Connecticut. As the L on gm eadow house has low ceilings, it is possible th at Rev. Storrs originally used the desk at th e churc h. The alteratio ns to th e feet and finials are old ones. I.

2. HCFS 245; location unknown; see Sot heby's, sale 6800 (Janu ary 19- 21, 1996), lot 1633. 3. L ocation unknown; assessment based on ph ot o inspection only; see Sotheby's, sale 4942 (Oc tober 23, 1982), lot 87. 4. L ocation unknown ; assessment based on ph oto inspection only; see N utting, Furniture T reasury I: pI. 697-

CA T A LOG 1 3 4 B T he projection of th e slanted porti on of th e desk side adjace nt to the writing surface is a cosme tic embellishm ent of Spr ingfield -No rtha mpto n style desks. When th e lid is closed it result s in a small coved protuberance on the side facade,

296

S P R I N G FIE L D - NOR T HAM P TON

STY L E

C ATALOG

135

Bonnet- top desk and bookcase q 8S- I8oo Hartford Steam Boiler In spection and Insurance Company

At first glance this ambitious desk and bookcase fits into the mainstream of the vine-carved pilaster group; however, the carved decorative elements are atypical, a creative blend influenced by the dynamic Colchester style.' Ribbed shells and an applied center-plinth ornament do not appear on other Springfield-Northampt on bookcases or desk interiors. The brasses suggest that this piece dates from the 1790s,a decade in which many cabinetmakers moved to new town s and experimented with borrowed design s and techniques, incorporating them into establi shed forms. This piece is fundamentally like the Storrs desk and bookcase (cat. 134), although zW' slimmer and taller by about the same amount. In addition to the anomalous embellishments, the rear foot supporting bracket is triangular, rather than arched, and is attached to th e rear foot with a row of small dovetail s in the Chapin

CAT A LOG I 3 5 This desk and bookcase, the most elaborately embellished of the Springfield-North ampt on group, has carved decoration in the Colchester style, especially the two-part ornament applied to the center plinth, and the shell on the prospect panel. The ornate ring-and-bail brasses indicate a late date, and imply that this is the product of a second-ge neration craftsman.

S P R I N G FI E L D - NOR T HAM P TON

STY L E

297

school manner. These features raise the possibility that this desk and bookcase originated somewhere outside Hampshire County, perhaps the Berkshires, Vermont, or New York State, all areas to which Connecticut cabinetmakers migrated.

CA T A LOG I 3 S A The back of the bonnet rests on the top board of the bookcase. A rectangular cutout opens the rear of the bonnet cavity, unlike th e Wether sfield and Colchester styles in which the cavity is closed at the back.

Dimensions: overall H 93'h "; upper case H solh" W 363,4" D I2Ys"; lower case H 43" W 383,4" D 2I1,4" M aterials: cherry with eastern whit e pine Con dition notes: bookcase doors restored; finials and brasses original Exhibition: Wadsworth Atheneum I98S, no. ro6 Publications: Gin sburg and Levy advertisement, A ntiques 86, no. 4 (Oc tober I964): 377; Connecticut M asters, pp. 246- 47 HCFS 8I

The bookcase doors are restored . Accordin g to Bernard Levy of Bernard and S. De an Levy, they had been damaged by fire (conversation with the authors, ca. I993, notes, HCFS files). 1.

CA T A L O G I 3 S B The protruding dovetail pins raise the bookcase about 1,4". This feature is rarely seen in the Connecticut valley.

298

S P R I N G FIE L D - NOR T HAM P TON

STY L E

C AT ALOG

136

Bonnet-top desk and bookcase Probably H artford County, possibly Middletown, I779-I795 Probablyfirst owned by M atthew Talcott Russell of Middletown Lo cation unknown

This desk and bookcase, like catalog 135, is something of a puzzle. Although sharing most of the design and constructi on attributes of the Springfield-Northampton style, it has significant anomalies. Deviations from the other high chests and desks and bookcases in this group are greater than would be expected from a shop tradition in which the output is otherwise so uniform. This desk and bookcase is the work of a man familiar with Springfield-Northampton design and construction but willing to use modifications-in the same way that Simeon Loomis and Juliu s Barnard were adapting their Eliphalet Chapin shop training (see cats. 76, 77). According to family tradition Matthew Talcott Russell (1761-1828) of Middletown received this desk and bookcase upon his graduation from Yale in 1779, a gift from his father, Rev. Noadiah Russell (1732-95), pastor of the Congregational Church in Thompson in northeastern Connecticut. I A desk and bookcase valued at $2.50 is listed in the 1828 inventory of Matthew's estate. The Russells, long established in Middletown and Hartford, had no known familial ties to Springfield or Northampton, and this is the only docum ented piece in the large Springfield-Northampton group in which the original owners had no family connections to the Mas sachusetts stretch of the valley. Furthermore 1779 is a very early date for production by a presumed secondgeneration craftsman. A more likely scenario is that Matthew Russell purchased the desk himself, a decad e or so later, from a Northampton- or Springfieldtrained craftsman wh o, perhaps briefly, worked in or near Middletown. One candidate is Lewis Sage (q65-1822) who was born in Middletown and was working in Northampton after IJ90 . Another is Matthew's second cousin William Russell (IJ6rI838) of Middletown, whose production remains unidentified.'

SPRINGFI ELD-NORTHAMPTON

STYLE

S INGULAR [> [>

FEATURES

Yellow pine and chestnut as secondary woodsi Pilasters have six flutes at the base and only five undulating repetitions of the vine motif

[>

Bracket foot has a longer than usual spur; and the blocking on the front feet is applied (rather than carved out of the solid}'

[>

Rear foot support is wedge shaped

[>

Dr awer side molding is a wide astragal (similar to that used in Suffield [see cats. 154-156] rather than a bead on the outside edge)

Dimensions: overall H 90lh "; uppe r case H 47" W 37" D 13"; lower case H 43lh" W 38lh" D 21lh" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine , yellow pine, chestnut (lower-case backboards) C ondition not es: prospect panel replaced; gilding possibly later; finials and silvered brasses original Publications: John S. Walton advertisemen t, Antiques 96, no. 6 (D ecember 1969): 798; Christie's, sale 8704 (J une 17, 1997), lot 318 HCFS 297 For more on Noadiah Russell see D exter, Graduates ofYale, 2:239. Accordin g to family tradition, the desk and bookcase passed th rough five generation s of male descend ant s to Talcott Huntingt on Russell (b. 1932).

1.

2. As Middletown had at least two other shops produ cing formal desks and bookcases (see Brown group), it is unlikely that Russell had to travel north to Springfield or N orthampton to purchase a desk. For Sage, see Keno, "No rthampton C abinetmakers," p. n 07.

3. C onne cticut cabinetmakers rarely used yellow pine after 1760; an excepti on being the maker of cat. 53, a Mi ddl etown desk-onframe belonging to Nathaniel Brown . Colchester and other eastern C onnecticut cabinetmakers com mo nly used chestnut, as did the maker of catalog 189, a Middletown chest-on- chest. 4. The facing of th e foot may be a restoration.

CAT A LOG I 3 6 An imposing and successful creation , th is bonn et-top desk and bookcase has a convincing history in the Middletown section of th e valley and is probably the produ ct of a second-ge neration craftsman trained in the SpringfieldNorthampton shop tradition. The prospect door is replaced and th e gilding a later embellishment.

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C A T ALOG

13 7

Bonnet-top desk and bookcase Probably Springfield or Enfield, I78o-I795 Probablyfirst owned by Simeon Field of Enfield Location unknown

This desk and bookcase lacks a blocked facade and is the only one in the Springfield-Northampton style without vine carving on the pilasters. Very likely the maker was a second-generation craftsman wh o had limited carving skill. A 1937 letter by a descendant traces ownership of this desk and bookcase to James Dixon (1814-73), a Connecticut Senator and close friend of Abraham Lincoln. Dixon hailed from Enfield, just south of the state line from Springfield. Among his ancestors his maternal grandfather, Simeon Field (1731-1801), is the likely first owner. Simeon married Margaret Raynolds (1742-96) in 1763 in Longmeadow (then the southern parish of Springfield) shortly before opening a medical practice in Enfield. I The Storrs desk and bookcase (cat. 134) has a history in Longmeadow and probably dates from the late 1780s, a plausible date for thi s desk as well. The cabinetmaker may have had his shop in Enfield, Springfield, or a nearby town. S INGULAR FEATU RES I>

Pilasters without vine carving

I>

Relatively plain bookcase interior has a single vertical divider

I>

D ovetail pins at the bott om of the bookcase do not protrude

and three fixed shelves, all with shaped edges significantly I>

Front of the top desk drawer does not extend laterally to cover the muntin for the loper opening

Dimension s: overall H 82Y8"; upp er case H 41.'j1g" W 36Y8" D 12"; lower case H 4o:j4" W 371'8" D 20:j4 " Materials: cherry with eastern wh ite pin e Condition notes: one finial original; brasses replaced Publication: Skinner, sale 1980 (February 27, 2000), lot 124 HCFS 376

C AT A LO G I 3 7 This bonnet-top desk and bookca se, with a flat facade and simple flutes in th e pilasters, is much plainer th an catalog 136. It s constru ction, however, is typical of the Springfield-Northampton style.

SPRINGFIELD-NORTHAMPTON

STYLE

A copy of the letter is in th e HCF S files. Simeon Field's son Edward (1777-1840) owned HCFS 184 (see cat. 85), a Chapi n school high chest, possibly also made in or near E nfield.

1.

JOI

CATALOG

IJ8

D esk and bookcase with scrolled p edim ent Probably H ampshire County, Massachusetts, q8S-I8oo Wadsworth A theneum Museum ofA rt, I9p· I07, gift of M rs. Ethel M e C. Scott, Mr. John G. M cCullough, and Mrs. H eaphy

This desk and bookcase vividly illustrates the design cha nges that occurred north and south of the Connecticut-Massachusetts line between 1785 and 1795. It shares with a high chest and two oxbow bureaus the basic design and construction features of the Springfield-Northampton style, modified to suit the tastes of the 1790S (see cats. 132, 143). Shells are eliminated. Blocked facades and bracket feet are supplanted by oxbow facades and ogee feet. Yet under the skin, the techniques of case construction remain much the same. A related example, another Springfield-Northampton desk and bookcase made about the same time , presents another interesting mix of new and old feature s. The desk shares with catalog 138 a fashionable oxbow facade and ogee feet, but its interior is of an older style- it is blocked and turned split spindles flank the prospect. I

SINGU LAR

FEATU RES

e- Sea horse cartouche, a rare survivor, is attached to center plinth with a Z-shaped iron plate (similar to Eliphalet Chapin shop practice, cats. 59, 62, 68) t> Cornice molding is elevated above the case sides about W', and

a strip of wood along the elevated portion conceals the dovetails joining the case top to the sides (as on cat. 140)

c- Op en pediment-no molding strip above the bookcase doors e- Bookcase doors have simple rectangular panels without flanking columns or pilasters

c- Desk interior, although organized like others in the group, lacks blocking of the drawer fronts and decorative spindles on the false document drawer fronts; recess for the prospect door panel has no evidence that one was ever fitted; valances were also omitted t> Abrupt transition of the facade shaping, from flat to oxbow, in

the top drawer of the desk; very little rounding of the "swells"

D imensions: overall H 92W '; upp er case W 38" D IOlA"; lower case W 40" D 2Ih" Materials: cherry with eastern whi te pin e Condition notes: cartouche original; pediment never had side plinths or finials; brasses replaced HCFS 139

Location un know n; Sotheby's, sale 6483 (October 24, 1993), lot 272; G eorge Subkoff advertiseme nt, Antiques 156, no. 4 (O ctober 1999) : 450 . The boo kcase section has had restoration including 1.

replaced door panels .

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C A T A L OG I 3 8 T his desk and bookcase with balls pediment , oxbow facade, and ogee feet typifies the tall case furniture cabinetmakers produced in the 1790S and, along with catalogs 132, 140, 14oB, document s the endurance of th e Springfield-North ampt on school. The sea horse cartouche is a holdover of rococo design.

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303

CATALOG

139

Bonn et-top cbest- on- cbest Probably Springfield or Northampton, q8S-I79S, p ossibly q88 P robablyfirst owned by Phebe Bliss andJ ust in L ombard of Springfield Privately owned

Between 1785 and 1795 bureaus and chests-o n-chests began disp lacing dr essing tables and high chests as fashionable con tainers for household storage in H artford and H ampshire counties. The full bonnet in combinatio n with trad it ion al shell and fini als link this ches t-o n-ches t to earlie r forms; however, it s maker used rope- turne d quarter columns in stead of carved pilasters and created a lower case th at has mor e drawers (and storage space) th an th e base of a high chest offered. D etails of its construction are typical of th e Springfield- No rt hampton style. The tigh t docu mentatio n for thi s piece (augmente d by similarly firm data for th e Storrs desk and bookcase (cat. 134), argues stro ngly for an active shop in Springfield produ cing Springfield-Northampton style objects in th e 1780s . This ches t-on- ches t wa s mo st likely made for Phebe Bliss (1757-98) and Ju stin Lomb ard (1759-1841) who married in Springfield on Jul y 6, 1788. Both came from Springfield, and th eir families had no close connections elsewhere. Lombard had bu ilt his hou se in 1786, and thi s chest-on-chest remained th ere until the contents were auctioned in 1893.1 A very similar bonnet-top chest-on-c hest has ropeturned quarter columns on only th e upp er case. Its first owners, L ucy King (1753 -1831) and Daniel Norton (1751-1814), both of Suffield, married in 1790, a plausible date for the piece. D aniel's estate inventory lists a "b eaureau " value d at $19, an da" case 0f d raws" at $17. 2 Given t he high valuations, th is ches t-o n-ches t is likely the "beaureau," and th e high chest (cat. 129D), also a Springfield-Northa mpton product, is th e "case of draws." Dimensions: overall H 86Vs"; upper case H 50" W 381!z" D 18"; lower case H 36Vs" W 41" D 191,4" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine C ondition notes: brasses original; upp er part (corkscrew) of finials replaced

CA T A LOG I 3 9 The full bonn et and carved shell of early Sprin gfield-Northampton style high chests are here planted on a newer form : a chest- on-che st case adorned with rope-turned quarter column s, features that emerged in the mid 1780s. Alth ough the maker abandoned the blocked facade, he retained the early bracket feet. W ritten in graphi te on a drawer bottom is "Bought at the Lombard Sale / Sprin gfield, Mass. May 15, 1893 / by H.C. Rowley ... "; for notice of the sale, see Springfield R epublican, May II, 1893, pp. 9- 12. 1.

2. Location unkn own; assessment based on photo inspection only; see Bissell, Furn iture in Suffield. pI. 29.

Publication : Skinner, sale 1625 (January 15, 1995), lot IIO; Anthony Werneke advertisement, Catalogue ofA ntiqu es and Fine Art 2, no. 6 (W inter 2002): 42-43 HCFS 199

J04

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CATALOG

140

Chest-an-chest with scrolled p edim ent Probably Northampton or Springfield, I78S-I79S, possibly I79I Probablyfirst owned by Abigail Kingsley and Joseph Hunt B reck ofNorthampton Connecticut Valley Historical Museum, p.22I

The design update that occurred around 1790-the shift from full bonnet to pierced scrolled pediment and from either straight or blocked facade with bracket feet to an oxbow with ogee feet-r-was dramatic. Undoubtedly, there was a period of overlap, with full bonnets being made in the 1790S, and balls pediments appearing in the late 1780s (cat. 67), but the likely production dates of 1787 for the Lombard high chest (cat. 139) and 1791 for thi s newfangled chest-en-chest suggest that the changes occurred in fairly short order. An early twentieth-century label attached to the backboard states that the chest-on-chest belonged to Rach el Breck Hooker (1792-1879) of Longmeadow. Rachel's parents, Abigail Kingsley (1766-1846) and SINGULAR FEATURES I> Pierced balls pediment with pinwheel-carved rosettes I> Fluted cylindrical side plinth s attached with round tenons I> Center plinth has an applied triglyph with guttae squashed in

above the center drawer I> Cornice molding elevated about

\4" above the case top, with a

separate strip covering the adjacent row of dovetails (as in cat. 138) I> Fluted, rather than rope-turned, quarter columns I> Two-part midmolding attached to top and outside of the

lower case

C AT A L O G 1 40 The signature Springfield -Northampton shell with a raised bo rder and a recess below reflects the heritage of thi s chest-on-c hest, The small, fluted, cylindrical side plin th s, and fluted quarter colum ns are a fashion able update. The ringand-bail bra sses are typi cal of th e late 1780s and 1790S. The cartouch e and finials are replaced.

S P R I N G FIE L D - NOR T HAM P TON

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305

C AT A LOG I 4 0 A The base construction is typical of ogee foot bureaus and chests-on-chests made in the SpringfieldNorthampton worksh op tradition. The faces of the splayed front feet are blind-dovetailed (indicated by the zigzag on the underside of the pad) . The knee bracket is shaped from a single piece. A sliding vertical dovetail secures the arched rear brace. Horizon tal and vertical glue blocks are in the standard places, and the vertical glue block is rounded at the top and squared at the bottom (as viewed from below).

C AT A L OG I 4 0 B This related chest-en-chest exhibits a fashionable balls pediment, a straight facade, rope-turned quarter columns, and splayed ogee feet. The trademark shell is preserved. The now-mi ssing center ornament most likely was a carved asymmetrical carto uche. Privately owned.

Joseph Hunt Breck (1766-1801), grew up in Northampton and married September I, I79!. As their oldest daughter, Rachel would have been likely to inherit the chest-on-chest. Alternatively it could have come from the family of her husband, George Hooker (1793-1884), whose parents Sarah Dwight (1761-1842) and John Hooker (1761-1829), both of Northampton, had also married in 179!. A related chest-on-chest, probably made at about the same time, differs mainly in details of decoration (cat. I40B). The cornice molding is flush with the case top, and the side plinths are cubical rather than cylindrical. I Dimension s: overall H Sih"; upp er case H 491,4" W 37¥s" D IS%"; lower case H 3S%" W 40" D 191,4"

Condition note s: cartou che and finials replaced; plinths and brasses original Exhibition: Amherst 1970; Connecticut Valley H istorical Museum 2001 Publications: "Valley Furn iture, Valley Tools: Antique Furniture from Springfield and the Connecticut River Valley," Antiques and the Arts Weekly 34, no. 3S (September 21, 2001): I; D owling, "E nigmatic Eliphalet Chapin," no. 72 HCFS 39 HCFS 60. Publi shed in Nutting, Furn iture Treasury, I: pl. 300; Malcolm Vaughan , "American Chippendale Furniture in Mrs. Garvan's Collection," Antiques 69, no. I (Janu ary 1956): 67, fig. 9; Leigh Keno advertisement, Antiques 142, no. I (July 1992): 12; H. L. Ch alfant advertisement, Main e Antiqu e Digest 27, no. II (November 1999): 7D ; G.K.S. Bush advertisement, A ntiques 15S, no. 5 (November 2000): 570 (showing a replaced cartouche).

1.

M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine

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CATALOG

141

Blockfront bureau table Probably Springfield or Northampton, I77S-I790 HistoricD eerfield, 97-42

This rare example of a form usually associated with Boston or Newport illu strates the influence those coastal cities had on the Springfield-Northampton style. In true Connecticut valley fashion, the cabinetmaker modified the form to suit local taste and practice. The proportions are quite different from coastal examples; the absence of a full-width top drawer leaves sizeable space between the two ranks of drawers. The architectural treatment of the recess resemble s that on the desks and bookcases, especially catalog 137. The design and construction of the case replicates that of blockfront desks and bureaus, making allowances for the recess and additional front feet. A related example is a bonnet-top "chest on bureau table. "! The upper case ha s vine -carved pilasters, a shell, and all the other attributes of a SpringfieldNorthampton high chest. The lower case appears identical to catalog I4I. The unusual design calls into question the assumption that the recess of a bureau table was intended to accommodate the knees of a writer when seated; this one provide s neither a shelf nor a writing surface. D imensions: H 29Yrt W 3IY'S" D IiA"; top 341!z" x I9¥.!" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine

C AT A L O G I 4 I This bureau table, or kneehole desk, is the only known C onnecticut valley example of thi s form. T he compact blockfront with bracket feet is Boston -inspired, but the table lacks the customary long drawer. The recess contains an architectural cornice, fluted pilasters, a tomb stone-shaped door, and base molding comparable to th ose on Springfield- Northampt on style bookcases. In other respects it is designed and constructed like that style's blockfront bureaus (see cat. 142).

Co ndition notes: feet reduced in height about I"; rear feet, molding around door, hinges, and brasses replaced Publications: Clearing H ouse Auction G alleries, Febru ary 21, 1986, lot 206j Peter Arkell and Robert Trent , "A New American Bureau Table," Maine Antique D igest 14, no. 10 (Oc tober 1986): 34-37C j Zea , Useful Improvements, Inn umerable Temp tat ions, fig. 63

S INGULA R FEATURES t>

Nonconforming top with softly rounded above-edge molding and notched front corners

t> Full-depth cherry subtop, as in a bureau, to which the back-

board is nailed and the top is screwed

H C FS 86

t> Terminations of the flutes in the pilasters are refined with con-

vex rounding; coved cornice and base moldings are applied 1. Privately owned; assessment based on photo inspection only; confirmation of the inte grity of the object in Philip Ze a to the authors, September 1991, HCFS files; see Nutting, Furniture T reasury, I: pl. 313; L ockwood, Colonial Furnitu re, j d ed. (19 26), p. 364, fig 31.

SPRINGFIELD-NORTHAMPTON

STYLE

over the shaft of the pilaster t> Inside the cabinet, the two fixed shelves are beaded on the

upper edge like a drawer side

3 07

CA T A LO G I 4 2 This handsome cherry blockfront bureau has a rail above the top drawer and a distin ctively shaped bracket foot that signal its Sprin gfield-Northampton origins.

J08

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CAT ALOG

142

Blockfront bureau Probably No rthamp ton or Springfield, I77S-I790 L ocati on unkn own

Blockfront bureaus without carved shells were more common in the Massachusetts part of the valley than in Connecticut, likely a reflection of their considerable popularity in the Boston area. This example closely resembles coastal Massachusetts models, but is distinguished as a Connecticut valley production by th e presence of Springfield-Northampton style design and construction features . Although blockfront furni tur e was common in coastal Massachusetts by the 1740s, the majority of Connecticut examples date a generation later, bracketed between the Benjamin Burnham-signed blockfront desk of 1769 (cat . 93) and the J ame s Higgins-signed shell- carved blockfront bureau of 1789 (cat. 117); most appear to have been made east of the river. This bureau is likely contemporaneous with the blockfront bureau table (cat. 141) and the blo ckfront desks and bookcases from the Springfield-Northampton shop tradition.' Key feature s that distingui sh Springfield- Northampton style blockfront bureaus from those originating in the Boston area are summarized in table 6.

TA B LE 6

Two related blockfront bureaus, both privatel y owned, are virtually identical; th ey atte st to th e remarkable quality and consistency and relatively large out put of this shop. ' Dimensions: H 321;2" W 32" D

17~ " ;

top 34J.A" x 193/s"

Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition note s: brasses original Publi cation s: John Kenn eth Byard advertiseme nt, Antiques 66, no. I (Jul y 1954): 7; Sotheby's, sale 3442 (Oc tober 21, 1972), lot 50; Bernard and S. D ean Levy, Catalog no. I (1974) , p. 13; Christie's, sale 6448 (Oc tober 10, 1987), lot 239; Soth eby's, sale 6957 (January 17-19, 1997), lot 1000 HCFS 281

Given the popularity of blockfront bureaus in coastal M assachusetts, production as early as th e 1760s is possible, althoug h convincing documentation is lacking.

1.

2. One, HCFS 315, has replaced brasses; see No rtheast Auctions, N ovemb er 2, 1997, lot 622. Not es on th e other related example are in the file for HCFS 315.

Distinguishing Features of Springfield-Northampton Style and Boston Area Blockfront Bureaus Springfield-Northampton Style

Boston Ar ea

Predominant primary wood

Ch erry

Mahogany

Top attachment

Screwed to full-depth subtop

Slidin g dovetail

Rail above top drawer

Front edge of subtop appears as rail

No rail

Dr awer divider attachment

Exposed dovetails

D ovetails concealed by facing strip

Base molding attachment

No giant dovetail

Giant dovetail in concave section

Shaping of bracket foot

Inward curve of inne r vertical edge;

Verti cal inn er edge without curve;

sho rt spur

spur of moder ate depth

Square-to-round shaping

Verti cal glue blocks,

of vertical glue blocks (see cat. 140A)

rounded or rectangular

Rear foot brace

Ar ched

Usually wedge-shape d

D rawer bott om: wood grain

Side-to-side

O ften front- to- back

Dr awer side molding

Bead on outside edge

Varies

Dr awer dovetail pins

Small, triangular

Vary in size and angle

Base construction

orientation

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CAT A LOG 14 3 This oxbow bureau with splayed ogee feet and inset quarter columns at first glance resembles those produ ced by Chapin schoo l cabinetmakers; however, features such as the quarter-column design and the shape of the feet signals its Springfie ld-Northa mpto n origin. The fancy stamped brasses are origi nal and date thi s bureau to the 1790S.

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143

C ATALOG

Oxbow bureau Probably Hampshire County, Massachusetts, I790- I8oo Priv ately owned

The close connection between th e Springfield-Northampton style and the Chapin scho ol is most apparent in th e ogee-foot oxbow bureau, th e format that dominated case furniture production in the Connecticut valley in the late 1780s and 1790S. The proportions, top rail, and splayed ogee feet are alike, and both shop traditi ons adopted the custom of embellishing the drawer side with a beaded outside edge, so even the mo st educated eyes need to look below th e surface of these pieces. Further complic atin g the issue is the fact that by the 1790S many cabinetmakers no longer adhered as strictly to the craft tradition s of earlier generation s, thu s blurr ing the differences between shops. For features th at distinguish thi s from contemporary Chapin school bureaus, see table 7. This bureau with original brasses from the 1790S demonstrates the persistence of the Springfield-Northampton shop tradition. The quarter-column design is similar to th at on the contemporaneous high chest (cat. 132) and chest-en-chest (cat. 140); the feet are like th ose on catalog 140. The coved under-edge molding of the top differs from the rounded above-edge molding used on earlier blockfront bureaus. T AB L E 7

Two related examples, both in private collections, are nearly identical to each other.I These oxbow bureaus do not have quarter columns at th e front corner s and thus look wider than catalog 143, but th e dimensions of all three are quite close. The exposed drawer-divider dovetails help differentiate th em from Chapin school bureaus, in which th e dividers are attached with concealed double tenons. The rear foot brace on one of the related examples has a backward splay that corresponds with the outward splay of the front and sides. D imensions: H 32%" W 38%" D q ¥"; top 397'8" x 20W' Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: brasses original Publication: Sotheby's, sale 7164 (June 19, 1998), lot 2062 H CFS 346

H CFS 379, location unknown ; published in Sotheby's, sale 7420 (Ja nuary 21-22, 2000), lot 697; brasses replaced. The other is HCFS 106, Lyman Allyn Museum 1937-4-126, which has the bottom 3" of the feet as well as the brasses replaced. 1.

Distinguishing Features of Chapin School and Springfield-Northampton Style Oxbow B ureaus

Top edge molding Qu arter columns

C hapin School

Sprin gfield-Northampton Style

Rounded edge over cove

Fillet over cove

Four flutes, rounded terminations

Three flutes, square terminations;

extending into capitallbase;

tall blocks above and below columns

short blocks above and below columns D rawer divider attachment to sides

D ouble tenons

Expose d dovetails

Backboards

Set in grooves in case sides

Naile d to rabbets in case sides

Ogee feet

Splayed; front feet may have everted flange

Splayed; rear feet shaped and finished in back

(when no columns are present)

on inne r vertical edge; rear feet unfini shed in back and flush with case side Base construction Dr awer dovetails

Quadrant base; rear brace attached

No quadrant base; shaped vertical glue blocks;

with row of small dovetails

arched rear brace attached in a sliding dovetail

D ovetail pin s of average size and little angle

Narrow trian gular dovetail pin s; dovetails protrude in back

S P R I N G FIE L D - NOR T H AM P TON

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JII

o Combinations and Variations

In th e decade after the American Revolution, at least a dozen of th e town s in Hartford County had a pop ulation of 2,000 or more.' Ongoing pro sperity spurred a steadily growing demand for more personal possessions, including furniture. The entrenched craft tradition kept pace and produced well-trained cabinetmakers and joiners willin g and able to meet this need. Before th e war, mo st had worked in the Wethersfield style and produ ced competently made but undistinguished furni ture that is attributable to a town or make r only if it bears an inscripti on or is accompanied by other docume ntation or famil y history. By the 1780s furniture from th ese secondary workshops shows growing awareness of th e C onnecticut valley's three other major style cen ters. C raftsmen in both valley and inland town s produced local variations by selectively combining features from th e Wethersfield, Chapin, Colchester, and Sprin gfield-Northampton styles, ju st as cabinetmakers in th ose C onnecticut Valley style centers in turn had adap ted elements from cosmopolitan centers- Boston and coastal M assachu setts, Philadelphia, Rhode Island. The entries th at follow provide a fascinating opportunity to observe the elusive process of style dissemina tion at a sub- regional level, embodied here in furniture from four specific localities: the Connecticut River towns of Hartford , Glastonbury, and Suffield as well as the interior region of the Farmington Valley(a large territory north and west of Hartford and Windsor, including the towns of Farmington, Simsbury, Granby, and Winchester). The style variations created by different combinations of elements adapted from th e four major regional style centers afford furth er testim ony to the ability of Connecticut craftsmen to supply local consumers with innovative and distinctive furn iture products. A small group of furn iture from Hartford exemplifies a slightly different pattern: a combination of Boston design elements and W ethersfield style decoration and construc tion techniques. Like the Boston-

J I2

inspired walnut-veneered group produced in H artford in th e late 1730S(cats. 11-13), thi s local variation appears to have found little favor outside of th e famil y of wealthy Hartford merchant Samuel Talcott (1711-97), with whom all known example s are associated. Dating to about 1765-75, the group is nonetheless notable for being among the earliest uses of blocked facades in th e Connecticut valley, possibly predating the Colchestermade Benjamin Burnham blo ckfront desk of 1769 (cat. 93). Gla stonbury, located east of Wethersfield and northwest of Colchester, produced two distinct local style variations, possibly originating in different sections of th e prosperou s rural town." The Stratton group, dating from the I770S and I780s, strongly echoes Wethersfield furniture , with additional elements drawn from Colchester and even Springfield-Northampton production; it probably originated in th e western section of town, near th e Connecticut River. The Isaac Tryon group, in contrast, may have come from the inland village of Eastbury ; dating between 1770 and 1795. It is more closely related to Colchester style production, with selected Wethersfield and Chapin style features. Furniture from Suffield, located on the west side of the Connecticut River between Windsor and Sprin gfield, is less closely related to the major valley style centers, perhaps reflecting a more entrenched local tradition ) The Suffield carver group is notable for its distinctive shells as well as its predilection for th e deskon-frame, a form also popular with Wethersfield style cabinetmakers. Tw o additional piec es have stro ng Suffield histor ies and share some features with th e Suffield carver group in addition to elements associated with Wethersfield and Chapin style furniture. Furniture from th e Farmingt on Valley includes a small group associated with th e village of Farmington, displaying a combination of W ethersfield and Chapin style features. Individual pieces from Granby and

C O M B I N AT I O N S

&

V ARIATION S

Hartford

'Talcott group

Simsbury (both settled as part of the original town of Windsor) incorporate design and cons truction elements from a variety of sources. The final example, a formal straight-front bureau from th e town of Winchester, provides a surprisingly adep t expression of Connecticut valley styles, despite its origins in th e remote hills of northwestern Connecticut. 1. These populous towns were Chatham, Colche ster, East Haddam, East Windsor, Farmington, Glastonbury, H artford, Hebron, Middletown, Simsbury, Suffield, Wethersfield, and Windsor; Populations of Conne cticut Towns, 1756- 1820, Historical and Gen ealogical Resources, Conne cticut State Library; see also http:// www.sots.ct.us/RegisterM anual/SectionVII/SecVIITOC .htm.

T he earliest examples of blockfront furniture made in Hartford itself are likely several piece s made circa 1765-75 by an uni dent ified cabine tmaker for the family of wealthy land owner and merchant Samuel Talcott. What sets the Talcott furniture apar t is their maker's very self-conscious imitation of Boston prototypes and concurrent reliance on local woods and Wethersfield style constructio n methods and decorative details. Whether th e skillfully made Talcott group pieces were th e work of a local craftsman copying a Boston prototype, or a Boston-trained emigrant to Hartford, remains undetermined, although th e joinery techniques, such as drawer assembly, argue for th e former.

2. Or iginally the eastern parish of Wethersfield, Gla stonbury became a separate town in 1696.

3. T he western section of Springfield became the town of West Springfield in 1774.

H ART F O R D :

TAL COT T

G R 0 U P

]I]

CATALOG

144

Bonnet- top desk an d bookcase Probably H artford, I76S-Q 7S' possibly Q67 Probablyfirst owned by Samuel Talcott, f r., Priv ately owned

ofHartford

Like an earlier walnut-veneered high chest and dressing table (cats. II &12) believed to have belonged to his parents, Mabel W yllys and Samuel Talcott, this desk and bookcase probably owned by Samuel Talcott, Jr. (1740-98), combines high-style Boston design features with traditional Connecticut valley construction tech niques. The immediate prototype is likely the flamboyant Boston -made desk and bookcase (cat. 144D) owned by wealthy Middletown merchant, Richard Al sop (1726-76).1 Notable similarities include the conception of th e bonnet, dentil molding, pilasters with C orinthian capitals, interior layout, blocked facade, and claw-and -ball (rather than ogee) front feet. Talcott's Hartford version shuns the opulence of Boston and send s a strong regional message of affluence and power. It has a restrained Wethersfield style bonnet with a closed back, tombstone-paneled doors, simple raised shells on the interior drawers, and unembellished knees and feet. Absent are the more elaborate orna me ntal details found on the Alsop de sk and book case- carved rosettes, eagle cartouche, glazed doors with scalloped panels, blocked desk interior, carved knees, hairy-paw feet, and brass carrying handles. Samuel Talcott, Jr. (1740-98), was the son of wealthy Hartford merchant Samuel Talcott, Sr. (I7II-97), who likely purchased the desk and bookcase along with the related bureau and chest-on-chest on the occasion of his son's marriage to Abigail Ledyard (1751-1818) of H artford on D ecember 24, 1767.2 The younger Talcott was a 1757 graduate of Yale, but may have led a troubled life; in his father's will he is described as insane. He died a year after his father. The desk and bookcase was valued at $30 when the estate was probated. It remained in the hands of Talcott descendants until purchased by the present owner in 1989) Related examples include a chest-on-chest and a blockfront bureau also owned by Abigail Ledyard and Samuel Talcott, Jr. 4 The chest-on-chest has many of

]£4

the same design features as the desk and bookcase, including the bonnet, finial s, blocking, feet, and brasses. The blocking extends upward through the upper case, an uncommon treatment in the absence of shells on the top drawer. The bureau has the same brasses as the chest-on-chest and desk and bookcase, and two distinctive features associated with Boston design-no visible rail above the top drawer and a relatively long spur on the knee bracket. Dimensions: overall H 93lh"; upper case H 50" W 371J1" D IIW'; lower case H 43lh" W 39lh" D 22*" M aterials: cherry with tulip poplar and eastern white pine Cond ition notes: base of left pilaster restored; finials and brasses original, except the prospect door keyhole escutcheon and hinges HCFS 50

1. Alsop was a neighbor and friend of M atth ew Talcott (1713-1802), younge r broth er of Samuel, Sr., so it is reasonable to assume that Samuel was familiar with Alsop's mahogany desk and bookcase. It is listed in Alsop's 1776 estate inventory as " I Book case with glass doors (mahogany) $50"; published Sack, American Antiques, 1:85, no. 261.

A numb er of the elder Samuel Talcott 's possessions survive, testifying to his tastes as a consumer over several decades. These includ e a tankard made by Boston silversmith Jacob Hurd (C H S Museum 1982.68.1); a Qpeen Anne style high chest and dressing table, prob ably dating to th e time of his 1739 marriage (cats. II, 12); a mahogany tall clock case, ca. 1770 (cat. 43B); an oversize corner chair (privately owned) used with cat. 144; and his fulllength, seated portrait painted by Ralph Earl in 1792, when the sitter was 81 years old. For similar chairs with owl's-eye splats, attributed to Norwich cabinetmaker Felix Huntington (1749- 1822), see Trent , "N ew Lond on County Joined Chairs," nos. 51-53; for Talcott's portrait, see Kornhauser, Ralph Earl, no. 42. 2.

3. In the mid-nineteenth centur y, family member s began referring to thi s piece as the "Go vernor Talcott Secretary," claiming that it had been given to Samuel's grandfather, Gov. Joseph Talcott (1667-1741) by the people of Conn ecticut in gratitude for his services. T he governor's estate inventory lists no desk and bookcase,

COMBINATIONS

&

V ARIATIONS

S IGN IF ICANT

o

I ND E X

FEATU RES

Bonnet is closed in back and constructed like those in the Willard group of Wethersfield, with the exceptions of the upper

o Shells on the two outside drawers are raised and carved in relief o Convex blocking of the desk facade is squared at the corners;

courses of the pilaster columns and the square, capped side

like that on catalog 99

o Front of top drawer overlaps the loper muntin s, as in the

plinths (in the Boston manner)

o Finials have a corkscrew-turned upper part and an urn- shaped lower part, a design more common in coastal Ma ssachusetts than in Con necticut

Springfield-N orth ampton group

o o

o Vase-shaped center plinth is unembellished o Cornice with a dentil course closes the pediment and wraps

with a facing strip, in the Massachusetts manner (a technique also used in the Calvin W illey and James Higgins groups of Colchester, see cats. ro8- n 6, n7-n9)

around the bookcase sides

o Tombstone-paneled rectangular bookcase doors have a scribed bead on three sides

o

o

o o

No giant dovetail joins the base molding to the bottom board Front and rear feet are dissimilar, as in the Lord and James H iggins groups of Colchester. Claw-and- ball front feet have

Architectural fluted pilasters with elaborately carved Corinthi an capitals (unique in H artford County furnitu re) flank the tomb-

rounded knuckles surrounding a flattened ball; ogee rear feet

stone panels (cat. I4¥-)

have an unusual recessed suppor ting pad. Spur on the bracket is of medium depth , as in coastal Massachusetts (cat. I44C)

Bookcase interior has valances, identical to those of the desk interior, over the pigeonholes, fixed and movable shelves, and

o

Inside face of drawer front conforms to the blocking, as does the front edge of the drawer bott om. Grain of drawer bottom

two rows of drawers

o Desk interior, laid out in the Newport manner, has a central

runs side to side; the drawer is assembled in the conventional

prospect flanked by split spindles on blind document drawers,

Conne cticut valley manner rather than the Boston manner

a pair of pigeon holes, a tier of three drawers, and an unusual

o Dr awer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are of average angle

matching quarter spindle in each corner (cat. 1448)

o

Backboards are nailed in rabbets in the case sides and top Dr awer dividers are dovetailed to the case sides and covered

Shell-carved prospect door conceals a compartment with valance drawer, pigeon hole, and drawer; no secret compartments

and the design of th is piece dates it to at least a qu art er century after his death. 4. D exter, Graduates ofYale, 2: 498. The younger Samuel Talc ott's inventory, taken ju st a year after his father's, lists both a bure au at s6 and a mahoga ny bureau at SIS (possibly th e chest-o n-ches t), The chest-on-chest is in th e Milwaukee Public Museum; th e location of th e bureau is unknow n. Both were exhibited at th e Conn ecticut Tercentenary I935, nos. 224, 247. Lik e the desk and bookcase, th e chest- on -ch est and bure au stayed in the Talcott

H ART FOR D:

TAL COT T

G R 0 U P

hom estead until an I886 distr ibut ion between Sarah A . Jones Talcott, the wid ow of Thom as G . Talcott (I8I9-70), and her brother-in-law John L. Talcott (I8I2-87), grandson to Samuel, J r. The ches t-o n-ches t and bureau rem ain ed with Sarah and Thom as's descendants until th ey were sold in th e I960s; the desk and bookcase and corne r chai r rem ained with Joh n's family until I989·

]IS

CA T A LOG I 4 4 Using cherry, rather than mahogany, and combining Boston and Connecticut design and construction element s, the maker of the Talcott desk and bookcase skillfully created an archite ctural piece that balances form and decoration. The corkscrew finials, richly carved Corinthian capitals topping fluted pilasters, blocked facade, and clawand-ball feet are based on Massachusetts prototypes, in contrast to the Wethersfield style bonnet and raised tombstone door panels.

JI6

COM BIN A T ION S

&

V A R I A T ION S

CAT A LOG 1 4 4 A The expertly carved Co rinthian capital atop a fluted pilaster on the Talco tt desk and bookcase echoes a treatm ent used occasionally on C on necticut valley doorways but not otherwise seen on furniture in the region.

CAT A L O G 1 4 4 B The int erior has quart er columns tucked into the left and right corners ju st above th e writing surface (a feature otherwise observed only on the hoods of clock cases). The turnings match the applied spindles on th e false document drawers. The shells on the top side dr awers are relief carved.

CAT A L O G 1 4 4 c The claw-a nd- ball feet in front and rear ogee feet of the Talcott desk are unlike th ose on furniture from Eliphalet Chapin's shop or th e Colc hester groups. The ball and the talons are rounded and th e knu ckles not articulated. The recessed base of th e rear foot is an uncommon feature. The spur on the bracket of the ogee foot is shaped in the Massachu sett s manner, a feature also found on Lord gro up furniture in the Colchester style.

H ART FOR D:

TAL COT T

G R 0 U P

CAT A LOG 1 4 4 D M ade in Boston circa 1760-70 for Rich ard Alsop of M iddl etown , thi s eight and one half feet tall mahogany desk and bookcase likely served as the model for Samuel Talcott's H artford-made counterpart (catalog 144). The Alsop example is conspicuously more osten tatious, with gilded ornament, a scalloped gilt fillet around th e mirror plate on the bookcase doors, a blocked desk interior, hairy paw feet, and brass carrying handles on both bookcase and desk sections. D etroit In stitute of Arts, 6 6 . 13 1; Founders Society Pur chase, G eneral Membership Fund, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund , Gibbs-Williams Fund, and fund s from Louis H amburger.

JIJ

C A T A LOG 145 Blockfront bureau Probably Hartford, q6o-q70, possibly q6S Possiblyfirst owned by Ruth Belden of Wethersfield and John Stoughton ofEast Windsor Privately own ed

This bureau is another example of Boston-inspired high-style blockfront case furniture made for the Hartford area elite in the q60s or 1770S' The maker imitated Boston design but used local materials and construction methods. Its many similarities to the Talcott desk and bookcase (cat. 144) point to the same maker. This bureau has a history of ownership among the female descendants (and friends) of Gen. Samuel Wyllys (1738-1823) of Hartford, who in 1777 married the widow Ruth Belden Stoughton (174rr807); however, Ruth's January 22, 1765, marriage to John Stoughton (1735-66), of Windsor's eastern parish , provides the most likely date for this bureau. Ruth's father had died in 1761, and her court-appointed guardian, Samuel Talcott, Sr., of Hartford (likely purchaser of catalog 144) may have commissioned the bureau for her wedding.' Wyllys's first wife, Lucy Brewster (b. 1745) of Middletown, whom he married in 1764, cannot be ruled out as a source for this bureau. C AT A LOG I 4 5 The absence of a visible rail above th e top drawer gives th is early ogee-foot blockfront bureau a coastal Massachusetts appearance. It is similar in both design and construction to blockfront furniture owned by Samuel Talcott, Jr. (cat. 144), and is likely by the same maker. The brasses are inappropriate replacements.

S IGN IFICANT INDEX FEATU RES

o No visible rail above the top drawer (as in coastal Massachusetts design); top is screwed to a subtop, which is concealed by overlapping top drawer front

o Drawer dividers are attached to the case sides with dovetails,

Dimension s: H 32" W 32¥S" D 19I,4"; top 35%" X 21%" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pin e and tulip poplar (drawer sides) Condition note s: brasses replaced HCFS 360

I. Samuel W yllys's aunt was M abel W yllys Talcott, wife of Samuel Talcott, Sr. Ruth's half brother, Thomas Belden of W eth ersfield, owned some of th e finest Wethersfield furniture to survive, see cats. 18, 19. Genealogy of Belden family, ms., CHS Museum Library (copy HCFS files); copy of zoth-ce ntury ownership history, HCFS files.

which are concealed with a facing strip, as in catalog 144

o

Tall ogee feet; no astragal molding on edge of pad; atypically shaped bracket

o Triangular rear foot brace attached with a sliding dovetail, as in catalog 144

o Tops of drawer sides are rounded; dovetail pins are of average angle, similar to those of catalog 144

JI8

COMBINATIONS

&

VARIATIONS

Glastonbury

J tratton

Glastonbury, which had a population of 2,346 in 1782, lay on the east bank of the Connecticut River across from Wethersfield, to which it was connected by a ferry, and ten miles northwest of Colchester. I The furniture from Glastonbury displays a blend of Colchester and Wethersfield stylistic features . The two distinct shops or shop traditions that flourished there were probably operating in geographically separated locales. An unidentified master near the Connecticut River turned out furniture that is close to Wethersfield in design; this furniture is labeled the Stratton group, after the likely first owners of catalog 146, the most securely documented of the furniture. Cabinetmaker Isaac Tyron (1742-1823), to whom much furniture has been attributed over the years (see cat. ISO), established his shop in the eastern section of the town, known as Eastbury. The objects meeting the criteria for attribution to this group all reveal the strong influence of the Colchester style: steeply arched bonnets with carved rosettes, elaborately carved shells, rope-turned columns, and claw-and-ball feet.

The Stratton group of high chests and dressing tables exhibits a distinctive blend of Wethersfield and Colchester features. Its makers adhered closely to the classical proportions of Wethersfield style bonnet-top high chests and dressing tables, but on the apron replaced Wethersfield's cyma curves with the flattened arch of the Colchester style. They eschewed rosettes, column s, and other elaborate decoration, and carved simple but elegant shells whose perimeter extends slightly more than 180 making the shells taller than they are wide. Most of the index characteristics are closer to tho se of Wethersfield than of Colchester, which suggests a shop located in the villages of Glastonbury Center or South Glastonbury, both located along the Connecticut River and near Wethersfield. Notably, one bonnettop high chest has a secure history in the Stratton family of South Glastonbury (cat. 146). Construction characteristics are less consistent within this group than in many others. This is especially true in the drawer dovetailing, which varie s from piece to piece, and even within the same piece (cat. 146). Because the sample size is small, it is not possible to determine whether the lack of consistency indi cates that the Stra tton group was made at more than one shop or that there were multiple craftsmen at work in the same shop .

I. By contrast Wethersfield had 3,733 residents, and Colchester had 3,365,

GLASTONBURY:

STRATTON

GROUP

0

,

group

SIGNIFICANT

INDEX

FEATURES:

CATS.

146-149

Construction

D esign and D ecoration

o _Bonnets have a broken

o

arch pediment with the cornice molding

o

extending about 6" into the bonnet cavity (as in the Willard

white pine as a secondary wood (Brown group of M iddleto wn

group of Wethersfield)

also made with yellow pine)

o

Bonnet cavity is open in back (as in the John Roberts group of Hartford)

o

o o

Vase-shaped center plinth is unembellished (as in the Wilcox

consists of bonnet skin and floor of the bonnet cavity. Under side

grou p of Middletown)

of the bonnet skin can be seen throu gh the drawer openings on

Side finials are mounted on capped cubical plinths (as in the

each side. This technique was used in coastal M assachusetts but

John Robert s group and the Colchester style)

seldom in Conne cticut

o o

Single short rectangular drawers flank the upper -case shell

top backboard covers the top third of th e case and back of the

Distinctive carved shells curve inward at the base; the vertical

bonn et (except the square cutout )

rays are longer and gradually shorten as they approa ch, and then

o

Drawer dividers are attached with exposed dovetails, visible from the front; muntins are dovetailed through the drawer divider

Flattened arches on the front and side aprons (as in Colchester style); drop pendants or inverted stylized "tulips" between the flattened arches of the front apron (see cat. 147)

o

Full-depth dustboardlsupport below the top row of drawers Upper-case backboards are nailed in rabbets in the sides. The

Brasses are aligned vertically

go beyond , the horiz ontal base line (see cat. 146)

o

High-chest bonnet constructed with a "hanging box" (see glossary). No full-width top board for the upper case-cover

drawer (as in the Willard group of Wethersfield)

o o

Cherry as prim ary wood; yellow pine used in addition to eastern

H eavy cabriole legs; notched knee returns applied to the front

o o

Upper-case drawer runners are nailed to the case sides Top s of the drawer sides are rounded (as in Wethersfield); dovetail pins vary from piece to piece

of th e apron

o

Cup -shaped feet; supporting pads have vertical sides

320

COM BIN A T ION S

&

V A R I A T ION S

CATALOG I46 Bonn et-top high chest Probably Glastonbury, I77o-I790, p ossibly I786 Probablyfirst ow ned by Mary H ollister and Samu el St ratton ofGlastonbury Yale Un iv ersity Art Gallery, Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, I9J O.244J

The signature piece for the Stratton group, this high chest possesses a secure history in Glastonbury. The upper-case design is similar to the Willard group of Wethersfield, while the flattened-arch apron and relatively straight legs are Colchester style traits-an elegant combination that distinguishes the group.

Although drawer construction differs in the upper and lower cases, nothing else suggests a "marriage"; the drawers were probably assembled by two different craftsmen in the same shop. Dovetail pins on th e upper-case drawers are small triangles with a wide angle, and long coarse kerfs; in the lower case th e pins are much larger and the kerfs shorter and finer. The probable first owners, Mary H ollister (1764-I840) and Samuel Stratton (1758-I807), both of South Gla stonbury, married on July I3, I786. The inventory of Samuel's estate lists a "case of draws " valued at $5. The high chest was inherited by their daughter, M ehitable Dayton (Mrs . Ezra; 1787-I892), from whom Irving W. Lyon purchased it in I877.1 A virtually identical bonnet-top high chest is also made of cherry and has nearly the same dim ensions. The brasses are placed high on the drawers.2 Dimensions: overall H 80%"; upp er case H 4S" W 3S1,2" D 17%"; lower case H 3S%" W 37lh" D 18lh" M aterials: cherry with eastern wh ite pine and yellow pine (one draw er back) C ondition not es: one side finial, drop pendant s, and brasses original Publi cations: W ard, A merican Case Furniture, no. 144 ; Kirk, Early A merican Furniture, fig. IS

ncrs lIS 1.

W ard, A merican Case Furn it ure, no. 144.

2 . L ocation unknown; assessment based on photo inspection only; see Sack, A merican A nti ques, 2:464, no. II43.

CAT A L OG I 4 6 The bonnet shaping, drawer configuration, and sparse decoration of th e Stratton family high chest are characteristi c of W ethe rsfield; the cubical side plinth s and flattenedarch apron shaping are found in C olchester. The result is restrained but highly successful. Two elements are trademarks of the Stratton group: a shell that curves inward at its base, so that the vertical rays are longer than th e horizontal rays; and a notch ed knee return applied to the front of the apron.

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G R 0 U P

32I

]22

COM BIN A T ION S

&

V A R I A T ION S

CATALOG

14 7

Bonnet- top high chest Probably Glastonbury , £770-£790, possibly £78I Probablyfirst owned by Elizabeth Williams and E z ekiel Porter Belden of Wethersfield Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Bayou Bend Collection, B.28.I, g ift ofMiss Ima Hogg

The principal design difference between this high chest and the Stratton family high chest (cat. 146) occurs in the front and side aprons. This one has stylized inverted tulips, instead of drop pendants, and the sides of the flattened arches are ogee shaped. This type of apron shaping is similar to Springfield-Northampton style furniture, as are the notched knee returns and open bonnet; these features suggest that a Massachusettstrained cabinetmaker worked in this shop. The most likely first owners were Elizabeth Williams (1756- 89) and Ezekiel Porter Belden (1756-1824) who -. married on September 26, 1781. Both were from Wethersfield, but Glastonbury was only a short ferry ride away. Ezekiel Belden's estate inventory lists a "high case of drawers" in the "North Chamber" valued at $4.25. This high chest remained in the Belden family homestead in Wethersfield until 1913, together with the high chest and dressing table owned by Ezekiel's parents, Abigail Porter and Thomas Belden and the cheston-che st owned by Ezekiel's sister Mary Belden Butler (cats. 18, 19, 168).1 Three related examples exhibit similar apron shaping and inverted tulip drops: a bonnet-top high chest, a flat-top high chest that has six graduated long drawers in the upper case, and a flat-top high chest of similar design with a five-drawer upper case."

SI NGU LA R

bottom t> Drawer side is rounded on top; dovetail pins are closely spaced

and of average size and angle

Dimensions: overall H 79¥.!"j upper case H 44¥.!" W 353.4" D I67's"; lower case H 35" W 3i .4" D I8Vs" Materials: cherry with eastern white pin e and yellow pine (drawer bottoms) Condition notes: finials and brasses original Publications: Lockwood, Colonial Furniture, I : 95, fig. 92j Warren, Bayou Bend, no. 69j Warren, Brown et al., American D ecorat iv e A rts, no. F79 HCFS 299

Lockwood, Colonial Furni tu re, I: 95, fig. 92, posits Ezekiel Porter Belden's grandfather, Ezekiel Porter (1707-75) , as the first owner ; however, the bonnet-top design indic ates th at the high chest likely postdate s the latter's death. H is son-i n- law Thomas Belden owned only one high chest, the mahogany one at cat. 18. 1.

Assessments based on photo inspections only; locations of all three unkn own. Ardi s Leigh advertisement, Antiques 55, no. 5 (M ay 1957): 4!Oj Kenneth Tuttle advertisement, Ant iques 140, no. 4 (October 1991): 529; and James Julia Auction, January 28, 2000, lot 65. The second flat-top has an unverified history of ownership by John Phillips (1770-1823), first mayor of Boston. 2.

C AT A L OG I 4 7 This high chest closely resembles catalog 146 except that the flattened arches in the front and side apron s have ogee sides, perhaps to emphasize the stylized inverted tulip s that appear instead of more conventional drop pend ant s. The apron shaping resembles th at on Sprin gfield-Northampton and coastal M assachusett s pieces.

G LAS TON BUR Y:

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FEATU RES

c- Pad on the underside of the foot has pronounced chamfer on

J2J

C AT ALOG

14 8

D ressing table Probably Glastonbury , I770-I790 Societyfor the Preserv ation ofN ew England Antiquit ies, I963·34 8

Similar in design to catalogs 147 & 149, this dressing table feature s a large and well-executed shell and fully carved rear legs. Minor variations from group index features include the absence of a rail above the top drawer, and the presence of large triangular dovetail pins that are similar to those in the James Higgins group of Chatham (see cat. II7). Dimensions: H 33lh" W 3I%" D I8"; top 34%" x 2I" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes : brasses replaced Pub lication: l obe, New Eng/and Furniture, no. 34

H CFS 396

CAT A LOG I 4 8 The shell of thi s well-crafted dressing table is beautifully executed, wit h twenty-s even tight convex rays, nine more than in catalog I49; it fills a much greater proport ion of the drawer's surface area. T he brasses are oversized replacements.

J24

COM BIN A T ION S

&

vA

R I A T ION S

CATALOG

149

D ressing table Probably Glastonbury, I770- I790 Museum of Fine Arts Hou ston, Bayou Bend Collection, B.S9·70, gift of M iss Im a H ogg

Like the high chests in catalogs 146 & 147, this dressing table survives in a remarkable state of preservation. Its design is typical of the Stratton group, but a number of idiosyncrasies suggest production in a separate shop.

S INGULAR

FEATURES

t> One -board top with above-edge molding on four sides t> Top attached to the case with eight pegs t> Rail above the top drawer t> All four leg posts vertically chamfered on the outside corners t> Rear legs carved in an unusual manner: the leg post is full-

depth so the knee does not project in back; however, the part of the knee that projects to the side is rounded and tapered backward t> Backboard has ovolo-molded lower outside edge (as on cat. 47,

a dressing table in the John Roberts group of H artford) t> Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are small,

widely spaced, and of average angle; long coarse kerfs

A related dressing table with no early history has index features typical of the group, and none of the singular feature s of catalog 149.1 Another related dressing table has a larger shell, no chamfer on the leg post corners, and knees on the rear legs that project in back. An accompanying provenance traces descent in the Hubbard family of Bloomfield (the eighteenth-century parish of Wintonbury in western Windsor), back to Nathaniel Hubbard (1774-1855) of Simsbury. However, probate records for his estate do not list a dressing table, and additional research failed to establish a Glastonbury connection for either Nathaniel Hubbard or his wife Sally Phelps (1777-r828).2

C A T A LOG 1 4 9 T he shell, apron, and leg design of this dressing table are simi lar to catalogs 147, 148.The generous overhang of th e top enhances th e prop ortions by ma king th e case appear slimmer. The vertical cha mfer at th e corne r of th e front leg posts is an unusual feature.

Dimen sion s: H 331!z" W 301,4" D 171,4"; top 36l1z" x 19%" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pin e and yellow pine (drawer runners) C ondition note s: brasses original Publication s: Sack, A merican A nt iques, 1:38, no. n6; W arren, Bay ou Bend, no. 65; W arren et al., American D ecorat iv e Arts, F74 HCFS 300

Assessment based on lim ited inspectio n only; location unknown ; N adeau 's Au ction G allery, M arch 31, 1990.

I.

2 . A ssessment based on ph oto inspection only; location unknown; Florene M ain e advertiseme nt, A nt iques 60, no. 4 (O ctober 1951): 255.

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J25

Isaac Tryon group

P ieces attributed to the Isaac Tryon group are notable for their imaginatively varied decorative vocabulary, with claw-and-ball feet, double shells, and ropeturned columns drawn from Colchester; graceful bonnets and arcaded apron fronts from Wethersfield and Middletown. The group is named on the basis of a well- known bonnet-top high chest (cat. 150), whose lower case is dated 1772 and signed by the ma ker, I saac Tryon (1742-1823), who lived in the Eastbury parish, the eastern section of Glastonbury,' Four other objects share distinctive index feature s with the signed lower case of th e Tryon high chest, supporting an attribution to the same shop. As no other evidence of Tryon's shop has been located, it remains unclear whether he was the master.'

I. William Stu art Wal cott, J r., "Isaac Tryon's Cherry Hi ghb oy," A nt iques 20, no. 2 (August 1931): 99. Subsequent and mostly implausible att ributions to Tryon include: bonnet-top high ches t, pictured in "Identical or Similar?" Antiques 31 (April 1932): 163; flat-top high chest, Fl orene M aine advertisement, Anti ques 113, no. I (January 1953): 31; chest of drawers, Floren e M aine adverti sement, Antiqu es 117 (February 1955): 113; bonnet-top high chest, C . L. Prickett advertisement, Antiques 127 (M ay 1985): 966; bonnet- top high chest, C. L. Prickett advertisement, Antiques 149 (April 1996): 493.

2. Tryon's age, 30, put s him well beyond his apprenticeship in 1772; however, no evidence-such as newspaper advertisements, account books, or tax record s-has been found of his workin g ind ependently. (Similar ambiguities exist for James Hi ggins, Cal vin Willey, and Silas Rice.) Tryon later invent ed a combmaking machine and reportedly became a wealthy manufacturer; see We s. M . Tryon, The Try on Family in America (W heaton, Md. : pr ivately publi shed, 1969), p. 73. The inventory of his estate lists comb factory tools but no joiner's tools.

S IGNIFICANT I ND EX FEATU RES: CATS. 150 - 153 D esign and D ecoration

Construct ion

o Bonnet has a moderately steep slope and is closed across the

o Upper- and lower-case sides have full-height and full-depth

o

back by the backboard, which runs straight across the opening

spacers, which act as drawer guides; they fill in the gap created

(as in the Samuel Loomis group of Colchester); the carved

by the added corner columns, essentially doubling the case sides

rosettes are applied to the cornice

(also used on cat. 161 from Granb y)

Center plinth contains a carved pinwheel (as in Wethersfield);

o Upper-case backboards are nailed in rabbets in the case sides

side plinth s are capped and cubical (as in Colchester) (see

and top

o

cat. 152A)

o Co rnice incorporates a dentil (as in Colchester) (see cat. 152A) o Double shells on the center drawers are composed of a larger shell with a flat center over which a smaller convex shell is

If case has no columns, drawer dividers are dovetailed to case sides and the exposed dovetail is visible from the front

o

Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are large and have little angle

applied (see cat. ISO)

o

Corner columns are rope-turned (as in Colchester), three-quarter round, and continuous with side plinth; column housing has cock bead on front and side (see cat. I52A)

o

Apron s have either a flattened arch (as in Colchester) or a paired cyma curve (as in Weth ersfield)

o

Knees are carved on the front face only (as in the Lord group of Colchester)

o Knee returns are notched, canted, and applied to the underside of the apron (as in the W illard group of Wethersfield)

o

Claw-and-ball feet on all four legs

]26

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CATALOG

ISO

Bonnet-top high chest Signed by Isaac Tryon Glastonbury, £772-£795, dated I772 Possiblyfirst owned by Elizabeth Kimberly and Isaac Tryon Privately owned

of Glastonbury

This imp ortant high chest is th e only one known with the signature of a Glastonbury cabinet maker. T he lower case is dated 1772 and signed by Isaac Tryon. Its ambitious de sign is comparable to contempor ary Colchester work, with a double shell, knee carving, and four claw-and-ball feet (see cat. 94).The carving shows moderate skill. The joinery, with exposed dr awer divider and muntin dovetail s, is standard for th e period. In contrast, the upper case possesses Chapinesque features-carved cauliculus scrolls, drawer dividers and muntins secured with single tenons rath er th an dovetails-generally found in the late 1780s and 1790S, when blending elements from other schools was mor e common than in the early 1770S. Despite the se construction and design inconsistencies, persuasive evidence indicates that both the upp er and lower cases were products of the same shop, perhaps at different times. The dissimilarity of shells on

C AT A L O G 1 50 This Isaac Tryon-signed high chest features a steep bonnet, double shells, carved knees, and four clawand-ball feet, all characteristics of Colchester style furniture. The inlay on the tympanum is uniqu e, but also reminiscent of th e 1769 blockfront desk signed by Benjamin Burnham (cat. 93). The cornice molding and cauliculus scrolls are Chapin style features. Some inconsistencies between the upper and lower cases raise the possibility that the upper case is later than th e lower one; however, details of workmanship indicate that both are from the same shop.

GLASTONBURY: ISAAC

TRYON

GROUP

C AT A L OG 1 5 0 A D iscursive inscriptions, such as the one written in chalk on the underside of the long lower case drawer, often point to production of a proof-piece at the end of an apprenticeship (as in cat. 167). In this case, the inscription presents a puzzle, as Tryon (born in 1742) would presumably have completed his training nearly a decade earlier.

]27

the two cases is a characteristic feature of Colchester production. The dovetail s on the drawers of both cases have a similar angle, with the pin positioned at both top and bottom (although the upper-case drawers have oversize pin s). Both sets of drawers have similar tool and kerf marks, with some slightly over-sawn dovetails. H ardware history is the same on both cases (four different sets); the identically chiseled pockets are probably those of the first set. Finally, the backboards are highly consistent in color and thickness and have similar tool marks.' Because of the differences between the two cases, th e feature s of the signed and dated lower case have been used in establishing significant index features for th e Isaac Tryon group, while the divergent aspects of the upp er case are treated as singular features. Isaac Tryon married Elizabeth Kimberly (1747-1838) on D ecember 25, 1771, ten months before he signed the high chest. The 1823 inventory of Tryon's estate lists a case draws valued at $2 . No subsequent ownership history prior to the early twentieth century survives. A related bonnet-top high chest belonged to collector C. Sanford Bull in th e early 1930S. Its lower case is superficially similar to that on catalog IS0; however, the knees are unc arved and the claw-and-ball feet were carved by another hand. In the upper case th e bonnet cavity is open at the top, the tympanum, center plinth, and upp er- case corners are unembellished. The rosette carving is related to catalog 152. 2 The evidence is insufficient to conclude whether the high chest is by th e same maker.

S INGULAR

I>

FEATURES

OF

UPPER

CASE

Steep bonnet, roofed over except for a central semicircular cutout to accommodate the finial. Cornice has a negative slope (flares up at the sides)

I>

Bonnet construction is unique: skin is nailed to small transverse supports (rather tha n front- to back vertical supports) that extend inward from the sides and only support the outer half

I>

Cauliculus pedime nt scrolls are continuous with cornice molding (in the Eliphalet Chapin shop manner, but with a single concave leaf)

I>

Ci rcular cutouts in the tympanum notched in the Colchester manne r

I>

Ce nter plinth inlaid with a compass star that matches those above the small side drawers. This is only inlay-embellished tympanum in the H CFS (cats. 93, 158 have a compass-inlaid desk lid)

I>

No side plinths or finials

I>

Two upper-case dustboards/ supports, one below the top row of drawers, the other below the second long drawer, a rare combination (Wethersfield cabinetmakers common ly used the former location, and Eliphalet Chapin's shop the latter)

I. A dark colori ng on th e dovet ails of both cases remains unexplained.

2 . Locati on unknown; assessme nt by ph ot o inspection only. See "Editor 's A ttic: Id entical or Similar?" Antiques 31, no. 4 (April 1932): 163.

D imensions: overall H 8I!,4"; upp er case H 45%" W 35Vz" D 183,4 "; lower case H 35Ys" W 37Vz" D 20 !,4" Materials: che rry with eastern white pin e and inlay Condition not es: inlay missing; finial, knee returns, d rop pendants, convex po rtion of th e uppe r-case shell, and bra sses repla ced Inscription: "G lasto nbury O ctober 26 / AD1772 th ere thi s case of draws / was mad e by me Isaac Tryo n" in chalk on underside of long drawer in lower case Pu blicatio ns: Nu tti ng, Furniture Treasury, I : pl. 376; W illiam Stu art W alcot t, Jr., "Isaac Tryon's Cherry H ighb oy," Antiques 20, no. 2 (Augus t 1931): 99; Great R iv er, no. 101 H C FS 401

]28

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CATALOG

151

Bonnet-top high chest Probably Glastonbury, I785- I795 Hartford Steam Boiler Insp ection and Insurance Company

This lively high chest has no history of ownership but shares index features with the two well-documented pieces in the Isaac Tryon group (cats. ISO, 152), making a Glastonbury origin highly probable. The feet are better carved than on catalog ISO: the ball is elongated, th e knuckles are rounded, and talons are long and tapering, with a prominent web between the toes . There are two related examples . One, which early in the twentieth century belonged to collector Henry Wood Erving of Hartford, is a very similar bonnet-top high chest with dentil course in the cornice and inset brasses on the upper case. The other is a mahogany flattop high chest with two double shell-carved drawers that are similar to those on catalog 151; however, it has pad feet, knee returns applied to the front of the apron , and no columns at the front corners. I Dimensions: overall H 89lh"; upper case H 49" W 38" D 181,4"; lower case H 40lh" W 4olh" D I9~ " M ateri als: cherr y with eastern white pine C ondition note s: finials, drop pend ant s and brasses original Publications: C. L. Prickett advertisement, Antiques 133, no. 5 (May 1988): 955; Connecticut M asters, p. 260 HCFS 190

Location s of both unknown; assessments based on photo inspection only. For th e bonnet-top high chest, see L ockwood, Colonial Furn iture, I: 99, fig. 96; for the flat-top one, see Bernard and S. Dean Levy, Vanity and E legance, no. 13.

I.

C AT A LO G I 5 I This elaborately ornamented bonnet-top high chest displays a felicitous blending of Colchester and Wethersfield features. The carved decoration include s num erous Colchester style treatments-applied rosettes , capped side plinths, double shells outlined with chip-carving, rope-turned three-quarter columns, drop pendants, carved knees, and four claw-and-ball feet. The overall proportions, bonnet shape, center plinth pinwh eel, and upper-case drawer configuration are Weth ersfield elements. The original ring -and-bail brasses point to a relatively late date of produ ction, probably after 1785.

GLASTONBURY: ISAAC

TRYON

GROUP

SIN GULAR F EATU RES l>

Top rail of lower case extends half the depth of case to support upper case

l>

Muntins are dovetailed through the rail

l>

Brasses are placed high on each drawer and are vertically aligned

329

CAT A LOG I 5 2 The maker of this chest-on-chest-o n-frame masterfully blended the graceful proportion s and cyma curves of the W eth ersfield style with the steep bonnet, finials, carved rosettes, shells, and spiral columns of the Colchester style. H e also imaginatively adapted the columns for the spiral half-round base molding. The four-drawer and frame configura tion follows Colc hester practice.

]]0

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CATALOG

ISz

Bonnet-top chest-on-cbest-on-frame Probably Glastonbury, IJ7S-I79S, probably I79I Probablyfirst owned by Mary Talcott ofHebron and Ichabod Warner Wadsworth Atheneum Museum ofArt, I967.IJ9' gift ofMr. and Mrs. Ellsworth Grant in grateful memory ofHorace R. and Mabel deBarthe Grant

Like other examples in the Isaac Tryon group, this much-exhibited and often-published chest-on-cheston-frame imaginatively combines elements of the Wethersfield and Colchester styles (especially the Samuel Loomis group). The four claw-and-ball feet CAT A LOG I 5 2 A The bonnet area illustrates the rich decorative vocabulary of Glastonbury furniture. The steep bonnet incorporates a cornice, an unusually wide-spaced den til course, and applied relief-carved pinwheel rosettes. The carved center plinth contains a swirling pinwheel with Colchester style punch decoration around the perimeter. The large shell carved on the center drawer is similarly embellished. The one-piece spiralturned columns project upward through the bonnet to form the side plinths.

GLASTONBURY: ISAAC

TRYON

GROUP

of Bolton

SINGULAR FEATURES I>

Scrolled termination of steep bonnet is separate cylinder with a relief-carved pinwheel

I>

Spiral reeded cone-shaped finials (similar to Colchester designs)

I>

Widely spaced dentil course in the cornice

I>

Center-plinth pinwheel and center-drawer shell (both Wethersfield features) with elaborate punch decoration around the perimeter (a Colchester feature)

I>

Four drawers in lower case (as in Colchester)

I>

Spiral-turned half-round base molding on the front and sides of the frame

I>

Lower case fitted with an extra bottom board, notched at the corners to fit into the frame around the leg posts

JJI

CATALOG

153

Bonnet-top desk- and- bookcase-on-frame Possibly Glastonbury or M iddletow n, q8o- I795 Yale Un iv ersity A rt Gallery I949.243, gift ofC. Sanford Bull, B.A. I893

with notched knee returns are Isaac Tryon group features, and the piece conforms in mo st respects to the group's ind ex feature s. The history of thi s piece is consi stent with production in eastern Glastonbury. According to family tradition the parents of Mary Talcott (1771-1857) of Hebron gave her the chest-on-chest-on-frame when she married Ichabod Warner (177°-1835) of Bolton (immediately northeast of Glastonbury) on May 19, 1791. 1 Mary's fath er, William Talcott (1742-18°7), who commissioned th e piece, lived in Hebron, directly south of Bolton , but he came from Glastonbury. Ichabod's estate included a "case draws" valued at $5, which remained in th e family until the 1930S.

The bonnet design and columns connect thi s deskand-bookcase-on-frame to the I saac Tryon group, especially the Warner family chest-on-chest-o n- frame (cat. 152); however, the carving of th e claw-and-ball feet is much better than on others in the group. The interior has complex secret compartments behind the prospect, which relate it to the Stocking group of desks-on-frames produced in the Wethersfield style in th e last two decade s of the century. "Clark" written in chalk on the backboard may be the signature of cabinetmaker Jo seph C. Clark (d. 1799) of Middletown, wh ose apprenticeship and output are undocumented.'

S INGULA R

D imensions: overall H 85%"; upp er case H 47IA" W 36" D 173,4" ; lower case H 38Vs" W 38Ys" D 19"

I>

Materials: cherry with eastern white pin e

I>

FEATURES

Bonnet roofed over, except for a square cutout for the center finial (similar to the Isaac Tryon high chest, cat. ISO) Cornice molding extends into the bonnet cavity (in the Wethersfield manner); dentils closely spaced

Condition notes: finials and brasses origi nal Exhibitions: Wadsworth A theneu m 1967, no. 94; W adsworth Atheneum 1985, no. 100

I>

Flame-shaped center finial; corkscrew-on-ball side finials

I>

Six-panel tombstone-shaped bookcase doors swing on pins inserted into ends of fluted columns, which are affixed to the

Publications: Johnston, "Wa dswo rth Atheneu m," P: 1021

doors

H C FS 76

I>

Bookcase bott om has protrudin g dovetail pins that fit into conforming pockets in the desk top (in Springfield-North ampton furniture the protrudin g dovetails simply rest on the lower case

1. Ruth Hutchin son Fi sher (1854- 1952) detail ed th e history on May 26, 1926; copy H CFS files.

top; see cats. 134, 135) I>

Desk interior consists of a row of valanced pigeonholes over a double row of small drawers flanking the prospect

I>

Apro n consists of a series of flattened arches (rather than the cyma curves of catalog 152)

I>

Dovetail pins are present at top and bottom of drawer sides; pins are small and of average angle

Dimen sion s: overall H 8fls"; boo kcase W 34~" D Il IA"; desk W 36Y.2" D 18";frame H 9IA" W 38IA" D 19IA" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine and tulip poplar Co ndi tion notes: Fi nials original; brasses replaced In script ion: "Clark" in chalk on inside of bookcase back Exhibition: W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 126

332

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CAT A L OG I 5 3 A T he very simple but serviceable bookcase has adjustable shelves. Like desk interiors from th e Stocki ng group in the Wethersfield style, th e center section conceals an elaborate secret compartment, raising th e possibility of a Middletown origin for the piece.

C AT A L OG I 5 3 This desk-and -b ookcase- on-frame shares with other examp les in th e Isaac Tr yon group a steep bon net with den til course, pinwheel-carved center plinth, spiral- turned three-quarter columns with cock- bead surround at th e front corners of the desk, and a base with four claw-and-ball feet. Unusual featu res includ e th e roofed- over bonn et with square cutout in front, finial design, raised six-panel doors, and arcaded apro n with flattened arches. The pinwheels and feet are expertly and crisply carved. Publ ication: N utting, Furniture T reasury, I: pI. 709; "Living with An tiques: T he Connecticut H om e of M r. and M rs. C . Sanford Bull," Antiques 45, no. 4 (April 1944): 191; W ard, A merican Case Furniture, no. 179

Other joiner s named Clark include M oses C lark (1761- 1844) of Brooklyn, Conn.; Nath an Clark (1769- 1857) of Lebanon; Elijah Clark (m. 1797) of Simsbury; and Oliver Clark (n.d.) of Litchfield.

1.

H CFS 126

GL ASTONBURY: ISA AC

TRYON

GROUP

JJ3

Suffield

A prosperous town of 2,301 inhabitants in 1782, Suffield is the northernmost town on the west bank of the Connecticut River in Connecticut. At the time of the Revolution an inland route between Boston and New York passed through town: travelers crossed the river at the Springfield ferry, some ten miles upstream. Suffield was originally settled as a daughter town of Springfield and remained part of Massachusetts until 1749. Given the history, border location, and close family ties that many inhabitants had in Massachusetts, it is hardly surprising that much of Suffield's furniture came from makers to the north (see cat. 10). During the first half of the eighteenth century, its wealthiest residents purchased their best furniture from cabinetmakers' shops in and around Boston. Ebenezer Gay (1718-96) and William King (1722-91), for example, acquired stylish walnut-veneered high chests and dressing tables from Salem. I Thirty years later men of wealth, such as Daniel Norton (1751-1814), acquired high chests and chest-on-chests from makers working in Springfield or Northampton (cat. 129D, and the related example discussed at cat. 139). In 1956 Charles S. Bissell published Antique Furniture in Suffield, Connecticut, I670-I8J5, one of the first attempts to identity furniture from a single town in Connecticut. Bissell compiled a checklist of woodworkers and speculated as to the identity of the shop masters. Based on entries in local account books, he considered the most likely candidates to be Joseph Howard (1736-1810), brothers Ashbel (1747-1810) and Eliphalet (1743-1821) King, and John McMorran (1727-1812). He also identified William Middleton (1744-1820) as the maker of a high chest with the initials "WM" painted on the backboard (a related example at cat. 154).2 With the possible exception of catalog 92, tentatively attributed to the shop of Eliphalet King, the HCFS was unable to connect any specific objects to these craftsmen) The HCFS team inspected thirteen objects with histories or stylistic attributes pointing to Suffield, two of which Bissell had previously published.t The analy-

334

sis identified a closely related group of objects made or embellished by an unusually gifted carver, as yet unidentified. The carving is so distinctive that the group has been named "Suffield carver" group (see catalogs 154-156). The remaining pieces with Suffield histories share some stylistic or structural attributes but not enough to group them. They are considered individually, each with its own index characteristics. 1. The Gay family set is illustrated in Sack, American Antiques, 7=1944-45 P5296. The King pieces are owned by the Peabody Essex Museum (nos. 138187, 138188); see "Noteworthy Sales," Catalog ofAntiques and Fine Arts 2, no. 5 (autumn 2001): II.

2. Bissell, Suffield Furniture, pp. 18-22. Bissell relied mostly on histories of ownership and did not analyze the furniture. The "WM" high chest was in Bissell's personal collection; see Alice Winchester, "Editorial" Antiques 77, no. 6 (June 1960): 560. 3. Two elaborate corner cupboards with well-executed shells are attributed to Eliphalet King; one is in his own house, completed in 1765, the other is in the home of his cousin Alexander King, completed the year before. The shell characteristics do not appear to be those of the Suffield carver. Both are illustrated in Bissell, Suffield Furniture, pls. 45, 46. 4. The HCFS did not include any pieces by Suffield's best known cabinetmaker, John Fitch Parsons (1775-1835), because his welldocumented work postdates 1800. The formal Hepplewhite sideboard made by Fitch for Ebenezer King (1762-1824) of Suffield in 1807 is contemporaneous with the sideboards produced in Aaron Chapin's shop in Hartford (see cat. 169). Alexander King House, Suffield Historical Society; Bissell, Suffield Furniture, pl. 38.

COMBINATIONS

&

VARIATIONS

J uiJield Carver group

The Suffield carver remain s anonymous, but his precise and imaginative carving is readily identified: shells with crenellated edges, precise wide rays with scalloped borders, and distinctive shaded stippling, or prickwork. These embellishments enliven at least four bonnet-top high chests and ten desks or desks-and-bookcases-onframes; seven of these have good histories of ownership in Suffield. The absence of evidence for specialization in the period suggests that this skilled craftsman likely operated as both furnituremaker and carver; however, it is possible that he decorated furniture made by others.' His creativity and secure hand set him apart from other craftsmen in the Connecticut River Valley. A dressing table with a shell similar to those of the Suffield carver has de sign and construc tion features that are otherwise unlike Suffield work (HCFS 210; CHS Museum, I965.II, gift of Frederick K. and Margaret R. Barb our). 1.

SI G NI FIC ANT

IN DEX

FEAT URES :

CATS.

154-156

D esign and D ecoration

o Cr isply carved shells and rosettes with stippled background and variations such as a crenellated outline and lobes and rays of different length s (see cat. 154)

o

Hi gh chests have steep bonnets, with varying embellishments and central cutout shaping; a backboard or a medial side- to-s ide support closes the back of the cavity

o Fluted pilasters decorate the upper cases of high chests o Desks have a simple interior, usually with a valance strip cut from a single piece of wood over a row of pigeonh oles and a single row of drawers; the outside pair of drawers is set forward of the others; drawers rest directly on the writ ing surface (see cat. ISS)

o Desks have three long drawers o Aprons of desk frames and high chests have flattened arches; treatments vary at corners and below cent er drawers; high chest apron s have drop pend ants on either side of the center drawer

o High chests have cabriole legs with a sharp, high knee that runs horizontally across the leg post

o De sk frames have short bandy legs with no knee return ; frontto-back struts support the desk o Small flat pad feet; short supporting pads with vertical sides Construction

o Cherry as primary wood; eastern white pine and yellow pine as secondary wood s

o Unu sually heavy stock: W' to I" for backboard s and drawer bottoms necessitating wide, deep chamfering at the sides

o Drawer dividers and muntins are atta ched with exposed dovetails, visible from the front

o Upper-case backboards are nailed in rabbets in the case sides and top

o

Draw er side molding is a wide astragal flanked by fillets; it is repeated on the top of the drawer back

o Dovetail pins are of average size and angle; the bottom rear "tail" of the drawer side is cut out, leaving a notch (this "Suffield notch" is characteristic of Suffield production; see glossary)

SUFFIELD

CARVER

GROUP

~5

C ATALOG

154

Bonnet-top high chest Probably Suffield, I77S-I79S Location unknown

The elongated bonnet, carved rosettes, and crenellated shells of thi s striking high chest are characteristic features of the Suffield carver group. Other design and construction feature s are also typical. Nail holes on the und erside of the upper case imply that it stood separately for a time. Five related examples also sport the Suffield carver's imaginative and distinctive crenellated and wide-lobed shells. Four are high chests. All four have broken-arch pedim ents; however, they differ in having bonnet cavities th at are closed at the rear and cornice moldings that extend to the back of the opening instead of terminating in the cylindrical ro settes of catalog 154. Three have fluted pilasters at the front corners of the upp er case, a pair of drawers in the top row of the lower case, a recess below th e lower-case shell, and notched knee returns applied to the front apron (but the exception in each instance is a different high chest). The first of the related bonnet-top high chests is distinguished by carved rosettes above the pilasters, a single upp er-case long drawer, and no recess in the front apron. "WM" is painted in large letters on the upper-case backboards, prompting an earlier attribution to Suffield carpenter William Middleton (1744-1820). The purported first owners,Jemima Bronson (1761-1834) and Luther Loomis (1754-1812), both of Suffield, married in 1777.1 The second bonnet-top high chest shares th e pilaster rosettes of the first related example and in addition has a shaped apron recess." The third has no upp er-case pilasters) The fourth has a narrow center plinth with unique "ears" that curl up from the top and wide flutes that extend down into the tympanum. It has a histor y of ownership in the Gardiner family of G ardiners Island, New York; no Suffield connection could be documented.' A final related example, a high chest base, shares many of the construction details of cat. 154 but has cyma-curved front and side aprons.5

S INGULAR

I>

FEATU RE S

Tall bonnet with scrolled pediment; six-petal carved rosettes fronting cylinders that extend inward to terminate at the sideto-side medial support that closes the bonnet cavity

I>

Short, fluted pilasters flank the upper-case drawers; a flat tapering extension applied above and below the capital and base fills the remaining space

I>

Vertical stanchions at the rear corners of the upper case have notches that support the drawer runners and guides

I>

Lower case has three short drawers in top row

I>

Center drawer oflowe r case is flanked by full-height panels

I>

Recess below shell in lower case

I>

Notched knee return applied to front of apron

that act as drawer guides

D imensions: overall H 84¥.!"; upper case H 51" W 41Vs" D 18"; lower case H 333,4" W 441,4" D 19th" M ater ials: cherry with eastern white pine C onditi on notes: side plinths and finials are replacements; mid moldi ng, drop pend ant s, and br asses replaced Publication : Sotheby's, sale 7350 (Oc tober 15, 1999), lot 3 HCFS 375

I. L ocation unkno wn; assessment based on ph oto inspection only; see Ali ce Winchester, "Editorial," Antiques 77, no. 6 (Ju ne 1960): 560, where th e high chest, whi ch belonged to Charles Bissell, is attributed to Middleton . On M iddl eton, see Bissell, SuJlieldFurniture, p. 27- T he HCFS has found insufficient evidence to corrobo rate th e M iddleton attribution.

2. L ocation unknown ; assessme nt based on ph oto inspection only; Walton archives, undated ph otograph. 3. Location unknown; assessment based on ph oto inspection only; exhibited W adsworth A the neum 1967, no. 92; publi shed in G insburg & Levy advertiseme nt, Antiques 86, no. 4 (Oc tober 1964): 377· 4. Location unknown , assessment based on ph oto inspection only; Failey, L ong Island, no. 186. 5. HCFS 412a; A ntiquarian & Land marks Society, Ph elpsH ath eway H ouse, 2004.2.1.

3J6

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I 54 This bonnet-top high chest exhibits the boldly original shells, with crenellated borders and stippled matte background, th at are a signature feature of the Suffield carver group. The shallow bonnet cavity extends back to a vertical

CAT A LOG

S U F FIE L DCA R V ERG R 0 U P

medial support that closes the cavity. The top row of three small drawer s in th e lower case is a singular feature; the drop pendant s, brasses, and side plinths and finials are replacements.

337

C A T ALOG

ISS

D esk-on -frame P robably Suffield, q8o-Q95 Possiblyfirst owned by Seth K ent of Suffield P rivately owned

Slant-front desks seem to have been popular in Suffield: about a dozen, a large number for a single town, survive from the second half of the eighteenth century. M ost are small, have simple interiors, and stand on fram es; a few are sophisticated desks-and-bookcaseson-frames with a variety of embellishments. Con struction feature s of this example are the same as on catalog 154. A history written by early twentieth-century owner Tirzah Hastings Kent Lane (I869-I946?) traces this desk back to her grandfather, Comfort Kent (179°-1867), in wh ose house it stood for about a century. I The style of the desk points to Comfort's father, Seth Kent (1760- 1812), as the likely first owner; however, no inventory of Seth's estate surv ives to corroborate its presence in his home. Three related examples are probably from the same shop. The first is a desk-on-frame that has only three long drawers and no center drop but is otherwise is identical to catalog 155. Until the I990S it had an unbroken history of ownership in the Spencer and Henshaw famili es of Suffield.' The second related example is a flat-top desk-andbookcase-on-frame. The shaped vertical and horizontal dividers are fixed to the bookcase. The desk interior has two rows of small drawers; the case has fluted chamfered corners. The interior layout, with forwardset side drawers, the shaping of the pigeonhole dividers, and the design of the frame, legs, and feet are otherwise similar to other desks in the group) The third related example is a four-drawer desk-onframe with an interior and a frame that have shaping similar to catalog 155. It has an unverified history of ownership by Roger Sherman (1721-93), a Connecticut signer of the Declaration ofIndependence who resided after 1761 in New Haven.t

CAT A LOG I S S This four-drawer desk-on-frame displays an int erior layout typical of the Suffield carver group, with side drawers forward of the center drawers and pigeonh ole valances cut out of a single strip. T he embellishment of th e apron with a cent er drop and cyma-curved corners distinguishes thi s example within the group.

SINGULAR F EATURES [>

Four drawers in the case

[>

Apron has center drop and complex cyma-curved corner shaping

[>

No front- to-back supporting struts within the frame

1.Tirzah H astings Kent L ane, typewritten history,July 22, 1934, copy in HCFS files. 2. HCFS 9S; location unknown.

Di mensions: overall H 41"; desk H 32lh" W 33'Vs " D 173,4"; frame H 8lh" W 3S%" D 183,4" Materials: cherry with eastern wh ite pine Condition notes: brasses replaced H C FS 208

3. L ocation unknown; assessment based on photo inspection only; Sack, A merican Anti ques, P7S1 P4871. 4. L ocation unkn own; assessment based on ph oto inspection only; M rs. and M rs. Jerom e Blum adverti sement , A ntiques lOS, no. I (J anuary 1974): 18. COMBINATIONS

&

VARIATIONS

CATALOG

156

D esk-on -frame Probably Suffield, q8o-Q95 Possiblyfirst own ed by John Hale of Enfield Location unknown

With a simple interior and three long drawers, this small desk-on-frame typifies other desks with reliable histories in Suffield . The carving of the shell is markedly similar in execution to that on catalog 154 but lacks the crenellated border and stippled background. The remaining index features connect it to two deskson-frame with Suffield histories (cat. ISS, and its related example HCFS 95). The inscription "G . B. Hale" in a late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century hand, on the side of the inte rior shell drawer, likely stand s for Gordon Bailey Hale (1857- 1945) of Hartford. His paternal grandfather John H ale (1755- 1815) of Enfield, located directly across the river from Suffield, may have been the first owner. At his death John owned a desk worth $4, his most valuable piece of furniture . Two other desks-on-frames and two desks-andbookcases-on-frames published by Bissell have histories of ownership in Suffield. Although they differ in detail from one another and from catalog 156, they share the interior layout, three long drawers, and flattened-arch frames on bandy legs-elements consistent with an attribution to a Suffield shop, probably that of the Suffield carver.I D imensions: H overall 39%"; desk H 31Ys" W 32" D 171,4" ; frame H 81,.2" W 34%" D 19" Ma terials: cherry with eastern white pine and yellow pine (backboard)

CAT A LOG 1 5 6 This is th e only Suffield carver group desk- on-frame with a carved shell on th e interior center drawer; it is also distinguished by the double row of interior small drawers.

SINGULAR FEATURES [>

[>

Frame embellished with a spur and ogee at the corners

[>

Two front- to-back supporting struts within the frame

Condition notes: brasses replaced Publications: Sotheby's, sale 5376 (O ctober 26, 1985), lot 93; No rtheast Auctions, November 6, 1993, lot 556 HCFS 103

Assessmen ts based on photo inspections only; Bissell, Suffield Furniture, pls, 24, 26 (desks-on- frames), 21, 22 (desks-and-bookcases-o n frames).

I.

S U F FIE L DCA R V ERG R 0 U P

Interior has elaborate Suffield carver shell on center drawer and two rows of small drawers

339

C ATALOG

157

Bonnet-top high chest Possibly Sziffield I770- I790 , possibly I784 Probablyfirst own ed by Bethena Kendall and Ebenezer King ofSuffield Suffi eld H istorical Society, Alexander King House, 5

This high chest is not classified as part of the Suffield carver group, although it does possess a handful of index feature s that link it to Suffield work generally: the use of heavy stock; the construction of the steep bonnet with a medial side-to-side support; the cornice extension into the bonnet opening; and the enclosure of the rear half of the bonnet, as on catalog 154. Like catalogs ISS & 156 th e cabriole legs are finished without separate knee returns. There are cutouts for side finials that either rested on cylindrical plinths or were mounted directly on the case. The drawer sides have the lowest half-dovetail missing at the back (Suffield notch). According to family tradition the original owners were ancestors of Samuel Reid Spencer (1871-1962). With the exception of his mother, Caroline Frances Reid (1827- 98), whose ancestors came from Bristol County, Massachu setts, his forebears lived in Suffield. The mo st likely first owners were his father's maternal grandparents, Bethena Kendall (1763-1824) and Ebenezer King (1762- 1824), both of Suffield, who married on M ay 18, 1784. Ebenezer was the first cousin of Alexander King (1737-1802) in whose hou se the high chest now stands.I Ebenezer's probate inventory included a "case of draw s" valued at 75

FEATURES

Paired small drawers flank the center drawer in the upper case

t> Decora tion on the upper center drawer is an unskillfully

CA T A L OG I 5 7 This bonnet-top high chest reigned in th e parlor of th e historic Alexand er King H ouse in Suffield until the night of D ecemb er 30, 1983, wh en th e furn ace in th e basement failed to shut off. During th e ensuin g fire, it was badly charred and its bonnet crushed. It is pictured in situ in the attic, a historical docum ent still useful to scho lars. T he three finials are lost.

gouged sunburst t> Front and side aprons are flanked by ogees (rather t an arches) [>

Ce nter drawer runn ers for both upper and lower case are

Dimensions: overall H 86%"; upper case H 52VS" W 363,1g" D 163.4"; lower case H 341!z" W 381's" D 181,4"

tenoned through the backboard

Materials: cher ry with eastern wh ite pine

[>

Midmolding has fillet at top and a bead at the base, a unique profile

Condition note s: Charred from a fire (1983); finials and part of bonnet are lost; bra sses original

Two fronr-to-bac k stru ts, rabbeted into the lower-case back-

HCFS 98

[>

board, support the upper case [>

Bowl-shaped pad feet

[>

Dr awer sides rounded on top; dovetail pins are large and with little angle

34 0

Alexand er King of Suffield is not related to Alexand er King of Eas t W ind sor, wh o patronized Eliphalet Chapin's sho p; neither Alexander nor Eb enezer are related to th e Suffield join ers Ashbel and Eliphalet King. I.

COMBINATIONS

&

VARIATIONS

CATALOG 158 D esk-and-bookcase-on-frame with scrolled p edim ent P robably Suffield, I785-I800 Probably first owned by Asahel Hatheway or Oliv er Phelps of Suffield Connecticut Historical Society Museum, I974.98.I, gift if M rs. Charles S. Bissell in memory if M rs. Charles Su mner Fuller

While Eliphalet Chapin's influence is obvious in the scrolled latticework pediment, the small uncapped side and cylindrical center plinths, and the fluted threepiece quarter-columns, the similarities to his work end there .I The principal index characteristics of this deskand -bookcase-on-frame are typi cal of Suffield work, implying strongly that it wa s made there. " These include the heavy stock, with drawer sides running %", and backboards nailed in rabbets in the case sides and top. The interior layout is similar to catalog ISS and its second related example, but with an added elaborate secret compartment. A Suffield-type flattened -arch frame with bandy legs and small flat pad feet supports the desk; added knee returns are applied to the front of the apron. This exceptional desk and bookcase has a convincing history in the Phelps-Hatheway house of Suffield, where it stands today. Asahel Hatheway, Sr. (1739-1828), purchased the house prior to 18n from the state of Connecticut, which had acquired it several years earlier in lieu of unpaid back taxes due from Oliver Phelps (1749- 18° 9).3 Phelps, ori ginally from Windsor, had purchased the house in 1788 when he was one of the wealthiest men in the region, having made a for tune in land speculation in western New York State and the Western Reserve. In 1794-95 he commissioned a major addition to the hou se, constructed by Windsor architect Lt. Thomas Hayden (1745-1806), assisted by Ashbel King (1748-1806), John Lewis (1753-1828), and Asher Benjamin (1773-1845) .4 Phelps supposedly purchased the desk and bookcase during his Suffield years

SUFFIELD

CARVER

GROUP

/

and left it behind when he fell up on hard times and moved to New York in 1802. Alternatively it could have been made for Hatheway, a Suffield native, and , like Phelps, a wealthy land speculator in th e W estern Reserve. i It remained in the Hatheway family until the death of Louise Hatheway (1824-1 910), As ahel's granddaughter and last descendant.

S INGULAR

I>

FEATURES

Each drawer runner/ guide is a T-sh aped unit nailed to the case sides so th at th e bar of th e T extends above and below the run ner

I> I>

Finials in th e Chinese taste Backboards oriente d vertica lly in bookcase section and hori zontally in the desk section

I>

Banding and compass-star inlay on th e desk lid (see also cats. 93, ISO)

I>

D rawer fron ts and lopers have applied cock bead

I>

D rawer dovetail pins are large with an average angle

J4 I

CAT A LOG I 5 8 This desk and bookcase is one of the most successful combinations of design and decorative elements devised by post-q85 Connecticut valley furnituremakers. The closed latticework pediment, carved cauliculus scrolls, cylindrical center plinth, and quarter columns are Chapin-inspired. The cabinetmaker blended these and other features, such as the compass and line inlay on the lid, into a seamless whole.

I

342

COM BIN A T ION S

&

V A R I A T ION S

C AT A LOG I 5 8 A The Chinese-influenced finials are probably unique .

Dimensions: overall H 86Vs" ; upper case H 45%" W 37r's" D lOW'; lower case H 40 ~ " W 40" D 20 " Materials : cherry with eastern white pine Conditi on notes: finials and brasses appear original Exhibition: W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 124 Publications: Nutting, Furniture Treasury, 3: pls. 279-80; Bissell, Suffie ld Furniture, pl. 23; Bissell, "Furniture and Cabinetmakers," p. 328; "Recent Acquisitions," Antiques lO9, no. 5 (M ay 1976): 920 ; D owling, Eliphalet Chapin, no. 79.

CA T A L OG IS 8 B The interi or layout of the desk is typical of Suffield, with side drawer s placed forward of th ose in the center. Because th ere is no platform below th e drawers, th ey slide directly on the writing surface. The tomb stone-paneled prospect door conceals a complex set of secret comp artm ents, including a small drawer in the arched moldin g; if the prospect is locked, the small drawer cannot be opened . By contrast the bookcase interior is functional and has minimally arranged fixed shelves th at can accommodate tall ledgers.

HCFS 47

1. Nutting, Furniture Treasury, 3: pl. 280 , overenthusiastically dated this to 1735, even as he attributed it to Eliphalet Chapin (1741-180 7); Nutting praised this secretary highly, affirming that "The writer would almost prefer this secretary to any other known in cherry. It has more good elements and more attractive features and less to which an objection could be raised than any other which he knows." A drawing of the bookcase has appeared in many advertisement s, see for example the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art (Salisbury, Md.) advertisement, Ma ine Antique Digest 21, no. 8 (August 1993): 40F.

SUFFIELD

CARVER

GROUP

2. Robert Trent suggested a Northampton origin based on its similarity to a desk and bookcase attributed to Israel Guild (b. 1767) of Conway, Mas s., see note s in th e CHS Museum object file; Fales, Furn iture if Historic D eerfield, no. 476.

3. Karin E. Peters on, associate director, Antiquarian & Land-

marks Society (owner of th e Phelps-Hatheway house), to Betsy Fox, June 9, 1992, CHS Museum object file. 4. Great Riv er, no. 26.

5. Robert Hayden Alcorn, T he Biography if a Tow n: Suifield, Connecticut, I670-I970 (Suffield: Three-hundredth Anniversary Committee, 1970) , p. 121.

3~

Farmington Valley

The Farmington River Valley extends north and west from Hartford and Windsor to the Litchfield Hills; this large area remained relatively sparsely settled throughout the eighteenth century. Furniture has been documented to the Farmington valley towns of Farmington, Simsbury, and Granby, as well as the hill town of Winchester, to the west. 1 In general these pieces are competently made, probably by craftsmen trained in the Wethersfield or Chapin styles. With the exception ofJohn Nash (1758-1855) of Winchester, who branded catalog 163, the cabinetmakers remain unidentified. The scattered nature of the sample does not lend itself to regional identification using index characteristics, so the significant features of each object are listed in the entries. Founded in 1640 by settlers from Hartford, Farmington was the most expansive town in Connecticut, with more than 224 square miles stretching from Simsbury in the north to Southington in the south.' Its large territory made it the most populous town in Hartford County, with about 5,500 inhabitants in 1782. Although it included considerable fertile farmland, the inland location made it much less accessible to trade than the Connecticut River towns. The 1795 tax list names eight joiners in Farmington: Thomas Bulkley, Oliver Lewis, George Porter, Selah Porter, Seth Richards,]ob Talbot,]ohn Talbot, and Lot Woodruff. By 1798 Alexander Gridley, Shubael Porter, Luther Seymour, and Samuel Kneeland had joined their number) Lot Woodruff (1754-1810) had the highest tax assessment. He also has working dates consistent with the identified Farmington furniture; however, no examples can be documented to him. Only one group of objects-a chest-on-chest and two bureaus-is specifically credited to Farmington. Their maker was familiar with Chapin school design and construction techniques used in the 1780s and 1790S.

Simsbury (incorporated in 1670) also occupied a substantial territory (about 144 square miles), located north of Farmington and west ofWindsor and Suffield. In 1782 its population was almost 4,700, placing it just behind Farmington and Hartford. Four years later Granby was carved out of the northern part of Simsbury and incorporated as a separate town. By 1790 Granby and Simsbury each had a population of about 2,500. Both towns remained rural in character but both had joiners making furniture for local residents. Simsbury listed six in the tax list of 1798: Elijah Clark, Levi Lattimore, Wait Lattimore, Francis Olmstead, Elias Vining, Jr., and Roswell Willcocks." The Granby list does not survive, but likely was comparable in size, although only two, Samuel Hills and Oliver Moore, are identified by name (in an advertisement and an account book respectively). Neither Simsbury nor Granby developed a recognizable style of its own; the objects linked to them are identified on the basis of history alone (cats. 161, 162). They reflect prevailing design and construction practices in the region as a whole and have little in common with one another. None can be assigned to a specific maker. I. Although Winchester is part of Litchfield County, it is located within the Farmington River drainage area. For other furniture from Litchfield County towns, see cats. 25 (Harwinton) & 34 (Colebrook) .

2. Farmington's original territory has been reduced by the creation of several additional towns: Southington (1779), Bristol (1785), Burlington (1806), Avon (1830), and Plainville (1869), plus parts of Berlin (1785), Wolcott (1796), and New Britain (1850).

3. Connecticut Assessors, Warren Collection. According to the Connecticut Courant, February 5, 1798, Hartford cabinetmaker Samuel Kneeland purchased the Farmington shop "lately occupied by Thomas Bulkley"; two years later Kneeland relocated to New York state (see cats. 173-174). 4. Connecticut Assessors, Warren Collection.

/

344

COM BIN A T ION S

&

V A R I A T ION S

CATALOG 159 Bonnet- top chest-en - chest Probably Farmington, I78o-I8oo, p ossibly q 87 Probablyfirst owned by Anna Pitkin of Farmington and E noch Perkins of Hartford Priva tely ow ned

The Perkins family chest-on-chest is unu sually wellcrafted, relying for the most part on Chapin school construction methods. At the same time, however, the maker incorporated a full bonnet (closed at th e back) with sunburst carved rosettes and a drawer configuration found more often in the Colchester or SpringfieldNorthampton shops. According to family tradition, thi s chest-on-chest was made for Anna Pitkin (1764-1852) at the time of her September 20, 1787, wedding to Hartford lawyer Enoch Perkins (1760-1828). Anna's father, Rev.Timothy Pitkin (1727-1812), served the Farmington Congregational Church and was the son of Connecticut's colonial governor, William Pitkin (1694-1769) of Hartford. The chest-on-chest eventually pa ssed to Anna and Enoch's great-great-granddaughter, Helen Perkins (1898-1997), the last direct descendant.' A related bureau has a shaped top, simulating a blockfront bureau, above a straight facade. It is otherwise similar to the lower case of catalo g 159, including such elements as quarter columns in the front corn ers, midheight drawer guides, and an applied gadroo ncarved strip with carving that extends onto the foot bracket. "

CA T A LO G I 5 9 Like many pieces made in towns at a distance from the major style centers, this chest-o n-chest exhibits a mix of features: a Wethersfield style full bon net, C hapin- influenced surface decoration and cornice moldin g, and a C olchester or Sprin gfield-Northampton style four-drawer lower case. The center plinth orn ament is a replacement, and the side finials are likely an addition.

FA RM I N GT ON

VALLEY

J~

SIGNIFICAN T

IND EX

FEATURES

D esign and Decoration

o

Upper-case center drawer has an applied ornament reminiscent of the vines used in Eliphalet Chapin's shop

o

o Backboards set in grooves in case sides o Full-depth dustboard/support for small drawers o Drawer dividers in lower case are attached with exposed dovetails, visible from the front

Upper case has one-piece, fluted, quarter columns with simple

o Muntins are double tenoned into the rail below with through-

but crisply turned capitals and bases; flutes have an inverted

tenons, which are visible from below

scoop at top and bottom; there is a small chamfer above and

o

below the column

o o

Drawer runner s for upper case are slid into a groove from behind

Ogee feet do not splay; low position of bracket spur creates

(as in the Lord group of Colchester) and tenoned to front rails;

atypical shape

lower-case drawer runners are nailed to case sides in conventional mann er

Gadroon-carved strip is applied to front apron; carving extends

o Midheight guides are nailed to case sides about halfway up each

onto foot bracket

drawer (rather than at the bottom above the drawer runner ) in Construction

upper case-an unusual feature; in lower case, the case sides act

o Ch estnut as secondary wood (uncommon west of the

as drawer guides

o Feet are attached using quadrant-base construction (as in the

Connecti cut River)

o

Chapin school)

Bonnet has pair of front-to-back vertical supports; the cavity

o Tops of drawer sides are rounded ; dovetail pins have average

is closed by a slightly arched backboard (in the Wethersfield

angle

manner)

Dimension s: overall H 823,4"; upper case H 46" W 361h" D 18%"; lower case H 36W' W 39" D 191,4" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine, tulip poplar, and chestnut

For Enoch Perkins's biography, see Commemorat iv e B iographical Record ofH artford County, p. 39. Helen Perkins prepared the family history of the chest- on-chest in April 1970; ph otocopy HCFS files.

1.

2.

C ondition notes: center plinth ornament replaced; side finials probably added; bra sses original

HCFS 37; privately owned.

Exhibition: Connecticut Historical Society, 1985-91 (long-term loan) Publications: Nadeau's Auction Gallery, March 8, 1991 HCFS 14

346

COM BIN A T ION S

&

V A R I A T ION S

CATALOG

160

Straight-Jront bureau Possibly Farmington, 98S-I8oo Privately owned

This bureau shares many of the features of catalog 159 and its related example and may be from the same shop. It differs from these pieces in several respects, suggesting either a time lapse or the work of another hand. SINGULAR

FEATURES

t> Conforming top with astragal over cove molding at the edge t> Sliding dovetail fastens top to the case (in the Massachusetts

and Colchester Lord group manner) t> Cosmetic top rail; no subtop t> Split top drawer t> Rear horizontal rail supports the medial guide and runners for

small drawers t> Muntin is nailed into a groove in the drawer divider

t>

Profile of the ogee feet closely resembles Chapin school work, but has no astragal on the base; feet splay outward 5° from the vertical; quadrant-base construction is used for the front feet only

t> Gadrooning does not extend onto the foot bracket

16 0 A Farmington origin for this straight front bureau is suggested by the design and construction similarities to catalog 159 and its related example; however, difference s such as the shaping and attachment of the top and feet indicate either the work of another hand or a span of time separating the production of the bureaus.

CAT A LOG

Dimensions: H 3r ls" W 40Vs" D 20"; top 42 3,4" X 2IVs" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: brasses original Publication: Skinner, sale 2°76 (June

10,

2001), lot 65

HCFS 305

FAR MIN G TON

V ALL E Y

347

C AT ALOG

161

Chest-an - chest with scrolled p ediment Probably Granby, I802 Probablyfirst owned by H annah Forward and Horace Clark of Granby Yale Univ ersity A rt Gallery , M abel Brady Garvan Collection, I930.2533

This formal chest-on-chest demonstrates the enduring popularity of the Chapin aesthetic into the 1790S and beyond. It is unique in having the fretwork shaped as a cypher for the owner's initials (HF or HFC). Overall the design is connected most closely to the built-in chest-en-chest that Eliphalet Chapin's shop created for the Strong family of Windsor in the late 1780s or early 1790S(cat. 68). Much of the execution is quite different, however, incorporating some con struction techniques used by the makers of the Isaac Tryon group furniture in Glastonbury (cats. 150-153). Chapinesque elements include the design of the pediment: asymmetrical carved cartouche; chamfered top board behind the fretwork; small uncapped side plinths, and backboards set in grooves in the case sides. Features similar to those of the Isaac Tryon group include side plinths that are one piece with the quarter columns, and a nearly full-depth and full-height vertical

SIGN IF ICANT INDEX FEATURES

o H eavy stock (about 3/1") th roughout, requiring steep chamfers on backboards and drawer bottoms.

o Ca rved sunburst rosette has a central button (as on SpringfieldNor thamp ton style furniture)

o App lied gadroo n strip between the front feet but not the sides o Feet do not splay and have a plain vertical pad (rather than astragal- molded)

o Front and rear foot facings on each side of the case are cut from a single continuous board

o Rear foot brace is cont inuous across the back, arched, and dovetailed to both rear feet

o D rawer fron ts are scribe molded; drawer sides are flat on top; dovetail pins are relatively small and have little angle

CAT A LOG I 6 I The scrolled and fretted pediment, carved cartouche, small uncapp ed side plinths, and fluted qu arter colum ns all dem on strate the influ en ce of th e C ha pin style upon the maker of thi s exceptionally well-preserved ches t-on-c hes t. The pedimen t inco rpora tes th e brid e's cypher within th e C -scro lls. The stam ped brasses and eng raved silver plaque are original.

348

COM BIN A T ION S

&

V A R I A T ION S

C AT A LOG I 6 I A T his unu sual tall chest with scrolled ped iment has been a focus of curiosity for half a centu ry. It s case is a virtua l carbon copy of th e upp er case of catalog 161, except that the fretwor k lacks a cypher and the side plint hs are capped . The feet and base construction of the two pieces differ significantly. C ollection of W illiam Bartley.

to the upper case and pediment of catalog r6r; however, the bases on each are of different design s and construction. On the five-drawer chest the feet splay outward and are attached with quadrant-base con struction, and the side facings are not one piece.The differences imply the work of another hand, and possibly a different date.' Dimensions: overall H 83~" ; upp er case H 50Ys" W 38%" D 163A"; lower case H 33Vs" W 41" D liA" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pin e Condition notes: finials, cartouche, and brasses original In script ion : "Hannah Forward / 1802" engraved in early nineteenth-century script on oval silver plaque attached to middle of top rail Exhibitions: C onn ecticut Tercent enary 1935, no. 154; Wa dsworth A theneum 1967, no. 105

spacer between the drawer runners and the case sides, to which the drawer runners are nailed. This is one of two identical chests-on-chests that were, according to family tradition, made for the Nov ember rs, r802, marriage of Granby residents Hannah Forward (q 8s-r882) and H orace Clark (q82-r842). At his death H orace's estate included " 2 Chests and drawers" valued at $IO . Conflicting statements in the family notes identify the maker as Samuel Furgarson and as Mark Wilcox of We st Granby. Other researchers have attributed the ches ts-on -chests to Oliver Moore (q8 r- r826) of Granby and Aaron Chapin (qS3-r83S) of

Hartford.' None of th ese attributions is convincing. Hannah's sister Julia marri ed a Samu el Ferguson in Trumbull, Ohio, in r806. 2 His occupation and any Connecticut origins are uncertain. Mark Wilcox remains unidentified) Oliver Moore (or M oor) is a documented Granby cabinetmaker, but his work remains unknown, and he was only zr years old in r802.4 Aaron Chapin's work has little in common with the se two objects. Moreover, these pieces are by a different hand than the desk-on-frame th at also descended in the Clark family (cat. r62). A related example, a five-drawer chest with a scrolled pediment (cat. r6rA), possesses striking similarities

FARMINGTON

VALLEY

Public ation : Ward, A merican Case Furniture, no. 86 HCFS 51

1. Francis p ' G arvan purchased thi s chest-o n-c hest from the family in 1920, along with catalog 162 and other furn ishings. For the mate, see Israel Sack advertisement, Catalogue ofAntiques and Fine A rts 2, no. 2 (early Spri ng 2001): inside front cover. T he family notes written by later generations are attached to various surfaces of that sister chest; see Yale Un iversity Art Ga llery object file or Parke-B ern et, sale 2299 (Oc tober 16-17, 1964), lot 401. For speculation on M oore and C hapin, see W ard, American Case Furniture, no. 86. 2. A Samuel Ferguson was born in Torringt on in 1767, but there are no Samuel Fergusons, including various spellings, listed in C onn ecticut in th e federal censuses of 1790 or 1800. 3. A Roswell W ilcox (ca. 1762- 1831) was identified as a joiner in th e 1797 Simsbury tax assessments; see C onn ecticut Assessors, W arren C ollection . H e left for W orthington , Ohio, in 18°3, where he operated a sawmill. 4. Oliver M oor Account Book, 1808-1819, CH S Museum Library. 5. HCFS 402; published in "T he Editor's A ttic," Antiques 60, no. 3 (September 1951): 202, fig. I; Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and In suran ce C omp any, A nt ique Furniture and Fi ne Arts (n.p., n.d .), p. 9; Nadeau's Au ction Ga llery, September 25, 2001, lot 201. There is no objective evidence th at the five-drawer chest had another base or was used as the top of a chest-o n-c hest.

3~

CATAL OG

162

D esk-on-frame Probably Simsbury or Granby, I770-I8oo Yale Uni v ersity Art Gallery, Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, I9Jo.254 6

This desk-on-frame is typical of th ose produced throughout th e lower Con necticut valley. Its simple interior is comparable to examples produced in neighboring Suffield and W in dsor, and its cyma-curve d front apro n and double-ogee side apron is in keeping with W indsor practice. Francis P. G arvan purchased thi s desk in 19 20 along with other furnishings (including cat. 16 1) from th e Samuel Clark house in Granby, which was built in th e I730S.1 The desk at one time had a shield-s haped silver plaque attac hed to th e lid, engraved "Joel Cl ark, I746," a date that is at least a generation earlier than the style of the desk. Joel Clark (I7IZ-n) had a son, also named Joel (I747-I808), who could have been th e first owner ; however, neither man's estate inventory lists a desk. Horace Clark (I78I -I842), son of the younge r Joel, S I G N I F I C A NT I ND E X F E AT UR E S

o Platform with molded edge elevates the interior drawers above the writing surface

o Single valance drawer in center o Backboards nailed in rabbet in case sides o Drawer dividers are dovetailed to case sides, with exposed dovetails visible from the front

o

Drawer runners set in a groove, as in the Perkins family cheston-chest from Farmington (cat. 159) and the Lord group of Colchester

o o o

CAT A LOG 1 6 2 T his desk-on-frame is typical of many produced in H art ford County; the four-drawer lower case, cymacurved aprons, and bandy legs wit h knee returns are features associated with We thersfie ld style desks. The square pad feet without a supporting pad are unu sual.

Two corner-to-corner diagonal braces reinforce the frame Knee return s are applied to the front of the apron Feet are flat and almost square, creating a point ed toe; no supporting pad

o

Dr awer sides are round ed on top. Long drawers are dovetailed in the Suffield manner with a pin at the top and bottom, the groove for the drawer bott om extending into the pin, and the rear half-dovetail missing (Suffield notch); dovetail pins are large and of average angle

350

C OM BI N A T I O N S

&

vA

R I AT I O N S

CAT A LOG I 6 2 A The simple interior has a platform with molded edge below the drawers. The center valance is the front of a small drawer.

owned three desks at his death, anyone ofwhich might have been inherited. According to family tradition, Joel Clark was also the maker, but there is no evidence that either Joel was a cabinetmaker.' A related example is a flat-top high chest, with a Simsbury history of having first belonged to Ruth Case (b. 1754), who married Eli Phelps ofWindsor circa 1775. According to family tradition the high chest was made for her by a relative, possibly her cousin, Simsbury joiner Joshua Case (1723-78), to whom no other work is yet attributed) Singular features of this high chest include: an unusually tall upper case; a narrow center drawer in the top row with a well-carved shell whose rays are taller than they are wide; pairs of short drawers flanking the shell drawer; and four long drawers only slightly graduated in height. The conventional lower case has a Wethersfield style cyma-curved front apron and double ogee side apron. The relatively straight legs and tall oval pad feet with a steeply angled top suggest production by a seasonal or part-time joiner. The drawer sides are rounded at the top, have no dovetail pin at the top or bottom, and are nailed to the drawer bottom from the sides.

FARMINGTON

VALLEY

Dimensions: H overall 42%"; desk W 36" D 16W'; frame W 38" D17W' Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: knee returns and brasses replaced Exhibition: Wadsworth Atheneum 1967, no. II4 Publication: Ward, American Case Furniture, no. 154 HCFS II4

1.

Ward, American Case Furniture, p. 183, fig. 1.

2. Ward, American Case Furniture, no. 154. Elijah Clark is listed as a joiner in Simsbury in 1798; Connecticut Assessors, Warren Collection. He appears to be unrelated to Joel; his origins are uncertain; and no furniture has been attributed to him.

3. HCFS 162; privately owned. The information and line of descent was written on a paper label by CMK (probably Carrie Phelps Marshall Kendrick [1883-1963] great-granddaughter of Ruth Case and mother of the last private owner), and attached to a drawer side early in the twentieth century.

3SI

CATAL OG

r63

Straight-jront bureau Probably by John Nash Probably Win chester, q8S-I8oo Connecticut Historical Society Museum, I98S.I4.2S, bequest ofGeorge H Gilman, Jr.

Brands, whether of an owner or maker, are rare on Connecticut valley case furni ture .' "J. NASH" brand ed on the backboard of this bureau probably stands for John Nash (1758-r835), a joi ner in Winchester, whose working dates fit well with th e bureau's design and construction features. Nash was born in H artford 's west division (present- day W est H artford ) and probably apprenticed locally. A bo ut 1782 he m arri ed E sther Whiting (1763-r835) in Torri ngton , and settled in Winchester, a Litchfield County town locat ed between Torringt on and Winsted, where he spent th e rest of his life." This quite formal straight-front bureau is a blend of techniques and design features, and demon strates th at Nash, like Erastus Grant in W estfield, Massachusetts, and J ulius Barnard in Northampton, had th e skill and imagination to integrate new ideas into his work.

CAT A LOG I 6 3 A The brand is impre ssed in the out side of th e backb oard . In Connecticut such brands were most often used by the makers of windsor chairs.

Dimension s: H 3f /s" W 39¥S" D 18%"; top 41Ih" X 19%" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine and tulip poplar C ondition note s: brasses replaced In scription : "J. NASH" brand ed on the outside of th e backboard HCFS II9

S IGN IF ICAN T IN DEX F E AT UR E S

o Com plex molded top edge enhanced by a cornice molding o Top attached with a sliding dovetail (in the M assachusetts

Among these are a bureau branded J.WELLS (see p. 371). For the brand used by chairmaker A.D. Allen (1774-1855) of Windham, in northeastern Connecticut, see [Kirk] , Connecticut Fu rn itu re, no. 70. I.

mann er)

o o

Backboard set in grooves in case sides (as in Ch apin school) Rail above the top drawer, but no subtop (as in the Colchester Lord group)

o Qu arter columns have five (rather than four) flutes, and complex turned capitals and bases

o

Finely carved gadroon strip is applied between the feet on both

2. John Boyd, Annals and Family R ecords of Winch ester, Conn. (Hartfo rd: Case, Lockwood & Brainard , 1873), pp. 170-71. Another Joh n Nas h living in N ewtown in northeastern Fairfield Co. advertised th at he "Made and sold all kind s of Cabinet Furniture" (B ridgepo rt R epublican Farm er, November 16, 1825). Both John Nashes are listed in the federal census of 1830.

the front and side aprons

o Splayed and blind-dovetailed ogee feet and the base molding profile resemble that of the Ch apin school, but quadrant base construction is not used

o

Rear foot brace attached with small horizontal dovetails (as in the Ch apin school)

o Dr awer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins at the top and bottom of the drawer sides; dovetail pins are of an average angle

352

COM B IN A T I ON S

&

V A R I A T ION S

I 63 This straight-front bureau has a formal appearance greatly enhanced by a small cornice, inset and elaborately turned quarter columns, and finely grooved gadroon strips on the front and side aprons. The splayed ogee feet with an astragal molded supporting pad identify it as a Hartford area product. CAT A LOG

FARMINGTON

VALLEY

353

/

EPILOGUE

End of an Era, r790-r8ro

Like the 1730S and 1740S, the decades between 1790 and 1810 marked a period of transition for Connecticut valley cabinetmakers. The picture is complex: alongside newly fashionable federal forms and designs, local variations of the Chippendale style persisted with much greater tenacity than has previously been realized. Indeed, increasing availability of printed pattern books resulted in the production of much more literal versions of English styles, including Chippendale designs that had been popular in England around 1750 (cats. 179, 180). During these transitional decades, the influence of the Chapin tradition extended throughout Hartford County and beyond. Its preeminence had begun to emerge in the late 1780s, as craftsmen working in the three other major styles incorporated selected Chapin design features into their production. The extent of this adaptation varied considerably-from wholesale replication (cat. 82) to discrete elements, such as Chapinlike finials on a Wethersfield style high chest (cat. 28) or an applied vine on a Colchester style chest-on-chest drawer front (cat. 126). The Chapin influence was especially pronounced in workshops in towns north and west of East Windsor-Suffield, Farmington, Simsbury, Granby (see chapt. 6). Aaron Chapin's move to Hartford in 1783 placed the Chapin tradition squarely in the midst of important economic changes. Hartford incorporated as a city in 1784. During the following decade it emerged as the leading furniture producing center for the region, eclipsing the earlier local style centers. For Connecticut valley cabinetmakers, the decade of the 1790S was a time of both instability and opportunity. The pace of change quickened, and the duration of a style or furniture form shortened. Shop traditions fragmented, and craftsman mobility increased. Even within successful shops, workmen came and went with unprecedented rapidity, as some cabinetmakers moved to Hartford and others departed for newly opened frontier territories. Samuel Kneeland (1755-1828), for example, was born in Colchester, worked with considerable success in Hartford from 1786 to 1798, then

354

moved on to Farmington and, ultimately, to Geneseo, New York. Benjamin Catlin Gillett (1782-1837) moved from Torrington to Hartford, where he worked for Aaron Chapin (cat. 169) and in a partnership with Daniel Dewey, before moving on to Wilmington, North Carolina. Other craftsmen from the four Connecticut valley style centers moved to Vermont, upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and elsewhere.' The movement of craftsmen in combination with the complex changes in furniture production after 1790 makes it more difficult to rely upon the physical evidence of idiosyncratic shop practices as a method for identifying and classifying regional furniture. For example, the Chapin school index characteristics identified in a 1791 desk and bookcase from Aaron Chapin's shop (cat. 167) are not evident in a later one documented to the same shop in 1809 (cat. I66A). Attributions become much more dependent on documentation-inscriptions, labels, bills of sale-and family histories. A comprehensive survey of Connecticut valley federal furniture is beyond the scope of this project. As the Hartford Case Furniture Survey originated in questions about widespread Chapin attributions, so it concludes by investigating the influence of the Chapin tradition in the federal era. As a result of Hartford's new centrality, the presentation of these entries shifts to a concentric model, radiating outward from shops in the city of Hartford to Hartford County, and finally to the surrounding region. Although some changed careers, others remained cabinetmakers and likely continued to use the techniques they had learned as apprentices in the Connecticut valley. Furniture production by these emigrant craftsmen remains a fascinatingly unexplored topic.

1.

END

OF

AN

ERA

Hartford

In 1782 the town of Hartford counted 5,496 residents, compared to 3,733 in Wethersfield, and fewer than 3,400 each in East Windsor and Colchester. I Hartford's growth made it fertile ground for craftsmen, and the construction of a new State House between 1792 and 1796 provided employment for a wide assortment of trades. In 1792 local cabinetmakers, like craftsmen in other cities, formed a trade association to protect their interests. One of their principal accomplishments was a pamphlet that fixed prices for various furniture forms and their optional embellishments.' For furniture historians, the Hartford cabinetmakers' price list of 1792 provide s an invaluable window into local furniture production. Case pieces could have either plain or "swell'd" (oxbow or serpentine) fronts in widths that varied with the form; "carv'd moulding" (gadrooning) was offered as an extra-cost option. Desks could have drawers or "doors and trays." Bookcases could be plain or have a "large dental moulding," a "pediment head, mitre'd doors and balls," or a "scrowl'd head and fluted pilasters." On all these forms feet could be "claw," "swell'd" (ogee) or "plain" (bracket) . Many of the forms and options had been in production in Connecticut valley shops since the preceding decade. Still older forms, such as high chests and dressing tables, are notably absent from the list. New fashions, from Boston, New York, and abroad, arrived with craftsmen from outside the valley. Some local craftsmen, such as John 1. Wells (1769-1835), spent time as journeymen in New York. The 1796 Hartford tax list identifies twenty woodworkers of various types, including six cabinetmakers: Aaron Chapin (1753-1838), his first cousin Aaron Colton (1758-1840), William Flagg (1772-1858), Samuel Kneeland, John 1.Wells, and Lemuel Adams (w, 1792-1801). The backgrounds of these craftsmen illustrate the increasing diversity of Hartford furniture production. Flagg and Wells were Hartford natives. Chapin and Colton came from Springfield. Kneeland came from Colchester and Adams possibly from Norwich, the leading city of New London County.

HARTFORD:

AARON

CHAPIN

SHOP

I. The following year the eastern section of H artford became the independent town of East H artford , substantially reducing H artford's official population. In 1790 Hartford's population was 4,09 0, but the combined total for H artford and East Hartford was 7,106; by 1810 Hartford alone had 6,003 residents. Colche ster's 1790 population figure is unavailable, and Wethersfield and East Windsor had also split off new communities, making furth er comparisons difficult.

2. Hartford cabinetmakers' price list, survive.

355

1792,

only six pages of which

cAaron Chapin Jhop

In 1783, at the age of 30 Aaron Chapin opened his own shop in Hartford after working for nine years with his cousin, Eliphalet Chapin, in East Windsor. He almost immediately took on his younger brother, Amzi Chapin (1768-r835), as an apprentice. I Amzi remained with him until r79r, the last three years as a journeyman, and then left Hartford to pursue a career as a singing teacher, composer, and part-time cabinetmaker.' Over the next decade and a half Aaron had numerous apprentices and journeymen at his shop, including his son, Laertes (r778-r847), George Belden (r77o- r838; see cats. r64, r66), and John Porter II (r772- r802; see cat. r64A). In r807 he made Laertes a partner and renamed the shop Aaron Chapin & Son. After r8r3 Laertes handled day-to-day operations, while Aaron concentrated on other interests, especially watch repairing, which he had taken up by 1798. The cabinetmaking business endured until Laertes retired in r845 ) Throughout his career, Aaron maintained a high profile, choosing a highly visible location in the center

of Hartford, advertising frequently, and playing a leading role as secretary of the Hartford Society of Cabinetmakers. He achieved further local prominence by serving in the prestigious post of deacon in the First Congregational Church, from r8r3 until his death in r838 at age 85. He left a substantial estate valued at more than $8,000. 4 Aaron Chapin's numerous advertisements and church leadership helped to shape his historical reputation, prompting some early twentieth-century scholars and collectors to conclude that his shop was more important than Eliphalet's and thus credit Aaron with much furniture here attributed to Eliphalet's East Windsor shop. Firm information about Aaron's shop output is surprisingly sketchy. Surviving cabriole-Ieg high chests,

FIG U R E 7 . I Aaron Chapin's shop sold this Chippendale style sofa to Oliver Ellsworth of Windsor in I79I. On e of only a handful of sofas documented to a Conn ecticut maker, there is little to distinguish it from tho se made in New York or elsewhere. Oli ver Ellsworth H omestead, Windsor, Conne cticut.

END

OF

AN

ERA

7 . 2 This cherry side chair, with crispl y carved urn s and rosettes, is from the set of nine made by the Aaron Chapin sho p to accompany the sofa in figure 7-1. Two of the set are depicted in Ralph E arl's 1792 portrait of Oliver and Abi gail Ellsworth (Wa dsworth Atheneum Museum of Art). The Ell sworths' chai rs are th e earliest urn-back examples documented to th e C onnecticut River Valley. Construction practices used to fabricate them are the same as those used in Eliphalet Chapin's E ast Windsor sho p (see figs. 3.2-3.4 & cat. 57E). Oliver Ellsworth H om estead, Windsor, C onnecticut. FI G U R E

dressing tables, and chairs that have credible histories point, for the most part, to an origin in East Windsor. The earliest pieces that can be firmly documented to Aaron or his shop date to 179r: a Chippendale style sofa plus a set of nine urn-back side chairs in the newly fashionable federal mode sold to Oliver Ellsworth (1745-r807) of Windsor (figs. 7.r, 7.2).5 Amzi Chapin stamped three tables during his years as a journeyman in the shop, 1788-9r (figs. 7·3, 7·4, 7.5). Apprentice George Belden signed and dated a desk and bookcase with a removable pediment in 179r (cat. r67)' The next convincingly documented object s are two federal sideboards dating from r804; the most famous is accompanied by a bill of sale from Aaron Chapin to Frederick Robbins (r756-r82r) of Wethersfield's Stepney parish (Rocky Hill), while the other is signed by apprentice John H . Willis (b. r783; cats. r69A, r69B). These are followed by two additional sideboards and two wing chairs (cats. r69, r69c & figs. 7.6, 7.7), all of

S IGN IF IC AN T OGEE -F OOT

IN DEX

FEATU RE S

FU RN ITURE

which date from r805 to r8n and are signed by other journeymen or apprentices-Benjamin Gillett, Rhodolphus Colton (1784-r838), and Jeremiah Cleveland (1794-r836). The recorded output, which includes pieces with histories of ownership in Suffield, Granby, and East Haddam among other places, concludes with a bureau table and desks and bookcases made for Rev.

Construction

OF

o Cherry as primary wood; eastern white pine as predominant

FO RMS'

D esign and D ecorati on

secondary wood

o Oxbow facade predominates o Pediments may be fixed or removable o Bookcase has "mitred doors" (doors with overlapping knife-

o Conforming top on bureaus is screwed from below to full-depth subtop, the edge of which is cherry, forming a visible rail above top drawer

o Draw er dividers attached to case sides with double mortise-and-

edges), and an En glish glazing pattern

o Desks and bookcases have bosom (or rounded) long drawer at bott om of bookcase section, and secretary drawer above three drawers of equal height in the desk section

o Cock bead run on drawer surrounds o Ring-and-bail brasses; keyhole drive escutcheons o Splayed ogee feet have a relatively small spur and have an astragal molded on the base. Me asured from the rear, the feet splay outward approximately l from the vertical

tenon joint s

o Backboards are set in grooves in case sides and top or bottom o Qu adrant base used to attach ogee feet o Inside face of drawers is gouged to conform to the oxbow facade at the top edge and kept rectangular at the bott om edge

o Drawer sides are beaded on the outside edge; drawer-side dovetail pins are of average size and angle (dovetail pins from Aaron's shop are of greater angle than those from Eliphalet's shop) • These features are not unique to Aaron Ch apin's shop. T he small sample of federal furniture from the show is too diverse to establish its group characteristics.

HARTFORD:

AARON

CHAPIN

SHOP

357

FI G U R E 7 . 3 This large stand table bears the stamp of Aaron Ch apin's younger brother Amzi Chapin, suggesting that it likely dates from 1788- 91, his years as a journeyman in Hartford. The design is similar to th at of stand tables made in cousin Eliphaler's East Windsor shop more than a decade earlier, although the turnin gs are simpler (see fig. 3.1). Wadsworth Atheneum Mu seum of Art, 1979.188, purchased with funds provided by the bequest of Roscoe Nelson Gray in memory of Roscoe Nelson D alton Gray and Rene Gabrielle Gray.

7. 4 Also stamped by Amzi Ch apin, this mahogany demilune card table corresponds to the 1792 Hartford cabinetmakers' price list option, "circular card table with carv'd mouldin g, 3 feet long @ £2. 5.0 ." Hi storic Deerfield, 962. FIG U R E

FI G U R E 7. 5 Am zi Chapin's stamp on the card table in figure 7.4, dating to 1788-91, resembled those used by silversmiths.

Thomas Robbins (1777-r856) of East Windsor between r807 and r809 (cats. r66, r66A). The evidence attests to Aaron's widespread reputation: by the early nineteenth century his customer base was distributed throughout the county. During his first decade in business Aaron Chapin hewed to the designs and construction practices of his cousin's East Windsor shop. Two pieces signed by apprentice George Belden-an oxbow desk and bookcase dated to 179r and an oxbow bureau from 1785-r793-have index characteristics remarkably similar to those on contemporary examples produced at Eliphalet Chapin's shop (compare cats . 67 & r67 or 70 & r64). Supplemental evidence helps to separate the 358

output of the two businesses-signatures of appren tices, histories of ownership, or documentary references, such as bills of sale or account book entries made by individuals who dealt with one or the other of the Chapins. Without such supporting evidence, many objects, especially those with oxbow facades and ogee feet, could be attributed to either shop (cats. 7r, 73). In contrast, the sideboards Aaron's shop produced in the early years of the nineteenth century are his own interpretation of the form, based on New York designs. They stand among the finest federal furniture produced in the region. Aaron appears to have been a skilled craftsman who also possessed good business acumen. He may not have END

0 FAN

ERA

7 . 6 The survival on the frame of this easy chair of both an Aaron Chapin advertisement and the inscription "B C Gillett / 1806" serve to identify Benjamin C. Gillett ofTorrin gton as one of the shop's workmen. This late Chippendale style chair, with unusually tall wings, was probably made for the 1806 wedding of Hepzibah Loomis (1786-1866) of Windsor and Eli Clark (1781-1841) of East Granby. Historic Deerfield, 617A.

FIG U R E 7 . 7 In scribed "Aaro n Ch apin and Son / Jeremiah C. Cleveland," th is easy chair may date from 18n, when the probable first owner, William G ay (176rI844), purchased a large home in Suffield. It shares with the Gillett chair (fig. 7.6) wings that rise higher than the tall back and a tulip poplar frame. The vertical supports are basswood. The turned Sherat on-style front legs are the only such examples documented to the Aaron Ch apin shop. The brass casters are original, as are the sackcloth underuphol stery and most of the linen webbin g. Privately owned.

possessed Eliphalet's creative genius, but he instinctively recognized which fashions emanating from New York and abroad would, with adaptations, appeal to his Connecticut valley clients. He hired journeymen who had the competence to produce a wide assortment of complex objects.

4. Aaron L. Chapin, "Reminiscences," pp. 164- 170, esp. 166, 170.

FIG U R E

5. Chapin charged £10.4 for the "sopha Compleat" and 36s. for each of the 9 chairs; the bill totaled £26.8.0. Oliver Ellsworth Papers, cont ainer I, M anuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

r. Conn ecticut Courant, Decemb er 9, 1783; H oopes, "Aaron

Chapin," p. 97; Lionetti & Trent, "Chapin Chairs," p. 1087. 2.Thomas & Benes, "Amzi Chap in," pp. 76- 80. 3. H oopes, "Aaron Chapin," P: 98. Aaron operated the watchmaking and repair business out of the furniture shop. Laertes apparently signed no furniture during the many years he ran the business, and none can be attributed to his hand .

H ART FOR D:

A A RON

C HAP INS HOP

359

TAB L E 8

Cabinetmakers Associated with theAaron Chapin Shop

Name Aaron Chapin

Birthplace/

Apprenticeship

date

years"

Work history

Selected data

Chicopee

East Windsor

Advertised in Hartford, 1783-1830S

parish of

(E . Chapin shop),

Listed in Hartford, federal census of 1790, 1800, 18ro,

Springfield

1774-83

1753

Hartford, 1783-1830S

1820

Documented sofa & chairs, 1791 Listed in Hartford Society of Cabinetmakers, 1794 Listed in Hartford tax assessments, 1796,1797, 1798 Advertised work on watches, 1788, 1798 Listed in Hartford City Directories, 1799, 1828-38 Documented sideboards, 1804, 1807 Documented easy chairs, 1806, ca. 18n Advertised new firm name, Aaron Chapin & Son, 1807

Documented bureau table, desk and bookcase, 1809 Turned day-to-day furniture operations over to son, Laertes, ca. 1813 Continued to work on clock & watch mechanisms at the shop, 18Ir38 Died in Hartford, 1838 Amzi Chapin

"Arnzi Chapin" stamped on

Chicopee

Hartford

Hartford

parish of

(A. Chapin shop),

(A. Chapin shop),

Springfield

1783-88

1788-91

Became singing teacher and composer, 1791

New Haven, 1791

Furniture documented to all these locations (based

1768

Rockingham Co.,

2

stand tables

& I card table, 1788-91

on his own journal); primarily worked as singing

Va., 1792

teacher, composer, and maker of musical

Durham, Orange,

instruments

Guildford Cos.,

Died in Northfield, Ohio, 1835

NC., 1792-95 Lexington & Washington,

Ky., 1795-1800 Westmoreland Co ., Pa., 1800-31 Northfield, Ohio, 1831-35 George Belden

Hartford

Hartford

eastern section

Probably

(probably

(A. Chapin shop) ,

of Hartford

A. Chapin shop),

179 1 Windsor, 1793-

I

770

1784-9 1

"George Belden / Hartford" incised on an attributed Aaron Chapin shop desk and bookcase, 1791 "Belden / Hartford" inscribed on an attributed Aaron Chapin shop bureau, pre 1793 Advertised new shop in Windsor, 1793 "George Belden / Windsor" inscribed on oxbow bureau, post 1793 Listed in Windsor tax assessments, 1795, 1798 Listed in Windsor, federal census of 1800, 18ro, 1820, 1830

No documented furniture after 1800 Died in Windsor, 1838 * Apprenticeships are presumed to run from ages 14 to 21

J60

END

0 FAN

ERA

Name John Porter II

W ork history

Selected data

H artford

East Hartford,

"JP " stamped on Ch apin school four-drawer oxbow

(A. Ch apin shop),

1795-98 H artford ,

Birthplace/

Apprenticeship

date

years'

Colebro ok 1772

1786- 93

bureau, post 1795 Listed in East H art ford tax assessments, 1795, 1797, 1798 Listed in H artford City Dir ectory, 1799

1799- 1802

Listed in East H artford, census of 1800 Advertised in Hartford, 1800-1802 Died in Hartford, 1802 Laertes Chapin

Signed bill of sale for Robbins sideboard, on behalf

East Windsor

Hartford

Hartford:

r778

(A. Chapin shop) ,

(A. Chapin shop),

179 2-99

1799- r807

Made partner by father, firm renamed, 1807

Aaron Chapin

Advertised in Hartford, 1807-40S

& Son, 1807-43

Handled most day-to -day furniture business

Laerte s Chapin shop 1843-45

of Aaron Chapin shop, 1804

from r813 onward Listed in Hartford, federal census of 1820, 1830, 1840 Listed in Hartford City Dire ctories, 1828-4 2 Renamed firm after self, H artford City Directories, 1843- 45 Clo sed shop, r845 Died in East Hartford, r847

John H . Willi s

ca. 1783

Hartford

Hartford , r804

(probably A

New York City?

Chapin shop),

r805

"John H. Willis Hartford . .. at Mr. Aaron Ch apin's shop" inscribed on sideboard, r804 Planned to leave for New Orleans, autumn 1804 Sashmaker listed in New York City Dir ectory,

ca. r797-r 804

r805-6 Benjamin C .

Torrin gton 1782

Gillett

"B.C . Gillett / H artford" inscribed on an attributed

Possibly Hartford

Hartford

(A Chapin shop),

(A. Chapin shop),

179 6-r803

r804-ca. r809 (with Daniel Dewey?),

Aaron Chapin shop sideboard, r805 "BC Gillett" inscribed on an Aaron Ch apin-labeled chair, r806

1812-r4

Signed card table, undated, pre r809

Wilmington, N.C.,

Advertised in Wilmington, N .C., r809, r8r6

r809-post r8r6?

Partnership with Daniel Dewe y, H artford , r812-r4 Died in Wilmington, N.C. , r837

Rhodolphus

Longme adow,

Colton

Mass., r784

Jeremiah

Norwich 1794

C. Cleveland

r798- r805

Hartford

Hartford

Signed candle stand, r806

(A . Chapin shop),

"R Colton . . . for A. Ch apin and Son" inscribed on

r8°7Lenox, M ass.,

Son born in Len ox, M ass. r8r2

ca. r8ro-

Died in Lenox, M ass., r838

Hartford,

"Aaron Chapin and Son / Jeremiah C . Cleveland"

(A. Chapin shop),

r8r6?-r 8r8?

r808- r5

Batavia, Ohio,

sideboard, r807

inscribed on wing chair, ca. r8I!

r8r8-

Married Elizabeth Robin son in Batavia, Oh io, r8r9 Listed in Batavia, federal census of r820 Inscribed tower clock case, Lebanon, Ohi o Died in Batavia, Ohio, r836

H ART FOR D .

A A RON

C HAP INS HOP

J6I

C ATALOG

164

Oxbow bureau Probably Aaron Chapin shop, signed by George Belden H artford, q 8S-I793 Privately ow ned

C AT A L O G 1 6 4 This exceptionally well-m ade oxbow bureau has elegantly shaped ogee feet and narrow proportionsonly 33" wide. The below-edge molding of th e top is th e same as catalog 70, a bureau signed by W illiam Flagg, probably as an

] 62

apprentice in Eliphalet Chapin's East Windsor shop; however, the "G eorge Belden" and "Ha rtford" inscribed on this bureau place it in Aaron's shop prior to 1793, when Belden opened his own shop in Windsor.

END

0 FAN

ERA

This bureau is one of several that are significantly narrower (3" or 6") in proportion to their height than other valley oxbows; most emanated from one of the two Chapin shops (see cats. 70, 71, 72). Belden's signature on several pieces, some probably dating from his apprenticeship years, has led to an overestimation of his role. Extensive object-based analysis by the HCFS yielded no specific criteria by which Belden's work can be distinguished from that of most other Chapin school craftsmen. The "B [?] Morgan" who marked the case with George Belden remains unidentified but likely was another apprentice or journeyman in the Aaron Chapin shop. I An unusual construction feature within this group is a pine board glued to the inside face of each cherry drawer front to provide the necessary thickness for the oxbow shaping. This board is visible both on the inside face of the drawer front and in the dovetail pins on the drawer side. A related Chapin school four-drawer oxbow, probably made at the shop of another former Aaron Chapin apprentice, John Porter II, bears the unusual stamp "J- P" in three places (cat. 164A; HCFS 109). Porter, the son of Jerusha King Porter (b. 1747), Aaron Chapin's sister-in-law, was a cabinetmaker who advertised frequently in the Hartford newspaper between 1800 and 1802. That oxbow has features consistent with production five to ten years later than catalog 164: wood stock is about V16" thinner throughout; full-depth subtop has been reduced to three struts; drawer fronts are scribemolded; inside face of each drawer conforms to the exterior shaping; drawer sides are rounded on top and have no beading on the outside edge.

HARTFORD.

AARON

CHAPIN

SHOP

CAT A LOG 164 A The initials "jP" stamped on a related bureau (unillustrated) probably belong to John Porter II, who trained with Aaron Chapin before setting up shop in East Hartford and Hartford. Resembling a silversmith's mark (a depressed rectangle with raised initials), this stamp was impressed once on the back edge of the top and twice on the back edge of the base molding. Privately owned.

Dimensions: H 34'-h" W 33'-h" D 16W'; top

34~"

x 19"

Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: brasses original Inscriptions: "George Belden," "Hartford," "B[?] Morgan," and other partial and illegible words in graphite on several drawer interiors Publications: Christie's, sale 6922 (October 21, 1989), lot 220; Nathan Liverant & Son advertisement, Connecticut Spring Antiques Show program, 1990, p. 8. HCFS 40 For more on Belden, see cats. 165 & 167. The only other identified cabinetmakers with the surname Morgan were closer to Aaron's age and worked in eastern Connecticut: Ebenezer Morgan (1756-1831) in Groton; Daniel Morgan (1744-1817) in Preston . See Myers & Mayhew, New London County Furniture, p. 129; Preston tax list, 1797, Connecticut Assessors, Warren Collection. 1.

1865), likely a former Eliphalet Chapin apprentice, working in his hometown ofWe stfield, Massachusetts, at about the same time as catalog 165.2Another closely related three-drawer bureau has a history of ownership by Sarah Dorchester (1759-1853) and Nathaniel Kingsbury (1753-1834) ofTolland, east of East Windsor; they married in 1782 and probably acquired the bureau some years later) Sarah was Eliphalet Chapin's second cousin; Nathaniel's first cousin, Pri scilla Birge (ca. 1742- 1816), was the mother of East Windsor cabinetmaker Jonathan Birge (1768-1820), who in the 1780s likely also apprenticed in Eliphalet Chapin's shop . These family connections suggest an Ea st Windsor origin for the latter bureau.

C A T ALOG 165 Oxbow bureau Signed by George Belden Windsor, I79J - I8oo Collection of Roger J Gonz ales

Dimensions: H 35" W 401,4" D I8¥s"; top 41%" x 191,4" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine C ondition note s: brasses replaced In script ions: "G eorge Belden / Windsor" in graphite on inside of backboard , and "Belden" in graphite on inside of case side; illegible inscriptions on backboard and one drawer HCFS 36

1.

C AT A LOG I 6 5 Only a handful of Connecticut valley three-d rawer oxbow bure aus survive. Although thi s signed example resembles the lower case of a chest-o n-chest (see cat. 168), the existence of a similar example signed by Era stus Grant (cat. I65A), as well as a lack of evidence th at thi s top has been replaced, suppor ts this object as a distinct albeit unu sual form . The well-shaped, splayed feet display bold knee returns that arch into th e lip on the vert ical inner edge of the foot.

Connecticut Courant, M ay 6, 1793, Belden's only advertiseme nt.

2. Assessment based on ph oto inspection only. Inscribed "Erastus Grant," it has a history of ownership in Southwick, M ass., not far from Westfield. Exhibited at Con necticut Tercent enary 1935, no. II4; published in Bulkeley, "Belden and Gra nt," pp. 72- 81, figs. 26,30 , at which time Paul G odard owned it. Examined by cabinetmaker Paul Koda who reported the design and construction, includ ing the use of quadrant base and beaded drawer side, to be similar to cats. 167 & 183. 3. Location unkn own; HCFS 227; N adeau's Auction G allery, September 23,1995; Northeast Auctions, November 4, 200I, lot 860.

The place name "Windsor" written by the same hand as Belden's name suggests that this bureau was made after Belden opened his own shop in that town in 1793. 1 Nonetheless, the design and construction remains essentially the same as on catalogs 164 & 167, signed by Belden several years earlier, probably while working in Aaron Chapin's shop. A similar three-drawer oxbow bureau with rectangular top (cat. 165A) is inscribed by Erastus Grant (1774-

CAT A LOG I 6 5 A Differences in th e shaping of th e drawer fronts and th e ogee feet distinguish thi s bure au, signed by Erastus Grant, from catalog 165. C lose similarities to design and construc tion techniques in catalogs 67 and 167 suggest th at bureau s of this type may have ema nated from the sho ps of both Eliph alet and Aaro n C hapin . L ocation unkn own .

J 64

END

0 FAN

ERA

CATALOG

r66

Straight-jront bureau table Aaron Chapin shop H artford, I809 F irst owned by Thomas Robbins of East W indsor Conn ect icut Historical Society Museum, I8S6.I' 7, bequest of Thomas Robbins

One of the few documented pieces from the Aaron Chapin shop not signed by an apprentice or journeyman, this unique bureau table was probably built to the buyer's specification s. It illustrates well the transformation in design that took place in the two decades after the production of catalog r64. The line inlay, veneer, bowed apron, french feet, and stamped oval brasses are all elements of the new federal style. From r809 to r827 Rev. Thomas Robbins (1777-r856) served as mini ster to the East Windsor Church (previously Eliphalet Chapin's congregation); over the years he accumulated a large scholarly library (j,600 volumes). In r844 he retired from the mini stry and for the next decade served as the first librarian of the Connecticut Historical Society. Robbins ordered thi s bureau table and two "desks" from Aaron Chapin, paying $17 for the bureau table on November r6, r809.1The bureau table remained in his home for more than forty years, and at Robbins's death went to the historical society, along with his library. Six months before taking delivery of the bureau table, Robbins also requested Chapin's shop to make him a desk and bookcase with a writing drawer to specific dimensions (cat. r66A). 2 The bookcase has a prominent cornice molding and rather severe, rectangular, glass- paneled doors. The desk ha s a writing drawer or secretary, below which are doors that open to a large cabinet with a single shelf It was far different from the desk and bookcase Aaron Chapin's shop had made in 1791 (see cat. 167). D imensions: H 3714" W 42" D 183,4"; top 42%" x 19th" M aterials: cherry and cherry veneer with eastern wh ite pine and tulip poplar (drawer interior) Condition notes: green baize writing liner, red-p ainted surface, gilt brasses and carrying handle s original

C AT A L OG I 6 6 This unique and functional bureau table features a restrained design with bowed front and side aprons. The breadb oard top flips open to rest on lopers, exposing a green baize-covered writing surface. The slight splay to the french feet was accompli shed by attachi ng a wedge to the vertical surface prior to applying the cherry veneer.

;j

!

t:

.,

Ir ,I

1\

,~

I I

l)

a

to

SINGULA R

CA T A LOG I 6 6 A Produced by Aaro n Chapin's shop in 1809, th e same year as the bureau table (cat. 166), this massive desk and bookcase displays an almost identical base. T he red paint and gilt hardw are are original. C onn ecticut H istorical Society Museum, 1856.1.2, bequest of Thom as Robbins.

FEATURES

I>

Fold-down top that rests on lopers when opened

I>

Wedge-shaped additions give the front feet a slight splay

I>

Wedge-shaped rear foot brace is slid into a groove on the foot

I>

Row of small rectangular glue blocks secure feet and apron

I>

Drawer sides are flat on top; drawer dovetail pins are small triangles with pins visible at top and bottom

Publication: Lionetti & Trent, "Chapin Chairs," p. ro8S, fig. 6 HCFS4

1.

Thomas Robbins, Account Book.

2.

Thomas Robbins, Account Book, M ay 23,1809. HCFS 4A;

H A R T F O R D:

A A RON

C HAP INS HOP

published in H oopes, "Aaron Chapin," p. 97; Lionett i & Trent, "C hapin Chairs," p. ro8S, fig. 5. A desk and bookcase that Robbins ordered from Aaron Ch apin's shop in 1807 had proved too large; present location unkn own; Lionetti & Trent, "Chapin Chairs," p. ro8S .

J65

r67 Oxbow desk and bookcase with removablepedimentfram e Probably A aron Chapin shop, signed by George Belden Hartford, I79 I Wadsworth Atheneum Mus eum ofA rt, I980.64, purchased through thegift ofJam esJunius Goodwin C A TALOG

This desk and bookcase, probably from Aaron Chapin's H artford shop, closely resembles two others that are likely from Eliphalet's East Windsor shop (cats. 67, 69).1 It demonstrates the cousins' willingness to share both design s and construction solutions, such as the overlapping mitred bookcase doors, bosom drawer, and quadr ant-base assembly. It also challenges collectors and scholars to differentiate the output of the two shops during the fourteen years (r783-97) that the two coexisted; both produced case furniture with oxbow facades and ogee feet. This desk and bookcase bears the in scription of George Belden and the date May 6, I79I. Shortly thereafter Belden turned zr, which suggests this may have been his end-of-apprenticeship proof-piece. H owever, the inscriptions "Abraham" and "NS" suggest th at he had help on the drawer construction and backboard from at least two as-yet-unidentified craftsmen in the shop. Tw o years later Belden set up his own shop in Windsor. Like several of his contemporaries, he continued to sign his work (see cat. r65). These pieces demonstrate that Belden adhered to Chapin shop practices through th e r790s; no post-rsoo work has been documented to him. D imensions: overall H 831,4"; upper case H 42" W 3/' D 91;2"; lower case H 41%" W 37%" D 18" Ma terials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: removable pedim ent frame original; holes and shadows in the top of the front cornice moldin g indi cate that a portion of the pediment above th e cornice has been removed; upper part of th e two-part cornic e may be a later addition; brasses replaced

C AT A LO G I 6 7 This well-crafted desk and bookcase represent s th e earliest dated example of a removable pedim ent frame, a feature th at became popular in th e lower Co nnecticut River Valley durin g the 1790s. Only the lowest section of the pediment frame survives; the original design of the upper section is unknown . Probably made in Aaro n Chapin's shop, this desk and bookcase is otherwise strikingly similar to two desks and bookcases from Eliphalet Chapin's shop, both of which have permanently attached "balls" pedim ents (cats. 67, 69).

Inscript ions: "Geo rge Belden / Hartford / May 6, 1791" incised on unde rside of bosom drawer ; "Belden" in graphite on secretary small middle drawer bottom; "G. Belden" in graphite on lowest long dr awer bottom ; "Abraha m" in graphite on inside of left secretary-drawer back; "NS AE 21, 1791" in chalk on upper-c ase backboard; possible additional names th at are illegible I. An inapprop riate pediment above th e existing frame was removed in 1959; Paul Koda to the authors, 1993, HCFS files. For a similar chest-en- chest with a removable pedimen t attributed to th e Eliphalet Chapin shop, see cat. 68.

Exhibitio n: W adsworth Atheneum 1967, no. 131 Publications: Bulkeley, "Belden and G rant," figs. 24, 27, 29; Dowling, "Enigmatic Eliphalet C hapin," no. A27 H C FS 44

] 66

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CATALOG 168 Oxbow chest-on-chest w ith scrolled pediment Possibly Aaron Chapin shop Hartford, Wethersfield, or E ast Windsor, q8S- I79S, possiblyq87 Possiblyfirst own ed by Ma ry Belden and Frederick Butler of Wethersfield Location unknown By the late 1780s the chest-on-chest with an oxbow facade had begun to supplant the cabriole-leg high chest. This early example retains some familiar older features, such as a scrolled pediment terminating in carved cauliculi and a vine-carved center drawer. Its index features place it firmly within the Chapin tradition, quite likely the Aaron Chapin shop, and its singular features argue against attribution to the Eliphalet Chapin shop, then still operating in East Windsor. The open pediment continuous with the tympanum is a design not documented to Eliphalet Chapin's shop, and the less-fastidiou s craftsmanship argues for production by a second-generation Chapin school craftsman. Two similar chests-on-chests with Chapin school features also have firm histories of ownership in Wethersfield (cats. 177, 177A).I In 1901 this chest-on-chest belonged to Esther Eliz abeth Bidwell (1826-1906) of Wethersfield. The 1787 marriage of her grandparents Mary Belden (I770-18n) and Frederick Butler (1766-1843) offers a plausible date of production, consistent with the style of the cheston-chest. Bidwell lived in the house originally owned by her great-grandparents, Abigail Porter and Thomas Belden, and she also owned their early Wethersfield style high chest and dressing table (see cats. 18, 19).2 S INGULAR

I>

Open pediment with scrolled cornice; scroll terminates in a center (as in cat Ina)

I>

No brace acrossback of upper case behind the dustboard

I>

Complex two-piece midmolding, nailed from the inside (similar

I>

Cock bead run on upper-case drawer fronts and lower-case

to cat. 68) drawer surrounds Feet less bold than those made at Eliphalet Chapin shop (compare with cats. 67, 68) I>

Dimensions: overall H 88rs"; upp er case H 52lh" W 40" D I8lh"; lower case H 36¥S" W 4IrS" D I9lh" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine C ond ition note s: side finials original; center plinth cap, center finial, and brasses replaced

FEATU RES

naturalistic cauliculus; an applied triglyph with guttae in the

I>

C AT A L OG 168 C orresponding to the 1792 H art ford cabinetmakers' price list's "chest on chest with scrowl'd head [and] swell'd front," this chest- on- chest conforms in most respects to Chapin school design and construction practices. It differs from th e chest-o n-chest attributed to the Eliphalet Chapin shop (cat. 68) in two design features-the open pedim ent, and the termin ation of th e oxbow shaping at the top of th e lower case.

Rear foot brace is atypicallyshaped, and quadrant blocks are unusually small

Exhibitions: A rt In stitute of Chicago, American A rt of the Colonies and Ea rly R epu blic, July 17- Septem ber 13, 1971, no. 490; W adsworth Atheneum 1985, no. Il2 Publication s: Lockwood , Colonial Furni ture, I: fig. 124; Sack, A merican A ntiques, 7:1958 no. P5227; Israel Sack advertisement , Anti ques 121, no. 4 (M ay 1982), inside front cover; D owling, "Enigmatic Eliphalet Chapin ," no. 74 HCFS 43 Israel Porter (b. 1759), who worked as a journ eyman in Eliphalet's shop in Ea st Windsor in the late 1780s, moved to Wethersfield in 1789, where he worked for more th an a decade; see cats. 175-177. 1.

2. L ockwood, Colonial Furniture, I: 125-26, fig. 124. The family also owned a set of Ch apin school diamond-splat side chairs, possibly acquired in 1787;Webb -Deane-Stevens Museum, 31-34.

H ART F O R D: A A RON

C

HAP INS HOP

J67

C ATALOG

r69

Sideboard Probably Aaron Chapin shop, signed by Benjamin C. Gillett H artford, £805 Probablyfirst owned by J ulia Mitchell and D an iel Buck of H artford Connecticut H istorical Society Museum, 2002. £00 . 0, museum purchase and gift of Geoffrey S. Paul

CAT A LOG r 6 9 Imposing, elegant , and in the latest New York fashion, this eight-leg mahogany sideboard with serpentine cente r sectio n and ovolo corners is signed by Benjamin Gillett and dated May 6, r805. Embellishm ent is limited to line inlay and stringing.

J68

During the first decade of the nineteenth century, Aaron Chapin's shop offered customers a choi ce of three different sideboard designs: two six-leg models, with either ovolo or square corners, and a larger and more formal eight-leg version with ovolo corners.' The eight-leg model, of which six or more survive with credible histories, is closest to New York, and ultimately, English designs.' The number of surv iving example s and variety of form and ornament indic ates that sideboards were a specialty of the shop .This example was signed and dated by Benjamin Gillett just two years after he completed his apprenticeship, probably at Aaron Chapin's shop, where he stayed on to work as a journeyman for several years)

END

OF

AN

E R A

The probable first owners,Julia Mitchell (I782-I807) of Wethersfield and Hartford merchant Daniel Buck (1779- 1860 ), married September 14,1805. The same year Buck purcha sed a large city residence on Grove Street (near the State House in the center of Hartford) that had originally been built for wealthy Wethersfield merchant Barnabas Deane (1743- 94), brother of Revolutionary War diplomat and financier Silas Deane (I737-8 9), also of Wethersfield. The sidebo ard subsequently passed to Buck's second wife and widow, Elizabeth Belden Buck (I784- I887), and th en to her sister Mary Foote Belden Cooke (1795-1892), wh o sold it in the late nineteenth century to Hartford collector Fannie Briggs H ought on Bulkeley (Mrs. Morgan G.; 1860-1938).4 The best kn own of the related examples is an eight-leg version (cat. I69 A) that Frederick Robbins (I756- I82I) of Wethersfield purchased for $68 from the Aaron Chapin sho p on No vember 27, 1804. When Robbins died seventeen years later, his sideboard's value remained staggeringly high: $37. It is lavishly decorated but otherwise similar to catalog 169.5 The second and third related examples are also models with six legs. One is dated March 24, 1804, and inscribed by John H. Willis, who identified Aaron

CAT A LOG I 6 9 A T his outsta nding mahogany sideboard, described in th e 1804 bill of sale as "sash-cornered," demonstrates the virtuosity of th e Aaron C hapin shop at its best, rivaling New York produ ction. Purchased by merchant Frederick Robbins of W ethersfield, it was completed just six mon ths before catalog 169. T he two appear to have been made from the same template, but this one incorporates more elabora te and expensive inlay worksophisticated oval paterae and a chain of sunbursts on the six front legs. W adsworth A thene um Museum of Art, 1952.189, bequest of Frederick A. Robbi ns.

CAT A LOG I 6 9 B Signed on M arch 24, 1804, by apprentice Joh n Willis "at Mr. Aaro n Chapin's shop," th is is th e earliest sideboard document ed to that establishment. It was mad e from the smaller of the shop's two patterns. Two front legs and the paired bottl e drawers are omitted, and the center drawer is straigh t rather than serpentine in shape. The inlaid paterae on th e front of the legs are similar to those subsequen tly used on the Robbins sideboard (cat. I69A), and the stringing on the drawer fronts has inset corners. T he brasses are replaced. H artford Steam Boiler In spection and In surance Co mpany. CAT A LOG I 6 9 c D ated September 1807and signed by Rhodolphu s Co lto n for Aaron Ch apin and Son, thi s squarecornered sideboard is the same size as th e catalogs 169 & I69A but looks massive. The long side doors and short tapered legs presage the empire style, but the serpentine center section hews to the patterns used on the earlier forms. The sideboard is heavily restored and the legs are possibly replaced. C onnecticut Historical Society Museum, 1961.45.1, gift of Kenneth H ammitt.

H ART FOR D:

A A RON

C HAP I N S HOP

]69

Chapin's shop as his workplace (cat. 169B). This sideboard has long oval paterae inlaid on the front legs and stringing on the drawer fronts; all its dimensions are slightly smaller than the Gillett-signed sideboard. f The other sideboard is unsigned but probably contemporary with the two preceding examples-it incorporates th e same dimensions as the Willis-signed sideboard (cat. 169B) and the sunburst inlay of the Robbins sideboard (cat. 169A).7 The fourth sideboard is dated September 1807 and signed by Rh odolphus Colton, a distant relation of Aaron Chapin; the in scription names the newly form ed firm of A. Chapin and Son. It has the same overall dimen sions as the Buck and Robbins sideboards, but its massive case, sho rt legs, and sparse decoratio n are aesthetically less successful (cat. 169C).8 D imensions: H 42" W 77" D

29 ~"

Materials: mahogany and inlay with eastern white pine and tulip poplar Condition notes: brasses replaced Inscript ion: "B.e. Gillett" "Hartford / M ay 6, 1805", in graphite on inside of panels flanking th e center doors Publication s: Skinn er, sale 1755 (Janu ary 12, 1997), lot 177; Northeast Auctions, August 3- 4, 2002, lot 643 H CFS 278A 1. Since sideboard prod uction in th e Connecticut valley generally postdates 1800, this form was not systematically included in the H C FS; this entry is presented to fill out the picture of Aaron Chapin's shop production. At least one example of the three pattern s is signed, each by a different craftsman, and each is linked to the Aaron C hapin shop by either an inscription or a bill of sale.

3. For an 1806 G illett-signed and dated easy chair frame, see fig. 7.6, above. Before moving to Wilmington, N .C ., ca. 1809, Gill ett inscribed a five-leg demilune card table (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 1979.63), see H ewitt, Kane, & W ard, Work of M any H ands, no. 36. 4. Furniture scholar (and son of Fannie Bulkeley) H ought on Bulkeley to his sister-in-law, Ruth Collins Bulkeley (Mr s. M organ G ., Jr.), January 20, 1964,copy in HCFS files. Copy of 1893 sales receipt to Mrs. Morgan G . (Fannie ) Bulkeley, HCFS files. 5. Assessment based on limited inspection; published in Lyon, Colonial Furniture, p. 72, fig. 23; W alcott, "Ten Am erican Sideboards," fig. 9; Richards, "Furniture," pp. 18-19, fig. 20; John ston, "Wa dsworth Atheneum, " p. 1022, pI. 9; Comstock, American Furniture, fig. 512; Keyes, "Individuality of Conn ecticut Furniture," p. II3, fig. 9. The bill of sale, dated November 27, 1804, and signed by Laertes Ch apin, reads: "M r. Frederick Robbin s / Bout of Aaro n Chapin / M ahogany sash-co rnered 8 leg sideboard $68" (Wa dswort h Atheneum, object files; photocopy HCFS files). 6. Assessment based on limited inspection; published in Connecticut Masters, pp. 26r65. Subtop inscribed in graphite: "Made by John H . W illis H artford M arch the 24th 1804 at Mr. Aaron Ch apin's shop / Cabinet M aker M ain Street." Added in the margins, possibly by another hand: "And intends going in the fall to New Orleans where you may find the maker if not dead / and if not in New Orleans inquire somewhere else." 7. Privately owned; assessment based on limited inspection; publi shed in Sack, A merican A ntiques, 6: 1464 no. P4292; and Christie's, sale 7820 (January 22, 1994), lot 2578. In scribed in graphite on under side of removable shelf in the middle comp artment: "M ade by R. Colton / Sept. 1807 / for A. Chapin & Son"; assessment based on limited inspection; published in [Brainard, H arlow, & Bulkeley], "Conn ecticut Cabinetmakers," pp. 117-18, fig. 8. Similar examples are illustrated in Great R iv er, no. 142, and Nutting, Furniture Treasury, I: pI. 762.

2. For the four eight- leg examples not illustrated here see: Walcott, "Ten American Sideboards," fig. 4; Early American Antiques fro m th e Collection ofJ ames D av idson (New Lond on: Lyman Allyn Museum, 1933), n.p.; Renfrew M useum, W aynesboro, Pennsylvania (inscribed "R. Colton"); and Conn ecticut Valley Hi storical Museum, Sprin gfield, 83.68. The last was made for Bathshua Pynchon (1772-1845) and Ebenezer Gay,Jr. (1766-1837), of Suffield, who married M ay 15, 1799. Assessments of all four are based on photo inspectio ns only.

370

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'John L Wells Jhop

John 1. Wells (1769-1835) is second only to Aaron Chapin in longevity among Hartford cabinetmakers during th e federal period. He added "1" as hi s middle initial in 1791 "In consequence of their being others of the same name in this city." He had opened his business two years earlier and boasted in his 1791 advertisement, as did many young cabinetmakers, that he had "served as a Journeyman, and lately returned from one of the most noted Cabinet Shops in New York."! His business pro spered, and he advertised frequently as a cabinetmaker, sought numerous apprentice s, and in 1807 took Erastus Flint (1779-post 1860), a native of Ea st Windsor, as a partner," Despite evidence that Wells was both a skilled and successful cabinetmaker, he began to explore other busin ess ventures in 1807. By 1810 he was engaged in ink, paint, and mattress concerns, and furniture became a sideline . Although the furniture business continued to operate until at least 1816, it appears that Wells had little per sonal involvement in furniture making after 1810. Like Aaron Chapin, he spent the latter part of his life pursuing other interests, including invention and spiritual matters. In 1819 he patented an improved lever printing press. He joined the Wes t Hartford Society of Friends in 1810, and between 1808 and 1835 he wrote numerous Quaker articles and pamphlets on war, temperance, and religion) Despite his claim of New York training, Wells was a product of the local establishment. Born in Hartford, he was descended on both sides from prominent colonial governors-Thomas Wells (1594-1660) and William Pitkin (1694-1769). The pieces attributed to Wells by the HCFS include a desk and bookcase that descended in his family and a serpentine bureau inscribed in graphite with the name "Wells." The construction of these pieces suggests that he probably apprenticed locally to an as yet unidentified master with no established connections to the Chapin workshops. Because of the small sample, the index features are listed with each entry.

HARTFORD:

JOHN

1.

WELLS

SHOP

Wells has previously been credited with an oxbow bureau, an oval-top table with inlaid decoration, and a lolling chair; all branded "J. WELLS ."4 These three pieces do no t share index features with the entries that follow. They are likely the products of one or mor e cabinetmakers working in northeastern Massachu setts or southern New Hampshire. The brand is likely an owner's mark, although none of the three objects have histories of ownership.i I. A merican M ercury, Hartford, December 5, 179I. One J. Wells, presumably the same individual, had advertised in the August 17, 1789,A merican M ercury th at he did "C abinet W ork of All Kinds" in th e shop "lately belonging to, and occupied by M r. Samuel Kneeland. " Wells was only 20 in 1789 and may have left H artford shor tly there after to work as a journe yman in New York. 2. Flint advertised independently as a cabinetmaker in H artford betwe en 1806 and 1815. Phil adelphi a city directories list him at various Ph iladelph ia addresses from 1817 to 1836. By 1860 he was living in Terre H aute, Ind., where his daughter was married, but there is no evidence that he practiced his craft there . See D eborah Ducoff-Barone, "Phil adelphia Furniture M akers, 1860 - 1830 ," Antiques 145, no. 5 (May 1994): 472; and Biog raphical and H istorical R ecord of Putn am County, Indiana (C hicago: Lewis Pub lishing Co., 1887), p. 4IO.

3. Bulkeley, "John 1. Well s," pp. 60-67.

4. Bulkeley,"John 1. Well s," frontis., p. 59, & fig. 21; [Brainard, H arlow, & Bulkeley], "Co nnecticut C abinetmakers," pt. I , outside and inside covers; [Kirk], Connecticut Furn itu re, no. 68; Barbour Collection, pp. 28- 29; Barbour Supplement, pp. 12- 13; Richards, "Furniture," figs. 16-19 , 24; D owling, "Enigm atic Eliphalet Chapin," no. A26. 5. Owner brands were relatively comm on in Port smouth, N . H. ; see Kevin Ni cholson, "Port smouth Brand ed Furniture" in j obe, Portsmouth Furn iture, app. B, pp. 424-38.

C ATALOG 1 70 D esk and bookcase Probably by John I Wells Ha rtford, I790- I8oo P robablyfirst ow ned by John I Wells ofHartford P riv ately owned

This desk and bookcase represents the most basic model listed in the Il92 Hartford cabinetmakers' price list-the flat top, plain paneled door s, adjustable bookcase shelves, simple desk interior, and bracket feet, put its price at about £7, or about half as much as a more elaborate example, likely made about Il88 in Eliphalet Chapin's shop (cat. 67). Its construction fits squarely within the practices of Hartford cabinetmakers near the end of the eighteenth century, with the minor exception of the midmolding being attached to the bookcase rather than to the top of the desk. This detail, associated with New York production, may be a result of Wells's training in that city.' This desk and bookcase descended in the cabinetmaker's famil y to the present owner, a great-greatgrandson of John 1. Wells , who also owns a simple step-down windsor chair with "].1. Wells / Hartford" inscribed in graphite and other documents signed "John 1. Wells ." A related example, possibly also by Well s, is a circa 18ro desk with secretary drawer (cat. IlOA). It shares a similar desk layout as well as construction features of the case and drawers. According to family tradition, thi s desk originally belonged to John Churchill (1785-1823), a Wethersfield farmer and grandfather of the last private owner, collector and pre servationist George Dudley Seymour (1859-1945) .2 CAT A LOG I 7 0 De scended in th e famil y of cabinetmaker John 1. W ells, th is desk and bookcase reveals an unusual interior desk configuration-a single row of small drawers below small pigeonho les witho ut valances. The pro spect door pivot s on pin s parallel to th e lower horizontal divider, providin g access to a row of th ree drawe rs.

S IGN IF ICANT

INDEX

FEATU RES

o Midmolding is nailed to bookcase section o Dr awer dividers are attached to lower case sides with double tenons

o Backboards are nailed in rabbets in case sides o Bracket front feet are mitred without dovetails and mounted on a three-sided frame that incorporates a coved base molding; arched rear foot brace is dovetailed to the rear foot

o Drawer sides are flat on top; dovetail pins, at top and bottom of the drawer sides, are of average angle

372

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0 FAN

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CATALOG

1 71

Serpentine bureau Possibly signed by J ohn I Wells P robably H artford, q88-q95 P riv ately owned

This exceptional bureau is one of only thr ee H artford area examples with serpentine facades. It shares index feature s with catalogs 170 & 172, also attributed to Wells, but is superior in both design and execution. Moreover, the "Wells" written on the backs of two drawers is typical of apprentice inscriptions, raising th e possibility that Wells was then working in ano ther master's shop (for other apprentice inscription s, see cats. 59,164,167). On the other hand, both of th e other surviving serpentine bureau s date to after 1790, at which point Wells was working on his own (cats. 90, 173). SIG NI FI C A N T I ND EX FEATU RES

o Serpentine facade has flared corners; top and base are canted at corners

o On-edge molding of the top is a cove flanked by a bead, similar

°

C AT A LOG 1 7 A A second desk attr ibuted to th e Well s shop has a layout nearly ide ntica l to catalog 170 and has holes indicating th at th e now-missing prospect door also pivoted on pins. Although th e style and form are later, case and drawer construction are com parable to catalog 170. The simple shaping of th e aprons and french feet is similar to catalog 166, from A aron C hapin's shop, but th e apro n bow is deeper. Brasses are origin al. Conn ecticut Hi storical Society Museum, 1945.1.ro86, beque st of Geo rge Dudley Seymour.

to catalog 90

o Fluted half column s are constructed in three parts, in the Eliphalet C hapin shop manner, but the turnin gs of the capitals and bases are different

o Rail above the top drawer and two pine struts dovetailed into the case sides constitute a subtop, to which the top is attached from below with screws

o Dr awer dividers are dovetailed to case side; facing strip conceals the dovetails; cock bead is run on both the dividers and facing strip

D imensions: overall H 76lh"; upper case H 43lh" W 42lh" D roW'; lower case H 33" W 44IA" D 20IA"

o Backboards are nailed in rabbet in case sides, as in catalogs

Materials: cherry with tulip poplar and eastern white pine (uppercase backb oard, lower- case dr awers)

o Claw-and-ball feet are mount ed on a three-sided frame that

170, 172 incorpora tes the base molding in the Chapin school manner.

Condi tion notes: brasses original

T he four feet are skillfully carved from three pieces of wood

Publication: Bulkeley, "John 1. W ells," fig. 23

glued together and laminated vertically, but the shape is flatter than an Eliphalet Ch apin shop foot and the talons are rounded

H CFS 253

(rather than wedge shaped); rear feet are carved on the front and side only

1. Great R iver, no. 139, terms thi s a New York techn ique.

o

2. H CFS 253A; publi shed in Sey mour Collection, p. 62.

Knee return s are laminated and supported with horizontal glue blocks

o Serpentine drawer fronts are the same thickness throughout; front edge of drawer botto m has serpentine shape

o

Dr awer sides are flat on top; dovetail pins, present at top and bottom, are of average angle

H AR T FOR D:

J0

H N

I.

W ELL S

S HOP

373

C AT A LOG I 7 I The elegance of this serpentine bureau places its maker-probably John 1. Wells-among the top ranks of H artford cabinetmakers in the I790S, an able competitor of Aaron Ch apin . The construction techniques are similar to those used on the Wells family desk and bookc ase (cat. 170). Several design elements resemble those on a serpentine bureau probably made by William Flagg, an Eliphalet Chapin shop trainee: onedge molding on the top, half columns at the front corners, and the shaping of the four claw-and-ball feet (see cat. 90) .

Construction features, including backboard and drawer divider attachment, turnings on the columns, and shaping of the feet, indicate that Wells did not train in the Chapin tradition. However, like other Connecticut valley craftsmen, he did incorporate some Chapin school elements, such as the three-part construction of the corner columns. Dimensions: H 361,4" W (back) 221,4" (max)

40~"

D (max) 2I'h"; top 42%" x

Materials: cherry with eastern white pine and tulip poplar (backboard) Condition notes: brasses original Inscription: "Wells" in graphite on outside of two drawer backs Publication: Nutting, Furniture Treasury, I: pl. 290 HCFS 157

374

END

0 FAN

ERA

C AT ALOG 1 7 2

Straight-Jront bureau Possibly John L Wells shop Probably Hartford or East Hartford, I79S-I8IO, possibly I798 Probablyfirst owned by Electa Woodbridge and George Cheney ofEast Hartford M anchester H istorical Society, Cheney Homestead Collection, 0062 -002

I 72 This is one of a pair of straig ht-front bureaus with french feet, a detail th at represented th e latest look in 1800. The configuration of a small spur on th e inner edge and rounded button at the top is partic ularly associate d with th e H artford area (see also cat. 180).

CAT A LOG

The splayed french feet on thi s bureau represent a transition to the federal style that was more fully developed in catalog 184. Family connections and similarities to catalogs 170 and 171 provide the basis for a tentative attribution to the Hartford shop of John 1. W ells. Common index characteristics include virtually identical drawer construction, the top edge molding (cat. 170 has a similar molding nailed to the bottom of th e bookcase); drawer dividers tenoned to the case sides; backboards nailed in a rabbet; and the rear foot br ace dovetailed to the rear foot. All the se practices were not unique to Wells, but their combination in thi s piece points to an origin in the same shop. This bureau is one of a pair that descended in th e family of East Hartford clockmaker Timothy Cheney (1731-98) and still remains in his homestead. It was very likely made for the October 18, 1798, marriage of his son, George Cheney (1771- 1829) to W ells's cousin, Ele cta Woodbridge (1781-1853). The couple, both of Ea st Hartford, immediately thereafter moved into the Cheney family homestead. I The listing in G eorge Cheney's probate inventory for " I Bureau No I [$]5.-1 djitt]o. No . 2 $3" raises the possibility that one had received damage or at least more wear during the ensuing three decade s. S IGN IF ICANT

o

INDEX

FEATURES

Top is a plain rectangular board screwed to the front rail from below; above-edge molding is nailed to front and side edges

o D rawer dividers are tenoned to sides of case; a facing strip with cock bead on the inner edge is applied over the front of the case side; drawer dividers have double cock bead run out of the solid

o o

Backboards are nailed in rabbets in case sides and top Dr awer sides are flat on top; dovetail pins are at top and bottom of drawer sides and are of average angle (as on cat. 170)

H ART FOR D: J 0 H N I.

W

ELL S S HOP

375

A related example is a similar bureau that Hartford cabinetmaker A aron C olton (1758-1840) signed and dat ed 1801. 2 C olton was Aaron Chapin's first cousin; he came from L on gmeadow parish of Springfield and opened a shop in H artford by 1791. Additional related examples include three sets of H epplewhite style side chairs with unusual interlacing urn backs and similar con struction. The first set bears an early twentieth-century label stating that it was made for John 1. W ells's first cousin, Anna W ells M oore W oodbridge (1761-1838) at the time of her Novemb er 7,1793, marriage to Eli Moore (1753-1800) of E ast Windsor; she was the aunt and later stepmother of El ecta W oodbridge Cheney. The second, virtually identi cal set has "W ells" painted in black on the inside of th e rear seat rail (see cat. 172A). The third set is similar but has no history or in scription s) D imensions: H 34%" W 41" D I9¥.!"; top 433,4" X 20Yz" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: b rasses original HCFS 307 I. Cheney H omestead website an d b rochure, M ancheste r H istori cal Society.

2 . Location un known; assessm en t based on pho to inspection only; see Richards, "Furniture," fig. 23.

3. The first set is privately owned; N ade au's A uctio n G allery, September 29, 1995, lot 23 1. The seco nd set is also unpublish ed. T he third set is at C HS M use um (I96S.II.2) and Histori c D eerfield; published in Barbour Supplement, p. 8.

376

C AT A L O G I 7 2 A T he unu sual pierced splat desig n of th is che rry side chai r, attribute d to John 1. Well s, may be unique to th e H artford area. Two similar sets vary in th e details of th e splat and the presen ce or absence of thumb molding on th e seat rails. All three sets are cons tructed in similar fashion with side rails tenoned th rough th e rear stiles and qu arter round pine glue blocks in th e C ha pin schoo l mann er. H istorical Society of th e T own of Gree nwich, gift of Mr. and M rs. Hugh B. Vanderbilt.

END

0 F

A N

ERA

I0eeland and cAdams Jhop

T he partn ership of Samuel Kneeland (r755- r828) and Lemuel Adams (w, 1792- r80I) is well known, thanks to the survival of several examples documented either by labels or by bills of sale: two bureaus, two looking glasses, and a set of urn-back chairs.1 The two case pieces are both stylistically and structurally outside the main stream of Hartford area furniture for the early 179os; were it not for their labels, they would be difficult to place. The Kneeland and Adams partnership lasted less than three years, from September 1792 until March 1795. Both men subsequently worked independently in Hartford, producing furniture that demonstrates both were capable craftsmen. Kneeland labeled an ogee-foot punch bowl box, made for wealthy merchant Jeremiah Wadsworth (r743-r804), and branded a tripod-base stand table. Lemuel Adams is best known for the chairs and window benches he made for the State House in r796.2 By r800 both had moved elsewhere. Kneeland relocated to nearby Farmington in 1798 and then to Geneseo, in upstate New York, two years later. Adams moved to Norfolk, Virginia, about r800 and possibly to New Hampshire later. Although the sample size for Kneeland and Adams shop case furniture is small, the index characteristics of the two labeled bureaus indicate that the makers did not train in the Chapin shop tradition. Kneeland was born in Colchester; his marriage to Naomi Bliss of Springfield in 1787 raises the possibility that he might have trained there. Certain construction techniques used in both bureaus are consistent with his Colchester and Springfield connections-for example, the different front and rear feet, and the methods of attaching tops and drawer runners. Adams's origins are uncertain, although Hartford land records refer to him as being "of Norwich."

HARTFORD: KNEELAND

AND

ADAMS

SHOP

1. The two looking glasses are at CHS Museum (1966.43.0) and Winterthur (59.794); William Stu art Walcott, Jr., "A Kneeland and Ad ams Mirror," Antiques 13, no. I (J anu ary 1928): 30-32; Ba rbour Supplement, pp. 26-27' The Kneeland and Adams label (reproduced in Richards, "Furniture," p. 8) is illustrated with cuts of a desk and bookcase and a tall clock, both of which have agee feet with an exaggerated splay.The feet on the two Kneeland and Ad ams bureaus do not possess this conceit.

2 . Adverti sements in American M ercury, H artford , September 10, 1792 and M arch 9, 1795. Kneeland 's box is at the C H S Museum (1944.14.2); published [Brainard, H arlow, & Bulkeley], "Connecticut Cabinetm akers," p. 140, fig. 13. H is tripod-base stand table is at Old Sturbridge Village (5.55.2); illustrated in Richards, "Furniture," figs. 14, 15. Lemuel Ad ams's State H ouse chairs and window benches are preserved in the collections of both the CHS Museum and the Museum of Connecticut History at the Conn ecticut State Library; published in [Brainard, H arlow, & Bulkeley], "Co nnecticut Cabinetmakers," p. 100, figs. 2, 3; Richard s, "Furniture," fig. 13; Great R iver, no. 147.

377

C A T A LOG

r 73

Serp ent ine bureau L abeled by Samuel Kneeland and L emu el Adam s shop H artford, I79J Probablyfirst ow ned by Clarissa White ofE ast H artford and Oliv er P. D ickinson ofPittsfield, M assachusetts Winterthur Museum, JI.66.I

CA T A LOG I 7 3 This formal and elegant serpentine bureau features elaborate flared corners housing fluted quarter columns with brass capitals and bases plus a combination of claw-and -b all front feet and rear ogee feet. D esign and construction features suggest that at least one, and perhaps both, of the partn ers Kneeland and Ad ams were familiar with Colchester area or M assachusetts cabinetry.

This is one of only two labeled case pieces-both bureau s-produced by the partnership of Samuel Kneeland and Lemuel Adams (see cat. 174). The two are quite different from one another, and neither resemble s th e prevailing Hartford County model, which featured an oxbow facade and splayed ogee feet. The serpentine shape offered a fresh look, and its brass capitals and bases a stylish detail. I The flared front corners incorporate columns and allow the front feet to extend farther to th e side than the rear feet. Construction techniques also differ from Hartford area practice, indicating that neither Samuel Kneeland nor Lemuel Adams trained locally. Some feature s are also found in Massachusetts furniture and in the Lord group of C olchester, probably reflecting Kneeland's background (see cats. 100-102) . These feature s include th e dissimilar front and rear feet and the attachment of th e top and drawer runners.

This bureau was likely made for the November 4, 1793, wedding of Clarissa White (1766-r847) of East Hartford to Oliver P. Dickinson (1770-1850) of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It survived together with a set of six urnback chairs (cat. 173A) that have a shop receipt inscribed and dated on the back of an advertising handbill: "H artford Dec 13, 1793 Mrs. Dickerson Bot. of Kneeland & Adams 6 Parlor Chairs finish'd @ 36. £1O.r6.0." (The same date appears on the bureau label.) A later inscription on the chair label note s "1793 When grandmother was married." The bureau and chairs were purchased from the Dickinsons' granddaughter Anna W. Peck (b. 1870) of Pittsfield. 2

END

OF

AN

ERA

S I GN IF ICANT I ND EX FEATU RES

o Top attached with sliding dovetail and secured with multiple glue blocks (in the manner of furniture from Ma ssachusetts and the Colchester Lord group)

o Rail above the top drawer is glued to underside of top and not joined to case sides (lacking a structural function, this rail served to achieve the customary "look" of a H artford-area bureau)

o Conforming drawer fronts are cut from a single (rather than a laminated) board and are scribe molded

o Drawer dividers are dovetailed to case sides and covered with a facing strip

o

Drawer runners are attached with sliding dovetail (as in the Colchester Lord group)

o o o

Backboards are nailed in rabbets in case sides Knee brackets on all four feet have prominent spur Feet are different in front and rear (a practice common in the Colchester style)

o

Claw-and-ball feet are imprecisely carved, with the "ball" shaped as a hemisphere

o

Wedge-shaped rear foot brace is butt ed to the inside of the ogee foot and secured with vertical glue blocks

o Drawer sides are flat on top; dovetail pins are narrow triangles (as in the Colchester style)

D imensions: H 35~ " W (fron t) 43Vs" W (rear) 40¥S" D 1 9 ~"; top W (front) 45~ " (rear) 423,4" D 203,4" Materials: cherry with tulip poplar (drawer interior, backboard) and eastern white pine (bottom) In scription: "bought De c 23, 1793" inscribed in ink on Kneeland and Ad ams shop label attached to inside bottom of top drawer Condition notes: brasses original Exhibition: W adsworth A the neum 1985, no. 144 Public ations: D owns, A merican Furniture, no. 173; Rich ards, "Furniture" p. 7, fig. 4; D owling, "E nigmatic Eliphalet Chapin," no. A24; Richards & Evans, N ew E ngland Furn iture at Win terthur, no. 186 HCFS

C A T A LO G I 7 3 A The design used in thi s 1793 urn -b ack chair documented to Kneeland and Ad ams atta ined widespread popul arity throughout southern New E ngland, including Rhode Island and Massachusetts. A similar pattern appears in th e urn back chairs made for Oliver Ellsworth two years earlier by A aron Chapin's sho p (fig. 7.2). The detail s of th e carving differ, and th e side rails on this chair are not tenoned th rough th e stiles. Winterthur Museum, 67.151.1. 1. Other examples of serpentine facades on H artford area bureaus include cats. 90 & 171. Brass capitals, bases, and stop flutin g also appear on a 1790S Chapin school high chest attributed to former Eliphalet Chapin apprentice Juliu s Barnard of Northampton (cat. 77)' 2. Richards, "Furniture," pp. 7-8 . The bill of sale is to "M rs. Di ckerson, " but "D ickerson" and "Dickinson" were interchangeable spellings in the eighteenth century; see W esley L. Baker, D ickerson & Dickinson D escendants ofPhilemon Dickerson ofSouthold, L ong Island . . . (C hicago: Adams Pr ess, 1978), n.p .; Ira B. Peck, A Genealog ical H istory of the D escendants ofJ osep h Peck . .. (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son , 1868), p. 254.

II

H ART FOR D :

KNEELAND

AND

ADAMS

SHOP

379

C ATALOG

1 74

Straight-Jront bureau L abeled by Samuel Kneeland and L emuel Adams shop

Hartford, 9 92- 9 95 Ha rtford Steam Boiler In spection and Insurance Company

This Kneeland and Adams shop bureau stands in stark contrast to the other labeled bureau that survives from the partnership (cat. 173). Its basic form is embellished only with mahogany veneer and stamped, gadrooned, brass plates and keyhole escutcheons. C onstruction feature s are essentially the same on both bureau s. S INGULA R FEATURES t> Bracket feet have a small spur, similar to that on H artford-area

ogee feet t> H orizontal and vertical glue blocks secure the feet; wedge-

shaped rear brace butts the rear foot and is attached with glue blocks and nails t> D rawer sides are flat on top; dovetail pins are small and of

average angle

Dimension s: H 35J,4" W 40 3A" D 19"; top 43" x 20J,4" CAT A LOG I 74 Labeled by th e Kneeland and Ad am s partnership of 1792-95, th is rath er plain bureau represents th e earliest documented exam ple of venee red federal furn itu re from th e Hartford region .

Materials: mah ogany veneer with eastern white pine (top and sides) and tulip poplar C ondition not es: brasses original In scriptions: Kneeland and Adams shop label attac hed to inside bottom of top dr awer Publications : "T he Wadsworth Punch Bowl, ca. 1780," Connect icut Historical Society B ulletin 20, no. 2 (April 1955): 37; Richards, "Furniture," p. 9, fig. 12; Sotheby's, sale 4316 (November 27- D ecember I, 1979), lot 1671; D owling, "En igmatic Eliph alet Chapin," no. A23; Connecticut Masters, p. 262 HCFS 29

J80

END

0 FAN

ERA

Hartford County

Although the city of Hartford had become the county's economic center by the 179os, and its cabinet shops the style-setters, the surrounding towns were still populated with an ample number of highly skilled craftsmen, some of whom had received their training in one of the Chapin shops. Examples of their work have already been mentioned in previous chapters in the context of the towns in which the furniture was produced: Hebron (cat. I26), Glastonbury (cat. I52),

HARTFORD

COUNTY

Suffield (cat . I58), and Granby (cat. I6I). The eight entries that follow include the post-I790 output of the earlier style centers of Wethersfield and Ea st Windsor, plus one bureau from an unidentified location. Wethersfield, in particular, continued to produce a substantial amount of high quality furniture, albeit more suited to conservative tastes than that produced concurrently in Hartford.

Wethersfield Oliver CJJeming group

During the 1790S a sizeable shop in Wethersfield produced a surprisingly large group of very traditional late Chippendale bureau s and chests-on-chests. The output shows the considerable influence of the Eliphalet Chapin shop in East Windsor as well as the persistence of such local elements as the Wethersfield f)rlfot. In both design and construction these pieces are competent but not innovative. Although the master of this shop remains elusive, thr ee bureaus are signed by Wethersfield-born cabinetmaker Oliver Deming (r774-r825), for whom the group is named. Deming's extended family included several widely dispersed cabinetmakers-Josiah (r775-r850) in New Haven; Simeon (1769-r855) in New York City; and Barzillai (178r-r854) in Charleston, South Carolina. Two of the signed bureau s probably originated while Oliver was still working as a journeyman in Wethersfield; the third likely postdates his late r790s move to join Josiah in New Haven, where he spent the rest of his life.I The most likely candidate for shop master is Israel Porter (b. 1759), who had worked in Eliphalet Chapin's shop in East Windsor as a journeyman in the late r780s and may have trained there (see cat. 67). Porter had moved to Wethersfield by August 1789, when he appears in the town land records. In December 179r Wethersfield housewright James Francis purchased a "Case of Drawers" from him. Porter remained in Wethersfield for more than a decade before removing to Middletown, which became his home for approximately thirty years."

S IGN IF I CAN T

IN DEX

FEATURES :

175 - 177

C AT S.

D esign and D ecoration

o Bureau tops have an above-edge molding on three sides o Open scrolled pediment of chests-o n-chests have an East Windsor configuration, including cauliculus scrolls

o o

Three-part fluted quarter columns, very similar to those from

o

Splayed ogee feet are taller than those from Eliphalet Chapin

Carved tylfot on upper- case drawer fronts Eliphalet Ch apin shop, but less skillfully executed shop, with no astragal molding on the base

Construction

o Bureau top is screwed from below to a front rail and partial subtop

o Dr awer dividers are nailed from the vertical quarter-column housing and are dovetailed to case sides (if no columns are present, dividers are double-t enoned to case sides)

o Backboards are set in grooves in case sides and subtop; bottom board is nailed to case bott om

o Hartford-type coved base molding is incorporated in a threesided frame to which blind-dovetailed front feet are attached w ithout a quadrant block support. Arched rear foot brace is in a

vertical sliding dovetail

o Drawer fronts are scribe-molded; inner face is gouged to conform to oxbow shaping at the top; lower edge is straight

o Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are present at top and bottom of drawer side and are of average size and angle

Edward E. Atwater, ed. , Th e History ofthe City ofNew H av en to the Present T ime (N ew York: W. W. Munsell & Co., 1887), pt. 2,

1.

P·587· 2 . Porter tran sacted business with D aniel Burnap of East Windsor in 1788, which mean s he moved to W ethersfield between th en and his August 1789 purchase ofland in W ethersfield. He is identified as a joiner in the Wethersfield tax list of 1795. Sometime after 1800 he moved to Middletown. No direct link betwe en D eming and Porter has been establi shed . See Hoopes, D aniel Burnap. pp. 45-46; James Franci s, Account Book, pp. 10, 15, entries for December 27, 1791; James Fran cis, Day Book, November 27, 1793; Connecticut Assessors, Warren Collection; and the federal census records for 1790 through 1830.

J82

END

0 FAN

ERA

CATALOG

175

Oxbow bureau Signed by Oliv er D eming Wetherifield, I790- I8oo Pr ivately own ed

C AT A LOG I 7 5 One of several virtually identical oxbow bureaus in the Oli ver Deming group, this Wethersfield-made example is similar to many produced by Ch apin school cabinetmakers. Features differentiating it from Chapin shop work include the above-edge top molding, scribe- molded drawer front s, and tall ogee feet th at lack an astragalmolded base. The ring and bail brasses point to production in the 1790S.

This bureau represents a conservative continuation of Chapin school designs, featuring inset quarter columns, scribe-molded drawer fronts, and tall splayed ogee feet without an astragal molding on the supporting base . Seven others are virtually identical, varying only in width (most from 36" to 42") and decorative options, such as quarter columns at the front corners and gadrooning between the front feet. I These oxbows 'demonstrate a consistency of execution common in

WETHERSFI ELD: OLIVER

DEMING

GROUP

furniture produced in both Wethersfield and East Windsor but lack the fine sse of product s from Eliphalet Chapin's sh op. Three are inscribed with dat es between 1794 and r800. The first of the related examples is inscribed "Oliver Deming / Wethersfield / July 17th 1796" in graphite on the backboard and underside of the top; it descended through Deming family members in Ohio.' The second descended in the family of Sarah Saltonstall (1754-r829)

and Daniel Buck (1744-1808) ofWethersfield.3 The third has identical dimensions and design features but no inscription or famil y history.s The fourth is like the other three in all respects except that it is about I" shorter and 4" narrower. It probably first belonged to Lucy Lowery (1771-1852) and Unni Robbins (1765-1818), both of Wethersfield, who married in 1791. 5 The fifth related example is embellished with a gadroon strip between the front feet and inscribed "December 1794" in graphite on the outside of the bottom board; it illustrates how the shop could vary the size of the basic form and add decoration (cat . 175A).6 D imensions: H 34'>4" W 39th" D 18'>4"; top 42'>4" x 21" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: Some brasses, back plate s, handle s, and top three escutcheo ns original Inscription: "Olive r D eming" in graphite on inside of top drawer bottom Publications: Skinner, sale 1453 (June 13, 1992), lot 29; Kugelman & Kugelman, "H artford Case Furn iture Survey," p. 37A, fig. 6

CA T A L OG I 7 5 A This top-of-the-line oxbow bureau dated D ecember 1794 is 3" wider and embellished with "carvd moulding" (gadroo ning) between th e feet, but is otherw ise ident ical to catalog 175. The brasses are replacements. Loca tion unknown.

HCFS 61 1. The H artford cabinetmakers' price list of 1792 lists these options.

2. Privately owned; assessment based on photo inspection only; exhibited in Western Reserve 1972, no. 473. H C FS 41; privately owned. Daniel's probate inventory lists "3 cherry bureaus @ 25." These are listed again in his son Winthrop's 1862 inventory. That the family farmed the land and continued to live in the homestead may explain th e unusual circumstance of inheritance through male descendants. Salton stall and Buck may have owned cat. 33 as well. 4. HCFS 186; location unknown; see Sotheb y's, sale 6613 (October 23, 1994), lot 263. 5. HCFS 419; Newington Hi stori cal Society and Tru st, bequest of G ideon Robbins Wells. This bureau had an uninterrupted history of ownership in the same Weth ersfield family until 2002. 6. H C FS 351; Sotheby's, sale 5286 (February 2, 1985), lot 1016, and sale 7253 (January 17, 1999), lot 783.

] 84

END

a

FAN

E R A

C ATALOG

176

Straight-Jront bureau Signed by Oliv er D em ing P robably N ew H av en, I8oo-I8IO L ocat ion unk nown

This Deming-signed bureau shows the cabinetmaker moving away from practices he had learned as an apprentice. In addition to the fancy federal dressmahogany veneer, inlay, and stamped brasses-its singular features differentiate it from the earlier oxbows in the Oliver Deming group. In combination the se suggest that it probably dates from his early years in New Haven, when Oliver worked with his cousin Josiah. A related example is a straight-front cherry bureau with no quarter columns. It is set apart by a top (rather than subtop) that is grooved to hold th e backboard; by drawer dividers that are double tenoned to the case sides; by lipped drawer front s, and by bracket feet that are blind-dovetailed but do not splay. It corresponds to the base-level bureau itemized in the 1792 Hartford cabinetmakers' price list and could have been made in either Wethersfield or New Haven.' SINGULAR FEATU RES t>

Drawer dividers are joined to case sides with dovetails covered with a facing strip

t>

t>

Front ogee feet still splay but are joined with simple mitres Rear foot brace is attached with a row of small horizontal dovetails, in the Chap in school manner

C A T A LO G I 7 6 The inclusio n of ma hogany veneer, line inlay, and stamped feder al brasses rend er thi s Oliver D emingsigned bure au a significant departure from his earlier C hapi ninfluen ced oxbows. This transitional design herald s th e appearance of th e Hepplewhite aesthetic, which emphasized surface decoration. The straight apron and splayed ogee feet are holdovers from th e earlier Chippendale form s.

t> Drawer sides are flat on top and flush with drawer front; dove-

tail pins are present at top and bottom of drawer sides and are of average size and angle

D imensions: H 34IA" W 4Ilh" D I9lh"; top 43" x 20IA" Materials: mahoga ny veneer with basswood and inlay Condition notes: top possibly replaced; brasses original Inscription: "O liver D eming" in graphite on interior bottom of second drawer Publ ication: No rtheast Auction s, Augus t 6, 1995, lot 654 HCFS 220 HCFS 405; location unknown ; Nadeau's Auction Galle ry, September 29, 2001, lot 183 (not illustrated).

1.

WET HER S FIE L D : OLIVER

DEMING

GROUP

385

C AT ALOG

17 7

Cbest- on- cbest with scrolled pediment Probably Wethersfield, I79I Probablyfirst owned by L ucy L ow ery and Unn i Robbins ofWethersfield N ew ington H istorical Society and Trust, 20 02:I:I , Gideon Robbins Wells bequest

This dated and documented chest-on-chest exemplifies th e blending of design and construction elements from the major style centers that occurred throughout the C onne cticut valley during the I790S. The shop master, possibly Israel Porter, possessed intimate familiarity with Eliphalet Chapin shop design and construction methods, which were modified here by replacing the closed latticework pediment and shell or carved vines with an open pediment and a f)rlfot-carved drawer front. Lu cy Lowery (1771- 1852) and Unni Robbins (I7651818), both of Wethersfield, married November 4, I791, which coincides with the date inscribed on the cheston-chest.I The piece remained in the hou se the couple built in I795, on Main Street ofWethersfield's Newington parish, until it was bequeathed to Newington Historical Society by fifth-generation descendant Gideon Robbins Well s (1914-200I). The Robbinses also owned an oxbow bureau from the same shop (HCFS 419 , discussed at cat. I75). A closely related che st-orr-chest with a scrolled pedim ent (cat. 177A; HCFS 55), probably was mad e for th e October 7, 1798, wedding ofUnni's sister Prudence Robbins (1767- 1840) to Leonard Welle s (I765-1835). It differs in three respect s: the center plinth is embellished with an applied triglyph and guttae; the top center drawer is unembellished; and the front corners are adorned with three-piece Chapin style quarter columns. Another related example is an upper case fragment of wh at may once have been a chest-on-chest with removable pediment (implied by th e top row of three dr awers of equal height and a new top board). It has a

CAT A LOG I 7 7 In scribed 179I, this remarkably wellpreserved chest-o n-c hest descended in th e Robbin s-Wells family of Newington for more than two hundred years. A top- of-theline product for a buyer with conservative tastes, it illustrates the successful combination of Chapin schoo l and Wethersfield style elements tha t characterizes Ol iver D emin g group furni ture. A Chapinesque pedimen t and splayed ogee feet are juxtaposed with a Wethersfield fylfot and drawer configuration found on high chests in the W illard group of W ethersfield.

J 86

E N D

0 FA N

ERA

S INGULAR FEATURES l>

Full-depth dustboard below the upper-case second long drawer, inserted in a groove from the rear, in the Eliphalet Ch apin shop manner

l>

Ogee feet have an astragal on the base, in the Chapin manner

l>

Rear feet are attached with a triangular quadrant and a brace, joined to the foot with a row of small dovetails, as in the Chapin shops

l>

Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are at both top and bottom and are of average size and angle

fylfot on the center drawer and quarter columns at the front corners. The dustboard is placed below the top row of drawer s, but otherwise it is designed and constructed like catalog 177. 2 D imensions: overall H 86W'; upper case H 511,4" W 40" D 16lh"; lower case H 35" W 4 2" D 17lh" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: reddish color possibly original; finials, plinths, and brasses original Inscriptions: "1791" in graphite on outside top of lower case and on outside bottom of first long drawer of upper case; "George - - " in graphite on bottom of second long dr awer in upper case HCFS 420 Lucy's father was th e multitalented D avid Lowrey (also spelled Lowery; 1740-1819), clockm aker, blacksmith, and occasional dentist, who likewise resided in W eth ersfield's Newington pari sh; see H oopes, Connecticut Clockmakers, p. 98.

1.

2. HCFS 254B; privately owned. T he probable date of produ ction , based on O liver Deming group index features, suggests it belonged to a chest-en-c hest rath er th an a high chest.

WETHERSFIELD: OLIVER

D EMING

GROUP

C AT A L O G I 7 7 A A second chest-on-chest from the Robbins family shares th e basic design and construc tion features of catalog 177. The neoclassical triglyph and guttae on the center plinth and plain center drawer may reflect its production seven years later, in 1798. The lower third of the feet and brasses are replaced. Town and C oun ty Club, H artford .

'Benjamin ~wberry Jhop

This group- a desk and two desks and bookcases-is attributed to Benjamin Newberry's Wethersfield shop between 1795 and 1810. At a time wh en streamlined and more linear Hepplewhite patterns had already become popular, the se pieces illustrate a local revival of interest in the work of Thomas Chippendale, perhaps inspired by increased availability of his pattern boo k. They also manifest a renewed adaptation of Eliphalet Chapin's lattic ework pediment and sea horse cartouche with a different fretwork design and a removable pediment.I Cabinetmaker Benjamin Newberry (1765-post r834) was born in the eastern pari sh of Windsor. He moved to Wethersfield, probably after completing an apprenticeship with Eliphalet Chapin, and established himself there by 1789. Newberry's career after 1810 is poo rly documented; he reportedly went into business in th e I820S with his son Henry Newberry (I799-I87I), a Wethersfield shoemaker. The latter moved to Ohio in r848, perhaps taking his widowed father with him. ' The account book of Wethersfield housewright Jame s Francis (176rI852) records numerous transactions with Newberry beginning in 1789. In January 1794 Francis acquired a "Case of D rawers" from Newberry, and in March 1797 he purchased a desk (cat. 178).3 The index features of that desk relate to two desks and bookcases made during the first decade of the nine teenth century: one is inscribed with the name "Benjamin" and has a convincing Wethersfield history in the Robbins family (cat. 180); the other has a blend of features found on the first two pieces. The comb ination of both design and construction features point to an origin in a single shop. The removable scrolled pediment s of the two bookcases are strongly reminiscent of the pediments produced earlier in the Eliphalet Chapin shop (see cats. 59, 68). In theory these removable pediments might have been ordered separately from another shop, such as Aaron Chapin's; however, their design and construction feature s are unlike other work attributed to Aaron Chapin's shop in this period.

J88

S IGN IF ICANT CATS .

I ND EX

FEATURES :

17 8 - 1 8 0

D esig n and D ecorat ion

o o o o

Removable fretted pediment s with cauliculus scrolls Sea horse cartouche Greek key course in cornice moldin g Do ors include panel with inverted corners created by applied astragal molding

o o

Simple desk inte riors with out decorative carving Splayed ogee or french feet, shaped in the H art ford manner but with out astragal molding on the ogee foot base

Construction

o o o

Backboards are nailed in rabbets in case sides Drawer dividers are double tenon ed into case sides Splayed ogee feet mitred without blind dovetails; row of small dovetails attaches rear brace to foot (quadrant-base constructio n is not used)

o

Drawer sides are rounded on top; pins are at th e top only and dovetails are of average size and angle

r. For a comparable revival of mid-eighteenth-century English design in Salem, Mass., at about the same time, see Ruth Str achan and Helen Comsto ck, "Renewed Study of Salem Secretarie s," Antiques 88, no . 4 (October 1965): S02-S. For an English example attributed to Thomas Chippendale, 1766, see Christopher Gilbert, T he L ift and Work ofT homas Chippen dale (New York: T ab ard Pre ss, 1978), pI. 90 . 2. Stil es, Windsor, 2:S22, S26; Wethersfield churc h records, CSL; W ethersfield tax assess ments for 179S, C onnecti cut Assessors, W arr en C ollection ; and J . Gardner Bartlett, N ew berry Genealogy . .. (Bos to n: privately pr inted, 1914), n .p. The famil y ge nealogy identifies Benjamin as a shoe-last maker, and the W ethersfield land records place him with hi s son Henry on Hartford Avenue as late as 1834. For a high chest from the Eliphalet Chapin shop probably acquired by Benjamin's older brother, Chaun cey N ewberry, and hi s bride, Mary Ell sworth, in 1781 (two years after Benj amin likel y began h is apprentices hip at the sho p) , see cat. 60.

3. J am es Fr an cis, Account Book , pp. 7, 10, and D ay Book, p. II. Nutting, Furn iture T reasury I: pI. 684, cites an additio nal des k and bookcase th at may be fro m the same sho p.

END

0 FAN

ERA

C ATALOG

1 78

Slant-front desk Probably by Benjamin N ewberry Probably Wethersfield, £797 Probablyfirst own ed byJames Francis of Wethersfield Wethersfield Historical Society, FI86

This base-level slant-front desk typifies many produced in the Connecticut valley in the 1790S. The interior has drawers and pigeonholes with valances, but no other embellishments. The interior drawers are attached from below on all four sides with wooden pegs . The brackets of the ogee feet are more horizontal than those from other shops in the region. In 1797 Jam es Francis, hou sewright and sometime furnitur e maker, noted the expenditure of £6.15.0 to purchase a desk from Benjamin Newberry.' Francis and his bride of four years, Pamela Welles (1768-1848), also from Wethersfield, had just moved into their newly built home . The desk has remained in the hou se since its acquisition. D imensions: H 431f.l" W 413,4" D 19Y!l" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: escutcheons original; handles and backplates replaced H CFS 68 I. James Francis, D ay Book, p. II. Francis's account books provide information on the expenses related to the houses he was building, some furniture repairs, and the occasional makin g of case furniture; see Ann e Crofoot Kuckro, Capt.James FrancisM aster Builder:Brick Architecture in Wethersfield before I840 (W ethersfield: Wethersfield Hi storical Society, 1974). For a high chest owned by him see cat. 22.

W,ETHERSFIELD: B ENJAMIN

NEWBERRY

GROUP

C AT A L OG I 7 8 This traditional slant-front desk shares the simple exterior and splayed ogee feet of other Chapin school example s (see cats. 69, 92, 167); it stands in sharp contrast to the complex and heavily ornamented W eth ersfield style desks and desks and bookcases in th e Stocking and Brown groups (cats. 35-37, 53-56).

C ATALOG 1 79 Desk and bookcase w ith removable scrol/ed pediment Possibly by Benjamin N ewberry Probably Wethersfield, I8oo-I8IO Col/eetion ofPeter B. Brainard

In design and construction this desk and bookcase is virtu ally identical to the desk belonging to James Francis and to a bookcase that probably belonged to Frederick Robbins, both of Wethersfield (cats. 178, 180). The similarities connect all three to a single shop, probably that of Benjamin Newberry. This desk and bookcase has no early history; however, collector and furniture restorer William G. Comstock,Jr. (184rI909), of East Hartford inscribed it with his name and the dates March 14, 1872, and May 1895.1 S INGULAR FEATURES [>

M ahogany veneer

[>

Shell-carved center plinth

[>

Cock bead is applied to edges of drawers (rather than drawer surrounds)

[>

Drawer sides are rounded on top; dovetail pins are of average size and angle

D imension s: overall H 96lh"; upp er case H 54" W 44 Vz" D II"; lower case H 42Vz" W 4 6 3,4" D 21VS" Materia ls: mahogany veneer with eastern white pine and yellow pme Co ndition no tes: cartouche probabl y replaced; brasses replaced Publication: Nutting, Furniture Treasury, 1: pl. 720 H C F S 409 1. C om stock obituaries: Hartford T imes, June 22, 190 9, p. 6; Ha rtford D aily Courant, June 22, 1909, p. 2. For a Wethersfield style high chest probably owned in th e C om stock family, see cat. 49.

C AT A LOG 1 79 This unusually tall (96Vz") desk and bookcase has features that date it to the first decade of th e nin eteenth century. To th e traditi onal slant- front desk with ogee feet the maker added a bookcase with removable Chapin style pediment, open fretwork, and such new elements as mahogany veneer, applied moldings on th e door panels, and Greek key course in th e corni ce above th e frieze. Except for the addition of a pro spect door, the desk interior is identic al to one that Jame s Francis of Wethersfield purchase d from Benjamin Newberry in 1797 (cat. 178).

390

END

0 FAN

ERA

C AT ALOG

180

Desk and bookcase w ith removable scrolled pediment Possibly by Benjamin N ewberry Probably Wetherifield, I800-I8IO Probablyfirst owned by Frederick R obbins of Wethersfield ConnecticutH istorical Society Museum, I958.66.0, gift of R ichard T. Steele and Robert Savage

In addition to "Benjamin" inscribed on the secretary drawer and a history of ownership in Wethersfield, this desk and bookcase shares many index features with two other pieces attributed to cabinetmaker Benjamin Newberry (cats. IJ8, IJ9). The removable pediment is a substantial unit that includes a rectangular frame to which the cornice is attached. The intricacy of that cabinetry, in contrast to that on the rest of the desk, raises the possibility the pediment was made in another shop. The design of the pediment is Chapin-inspired, but the details of the fretwork and the added Greek key course in th e cornice are unlike documented Aaron Chapin shop work. I The lower-case configuration of "secretary with doors and trays" is a 5S. option in the 1792 Hartford cabinetmakers' price list. The likely first owner, Frederick Robbins (1756-1821), lived in a large brick house built in 1767 by his father, John Robbins (1716-98), in the Stepney section of Wethersfield (present day Rocky Hill) . At his death he owned a "secretary & bookcase @ $20." It descended to his grandson Frederick A. Robbins (1841-1915), who lent it for display in the Connecticut pavilion at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Expo sition in St. Louis. The S INGULA R FEATURES t>

Dovetail pins at bottom of bookcase sides protrude below bottom board and rest in pockets on the desk top (as on cat. 153)

t> Cabinet with trays in the lower case t> French foot shaped in the H artford manner incorporates a

bracket with a small spur and a butt on at the top, but the awkward bracing suggests the design was new to the shop

C AT A LOG I 8 0 This desk and bookcase has a secretary drawer and a removable latti cework scrolled pediment with sea horse cartouche , similar to th at used by th e Eliphalet Chapin shop. Beyond th ese design elements it has little in commo n with Chapin shop work. The overall look is form al and E nglish: the compart ments have appl ied moldings within th e panels, and the cornice include s a Greek key moti f over a plain frieze. The seahorse cartouche is one of th e best-preserved surv iving examples of thi s form .

WET HER S FIE L D : BENJAMIN

NEWBERRY

GROUP

39I

C AT A L OG I 8 0 A Removable pediments such as this one became popular in the Connecticut River Valley after 1790. The cornice, fretwork, and plinth are all independently attached to a simple rectangular frame.

catalog termed it a "Chippendale Secretary... Imported by John Robbins about 1765," an understandable error as the piece does reprise the English rococo of the middle third of the eighteenth century. Subsequent owners were Frederick's distant cousins-sisters Carrie Chester Robbins (b. 1863) and Anna Cushman Robbins Savage (b. 1870); either they or their heirs subsequently sold it out of the family.2 A related desk and bookcase has a frieze decorated with a row of nine modified triglyphs plus sliding trays behind paneled doors in the lower case; aside from its unu sual ogee feet (which may be replacements), the piece is so strikingly similar to catalog 180 that it is likely from the same shop )

Exhibition: Louisiana Pur chase Exposition 1904, Co nnecticut Pavilion, no. 203 Public ations: Brainard, "C hapin Secretary," pp. 44-4 5 & cover HCFS 52 1. This imp osing desk and bookcase was long attributed to Aaron Chapin on th e basis of its pediment design and its ownership by Frederick Robbin s, who also owned a documented Aaron Chapin sideboard; see cat. 169A and Brainard, "Ch apin Secretary," pp. 44-45. For a documented Aaron Chapin desk and bookcase, see cat. 166A.

2. The remn ant s of a shipping label tacked to the top read: "T he Connectjicut] ... [Cornjmission / [Louisiana] Pur [chase] ... [Ex]position / For Conn ect icut / Exposition Ground"; Frank L. Wilcox, Charles Phelps, Joseph Vaill, R ep ort of the Commissionersfrom Conn ecticut to the L ouisiana Purchase E xp osit ion

(Hartford, 1906), no. 203. "O wned by C . C . Robbin s and

Di mensions: overall H 8ih"; bookcase W 451,4" D nih" ; desk W 47~ " D 21%"

A. C . R Savage" is painted on under side of a small drawer.

Materials: cher ry with eastern white pine and tulip poplar Cond ition notes: cartouche original; bookcase door panels probably replaced; lower-case long drawers rebuilt; brasses replaced Inscriptions: "Benjamin" and other illegible writing, possibly "De nny" or "De ming", in graphite, on the unfini shed outer surface of the secretary drawer

392

3. Location unkn own; assessment based on photo inspection only; see Nutting, Fu rniture Treasury, 1: pl. 684. The bust on the center plinth appears to be replaced. For anoth er example of the doors-with-trays configuration, att ributed to William Appl eton (1765-1822) of Salem, M ass., see North east Auctions, November 2-3, 2002, lot 764 (assessment based on limited inspection).

END

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East Windsor

CATALOG

Ebenezer Williams Jhop

Straight-Jront bureau Sign ed by Ebenez er Williams East Windsor, I80J Connecticut Historical Society M useum, I984.6S' o

181

Very little furniture is traced to the town of East Windsor after 1770 that is not in some way connected to the workshop of Eliphalet Chapin. That holds true even for Ebenezer Williams (1767-1844), who advertised as a windsor chair maker in 1790, working as an independent craftsman in the Chapin shop. I Only a single example of case furniture by Williams is known (cat. 181). Williams probably learned his craft in or near his home town of Groton in New London County. His 1794 marriage to Martha Porter (1774-1851) of East Windsor brought him important cabinetmaking connection s, as she was related to Aaron Chapin by marriage and was also a first cousin to Aaron's apprentice, John Porter II, later a Hartford cabinetmaker. Williams continued to work in East Windsor until 18Il, when he moved his family to Painesville, Ohio, and became a tavemkeeper. ' Willi ams announced his arrival in East W indsor with advertisements in the Connecticut Courant, Ma y 2, 1790, and Weekly l ntelligencer, M ay 3, 1790 . The 1798 tax assessments of East Windsor list him (labeling him a wind sor chairmaker), but those taken in 1795 and 1797, when Ebene zer Chapin was still runnin g the shop, do not; Connecticut Assessors, Warren Collection. A windsor chair branded by Williams is in the CHS Mu seum, 1986.66.3; see also Evans, A merican Winds or Chairs, fig. 7-16. 1.

Federal census for Painesville, Ohio, 1820, 1830; Jane Sikes Hageman and Edward M . Hageman, Ohio Furniture Makers (Terrace Park, Ohi o: by the autho rs, 1989), 2:214. 2.

EAST EBENEZER

WINDSOR:

WILLIAMS

SHOP

CA T A LOG I 8 I Sign ed and dated 1803, this straight-fro nt bureau with bracket feet is embellished only by scribe molding around the edges of the top and drawer front s. Although its maker, Ebenezer Williams, had worked in the shop of Eliphal et Chapin, virtually nothing connects this bureau to the Chapin shop tradition. It closely resembles a bureau labeled by Kneeland and Adams about a decade earlier (cat. 174).

Without the signature of Ebenezer Williams it would be difficult to place this basic bureau, described in the 1792 price list as "a plain Bureau, plain feet." It is made of poor quality wood and inexact joinery. The height of the bureau differs by 5/16" from one side to the other, the depth by W'. The drawer dovetails are crude and have long, uneven kerfs. Although Williams worked as a chairmaker for at least seven years under the same roof as Eliphalet Chapin, his craftsmanship shows little commonality with the latter's meticulous work.

J9J

Other Hartford County Shops

S IGN IF ICANT

I ND E X

F E AT UR E S

o Top is attached with screws from below to a two-p iece partial subtop

o Edges of top and drawer fronts are scribe- molded o Backboards are set in grooves in case sides o Dr awer dividers and runners are inserted in the same groove and have a facing strip in front

o Rear foot brace is attached to foot in a groove o Drawer sides are flat on top; drawer dovetail pins are small

The following entry is the only example in the HCFS with a bowed facade . D espite the lack of an inscription or other supporting documentation, its index characteristics are sufficient to permit attribution to the region, if not to a specific maker or town . The decorative inlay also connects it to the serpentine bureau in th e Hepplewhite style signed and dated by C hapin school cabinetmaker Eras tus Grant in 1799 (cat. 184).

and of average angle

Di mension s: H 33%"W 4 21,4" D q¥.t" M ater ials: cherry with eastern white pin e Condition note s: brasses replaced I nscription : "Deer. rzth 1803 / E. Williams E. Windsor," in chalk on subtop Publication: Lionetti & Tr ent, "Chapin Chairs," figs. 3, 3a

H CFS S

394

END

0 FAN

ERA

CATALO G

r 82

Bowfront bureau Probably H artford County, I795-I805 Privately ow ned

In the Connecticut valley, bowfront bureaus with french feet began supplanting oxbow bureaus with ogee feet around the turn of the century. Despite the new shape, thi s bureau retains elements of earlier Chapin shop products: a top with a molded edge and little overhang; tall, fluted quarter columns; coved molding at the base; splayed ogee feet; and ring-and-bail brasses.

SIGN IF ICANT

IN DEX

F E A T U R ES

o Above-edge molded top screwed to full-depth subtop o Drawer dividers attached with single tenon to quarter column housing and dovetailed to case side

o Drawer runners let into grooves in case sides (as in the Colchester Lord group and H artford Kneeland and Adams shop furniture, cats. IOO-I0 2, 173, 174)

o o

Backboards are set in grooves in case sides and top Dr awer fronts constructed of laminated horizontal strips of secondary wood and a veneer facing that incorporates pattern ed inlay, stringing, and crossbanding (as in cat. 184)

o Cock bead applied to edges of drawer fronts o Ogee foot lacks astragal molding on base o M itred (not dovetailed) front feet attached to a three-sided frame with horizont al and vertical glue blocks; rear foot brace is attached with sliding dovetail

o

Dr awer sides are flat on top; dovetail pins are of average size and angle

C AT A LO G I 8 2 T his bowfront bureau spor ts laminated drawer fronts, veneer, and inlay that were amo ng th e hallm arks of the emergin g federal style, even as it retains splayed ogee feet, quarter columns, and br asses of th e earlier per iod. The combinatio n is restrained and highly successful. T he inlaid fans on the drawer fronts, augmented by an oval patera on th e top , are characteristic decorative elements in the region during th e period.

Dimensions: H 371,4" W 42'l2" D 24" M aterial s: cherry with eastern white pine, veneer, and inlay Co ndition notes: brasses original H CFS 355

. 0 THE R

S HOP S

395

Beyond Hartford County

CATALOG

r83

D esk and bookcase with scrolled p ediment Signed by E rast us Grant Westfield, M assachusetts, I79S-I8oo Conn ecticut H istorical Society Museum, I99I.I3S.o, gift ofShepherd M. Ho lcombe

The remaining entries in thi s chapter comprise furniture attributed to three shops that were stylistically con nected to Hartford County work, especially the Chapin shop tradition, even though they lay outside Hartford County proper: the Erastus Grant shop in Westfield, just west of Springfield, Massachusetts; the Amos Bradley shop in East Haven, adjoining New Haven; and th e Silas Rice shop in th e Meriden parish of the town of W allingford, also in N ew Haven County but just south and west of Middletown.

Westfield, Massachusetts Erastus grant Jhop The cabinetmaking career of th e prolific and long-lived E rastus Grant (r774- r865) spanned many style changes. Grant left no paper trail for his apprenticeship years, but his family connections and a desk and bookcase made during the closing years of the eighteenth centur y, on e of his earliest documented works, leave little doubt th at he learned his craft with Eliphalet Chapin (cat. r83). However, Grant quickly abandoned traditional Chapin design and construction features and embraced th e emerging federal one s (cat. r84).

This desk and bookcase with balls pediment appears virtu ally identical to products from both Chapin shops (see cats. 67, 69, r67)' Common feature s include the overlapping mitred doors with English glazing pattern, a bosom drawer below th e bookcase, a secretary drawer, and an oxbow facade with four long drawers of equal height. Although it conforms to Chapin shop practice s in most respects, it also displays small differen ces in design and construction characteristic of the cabinetry of second- generation craftsmen. Grant's father, Ale xander (I755-r80r), a housewright, had moved to W estfield from E ast Windsor in 1764; through his many relatives still in E ast Windsor he would have been able to arrange his son's apprentic eship with Eliphalet Chapin . Because th e latter allowed few, if any, deviations from established shop practices, the minor differences impl y th at Grant made thi s desk and bookcase after completing his apprenticeship in the mid 1790S. Since Grant began making federal style bureaus by 1799 (see cat. r84), he is unlikely to have produced thi s piece much past r800. A related three-drawer oxbow bureau also signed by Grant in the same period has a rectangular top and rounded top drawer, an unu sual form associated with both of the Chapin shops (see cats. r65, r65A). Dimensions: overall H 8ih"; upper case H 48lh" W 36" D 9lh"; lower case H 39" W 36" D qlh" M aterials: cherry with eastern white pine and birch (subtop) Co nditio n notes: pigeon hole valances possibly missing; cartouche, finials, upper part of cente r plinth , applied center plinth ornament, lower half of feet, and brasses replaced Inscription: "E Grant / Wes tfield" in chalk on undersi de of bottom board; "E G" carved on top board of bookcase Exhibition : Connecticut Tercen tenary 1935, no. II7 Publication s: Bulkeley, "Belden and Grant," pp. 74-76, fig. 25; Keyes, "Individuality of Connecticut Furniture," p. II3, fig. 8 H C FS 46

396

END

0 FAN

E RA

CA T A L O G I 8 3 A Like William Flagg, another Eliphalet Chapin shop trainee who marked several of his pieces with his initials, Era stus Grant marked "EG" on this bookcase. The same piece also bears his full signature. A nearly identically carved "E . Grant" appears on the hood of a tall clock case (cat. I84A).

CAT A LOG I 8 3 B A brass quadrant, rather than lopers, supports the hinged drawer front in the open position. The drawer and compartment layout is the same one used in furniture produced at the two Chapin shops (see cats. 69, 167). The pigeonholes may have had valances originally.

SIN GULAR FEA TU RE S I>

Pediment is nailed to the front of the bookcase top; no supporting glue blocks

I>

Open pediment (no molding strip across the bottom of the

I>

Doors and drawer of upper case are scribe molded

I>

Drawer dovetails are neat triangles

pediment)

CAT A LOG I 8 3 This fashionable desk and bookcase is virtually indistinguishable from those produ ced earlier in the shops of Eliphalet Ch apin and Aaron Chapin. The craftsmanship is secure, reflecting the young Era stus Grant's gifts as a cabinetmaker. The finials, cartouche, and center plinth ornament are replacements.

W EST FIE L D:

ERA S T US

G RAN T

S HOP

397

r84 Serpenti ne bureau Signed by Erastus Grant Westfield, Massachusetts, I799 Historic Deerfield, 86.80 CATALOG

Dated 1799, this bureau illustrates how quickly the Connecticut valley oxbow disappeared from the lexicon of many craftsmen. There is almost nothing left that connects thi s piece to the desk and bookcase Erastus Grant had signed probably no more than four years earlier. This very early, handsome, and well-made serpentine bureau in the Hepplewhite style is replete with decorative elements-fans, oval patera, and stringingthat subsequently appeared on other federal furniture in the region; it lacks the french feet and shaped apron, commonly found on bureaus with straight and bowed facades (see also cat. r66).I More important, its index features demonstrate that radical changes had occurred in Grant's approach to fabricating bureaus and quite probably other furniture form s. A related bureau is a virtual duplicate in which the only significant difference is the horizontally oriented backboards.' It is especially intriguing because it was made more than twenty years later, when the form was decidedly out of date. It also is a rare documented example of a piece worked on by an apprentice over a peri od of three years. "Isaac Bosworth r822 AE r5" is inscribed on the outside back of the top drawer, and "Isaac Bosworth r822" "r820" and "r82r" are written on it elsewhere. Bosworth (r807-72), who worked as a cabinetmaker in Buffalo, New York, during much of his adult life, grew up in Westfield and in the r820S likely was apprenticing in Grant's shop.3 A second related example is a tall clock case that has "E . Grant" carved on the top of the hood and bears a "Lomis and Pelton" label. This partnership, formed by Simeon Loomis (1767-r865) and Enoch Pelton (r77o- r829), both of whom came from East Windsor, did business in Lansingburgh (present-day Troy), New York , from about r794 to about 1799. In combination th e carved name and label suggest that Grant, who would have kn own Loomis from his apprenticeship years, worked as a journeyman in Lansingburgh before opening his own shop in Westfield. The case is representative of New York clock cases of the period and quite

398

SIGN IF ICANT

I ND E X

FEATURES

Design and Decoration

o

Serpentin e facade is form ed by lamin ating thr ee or four strips of secondary wood and facing them with cherry veneer rather than shaping th e drawer front from a solid piece of primary wood (as in cats. 90, 171, 173)

o

Co nforming top with plain vertical edges; oval patera inlaid

o o

Applied cock bead surrounding each drawer front

in center of surface Plain bracket feet; shape of bracket is comparable to that of earlier H artford examples (cat. 174)

Construction

o

Partial subtop consists of a rail above top drawer and a correspon ding strut in th e rear

o

D rawer dividers are dovetailed to case sides; joint is faced with veneer

o o

Partial dustboard positioned below th e second drawer Backboards are vertically oriented and nailed in rabbets in case sides, to rear strut of subtop , and to bott om board

o

Front feet are joined with a simple mitre and supported with

o o

W edge-shaped rear foot brace is attached in a groove in the foot

horizontal and vertical glue blocks Drawers sides are flat on top; dovetail pins are at top and bottom of drawer sides and are of average angle

END

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CAT A LOG I 8 4 This serpentine bureau in the Hepplewhite style is embellished with veneer, stringing, and pattern inlay. Signed by Erastus Grant and dated 1799, it is one of the earliest such examples in New England.

W EST FIE L D:

ERA STU S

G RAN T

S HOP

399

unlike those being made for Daniel Burnap and other lower Connecticut valley clockmakers.t It has inlaid fans at the corners, similar to those on the serpentine bureau, but other comparisons are difficult to draw. Dimensions: H 35" W

41 ~"

D

19~";

top 4314" x 231;2"

Materials: cherry with tulip poplar Condition notes: brasses replaced Inscription: "Grant / Novr znd 1799" in chalk, on underside of top drawer bottom; "E. Grant / Oct. II, 1799" on case bottom Published: Phi lip Zea, "The Emergence of Neoclasssical Furniture Making in Rural Western Massa chusetts," Antiques 142, no. 6 (December 1992): 848, pi. 12 HCFS 260 Another example is a bowfront bureau made in 1802 by William Lloyd (1779-1845) of Springfield; see Colglazier, Springfield Furniture, p. 30, no. 7. A Grant-labeled straight-front example with bowed apron and french feet is illustrated in Fales, Furn iture of Historic D eerfield, no. 407. 1.

2. HCFS 368; privately owned. 3. His father, Samuel Bosworth (1755-18°9), was a joiner; his mother, Anna Sackett (b. 1765), was the second cousin of Grant's wife, Eunice Sackett; Mary Bosworth Clark, comp., Bosworth Genealogy, pts . 5 & 6 (San Francisco: Miller Typographic Service, 1936), p. 995, no. 1386.

4. Assessment based on photo inspection only; published in Ne w York Furniture before I840 (Albany: Albany Institute of History and Art, 1962), pp. 52-53; Christine M . Miles, Mary Alice McKay, eds., Albany Institute ofHistory and Art: Tw o Hundred Years ofCollecting ([Manchester, Vt.]: Hudson Hills Press, 1996), no. 82B. The style of lettering in Grant's name appears the same as the initials carved on cat. 183; however, no written record of Grant's presence in Lansingburgh has surfaced. See cat. 75 and Hoopes, Daniel Burnap, pp. 47-48, for the dozen tall clock cases

Loomis made for Burnap. For a Loomis -signed Chapin school high chest, see cat. 76. The Loomis and Pelton partnership lasted no more than five years: Loomis once again lived in East Windsor in 1800, and Pelton had established a shop in Alexandria, Va., by late 1799, when he reputedly made George Washington's coffin.

CAT A LOG I 8 4 A Made of mahogany and mahogany veneer, this tall clock case dates from 1794-99 and bears the inscription "E Grant" as well as a "Lomis and Pelton" label from Lansingburgh, New York. Its fashionable New York federal style features include the scrolled pediment hood with inlaid rosettes and tympanum, a case heavily inlaid with geometric stringing and oval paterae, a shaped apron, and french feet on a vertical base. The three-piece inset quar ter columns are one of the few reminders of the maker's Connecticut valley heritage. Albany Institute of History & Art, 1945.57, Kohn Fund.

400

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East Haven

CATALOG

Oxbow bureau Sign ed by Amos Bradley East Haven, I788 Probablyfirst owned by Amy H emingw ay and Abraham Bradley of N ew Haven N ew Haven Colony Historical Society, 20 02.6

cAmos 'Bradley Jhop

A fortunate propensity to sign his work has resulted in the secure identification of a small group of furniture made by Amos Bradley (I769-I83S) of East Haven, the eastern section of New Haven that became a separate town in 178S. Few of these pieces could be linked on the basis of commonalities of design or construction techniques. Indeed, Bradley's work changes so much over the course of his career that the phrase "workmanship of habit" hardly applies . Bradley's well-documented output teaches three important lessons. The first is that appearance alone is an insufficient indicator of the origin of an object . Both in design and construction, Bradley's early East Haven-made objects look like those made in the towns around Hartford. Second, cabinetmakers could and did make adjustments to their designs and construction techniques over time. Bradley did so within a short period after finishing his apprenticeship. Third, a talented cabinetmaker could thrive in a small community at some distance from the area's commercial center. Bradley prospered in East Haven, which in 1790 had a population of I,02S, compared to 4,484 in neighboring New Haven. In 1797 and 1798 he was the only cabinetmaker or joiner identified in the East Haven tax lists, and his account book, covering the years I802-IS, lists several journeymen in his employ at various times .I 1. Connecticut Assessors, Warren Collection; Amos Bradley, Account Book, Joseph Downs Manuscript and Microfilm Collection, Winterthur Library.

EAST

HAVEN:

AMOS

I8S

BRADLEY

SHOP

Documented to East Haven by the maker's inscription, this dated bureau demonstrates that by 1788 the Chapin tradition was influencing furniture production as far south as the New Haven environs along the Connecticut shore . Chapin school index features on thi s piece include the splayed agee foot, full-depth subtop, backboard attachment in grooves, and quadrant-base construction. As Amos Bradley would have been under twenty at the time, he likely was working in the shop of a now-unidentified master familiar with Chapin school models; however the inscription raises the possibility that Bradley had completed his apprenticeship early and was working in his own shop . A label attached to the back traces ownership through female heirs to Julia Forbes Mulford (r822-48) of New Haven. Her mother, Nancy Bradley (r7781841), was a first cousin of Amos, although only IO years old when the bureau was made. Nancy's parents, Amy Hemingway (1743-179S) and Abraham Bradley (17411817) of New Haven, who married in 1762, are the likely first owners. I There are two additional examples, both identified as Bradley's work by their inscription despite dramatic differences in design and construction. The first is a lift-top chest over three drawers that has "Amo s Bradley / East Haven / July IO, 1802" inscribed on the back of the top drawer and ''Amos Brad" on the next drawer as well as illegible inscriptions on the underside of top. " Without the inscription it would be impossible to attribute this piece to the same maker as catalog I8s-moldings, backboard attachment, base construction, and drawers are all executed differently. Indeed, the chest exhibits several features found on Colchester style furniture: the shape of the bracket feet is like those on Lord group pieces; the technique of supporting the feet by a downward extension of the case sides is like that used on the Samuel Loomis group; and the exposed dovetails visible on the sides of the front feet are features found on both Lord and Samuel Loomis group objects . Simple chests such as this might have been made 20 or 30 years earlier.

40 I

C AT A LOG I 8 5 Although this oxbow bureau with quarter column s and splayed ogee feet looks like tho se made by Chapin school cabinetmakers in Hartford County, it is firmly documented to East Haven, just across the harbor from New Haven, more than forty miles south and west of H artford. Minor deviation s from the Ch apin model includ e the short, one-piece quarter column s with chamfers at top and bott om and the shallow curves on the ogee feet.

CAT A LOG I 8 5 A On e of the great inscriptions written on Conn ecticut furniture, this one has a name, place, and date.

402

END

0 FAN

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SIGN IF ICANT

I N D EX

FE ATU RES

o Top has above-edge molding o Full-depth subtop to which the top is attached with screws o Qp arter columns are short; corners above and below are chamfered; line is scribed around and between the four flutes

o Drawer dividers are molded with double cock bead and nailed from the vertical quarter-column housing (as in the Oliver Deming group, cat. r75)

o Backboards are set in grooves in case sides and top (as in the

The second signed example is a five-drawer straightfront federal bureau inscribed "Easth aven O ctober 23, / ISOI / Amos Bradley made this."3 Like the lift-top chest, its design offers few clues that it was by th e same maker as catalog ISS. The drawer fronts have stringing around the perimeter; the tall top drawer has additi onal vertical stringing in the center and in two large ovals around the brasses. The case has a bowed apron and french feet.

Chapin school and Colchester style)

o Splayed ogee feet with shallow vertical curve are mounted on a

Dimension s: H 32Vs" W 37" D r8f.4" ; top 40" X 201,4"

three-sided frame that incorporates coved base molding. Typical

M aterials: cherry with eastern wh ite pine

quadrant-base assembly is used, but the horizontal block is a

C ondition not es: brasses original

triangle; rear brace is wedge-shaped

I nscription: "Eas t haven / AD 1788 / M ade By A mos / Bradley" in white chalk

o Brasses are placed high on each drawer front o Inside face of each drawer is gouged to conform to the facade on top

o Drawer sides have quirk bead (modified double astragal) at top; dovetail pins are at top and bottom of drawer side and are of

Publication s: Kugelm an, Kugelm an, & Lion etti , "Ox bow," p. 4C, fig. 5; N ortheast Au ction s: N ovemb er 5, 1994, lot 559; August 5, 1995,lot 480; and August r 4, 2002, lot 638 HCFS 219

average size and angle 1. Ab raham's inventory includes three bureaus, ranging in value from $1.75 ("old") to $5.50 ("with cloth"). 2. HCFS 321; N ew H aven C olony H istorical Society, M 1971.371. The brasses are replaced and kne e bracket spurs are bro ken off. 3. Location unknown ; assessment based on ph oto inspectio n only; see Fl orene Maine advertisement, Antiques 73, no. 5 (May 1958): 416, which also shows inscription .

E A ST

H A V EN:

A M 0 S

BRA D LEY

S HOP

403

CATALOG

186

Slant-front desk Sign ed by Amos Bradley E ast Ha v en, I790 Connect icut Historical Society Museum, I995.IOJ.o

This Amos Bradley signed desk dates from 1790, two years after the bureau (cat . 185), and has a distinctive interior. Whether Bradley, then age 21, was working independently at the time remains uncertain. The singular feature s represent differences from or additions to the feature s listed for catalog 185. Two related desks, probably from the same shop, share the same construction features as catalog 186. T he first has a similar interior layout, but its ogee feet do not splay and lack the astragal molded base; the second has a more elaborate interior layout, but similarly splayed ogee feet with an astragal molded on each supporting base (cat . 186B).1 Dim ensions: H 4IVs" W 36Vs" D 19" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition notes: brasses replaced Inscript ion : "Amos Brad / Bradley / 1790" in chalk on outside of the thr ee drawer backs from top to bottom H C FS 229 The former is H CFS 262, location unkn own; the latter, HCFS 275, was published in Skinner, sale 1740 (Oc tober 27, 1996).

I.

404

C AT A LOG I 8 6 Like catalog 185, thi s signed and dated slant-front desk with splayed ogee feet was made in East H aven along Lon g Island Sound but could easily be mistaken for a H artford area product. Subtl e differences from the Chapin school model include the shallow profile of the base molding and the vertical shaping of the ogee foot. Bradley's desk interiors feature a carved half-shell in a circle on the prospect door, unembellished false document drawers, and valanced pigeonh oles over small drawers.

END

0 FAN

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I 86A All th e dr awers of catalog r86 mu st be removed and stacked in order to read Amos Bradl ey's full inscription. T he top drawer is narrower because it is flank ed by the lop ers. CAT A LOG

SINGULAR

I>

FEATURES

Desk interior has eight valanced pigeonholes over four narrow and two wide drawers

I>

Two unembellished false document drawers flank the prospect door

I>

Prospect door is carved with a wide-lobed shell in the upper half of a concave circle

I>

Lopers are beaded on the outside edge

I>

D rawer dividers are dovetailed to case sides with dovetails visible from the front

I>

I>

Ogee foot is wider and the astragal-mo lded base taller than on catalog 185

C AT

Quadrant-base assembly is moun ted directly on the case

~IAtt;

F EAT UR E S

Bookcase doors have applied molding forming a rectangle with inset corners (not the raised panels of other bookcases in the group)

[>

Fluted quarter columns terminate in chamfered lamb's tongues (rather than turned capitals and bases)

[>

Gap in drawer runners below the second long drawer (possibly for horizontal brace comparable to that on cat. 189)

[>

Backboards are nailed in rabbets in case sides and top

[>

Ogee feet have no splay and no blind dovetail; bracket is higher than usual; no astragal molding on the base

[>

Rear foot brace is butted and secured with vertical and horizontal glue blocks front and back, rather than attached with a row of dovetails

[>

Drawer side is rounded on top; dovetail pins are relatively small and of average angle

W ALL I N G FOR D:

S I LAS

RIC E

G R 0 U P

I 9 I This desk and boo kcase is inclu ded in the Silas Rice group on th e basis of its removable scrolled ped iment with up swept end s and decorat ive eleme nts. G iven th e transport able nature of a pediment and many differences in case construction, quite po ssibly only th e pediment is from th e Rice shop and th e rest made in ano the r local sho p. The treatment of the doors, corner columns, drawers, and feet differs significantly from others in the group. C A T A LO G

4IS

CA T A LO G I 9 I B The latti cework pedim ent is largely responsible for many of the misatt ributi ons of Silas Rice group furn iture to the Chapin school. This pedim ent is the only one in the Rice group that does not lift off; glue blocks that appear original attach it to the bookcase section. The cartouche and lower third of the feet are replaced. Collection of M r. and M rs. Jerome W. Blum . Dimensions: overall H 861,4"; upper case H 441,4" W 363,4" D 101,4"; lower case H 42" W 39" D 211;2" Materials: cherry with eastern white pine Condition note s: cartouche possibly original; brasses replaced

C AT A LOG I 9 I A The pediment on this related example has carved pinwheel rosettes and an inverted shell below the waisted center plinth. A pierced chain necklace of circular cutouts is complemented by fylfots. Both bookcase and desk are embellished with crisply turn ed fluted quarter columns. Drawer fronts are lipped. Feet have flattened balls grasped by well- carved claws with long and tapered talon s. The cartouche is a replacement . C ollection of Ni cholas and Laurie M arechal.

Publications: Pet er Eaton advertisement, Antiques 137, no. 5 (M ay 1990): 1067; No rtheast Auctions, August 2, 1998, lot 773 HCFS 348 1.

N ortheast Au ctions, Augu st 2, 1998, lot 773 .

2. HCFS 348A; assessment based on ph oto inspection only; publi shed in William Smith Aucti on G allery, Plainfield, N.H., Sept emb er 3, 2001; A nt iques & the A rts Weekly, August 24, 2001, PP· I74-75· 3. HCFS I22A; assessment based on limited inspection only.

group (cat. 191B).3 The other has a small cornice with den til that closes the pediment above the bookcase doors and has gadroon strips on the front and side aprons (as on cat. 187).4The fourth is similar to the previous two but has finials (possibly additions) at the outside corners of the pediment; the bookcase interior has an elaborately scalloped valance. ' 4£6

4. HCFS 348c; location unkn own; assessment based on limited inspection; exhibited at Conn ecticut Tercentenary 1935, no. no. 5. Location unkn own; assessment based on photo inspection only; Failey, L ong Island Is My Nation, no. 187 & fron tis. It has a history in the Gardiner family of G ardin ers Island, Long Island, N .Y., and may have been first owned by Sarah G riswold (1781-1863) of Lyme and John Lyon G ardiner (1770- 1816) who married in 1803.

END

0 FAN

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rsfPan- &wo

Perspectives on Connecticut Valley Furniture

The European Origins of Eighteenth-Century New England Case Pieces

Robert F. Trent

Many modern Americans admire eighteenth-century Connecticut furniture. Simple, made of cherry, and smaller in scale than furniture from Boston, Newport, or Philadelphia, it is "perfect for today's home," as advertisements proclaimed in the 1950S. Nevertheless, those who collect Connecticut furniture today do not necessarily devote much thought to what these case pieces were used for or how the makers came up with these designs. Both are legitimate concerns, the same ones we raise when we walk into a furniture store. The issues are not as straightforward as they might seem, for what is at stake is historical perceived need, not our own. Most modern Americans have a set number of minimum furniture requirements, roughly comparable to the ideal furnishings of a newly wed couple's first apartment. We can retrieve the Connecticut version of minimal furnishings as of 1750 to 1800 by noting what farmers and artisans of modest means owned, which had not changed appreciably since the 1630S and did not include any of the expensive case pieces in the Hartford Case Furniture Survey. These people got by with a few nailed-board chests and boxes, a few joined tables, a few turned chairs with rush seats, and lowpost bedsteads. Most lived in small, one-story houses with two rooms and a loft. Most had very little clothing and furnishing textiles. Most owned only a Bible and a few pamphlets. In sum, the vast majority of Connecticut Yankees lived in an environment that was, by our standards, dark, hard, cold, stark, and dirty. I Ministers and merchants lived in different settings, and the difference was not merely a question of more or better. Their houses were two stories high, with a central stairhall and four rooms to a floor; in addition, this big house also was supplemented by barns, coach houses, and other outbuildings, most of which disappeared in the ensuing two centuries. The rooms were organized in a deliberately ceremonial fashion, with clearly demarcated thresholds, doorways, and other barriers that reflected and reinforced dedicated room use, social stratification, and individuated privacy. To further articulate these distinctions, wealthier Connecticut

EUROPEAN

ORIGINS

FIG U R E I Cabinet, probably Florence, Italy, 1550-1600. Ebony and pietre dure panel s. A later version of the cabinet without doors was meant to sit on a table or a stand as a display object. Several cabinets with inlaid marble panels of this sort were acquired by English connoisseurs durin g the period. From Giulio Ferrari, II legn o e la mobilia nell'arte italiana, zd ed. (Milan: Ulrico H oepli, n.d.), p. 3 15, pl. 23 .

people had many sets of seating furniture graded by price. Their tables were more diverse, and differentiated among the genteel activities such as dining, tea drinking, dressing, and writing. Even more expensive and status-enhancing were textiles. The elite invested in abundant clothing that required maintenance and seasonal storage, and they had elaborate bedding, such as sets of curtains, blankets, counterpanes, and changes of sheets, bolster covers, and counterpanes, often coordinated with relatively arcane fixtures like window curtains and slip covers for upholstered furniture . They also possessed table linens, including tablecloths, napkins, crumbcloths, tea table covers, and dressing table covers with pleated bases. Finally, the elite had librarie s, mostly the literature of religious controversy, but also of history, geography, social comportment, writing, cooking, dressing, military drill, politics, gardening, farming, and building. A few may have ventured into reading about science, the arts, and poetry, perhaps even novels. Merchants and clergymen also kept tall ledgers, in which they recorded and balanced their transactions and investments. These ledgers are one of the historian's principal resources for knowing how such people lived." As a result of all the se status-enhancing things, the elite needed places to store them, often under lock and key. In fact, one of the major household responsibilities of a wife was recording the acquisition and use of all kind s of commodities, which she monitored frequently and controlled with a key ring that hung at her waist. Burglary was one concern, certainly, but another was pilfering by the household servants. Some commodities were stored in locked cupboards and closets that were incorporated in the fabric of the house, but obviously many elite familie s opted for major case pieces) This might seem like an argument from mere utility: people with money had things, therefore they needed places to put them, hence all these surviving eighteenth-

42 0

century case pieces. But thi s essay is concerned with another level of meaning, that which was implicit in the objects themselves. And one important way to retrieve what provincial New Englanders of the eighteenth century thought and felt about their furniture is to trace the origins of the furniture form s some two centuries before their time. After all, the major case pieces under consideration in thi s catalog were expensive and fashionable object s, but they also retained formal elements and connotations of the older furniture form s from which they had evolved. In explicating the long history of formal change and usage, we can get closer to levels of meaning that might not be apparent to us, yet may have been implicit for th ose who ordered, owned, and used such things. The high chest of drawers and dressing table, the chest of drawers, the chest-en-chest or "case of drawers," the desk, and the desk and bookcase all descended from three Italian Renaissance furniture forms that are little known to American furniture buffs. These are the cabinet, the fall-front writing box, and the slant-lid desk-box. Each was associated with scholarship and aristocratic collecting in some way, and all three designs cross-pollinated and recombined in northern Europe as the Renai ssance progre ssed. The cabinet was a box about three or four feet wide, usually with two door s covering many small drawers or sliding boxes. The doors were fitted with latche s and locks because cabinets were used to sort and safeguard a wide variety of things associated with humanistic interests, including books, documents, maps, natural history specimens, gems, coins, medals, portrait miniature s, and other artworks. Cabinets were not genderspecific, and the same piece of furniture might be used to store needlework and to serve as a register for coinage . The portability of the cabinet directly reflected the mobility of aristocratic courts, which tended to

TRENT

FI G U R E 2 Fall-front writing box, Florence, Italy, ca. 1500 . "Certosina" inlay. From W illiam M. Odom, A H istory of Italian Furniture (New York: D oubleday Page & Co., 1918), I : 85, fig. 72.

move among a number of palaces and hunting lodges and to carry the fixtures with them. Thus the earliest cabinets were strong and plain. Only later, when courts began to be more fixed, were they often heavily decorated and made without doors (fig. 1).4 An immediate cousin of the cabinet was the fallfront writing box (fig. 2). Like the cabinet, the writing box was a medium-sized case, wider than it was tall, but fitted with a fall-front lid hinged at the bottom edge, in front of many drawers, pigeonholes, and a central compartment with a door called a prospect. The prospect was named after the painted landscape or psuedoperspectival inlay that the door often received, the idea being that the compartment was a window or archway with a view into a distant land scape. The lid of the writing box sometimes had chains to hold the lid level or at a slight angle when opened, but it might instead be supported by pull-out bars called lopers. The turned-down lid served as a writing surface. As might be expected, fall-front writing boxes were a perquisite of church officials, military officers, and merchants, all people who traveled a great deal and needed to carry documents and money with them. Both cabinets and writing boxes often had carrying handles on the end s. The Spanish version of the fallfront writing box, called a ve rg ueno, often had a special trestle base to sit on, and presumably bases or tables supported writing boxes on board ship or in military camps.5 In practice, people did not always readily distinguish between a cabinet and a writing box. The Ital-

EUROPEAN

ORIGINS

ian Renai ssance terms for the two furniture form s oft en became jumbled. Some people referred to a cabin et or writing box as a scrittoio, for the word for writing, whil e others called either form a studiolo, from the word for reading. To further confuse matters, both the se Italian words sometimes referred to built-in architectural spaces, the little studies or closet s in which reading, writing, and contemplation took place. A final bit of confusion accompanies the third furniture form, the slant-lid desk-box (fig. 3). This was a box with a slanted lid hinged at the top edge and used FI G U R E 3 Slant -lid desk-box, probably Rome, It aly, ca. 1550. Walnut with stringing and parquetry. From Wilhelm von Bode, Italian R enaissance Furn iture (New York: W illiam Helburn, 1921) , pl. 71.

42 I

principally for writing. In Italian, it was referred to as both a descho and a scrittoio. The desk descended dir ectly from bu ilt-in slant-lid de sks in monastic libraries, and often th e lid had a lip or retaining molding at the bottom to prevent books or papers from sliding off. Obviously portability and lockability were desirable features for this furniture form as well. Many were fitted with small drawers, compartments for ink bottles, pens, and paper, and other customized feature s. We are perhaps most familiar with the desk mounted on high legs, known as a counting-house desk, where the user either stoo d at th e desk or sat on a high stool. It might not be obvious, but th e reason for writing on a slanted surface was to capture natural light from windows.? A s th e three an cestors of all eighteenth-century E nglish case pieces, the se small, portable objects associated with writing and administration or collecting might seem odd, if not improbable. The crucial point in the evolution and interaction of th e cabinet, th e writing box, and th e desk-box arri ved when cour ts began to be articulated as the base for a centralized state, with a smaller number of larger palaces as th e headquarters, even if th e monarch himself still remained mobile among hunting lod ges, villas, and other getaways. Once the palaces were organized in that manner, woodworkers incr eased th e size and elaboration of thi s furniture and began to provide each with permanent bases. A nice example has an upp er case that is a fall-fro nt writing box and a lower case th at is a two-doo r cabinet known in Italian as a credenza, a multipurpose storage unit variou sly used as a sideboard or a bookcase or even a domestic altar, as the nam e suggests (fig. 4). Converting a credenza into a base was a logical idea, because th e shelves inside it could be used for books. Simil arly, makers began to set desk-boxes above or below bookcases. Perhaps th e most spectacular development was th e evolution of the large, twodoo r cabine t mounted on a stand and elaborately deco rate d with sumptuo us materials (fig. 5). These becam e a staple of northern European courtly interiors by r600 and heavily influenced many later furniture forms. Another aspect of evolving furniture forms was textile storage. In Italy and in northern Europe, th e two prin cipal storage form s for textiles were large chests with lids and standing linen presses or armoires fitted with shelves. N either had drawers, and on e of the great mysteries of E uropean furniture history is how and why th e English adopted the chest of drawers for storing clothing and furni shing textiles (fig. 6). Furniture

42 2

FI G U R E 4 Fall-front writing box over a credenza, Italy, 1540-80. Walnut. This example is shown with the lid folded down for use as a writing surface. The arrangemen t includes two long drawers for large documents and two prospects. Trus tees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, n-1891, London, Eng land.

FIG U R E 5 Cabi net-an-s tand, Lon do n, E ngland, 1670-80. Walnut, "oyster" veneer, and exotic woods parquetry. T he interior has a central prospect, and the base has twist-turned legs and flat stretchers. Winterthur Library, Decorative Ar ts Ph otographic Co llection, 59.4189.2.

TRENT

historian Benno M. Forman asserted that the chest of drawers was invented in London in the early seventeenth century, but another possible origin of the furniture form was in northern Italy, as chests of drawers with carved mannerist ornament appeared in Genoa and Milan about I575 (fig. 7).7 Certainly chests of drawers were being made in London by I630, when a cabinet atop a chest of drawers was made for a member of the court of Charles 1. 8 Many English chests of drawers retained doors over the drawers in the lower case until the I650s, suggesting that confusion existed in people's minds between a linen press with shelves and doors and a chest of drawers. (It is worth bearing in mind that most other northern Europeans persisted in using chests and linen presses for textile storage until the twentieth century; those that adopted the chest of drawers did so under strong English influence.) By the I670s, Englishmen used a variety of case pieces-chests of drawers on stands, cabinets on stands, desks on stands, and fall-front writing boxes on stands.? In the I690S several offshoots from these designs appeared, and these are of immediate interest to the origins of eighteenth-century case furniture. Between

FIG

U R E

6

FIG U R E 7 Chest of drawers. Northern Italy, 1575-1600. Walnut. Examples like this with mannerist carving have histories in Genoa and Milan but may also have been made in Venice and Florence. From William M . Odom, A Hist ory of Italian Furn iture (New York: Doubleday Page & Co., 1918), I: 252, fig. 267.

Che st of drawers with doors, London, England,

1640-65. Curly walnut. The chest is made in two cases, with no

ivory, ebony, or exotic wood inlays or applied colonettes, and is quite similar to the earliest Philadelphia joined furniture. The open door in the lower case reveals three concealed drawers. Winterthur Library, Decorative Arts Photographic Collection, 59.4 014.1.

EUROPEAN

ORIGINS

42J

U R E 8 Japanned desk and bookcase, Engl and, dated I716 in secret drawer. A double-domed bookcase with a central prospect and ledger slots sits atop a combined slant-lid writing desk with central open prospect and drawers. A waist molding marks a conceptual, rather than literal, separation between the lower drawers and the desk compartment. In some examples, the bookcase, desk, and drawers are made in three separate cases. Winterthur Libr ary, Decorative Arts Ph otographic Collection,

FIG

59·4977·

1690 and 1750, fashionable London cabinetmakers experimented with a host of polyglot arrangements of cabinets, desks, and chests of drawers, and this eventually resulted in the classic forms seen in this catalog. These experimental antecedents were much more diverse than most Americans imagine, and no necessary reason is forthcoming to explain why certain variants came to dominate English production. Furthermore, English cabinetmakers continued to produce more varied furniture forms than did their American counterparts throughout the eighteenth century, perhaps in respon se to aristocratic and upper-middle-class patrons wh o demanded something out of the ordinary. One of the mo st remarkable evolutionary trends concern ed the desk and the desk and bookcase. During th e late seventeenth century cabinetmakers in the N eth erlands and England began to fuse three distinct form s-the chest of drawers, the slant-lid desk-box, and th e cabinet. One popular hybrid was a slant-lid desk atop a case of three or four drawers. Some of these were augmented with an upper case that might be fitted with an interior like that of a cabinet, particularly as regard s the central compartment or prospect (fig. 8). The presence of a prospect immediately suggested the

idea of a cabinet, but the cabinets that were set on top of a combined desk and chest of drawers could also feature pigeonholes, tall ledger slots, paper shelves, bookshelves, and many other fitted compartments, including secret ones, according to the wishes of the owner. Curiously, cabinetmakers also began to fit the writing compartment behind the slant lid with a central prospect, pigeonholes, and drawers. In many desks, the prospect compartment was made as a separate unit that could be removed and carried away, presumably for safekeeping.The inference is quite strong that customers who were ordering the desk and drawers only wanted some of the features of the cabinet incorporated in their writing compartment. While some versions fused the desk and drawers into one case, many were made in three parts until the 1750S, literally a cabinet on top of a desk-box on top of a chest of drawers, th ereby embodying the provisional, rapid evolution of th e composite form from its three antecedents. Another desk form appearing in the 1680s and 1690S was a fall-front writing box atop a chest of drawers (fig. 9). These took on the English name scrutoire, a corruption of the archaic French escritoire, but the term also continued to be applied to slant-lid desk-boxes, and it may have been used for slant-lid desks atop chests of drawers as well. The fall-front scrutoire was popular in London but less so in the North American colonies-only two American examples survive, one from New York (Museum of the City of New York) and another from Philadelphia (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation). At this same juncture in English furniture evolution, other desk designs were available, including a slant-lid desk-box on a high stand, today often termed "counting-house desk"; a desk-box mounted on a base with tall legs (fig. 10); and a flat-top writing table mounted on two pede stal-cabinets, the ancestor of th e eighteenth-century "partners' desk."? It is also useful to bear in mind that in France desks of any kind were

TRENT

FIG U R E 9 Scrut oire, Engl and, 1685-17°5. Burl veneer. The upper and lower cases separate at the waist. Winterthur Library, Decorative Arts Ph otographic Collection, 59.4699 .

far less fashionable than a flat-top writing table on high legs, used in combination with a tall case for papers (called a cartonnier) and with built-in bookcases . Aristocratic Englishmen with big book collections were aware of these national differences in usage, and some of them opted for the French arrangement in their country houses. II The high chest of drawers, the dressing table, the chest of drawers, and the chest-on-chest also received considerable experimentation between r680 and 1720 . The high chest of drawers is an irrational furniture form from a modern viewpoint. Why mount a heavy chest of drawers on high legs? The thing always seems on the verge of toppling over, and the upper drawers are inaccessible, unless a chair or a set of steps is available. The answer seems to be that Londoners wanted the practicality of a chest of drawers for textile storage, but they also wanted to emulate the prestigious courtly cabinet on a stand. Mounting a chest of drawers on legs gave them a bit of both. The earliest high chests were

E U R 0 PEA NOR I GIN S

FIG U R E I ° Desk and bookcase, En gland, 1695-17IO. Burl veneer and gilding. This exampl e has a double-domed bookcase with glazed doors, a slant-lid desk with lopers to support th e lid, and faceted , turned legs much like tho se of a high chest of drawers. Winterthur Library, Decorative Arts Ph otographic Collection, 59·5°53·

425

tops of the four legs were extended up to form corner posts, and the board sides were tenoned into the posts with two or more tenons, usually supplemented with splines run along the whole length of the sides, to inhibit warping or splitting. This technical revolution in the construction of the base literally saved the furniture form from disfavor; nonetheless, the high chest of drawers on cabriole legs rapidly lost popularity in England after about 1750, although it remained extremely popular in many colonial American centers. Dressing tables made en suite with high chests might seem like a logical pairing for use in sleeping chambers, but the usual design as of 1695-1700, with three or four drawers, was not self-evident or traditional in any sense. In the 1660s, anything called a dressing table was as likely as not a plain joined table with a drawer that was covered when in use by a linen cloth called a toilette, hence they often were also known as toilet tables. However, the same little joined table

FIG U REI 1 Joined high chest of drawers, England, 1670-90 . Oak. This type with five vasiform legs is similar to a

small group of Boston and New York examples dating from slightly later. Winterthur Libr ary, Decorative Arts Photographi c Collection, 59.4122.

not all that tall, and they were mounted on sturdy joined bases (fig. II). By the 1690S, makers constructed a taller high chest and framed the lower case as a dovetailed box with drawers, a scalloped skirt, and four or six turned legs connected by flat stretchers. For the next forty or so years, the lower cases of these cabinetmakers' high chests relied on a series of internal glue blocks to provide bulk in which to bore the holes for the tenons of the turned legs, a practice that often led to disaster. A humid summer or a sudden jar might cause the glue blocks to let go, collapsing the undercarriage of the base and toppling the chest of drawers. This is not merely a theoretical scenario; most William and Mary high chests have rebuilt or replaced legs, and many survive in the form of the upper case with later feet, added after the broken lower case was discarded. When cabriole legs became fashionable about 1715, a new structure emerged that compromised between joined and dovetailed-board construction (fig. 12). The

Hi gh chest of drawers, England , 1725-5° . Probabl y walnut. The extensions of the cabriole legs form the corner posts of the lower case. Winterthur Libr ary, Decorative Arts Ph otographi c Collection, 59.4716. FI G U R EI 2

TRENT

FI G U R E I 3 Bu reau "Mazarin," France, 1690-1700. Boullework in copper and pewter. The pro spect is under the top draw er and between the ranks of dr awers. Although this example is extr avagantly ornamented, many plain examples survive. From E. Williamson, L es meubles d 'art du mobilier nati onal (Pari s: Baudry & Cie , n.d .), I: pl. 22 .

might be used for writing or for informal dining." A fashionable furnishing ensemble consisting of a table, a pair of tall candlestands, and a looking glass became popular in France by the I670s . This ensemble may have been used for formal grooming or writing by courtiers, but just as often it was purely ceremonial and decorative-de parade, as the French put it, to be looked at as one walked by. The tables used in the ensemble went through a succession of fashionable forms. Those provided with stone tops and used to serve food and beverages eventually were attached to a wall and were termed a buffet. Those that acquired more drawers, more legs, and complex stretchers, were called a bureau by the I690S.13 The furniture form known in French art history as the bureau Mazarin (fig. I3) had a marked recess at the center between tiers of drawers, and it was the immediate ancestor of the English dressing table and the English bureau table. By q05 in France the bureau Mazarin gave way to a new furniture form that had full-width drawers, a deeper case, shorter legs, and, quite often, doors in front of the drawers. These elaborate case pieces were called commodes (fig. I4), and they may have been influenced by the older English chests of drawers with doors. They also owed something to Asian cabinets. Commodes were almost exclusively de parade, and their elevated status was reinforced by lavish decoration in the form of veneering, parquetry, marquetry, inlaid brass or pewter, and gilded bronze mounts.H These were at first not extensively made in

EUROPEAN

ORIGINS

FI G U R E I 4 Commod e, Franc e, 17 20-3 0. This example from th e regency of Louis XV ha s two do ors over th e dr awers, elaborate parquetry and ormolu mounts, and a marble top. It belongs to a group of early rococ o objects with somewhat restrained ornament. From Guillaume Janneau, L es beaux meublesfrancais anciens (Paris: Editions D-Art Charles Moreau, n.d. ), I: pl. 16 .

England, perhaps because the English had little taste for objects used exclusively for display. Once English nobility began to collect French examples, cabinetmakers in England responded with their own productions.f The English dressing table emerged as a relatively plain version of the French bureau Ma zarin and remained in that form until 1720 or so. Yet another odd variant that stemmed from the same source was the English bureau table (fig. 15). It resembled a chest of drawers but had a recessed prospect in the center below the top drawer, a feature that gave rise to an incorrect twentieth-century name, "kneehole desk." Most example s seem to have been used for dressing, but the pro spect recess is far too small for a sitter's legs. Some bureau tables have pull-out slides for writing or for folding textiles, and still others have writing drawers, making them a subcategory of desks . Even more perplexing, some chests on chests have a bureau table for the lower case. 16 The same pretension inherent in modeling high chests on the cabinet on stand is found in matching dressing table s based on the fashionable but useless sixleg bureau (see fig. 13). Yet one more index of pretension was the incorporation of the French term bureau in th e name of the English bureau table. The tension between courtly display and practicality persisted throughout the lifetime of these furniture forms. The evolution of the one-case chest of drawers and th e later chest-on-chest is somewhat more straightforward but still embodies several interpretive problems. One-case, dovetailed-board, veneered chests of drawers were not uncommon in England between 1680 and 1720 but rare in America. Variants dating from the 1680s on were the cabinet on chest of drawers and the fall-front writing box on chest of drawers (fig. 16), both of which drew on the cachet of the courtly cabinet on stand. By the 1720S, the function of the cabinet on chest of drawers was shifting from use as a repo sitory for papers and collectibles to use as a linen press, for which it was fitted with shelves or sliding trays. To some extent, this may have reflected a renewed acquaintance with the continenta1linen press. While no seventeenth-century American example ofa cabinet on chest of drawers survives, some were made in Boston in the 1740S and 1750s.17 Another of the paradoxes of American furniture history is the introduction of the chest-on-chest. The earliest English examples seem to date from 1710 (fig. 17), and while controversy persists about the date of the earliest Boston example, it may be from as early

FI G U R E I 5 Bureau-table. England , 1710-3° . The prospect recess on thi s veneered and cross-banded example is embellished with an applied arch, but most bureau-tables do not have them. W interthur Libr ary, Decorative Arts Ph otographic Collection,

59·5I1 0 .

TRENT

as 1720.18 Chests-on-chests almost completely displaced the high chest of drawers in England by the 1740s, and some colonial centers, notably New York and Charleston, adopted English usage almost immediately. New England and Philadelphia cabinetmakers continued to make high chests until well after the Revolution and incorporated rococo carved ornament in a manner not seen in England. That the Hartford Case Furniture Survey found that Connecticut residents rarely ordered chests-on-chests before the 1780s may reflect the enduring popularity of the high chest on cabriole legs.

6 Cabinet on chest of draw ers. En gland, 1710-1725. This example has a Jap anese-style cabinet with elaborate brass hardware, custom- made rotar y-cut veneer, and bracket feet. Winterthur Library, Decorative Arts Ph otographic C ollection, 59-4683. F IG U R E I

FI G U REI 7 Chest- on-chest or case of drawers; En gland, 1710-3°. This example , decorated with veneer and stringing, has typical canted corners on both cases, a shell niche in th e lowest drawer, bracket feet, and a writing drawer with fall-front lid in the uppermost dr awer of the lower case. The writ ing drawer may have been intended for use by household servants while cataloging household linen s. Winterthur Library, De corative A rts Photographic Colle ction , 59.3080.

The complex, often ambiguous development of all these case pieces has a direct bearing on what colonials thought and felt about the succes sion of furniture forms that became fashionable after 1730. The descent of these case pieces from elemental forms associated with aristocratic humanist study and courtly ritual meant that any major case piece retained elite connotations. In eighteenth-century Connecticut, the differences between a doctor, a lawyer, a merchant, and a minister were only those of degree, not of kind. All received the same education at the same New England colleges, and the opportunities for acquiring wealth

E U R 0 PEA NOR I GIN S

429

were the same for all. But that education, as narrow as it might have been, represented the great social divide between farmers or skilled artisans and the elite. Anything more than reading the Bible and occasionally signing a legal document was a sign of intellectual and social distin ction, and expensive furniture associated with owning books and con stant writing embodied th at social distinction. It is now a common interpretive tactic to suggest that a desk and bookcase provided the same functions for educa ted peop le that a computer does toda y, but thi s comparison, while useful, does not convey how much such a piece of furniture and its cargo of books, papers, and ledgers could intimidate an uneducated visitor. Similarly, high chests perched on cabriole legs or chests-on-che sts on bracket feet not only suggested large collections of expensive textile s, but a seasonal cycle of storage wh erein summer and winter furni shings were tak en out and put away und er the watchful eye of the mistress. To some extent, thi s cycle was further mystified by lifting the textile s far above the floor, in a manner unfamiliar to those who lived with earthbound chests. Almost without questi on, tall pieces of furniture retained th e prestige of their courtly ancestors on sta nds. Dressing table s and bureau tables, which descended from obscure courtly furniture forms, were perhaps the ultimate elite expression, a celebration of grooming and fashion th at was far beyond th e means or the ken of most people. Both retained a direct associati on with th e courtly practice of powdering hair and wigs, an overt expression of elite status in the colonie s as well as Europe. And of course, what modern collectors often remain unaware of were all the expensive textile accessories used in dressing ceremonies, including toilettes, towels, handkerchi efs, and other pleated or rouched fixtures with whi ch dressing tables and looking glasses sometimes were draped. Well might we question whether residents of Connecticut in the eighteenth century were conscious of th e entire history of Renaissance furniture; however, th ey had read about courtly goings-o n back to th e time of Charles I, and the newpapers delivered by post rid ers from Boston, New H aven, Hartford, and elsewhere, often contained gossip about the dynasties of Europe culled from newletters of various kind s. Many in Connec tic ut lived with "antiques" or saw them in th e househ old s of people wh o had been prosperous for three or four generations, objects that not only evoked

4Jo

"old money" but demanded something like an art historical explanation. From the se disparate kinds of experience, they constructed notions of style and legitima cy that are not unrelated to those put forward in this essay, and whil e it is common to ridicule Connecticut Yankees as provincials, th eir colony and th eir economy mad e th em acutely aware of innovations in Boston, Newport, N ew York, and Philadelphia, evidence of which is to be seen in the furniture owned by the elite. Insofar as tho se below that social level were concerned, the essential factor seems to have been th at th eir material world was constant, while th e successive furniture forms owned by th eir "betters" reminded th em of activities and privileges that were beyond reach.

I. Two studies that are useful for furnishings associated with lower income levels are Sweeney, "Furniture and the Domestic Environment," pp. 10-39, and Bushman, Refinement ofA merica, pp. 100-138.

2.

Sweeney, "River Gods"; Great R iver.

3. Some excellen t sources for the role of women in managing households are Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and R eality in the Lives of Women in N orthern N ew England I6so- I7So (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982); Joy D ay Buel and Richard Buel, Jr., The Way ofDuty: A Woman and Her Family in R evolutionary America (New York: W . W. orton, 1984); and Susan Burrows Swan, Plain & Fancy: American Women and Their N eedlew ork, qoo-I8so (New York: H olt Rinehart and W inston, 1977), pp. 18-41. 4. An excellent source for cabinets is M oniqu e Riccardi-Cub itt , The Art ofthe Cabinet (Lon don: Thames and Hudson, 1992). Note,

however, th at the author often fails to distinguish between cabinets, writing boxes, desks, and linen presses. 5. Sali Barnett Katz, H isp anic Furniture (St amfor d, Conn: Architectural Book Publishing Co ., 1986), pp. II9-31; L. Feduchi, E I mueble espana! (Barcelona: Edi ciones Poligrafa, 1969), pp. 122-29 . 6. Peter Thorn ton , The Italian R enaissance I nterior, I40 0-I6oo (New York: H arry N. Ab rams, 1991), and Dora Thornton, The Scholar in H is Study (New H aven: Yale University Press, 1997). While both books provide excellen t, detailed information on nomenclatu re and usage, neith er provides connoi sseurship of surviving furniture. Because It alian Renaissance furniture was popular with northern Europeans and was actively restored and reproduced from th e 1650S onward, few scholars have tackled it, and no depend able modern monograph exists, as European decorative arts curators readily adm it. 7. Benno M . Forman, "The Chest of Drawers in America, 1635-173°: The O rigins of the Joined Chest of D rawers," Winterthur Portfolio 20, no. I (Spring 1985): 1-30 .

8. Robert F.Trent , "Furniture in the New World: The Seventeenth Ce ntury," in Brock Jobe et al., American Furniture w ith R elated DecorativeArts, I660-I8Jo: The M ilwaukeeArt Mu seum and the Lay ton Art Coffection, ed. Ge rald W. R. Ward . ( ew York: H udson H ills Press, 1991), pp. 23-2 8. 9. The latest and most dependab le survey of English furniture of

TR E N T

this period is Adam Bowett, English Furniture, I660-I7I4: From Charles II to Queen Anne (Woo dbridge: Antique Collectors' Club, 200 2). Bowett's excellent analysis of construction and datin g based on documented example s does not, however, addres s much of the variability of furniture design, nor does he devote much attention to the antecedents of the furniture forms . The discussion here departs from his ideas in several respects. ro . The earliest documented pedestal desk in England is Samuel Pepys's desk now preserved at the Pepys Libr ary, Magdalen e College, Cambridge; see M acquoid, Dictionary, 3:244. II.

Thornton, Seventeenth - Century Interior D ecoration, pp. 303- 14.

12. Benno M . Forman, "Furniture for Dressing in Early Americ a, 1650-1730: Forms, Nomencl ature, and Use," Win terthur Portfolio 22, nos. 2/3 (Summer/Autumn 1987): 149-64. 13. Thornton, Sev enteenth-Century Interior Decoration, pp. 9r94, 231, 30 2- 3. 14. Pierre Verlet, L es meubles fran cais du XVlIIe siecle (Paris: Universitaires de France, 1956), p. 2715. M acquoid, D ictionary, 2: ro 8- 25. See also Christopher G ilbert

and Tessa Murdoch, J ohn Chan non and B rass-Inlaid Furn itu re, I730-£760 (New Haven: Yale Un iversity Press, 1993). 16. See entries regardin g labeled or documented bureau-tables in

Geoffrey Beard and Christopher Gilbert, eds., Dictionary ofEnglish Furniture Makers, I660-I840 (Leeds: Furniture History Society and W. S. Maney and Son, 1986), and Christopher Gilbert, Pictorial D ictionary ofMarked L ondon Furn iture, I7oo-I840 (Leeds: Furniture Hi story Society & W. S. Mane y and Son , 1996 ). 17. Edward S. Cooke, Jr., "Boston Clothespresses of the Mid-

Eighteenth Century," Journal

ofthe M useum ofFine A rts, Boston I

(1989) : 75-95 · 18. Edward S. Cooke, jr., "T he Warland Che st: Early Ge orgian Furniture in Boston," M aine Antiq ue D igest 15, no. 3 (M arch 1987):

roC- 13C.

E U R 0 PEA NOR I GIN S

4]I

Connecticut River Valley Woodworking Dynasties with Chapin Connections

Robert R Trent

The Hartford Case Furniture Survey (HCFS) has revealed detailed, important insights regarding Connecticut furniture made between I730 and I8IO. As in all such studies, the crux is building connections between the surviving body of objects and an equivalent body of documentation regarding woodworkers from the same locales. Local antiquarian sentiment has placed great emphasis on whether or not a given object was made or owned in a given town, but the town, as such, is not the appropriate frame of reference for analyzing the development of furniture and the furniture trade, especially those of the Connecticut River towns. Shop traditions are what need to be investigated, and shop traditions moved fluidly up and down the Connecticut River Valley, in response to family, apprenticeship, and journeyman ties . In this preindustrial economy, fathers trained sons, apprentices and journeymen married masters' daughters, and each extended family of artisans exchanged technical and stylistic secrets in a guild-like manner. Family and professional ties also operated to the exclusion of others, and marriage into a woodworking dynasty was a calculated and necessary act, since nothing more or less than a career was at stake.I Under these circumstances, which appear to have held true throughout colonial America, reconstruction of genealogical ties among artisans is an absolute prerequisite for understanding the development of a region's joinery trade. Only when the family networks have been established, amplified with data from probate records and account books, and collated with surviving objects, can the entire body of data be organized in a meaningful way. With this in mind, four genealogical charts are presented here . Obviously these charts are only one kind of data, and they are subject to revision as research continues. Most of the information represents the work of previous scholars who have discovered the arti sans in records or run across their names

4J2

TRENT

written on the concealed, interior surfaces of objec ts. When reduced to the convenient clarity of a chart, however, blood and professional ties among artisans can suggest interrelationships or new lines of inquiry that were unapparent before. In general, the charts demonstrate that there was no discontinuity between shop traditions founded in the seventeenth century and those that dominated furni ture production up until the end of the eighteenth century. It follows that networks of artisans learned each successive style and the associated technical skills, and they probably did so quite soon after new styles were introduced in port cities such as Boston, Newport, and Philadelphia. In some cases, the learning process may have been accelerated by the placement of family members as apprentices or journeymen in stylistic centers or by the importation of prototypes or patterns and measurements. Nevertheless, in certain key instances, artisans who were not affiliated with any Connecticut River Valley woodworking family moved into the area from a stylistic center and founded a new shop tradition that influenced established families. All in all, furniture production in the valley appears to have been far more attuned to what was going on in stylistic centers and far less folklike than many writers have assumed. The strong regional identity that some see in Connecticut furniture is probably a reflection of both the diverse sources influencing its makers and the lower wealth levels of the area (relative to the port cities), rather than evidence of sheer individual creativity. In other words, Connecticut furniture makers combined urban styles and simplified ornament. While the making and purchasing of furniture are both forms of personalized expression, both are also business transactions, and the objective basis of that business is far more worthy of investigation than is the celebration of a regional mystique.

WOODWORKING

DYNASTIES

G U IDE T O T H E C H ART s: Each individual is provided with a raised numeral between the first and last names, indicating the generation in the paternal line. Woodworkers are identified by an asterisk. Solid lines indicate blood lineage, while red lines indicate marriages. In a few cases, first or second marriages are noted by a phrase or numeral over the marriage tie .

433

CHART

ONE:

SPENCER,

AND

PEASE

FAMILIES

Thomas' Spencer' 160/87 Bedford shire, England , and H artford

Nicholas' D isbrowe" 1612-83 Essex, England, and Ha rtford ! !

M ary> D isbrowc d. before 1709 H art ford

PHELPS,

O badiah" Spencer 1639-1712 H artford

_1Oba diah! Spencer' 1666-1741 Hartford

I Gerard" Spen cer' ca. 1651- 1712 H artford

Thoma s" Spencer ca. 1641-89 Hartford and Suffield

William 3 Spencer' ca. 1677- 1745 Suffield

G erar di Spen cer' ca. 1684-1754 H artford , New H artford

Elizabeth! Spencer 1688-1729 H art ford , Enfield

M aryi Spencer b. 1692 H art ford, Enfield

possible , .· ' ·· master .

.:

j ohn! Pease' 1678- 1761 Salem, M ass., Enfield

Timothy! Ph elps' 1702-56 H artford

Timothy' Ph elps' 1725;6 Hartford

Chart One delineates relationships between the SpencerPhelps shop tradition of Hartford and the Pease shop tr adition of Enfield. The Spencer-Phelps tradition began with the founding of Hartford in the r630s, whe n Nicholas! Disbrowe (r6I2-83) and Thomas! Spencer (r607- 87) settled a few hundred yards from each other. Disbrowe appears to have been strictly a joiner and Spencer, a turner, but intermarriage among th eir children probably resulted in a pooling of their respective skills in the person of their grandson, Obadiah 3 Spencer (r666-q4r). Obadiah' Spencer may have trained Timothy" Phelps (r702-56), the earliest identified woodworker in the Phelps family of Hartford, alth ough no proof of this connection has been found (for another possibility regarding Phelps's training, see discussion of Phelps and Loomis familie s, below) . If Timothy" Phelps trained with, or was influenced by, Obadiah' Spencer, th en a single shop tradition could be said to have dominated Hartford's furniture trade

434

from r639 until the death of Timothy" Phelps's son, Timothy' Phelps (Q25-76). 2 Another branch of the Spencer family allied itself by a double marriage to two Pease brothers in Enfield. The Pease family joiners, best known from Clair Franklin Luther's Hadley Chest, were not the rude country artisans of Luther's imagination, for the founder of the shop tradition, john-' Pease (r654-I734), trained with James Symonds (r633-Qr4) of th e Symonds shop tradition in Salem, Massachusetts, one of the more successful and stylistically advanced networks of joiners and turners in early New England. The late Benno M. Forman demonstrated that th e Symonds workmen knew both joinery and turning, and this has interesting implications for the Spencer-Pease marriages that took place in the early eighteenth century) Because the Peases already knew how to turn wood as well as execute joinery, their motive in seeking marriage alliances with the Spencer family in Hartford

TRENT

j ohn! Pease ca. 1632- 89 Salem , M ass., and Enfield

j ohni Pease' 1654-1734 Salem, M ass., En field

~I I

j onathan! Pease 1669-1721 Salem , Mass., and Enfie ld

Isaac' Pease 1672-1731 Salem, M ass., and Enfield t mr

jo seph- Pease' 1693- 1757 Enfield

M ary! Pease 1688-1746 Enfield (owne r of M P 1714 H adley chest)

Pelat iah- Pease 1709 - 69 Enfi eld

Ebenezer C hapin 17° 5- 51 Enfi eld, Som ers

I

i i i... .

._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._. __,

i

guardi an

Eliphalcf Chapin' 1741- 1807 Somers, Enfield, East Windsor, Philadelphia, East H artford

j oseph! Pease' 1728- 94 Enfield , Suffield

I

Zebulon! Pease' 1749- 1829 Enfield

Serh" Pease 1762-1819 Suffield, Philadelph ia

was not to acquire turning skills from G erard / Spencer (1650-1712), fath er of th eir respective bride s. They may simply have made the acquaintance of the Hartford Spencers through G erard Spencer's brother, ThomasSpencer (1641- 89), wh o had moved from Hartford to Suffield, th e town west of Enfield, and they may have sought ties to th e H artford woodworking community to keep abreast of new styles and facilitate shipme nts of lumber and other commodities up and down th e fiver. Another aspect of Chart One that ha s generally escaped notice is th e relationship between th e Pease family and Eliphaler'' Chapin (1741-1807), one of th e principal subjects of th e HCFS.4 Chapin, wh o was born in Somers, formerly part of Enfield, maintained business connections with his second cousin, Jo sephs Pease (1728-94) of Suffield , aft er he established his shop in East Windsor, and he may have been aware of th e cabinetmaking activities of another second cousin,

WOODWOR KI NG

DYN ASTIE S

Zebulon s Pease (1749-1829) of Enfield. Chapin may have served his apprenti ceship with a memb er of the Pease famil y before working as journeyman in East Windsor from about 1762 to 1767. Another question is wh eth er or not Chapin was aware of his more distant relationship to th e Spencer family of H art ford; if the Phelp s fam ily sho p tr ad ition was derived from th e Spencer-Phelps traditi on , as prop osed here, then certainly Chapin wo uld have been aware of what was being made in th e Phelps shops in H artford when he returned to East Windsor about 1771 and began making his own, Philadelphia- style line. This is not a moot point, as Chapin scaled down Philadelphia pat tern s to New England scale. In any case, Chapin was thoroughly versed in local cabinetmaking traditi ons before he served his tim e in Philadelphia and evolved th e style for which he is kn own, and th e researchers of th e HCFS have rightly examined his work for traits th at do not reflect Philadelphia practi ce.

435

C HA RT

TW O :

C HA PIN

AN D

C OLTON

FAM I L IES

japher' Chapin 164 2-1712

Springfield

.---------l

D avid! Ch apin

Ebenezer! Chapin 1677-1772

1682- 1772

Springfield, Enfield

Springfield

I I

E lizabeth- Pease

Ebenezer- C hapin

j oseph- Chapin

Edward! Ch apin

1712- 86

1705-51

1718-1803

1724-1800

Enfie ld, Somers

En field, Somers

Springfield , W indsor, and Wethersfield, Vr (gun smith)

Spr ingfield (C hicopee parish)

Eliphalcti Chapin'

Am zi5 Chapin'

1741-180 7

1768- 1835

Som ers, Enfield, East Windsor, Philadelphia, East H artford

Springfield (C hicopee parish), H artford, New H aven, Virginia, North C arolina, Kentu cky, Penn sylvania, Ohio

Chart Two explores relation ship s between th e Chapin and Co lton families of E nfield and Springfield. These connectio ns are well known , but th ey bear repetiti on here.i Eliphalet C hapin's second cousin, Aarons C hapin (1753-1838), worked with him in Ea st Windsor after Eliphalet's return from Philadelphi a, th ereby learn ing the prestigious new style, which he subsequently transmitted to his bro the r, Amzis C hap in (1768- 1835), and his first cousin, Aarons Co lton (1758-1840). H ow long Aaron Colton was in H artford before his 1787 marri age to Elizabeth Olmst ead of East H artford rema ins unknown, but he bega n a four-year appren ticeship with East Windso r joiner Augustus Fi tch in D ecember 1775.6 He may have come to H art ford about 1783, whe n Aaron C hapi n moved to H art ford from East Windsor. Aaron C hapin's move to H artford at that tim e may, in turn, be seen as opportunistic and shrewd, given th e 1776 dem ise of Timothy- Phelps, th e town's leadin g cabinetmaker. Aaro n C hapin's shop vied with that of

Samuel Kneeland (1755- 1828), who arrived in 1786, for pre-eminence until th e late 1790s.7 In th e next generation, A nson 6 Colton (1797-1873) was a cabinetmaker for part of his career, as were his cousins Rh odolphus'' Co lto n (1784-1838) and H orace6 Co lto n (1774- 1863).8 T he marriage of Aaron Colton's daughter Laura6 (1788-1854) to Aaron Chapin's son Laertes6 (1778-1847) requires little explanation, other tha n to no te th at all th ese artisans maintained the C hap in-Colto n tradition far into th e nineteenth century, in H artford, western Massachusetts, and Norwich, Co nnec ticut, as well as the Sou th and the Midwest.

T RENT

W illiam J Colton 16 94- 1770 Springfield (Lo ngmeadow parish)

! I

Euni ce- Colton 1728-1806

Springfield (Lo ngmeadow and Chicopee parishes)

Aaron! Chapin ' 1753-1838 Springfield (C hicopee parish), East W indsor, H artford

! I

Laura'' Colton 1788- 1854 H artford

WOO D W 0 R KIN G

D Y N A S TI E S

437

CHART

THREE:

PHELPS

AND

LOOMIS

C hart Three ties th e Phelps shop tradition in H artford th e significant Loomi s sho p tradition of Windsor (see cats. 38-41). N o evidence suggests th at any member of th e Phelps family of H artford was a woodworker before Timothy" Phelps (IJ02- 56), and the marriage of his sister, Hannah 4 Phelps (1694-IJ84) , to Timothy" L oomi s (1691-1 740) of Windsor may indicate that Timothy" Phelps worked with hi s brother-in-law, rath er th an or in addition to Obadiah' Spencer, as suggested above in th e discussion of Chart One. Timothy" Loo mis in tu rn was most likely train ed as a carp enter and joiner by his uncle, Nathaniel3 Lo omis (16631732), altho ugh a more distant candidate for his master was his father's first cou sin, also named Nathaniels Loomis (1657- IJ33).9ThatTimothy4 Loomis died before he could train his own son, Timothy- Loomis (IJ2486), points to th e son's uncle, Timothy" Phelps, as the logical cho ice for hi s ma ster. Timothy- Loomis's accoun t book lists high-style furniture forms that he could not have learn ed to make from his father, wh o was tr ain ed in th e seventee nth-ce ntury style in his youth and made few furniture forms. The nearly identical birth dates of Timothy'' Lo omi s (IJ24-86) and his first cousin, Timothy- Phelps (IJ25-76) mean that they both apprenticed about the same time, and ifTimothy'' Loomi s did apprentice in the Phelps shop, then the leadin g cabinetmaking shops ofWindsor and Hartford may have produced th e same line of case furniture thro ugho ut th e thi rd quarter of th e eighteenth century. Finally, C olche ster cabin etmaker Samuels Loomi s (1748-1814) was dist antl y related to th e L oomis joinery traditi on ofWindsor, but no direct relationship betwe en his work and theirs can be detected.

FAMILIES

W illiam' Phelps 1599-1672

to

43 8

Gloucestershire, England, D orchester, M ass., and Windsor

Sam uel? Phelps ca. 1625-69

G loucestershire, England, D orchester, M ass., and W indsor

Timothyi Phelp s 1656-1714

W indsor, Simsbury, Ha rtford

I

! I

Hannah- Phelp s

Timothy' Loomis'

170 2- 1756

1694- 1784

1691- 1740

H artford

Hartford and W indsor

Windsor

Timothy' Phelps'

P_;: ~~ I===~!. -. c:==----

_ _ _.l..-_ _

T imothy' Phelp s'

rn>

Timothy' Loom is'

1 725~6

1724-86

H artford

W indsor

Ceorgc" Loomis'

T imorhy'' Loomis'

1753- 1804

1750 - 1832

Windsor

W indsor, Torrington

T R E N T

Anna Roberts b- 1750 Windsor, Torrington

Joseph' Loomis r588-r659

Essex, En gland and W indsor

John ' Loomis

Nathaniel' Loomis

r622- 88

r626- 88

r615-87

Essex, England, Windsor, Farmington

Essex, E ngland and W indsor

Essex, Eng land and W indsor

j ohn! Loomis

I

Joseph' Loomis

j ohn! Loomis'

T imothyt Loomis

Nathaniel! Loomis'

Samuel- Loomis

Narhaniel! Loomis'

r649-r7r5

r66r-r7IO

r663-1732

r666- r754

165r r733

r65r-1 732

W indsor

W indsor

W indsor, Colchester, Bolton

W indsor, C olchester

W indsor (East)

W indsor and H atfield, Ma ss.

Uriah- Loomis'

Odiah! Loomis'

Daniel- Loomis

r703- 88

r705- 94

r709 - 84

r7r3-93

Windsor

Windsor

C olchester

Wi ndsor/ East W indsor

Luke>Loomi s

j ohn- Loomi s

I I

I

John Roberts'

Sarah Roberts

O zias- Loomis

Samuel! Loomis'

r73r 8r

174r r82o

1746-9 6

1748-r8r4

r736-r8rr

Wi ndsor, H artford

Wi ndsor

W indsor

Colchester, Essex

W indsor/ East W indsor

Simeon? Loomis' 176 r r865

East W indsor

WOO D W 0 R KIN G

D Y N A S TIE S

439

CHART

FOUR :

KING

AND

ALLIED

FAMILI ES

Chart Four explores th e famil y connections of tw o brothers, Parrnenas" Kin g (17r3- r800) and Zadock'' King (1725- 69), who have been documented as makers of C onnecticut River Valley exterior doorways or fro n tispieces. IO Their grandfath er, Thomas2 King (r662-17II) married as his third wife Marf3 Spencer (r675- 17r2), sister of joiner and turner Obadiah 3 Spencer of Hartford (see Chart One), and it is therefore possible that both brothers trained in Hartford. A third brother, Timothy" King (r73o-85), married Sarahs Fitch (b. 1753), the sister of East Windsor joiner Aug us tus S Fitch (1733-r8r5), with whom Aaron s C olton (1758-r840) apprenticed in th e mid to late r770s. Ano the r br other, Zebulon" Kin g (1717- 93), is not known to have been a woodworker, but his dau ghter MaryS King (1756- r829) married Aaron '' Chapin (1753r838) . In th e late 1760s , wh en Aaron Chapin would have been serving his apprenticeship, Zadock'' King was working in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and Parrnenas" King was working in Windsor and in Wilbraham, M assachu setts, ju st east of Springfield . Chapin could have worked with King in Wilbraham, since he was rai sed in nearby Chicopee, the northern pari sh of Springfield . In the next generation, John 6 Porter (r772r802), a grandson of Zebulon" King, apprenticed with his uncl e, Aaron'' Chapin. This King shop tradition is unrelated to that of two important joiner s living in Suffield, the brothers E liph alet Kin g (1743- r82r) and A shbel Kin g (1748r806) .1I N o parental or marital ties furnish clue s to where th ese artisans apprenticed. A number of major case pieces with Suffield historie s are kn own, but th ey display little relation ship to documented Hartford examples.

440

Parrnenas- King'

I, Zebulon- King

1713-1 800

ca. 171T93

H artford, H arwinton, Enfield, W indsor, and Wilbraham , Mass. (w, D eerfield and Springfield

H artford, East \Vindsor

j ohn' Porter

j erusha- King

Alexander! King

1744- 9 1

b .1747

1749-1831

East W indsor, Co lebroo k

East Wi ndsor, Colebrook

East Windsor

............................................................................-

y j ohn" Porter' 1772-1 802

Co lebrook, Hartford, East H artford

T R E N T

master

Ni cholas' Disbrowe" 1612-83 Essex, En gland , and Hartford

John ' King' 1629-1703 Northampton, England , Hartford , and Northampton, M ass. mj

Obadiah" Spencer 1639-1712 H artford

Thomas" King 1662- 1711 H art ford

T homas! King

b. 1692? H artford

M ary' Di sbrowe d. before 1709 H artford

O badiah! Spencer' 1666- 1741 H artford

M ary! Spencer ca. 1675-1712 H artford

!

Keziah! Loomis b. 1715 Windsor

Zadock' King' 172 5- 69 Hartford, D eerfield

Tim othy' King ca. 1730-85 Hartford, Windsor master

I' M ary! King 175 6- 1829 East W indsor, H artford

Sarah! Fitch b. ca. 1735 East Windsor, Windsor Aaron>Colton' 175 8-1840 Springfield (Longmeadow parish), East W ind sor, and H artford

Aaron' Chapin' 1753- 1835 Sprin gfield (C hicopee Parish), East Wi ndsor, H art ford

_____J I

r - ,-

-

-

Laert es'' C hapin' 1778- 1847 East W indsor, H artford , East H art ford

WOO D W 0 R KIN G

-----"

1-

Laur a" Colt on 1788- 1854 H artford

D Y N A S TIE S

44£

------, An son? Colt on' 179{1873 Hartford

Augustu s! Fit ch' 1733- 1815 East W ind sor

SUMMARY

Hartford 's primacy as a furniture-producing center in the 1790S cannot be read back into the mid-eighteenth century. Betwe en 1730 and 1780, Hartford was hardly more imp ortant a population or trading center than W ind sor or W ethersfield. The large number of woodworking artisans in the river town s north of Enfield and th eir many marital and professional ties to Windsor, H artford, and Wethersfield discourage the idea that H artford furniture differed dramatically from that made furth er up the Connecticut River. In many instan ces, it must have been virtually identical. These four charts, which in effect represent one great exte nded family, strongly suggest that the Spencer-Phelps shops in Hartford and the Loomis shop in Windsor were among the principal foci from which furniture forms and decoration were disseminated to the rest of the valley. However, that regional favorite of pro sperous merchants, the desk and bookcase on a separate frame with tiny cabriole legs, mo st likely was first formulated in Middletown or Suffield, and th e characteristic Connecticut high chest of drawers with scalloped skirt, fan- or pinwheel-carved drawers, Boston -style scroll pediment, and round apertures in th e tympa num, probably was first formulated in W ethersfield. The research ers wh o have undertaken th e massive H artford Case Furniture Survey since 1990 have added a great many new attributions and sho p traditions to the se basic ones, and the reader may now turn to th eir prodigious efforts to gain more information regarding the complexitie s involved.

pp. 23-25, 121, 143; Benno M. Form an, "T he Seventeenth Centur y Case Furniture of Essex County, M assachusett s, and Its M akers" (Mas ter's thesis, University of Delaware, 1968), pp. 42-46. 4. Bjerkoe, Cabinetmakers of America, pp. 58-62, 168-69, noted the connection and may have derived the idea from D avis, "Eliphelet C hapin." 5. [Brainard , H arlow, Bulkeley], "Co nnecticut Ca binetma kers" pt. I, pp. II2-14, II6-17' 6. Aaro n Colton Ind entu re, D ecember 5, 1775, Colton papers, C HS Museum Library; see also Lionett i & Trent, "C hapin C hairs," pp. 1087, 1094. 7. [Brainard , H arlow, Bulkeley]' "Co nnecticut Ca binetmakers" pt. I, pp. 137-42. 8. In [Brainard, H arlow, Bulkeley]' "Connecticut Cabinetm akers" pt I , p. 117, a misreading of a pencil inscription on a federal sideboard owned by the Conne cticut Hi storical Society Mu seum led to the supposition that the object was made by a "B. Colton"; the initial is "R" for Rhodolphu s Colton; see cat. 169c. 9. Kane, "Jo iners," pp. 80-81; see also H osley, "Timothy Loomis." The Loomis artisans are documented by surviving business papers, specifically Timoth y Loomis,Jr., Timothy Loomis III , and George Loomi s, Account Book, 1731-1797 at CHS Museum Library; and at th e Loomi s Chaffee Schoo l in Windsor: Odiah Loomi s, Account Book, 1730-1763; T imoth y Loomis IV, Account Book; Thomas Cook, Odiah Loomis, and O zias Loomis, Account Book, 1692-1792; and T imothy Loomis III , Copybook, 1739-1783. 10. M iller, Connecticut R iv er Valley D oorw ays, pp. 58-59, 48-49, 123. I I.

Bissell, Furniture in Suffield. pp. 20-22.

I. T his argument was previously advanced by the author in Lionetti & Trent, "C hapin Chairs," pp. 1082-95. Since the original draft of that paper was written in 1983, num erous imp ort ant articles have been published that expand upon some of the shop tradition s discussed the re. The most significant, in chronological order, are Sweeney, "Furniture and Furni ture-Maki ng," pp. II56-63; Trent, "Spencer Chairs," pp. 175-94; Sweeney,"Furnitu re and the D omestic Environment," pp. 10-39; Sweeney, "Mansion People," pp. 231-55; Sweeney, "River Gods"; Great R iv er ; Zea , "Fruits of Oligarchy," pp. 1-65; H osley, "Timothy Loomis," pp. 127-51; Zea, "Diversity and Regionalism," pp. 69-m; Sweeney, "Regions and th e Stud y of Material Culture," pp. 145-66; and T homas & Benes, "A mzi Chapin," pp. 76-99 '

2. The theory regarding th e contin uity of the Spencer and Ph elps shop tradit ions was first advanced by Penrose R. H oopes in his pioneering article, "No tes on Some Co lonial Cabinetmakers of H artford," PP. 171- 72. For an extension of H oopes' ideas to a schoo l of chairmaking, see Trent , "Spencer C hairs." 3. Pease & Pease, Descendants, pp. II-I2; Cl air Franklin Luther, T he Hadley Chest (H artford: C ase, Lockwood & Brainerd Co., 1935),

442

T R E N T

Writings on Eliphalet Chapin A Case Study in American Furniture History

Susan P Schoelwer

WRITINGS

ON

ELIPHALET

If American furniture history were cast as Greek drama, Eliphalet Chapin's role would be that of the hero whose personal flaws reshape both his own life and broader events . In act one, a young craftsman arrives in the village. His origins-parentage, training, previous whereabouts-are somewhat obscure, but he makes a promising beginning, or at least has prospects for doing so. In the second act, his future is overturned when a young, unmarried woman names him the father of her unborn child . Facing a paternity suit, the craftsman hastily departs, taking refuge in a bustling port, the largest city in the provinces . There he encounters some of the most sophisticated furniture made in British North America, based directly upon London models. Returni ng to town in act three, the craftsman successfully reestablishes himself, despite a lingering shadow of disrepute. He introduces new designs and construction techniques learned during his exile, creating a distinctive style that becomes very popular and influences furniture production and consumer tastes in his town and, within a decade, throughout the surrounding region. Drawing on native genius, the craftsman tr iumphs over adversity, transforms the world around him, and creates a lasting legacy.I Both mystery and controversy are essential to the struc ture of this plot. Words such as shadowy, confusion, and enigma recur throughout the Chapin bibliography, perpetuating a sense of obscurity even as research has continually reduced-or at least refined-the questions outstanding. In con trast to the vast majority of his fellow craftsmen, qui te a lot is known about Eliphalet Chapin's life, and this information is summarized elsewhere in this volume. What is of interest here is the historical discourse that has shaped our understanding of C hapi n. By reviewing the secondary literature in the order in which contributions appeared, it is possible to investigate th e critical question of who knew what, and whe n? By com paring the secondary literature with the primary documents on which it was based, it is often possible to disentangle statements that have a factual basis from those tha t represen t authors' assumptions,

CHAPIN

443

speculations, or biases.The creation of Eliphalet Chapin as a recognized master craftsman with brand-name appeal serves as an illuminating example of the evolution of American furniture studies. The secondary literature reveals three main phases, each centered loosely upon one of three major exhibitions of C onnecticut furniture: Connecticut Tercentenary (1935); Connecticut Furn iture: Sev enteenth and E ighteenth Centuries (1967); and Great R iv er: Art & Society ofthe Connecticut Valley, I635-I820 (1985). These pha ses corresponded roughly to three major areas of concern, shifting from issues of documentation and identity, to matters of attribution and aesthetics, and to questions of interpretation and context. Intertwined with the formal bibliography were two less visible but significant discourse s about Chapin. The first of these was an oral tradition, akin to folklore, preserved primarily by Hartford area cabinetmakers who saw themselves as heirs to Chapin's legacy, and secondarily by local owners, both familie s who inherited Chapin furniture and collectors who prized it. The other discourse was conducted in the marketplace, where attributions were made and values establi shed through countless unrecord ed transactions betwe en buyers and sellers. The oral and commercial perspectives are inherently less well documented and more difficult to access and study than the corpus of scholarly and curatorial writings, which consequently con stitute the chief focus of atte ntion here. The formal bibliography also provide s occasio nal glimpses of th e other discourses-for example, by drawing on the oral tradition for information, or by responding (either implicitly or explicitly) to commercial constructions of Chapin. It was clearly the oral tradition that upheld Eliphalet Chapin's existence and accomplishments prior to the publication of corrob orating primary documentation; it was also the oral tradition that enabled early writers to identify parti cular feature s associated with the Chapin name. And it was largely marketplace controversies that have prompted repeated references to perplexity about the identifi cation and attribution of Chapin furniture. D O C U M ENT ATION

A N D

IDENTITY

Like so man y aspect s ofAmerican furniture history, the formal historiography of Chapin furniture begins with Dr. Ir ving Whitehall Lyon's 1891 volume, The Colonial Furniture ofN ew England, widely recognized as the earliest scholarly study of American furniture . Unfortunately for later Chapin studies, Lyon was less inter-

444

ested in individual craftsmen than he was in the evolution of the furniture forms they made. Lyon cited furniture by Eliphalet and Aaron Chapin, separately, as evidence supporting the production date s of particular form s. Asserting the persisten ce of the Chippendale style during the American Revolution, Lyon stated: "The writer is familiar with a set of Chippendale chairs with ball and claw feet made by Eliphalet Chapin, of South Windsor, Conn., as late as the year 1781. The price paid for them at that time was £I apiece." A reference to Aaron served to exemplify the detailing of Hepplewhite sideboards in New England, but at that instance Lyon transcribed the original bill: "1804. Mr. Frederic Robbins / Nov. 22 . Bout of Aaron Chapin / I Mahogany fashiornerd [sash cornered] 8 leg Sideboord ... $68.00."2 The Eliphalet Chapin reference, while adequate to Lyon's immediate purpose, set the stage for future skepticism. Its vaguene ss left many questions unanswered: What did the chairs look like? How many were there in the set? Who was the original purchaser? Where did Lyon see them? How did he know that they were made in 1781 and that the price was £1 each? Lyon drew no connection between the Chapins and likely intended no comparison of the two references. Nonetheless, thi s uneven treatment by the founding father of American furniture history acquired enhanced significance for later generations, a significance exacerbated by the subsequent historie s of the furniture and papers in question and by errors and biases in local and family histories. The Aaron Chapin sideboard and its accompanying bill remained together in the family of the original owner until 1952, when they passed into the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum (see cat. 169A) . Both the sideboard and its bill were accessible and periodically referenced in print. In contrast, the set of chair s "made by Eliphalet Chapin" was broken up and separated from th e bill (whi ch remains unlocated). More than eight decades passed before the evidence supporting Lyon's statement was fully assembl ed in print. In 1936 the M agaz ineAntiques printed the recollection of Dr. Irving P. Lyon (eldest son of th e noted author), that his father had purchased two chairs from an Ea st Hartford family and had been shown a bill of sale from Eliphalet Chapin. Accompanying this recollection was an illustration of one of the Lyon chairs, which collector Franci s P. Garvan had purchased and in 1930 had donated to Yale University (see cat. 57D). In 1976, Patricia Kane's catalog, American Seating Furniture, published corroborating information preserved on

SCHOELWER

a paper label glued to one of the slip seat frame s: two notations, evidently copied from Lyon's workbook, indicated that the chairs had originally been made for Alexander King at the time of his marriage in 178r, and had been purchased by Lyon from King's daughter, Mis s Harriet King, in r877' Even so, the original bill remained unaccounted for, making the documentation of the chairs, at best, second-hand) In the meantime, errors in local and family histories engendered uncertainty about Eliphalet Chapin's identity and existence. As early as r829 his identity had become confused with that of a second cousin, also named Eliphalet and also born in 1741. 4 The limited focus of local histories, combined with Chapin's movement from one town to the next, complicated effort s at biography. A history of Enfield noted his parents and siblings; Windsor histories recorded his wives and children; nothing connected the two segments of his life. An r862 genealogy conflated Eliphalet with his sister Elizabeth. A r924 family history omitted him entirely> It is possible that the confusion of Eliphalet and Elizabeth initially resulted from misreadings of two similar name s (an error found among other families); however, the persistence of error in the second genealogy, despite the availability of information in local histories published before and after the first of the genealogies, suggests that the omi ssion of Eliphalet Chapin may well have been deliberate. Chapin family historians took great pride in their distinguished Puritan lineage, stressing numerous clerical and educational accomplishments, tracing back to Samuel Chapin, one of the early settlers of Springfield, Massachusetts, and the inspiration for The Puritan, that city's famous statue by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. At the statue's r887 unveiling Rev. Aaron Lucius Chapin, grandson of cabinetmaker Aaron Chapin and first president ofWisconsin's Beloit College, arti culated thi s pride clearly: "T he beginning of the Chapin family is altogether creditable. We may well be satisfied that it should start with this genuine old Puritan ... and what he did, with his fellow pioneers, to open the American Continent and on it to found a city and to establish a model Christian Republic. ... Our chief anxiety should be to maintain and advance [the Chapin family 's] tru e nobility by lives and deed s worthy of such a father" Aaron Chapin fit thi s family profile far more com fortably than Eliphalet. Raised among a family of ded icated churchmen, Aaron served as church deacon in Hartford for a quarter century prior to his death in r838.

WRITINGS

ON

ELIPHALET

CH APIN

In contrast, Eliphalet 's applicati on for membersh ip alone had plunged th e Ea st Windsor congregatio n into turmoil in r775-76, largely as a result of th e paterni ty charges levied again st him in the previous decade. Cabinetmaking, no matter how inspired, ranked far below religiou s profe ssion, as the r862 genealogy made clear: "Aaron was a Deacon of the first Congregational Church in Hartford, Ct. wh ere he resided; he was a man of great piety, universally beloved and respected. In early life, he was a Cabinet-maker, being quite a mechan ical genius; later in life, he cleaned and repaired watches."? The histories of Aaron and Eliphaler's families undoubtedly played some role in th e making of th eir respective reputations. Several of Aaron's siblings were also churchmen-two younger brothers, Lucius and Amzi, became well-known composers of church music and hymn master s, active in th e South and M idwest. A third brother, Calvin, graduated from Yale College in r788; married a granddaugh ter of prominent th eologian Jonathan Edwards; and from 1794 until his death in r85r served as pa stor of the C ongregational Church at Rocky Hill (formerly a parish of Wethersfield). Aaron was also a successful businessman, becoming an incorporator of Aetna Insurance in r8r9 and leaving an estate valued at more than $8,000.8 His son, L aertes, carried on th e cabinetma king business in Hartford until his own death in r847. Two of Laertes's sons, Aaron Lu cius and Nathan Colton Chapin, graduated from Yale C ollege and became ministers; th e former particip at ed actively in memorializing his ance stors-contributing to the r862 genealogy and writing a nostalgic reminiscence of grandfather Aaron for the Hartford church's anniversary celebration in r883. 9 Eliphalet, in contrast, had neither ecclesiastical contributions to celebrate nor prominent progeny to uphold his reputation. H is only son, Wight (1779- r803), died in the W est Indies in his mid -twenties; his daughters' marriages did not extend the shop tradition. His eldest dau ghter Sophia (r776-r853) did not marry and was listed as a pauper in the r850 census, testifYing to a decline in family fortunes. IO Eliphalet's accomplishments as a cabinetmaker held little interest for family histori ans and were overshadowed by the lingering taint of the paterni ty case. His life appeared at odds with idealized notions of a family heritage of"inflexible integrity, abundant charity and real piery.'"' In contrast to the dim view of Eliphalet Chapin in early published histories is an almost legendary reputation preserved in local lore . The central figures in

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perpetuating this tradition were a succession of furniture firms and cabinetmakers' shops active in Hartford throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Philemon F. Robbins and his sons, Frederick A. and Philemon W.; Patrick Stevens; Edwin Simons; Walter Hosmer; Anton C. Mislovits; Nathan Margolis and his son Harold; and Paul Koda." Henry Wood Erving, a prominent Hartford collector, underlined the strength of local, oral tradition in a 1922 address to the Connecticut Historical Society (reprinted in 1931 as Random Notes on Colonial Furniture): "Eliphalet Chapin of South Windsor is spoken of as the creator of certain excellent articles of furniture, most of which have been found on the east side of the river near Hartford, and which doubtless had their origin in that locality. There is little definite information regarding this individual, however, and his reputation is largely traditional resting principally on the reminiscences of certain old cabinet-makers whose activities began perhaps as early as 1830 and persisted until late in the seventies, although Dr. Lyon mentions Eliphalet Chapin, as the maker of a set of Chippendale chairs as late as 1781." Similarly Homer Eaton Keyes, editor ofAntiques, alluded to Eliphalet's local reputation when he wrote in 1936 that "traditions regarding the man and his work have long been current in certain parts of Connecticut.l''! Wallace Nutting's monumental Furniture Treasury, issued in 1928 and 1933, also drew upon local knowledge of Chapin. As an extremely successful popularizer of early Americana, Nutting's forte was the dissemination and promotion of existing information, rather than the discovery of new data. Moreover, tools for making attributions to particular craftsmen were still rudimentary-few groups of furniture had been identified persuasively, relatively few craftsmen's names were known, and even fewer could be credibly linked to surviving examples. Despite the dearth of published data on Eliphalet Chapin, Nutting confidently proclaimed that "a dozen [Eliphalet Chapin] pieces, more or less, are known," and he articulated a series of characteristic features: predominant use of cherry; chairs with "graceful, light stiles" and "openwork splat"; case pieces topped with scrolled pediments terminating in "spiraled rosettes"; open fretwork; half-round fluted bases beneath the central ornaments; drawer fronts with applied vine carving; simple, ogee-scrolled skirts; delicate legs; both ball-and-claw and ogee feet; and fluted quarter columns, "sometimes brass stopped and decorated in one instance with brass capitals and bases," a distinctive

feature "otherwise restricted to clocks." Nutting had longstanding and numerous contacts within the Hartford antiques network, which likely gave him ample opportunity to learn local oral traditions: he attended the Hartford Seminary in the 1880s, and he purchased some of his first antiques there, with Erving's advice. From 1916 until 1919 he owned and operated the eighteenth-century Joseph Webb House in Wethersfield as one of his "Chain of Colonial Picture Houses"; in 1924 he placed his extensive collection of American antiques on display at the Wadsworth Atheneum." During the 1920S and 1930S, furniture collecting-like so many endeavors in American life-underwent significant changes under the guise of modernization. Particularly in the rarified setting of museums, scientific antiquarianism came to require the added authority of written documentation. u The manual experience and visual memory of craftsmen no longer carried sufficient weight to serve as a basis for attributions. The reputation of Eliphalet Chapin, grounded as it was in oral tradition, came under suspicion. The first article focused exclusively on Chapin furniture appeared in 1931 in the Antiquarian, a publication whose influence was limited by its cancellation not long afterward. Aaron Marc Stein explicitly drew upon local oral tradition in combination with published family history and a consideration of documented furniture to assert emphatically that "Eliphalet rather than Aaron Chapin was the originator of the independent creations in Chippendale style produced along the Connecticut River near Hartford." While acknowledging the prevalence of marketplace attributions of the furniture to Aaron, Stein argued that "the one piece we have definitely identified as [Aaron's] work [the Robbins sideboard] shows none of the quality of individual enterprise in design which is the most important element of the cherry Chippendale." Stein's article introduced two perspectives that were well ahead of their time-the conceptual framework of regionalism and the vocabulary of aesthetic criticism. Drawing insights from historical geography, Stein argued that "what has been generally referred to as a Connecticut style is characteristic rather of the valley of the Connecticut River than of ... the relatively arbitrary boundaries of the state of Connecticut." In place of the static listings of details characteristic of most contemporary furniture studies, he offered an extended analysis of design, presaging the approach that John T. Kirk successfully followed in the late 1960s.I6

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In September 1933 Antiques published the first factually substantive research on either Chapin's career-a profile of "Aaron Chapin, Hartford Cabinetmaker," based on primary evidence compiled by Connecticut clock authority Penrose R. Hoopes. Citing the phrase "former customers" in the newspaper advertisement announcing Aaron's move to Hartford in 1783, Hoopes argued that Aaron must have been working in East Windsor "not as a mere journeyman in the employ of another cabinetmaker, but as the proprietor of his own shop." Eliphalet's name did not appear in the article, more than three-quarters of which focused on Aaron's years in Hartford, thanks to the availability of numerous newspaper ads from that period. The illustrations depicted two austere pieces (a desk and bookcase and a bookcase) owned by East Windsor's Rev. Thomas Robbins and attributed to Aaron Chapin's shop.'? Publication of Hoopes's research likely influenced the organizers of the 1935 Connecticut tercentenary furniture exhibition, the first effort to provide a comprehensive view of the subject. Assembled by New York furniture scholar Luke Vincent Lockwood and Hartford collector William B. Goodwin, the exhibition defined understandings of Connecticut furniture for the next three decades. As the author of Colonial Furniture in America (1901, enlarged in 1913 and 1926), Lockwood was widely recognized as his generation's "foremost authority on American antique furniture ." Historian Elizabeth Stillinger, who has done intensive study of early collectors, characterizes Lockwood's approach as one that stressed "documented work over masterpieces." She observes, "He did not insist on the finest examples, but on pieces of good quality whose history was firmly established.l'" The emphasis on documentation sparked intense debate over the relative merits of Aaron and Eliphalet Chapin. The tercentenary exhibition catalog depicted several pieces of furniture captioned neutrally as "Chapin-make" or simply "by Chapin," with no first name; however, Lockwood's three-page introductionthe only interpretive commentary-conspicuously omitted Eliphalet's name and posited that the pieces shown were "probably made" by Aaron Chapin.'? Lockwood's message was heard quite clearly. Although the ascription of Chippendale furniture to Aaron Chapin had almost no precedent in the formal literature, the Atheneum's 1935 Bulletin treated it as a wellrecognized verity, pointing to "the highboys, chests on chest, secretaries and chairs by Aaron Chapin who

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came to Hartford about 1783. The simplicity of many of his pieces is relieved by the elaborate pierced and scrolled ornaments surmounting them, showing the Chippendale influence.P? Antiques editor Homer Eaton Keyes quickly challenged Lockwood's view. In a September 1935 editorial promoting the tercentenary exhibition, Keyes pointedly distinguished between three scroll-top pieces, which he explicitly credited to Eliphalet Chapin, and the 1804 federal sideboard documented to Aaron. Echoing both Erving and Nutting, Keyes asserted the existence of a body of work ascribed to Eliphalet: "The case pieces exhibit in common certain clearly defined and obviously associated features of detail. All are excellent in proportion, inclined to be light and dainty in form, and are further distinguished by pedimental scrolls of delightfully graceful and gracious contour." With the exception of the sideboard, Keyes regarded Aaron Chapin's known work (the bookcases published by Hoopes) as undistinguished, and he concurred with Stein in believing that the stylistic accomplishment of the Chippendale pieces weighed in Eliphaler's favor: "While lack of conclusive evidence one way or another may encourage dispute regarding the actual authorship of items ascribed by some to Eliphalet Chapin, by others to Aaron, it seems reasonable to believe that furniture representing a mature and highly accomplished expression of the Chippendale mode is the work of a cabinetmaker who was in full career during the 1760s. Though Aaron Chapin may have reached his mastership shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution, it seems unlikely that .. . he would have had opportunity to develop the marked individuality of design and workmanship that characterizes the pieces here credited to Eliphalet, probably a much older man.'?' Lockwood lost no time in replying. Keyes reported in December 1935 that Antiques had been "gently chided." In particular, Lockwood questioned "the propriety of ascribing to Eliphalet Chapin" the three scroll-top pieces illustrated in September: "For such an ascription, he [Lockwood] maintains there is no sufficient foundation. Further, he writes, 'The only mention that anyone has ever found of this man is a statement in Doctor Lyon's book that he had seen a set of six balland-claw-foot chairs made by Eliphalet Chapin.... Aaron Chapin came to Hartford from the Windsors in 1783, and, in my opinion, he was the man who made all of these pieces, unless somebody can advance sound reasons for assigning them to Eliphalet.''' Lockwood's

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response made clear that his skepticism about Eliphalet was grounded in the absence of written authority: there was no verifiable documentary evidence linking Eliphalet to particular furniture, and there was no proof that a cabinetmaker of that name had even existed. Keyes grasped the point, acknowledging that the controversy over the two Chapins would likely be settled "only by the discovery of more conclusive [i.e., written] evidence than any thus far advanced." The case for Eliphalet would have to be made on documentary grounds, paralleling the evidence Hoopes had assembled on Aaron;" Subsequent issues of Antiques gradually built up the documentary case for Eliphalet. In an October 1936 editorial note entitled, "Eliphalet Asserts Himself," Keyes announced that the oral tradition had been corroborated by "really tangible evidence," sent by a "friendly correspondent" (possibly Penrose Hoopes) : the account book of East Windsor clockmaker Daniel Burnap verified Eliphalet's existence and his occupation, with several entries between 1788 and 1796 debiting Eliphalet Chapin for mending woodworking tools and sales of hardware for tables, desks, and bookcases. The same note credited Hoopes with uncovering information in local records, placing Eliphalet in East Windsor as early as 1767. This new data fit perfectly with Keyes's opinion that "the stylistic features of certain pieces of furniture generally credited to Aaron Chapin indicate the preferences of a man who had reached full maturity in the 1760s-that is, some ten years prior to the time when Aaron Chapin, born 1753, had attained to his majority. According to Mr. Hoopes, Eliphalet Chapin came into this world in 1741. Hence he was in full stride as a cabinetmaker while Aaron was still a barefoot boy."23 Evidence for Eliphalet expanded and became more scientific (that is to say, more precise and verifiable). In the January 1937 issue of Antiques Irving P. Lyon's recollection on his father's Chapin chairs enabled Keyes to offer the first substantiation of the 1891 reference . The vagueness of this claim had long proven a major point of contention, as Keyes recapitulated: "the accuracy of Doctor Lyon's reference has been questioned, on the ground of its seeming casualness. Had the learned authority been really sure of his facts, the doubters insist, he would have devoted more space to a discussion of the familiar chairs and their maker." In Keyes's view, adequate documentary evidence had been assembled to establish both Eliphalet's existence and his occupation as a cabinetmaker. The question of whether he was to

be "viewed as a myth or a reality," could be put to rest: "The next forward step will have been made when we unearth items of furniture that may safely be accepted as his handiwork." Keyes believed the Lyon chairs at Yale were "not only adequately pedigreed," but sufficient to "afford a touchstone for identifying many unpedigreed pieces by the same master." In particular, he observed, "the curvature of the front legs and the shape of the feet are so specific as almost to qualify as the maker's signature," a point that he immediately applied by attributing to Eliphalet Chapin three chairs from the tercentenary catalog.r' The 1930S Chapin controversy culminated in Antiques's printing of a densely researched biography of Eliphalet Chapin, by Emily M. Davis, which balanced and advanced upon Hoopes's earlier investigation of Aaron. Recognizing that it was impossible to completely disentangle the two craftsmen, Davis assembled a wealth of biographical data on both, which she arranged to create an integrated story line. She also provided formal citations-the first footnotes to appear in the Chapin corpus-to aid readers in verifying her sources, which included published town histories and family genealogies, unpublished vital and land records, and manuscript account books . Employing extensive genealogical detective work, Davis provided, for the first time, a sense of the Chapins' origins and their place in New England family and craft networks, including their connection to Salem-trained craftsman John Pease,Jr. (1654-1734). She established that Eliphalet and Aaron were second cousins (not brothers, as Nutting had hazarded) and she located two sets of local account books containing a variety of transactions by both craftsmen. Finding in these records no evidence of Aaron's operating his own workshop in East Windsor, Davis concluded reasonably that "many a piece of cabinetwork during those years must have been the product of the combined effort of these two cousins.T" With the publication of Davis's article, Keyes had succeeded in giving the case for Eliphalet a documentary basis comparable to Aaron's. This was inherently an inequitable contest, as the slightly younger Aaron worked in an era that saw a marked proliferation of furniture labels and newspaper advertisements, thanks in part to greater artisan mobility and competition for business. If documentation were the only grounds for making attributions or assessing quality, Eliphalet would remain in the shadows . The content and tone of the last paragraph of Davis's article suggest that it may

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have been penned and inserted by Keyes, as a final rejoinder to Lockwood, returning the discussion to furniture attribution: "There is little doubt that Eliphalet developed the Chapin characteristics and that Aaron was indebted to him for his training. In so far as we may now judge, Eliphalet's innate ability, skilled workmanship, and artistic feeling were not excelled by those of the younger Chapin.P" ATTRIBUTION

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The Chapin controversy of the 1930S effectively ended with Keyes's emphatic judgment in favor of Eliphalet. The majority of midcentury furniture publications accepted Eliphalet as the primary creator of Chippendale-style Chapin pieces. v Nonetheless, a minority opinion favoring Aaron persisted much longer and with greater credibility that might have been predicted. Lockwood's stature as an authority was considerable and his advocacy of Aaron was succinctly stated, in a publication that remained the sole comprehensive reference (slim as it was) on Connecticut furniture for over three decades. Furniture owners, collectors, and curators alike found it immeasurably easier to consult the tercentenary catalog than to sort through twists and turns of argument, documentation, and revision dispersed through several volumes of Antiques. In 1963, Hartford furniture historian Houghton Bulkeley noted a parallel impact of Lockwood's attributions to the cabinetmaker Aaron Roberts: "[Lockwood's] reputation was such that his word was accepted without question," so that "ever since then the attributions to Roberts have been accepted by the antique world without question. From these attributions the snowball has grown, so that by 1955 when I started my research, any piece that remotely resembled the furniture in the exhibit which Mr. Lockwood had attributed to Roberts was therefore ascribed to him, with the catalogue of the exhibit as evidence.P" Alongside lingering theoretical questions about the relative merits of Eliphalet and Aaron there emerged a more practical, marketplace issue-that of articulating what particular features were characteristic of the "Chapin type." Chapin chairs were relatively easy to spot, working outward from the Lyon chairs at Yale to examples with similar feet, crest rails, and splats. Case pieces proved more difficult, in large part because no comparable starting point had been identified. For most writers, the defining feature appears to have been "a fine fretwork top," or latticework pediment.t? Adver-

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tisements and notices in Antiques constitute the most easily accessible source of information on the ephemeral world of the marketplace, and these illustrate an astounding variety of forms to which the Chapin name was attached; moreover, since Antiques represented the high end of the marketplace, these are likely to have been among the more plausible of Chapin attributions.J? Local lore, grounded in family histories and the tactile memories of subsequent generations of craftsmen, pointed to a reasonably coherent body of work associated with Eliphalet Chapin; the marketplace version often seems to have been founded on little more than wishful thinking. It was presumably this widely dispersed, commercial "confusion" that Curator Henry Maynard had in mind when he remarked in a 1965 Wadsworth Atheneum Bulletin that "the name of Chapin has caused much lively discussion among American furniture collectors for at least thirty years." While affirming the persistence of local lore preserving what was effectively a folk memory of Eliphalet Chapin, Maynard also recognized the inadequacy of this oral tradition to fulfill modern standards of scholarship. Reviewing the controversy of the 1930S, he regarded the attribution of Chippendalestyle furniture to Aaron Chapin as something of a red herring, occasioned primarily by poor documentationfaulty family histories and insufficient furniture research. Had Lockwood been aware of Yale's acquisition of the Lyon chairs, Maynard argued, "he probably would not have taken so strong a stand and the controversy would not have become the basis for so much later confusion.?" As in the 1930S, the case for Aaron Chapin at midcentury was a minority opinion, championed effectively by one influential voice: Newton Case BrainardHartford insurance magnate, mayor, preservationist, collector, miniature furniture-maker, and president of the Connecticut Historical Society (CHS). Brainard's belief that Aaron was the more important craftsman is illustrated by his personal copy of Sack's Fin e Points of Furniture--at each Chapin attribution Brainard crossed out the name Eliphalet and wrote either "Aaron" or "no."32 This view strongly shaped the final, and in many ways, most effective presentation of the argument for Aaron Chapin's preeminence, which appeared in the checklist, "Connecticut Cabinetmakers." Compiled from research begun by Brainard and expanded by CHS Director Thompson R. Harlow and Hartford collector Houghton Bulkeley, the first half of the cabinetmakers checklist appeared in the CHS Bulletin for

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October 1967, a month prior to the opening of the Atheneum's Connecticut Furniture exhibition. Although the checklist offered no direct commentary about the relative merits of the two craftsmen, in combination their entries enhanced Aaron's reputation and eroded Eliphalet's, That on Aaron focused exclusively on his Hartford period, beginning with the advertisement announcing his arrival, and portrayed him as a craftsman on the rise, improving his premises, increasing and expanding his stock, and playing a leading role in the Hartford Society of Cabinetmakers. The view of Aaron as a first-rate cabinetmaker was reinforced by citing the 1804 sideboard as the one "well documented" piece, ignoring the less exciting bookcases published by Hoopes in 1933. Eliphalet's entry also focused on his final decade in business, with the result that he appeared as an isolated and second-rate figure. The entry opened with a 1790 advertisement in which Ebenezer Williams announced that he "carries on the Windsor Chair-making [business], at the shop of Mr. Eliphalet Chapin in East Windsor." The implication was clear: if Williams were continuing an established enterprise making windsor chairs, then that same shop could not have been the creator of fine Chippendale furniture. Continuing in this vein, the entry presented "the only two known Eliphalet Chapin advertisements," an approach echoing Lockwood's disparaging comment that "the only mention that anyone has ever found of this man is a statement in Doctor Lyon's book." These two notices dated from the last decade of Eliphalet's career, when newspaper advertising became much more plentiful; they documented his efforts to end his business, offering to sell his house and shop and close out all outstanding accounts. Eliphalet's earlier years received minimal coverage. The entry noted the existence of previously unpublished primary documentation in the account books of East Windsor merchants Ebenezer and Roswell Grant but inexplicably failed to note that one of the entries comprised a major furniture order (see Eliphalet Chapin Shop, in catalog section). The checklist credited Eliphalet with one piece of furniture-not the Lyon chair at Yale but an unimpressive 1802 desk and bookcase found in Ohio and reportedly bearing the craftsman's name. Again, the contrast was clear: the only piece of furniture documented to Eliphalet was a post-rfloo, second-rate example, while the one piece documented to Aaron was a celebrated local masterwork. Like the 1935 tercentenary catalog, Connecticut Cabinetmakers became an

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easily accessible, often-consulted source, giving its perspective on Aaron and Eliphalet Chapin considerable influence.t' The year 1967 witnessed a major turning point in Chapin studies, embedded within larger changes in American furniture history. The "Connecticut Cabinetmakers" checklist, based on three decades of combing old papers, embodied the antiquarian faith in "compiling information" as the key to illuminating the dark corners of the past.> The Connecticut Furniture catalog published by the Wadsworth Atheneum embodied a quite different perspective, shifting attention from documentation to design, with a goal of showcasing the "special character of our state's early craftsmanship." The aesthetic vision articulated by Maynard and exhibition organizer, John T. Kirk, extended the scope of Connecticut Furniture beyond the state's physical boundaries to include works manifesting the same "design-attitude."35 Notably, the 1967 exhibition catalog almost completely reversed the relative positions accorded Eliphalet and Aaron Chapin in the tercentenary catalog. Because Connecticut Furniture ended with the Chippendale style, Aaron's labeled works were automatically excluded; furthermore Eliphalet was credited with Chippendale-style Chapin pieces. Trained as both an art historian and a cabinetmaker, Kirk criticized rampant Chapin attributions as a major obstacle to "true appreciation" of Connecticut style. He attributed to Eliphalet Chapin only the Lyon chair at Yale, and carefully captioned other examples to suggest varying levels of relevance to Chapin productionprobably, possibly, similar, related to, or having associated features.t" Kirk's effort to organize Connecticut furniture aesthetically produced a fundamental ambiguity: the notion of a "characteristic and definable Connecticut style" failed to account for the visible diversity of furniture production. Kirk acknowledged that Connecticut's cultural geography, "composed of small centers with much interconnection," represented a fundamentally different setting than regions dominated by central cities. He thus posited a process of "individual [local] style centers developing an originality of interpretation," a phenomenon manifested by rural furniture production worldwide. How these diverse local style centers coalesced into a "related sense of design" remained unclear. Kirk suggested that the elusive "Connecticut style" (akin, perhaps, to Plato's ideal form) could be adduced from its embodiment in two

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material "extremes"- a "decorative style, which depends for its personality upon a complicated, enriched surface" and an "elegant style, which depends for its design upon superb proportions and the movement and interaction of beautifully shaped curves." Even these two cate gories (now identified by the Hartford Case Furniture Survey as emanating from Colchester and Wethersfield workshops, respectively) proved insufficient-Chapin designs fit neither mode, being "among the most active designs created" yet "not overly decorated."37 In subsequent publications, Kirk continued to grapple with the ten sion between the concept of a unifying, regional style and the actuality of considerable subregional variations in design. In Early American Furniture (1970), he characterized Connecticut furniture according to its positi on in the dissemination of style: like other "country furniture" makers, Connecticut craftsm en were distingui shed by working "secondhand from European inspiration," drawing inspiration primarily from high-style productions in American centers, such as Philadelphia or Newport, which in turn drew directly upon European sources. By focusing on the design process rather than on specific design feature s, Kirk constructed a conceptual umbrella that could encompass the diversity of Connecticut pro duction: "sometimes th ey created simpler [the elegantlWethersfield tradition], and sometimes more complex [the decorated/Colchester tradition], design s th an one would find in a high-style center." The crux of this idea had appeared more than thirty years earlier; in 1931 Stein had suggested that the skirt profile s and carved shells of Chapin high chests were "twice removed" Chippendale design s, created from "an artist's memory picture" that preserved "the significant core of the prototype.V Most importantly, Kirk's fervent enthusiasm for modernist design made a virtue of Connecticut's often spare, streamlined renditions of Qpeen Anne and Chippendale styling. What had often been regarded as the somewhat quirky products of cabinetmakers who either misunderstood or simply lacked the skills or resources to execute mainstream, metropolitan style could be considered exemplars of native genius: "a highly personal design att itude was created by rethinking designs from American high- style centers and introducing into them a strong streak of individuality. " Eliphalet Chapin provided a concrete example-a historic craftsman who actually worked in a high-style mode in Philadelphia and, upon his return, reinter-

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preted it in a highly individu alistic mann er for C on necticut customers with different tastes and different needs. The epitome of thi s proce ss of style transfer and adaptation wa s one of Chapin's asymmetrical cartouches, which Kirk described as "virtually art nouveau in its design ... far more abstract in its movement and countermovement th an the Philadelphia example" (see cat. 63). Finding no precedent for thi s cart ouche, Kirk praised it as "one of those rare simplifications th at produces a genuinely original de sign. By rem oving all excess, depending solel y up on simplicity of lin e, a country designer sometimes arrived at something th at can be considered wholly new." Not only was Chapin a creative genius, he was a modernist before his time, achieving "expressions in cherry that are today best known in plastics."39 Kirk's aesthetic approach resulted in a new and more imp ortant role in the larger story of American decorative arts for Connecticut furniture ge ne rally, and Chapin furniture in particular. In American Chairs: Queen Anne and Chippendale (1972), he asserted: "the fundamental purpose of studying good furniture, or indeed any work of art, is to understand each individual piece more fully, and, if it is a fine one, to perceive its nature to the greate st degree possible." Historical questions and evidence were subsidiary to th is formali st enterprise; information about origins, maker, authe nticity, provenance served primarily as tools to further aesthetic appraisal by helping to establish th e object's context. Place s of origin were particularly imp ortant, because design emerged from "the interplay between maker and buyer," and the resulting objects carried "th e flavor, the aura of the environment in which th ey were made; they are pieces created for use in a specific locale." If a craftsman trained to make furniture suited to on e taste subsequently moved to another context, he typically "adopted the exterior or aesthetic taste of his new home," yet retained constru ction techniques th at would not be visible to the buyers. The key example was none other than Eliphalet Chapin, whose chair s Kirk described as "a composite of design attitudes from many areas [New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island as well as Philadelphia] crystalliz ed into a distinctly Con necticut object, while Philadelphia's construction methods and details, not easily visible, continue to be used. " Similar, if less explicit, adaptation s occurred again and again in Connecticut furniture, Kirk argued , as the physical distance from cosmopolitan orthodoxy combined with a less rigid socio- economic structure to

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produce a freedom of design characterized by the "deliberate choice to combine details according to personallike, simply ignoring what did not appeal.Y? INTERPRETATION

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In the wake of Connecticut Furniture and Kirk's subsequent writings, Chapin work appeared more frequently in furniture publications and catalogs of national scope. Growing recognition that the East Windsor cabinetmaker served as an instructive figure in investigations of regionalism and craft practices complemented the modernist appreciation of Chapin design. Nonetheless, a range of interpretations suggested continuing uncertainty as to precisely how this particular craftsman fit into the larger framework of American furniture studies. In the 1984 Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities catalog, New England Furniture, for example, he appeared as an instance of both urban and rural production. Nagging questions also persisted about both the extent and validity of Chapin attributions. In her 1980 In Praise ofAmerica, Wendy Cooper cautioned that Eliphalet Chapin attributions based on the Lyon chair at Yale had proceeded with perhaps "a little too much zeal," and later in the book she pointed to Aaron Chapin's 1804 sideboard as a "firmly documented object" about which there was "little room for confusion." Like Lyon's original allusions to these pieces, Cooper's comments were widely separated in the text and made no direct reference to each other; nonetheless, a researcher checking the index for Chapin entries was quickly presented with an echo of the old controversy over the well-documented Aaron and the elusive Eliphalet." In 1985 the Wadsworth Atheneum mounted the third major exhibition featuring Connecticut furniture, organized by curator William N. Hosley, Jr., with contributions from an interdisciplinary corps of researchers and curators. The Great River: Art & Society ofthe Connecticut Valley, £635-£820 aimed to "demonstrate the existence of regional aesthetics and culture," focusing on the Connecticut River Valley, from central Connecticut north through Massachusetts, rather than on the geo-political entity of the state of Connecticut." Historical geographers for many years had recognized the long inland valley of the Connecticut River as a distinct region, set apart from the surrounding areas of New England by a combination of physical, social, and economic factors. Cultural linguists in the 1930S had identified corresponding "dialect regions," based on

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patterns of word usage and pronunciation. The regionalist perspective had been applied to Chapin furniture specifically by Stein and to Connecticut furniture more broadly by Kirk. Connecticut style, the latter argued in 1967, extended beyond the borders of the state and might be more productively considered in terms of taste, effectively a state of mind. He subsequently suggested that regional variation in furniture might correspond to linguistic regions. In 1982 the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, embraced regionalism as the organizing framework for its landmark exhibition of seventeenthcentury material culture, New England Begins.43 The Great River also drew upon more sophisticated models for understanding furniture production, based on a theory of workmanship articulated by Charles Montgomery, E. McClung Fleming, and others at Winterthur. Attention to workmanship, Benno Forman argued, "takes the technique of attribution out of the realm of the subjective and gives it an objective basis." According to this theory, observed clusters of physical traits repeated on multiple objects represented the results of workmanship practices intended to reduce production risks. Philip Zimmerman further distinguished between workmanship of certainty ("the use of molds, stencils, and tools designed to ... control quality and insure a high degree of regularity") and workmanship of habit (best characterized as a "mental template" or "the repetitive use of hand skills"). The new approach expanded the appropriate focus of investigation, from the singular artifact to the "web of relationships" linking it to similar artifacts, and from the individual craftsman to the workshop, presuming that shop masters "implemented specific procedures (identifiable today by examining workmanship)" as a way of regularizing output, maintaining quality, and increasing efficiency of production by multiple, and often changing, apprentices and workmen.tReconsidering production and consumption, furniture scholar Philip Zea characterized the Connecticut valley as "a layered society" in which "high- and lowstyle furniture was made in both urban and rural places for progressive or conservative people of varying means." Furnishings used in the region represented "a hybridization of foreign ideas modified by the use of native materials and by an inventiveness in developing economical substitutes for expensive fashions." Styles evolved in non-linear fashion, as "trend-setters assimilated new fashions cyclically, alternating long periods of satisfaction with short periods of eager adaptation."

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According to this scenario, Chapin served as a vector of innovation. Whereas earlier shifts in tastes had been precipitated by immigrant craftsmen moving into the area, Chapin was "among the first native craftsmen to labor in an urban shop [i.e., in Philadelphia] and to return to the Valley with up-to-date designs." Specializing in luxury goods for the region's elite, his shop functioned as "a brokerage firm for ideas about design and construction." His influence was demonstrated by the abundance of "Chapin-style" furniture, which the increased understanding of craft organization re-construed as dispersion both vertically, by apprentices, and horizontally, by imitators.t' In place of the older, romanticized vision of Chapin furniture as unique masterpieces representing the creative work of an individual craftsman, it became necessary to understand them as collective and multi-tiered products, varying according to their relation to the shop master. At the center of this model was Chapin shop work, produced by a combination of efforts of master, journeymen, and apprentices, all working under the master's supervision. As apprentices and journeymen finished their terms, they departed to work in other shops or start their own shops, sometimes locally and sometimes further afield. As they moved, they carried with them both the style features and ways of working they had learned in Eliphalet Chapin's shop. Seven specific examples in Great River illustrated this dynamic view of Chapin innovation and influence. The examples began, predictably, with a familiar landmark: the Yale chair, which scholars had traced back to the household of East Windsor farmer Alexander King . The remaining six entries represented three additional categories of production-by the Eliphalet Chapin workshop, by Chapin apprentices, and by competitors. Construction practices provided evidence not only of Chapin's Philadelphia training, but also of efforts to save time and money by stockpiling interchangeable chair parts.t" More detailed information on Chapin appeared the year following the exhibition, in Robert Trent and Joseph Lionetti's densely researched Antiques article, "New Information about Chapin Chairs." The centerpiece of the article was the extended discussion and illustration of the major commission-thirty-one pieces of furniture-documented to Eliphalet Chapin in the daybook of East Windsor merchant Ebenezer Grant.v The authors' identification of this important group emerged primarily as a result of connecting dis-

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parate pieces of information that had long been known but not recognized as being relevant or significant. At least three chairs from the Grant commission had been illustrated in publications dating back to the 1904 History ofAncient Wethersfield; with patriarchal myopia, ownership consistently had been traced exclusively to Wethersfield's respected, long-time minister, Rev.John Marsh, ignoring his marriage to Ann Grant of East Windsor.t" The acquisition of two of the chairs by Connecticut Historical Society Museum benefactor Frederick Barbour in 1962 led to their publication as "important examples" of Eliphalet Chapin's work, but their Wethersfield provenance remained unexplained.s? Although Houghton Bulkeley's research notes included a transcription of the Grant furniture entry, the "Connecticut Cabinetmakers" checklist, based partly on Bulkeley's notes, contained only a vague allusion: "several Eliphalet Chapin entries appear in the Roswell Grant account book privately owned in West Hartford, including one entry for November 30, 1775, which contains 14 different transactions." The misreading of the date (properly, December 5) combined with the failure to note that those fourteen transactions recorded a major furniture purchase to obscure the significance of this reference for furniture historians.i" Only gradually had the pieces of this particular puzzle fallen into place. In the early I960s, Historic Deerfield Curator Peter Spang uncovered a family history claiming that the furniture had been "given to Mrs. Marsh at her marriage, by her father Ebenezer Grant of East Windsor, who was a man of fortune ." In 1981 Dean Fales pointed to the 1775 Grant-Marsh wedding as an explanation for the appearance of East Windsor chairs in a Wethersfield parsonage; although noting that Ebenezer Grant was known to have had "business dealings" with Chapin, Fales did not explicitly connect the wedding furniture to the 1775 transactions mentioned in "Connecticut Cabinetmakers.">' Nonetheless, Zea's commentary in Great River treated the connection as an established fact, citing the GrantMarsh chairs as "another documented set of chairs" that demonstrated the range of decorative options offered by Eliphalet Chapin's workshop. Almost incidentally, this reference reconfigured the chairs' provenance, positing the previously invisible figure of Ann Grant as defacto owner of the furniture ordered by her father on the occasion of her marriage. As the catalog entry provided no further information on other items in the Grant-Marsh marriage suite, it remained for Lionetti

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and Trent in "New Information about Chapin Chairs" to explore the significance of this commission in greater detail and to place it in context of previous Chapin scholarship as well as new research on craft organization and practicesY Whereas Great River presented a total of seven objects to illustrate the full span of shop and shop tradition work, Trent and Lionetti showed fourteen chairs attributed specifically to the Eliphalet and Aaron Chapin workshops. This greatly expanded coverage of a narrower segment of material facilitated more intensive study, aimed at demonstrating "the complex nature of a high-style provincial shop tradition that was aggressively marketing a new style of furniture to a regional elite." The examples testified to the shop tradition's extensive production as well as its strategy of offering a basic format diversified by a range of options, each of which could be elaborated or simplified-crest rails, splats, arms, legs, feet.53 The authors added to the repertoire of tools for identifYing Chapin furniture, detailing the appearance of "unique upholstery features and round tenons and mortises in crest-rail and arm joints," which they "advanced as very reliable features of Chapin workmanship."54 They also demonstrated the value of family history and provenance-used judiciously and in combination with other factors-in reconstructing cultural contexts, illuminating the often obscure "histories of the objects and the relationship among the artisans who fashioned them." This contextual evidence aided in organizing the illustrated examples in tentative chronological sequence, which in turn suggested a subtle stylistic evolution as curvilinear Chippendale designs were modified with more linear, classicizing features . Applying the shop tradition model, the authors concluded that during the period when the two craftsmen worked together in East Windsor, Aaron must have been "subordinate" to Eliphalet, "who was master of the shop and owner of the all-important templates or patterns he brought back from Philadelphia." Finally, through detailed genealogical research, Trent greatly expanded the complex network of "woodworking dynasties" to which the Chapins were linked.» The new, more sophisticated understanding of craft organization and practices made it less critical-even conceptually problematic-to attempt to distinguish individual hands within a particular shop. As Trent and Lionetti concluded, "the large extended family of artisans that grew up around the Eliphalet Chapin

454

and Aaron Chapin shops makes the attribution of Chippendale-style furniture to one or the other extremely risky, and it seems best to assign pieces of furniture in the Chapin style to the shop tradition as a whole." Given this caution, it is curious to find, in both their article as well as the slightly earlier Great River, echoes of the old fascination with the creative genius of the master craftsman as well as the Aaron versus Eliphalet controversy. The article reiterated the continuing disparity in levels of documentation, pointing out that "fourteen pieces of furniture in the Federal style have been documented as the work of or attributed" to Aaron Chapin, in contrast to Eliphalet's shop, which had "heretofore been documented as the maker of only one set of Chippendale chairs." Despite a consensus that Aaron was working in Eliphalet's shop during the 1774-83 period, both the article and the catalog endeavored to discern traces of the former's individual contributions. Identifying captions consistently made attributions to individuals (Eliphalet and/or Aaron, both separately and together) rather than to their respective workshops or the shop tradition. In Great River Zea speculated that marriage to Mary King allowed Aaron to secure and even execute the King chair commission for Eliphalet's shop. Moreover, while crediting Eliphalet for the introduction of Chippendale furniture in the Philadelphia taste, Zea suggested that its popularization was "probably a function ofAaron's expanded clientele" in Hartford after 1783.56 TURNING

POINTS

Regionalism fueled renewed interest in Eliphalet Chapin's biography, particularly his sojourn outside his native region and his impact on furniture production after his return home. In recent years, this aspect of Chapin's career has come to be a primary source of interest from national and theoretical perspectives . In "The European Tradition and the Shaping of the American Artisan" (1989), for example, Barbara McLean Ward cited Chapin as "one of the best-known instances of transfer from one colonial style center to another."57 Despite the impression that Chapin represented a larger phenomenon, the universality with which his name appears in this context raises questions about how common his experience may have been. If eighteenth-century furniture workshops were tightly knit, interlocking craft and family dynasties, then it follows logically, as Trent has argued, that craftsmen, particularly in Connecticut, "saw themselves not as

SCHOELWER

creative individuals but as members of a group." This perspective transformed Chapin's sojourn in Philadelphia from a passing detail into an anomalous experience requiring explication. The paternity suit that reputedly precipitated the trip consequently acquired a significance that it had not previously possessed, becoming a critical turning point in a heretofore unexceptional career, as Trent and Lionetti speculated: "Had it not been for thi s unwanted pregnancy, [Chapin] might have spent the rest of his career working in the style he had learned during his apprenticeship and his journeyman's time in East Windsor."58 Philadelphia design feature s in Chapin's work have been widely recognized since the early 1930S. Both Erving and Keyes regarded them as evidence of some contact with the Quaker City. How thi s contact occurred remained opaque, as Nutting intimated in 1933: "It has hitherto been impo ssible to trace the designs of the Chapin s so as to settle the question whether they did th ese things for themselves or from the indistinct memory of what they had seen." Without concrete evidence of how such style transfer occurred-whether by the craftsman's actual training in Philadelphia, observation of a Philadelphia piece in C onnecticut, or examination of a drawing--the claim th at it had occurred at all remained theoretical. Opposing the prevailing view, Stein objected in 1931 th at "closer study reveals no satisfactory or supportable evidence of borrowings from Philadelphia." Moreover, he continued, "an influence from Philadelphia in any case is hardly logical. Hartford and th e surrounding country in the eighteenth century could have no very intimate connections with Philadelphia."59 Chapin's paternity case was also known long before it was assigned any interpretive significance or in any way connected to the empirical observation of Philadelphia feature s in his work. Reference s to Chapin's "reputed" paternity of an out-of-wedlock child appeared in both Windsor and Enfield histories by 1900. In 1939 Emily Davis referenced it as circumstantial evidence placing Chapin in East Windsor in the summer of 1766. As late as 1957, the listing for Eliphalet Chapin in Ethel Bjerkoe's Cabinetmakers of A merica noted the paternity suit without linking it to the craftsman's time in Philadelphia, for which furniture traits continued to be th e only evidence adduced. By 1959, however, pri mary evidence confirming the empirical deduction of Philadelphia contact had become known to both Houghton Bulkeley and Paul Koda. Bulkeley wrote in

WRITINGS

ON

ELIPHALET

CHAPIN

his note s: "C hapin, Eliphalet ... Had illegitimate child born to Hannah Bartlett in 1767. H e left town and worked in Philadelphia returning about 177!. She sued him in ab sentia and received judgement aga inst hiim. "60 The vague and halting fashion in whi ch th is info rmation became public sugges ts th at it was carefu lly guarded. Henry M aynard 's 1965 Atheneum Bullet in essay explicitly linked the paternity case to Chapin's Philadelphia experience; however, M aynard's conjectural phrasing combined with th e conspicuous omission of a citation for the paternity document s (in an otherwise well-footnoted essay) hints that he may have heard of these papers without having actually seen them. That same year John Kirk also asserted th e existence of "definite proof" that Eliphalet Chapin had gone to Philadelphia to receive additional training but provided no further information about th e natu re of this proof. The "C onnecticut Cabinetmakers" checklist of 1967 likewise skirted the issue, noting only th at "letters exist con cerning [Eliphalet's] traini ng in Philadelphia." In 1972 Kirk's American Chairs included a cryptic notation crediting Houghton Bulkeley with the information that East Windsor church documents confirmed that Chapin had left E ast Windsor in 1767 and lived for several years in Philadelphia; however, still no mention was made of th e paternity suit. N ot until the mid 1980s did this causal connectio n becom e openly articulated. Z ea's entry in Great River stated that "[Chapin] moved to Philadelphia to advance his training and to dodge a paternity suit in Ea st Windsor." Qpotes from the elusive church documents provided corroborating testim ony, reporting th at in 1771, "'C hapin returned from Philadelphia and set up his trade of a joyner in thi s town"?' The information that Chapin reputedly fath ered an illegitimate child was hardly new, having been pub lished in local histories nearly a century earlier. What wa s new, wa s a more sophisticated framewo rk for understanding craftsm anship and community, which assigned interpretive significance to wh at had earlier been regarded as an embarrass ing flaw. Whereas Chapin's Philadelphia experience had previou sly seemed evidence of his individual genius and ind ependent spirit, the new emphasis on interwoven family and professional networks implied that such a trip may have been unlikely, absent the impetus of a traumatic, disruptive event such as the paternity case. (The familiar story of the runaway Benjamin Franklin's arrival in

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Philadelphia in 1723 serves as an apt reminder of the difficulties attendant upon such an endeavor). Like the family histories' omission of Eliphalet Chapin, the secrecy surrounding his paternity suit appears to have been deliberate, possibly, as Trent suggested, "because the subject was considered indelicate." A more subtle factor that may have shaped attitudes toward the paternity case was arguably the tension between the aesthetic qualities of Chapin's furniturefrequently described as clean, light, delicate, elegantand the aura of disrepute conjured up by fornication, flight, exile. The notion that an object can serve as text, revealing information about the culture that created and used it, has become a staple of recent material culture studies, but a personalized version of this concept was articulated in Chapin writings quite early. In 1935 Keyes wrote, "from a study of his work we may justly characterize Chapin as a man of vigorous creative instinct, constantly susceptible to inspiration from outside sources, yet always translating borrowed motives into his idiom." At the height of 1960s antiestablishment radicalism, Maynard advanced a particularly iconoclastic interpretation of Chapin's charac ter, arguing that this newly discovered evidence of his refusal to "enter into a marriage of necessity" marked him as a "firmly resolved and determined man." Overcoming "the displeasure of the church and civil courts" in order to reestablish himself in East Windsor constituted further evidence of his resolute character and his belief in himself. These character traits, deduced from documentary evidence, might in turn provide valuable clues to identifying Chapin's cabinet work: "When this deliberate man died at age 65, he left behind him furniture that reflected his determination, strong personal opinion and principles. We can see the integrity of his character in his work." Maynard was in the minority in viewing Chapin's removal to Philadelphia as an admirable gesture of resistance to authority. For most admirers of Chapin furniture, the tawdry image of a fugitive father refusing to take responsibility for his alleged child struck a discordant note. Veiled allusions sufficed to add a tantalizing note of mystery without overtly contradicting the craftsman's reputation for beauty and grace. 62 Publication of the Great River catalog and the Trent and Lionetti article in 1985 and 1986 marked the culmination of a century of collection and study of Chapin furniture . Subsequent work has included a census of Chapin furniture in Mary G . Dowling's thesis, "Enig-

matic Eliphalet Chapin"; the recataloging of Chapin pieces in the Winterthur collection by Nancy Richards and Nancy Evans, incorporating a detailed and systematic design analysis of seventeen Chapin-type chairs and the identification of three case pieces with King family histories; and the extensive field investigation of the Hartford Case Furniture Survey.63 One of the most striking aspects of the Chapin bibliography is the extent to which the 1930S controversy over "the myth and reality" of Eliphalet Chapin has assumed a mythic quality of its own. Writers on Chapin have continually reiterated the notions that Aaron Chapin was, at some time and by some other writers, considered the more important cabinetmaker and that Chapin-type furniture was accordingly attributed to him. It is therefore surprising to discover that there is no dramatic moment at which opinion shifts to favor Eliphalet. Contributors to the formal furniture literature have consistently concluded that Eliphalet was the more innovative craftsman and that he was responsible for introducing the characteristic version of Philadelphia Chippendale design associated with the Chapin name.

The author thanks Thomas and Alice Kugelman, Robert Trent, Philip Zimmerman, and Thomas Denenberg for their perceptive readings and very useful comments on this essay.

1.

2. Lyon, Colonial Furniture, pp. 72, 171.

3. [Keyes], "More Evidence for Eliphalet," p. II; Kane, Am erican Seating Furniture, no. 117. Former Yale Curator John T. Kirk briefly noted the King family provenance in Am erican Chairs, no. 193. The surviving King family chairs are accounted for as follows: no. II, privately owned; nos. III and IlIl, Yale University Art Galley, 1930.2561A-B; no. V (seat frame), privately owned; no. Vl, CHS Museum, 1974.98.2; Thomas P. Kugelman to the author, October 24, 20 03. 4. John Chauncey Pease, "An Historical Sketch of the Town of Enfield, 1829," in Allen, History of Enfield, 1:26-27, 35. The other

Eliphalet Chapin was the son of the craftsman's father's cousins, Nathaniel and Sarah Abbe Chapin. 5· Allen, History of Enfield, 1:26-27, 35; 3: 2234, 2241; Stiles, Windsor (1859 edn .), p. 568; Stiles, Windsor, 2:147; Orange Chapin, I862 Genealogy, pp. 17, 19, 24,51; Gilbert Chapin, I924 Genealogy, 1:37,41, 50, 148-49, 158-59, 1876. Gilbert Chapin, I924 Genealogy, 1:2, 456-57, 931-32.

7. Orange Chapin, I862 Genealogy, p. 51. 8. Aaron L. Chapin, "Reminiscences," p. 166; Hoopes, "Aaron Chapin," p. 98; Orange Chapin, I862 Genealogy, pp. 24-25,51-53, 148-49; Gilbert Chapin, I924 Genealogy, 1:188-89. On Lucius and

Amzi Chapin's careers as singing masters and composers, see Thomas & Benes, "Amzi Chapin," pp. 76-99'

SCHOELWER

9. O range Ch apin, I862 Genealogy, p. SI; Aaron L. Chapin , "Reminiscences," p. 166; Gilbert Ch apin, I924 Genealogy, 1:18710. On Ch apin's offspring, see Schoelwer & Bobryk, ''A Cr aftsman's Life," below. D avis, "Elipheler Chapin," p. 174, the only previously published discussion of this topic, errs on several points. II. Ch apin, I924 Genealogy, r.xiii. On the church controversy, see Schoelwer & Bobryk, "A Cr aftsman's Life," below. 12. The Robbi ns firm contin ued an unbro ken succession of H art ford furniture enterprises dating from 1826 until 1890; in th e 1870S Robb ins Broth ers (opera ted by second-gene ration prop rieto rs, Frederick A. and Phil omen W. ) became among the first to advertise "modern and antique" furniture for sale; see William N. H osley, Jr., "Wri ght, Robbins & Winship and th e Industrialization of the Furniture Indu stry in Hartford , Co nnecticut," ConnecticutAntiquarian 3S, no. 2 (December 1983): 12- 19. Cabinetmakers Patrick Stevens and Edw in Simons both worked in the Robbin s shops. Lyon, Colonial Furniture, features numerous pieces owned by Simons and by Walter H osmer, of Wethersfield, and pays tribute to both men's "superior knowledge of the old furn iture of New England" (pp, v-vi). H osmer's collection was acquired by noted collectors Eugene Bolles and Geo rge S. Palmer, and subsequently formed the nucleus of the M etropolitan M useum of Art's America n W ing; see Richard H . Saunders, "American Decorative Arts Collecting in New England, 1840- 1920" (Mas ter's thesis, Uni versity of Delaware, 1973), pp. 70-80; Stillinger, T he Antiquers, pp. 80-82, 90-92 , 98, IIO, 181-83. Nutting reportedly praised Nathan M argolis as "the best cabinet maker in Am erica" (as quoted in Morris Silverman, H artford j ews, I6S9-I970 [H artford: Connecticut Hi storical Society, 1970], p. 221-22). Despite such references, the significant role of these men in early Ame rican antiq ue collecting remains little studied. For an introduction to the topic, see Robert F. Trent, "The H artford School of Restoration Cabinetmakers," paper delivered at "Cabinetmakers and Co llectors: Co lonial Furniture and Its Revival in Amer ica," a symposium held at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of D esign , Februa ry 1987; also C hristopher P. M onkh ouse, "Cabinetm akers and Collectors: Coloni al Furniture and its Revival in Rhode Island," in M onkh ouse and Thomas S. Mi chie , American Furn itu re in Pendlet on H ouse (Providen ce: Mu seum of Art , Rhode Island School of Design, 1986), pp. 43- 44. ''Anton Mi slovits (Max)," a tribute, is in the Newton Case Brainard Papers, file 21C, CHS Museum Libr ary. The Nath an M argolis Shop archives, 1919-1976 (including extensive templates) are preserved at the Winterthur Library. The Paul Kod a Collection , including shop records and templates, has recently been donated to the CHS M useum. 13. Erving, Colonial Furniture, pp. 37-38; [Keyes], "Eliphalet Assert s H imself," p. lSI. 14. Nutting, Furni ture T reasury (1933), 3:428; Nutting, Furn it ure Treasury (1928), nos. 370, 374, 2192; Thomas Andrew D enenb erg, WallaceNutting and the In v ent ion of Old America (New Haven: Yale University Press for Wad sworth Atheneum Museum of Ar t, 2003), pp. 12, 99-103,II3-14. IS . On the search for documented objects, see P hilip Zimmerm an, "Me thod in Early American Furniture Identification," elsewhere in this volume; Coo per, In Praise of America, pp. 14- SI. For a brief sketch of scientific antiquarianism in Am erican furniture history, see Mi chael J. Ettema, "H istory, Nostalgia, and Ameri can Furn iture," Win terthu r Portfolio 17, nos. 2/3 (Summer!Autumn 1982): 137- 38.

W R I TIN G SON

ELI P HAL ETC HAP I N

16. Stein , 'T he Chapins,' pp. 21-23. Relying on the erroneous family genealogy, Stein confused Eliphalet C hapin the cabinetmaker with his eponymous second cousin. Stein later became a popular mystery writer. 17. H oopes, ''Aaron C hapin," p. 97- Robert Trent subsequently corrected the datin g of the desk and bookcase to 1809; see Lionetti & Trent , "C hapin C hairs," p. 108S, also cat. 166A. 18. Stillinger, The Antiquers, pp. 217, 220, 293n. 19· Thr ee Centuries, p. 9, nos. IIO, II2, II4, 117, ISO, IS4, ISS, IS7, IS9, 160, 161, 164, 230. 20. "Co nnecticut Tercentenary, 163S-193S: Exhibition of Connecticut Furn iture," Wadsworth Atheneum R ep ort fOr I9J4 and Bulletin 13 (January-Jun e 1935): 12. 21. [Keyes], "Indi viduality of Conn ecticut Furn itu re," pp. II2-13. 22. [Keyes], "Antiques' Stand s Corrected," p. 232. 23 . [Keyes], "Eliphalet Asserts H imself," pp. ISO-SI. T his note evidently marks the first appeara nce in print of the correct birth date for the cabinetmaker, Eliphalet Chapin, drawn from the vital records of the town of Sommers, Connecticut. The most likely candidate for th e unnamed "friend ly correspondent" was Penrose H oopes, who is cited twice in the editoria l note and who subsequently published th e Shop R ecords of Daniel Burnap, Clockmaker (Hartford: Conn ecticut H istorical Society, 19S8). The original Burnap manu scripts are now in th e CHS Museum Library; see H oopes, D aniel Burnap. 24. [Keyes], "M ore Evidence for Eliphalet," p II. 2S. D avis, "Eliphele t C hapin," pp. 172, 174. (Davis deliberately spelled th e first name as "Eliphelet" because she found the craftsman's signature spelled with an "e" in account books kept by East W indsor blacksmith s W illiam and Russell Stoughton [present location unknown].) For a H adley-type chest attributed to John Pease, Jr., see Schoelwer & Bobryk, ''A Cra ftsma n's Life," below, fig. 2.

26. D avis, "Eliphelet C hapin," p. 17S. Co ncerned primarily with documentati on and biography, Da vis explicitly stated her intention to omit discussion of actual furniture. T his stateme nt was followed immediately by th e paragraph on the furniture, here attributed to Keyes. 27- For treatment of C hapin furn iture in publications of national scope, see Sack, Fine Points, pp. 114, 164, 188; D owns, American Furniture, p. xvi, nos. IS8, 170, 181; Comstock, American Furniture, p. 131; nos. 262, 314, 331. References focusing specifically on Connecticut furn itu re includ e Bissell, Furniture in Suffield, pp. 28-29, 4S-47, II6; Frederi ck K. Barbour, Th e Stat ure of Fine Connecticut Furniture (n.p.: by the author, 19S9), n.p. 28. Bulkeley, "Aa ron Roberts' Attributio ns," pp. 7-9. 29. Sack, Fi ne Points, pp. II4, 164, 188; Downs, American Furniture, p. xvi; Comstock, American Furn it ure, nos. 314, 331, 434. 30. Exa mples are cited in Bjerkoe, Cabinetmakers of America, pp. 60- 6I. 31.M aynard, "Resolut e Yankee," pp. 10, 12, 14, 16. 32. Sack, Fi ne Points, pp. II4, 164, 188, in the copy inscribed, "Newton C Brainard / Albert Sack / With Kind regard s & best wishes / Israel Sack / December II-19S0," CHS Museum Libr ary. Brainard

457

also stated the case for Aaron in "Chapin Secretary," Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin 23 (April 1958): front cover, pp. 44-45· Lockwood had died in 1951. 33. [Brainard, Harlow, & Bulkeley], "Connecticut Cabinetmakers," pt. I, pp. 112-14; pt. 2. p. 32.The "inscription" on the 1802 secretary appears to have been a notation by a later owner but has not been subsequently examined; see [Keyes], "Editor's Attic: A Signed Eliphalet Chapin De sk," Antiques 39, no. 2 (February 1941): 84· 34. [Brainard, Harlow, & Bulkeley], "Connecticut Cabinetmakers," pt. I, p. 9735. Henry P. M aynard, "Story of the Exhibition," and John T. Kirk, "Sources and Development of Styles in Connecticut Furniture," in [Kirk], Connect icut Fu rnitu re, pp. vi, x, xiv. For an earlier example of an aesthetic approach to American furniture, see Sack, F ine Points, PP· 3-4· 36. [Kirk] , Conn ecticut Furn itu re, p. x, nos. 93, lq, 124, 169, 23 6-39, 241-44. 37. [Kirk], Connecticut Furniture, pp. xiv- xv, 38. Kirk, E arly American Fu rni ture, pp. 3, 97-98; Stein, "The Chapins," p. 24. 39. Kirk, "Sources and Development of Styles in Connecticut Furniture," in [Kirk], Connecticut Furniture, pp. xi, xii; Kirk, Early A merican Furn iture, pp. 95, 105, 127. 40. Kirk, A merican Chairs, pp. II-12, 16, 187, 195. 41.j obe & Kaye, N ew England Furn itu re, pp. 40-41, 69; Cooper, In Praise ofA merica, pp. 18, 219. See also Charles F. Montgomery and Patricia E . Kane, eds., American Art, I750- I800: Towards Independence (Boston: New York Graphic Society for Yale University Art Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1976), P: 156; and He ckscher, A merican Fu rniture, p. 4742. William N. Ho sley, Jr., "Introduction," in Great River, p. xiv. For an introduction to the historical geography of the Connecticut valley, see Lewis, "Landscape and Environment," pp. 3-15. 43. Stein, "The Chapins," pp. 21, 62; [Kirk], Conn ecticut Furniture, p. x; Kirk, American Chairs, p. 195. Kirk's discussion of New England's diale ct regions relied primarily on Hans Kurath and B. Block, H andbook of the L inguistic Geography of N ew England (Providence: Brown Univer sity, 1939). Jonathan L. Fairbanks and Robert F. Trent, N ew England Begins : Th e Seventeenth Century, 3 vols. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1982). For further discussion of early regionalism in relation to furniture studies, see Philip D . Zimmerman, "Regionalism in American Furniture Studies," Persp ect iv es on A merican Furniture Studies, ed. Gerald W. R. Ward (Ne w York : W . W. Norton, 1988), pp. II-38; Kevin Sweeney, "Regions and the Study of Material Culture," pp. 145-46, 162n. 44. Benn o M. Form an, A merican Seating Furnitu re, I6Jo-I7J o: A n In terpretiv e Catalog ue (New York: W. W . Norton, 1988), p. 6; Zimmerman , "Workmanship as Evidence," pp. 285-89. 45 . Philip Zea, "Furniture," and no. II2, Great River, pp. 189, 231. 46. Zea, nos. 109-15, Great River, pp. 228-34. 47. Lionetti & Trent, "Chapin Chairs," pp. 1086-91; a brief, unillustrat ed reference to this documented group had appeared the previous year in Zea, no. 109, Great Riv er, p. 229. The Grant daybook was recently bequeathed to the Wood Memorial Library, South Windsor.

48. Adams & Stiles, Wethersfield, 1:732, depict s one of the arm chairs, credited as belongin g by Miss E.E. Dana and reputed to have been originally owned by Rev. John M arsh. 49. Hartford cabinetmaker and furniture consultant Paul Koda inspected Barbour's chair s and concluded that they were "important examples" of Eliphalet 's Chapin's work; Koda to Connecticut Historical Society Director Thompson R. Harlow, October 20, 1959, museum object files, acc. no. 1960.7.5-6; Ba rbour Collecti on, pp. 12-15; [Kirk], Conn ecticut Furniture, no. 239; Kirk, American Chairs, no. 197; Bernard & S. Dean Levy advert isement, Antiques 104, no. 4 (October 1973): 516-q; Ginsburg, "Barbour Collection," p. II08. 50. Eliphalet Ch apin file, Bulkeley Papers; [Brainard, Harlow, and Bulkeley], "Connecticut Cabinetmakers," pt. I, P: II4. 51. Peter Spang to William Warren, De cember 19, 1963, with "Extract from History of Furniture and Brio-a-Brae by Elizabeth Ellery Dana, Daughter of R.H. Dana, Jr.," duplicate typescript, 1963, CHS Museum object files, 1960.7.5-6; original document reportedly at Longfellow House, Cambridge; Fales, Furn iture of Historic D eerfield, p. 57. The furniture came to Elizabeth Dan a's mother, Sarah Watson Dana, from the latter' s aunt, Lydia Marsh (q86-18 80), who was the last surviving child of John and Ann Grant Marsh. Other items in the suite descended to Elizabeth Dana's siblin gs. Additional Grant-Marsh cha irs descended through the couple's only surviving son, Rev. Dr. John M arsh, Jr., by direct male line to the last family owners, who sold them to New York antique dealers Ginsberg and Levy; Robert F. Trent, research notes, CHS Museum object files, 1960-7.5-6. 52. Zea, no. 109, Great R iv er, p. 229· 53. Lionetti & Trent, "C hapin Chairs," pp. 1°91,1094. Eleme nts of the historical research and object analysis presented in that article evidently had been made available to the auth ors of Great Riv er, and appear there in much abbreviated form . 54. Lionetti & Trent, "C hapin Chairs," pp. 1092- 94. The round tenons and morti ses join crest rails to rear posts and arms to arm stumps. 55. Lionetti & Trent, "Chapin Chairs," pp. 1083, 1089. 56. Lionetti & Trent, "C hapin Chairs," pp . 1084, 1093; Ze a, nos. 109, II2, Great Riv er, pp. 228, 231. In 1976 Fales, Furniture of Historic D eerfield, P: 68, incorrectly identified Mary King as M ary King Loomis, although the correct inform ation had been available since 1892, in Stiles, Windsor, 2:147, 422. On King family case pieces, see Richards & Evans, N ew Englan d Furniture at Winterthu r, pp. 346, 348n. 57. Barbara M cLean Ward, "The European Tradition and the Shaping of the American Artisan," Th eAmerican Craftsma n and the European T radition, I62o-I820, ed. Francis J. Puig and Mi chael Conforti (Hanover, N .H .: Minneapolis Institute of Art s & University Press of New England, 1989), pp. 18-19. 58. Lionetti & Trent, "Chapin Chairs," p. 1087; for further discussion of the paternity suit and its impa ct on Chapin's life, see Schoelwer & Bobryk, "A Craftsman's Life," elsewhere in this volume . 59. Erving, Colonial Furn iture, p. 38; [Keyes], "Individuality of Connecticut Furniture," p. II2; Nutting, Furniture T reasury (1933), pI8-19, 428; Stein, "The Chapins," pp. 21-22.

SCHOELWER

60 . Stiles, Windsor, 2:147; Allen, H istory ofEnfie ld, 3:2241; Davis, "Eliphelet C hapin," p. 173; Bjerkoe, Cabinetmakers ofAmerica, 59; Eliph alet Ch apin file, Bulkeley papers. 61. Church documents quoted in Zea, no. 109, Great R iver, p. 229; for earlier allusions to the paternity case, see M aynard, "Resolute Yankee," p. 17; Kirk, "Sources of Some Am erican Region al Furni ture," A nt iques 88, no. 6 (D ecember 1965): 796; [Brainard, H arlow, and Bulkeley], "Co nnecticut Cabinetmakers," pt I, p. Il4; and Kirk, American Chairs, p. 187. 62. Lionetti & Trent, "C hapin Chai rs," p. 1087; [Keyes], "Individuality of Connecticut Furniture," p. Il 2; M aynard, "Resolute Yankee,"

P·I7· 63. Richards & Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, pp. 84- 88,345- 48.

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ELI P HAL ETC HAP I N

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A Craftsman's Life New Evidence on Eliphalet Chapin

Susan P Schoelw er and D aw n H utchins Bobryk

Efforts to understand the life and career of Eliphalet Chapin have long been frustrated by elusive primary sources. Most famously, Chapin's 178I bill to East Windsor farmer Alexander King for a set of chairs disappeared after reportedly being seen by pioneering furniture historian Irving W. Lyon in I877'This disappearance prompted another noted furniture historian, Luke Vincent Lockwood, to doubt Eliphalet Chapin's very existence, commenting acerbically in I93S that "the only mention that anyone has ever found of this man is a statement in Doctor Lyon's book." Over the next four decades, local historians and antiquarians convincingly disproved Lockwood's skepticism, locating Chapin's name in town and church records, census and tax lists, newspaper notices and business ledgers. I Piecing together Chapin's biography is complicated by the dispersion of primary documentation among numerous public jurisdictions, the result of the craftsman's own movements between towns and of shifting town and even state boundaries. Chapin was born in 174I in the Massachusetts town of Somers, which six years later became part of Connecticut. The lands he inheri ted from his father in 1756 were in Enfield, the parent tow n of Somers (see map 4). By 1766 Chapin had moved a few miles sout h, to the parish ofWindsor th at split off to become East Windsor in IJ68 (and then South Windso r in I84S); he bought land there in I77I and remained for more than a quarter century. In I800 he was recorded in the census as living a few miles further south, in East Hartford, which had split from Hartford proper in 1783. At the time of his death in I807, he was back in East Windsor.' In addition to verifying the location and contents of documents that had previously been vaguely cited or loosely paraph rased, recent research has revealed three previously unlocated or underutilized primary record groups-the probate file for Eliphalet Chapin's father, Ebenezer Chapin, Jr. (170S-SI); a series of court and land records concerning paternity claims brought against C hapin in January I767 by Hannah Bartlett (1746-I8I3); and two manuscrip ts documenting a discipline pro-

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ceeding in the First Church of East Windsor, stemming from the paternity charge s and sparked by Chapin's application for membership in 1775.3 EARLY

YEARS

From the time of English settlement in 1635 until well into the eighteenth century, woodworking in the town of Windsor was dominated by several interrelated, multi-generational woodworking families and shop tradition s.f Eliphalet Chapin was not descended from the se influential local craft dynasties, although he did belon g to a larger network connecting both craftsmen and customers up and down the Connecticut River Valley in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, and Hartford County, Connecticut. He was a fifth-generation Puritan-his great-great grandfather, Samuel Chapin (1598- 1675), was among the founding father s of Springfield, Massachusett s. A close associate of Springfield 's founder, William Pynchon, Samuel Chapin served his community in prominent roles-as town selectman, magistrate, and long-time church deacon. In 1685 his oldest two son s, Henry (1630-1718) and Japhet (1642-1712), ranked as the second and third large st landholders in Springfield, exceeded only by John Pynchon, William's son and the most powerful man of his time in western Massachusetts. Henry Chapin ha s been tent atively identifi ed as a carpenter, and he was related by marriage to several woodworkers. John Chapin, likely Deacon Samuel 's father, also may have been a woodworker; he is mentioned in a 1634 Massachusetts Bay record in connection with building a fort. Both Henry and Japhet Chapin settled in the north section of Springfield, called Chicopee, where they raised large familie s; Japhet's six sons included Ebenezer, Sr. (1677- 1772), and David (1682-1772)grandfathers of cabin etmakers Eliphalet and Aaron, respectively. All but one of Japhet's sons remained in Chicopee, where the family grew so numerous that in I753, twenty of the twenty-seven taxpayers bore the Chapin surname.5 The other son, Ebenezer, Sr., removed south to Enfield, which had been settled about 1680 as an extension of Springfield, located between it and Windsor, at the fall line of the Connecticut River. Ebenezer, Sr., arrived about a generation after th e first occupation, but was one of the early settlers in the southeastern section of the town, known as Wallop. Between I72I and I745 he received grants of land totaling more than roo acres; he also held numerous to'wn offices, including

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surveyor of fences and highways, tithingm an, constable, rate collector, and a member of th e committee appointed in I74I to settle the Somers boundary line. H e and his wife, Ruth Janes (1682-1736/7) of Northampton, raised twelve children to adulthood; of these, nine lived to the age of 70 or more, and five resided on adjoining farm s in Enfield. Their grandson, Eliphalet, grew up surrounded by a proverbial "hive of Chapins" nearly as den se as that in Chicopee." Ebenezer Chapin, Jr., first appeared in th e Enfield town record s in I73I, when he was appointed, at age 26, to assist his fath er as rat e collector. Two years lat er Ebenezer, Jr., married Elizabeth Pease (I7I2- 86), whose uncle, Capt. John Pease,Jr. (1654-1734), had been among a group of settlers from Salem, Massachu setts, wh o founded Enfield. The creation of Somers as a separa te town in I734evidently placed th e lands of Eb enezer,Jr. , in th e new jurisdiction, for th e births of his children between I735 and I746 were recorded in Somers. As of I749 he was listed again as an officeholder in Enfield, serving as surveyor of highways, lister, and memb er of th e committee to "new Regulate" seating in the meetinghouse. When he died at age 45 in January 1751, he left a widow and six children, aged 15 to under 2 years: Ebenezer III (I735-I822), Elizabeth (1736-1820), Ruth (b. 1738), Eliphalet (I74I-I 807), Tabitha (b. 1744), and Love (I749-77).7 The probate documents for Ebenezer Chapin , Jr., provide a glimpse of the family's material world during Eliphalet's youth. Although Ebenezer, Jr., had attained a moderate prosperity as a yeoman farmer, there are few indicators of gentility in his estate inventory.'' H is assets totaled just over £5,036, in the highly inflated local currency of the early I750s, or appro ximately £ 450 sterling (roughly $48,800 in 2000 dollars).? Landholdings constituted 70 percent of the estate, and personal property con sisted largely of income pr oducing assets-livestock and their gear, agricultural supplies and implements, and financial paper. Consumer goods-furniture, household textiles, kitchen equip ment and tablewares, and the decedent's personal clothing-amounted to only about 7 percent of th e total estate. '? Chapin's assets compared favorably with tho se of the majority of his contemporaries, according to a number of standards devised by economic historian Jackson Turner Main. The total estate value was roughly double the Hartford County mean for adult men during the I650-I750 period, ranking in the top 33 percent of Hartford County estates and the top 45

46I

percent of farmers' estates throughout Connecticut. Chapin's holdings were approximately triple those required for a farmer to eke out a bare subsistence and roughly double those needed to achieve a modicum level of comfort. His heavy investment in real estate was also typical of farmers, who commonly owned more land than the general male population, but "invested less in consumption products than did most other men, and perhaps led as a result somewhat less comfortable lives.?" Chapin's estate included a range of agricultural products associated with a diversified family farmrye, wheat, indian corn, malt, flax seed, barley, pork, suet, tallow, butter, cider, peas, potatoes, beans, dried apples. As the inventory was taken in early spring, quantities of foodstuffs on hand were relatively low, but numerous bags and casks testified to a capacity for storing substantial provisions. In addition, the presence of 34 pounds of tobacco, salted pork valued at £45 (in inflated Connecticut currency), more than 5,7°0 feet of boards, and 8,000 shingles suggested commercial production of agricultural and timber commodities, possibly for export in the valley's thriving trade with the West Indies; at least some of the 4 horses may also have been raised for export. Chapin owned a fairly standard assortment of agricultural implements, but no specialized tools to indicate that he practiced an artisanal trade in addition to his farming and possible lumber processing operations." According to inventory studies by historian Kevin M. Sweeney, a "statistically average" mid-eighteenthcentury household in Wethersfield (an older and more affluent community than Enfield) included the following furnishings: 2 or 3 beds, 2 to 3 chests (including I chest of drawers or chest with drawers), 2 to 3 tables, 10 to I2 chairs, I box, and probably I looking glass. I3 Chapin owned a larger than average number of beds (5 plus a cradle, possibly reflecting his relatively youthful family) and twice the amount of storage furniture (5 chests, I chest of drawers, and 2 boxes), but only 4 chairs and 2 tables. Chapin's total investment in furniture amounted to less than £30 in Connecticut currency, with the most expensive items being his looking glass at £4, followed by the chest of drawers and one of the chests, valued at £3 each, and his 4 "old chairs" valued at £6.10.0 together. In contrast, he had 4 horses valued at £200 and saddles and bridles at £29; kitchen and other household equipment at £48 plus £20 worth of tablewares (including pewter, woodenware, and a

few earthenware pieces, but no identifiable teawares); £75 worth of clothing (all the decedent's) and £166 of household textiles (bedding, table linens, uncut cloth, yarn, and raw fibers), Genteel goods are limited-a few drinking glasses, forks, books valued at nearly £IZ total, and a fairly extensive array of bed furnishings. The best bed alone was hung with curtains and valued at over £27; three of the other beds were valued at £22 to £27. An intriguing entry for the substantial quantity of 49 yards of "new cloth" valued at over £29 may represent imported goods intended for a new bed. The listing of "timber for a house ready framed not raised" valued at £100 testifies that Chapin was in the process of erecting a new dwelling, whether as a result of economic prosperity, a need for more space for a growing family, or a desire for updated accommodations.tBy the time Chapin's estate was settled in I756, the new house had become the third dwelling standing on the home lot-the probate distribution enumerates the "new Dwelling house," and the "old house," as well as the "Dwelling house that the Aged folks . . . live in"presumably Ebenezer Chapin, Sr., then nearly 80 years old, and his second wife, Abigail Strong Church Chapin (b. 1690). Elizabeth Pease Chapin, executrix of the estate, received her widow's third, including unspecified movables, half of the "new dwelling House," a mare, and several sheep; she subsequently married her first cousin, Ezekiel Pease (1710-99), church deacon, tailor, schoolteacher, and long-time town clerk, who lived near the Chapin properties, along the Scantic River in eastern Enfield." The eldest son, Ebenezer III, was then nearly 21; he received a double portion, valued at £1,225, composed of land plus the other half of the new house. Two years later he married Mehitable Bartlett (I734-18II) from the town of Stafford (east of Somers), and subsequently raised a family of eight on the homestead. The second son, Eliphalet, received land plus one-quarter of the barn, a portion valued at approximately £613. The four daughters, Elizabeth Chapin Allen, Ruth, Tabitha, and Love (the latter three unmarried and ranging in age from I7 to 6) each received portions equal in value to Eliphalet's, but containing a combination of movables, land, and allotments in various buildings. Ruth, the oldest unmarried daughter, received the "Dwelling house that the Aged folks ... live in"; possibly she lived with and took care of the grandparents at least until her own marriage in I760. I6 The untimely death of Ebenezer Chapin, Jr., undoubtedly marked a turning point in his son's life. Had

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his father lived long enough to continue the economic processes of land and capital accumulation, the son might never have trained as a craftsman. As it was, Eliphalet's inherited real estate, worth roughly £55 sterling, was only a little over half of that required for subsistence living. In addition, that inheritance did not include even the minimum personal estate (livestock, tools, etc.) required to establish himself as a farmer. Furthermore, Enfield had exhausted its supply of unallotted common lands by q50, necessitating that younger sons in Eliphalet's generation either move to the frontier (as his grandfather had done) or learn a marketable trade.'? The necessity of acquiring skills lends significance to Eliphalet's selection of a legal guardian in August 1755, one month before reaching his fourteenth birthday (the traditional age for beginning an apprenticeship). Despite the presence of his grandfather and several paternal uncles in the immediate area, his guardian was his mother's brother, Pelatiah Pease (q09-69). 18 This action suggests a deliberate strategy of initiating Eliphalet into the Pease family's longstanding woodworking tradition (discussed elsewhere in this volume by Robert Trent). Elizabeth and Pelatiah's uncle, Capt. John Pease, Jr., had apprenticed in the prominent Symonds shop of Salem, credited with making a number of joined boxes, chests, and cupboards elaborately decorated with both carved and applied ornament (fig. I). Two of their first cousins, John (I678-q6I) and Joseph (1693-q57) Pease married Elizabeth (I688-q29) and Mary (b. 1692) Spencer, forging an alliance with Hartford's dominant woodworking shop tradition, which had originated with joiner Nicholas Disbrowe (1612-83) and turner Thomas Spencer (1607-87). John and Joseph's sister, Mary Pease (I688-q46) presumably owned the Hadley-type chest marked with her name and the year of her marriage, 1714, and possibly from the Pease shop in Enfield (fig. 2).1 9 It seems plausible that Eliphalet (and his mother Elizabeth) might well have chosen to capitalize on these extended family connections and that Eliphalet apprenticed in one of the Pease family shops . Upon turning 21 in September q62, Eliphalet likely became a journeyman, working for wages under an as-yet-unidentified master craftsman. In a 1939 biographical essay Emily Davis speculated that Eliphalet might have spent some time in the 1760sworking with Joseph Chapin (QI8-I803), a paternal relative who lived in the Ketch Mills section of Windsor (present-

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FIG U REI Joined cabinet, dated 1676, attributed to Symonds shop, Salem, Massachusett s. Initialed "TBS" for Thomas and Sarah Buffington. Eliphalet Chapin's great-uncle, John Pease, Jr. (1654-1734), trained in the Symonds shop prior to settling in Enfield about 1680.Winterthur Museum, 1958,526.

FIG U R E 2 Joined chest with two drawers, ca. 1700- 1714, possibly from the shop ofJohn Pease, Jr., Enfield, M assachusett s (now Connecticut). Originally owned by Pease's daught er, Mary (1688-1746), a first cousin of Eliphalet Chapin's moth er. Mu seum of Fine Arts, Boston, 32.216, bequest of Charles Hitchcock Tyler.

day Windsorville in the eastern part of East Windsor). This hypothesis has some genealogical and geographical plausibility. Joseph Chapin was a first cousin of Eliphalet Chapin's father (and brother to Aaron Chapin's father); his property in Ketch Mills was only about five miles distant from Eliphalet Chapin's childhood home, just over the Windsor-Enfield town line in southeastern Enfield. A finely made pair of wroughtiron pipe tongs in the Winterthur Museum collection bears the date 1740 and the incised name "JOSEPH CHAPIN," testifying to Joseph's craft skills; however, this example and his subsequent reputation as a gunsmith indicate that Joseph's expertise lay in working metals rather than wood. This combined with Eliphalet's legal placement with his mother's brotherrather than with any of the nearby Chapins-suggests that Eliphalet's time was more likely spent in the Pease woodworking shops. One of the key points of Davis's hypothesis was that Joseph Chapin's property in Ketch Mills was near the family home of Hannah Bartlett, with whom Eliphalet Chapin reputedly conceived a child in the summer of 1766. However, the Chapin family homestead was itself close enough to provide the necessary proximity-located only about four miles distant, near both the Enfield-Windsor line and the road leading into eastern Windsor,"? Recent research has convincingly demonstrated the critical importance of kinship and marriage alliances to the establishment and extension of woodworking shop traditions and patronage networks in the Connecticut valley generally and in the community ofWindsor particularly. During the period l635-17l5, historian Josh Lane argues, Windsor's woodworking families were "interconnected as co-workers on large construction projects, such as building the town's meetinghouse, as fellow congregants and as town officeholders," and further "cemented their relationships with one another through intermarriage." Prior to 1715 nearly half of the town's 205 identified woodworkers married the daughters or sisters of other woodworkers, and these ties established "a web of connections to other woodworkers, enabling them to gain political allies, secure land and timber resources, divide town contracts, and create a network of support that helped them better adjudicate disputes and work toward resolution of court cases in which they were litigants.'?' Assuming that these patterns persisted throughout the colonial period (and there is little evidence to the contrary), Hannah Bartlett would have been a highly

appropriate marriage partner for an enterprising craftsman seeking entree into Windsor's relatively closed woodworking community. By 1766 her father, Jonathan Bartlett (17l6-99), was a prosperous and prominent figure in local affairs, captain of the militia, and a founding member of the Scan tic district church (organized in 1752). Like Chapin, he was not a Windsor native, having moved there as young man after growing up in the newer settlement of Bolton, founded in 1720 and located to the south and east ofWindsor on what was then known as Hartford Mountain. Bartlett was also descended from an early and influential Connecticut valley pioneer, via a geographically mobile line: his great-grandfather, Robert Bartlett (d. l676) was a proprietor in Hartford in l639-40 but removed to Northampton about l655; his father, Samuel Bartlett, Jr. (l677-1746), left Northampton for Bolton in 1723.22 In 1743 Jonathan Bartlett married Hannah Watson Bissell (17l3-52), the widow of John Bissell (1709-37), who "had been for some yrs. [Bartlett's] employer," according to nineteenth-century Windsor historian Henry Reed Stiles." Stiles's phrasing suggests a journeyman/master relationship in the same trade, and marriage to a master's widow was a well-established way of quickly rising to the proprietorship of one's own shop. Marriage to the widow Bissell likely secured Bartlett's connection to the entrenched community of Windsor woodworkers. Although neither Bissell's nor Bartlett's occupation has yet been verified, both men had strong family ties to known woodworkers.John Bissell was the son of Mehitable White (b. l683) and Bolton carpenter Jeremiah Bissell (l677-1755); both parents were members of established woodworking families.vt The Bartlett family progenitor, Robert Bartlett, likely was a carpenter; his son, Samuel Bartlett (l630-17l2), was a joiner in Northampton." Jonathan Bartlett's service on several committees overseeing various aspects of the construction of the Scan tic parish meetinghouse between 1753 and 1769 put him in control of significant woodworking contracts, which may in themselves have provided the occasion for his acquaintance with the young Eliphalet Chapin, recently graduated from his apprenticeship and in need of journeyman work. 26 The pattern of young craftsmen marrying into their master's families was a well-established phenomenon, whether as the unintended consequence of proximity or more calculated networking and consolidation of power and skills. It would have been entirely in keeping with these patterns for Eliphalet Chapin to have come into

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contact with Jonathan Bartlett, either directly as a journeyman in Bartlett's employ, or indirectly through one of the church construction projects that the latter oversaw, and to have subsequently engaged in courtship with Bartlett's daughter, with an assumed or implicit understanding of intended marriage. Although subsequent statements from both Jonathan Bartlett and his daughter Hannah indicated that they believed there to have been a mutual expectation of marriage, something went awry. In stead of appearing before clergy to pledge marriage vows, Hannah Bartlett pre sented herself, nearly seven months pregnant, before the Hartford County Court to lodge a formal complaint again st Eliphalet Chapin. PATERNITY

SUIT

In recent furniture literature, Chapin's involvement in a paternity suit in 1767 has come to be regarded as a critical incident, prying him loose from Connecticut valley woodworking traditions and precipitating a transfermati ve experience in an as-yet-unidentified cabinet shop in the bustling port city of Philadelphia. Knowledge of the se paternity charges has long rested on two pieces of indirect evidence, both dating at least a decade later: a 1779 probate court record that "Elis [Alice] Chapin, daughter of Eliphalet Chapin, aged twelve years ... made choice of her Grandfather Jonathan Bartlett of East Windsor to be her guardian"; and documents from the First Congregational Church of East Windsor, dating to 1775-76, that relate a church discipline controversy sparked by Eliphalet Chapin's application for admi ssion." Discovery of the original Hartford County Court case files permits closer scrutiny of the legal proceedings as well as comparison to similar contemporary cases. The suit of Hannah Bartlett v. Eliphalet Chapin commenced in January 1767: To Wm. Wolcott, Esquire, one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of Hartford comes Hannah Bartlett, Jr., of Windsor in the county, a single woman, & informs said Justice that your informer is now pregnant with a child which when born will be a bastard babe begotten on her body by forni cation by Eliphalet Chapin of said Windsor on or about the 20 th day ofJune last past in said Windsor & your informer prays that the said Eliphalet may be made to answer unto thi s complaint & stand chargeable with the maintenance of said child when born according

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to the provision made in a certain statu te of thi s Colony entitled An Act of Fornication & Bastardy your informer being ready to make oath to the truth of the matters alleged therein. Dated at Windsor January 15 th AD 1767 [signed] Hannah Bartlett Jr.28

After the child 's birth in March 1767, the paterni ty suit moved forward. In June 1767 Ju sti ce William Wolcott affirm ed that Bartlett had been "examined under oath," a standard practice in such cases. Chapin had by then either left the community or was perceived as a flight risk, as Wolcott issued a writ attaching "the estate of Eliphalet Chapin aforesaid to the value of £50 money & for want of estate take his body if he may be found in your precincts & him safely keep so that you may have him before the adjourned C oun ty C ourt to be held at Hartford ... on th e 4 th Tu esday of June instant then & there to an swer unto th e foregoin g complaint." In June the court recorded testim ony that the local deputy had left a copy of the writ, "at th e usual place of the within named defendant's abode in Windsor," informing Chapin of the attachment of two parcels of land in Enfield, totaling about 30 acres. The case was continued until the November 1767 session, at which time Chapin was still absent, as noted: "Defendant three[?] tim es publicly called did not appear." After again examining Bartlett und er oath and hearing supporting testimony, presumably from the midwife and other local women who had assisted at the delivery and who affirmed that "she had continued constant in the same accusation for the term of her extremity, in travail &c.," the court returned "judgment that said Chapin be the reputed father of said bastard child" and "shall stand charged with the maintenance thereof" at the rate of zs.Gd. per week, plus court costs and other expenses.' ? Enfield land records detail the denouement. In February 1768 the court issued a writ of execution for satisfaction of the judgment again st Eliphalet Chapin, "late ofWindsor now a trans[i]ent[?]" for child maintenance for three calendar quarters, totaling £8.7.8 plus court costs. Officers of the court in Enfield and Windsor were authorized to levy charges against "the goo ds Chattels or lands of Eliphalet Chapin within your precincts." If Chapin's property proved insufficient to satisfy the judgment, they were further "commanded to take the body of ye said Eliphalet Chapin & him commit to the keeper of the gaol in Hartford ... until he pays unto said Hannah Bartlett the full sum above mentioned." The local deputy accordingly levied 2lh acres

plus 30 rods of land, which was receipted by Jonathan Bartl ett as attorney for his daughter. In September q68, Eliphalet Chapin's older brother Ebenezer III paid H ann ah Bartlett £9 .18.11 for the land in question, and the following April Eliphalet him self (described as "late of Windsor") regained title, paying his brother £11.17.0)° The land was part of the parcel apportioned to Eliphalet in the distribution of his father's estate in q56, and was presumably never intended to be alienated from th e rest of th e family homestead. Transfer of title to Bartl ett was a legal maneuver ensuring payment of monetary claims by the Chapins; once th ese were paid, titl e returned to th e latter. The participation of Eliphalet's brother as intermediary in the transaction suggests that as of September 1768 Eliphalet either had not yet returned to the area or had not yet amassed sufficient fund s to pay off the obligation. Ebenezer, in residence on the famil y homestead, would certainly have had a vested interest ed in maintaining the integri ty of th e land parcel, but th e nearly £2 increase in th e price paid for th e land suggests that he extracted a premium from his brother for his assistance in the tran saction. " N o further legal proceedings have been found; after the executi on of judgment in March 1768, Eliphalet evidently was able to settle the rem aining maintenance charges of £1.12.6 per quarter, due through Ap ril In!. Eliphalet Chapin's paternity suit has proved a source of scandal and titill ation amo ng family historians, furnitu re scholars, and popular writersY However, recent studies of early American domestic law demonstrate clearly that Chapin's predicament was far from uncommon and in many respects unexc eptionable. Demographic research indicates that during the eighteenth century out-of-wedlock births increased throughout Britain and it s colonies; premarital pregnancy rates peaked in N ew England in the 1760- 1780 period, with as many as JO-40 percent of th e brid es in some towns already with child)3This phenomenon has been attributed to two factors: "a resurgenc e of traditional sexual mores" that had been only temporarily suppressed by Puritan idealism and legal strictures, and a pragmatic concession to th e imp ossibility of controlling young people's behavior in a society that was becoming increa singly liberal and individualisti c. Indeed in 1722 the debating club at H arvard C ollege, training ground for so many of N ew England's mini sters, had addre ssed th e issue, "W hether it be Fornication to lye with one's Sweethea rt (after contract) before Marriage?" After

1750, historian Richard Godbeer argues, "it was not unu sual for young women to spend the night with their sweethearts under the familial roof with the knowledge and consent of their parents," with the reasoning that if a pregnancy occurred and "relatives knew the identity of a male lover, they could ensure that he took responsibility."34 The community of East Windsor was no stranger to premarital pregnancy, despite its deepl y entrenched Puritan heritage and the rigorous admonitions of its first two pastors, Rev. Timothy Edwards (1669- q 58) and Rev. Jo seph Perry (I7JI-8 J), who together held the pulpit for nearly nine decade s, from 1695 until q 8J. Henry Stiles, working strictly from local records in the nineteenth century, came to much the same conclusions about the rising incidence of premarital pregnancy as modern social historians assessing vast quantities of cliom etric data . Stiles's pioneering study of bundlingth e courtship practice of allowing a young couple, both fully clothed, to spend th e night together in the same bed-produced the assertion that "there can be no reasonable doubt that bundling did prevail to a very great exte nt in the New England colonies from a very early date," and that "it came nearest to being a universal custom from q50 to 1780," with predictable consequences. Such deductions, Stiles continued, "will be fully justified by the experience and observations of every antiquarian wh o has had occasion to dig deep among th e civil and ecclesiastical record s of almost anyone of th e older town s of New England. . . . Our own observation among the record s of the old churches in Windsor and East Windsor, is, in effect, the same, and we have occasionally happened upon the original manuscript confessions of individuals read to the church before they were formall y admitted to its communion."35 Whether or not a couple married, in theory they were liable to criminal pro secution. The "sin of fornication" was proscribed as a corporal crime from th e earliest days of Puritan settlement, punishable by whippings or steep fines imposed on both partners; child support was levied on the father if the couple did not marry. The Connecticut "A ct of Fornication & Bastardy" was promulgated in 1672 and remained in force until th e early nineteenth century. In practice, Connecticut courts began moving away from criminal prosecution of unmarried fathers after 1700, largely owing to a combination of three factors: a decline in religiou sly inspired, voluntary confessions; th e adoption of more formal standards of evidence (requiring corrob orating

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testimony) that made it virtually impossible to convict nonconfessing males; and the increasing use of legal maneuvering and flight as tactics by accused men to delay or evade prosecution. The courts gradually ceased issuing maintenance orders as elements of criminal proceedings, so that after the 1740S, the initiative for pursuing child support increasingly fell to unwed mothers and their families. At the same time, families of middling or higher stature tended to avoid public exposure in the court system by seeking settlements privately, often using the threat of legal action to procure the desired acknowledgment of paternity and child support. Entering a formal complaint, as Hannah Bartlett did in January Il67, served as the last resort for extracting cooperation from a reluctant father, and only a tiny number of premarital pregnancies resulted in such suits. For the entire decade of the Il60s, for example, the New Haven County Court (with jurisdiction over a population of more than 18,000) recorded a total of nine paternity suits.l" Bartlett v. Chapin was not a criminal prosecution; it was instead a civil suit, presumably entered only after private negotiations failed. By winning legal judgment against Chapin, the Bartletts secured more than a financial settlement; public recognition of the father's obligation signified the mother's comparative respectability, avoiding the damning shame of abandonment and increasing her future prospects for a successful marriage. Hannah Bartlett did subsequently wed, first fellow East Windsor resident Roswell Blodgett (q49-8I) and then Job Belknap (I765-18q); she bore several children and remained in East Windsor until her own death in 1813, when she was buried between her two husbands in the Scantic cemetery. For his part, Eliphalet Chapin's evasion of prosecution presumably accomplished three ends: he avoided possible incarceration (and thereby did not have to post bond), he avoided marrying Hannah Bartlett, and he avoided having to make any public statement (either denying or acknowledging) his involvement. Notably, the child at the center of this case was subsequently referred to as "Elis [Alice] Chapin," the use of the "reputed" father's surname being customary practice when a community agreed upon his identity)? Like his father's premature death in 175I, the paternity suit of 1767 undoubtedly marked a major turning point in Eliphalet Chapin's life. Just as the inadequacy of his inheritance propelled him off the land into a trade, so the paternity suit arguably propelled him out

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of the local community. Why he chose Philadelphia as his destination, how he gained entree to the city's craft networks, and where he worked during his sojourn there remain mysteries. As the largest and most cosmopolitan city in British North America, Philadelphia undoubtedly offered both personal and professional attractions. In contrast to Connecticut's smaller and densely interrelated communities, late eighteenth-century Philadelphia "exemplified the greater personal freedom made possible by urban life. . . . The city swarmed with young women and men who had migrated there in search of work, some from the surrounding countryside and others from across the Atlantic."3 8 Moreover, its cabinetmaking shops were turning out the mainland colonies' most fashionable furniture, directly based on London designs in the rococo style. Chapin may have been aware of this production, either in general terms or possibly through family connections to the mid-Atlantic region-two of his mother's brothers, David (b. 1698) and Samuel Pease (b. Iloo) reportedly had moved to New jersey.-? Chapin's subsequent furniture designs most closely resemble work attributed to the shop of Philadelphia cabinetmaker Thomas Tufft, but no documentation has been found linking him to this or any other identified shop (see cats. 57D, 65D). Given the circumstances, what is perhaps more remarkable than Chapin's departure for Philadelphia is his decision to return to East Windsor to establish himself as a craftsman. In April InI-the very month in which he completed his obligatory support payments to Hannah Bartlett-he was back in town, with enough capital in hand to purchase a one-half acre home lot and commence building upon it. 40 Although Chapin at some point improved this home lot with several buildings, orchards, and garden, there is no evidence that he acquired any additional land for farming; unlike most contemporary Connecticut valley artisans, his cabinetmaking shop constituted his full-time occupation. Two factors suggest a conscious effort to call attention to his enterprise. First, the property lay in the very center of East Windsor, along the densely populated main thoroughfare (commonly designated "The Street"), near the meetinghouse (see map 4),41 Second, his house was constructed of brick, not the wood frame and sheathing customarily employed in the Connecticut valley for all manner of buildings, from modest family dwellings to meetinghouses and ambitious mansions,

such as that erected by East Windsor merchant Ebenezer Grant in 1757-58 (see fig. I in Schoelwer, "Beyond Regionalism," below). In 1771 brick was still a novel con struction material in the region, with strong cosmopolitan associations. It had been introduced only a few years earlier in such notable structures as the meetinghouse erected in 1761-64 by the First Congregational Church of Wethersfield and the center-hall mansion built for wealthy Wethersfield merchant John Robbins in 1767; both of these were regarded as among the mo st expensive buildings of their type built in the C onnecticut valley prior to the Revolution (see figs. 2 & 4 in Schoelwer, "Beyond Regionalism," below). While Eliphalet Chapin's house was much more modest than the Robbins mansion, it was likely comparable in size and plan to the dwelling that Eliphalet's younger cousin Aaron Chapin built nearby in 1778: a substantial, two-story dwelling with center-hall plan, two chim neys, and hipped roof (fig. 3). The use of brick would undoubtedly have been attention-getting, the material equivalent of a newspaper notice announcing

FIG U R E 3 H ouse built for Aaron and Ma ry King Ch apin, ca. 1778, East W indsor (present- day South Windsor), photographed ca. 1900. Courtesy Wood M emorial Library, South W indsor.

the arrival of a craftsman "lately" from elsewhere, in this case, Philadelphia, where brick was in common use.P Although no surviving furniture has been linked to Chapin's shop from the early 1770S, a succession of even ts suggests that hi s bu siness prospered. In N ovember 1773, at age 31, he married Mary Darling

(ca. 1754-76), possibly from Bolton; contrary to common practice, he doe s not seem to have been using marriage as a means of building ties to other craftsmen in the community.O In December 1774 he was appointed tithingman, apparently his first town office. Somewhat ironically, in light of Chapin's past history and future events, this office was a lingering remnant of the seventeenth-century Puritan commitment to public control of private morality. A s tithingman, Chapin was responsible for combating "moral laxity," maintaining order at church services (by reprimanding the young and waking the elderly), and reporting to the county court infractions of tavern licen sing as well as unnecessary travel and other violations of the Sabbath.t! By late 1774 Eliphalet's shop was thriving sufficiently to require additional hands, prompting him to take on his second cousin Aaron as a journeyman; in October of that year he paid his neighbors, the Stoughtons, 16s.5d. for boarding Aaron. Biographer Davi s hypothesized a serendipitous basis for thi s arrangement, suggesting that up on leaving home to launch his own career, Aaron "may have gone first to his Uncle Joseph, and Eliphelet, happening that way with logs to mill, might have seen in the boy a likely assistant.t'< In fact, Aaron was hardly a boy; havin g turned 21 in April 1774, he would have entered Eliphalet Chapin's shop as a journeyman. H e had completed hi s apprenticeship, probably in the Springfield area, although th e master remains unidentified, and his move to E ast Windsor likely had been carefully planned through interlockin g networks of craftsmen and kin. Both Eliphalet and Aaron had grown up in close proximity to their grandfathers, brothers who both lived until 1772, and this in itself is likely to have been a sufficient connection for them to have known of each other. It is, however, a testimonial to Eliphalet's pro spects that Aaron was willing to venture his own future by associating him self closely with his second cousin, particularly con sidering Aaron's lineage in a more devout branch of the Chapin familyhis father was the fourth generation to serve as deacon of the local congregation, a position that Aaron him self held in Hartford in later life. The additional labor that Aaron provided may have been devoted at least in part to fulfilling the extraordinarily large order of thirty-one pieces of furniture that Eliphalet Chapin delivered to Ebenezer Grant, ju st over a year later in early December 1775, as part of Grant's portion to his dau ghter Ann (see Eliphalet

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Chapin shop, in catalog section). As the community's leading merchant, Grant traded extensively with the West Indies, Boston, and New York, importing luxury goods for resale as well as for his own household. That so important a patron chose to acquire a substantial portion of his daughter's wedding furniture from a local craftsman must have been a significant boon for Chapin's business. The bill for this furniture-£4I.I.3amounted to more than twice what Chapin had paid three years earlier for his half-acre home lot, and nearly half of the East Windsor minister's average annual salary of£82.46 It is perhaps unsurprising that the same month witnessed renewed controversy about Chapin's character and standing in the community. CHURCH

DISCIPLINE

On December 19, 1775, just two weeks after delivering the Grant-Marsh furniture order, Eliphalet Chapin received from East Windsor's minister, Rev. Joseph Perry, a formal "remonstrance" concerning his out-ofwedlock paternity nearly a decade earlier. The surviving documents pertaining to this church discipline case are numbered "5" and "9", indicating that originally they were part of a larger series.f? The document endorsed "The Controversie Stated & Agreed to by the Church in Chapin's Case-N. 9" recapitulates the course of events to that point; although it is undated, contextual evidence suggests that it was written in the autumn of 1776, after the birth of Eliphalet Chapin's daughter, Sophia, in August, and possibly after the death of her mother in September. The document begins by summarizing the earlier legal case: Several years ago, Hannah Blodgett, whose maiden name was Bartlett, the daughter of Capt. Bartlett, then a single woman, laid a child to Eliphalet Chapin, a young and single man ~ thefe lived 6tlt, who, though he talked with her and her father about settling the matter and, as they supposed, by marrying her, as appears by the state of the evidence, yet he refused to do so, and to avoid being prosecuted by her for maintenance of the child, his as every[?] supposed, he went away from this part of the country & lived several years at Philadelphia. She never the less took advantage of the law, attached his land, and prosecuted before court for maintenance & recovered judgment against him upon default in the time of his absence and in that trial as the statute of this state in such cases. She was admitted to oath &

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swore before the court that he was the father of the child. Turning to the church congregation's concerns, the report continued: Some years after Chapins returned from Philadelphia & set up his trade of a joyner in this town, married, had a child [and asked?] to be admitted to own the covenant & obtain the privilege of Baptism for his child and his desire was propounded to the Church. The charge & prosecution of Mrs. Blodgett was known & several members of the Church were grieved and thought that, as the sin of fornication is admitted by all to be a scandalous [one], he could not be admitted to Church privileges except he confessed his sin & guilt of committing fornication. The requirement that prospective members confess prior sins was standard practice in eighteenth-century Congregational churches. As a result, historians generally concur that church confessions for fornication increased as court prosecutions decreased. Between 1761 and 1775, for example, one-third of the 200 candidates for membership in the Groton, Massachusetts, church confessed to having engaged in premarital sex. As in Chapin's case, the desire for infant baptism (considered a necessary prerequisite to salvation) proved a powerful incentive to adult church membership. For those who could not demonstrate the conversion experience required for full membership, the Half-Way Covenant of 1662 extended the privilege of infant baptism to non members who could meet the less rigorous standard of upright character. Suspected transgressions, including illicit sexual activity, triggered a ritualized process of examination that included multiple levels of questioning ("in private," "before witnesses," and "in church meeting"). The goal of this process was both to solicit a confession and to satisfy minister and congregation of the subjects' full and sincere acknowledgment of sin as well as their complete repentance for their offenses.f Following this pattern, Chapin's "Controversie" proceeded through several levels of deliberation, being dealt with first "privately," that is, by the minister; subsequently by the East Windsor congregation; then by an "Ecclesiastical Council"-a gathering of ministers convened to provide advice; by written admonition from the local church; and finally, by further appeal to ecclesiastical council. Throughout these proceedings,

Chapin deviated from the norm by declining to confess; instead, he repeatedly "stood upon his defense and pled not guilty." His persistent refusal to admit culpability effectively recast the controversy, from an ecclesiastical question turning on the sincerity of repentance to a quasi-legal proceeding concerned with adjudicating guilt or innocence. Much of the case is accordingly described in legal, rather than ecclesiastical, terms: Hannah Bartlett (by then Mrs. Roswell Blodgett) was called as the principal "witness" for the "prosecution"; "objections" were raised as to her admissibility as a witness, because she was an interested party; and the congregation failed to agree on whether "the evidence was sufficient to convict [Chapin]." The later stages of the proceeding became increasingly convoluted and are difficult to decipher. Chapin's February 8, 1776, "Return to the Church's Admonition" addressed the minister in appropriately deferential language (which suggests it was written a lawyer) but nonetheless firmly reiterated his refusal to confess: "[1] take leave to assure you, as I expect to answer for my conduct in this affair before the omnipotent and heartsearching God at his great tribunal at the Last Day, I feel no obligation in my conscience to make the satisfaction mentioned in your admonition to me for the crime I am charged with in the complaint lying against me before the church." Asserting that the council of ministers had acquitted him and that the local church had voted to accept the council's findings, Chapin renewed his application for membership. Further debate ensued, as the church's report observed: "the majorjity] of the church are of the opinion he is guilty of scandal [but] there is a considerable number in the church that think the evidence is insufficient to convict him and [that] he has had a proper trial according to the institution of Christ and is acquitted and that it is injustice and cruelty to him and his child to refuse to grant the privileges to them." The onset of the Revolution complicated matters further, precipitating the absences of key church members. Stalemated, the church proposed to refer this "difficult" case, once again, to ecclesiastical council for advice. On that unsatisfactory note, information on the case ends. There is no record of Chapin's admission to the East Windsor church; however, the goal of providing for his children's baptisms was somehow achieved. In June 1778 Chapin married Anna White Read (ca. 1756-1834), widow of Revolutionary War casualty Abijah Read (d. 1777), a shoemaker in Canterbury, in eastern Con-

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necticut. Anna Chapin was accepted into the church in February 1779, at which time her daughter, Patty Read, was baptized. Baptisms of the couple's subsequent children followed as they arrived.t? Like so many local church conflicts, Chapin's case embroiled the East Windsor congregation in broader and more complicated issues of ecclesiastical polity and governance, not only the appropriate standards for membership but also the proper balance of authority between minister and congregation. Two parallel controversies had "seriously disturbed" the local congregation for extended periods in the 1720S and 1730S; in each case the catalyst was a questionable marriage, but the real issue was consistently clerical versus lay authority. As Stiles observed of the 1730S incident, the individual case "was but of secondary importance to the church [that is, the lay membership]. For thirty-two years they had firmly maintained the inalienable rights of a Congregational church to govern themselves, and during all that period they had resisted the attempted encroachments of their respected pastor [Timothy Edwards], with a mingled judgment and forbearance .. . . Councils had but added to the difficulties of the case." Such struggles were endemic to Connecticut churches: the rejection of any sort of hierarchical authority, be it the episcopal structure of the Anglican church or even the synod organization of the Presbyterians, left individual congregations without effective means for resolving internal conflicts. The East Windsor church was especially strong in its adherence to pure Congregationalism, having explicitly rejected the 1708 Saybrook Platform, which granted regional associations of ministers the authority to mediate local disputes. In this context, calling an Ecclesiastical Council to advise on a disputed case like Chapin's was virtually certain to have the opposite effect of inciting further dissension, interpreted by some members as an unwarranted infringement by the clergy on the congregation's autonomy. Convoluted and arcane as these ecclesiastical issues may seem today, they were arguably of far more intense interest to contemporaries than one craftsman's individual transgressions.v' Whatever the obstacles, the subsequent course of Chapin's career demonstrates that he did succeed, not only winning acceptance from a significant portion of the community, but also substantially reorienting the tastes of the surrounding region. As discussed in Chapter 3 of the catalog section, histories of surviving furniture suggest that Eliphalet Chapin's customers included

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FI G U R E 4 Tavern sign, 1771-87, probably 1777, attributed to Eliphalet Ch apin shop. Ori ginally owned by Aaron Bissell, Sr. (1722-87), and his wife D orothy Stought on (1732-1808), both of East Windsor. The scroll pedim ent, small cubical plinths, molding profiles, and columns of this tavern sign bear strong similarities to elements on high chests and clock cases from the Eliphalet Ch apin shop. The name "A. Bissell" is covered over by that of a subsequent innkeeper, John Alderman; the dates 1760 and 1797 correspond to the years in which Bissell and later his son, Aaro n, Jr. (1761-1834), took up innkeeping. H anging hardware is original; finials and drop pendants are replaced. Connecticut H istorical Society Mu seum, 1961.63.7, collectio n of M organ B. Brainard, gift of Mrs . M organ B. Brainard.

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man y of East Windsor's leading familie s: Grant, King, Wolcott, Olcott, Stoughton, Strong, Ell sworth, Newberry, Birge, Loomis, Watson. If he was like mos t woodworkers of th e peri od , his business undoubtedly included a great deal of repair work and ut ilitarian goods in addition to high-style case pieces and uph olstered chairsY Several distinctive features point to Chapin's shop as th e origin of two tavern signs produced about 1777 for David and Aaron Bissell, Sr., cousins who operated sepa rate inns near th e East Windsor ferry landing (fig. 4). The overall design of each is generally more sophisticated than most contemporary tavern signs, and the pediment pr ofile echoes those found on Chapin shop high chests; th e joinery and moldings are also finer and more complex than that usually found on signs, consistent with wh at one might expect from a cabinetmaker rather th an an all purpose carpenterY In 1776 Eliphalet again won app ointment as tithingman, and in 1778 he signed th e Oath of Fidelity to Connecticut. There is no evidence that th e Revolution directly affected his enterprise, other than th e fact that C onnecticut's role in pr ovisioning th e C ontinent al army likely provided much of the wealth th at paid for furniture from hi s sho p in th e following decade. Eliphalet's business evidently flouri shed through th e 1780s, despite cousin Aaron's 1783 departure to establish a separate shop in Hartford. Family histories and other evidence date a majority of surviving case pieces to th is decade, and at least eight craft smen can be linked to Eliphalet's shop, as either apprentices or journeymen (see Table 3, in catalog section). Between 1786 and 1790, at least three different workmen were empl oyed in th e shop, signing their name s or initials on the monumental and very fashionably English secretary bookcase th at was produced for the expen sive new mansion erected by wealthy East Windsor merchant and gentlemanfarmer, John Watson (cat. 67). In 1790 Chapin's household numbered a total of nin e people-Chapin and his wife Anna; their three livin g children, son Wigh t (1779-18°3) and daughters N ancy (1781- 1822) and Betsey (b. 1788); Anna's daughter Patty Read (ca. 1775- 1847) and Eliphalet's daughter Sophia (1776- 1853); plus two shop hands.» In the early 1790S Eliphalet Chapin refashioned his business to better suit the need s and wants of his clientele. Just as he had earlier adapted Philadelphia styling to suit Connecticut valley tastes, so he now appears to have been among the first to begin moving away from

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a traditional, family based, artisan shop to a more modern showroom-warehouse, offering a wider variety of products and services at the same location. In 1790 he let space to Ebenezer Williams (1767-1844), who advertised that he "carries on the Windsor Chair-making [business] at the shop of Mr. Eliphalet Chapin in East Windsor."54 In 1795 Chapin advertised a variety of case and seating furniture forms, in stock and on display, as well as "a quantity of second hand Cabinet work." Other Connecticut valley cabinetmakers were making similar efforts to modernize their business practices. In Northampton, for example, Oliver Pomeroy in 1795 was also advertising ready-made furniture and hiring windsor chairmakers and other specialists to complement his own shop production.ii Chapin also contemplated a more drastic change, advertising to sell his property, consisting of"A BRICK Dwelling House, Cabinet-makers Shop, Barn, Woodhouse, Chaise-house, and half an acre of land with a good well of water, garden, fruit-trees, &c. beautifully and pleasantly situated in East-Windsor, 80 rods South of the Meeting house in first society." The same ad explained that "Said Chapin continues the Cabinet business at present in all its branches-but ... he proposes to remove into New-York State the beginning of next Summer.o'' Perhaps for Chapin, like many Connecticut residents of the era, emigration simply promised opportunity. It is possible that by this time Chapin's business was waning, even as his former workmen continued to turn out Chapin school furniture, and other craftsmen throughout the region elaborated their own furniture by adapting a plethora of Chapinesque style features . On the East Windsor tax list Chapin was assessed at the rate of $17, the lower of two rates levied on mechanics;]onathan Birge, the only other East Windsor woodworker listed as a cabinetmaker, was levied at the higher rate of $33, while storekeepers and merchants paid $67 to $IOO. Chapin advertised his property for sale again in 1797, and in March 1798 finally sold it for £165, a substantial profit of about twelve times his initial investment, after adjustment for currency fluctuations. His absence from the tax list compiled the following October suggests that he either had moved to New York or had retired from active cabinetmaking.5 7 By 1800, Eliphalet Chapin was 58 years old, living in East Hartford in a household that had shrunk to immediate family-his wife Anna, son Wight, and daughters Sophia and Betsy. In 1793 Anna's daughter Patty Read

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had married East Hartford innkeeper Stephen Cowles (1765-1848), whose mother Martha evidently lived adjacent to the Chapins. Daughter Nancy Chapin had married Wareham Strong (1778-1818, occupation unknown) of East Windsor.i" In 1803 Wight perished from unknown causes at Kingston, on the island of St. Vincent in the West Indies. Eliphalet Chapin followed in 1807, his passing noted by a few words in the Connecticut Courant: "DIED ... At East-Windsor, ... Mr. Eliphalet Chapin, aged 65 years."59 In 1814 Betsy married George Rockwell (1786-1846, occupation also unknown) of East Windsor; according to one contemporary account, Eliphalet's widow Anna was living with the Rockwells at the time of her own death, at age 79, in May 1834.60 By then, Nancy and Wareham Strong had also died, and Patty and Stephen Cowles had moved to Vermont, survived an Indian attack, and returned to Manchester, having lost their lands in Vermont. Sophia Chapin remained unmarried; she was listed as a pauper in the census of 1850, three years prior to her death at age 57. 61 Unlike other Connecticut valley woodworkers, Eliphalet Chapin did not follow traditional patterns of solidifying craft dynasties through strategic marriage alliances, either his own or his children's. So far as can be determined, neither of his spouses possessed any significant family connections to woodworking artisans; moreover, it seems likely that Anna brought few tangible assets to her marriage, having had less than £26 set out to her for "necessaries" from her first husband's insolvent estate/" As none of Eliphalet Chapin's children married woodworkers, his craft and family lineages diverged. Reconsideration of Eliphalet Chapin from the perspective of surviving legal papers affords new insights on the cabinetmaker's background, circumstances, and position in the community. As a second son of a prospering farmer in an established town whose common lands were exhausted, his inheritance was insufficient to allow him to earn a living exclusively, or even primarily, from farming. As a member of an old and prolific Puritan clan, however, he had numerous connections to Connecticut River Valley artisans who could have provided him with training and entree into their trades. It is entirely possible that his fateful liaison with Hannah Bartlett may have transpired as a result of professional contacts with her father, and that the subsequent proceedings against Chapin-both secular and ecclesiastical-may have been triggered as much by breach of promise as by shame and scandal. How Chapin

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arranged his sojourn in Philadelphia, and exactly what he did there, remain as much a mystery as ever. Barring some serendipitous documentary discovery, thi s part of th e story is likely to remain enigmatic. The foregoing discussion by no means exh austs the possibilities for teasing out furth er in sights on Eliphalet Chapin's life and career. Private financial papers represent another significant body of evidence th at invites syste ma tic recon sid eration. Eliphalet Chapin appears in th e account or daybooks of several con te mporary artisans and traders: blacksmiths W illiam and Russell Stoughton , merchants Eb enezer and Roswell Grant, and clockmaker Daniel Burnap, all of East Windsor; H artford shopkeeper Isaac Bull; and Joseph Pease, Jr. (1728-94), of Suffield, wh o was a merchant, sawmill owner, and shipbuilder as well as th e son of Enfield joiner Joseph Pease, Sr., and thu s, another second cousin to Eliphalet.63 Most of th ese referenc es have been noted by previous researchers, but rarely to any purpose beyond substantiating Eliphalet Chapin's existence and occupation. Emily D avis, for example, obse rved th at Chapin "time and aga in" hired th e St oughton s' horse for both local destination s-the store at East Windsor Hill, th e ferry, mills in Ketch Mill and Hockanum, unspecified points in Wapping and Scantic parishes-as well as more distant localessouthwest to H artford , southeast to Bolton, and northwest to th e Newgate section of Sim sbury. Davis also reported th at th e Stoughton s not only sold Chapin hardware and tools but also numerous food products; in May 1779, th ey charged him for hauling "mahogany logs" from river to mill, a reference that confounds conventional modern wisdom th at the exclusive use of cherry as a prim ary wood is a distinguishin g ind ex featur e of Chapin shop furniture .P- C on solidation and syste matic analysis of these and other transactions promi se to shed further light on Chapin's workshop and the practice of cabinetmaking in late eighteenthcentury C onne cticut.

1. Lyon, Colonial Furniture, p. 72; Lockwood quoted in [Keyes], "A ntiques' Stands Co rrected," p. 232 . T he autho rs th ank Thomas and Alice Kugelman, Kevin Sweeney, Robert Trent, and Jennifer DiCola Matos for their readings and very useful suggestions in preparation of this essay. 2. Bobryk, "Primary Source Report." Information on town form ation, boundaries, and subdivisions drawn from Arthur H. Hu ghe s and M orse S. Allen, Connecticut Place Names (Hartford: Con necticut Hi storical Society, 1976). 3. Unless otherwise indicated, spelling and punctuation have been regularized for ease of reading in subsequent quotati ons from primary documents. 4· Lane & White, Woodw orkers of Windsor, pp. 5-8. 5. Or ange Chapin, I862 Genealogy, pp. 1-3, 242-45; Gilbert Chapin, I924 Genealogy, r.xii-xiii, 2-3, II, 24,41; Inn es, Lab or in a N ew Land, pp. xix, 46, 62-63; Zea, "Fru its of Ol igarchy," p. 38. 6. Gil bert C hapin, I924 Genealogy, I:II, 41; Orange Ch apin, I862 Genealogy, pp. 9, 245; Allen, H istory ofE njield, 1:16, 252, 274, 339, 346, 351,356,363,384,394,403,701, 722, 732, 746,783, 793- 94, 829, 854-55, 881; Aa ron L. C hapin, "Rem iniscences," p. 166. 7· Pease & Pease, Descendants, pp. 2-8, 395-99; Allen, H istory of Enfield, 1:4II-13; O range C hapin, I862 Genealogy, p. 19; Gilbe rt Chapin, I924 Genealogy, 1:41; D avis, "E liphelet Chapin," p. 172; Bobryk, "Primary Source Report," p. 8. 8. H artford Probate D istrict, Town of Enfield, file II62, CSL (microfilm), includes inventory, taken April 23, 1751, and distribution, April 17, 1756. Numero us works provide information on the use of probate document s as historical evidence, see especially Benes, Probate I nv entories. 9. Conn ecticut currency traded at a rate of around £1,roO Connecticut to £roo British sterling in the early 1750S. Adjustments to Briti sh pou nds sterling in th e 1750S and dollars in 2000 are based on data provided in Joh n J. McCusker, M oney and E x change in Europe and America, I600-I775 (Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press for the In stitut e of Early American H istory and Culture, 1978), pp. 131-37, 15r55 (table 3.4); M cCusker, H ow M uch Is That in R eal M oney? pp. 31r15; and U.S. D epartment of Labor, Bureau of Labor Sta tistics, Consumer Price I ndex, Inflation Calculator, http://www.bls.gov/cpi/ home. htm. Massachu setts devalued its inflated currency and reverted to a silver standard as of M arch 30, 1750; Co nnecticut did not follow suit until November I, 1756, making Connecticut prices for the intervening period notoriously unstable. ro. T his listing is certai nly incomple te-the only clothing listed, for example, is obviously th at of the deceden t; the amounts and values of clothing worn by his widow and thei r six children are not included. II. M ain, "Dis tribution of Property," pp. 56-59,66,74,101-2; for an overview of colonial Conn ecticut farmer's estates, see M ain, Connecticut Society, pp. 22-31; for a more detailed economic analysis, see M ain, Society and Economy, esp. pp. lI5-73, 200-240. 12. Main, Connecticut Society , p. 28,argues tha t by the mid-r xth century, Connecticut farmers "owning more than three [horses] probably produced them for sale." 13. Sweeney, "Furniture and th e D omestic E nvironment," p. 21.

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14. It is possible that some of the other lumber listed in the inventory may have been intended for use in th e new house, bu t the quantities seem excessive, and timb er is includ ed in th e en try for the new house. 15. G ilbert C hapin, I924 Genealogy, 1:41; Pease & Pease, D escendants, P: 20. The date of Elizabeth and Eze kiel's marriage has not been located; however, Ezekiel's first wife, H annah C handler, died in Ma y 1756, at age 45, leaving at least nine children ranging in age from 23 to unde r 2; George C han dler, The Chandler Family: The Descendants ofWilliam andAnnis Chandler . . . (Worcester : C harles H amilton, 1883), pp. 84-85. It is likely that her widower remarried soon afterward. 16.The eldest daughter, Eliza beth or Sop hia El izabeth, had mar ried Abel Allen (1733-1808) of W indsor in January 1756; th ey subsequently moved to Surry, N .H . The second daughter, Ruth , married Henry Chandler Pease (1739-1812) in March 1760. H e was the son of Eliza be th Pease C ha pin's seco nd hu sband , Ezekiel Pease; Ruth and H enry Pease removed from Enfield to Sandi sfield, Ma ss., ca. 1763-64. The th ird daughter, Tabitha, mar ried H ezekiah Rice of Claremont, N .H , in D ecember 1790. See G ilbert C hap in , I924 Genealogy, 1:41,158-59; Pease & Pease, D escendants, pp. 46-47. On colonial Connecticut inheritance strategies, see l'vlain, Connecticut Society, pp. 23, 74n; Toby L. D itz, Property and K inship: Inh eritan ce in Early Connecticut, I7so-I820 (Princeto n: Princeton University Press, 1986). 17. Main, "Dis trib utio n of Prope rty," p. 58;All en , H istory 1:17·

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18. Hartford Probate D istrict, Town of Enfield, August 5,1755, 17p. Although Pelatiah's occupation has not been verified, he is known to have had least one apprentice, O liver Pease (1754-76) , the son of Pelatiah Pease's and Elizabe th Pease C hapin 's first cousin (and her second husband), Eze kiel Pease; th e latt ers' marriage made th eir children step-siblings as well as second cousins; th e Oliver Pease apprenticeship is noted in Pease & Pease, D escendants, pp. 20, 338. 19. The apprenticeship of John Pease, J r., to th e Symo nds shop is documented in the will of shop master John Symonds (1595?-1671); cited in Pease & Pease, D escendants, p. 5; see also Trent, "Symonds Shop s," pp. 23-41; and Z ea, "Fru its of Oligarchy," p. 50. Mary Pease married T homas Abbe of E nfield; see Randall, American Furniture, no. 16; on Pease family woo dwo rkers, see Tr ent , "Co nnec ticut River Valley W oodworking D ynasties," elsewhere in this volume, esp. chart I. 20. Davis, "Eliphelet Chapin," pp. 172-73; Gilbert C hapin, I924 Genealogy, 1:50. On the pipe tongs, see Great R iv er, no. 219. For Chapin family lands in Enfi eld and Some rs, see Allen, H istory of Enfield, 1:252, 274, 701 , 722, 732, 746, 778-79 , 783, 793-94, 829, 838, 854-55, 881. 21. Lane & White, Woodw orkers ofWinds or, p. 722. Stile s, Windsor, 2:62. 23 . Stiles, Windsor, 1:6II-12, 2:62.

ofBolton

to I8S4 and Vernon to I8S2 (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1909), pp . 28-29 , 32. M ehitable White was the younger sister of joiner D aniel White, J r. (16711726), of H atfield, Massachusetts, and W ind sor; his secon d wife, Ann Bissell (1675- 1709) was th e sister of Mehitable's husband Jeremiah Bissell. For the complex kinship ties linking th e Bissells to other Windsor woodworkers, see Lane & White, Woodworkers of W indsor, pp. 67-68 . 24. Vital R ecords

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25. Z ea, "Fru its of Oligarchy," p. 36. 26. Bartlett served on committees to employ men to get timber for th e meetingh ouse (1753), to finish the lower part of th e meetinghouse (1759), and to complete the meetin gh ouse (1769); Stiles, W indsor, 1:594, 597, 604. H is inventory does not list woodworking tools; however, at age 83, he would likely have passed th em on well before his dea th; Jo natha n Bartlett probate file, 1799,East W indsor Probate Di strict, 2:156. 27. H artford Probate D istrict, Town of E nfield, Ma rch 25, 1779, 2p5. References to th e probate appeared in two early local histories: Stil es, Windsor, 2:147; Allen, History ofEnfie ld, 3:2241. These two secondary works were in turn cited by E mily D avis as her source for informa tion on Chapin's patern ity suit; th ere is no indication in her text that she cons ulte d any pr imary doc umen ts direc tly; Davis, "Eliphelet Chapin," p. 173. The church papers have been preserved in a private collectio n and have been referenced, generally rather vaguely, in C hapin furni ture literature since the 1960s. 28. H ann ah Bartlett v . E liphalet Chapin, H artford Coun ty Court , complaint January 17,1767,case con tinue d Novem ber 5,1767, CSL, RG 003, box 186.

29. Expenses cha rged to Chapin tot aled £3.IO.2, including costs for drafting and serving docu ments; travel and "forage" (ferrying across the river?) for serving papers and taking evidence from two witnesses, and attendance at court; two attorney's fees; and "one half expense lying in." 30. W rit of execution against Elip halet Chapin, H artford, March 25, 1768, recorded in Enfield Land Records, 3:423-25, 443, 497-98, Tow n H all, Enfield. 31. For other examples of relatives acting as proxy for absent males involved in paterni ty disputes, see G odb eer, Sexual R ev olut ion, pp. 257-60; and D ayton, Women beforethe Bar, pp. 227-28. 32. A recent essay poin ted archly to C hapin as an anti dote to anti ques market doldrums, lamenting "wha t a shame that we can't sex it all up a bit"; D avid Vazdauskas, "T he Art of Marketing: Why Americana Matters , Now," Maine Antique D igest 31, no. II (November 2003), 9E . 33. G odb eer, Sexual R ev olut ion, p. 228; D ayton, Women before the Bar, pp. 162, 208-9 . For furth er exploration of th e topic, see D aniel Scott Smi th and Michael S. Hi ndu s, "P remarital Preg nancy in America, 1640-1971: An O verview and Interpretation," Journal of Interdisciplinary H istory 5, no. 4 (Spring 1975): 53r70; Robert V. W ell, "Illegi timacy and Bridal Pregnancy in C olon ial America," and D aniel Scott Smith, "T he Long Cycle in A merican Illegitimacy and Premarit al Pregn ancy," all in Peter Laslett , Karla O osterveen, and Richard M . Smith, eds., Bastardy and Its Comparative H istory: Studies in the H istory ofIllegit imacy and Marital N onconf ormism in Britain , Fran ce, Germany, Sw eden, N orth America, Jamaica, and Japan (Cambridge: H arvard University Press, 1980), pp. 353-54,371- 7334. G odb eer, Sexual R ev olut ion, pp. 229, 238; also D ayton, Women before the Bar, pp . 162, 189-9 0; also D avid Fl aherty, "Law and E nforce ment of M orals," in C harles O . Jackson, ed., The Other Americans: Sexual Variance in the National Past (Wes tport , Conn.: Praeger Pub lishers, 1996), pp. 14-15. 35. Stiles, Windsor (1859 edn.), p. 495; Stiles, Bundling: Its Origin, Progress, and D ecline in America (Albany: Joel Munsell, 1869), pp. 5-6, 66, 74- 76, I07- D espit e its age, Stiles's book remains "the

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most detailed study of the subject," accordin g to G odbeer, Sexu al R ev oluti on, pp. 394 n42, 245- 55; D ayton, Women before the Bar, p. 222. 36. Dayton, Women before the Bar, pp. 159-88 , 2°3-23; see also G od beer, Sexual R ev olut ion, pp. 255-63. 37- Stiles, Windsor, 2:62. H ann ah Bartl ett 's daughter was referred to as "Elis [Alice] C hapin" in the H artford C oun ty Probate Court record for M arch 23, 1779;on the use of patern al surnames for out of-wedlock children, see D ayton, Women before the Bar, p. 222. Alice subsequently married a Loomis, bore at least one child, and died prior to 1813, when that child, Ruth Loomis, was listed as an heir in her grandmo ther H annah Bartlett Blodgett Belknap's will; see Jonath an Bartlett probate file, 1799, and H ann ah Belknap probate file, 1813, both East Windsor Probate District, 2:156, 3:213. 38. Go dbeer, Sex ual R ev olution, p. 300. 39. Pease & Pease, D escendants, pp. 37-39 . 40. Chapin paid John Loomis £16 lawful money for his half-acre home lot; East W indsor Land Record s, 1:68, Town H all, E ast Windsor. Debits charged to Ch apin's accoun ts by East Windsor blacksmith s W illiam and Russell Stou ghton indi cate that construction began soon after th e purch ase and was completed by the end of 1771; Stoughton account book is now unlocated; entries cited by Davis, "Eliphelet Ch apin ," p. 173. Where Ch apin acquired the capital for land and buildin g remains unkn own. In O ctober 1771, he sold Ebenezer G rant 31 pound s of tobacco, possibly his share of produce from the family lands in En field. According to Davis, "Eliphelet Ch apin," pp. 172-74, Grant also recorded transactions with Ch apin in O ctober and November 1769, suggesting that the craftsman may have been back in town some time before his land purchase. These 1769 references have not been located among the seven volumes of accounts and other manuscript materi als donated to the Wood M emorial Libr ary in South Windsor in 2003 by a G rant family descend ant ; gaps between the se volumes indicate that there were once additional volumes, to which D avis presumably had access. 41. A quarter century later, Ch apin called attention to the location, "80 rods South of the M eetin g house" in an advertisement offering to sell his hom e lot; Connecticut Courant, September 28, 1795 (repeated O ctober 5, 1795). As a general rule, proximi ty to th e meetinghouse corresponded to higher property values; see D aniels, Connecticut Town, p. 97. 42. Ch apin specified a "BRICK Dwelling-House and C abin etMak er's Shop" in his sales notice s for the property; Conn ecticut Courant, September 28, O ctober 5, 12, 1795; August 14, 21, 1797Entries in the Stoughton account books menti on brick as a construction material; cited in Davis, "Eliphelet Chapin," p. 173. Information on the Aaron Ch apin house provided by Joshua Lane, Hi storic Deerfield, to the author, M arch 4, 2004. On the Wethersfield structures, see Kelly, Mee tinghouses, 2:286-95; Anne C rofoot Kuckro, Capt. J ames Francis Master Bu ilder: Brick A rchitectu re in Weth ersfield before I840 (Wethersfield: Wethersfield Hi stor ical Society, 1974), pp. 5-9 ; and Great R iv er, pp. 84-85, 100- 101. 43. East Windsor Church Records, cited in Frederic W . Bailey, ed., Early Connecticut Marriages as Found in Ancient Church R ecords Prior to I8oo, with additions, etc. by D onald Lines Jacobus, reprint

ed., 7 vols. in I (Baltimore: G enealogical Publishing Company,1968), I:n5. Accordin g to M ary Darling Chapin's tomb stone in O ld East Windsor Cem etery, she died September 9, 1776, in her zj rd year, indicating a ca. 1753-54 birth date; for record of the tomb stone

eRA F T SMA N 's

L I F E

(now lost), see Lu cius Manlius Boltwood , "Na mes of Persons in who se Memory M onuments were Standing in the An cient Burying Ground in East Windsor in Connecticut . .. 1846," East W ind sor Town M ss., G ene alogy Collection, CHS Museum Library. The dat es suggest she may have been the M ary D arling born April 23, 1754 to John and Mary D arling of Bolton ; Barbour Index to C onnecti cut Vital Records, CSL (micro film, C HS M useum Library). 44. Daniels, Conn ecti cut Tow n, p. 88; Co ok, Fathers ofthe Tow ns, p. 25; Stiles, W indsor, 1: 101 - 2 . 45. D avis, "Eliphelet Ch apin ," pp. 172-74. 46. Stiles, W indsor, 1:724, 767-69; Grant papers, Wood Memorial Libr ary, South Windsor. 47. The two surviving church documents are privately owned in South Windsor and are quoted by permi ssion of the owner. The summary presented here is based on an unpublished transcription originally made by Robert Tr ent (unda ted, ca. 1985-86; C HS Museum research files) and revised by Susan Schoelwer, using digital ph otographs of the originals (pho tography by D avid Stansbury, November 2002; CHS Museum research files). Perry's letter to Chapin does not survive, but it is explicitly cited in Ch apin's reply, dated February 8, 1775, and endorsed "C hapin's Return to the Church's Admonition-N . 5". Houghton Bulkeley noted the existence of a third docum ent (prese nt wh ereabouts unkn own ), which he described as "records of the Ecclesiastical C ouncil"; see Eliphalet Chapin file, Bulkeley Papers. 48. Di scussion of church discipline practices with regard to sexual offenses drawn primarily from G odb eer, Sexual R ev olut ion, pp. 230-36; also Dayton, Women B efore th e Ba r, pp. 162-63, 190- 92. For a useful discussion on the H alf-Way C ovenant , see Bushm an, Pu rita n to Yan kee, pp. 147-51. 49. Stiles, W indsor, 2:633; Ab ijah Read's probate file, 1777, P lainfield Prob ate Di strict, Town of C anterbury, no. 1700, C SL (microform); East Windsor Church records, cited in Elipahlet Ch apin file, Bulkeley Papers. Stiles mistakenly gives Patty Read's name as Nancy. 50. The two earlier controversies aro se from the "scand alous offence" of marr iages contracted with out parental consent (in 1725, between woodworker John M oore.jr., and Abigail Stoughto n, and ca. 1738, betwe en Joseph Diggin s and Elizabeth[?] Stoughton); Stiles provides an account of th e two cases, as well as a summary of und erlying issues of Congregationalist church polity; W indsor (1892), 1:565-74. Notably, the Diggins controversy prompted East W ind sor parishioner Roger Wolcott (1679-1767), later governo r, to author a lengthy treatise opposing th e enlargeme nt of clerical auth ority under the Saybrook Platform ; "A Narrative of th e Troubles in the Second Church in Windsor .. . with the Reasons why the Brethren of th e Church . .. Refuse to Subm it to the order of Di scipline Agreed upon at Saybrook 1708 . . ." Wolcott Papers, CHS Museum Library; see Bushm an, From Puritan to Yankee, PP·147- 63· 51. For a recent study of such products, see Nanc y G oyne Evans, "Everyday Things: From Rolling Pin s to Trundle Bedsteads," in Luke Beckerdite, ed., A merican Furn iture 200J (Da rtmouth, .H .: University Press of New En gland for th e Chipstone Fou ndation, 2003), pp. 27-94. 52. Schoelwer, Lions & Eagles & Bulls, pp. 65, 119, 192-93. David Bissell's sign, dated 1777, is in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 1933-381.This sign was overpainted for

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subsequent owners in 18or, by Ea st Windsor engraver Abner Reed (1771-1866), a cousin by marriage of Eliphalet Chapin; it has lost its side plinths and finials. The two signs are virtu ally identical in design and construction, differing only in their apron profiles and overall size (the A aron Bissell sign bein g appro ximately % larger). 53. An earlier daughter named Betsy (178r87) died before her 4th birthday. The second Betsy's nam e is given variously as Betsey, Elizabeth, Betty, and Eliza. 54. Connecticut Couran t, M ay 3, 1790; [Br ainard, Harlow, and Bulkeley], "Co nnecticut Ca binetmakers.l'pt. 2, p. 32; Nancy Goyne Evans, America n W indsor Chairs (N ew York: Hudson Hills Press & Wi nterthur Museum , 1996), pp. 440, 716. The interpretation that Chapin took W illiams on as a "part ner" is unconvin cing (Lionetti & T rent, "C hapin C hairs," p. ro88); given Williams's age (only 2 years out of an apprentices hip in 1790), prob able lack of capital, and th e explici t word ing of th e ad, it seems more likely that W illiams simply took space in Chapin's premises. Between 1791 and 1798, both Chapin and Williams appear as trading partners of H art ford sho pkeeper Isaac Bull, as debtors for paint s, linseed oil, medicines, rum , and other supplies, and as creditors for gauging rods (C hap in) and chairs (W illiams); in M ay 1792 Bull recorded Williams's purc hase of tu rpentine, delivered to Eliphalet Chapin; transactions from th e Isaac Bull account book (C SL) , cited in Elipha let C hapin file, Bulkeley Papers. 55. Connecticut Courant , September 28, 1795; [Brainard, H arlow, and Bulkeley], "Co nnect icut Ca binetmakers," pt. 2, p. 32; Z ea, "Furnitu re," Great R iv er, pp. 189-9°. 56. Connecticut Courant, September 28, 1795; [Brainard, H arlow, and Bulkeley], "Connecticut Ca binetmakers, pt . 2, p. 32.

was recorded in th e diary of East Windsor shoemaker Asa Bowe; th at diary is now unlocated. The 1847 invent ory that Davis cites is actually th at of Ge orge and Betsy Chapin Rockwell's unm arried son, Ge orge H. Rockwell (ca. 1817-47); Stiles, Windsor, 2:655. The large number and arrangement of bed s in that inventory suggests th at th e younger Rockwell may have been keeping an inn at the time of his death . 61.Federal census of 1850, South W ind sor, C onn ecticut; Records of Burial s and Bapti sms, East W indsor, Connecticut, 1708-1869, ms. trans. by D avid William Patterson, 1870; East Windsor Town M ss., Genealogy Collection, CHS Museum Libr ary. 62. Abijah Read' s probate file, 1777, Plainfield Prob ate Di strict, Town of C anterbury, no. 1700, CSL (microform). 63 For citations from the Stoughton, Grant, and Burn ap records, see D avis, "Eliphele t Chap in ," pp. 172-75; [Keyes], "Elip halet Assert s H imself," pp. 150-51. The Stou gh ton account books are presently unl ocated . Several of th e Grant account books were recently bequeathed to the W ood Memorial Libr ary, South Windsor, Connecticut (altho ugh at least one that Davis evidently saw in 1939 is not part of th e group). The Burnap account books are in the CHS Museum Library, tr anscribed in H oopes, D aniel Burnap, pp. 7r74, 78- 80. Isaac Bull account book, C SL ; transactions with Chapin and Eb enezer Williams cited in Eliphalet C hapin file, Bulkel ey Papers; [Brainard, H arlow, and Bulkeley], "Co nnecticut Cabinetmakers," pt. I , pp. lI 2-13. The Pease account book is at th e Kent Memorial Library, Suffield, with excerpts in Bissell, Furniture in Suffield, pp. 45-47 , lI6. 64· D avis, "Eliphelet Chapin," p. 174.

57· East W ind sor tax lists, 1797, 1798, Connect icut A ssessors, W arren C ollection. Chapin's lot, with "all the Buildings there on Standing" was purchased by Jo seph Phelps and Arnold Allen of Eas t W indsor; East Windsor Land Record s, 8:154, Town H all, East W indsor. Profi t calculation based on M cCu sker, H ow Much Is That in R eal Money ? pp. 313-15,323-33. 58. Cowles was listed as tavern keeper on th e 1797 and 1798 East H art ford tax lists; Connecticut Assessors , W arren C ollection. H e was th e son of M artha Sm ith (1739-1814) and weaver Abijah Co wles (1734-82) of Eas t Hartford. Numerous researchers have erred in confusing Cha pin's stepdaug hte r, Patty Read Cowles, with his daugh ter, Nancy C ha pin Stro ng. The erro r apparently originated wi th Stiles, Windsor, 2:633. On Patty Read C owles, see Calvin Duvall C owles, Genealogy ofthe Cowles Fami lies in America, 2 vols. (New H aven: Tuttle M orehou se & Taylor, 1929), 1:222; for her tombston e inscripti on, Northwest C emetery, M anche ster, see C onn ecticut Cemetery In scriptions, Charles R. Hale C ollection, C SL (m icrofilm, C H S Museum Library). Nancy Chapin Strong is buried between her parents, Eliphalet and Anna Chapin, and her husband and two you ng children, in th e Center C emetery in South Windsor; the tom bstone gives her birthdate as Jul y 12, 1781, too late for her to have been Chapin's stepdaughter; see also Stil es, Windsor, 2:74759.Wight's death is recorded in Christin a Bailey,comp o"E ast Hartford Vital Record s," in vol. ro of Th e Barbour Collection ofConnecticut Town Vital R ecords (Baltimo re: G enealogical Publishin g Company, 1997), p. 20, and on his father's tomb stone in th e C enter Cemetery, South W indsor; Connecticut Courant, Janu ary 21, 180760. According to D avis, "E liphelet Chapin ," p. 174, Anna White Chapin's dea th at th e home of her daughter Eli zabeth Rockwell

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Method in Early American Furniture Identification

Philip D. Z immerman

One of the rewarding challenges of furniture history is to relate how objects testify to human endeavor. Some authors attempt to simplify this effort by "letting objects speak," as if objects had some innate desire or need to express themselves, for William Macpherson Hornor wrote that "furniture speaks no dialect," and Charles F. Montgomery spoke of objects that sang.' In the face of such statements from vaunted authorities of American furniture history, it seems a sacrilege to state the obvious: furniture is inanimate and nonverbal. Indeed, because objects are made and used by people, they embody certain qualities and characteristics specifically tied to human experience . But any eloquence objects may express lies within the capabilities of the student or investigator, who must provide all of the words and ideas. Investigators find and express these voices by numerous methods, which range from simple and direct (reading a printed label affixed to an object for identifying information) to complex comparisons and data manipulation that is heavily dependent upon analogy or some other technique to convert abstract historical evidence into concept and narrative. The need to employ some kind of method to generate useful observations is so obvious and pervasive that methods themselves are often ignored and seldom explained or evaluated. Nonetheless, these underlying structures typically contain assumptions and biases that can materially affect the outcome of an investigation or interpretation. Furniture history combines the work of many individual practicioners, each of whom builds on earlier efforts . Attention to methods helps integrate the many different voices that share common assumptions and techniques on the one hand and helps filter out those furniture studies that manipulate data in incompatible or erroneous ways on the other. Early American furniture has both makers and users, which raises the issue of why identification of makers is generally preferred to that of users. Indeed, many circumstances have and continue to assert the preeminence of users. Since its founding in 1853, for instance, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association has sought the

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"relics" of G eorge Washington as a way "to perpetuate [his] sacred memory." Makers are clearly secondary to the fact of Wa shington ownership or use. Numerous historic hou se collections of more local personalities follow thi s pattern. Emphasis on ownership rather than maker also typifies early furniture historiography. In 1891 Hartford physician and pioneer furniture historian Irving W. Lyon noted that his "somewhat systematic study of this old furniture" encompassed examination of the object, its history, and related evidence from historical records. He mentioned makers, including Eliphalet and Aaron Chapin, only in passing, stressing terminology, date s, and places recorded in bills rather than qualities associated with a particular artisan. " Focu s began to shift from user to maker in the expanded 1913 edition of Colonial Furniture in America, in which author Luke Vincent Lockwood added illustrations of a Philadelphia Chippendale dressing table and its William Savery label, captioned as "advertisement in drawer."3 For Lockwood, the label provided proof that thi s accomplished piece of furniture was made in America rather than in England. In 1918 R. T. H. Halsey, curator of the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, published a short article on William Savery that was thoroughly up-to-date in th e focus on maker, the organization, and content: it cited the labeled object, provided as much biographical information about Savery as was known, and identified several undo cumented pieces of furniture as "definitely ascribed to Savery."4 Although none of th e three high chests, two dressing table s, and one desk and bookcase in th e Metropolitan Museum collection now retains any semblance of those attributions, the interpretive strategy that Halsey unleashed quickly gained momentum in the 1920S and has continued apace ever since. Halsey's enthusiastic and self-consciously provocative stand, made explicit in his own qualification of "positive" identification as being made "partly with the hope of stimulating research," resulted in many more discoveries of documented makers and object s and spawned countless attributions that filled the pages of the fledgling M agaz ine Antiques and other publications. M odern-day scholars might con sider Halsey and his contemporaries overly zealous or naive, but their approach-as well as many of their specific findingscontinues to influ ence today's furniture history and material culture scholarship, in which attributions to makers abound. Curators, collectors, and dealer s freely attach detailed and precise identifications to specific

pieces of furniture, although the vast majority of early objects lack provenance or other historical context. This furniture simply exists without any meaningful identity or association with a person, group of people, time, or place. Moreover, historical evidence, when it does exist, is oft en fragmentary and indefinite. In lieu of the se missing connections and circumstances, furniture historians have followed what seems to be a natu ral and logical impulse to organize the material by grouping similar things, and then to compare unknowns to knowns, thereby assigning historical identities where none existed before. E stablishin g similarities among object s favors makers wh o, by human nature, repeated tasks in familiar ways thus producing similar objects (in contrast to users who exhibit fewer reasons to repeat themselves in their behavior). Therefore, widespread emphasis on maker s-rather th an users-in furniture studies is not surprising. The formula for much furniture scho larship involves three steps: selecting which objects are to be included in a given study; discerning patterns amon g those objects; and interpreting or otherwise assigning some kind of meaning to those patterns and, by extension, the furniture under study. Each of these steps is laden with consequences for the outcome of any study. Selection influences the kind s of pattern s that are possible; the structure of patterns influences the interpretations; and multiple interpretations can exist for specific patterns. There is no right or wron g appro ach to the se steps (although good, better, and worse are appropriate value judgments to wh at a researcher may propose). This essay explores th e methods underl ying the Hartford Ca se Furniture Study (HCFS) and other significant studies. By unpacking assumptions and methods in these studies, it attempts to equip th e reader with useful tools to evaluate scholarly work to date and to continue mining physical evidence for a richer, more accurate understanding of these objects and their historical context. In simplest term s, the formula for the HCFS and similar projects is to compare unknowns to knowns. More specifically, researchers carefully construct these comparisons to suggest ideas, trends, relationships, and other consequences. Groups of objects yield patterns, which are fundamental building blocks of comparative analysis. In turn, the reliability of patterns depend s on the numbers of objects included: sample size.The num ber of choices and deci sions that a researcher must make to assembl e such study is formidable. One decep-

ZIMMERMAN

tively simple question is, how many objects must the researcher include? SAMPLE

SIZE

There is no specific number of objects needed to generate accurate patterns for interpretation. Likewise, there is no minimum percentage of the whole body of objects under study that must be represented. However, there is a very precise and useful theoretical limit: sample size is adequate when the addition of one more example does not materially change the pattern. Accordingly, if a particular pattern is highly consistent (certain windsor chairs, for example), a very small group may adequately represent a large number of objects in forming the requisite pattern(s).5 If more objects (in this example, windsor chairs) are added, the information they supply merely strengthens or repeats existing patterns. In contrast, other groupings of furniture may be so inconsistent that dozens or even hundreds of objects-perhaps all known and knowable examples-may be necessary before reliable and informative patterns emerge. At the extreme, no patterns emerge. A large and authoritative study of federal card tables offers a useful example of the importance of sample size to the quality of results. In The Work of Many Hands: Card Tables in Federal America, £790-£820, author Benjamin A. Hewitt used nearly four hundred card tables to study regional expression. Heralded by Yale University Art Gallery director Alan Shestack as "unprecedented in its statistical method of analyzing American furniture," it was inspired by Charles F. Montgomery's comprehensive American Furniture: The Federal Period. 6 The common denominators between these two studies are clear: both pursue patterns-of wood use, inlays, construction, and the like-to generate evidence of regional origin. Montgomery's catalogue incorporates 491 pieces of furniture representing all forms in contrast to Hewitt's 374 card tables, indicating far greater specificity in the Hewitt study. But are 374 enough? Perhaps for Boston, Salem, and Newburyport, represented by 101, 48, and 33 tables respectively, but not for Baltimore and Philadelphia, represented by 43 and 36 tables, as the distinctions between these last two are blurry. In contrast to the tightly defined Boston geographical region, Hewitt included hinterlands as distant as West Chester and Trenton in "Philadelphia." Similarly, some large and diverse areas, such as Connecticut, are represented by only 10 tables, I of which is labeled by a Hartford maker yet looks like a New York

METHOD

example.? Some of the latent uncertainty present in certain Work of Many Hands regional identifications comes from a lack of documented examples and, in their absence, reliance on assumptions that are circular in their reasoning. Thus Hewitt described Baltimore tables as "far more likely" to have a medial brace than Philadelphia examples (implying that this feature helps separate the two regions), yet cited no compelling evidence (nor has any come to light subsequently) to establish its relative frequency of use. Readers who incorporate this regional characteristic into their own thinking and work merely reinforce the stereotype and by doing so may retard real progress . Yet the point is not to criticize, especially where historical documentation may be absent, but to recognize the limitations of certain analytical or interpretive methods. No matter how elegant and complex a computer-generated statistical analysis (or other technique) may be, discerning readers must identify the assumptions and corresponding speculations so as to remain open to new evidence and how it may reshape present understandings. Shortcomings with the Hewitt study become readily apparent when large regional profiles defined by statistical analyses of the card tables are compared to detailed local studies based on traditional, anecdotal evidence. According to the Hewitt study, an unambiguous characteristic of card tables from the "Rural Massachusetts-New Hampshire" area is use of local woods and a specific absence of mahogany, which had to be imported. Yet one of the relatively few documented card tables from Springfield, a key furnituremaking center in the area, is a mahogany card table labeled by William Lloyd.f The eleven labeled card tables used to profile this region (along with twentytwo "unknown" and two "attributed" tables) include one by Archelaus Flint of Charlestown, Massachusetts, bordering Boston (a second card table labeled by Flint is assigned to the "Boston area") and four by John Dunlap II of Antrim, New Hampshire, a hamlet midway between Concord and Keene-which are themselves more than fifty miles apart and used to define the amorphous region of "Urban New Hampshire."? Likely, an inadequate sample size caused much of the resulting inconsistencies and lack of regional definition. Significantly larger numbers of objects documented to place would clarify many of these problem areas. In contrast, the number of objects in the limited geographical scope of the HCFS is daunting: the furniture in the nearly 200 entries presented in this

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publication were selected from nearly 500 examples that were formally examined and recorded on worksheets. An additional hundred or more examples represented by photographic evidence only were noted on a more limited basis, and literally hundreds more objects were included in initial considerations but rejected from formal survey inclusion, for a variety of reasons. If the authors have done their work well, the addition of new evidence and examples that newer scholarship will unearth will not materially change the results. Only then will the sample size have proved adequate. PATTERNS

AND

CONSISTENCY

Recognizing patterns is fundamental to comparative analyses, yet one researcher may form or recognize patterns differently than another. Measuring the same object in inches or in centimeters may reveal-or conceal-certain design relationships: graduated drawer-height changes in chests of drawers, for example. More complicated approaches to patterning a group of chests of drawers might depend largely upon drawer construction, such as grain orientation of drawer bottoms, dovetail shapes and sizes, thickness of drawer sides, and nailing patterns. Alternatively, the group might be patterned by the presence of certain woods or other materials, the shape of a leg bracket, or decorative inlays. No single approach addresses all the interests and needs of the researcher. Consequently, how different patterns are recognized and interpreted can lead to different-even conflicting-results from the same group of objects. As with sample size, evaluating the nature of patterning data yields enlightening observations and cautions. Patterns and the utility of patterning as a tool for historical analysis rest on consistency. Consistency assumes that if a phenomenon can be shown to occur regularly, it should continue to occur in undocumented territory. Although there is no certainty that a particular phenomenon will continue, careful and systematic patterning may be the best evidence available. 10 Physical features of furniture, and human behavior in general, readily support assumptions about consistency in patterning. Consistency is present broadly in paintings and sculpture and is the basis of countless identifications and attributions to individual artists and schools. Consistent workmanship in furniture occurs in turnings, certain groups of carved ornament and inlays, some dovetails and other construction features. II This seemingly obvious observation assumes a less obvious

set of dynamics and expectations in furniture studies. As with the fine arts, much of early American furniture history is built on the premise that the work of individuals can be recognized and catalogued. Accordingly, researchers produce and students, collectors, and others consume an enormous quantity of identifications expressed as attributions to individuals or, if physical features appear somewhat less consistent, to "shops" (suggesting control on one hand yet some flexibility in execution on the other), or to "schools" (being still looser in consistency of the results). Pervasive consistency may be a hallmark of certain individuals, shops, or communities, but does not necessarily apply broadly throughout the furniture trade in early America. To date, this assumption has been sustained more on wishful thinking than reliable evidence. Testing the premise requires identifying a significant body of objects that originated in a single shop (or community if that level of consistency is being examined). To avoid circular reasoning, origins must be based on non-physical evidence, such as historical documentation provided by labels, bills of sale, and provenance. Relatively few studies of furnituremakers anchored in time, place, and circumstance by labeled or otherwise marked examples exist to afford an opportunity to investigate levels of consistency. This in turn suggests that maker consistency is not constant. Brief commentaries about a few studies of furniture makers working contemporaneously with those of the HCFS raise issues and trends that characterize many," In 1983 Baltimore Museum Curator of Decorative Arts William Voss Elder III and Saint Louis Art Museum Curator of Decorative Arts Lu Bartlett studied and published nearly fifty pieces of furniture labeled by cabinetmaker John Shaw (1745-1829) ofAnnapolis. The authors included additional pieces of furniture in the study based on persuasive manuscript evidence, such as the sets of Maryland State Senate chairs and tables commissioned in 1797. No shop traits or indexes emerged from the large documented body of Shaw work, leading the authors to postulate "a large, and doubtless constantly changing, group of craftsmen working in the shop at anyone time and perhaps more than one man working on each piece of furniture.Tt Similarly, after studying four slant-front desks labeled by Boston cabinetmaker Benjamin Frothingham (1734-1809), furniture historian Brock Jobe wrote, "There are enough similarities to suggest that all these desks are the product of one shop," yet he struggled to

ZIMMERMAN

find common denominators among them: two were nearly identical but the other two "remarkably varied." Differences included grain orientation of drawer bottoms, use of a giant dovetail at the center bottom of only one desk, and both lapped and butted construction of carcass backboards. To explain these differences, jobe hypothesized that "Frothingham probably sold some furniture that he did not make himself"I4 Adding other labeled Frothingham furniture to the group (such as the dining table, card table, and high chest of drawers at Winterthur) does not raise the measurable level of consistency, since the forms differ so greatly. In addition to the four desks, furniture historian Richard H. Randall discussed thirteen documented pieces of furniture in his study of Frothingham, yet nowhere suggested any "signature" features that might identify the maker's work.f William Savery affords yet another example. More than two-dozen labeled examples are known. Except for five rush-seat chairs and a few simple framed chairs, his work expresses a diversity of shop skills and practices rather than consistent qualities. [6 American furniture historians tend to assume a high level of consistency or regularity in work on the part of individuals or particular shops. Clearly, the more consistent a maker or shop is, the more likely historians will be able to sort through and bring order to the jumble of surviving furniture and historical references. But consistency as human behavior represents a range rather than a single value. At one end of the spectrum stand certain types of people inclined toward repetition and the familiar in the way they approach problems and tasks. At the other end stand individuals who prefer change and variety. There is little evidence to suggest whether the furniture-making trade attracted one personality type over another, nor does evidence suggest that either achieved more commercial success. Some studies do offer revealing clues to different personalities. The HCFS findings indicate significant and measurable consistency in furniture made in Eliphalet Chapin's shop in East Windsor as well as furniture made in the Wethersfield area. Consistency also occurs in other regions of colonial North America; examples include several types of Rhode Island furniture, New York Chippendale card tables, some furniture from central New Hampshire, and certain groups of Philadelphia furniture. The HCFS data also note a relative absence of consistency in furniture-making communities of Glastonbury and Suffield, with Colchester somewhere in between. Here, the behavioral

METHOD

standard of the shop or shops in question was one that favored creativity, innovation, and other manifestations of change over consistency. Consequently the task of identifying different furniture expressions as representing a historically viable entity (maker, shop, or community) characterized by variety is far more difficult than identifYing products of consistent workmanship.'? As consistency decreases, the sample size needs to significantly increase, and the researcher's patterning of evidence may require more care and innovation. Patterns are not self-evident. The furniture historian must use judgment and experience to select certain factors, organize them somehow, and then suggest meanings that may be inferred from them. As esoteric as this may sound, it represents a basic cognitive process that all people apply to all manners of daily life. The human mind is remarkably facile and subtle in its ability to process many small pieces of information and to extrapolate order and direction from them . Accordingly much of the analysis and interpretation of furniture and other decorative arts forms remains undescribed. Indeed, describing every step would be tedious and unnecessary, but some attention to the process exposes the structure of the method and the logic on which interpretive conclusions (i.e., the results) stand. One basic way of patterning data is to separate haves from have-nots: for example, certain objects have the feature in question, others do not. Such simplistic patterning is easily and broadly understood, but it is of limited use, and it often finds its way into American furniture history as shortcut rules of dubious validity, such as "if a piece of furniture is made of cherry, then it was made in Connecticut," or "chairs with seat rails tenoned through the rear stiles are from Philadelphia." Objects and the people and circumstances that produced them are far more complex than can be served by such simple models . Adding a second factor typically improves the likelihood of identifying the piece of furniture correctly. Thus, the statement "if a piece of furniture is made of cherry and is of unusual design, then it was made in Connecticut" may be somewhat more reliable because the additional factor filters out cherry furniture readily recognizable as from other regional centers, but even a two factor model is of limited use. Adding several more variables-five, six, twenty, forty, or more-introduces a new way of patterning that creates sequences or series arranged by relative frequencies or levels of importance." Some areas of potential in terest for an investigator comparing slant-

front desks, for example, might include primary and secondary woods, several construction features, layout of the interior, type and shape of feet, decorative details in several different areas, and so forth. Each category generates multiple factors that quickly render the total amount of information unwieldly, even unmanageable. To work with all of these data, the investigator must establish hierarchies in which certain factors are deemed more valuable or important than others. For instance, profiles of cornice moldings on case furniture may be too similar from region-to-region to isolate the work of a particular shop or locality. In contrast, the profiles of a small detail such as decorative moldings cut into the top edges of drawer sides may be consistent within a particular shop and sufficiently unusual in furniture made elsewhere that it helps form a reliable pattern of use. The resulting hierarchies of furniture characteristics do not always place the most frequent occurrences at the top. Use of cherry as a primary wood, for example, may have a very high frequency in documented Connecticut furniture, yet it may have limited value in identifying unknown furniture as Connecticut-made since furniture from other regions was also made of cherry. Cherry becomes significant only in combination with other factors . Some factors used in patterning furniture are difficult to measure or otherwise represent as an objective value or quantity. Whereas templates can be very useful in establishing commonalities between and among objects, obtaining an accurate template of a cabriole leg with surfaces finished round may be problematic. Similarly, proportions of a scrolled-pediment high chest may be influenced by whether measurements include moldings or finials. Carved highlights erode with time and use, and finish and dirt fill in carving depths, thus altering the subtle surface differences that help identify the precise profiles of the cutting tools originally used to execute the work. To compensate, the investigator must make judgments. Even microanalysis of woods and other "scientific" findings are not objective but represent the analyst's best opinion. How all of these different factors are compared and weighted for importance represent further judgments. What represents significant evidence to one investigator may not to another. The differences in their assessments may tip the balance of a questionable attribution or other identification issue. Although there are no uniform guidelines or standard s for patterning raw evidence, there is a compelling

test to determine the usefulness and significance of outcomes: relationships between or among objectsshould I) tie them together and 2) isolate them from other objects. Merely discovering that relationships exist between certain objects is inadequate. For example, some bracket feet on late-eighteenth-century four-drawer chests are made with large quarter-round boards designed to attach to the underside of the chest bottom. The HCFS convincingly uses this uncommon construction as evidence of Hartford-area manufacture. The credibility of that statement does not rest on this "index feature" alone. It is useful as an indicator only in combination with several other factors that help isolate the chests in question from those made elsewhere.'? To accomplish this degree of isolation, HCFS authors first had to resort to other historical sources (such as labels, bills, and provenance) to define chest features that distinguished Connecticut-area manufacture from elsewhere in New England and America, and then look within the Connecticut area in greater detail. The amount of research necessary to satisfy this second level of scrutiny (isolating them from other objects) in turn must be sufficient to identify all of the major patterns in foot construction. In fact, the authors' sample size seems large enough to establish the presence of this construction technique in the general area and not in other areas, and to define finite and consistent variations (evident in use of visible or concealed dovetails or miter joints with glue blocks, to name some) within the area. Their argument is persuasive primarily because the sample size is adequate and descriptions of the nature of the patterning are thorough. To assert the value of this construction feature without having achieved this level of detail would ultimately leave the reader in a state of uncertainty. CONJECTURE

AND

THE

RISK

OF

ERROR

Complicating the task of sorting furniture by maker or shop is the sheer volume of anonymously made furniture. A study of New Hampshire furniture maker John Dunlap (1746-92) illustrates commonly encountered circumstances and consequences. Over the course of many years, historian Charles S. Parsons located some seventy-five case pieces with distinctive decorative features generally associated with Dunlap. He also brought to light Dunlap's detailed account book, other manuscript references, and tools that descended in the family. Yet only one of the many case pieces bears John Dunlap's name. A slant-front desk signed by his

ZIMMERMAN

brother Samuel recently came to light. 2 0 Two other case pieces have nam es of apprentices, and two more have initials ending in "D ." A sid e from those h e trained, Dunlap had a brother and several sons and nephews in the trade, and they resided in several towns. Parsons ackn owledged th e insufficient data and bravely refused "to go further and assign pieces to individual memb ers of th e Dunlap family.'? ' He recognized th at without more pr ecise information, patterns and sequences of Dunlap-type furniture could be arranged to accommodate many different interpretations. Many anonymous objects are essential pieces of the historical puzzle becau se of the physical information that th ey emb ody. They fill in gaps or provide transition s betwe en documented objects in order to complete a pattern or an historical narr ative. But a single documented object seldo m, if ever, provides an adequate foundation to establi sh a pattern that can be extended to include anonymous object s. And as object studies becom e increas ing ly rigorous and syste matic, clear acknowledgment of documentation and reasoning in support of assumptions becomes ever more important. The historic al record-represented by documented furn iture and manuscripts-is seldom adequa te to provide answe rs to most que sti on s, requiring th e researcher to extrapolate or extend patterns to fill in gaps or connect evidence . This step requires assumption s that are ultimately tied to basic expectations about human beh avior. G en erally, th ese assumptions hold that like things (whether defined as specific features or entire objects) should be clustered in time and place and th at changes occur gradually. Although the rate of change between or among different obje cts may be abrupt or slow, change is assumed to occur in on e dire ction only. It doe s not occur as two steps forward and one step back. By reducing th e makers' behavior to sets of rule s, scholars risk error in th eir result s because th e rule s may not accommodate historical circumstan ces adequately. At least three areas are of concern: complex circumstances; changes in a furniture maker's work or rou tine s; and personality differenc es am on g craftsm en. Certain furniture-making communities are more complex than others from the per spective of a modern scholar trying to identify past events and objects and to unr avel ambiguous evidence. In th e seventeenth cen tur y, for example, urb an areas were much smaller and more sparsely settled than at the beginning of the nineteenth century. All other circumstances being the same

METHOD

(which they are not), identifying the work of individual furniture makers such as Thom as D ennis (16381706 ) of Ipswich, M assachu setts, is more likely to be correct than identifying the early work of Duncan Phyfe (1768-1854) in New York City. C ompeting cabin etmakers produced work in the Phyfe style, and journeymen worked for Phyfe and for othe rs, th us mixing-even hopelessly confusing-the physical evidence of individual hands on which the furniture historian mu st depend. Late-ei ghteenth-century C onnecticut lacked a single regional center on a par with N ew York , Boston, or even N ewport. In stead, the colony was dotted with many midsize cities with populations in th e 5,0 0 0 range: Hartford, Middletown, N ew Haven, New London, Norwalk, Norwich, and Stonington, to name several. Some, but not all, of th ese places supported brisk furniture-making concerns, while certain smaller town s in the 3,000 range, such as Colchester, E ast W indsor, and Wethersfield, seem to have produced more furn iture per capita." Still smaller towns, villages, and hamlets filled out the area. These rural communities might support a furniture maker of some degree of accomplishment, but not on a full-time basis. Furniture makin g at this level was essentially a winter activity, although some mending and sim ple commission s might take place year-round . Agriculture demanded a lot of labor during spring time planting and, especially, autu mn harvests, and furniture makers- even talented ones- could not defer gathering potatoes, apples, and other crops lest the grou nd fre eze and the snows come .U Trackin g and identifying th e work of th e many individuals living in C onnecti cut and elsewh ere wh o fit thi s profile requires specific circums tances: reliable evidence that the object originated in a certain area, and a very limited number of candidates-usually identifi ed in public records-who wer e capable of making th e furniture in que stion. But placing a specific piece of furniture in one of these communities can be problematic. Furniture moved and familie s intermarried, thereby requiring many assumptions on th e part of the modern researcher about ownership of a particular object through many generations. The level of uncertainty associated with small- town furniture identification incre ases as th e numbers of people grow and the econo mic and social make-up of these larger communities becomes more complex. Written records for a small town may yield only one arti san's name as enjoying the financial success, influence, or

other accomplishment suitable for an originator of a body of furniture associated with that place. In contrast, more heavily populated areas typically have several candidates. Greater activity associated with increased production from a single shop and greater competition between shops make the individual artisans in th ose circumstances more visible to th e historian. Selectin g one of tho se candidates over another may turn on some convenient variable such as kinship, ethnicity, or tim e of immigration. For instance, object design s perceived as "French" may lead identifications towards artisans with French backgrounds; innovative traits may suggest recent immigrants on the assumption th at foreign urban centers were the source. When scholarly ambition to associate name s with otherwise an onymous objects outw eighs sound evidence and logic, resulting errors committed through over-eager attributions lead subsequent researchers astray. Interpretive strategies for furniture history tend to assume that practices and routines associated with a particular artisan (or shop) remain constant. These hypoth etical rules of beh avior form the foundations of most efforts to patt ern and sort the raw information. Because changes in shop practice upset the consistency-and th erefore th e usefulness-of th ese rules, changes are often discounted or assumed away. But change happens. Illness or financial misfortune, perhaps stemming from bad bu sine ss de cisions or from something as un controllable as fire, might cause significant and unwanted cha nges. C ompetition from new products, materials, techniques, and relat ed marketplace occurren ces may tri gger subtler changes in response. Changes initiated by the person or shop might include new partnership s or additional employees and similar business realignments, ventures into new areas of the trade (such as making joined rather than turned furnitur e or supplying ready-made parts more broadly), or introduction s of new ideas and design s.r' Personality differences among craftsmen might also affect consisten cy in work. Finally, an individual who is changeoriented in his approach to tasks and work simply may not generate the kind s of repetitious historical evidence necessary to make him visible to historians. Once alert to some of the structu ral uncertainties of furniture identification methods, the discerning reader may que stion certain assumption s mad e in any study. For example, in grouping or patterning objects in a series, does th e investigator arra nge objects to reflect changes from simple to complex or from complex to

simple? Similarly, do object forms and decoration gradually become fuller and more robust or become more linear and attenuated? Do makers tend toward conformity over time or toward more individuality and greater personal expressiveness? Other possibilities are numerous. Historical evidence seldom guides assumptions, and they often lie so deeply imbedded in a particular study that they go unchallenged. Based on the premise that technology has become more complex through time, it may seem logical to treat individual events similarly," Accordingly, if a cabinetmaker used a single tenon joint to secure a drawer divider in one instance and a parallel tenon joint for that same purpose in another instance, the tendency of researchers is to assume that the more difficult parallel tenon came later, and then chronologically arrange the object s in question in keeping with thi s feature. In a similar way, researchers assume cabinetmakers increasingly depended upon laminations, smoother board s, and better nails to create stronger, tighter, and lighter cabinetry. But contrary influences can also be identified. If a researcher assume s that cabinetmakers wished to work more efficiently so as to do more in less time, therefore earn more money as th ey gained experien ce, they simplified certain aspects of their work-including the way in which they made tenons-as long as the joint holds. There is ample historical evidence that supports the value of developing and taking shortcuts. According to thi s theory, a cabinetmaker's work could then become simpler over a certain time span rather than more complex. A s for the robu st vs. linear or attenuated argument and the conformity vs. greater individuality, there is no apparent inclination in one dire ction or the other. 26 Interpretations built on assumed work habits and behavior must be treated with some skepticism. Yet another source of conjecture is generalizing from the specific, ofwhich Eliphalet Chapin's furniture provide s a classic example. Visual and structural relationships between his work and Philadelphia furniture have been observed widely among furniture historians, notably John T. Kirk. Kirk describes design and construction similarities in case furniture and chairs in several publications to demonstrate the influences American urban centers had on furniture produced in other regions." Structural parallels found in Eliphalet Chapin's Connecticut-made chairs, for example, include side rails tenoned through the back stile, vertical corner blocks reinforcing the insides of the seat frames,

ZIMMERMAN

decoratively undercut seat rails, and stump rear legs. 28 Decorative features that also recall Philadelphia patterns include the modeling of claw-and-ball feet, the use of engaged quarter columns in upper and lower cases (in contrast to occasional New England practices of decorating the upper case only), and the strapwork splat. '? Furniture historians now use these comparisons as evidence of design transmission attributable to Chapin's temporary relocation to Philadelphia when he was in his late 20S and presumably still in a formative stage in his career. Although Chapin's output does illustrate a specific instance of design transmission, excessive dependence upon this one episode obscures broader trends and may skew the history of furniture making and cultural change in Connecticut and elsewhere. Through-tenons and related structural features occur elsewhere in Connecticut furniture that predates Chapin's travel, notably in chairs from Wethersfield and Saybrook. Thus, Chapin could not have been the carrier and originator of those ideas and practices. Moreover, some early Wethersfield chairs were made with round "compass" seat rails laid flat and front legs attached with round tenons, what are usually regarded as hallmarks of Philadelphia construction.t? Chapin did introduce some Philadelphia furniture-making ideas and practices into central Connecticut, but he was not responsible for many others. When Benjamin Burnham of Colchester signed a desk he made in 1769, he noted that he "sarvfed [served] his time in felledlfay [Philadelphia]," yet nothing associated with the design or construction of that desk exhibits any Philadelphia influences)! Seeing Chapin as part of a larger phenomenon of regional identity and cultural influences raises compelling questions that remain to be explored more adequately. The apparent relationship between Connecticut and Philadelphia furniture is probably less dependent upon direct ties embodied in a prominent individual than on shared ties to a third region, group of people, or other common influence. Efforts to identify the origins of Philadelphia through-tenon construction are instructive. Kirk noted the presence of throughtenons-"the most famous feature of Philadelphia chair construction"-in English (specifically North Country) seatingY When furniture historian Benno Forman looked at this subject "without emotional involvement" (his veiled criticism of those ethnocentrically limited researchers who sought answers in only

METHOD

English sources), he postulated that Pennsylvania Germans introduced thi s Germanic woodworking tech nique into the area)3 But Forman's observations do not accommodate Kirk's evidence. Forman's student Desiree Caldwell resolved the puzzle by documenting pervasive influence of German furniture makers in England before the waves of German immigration to Philadelphia in the late 1720S and 1730S )4 Rather than creating a hopelessly complex picture, her findings clarifY and explain why Philadelphia furniture, made by English-dominated artisans, embodies construction features thought to be both British and Germanic. By looking anew at the Connecticut experience in a similarly comprehensive fashion, historians may isolate other factors that better explain the phenomenon. Furniture historians typically assume ethnic uniformity in Connecticut life and culture, which was dominated by Congregationalists of English heritage, but more detailed assessments may expose potential contributions of Scots-Irish and other groups. With respect to Chapin, placing him in a larger social context relieves him of the historical burden of being the carrier of through-tenons and other techniques into Connecticut. At same time, a larger perspective that seeks out broad social, economic, ethnic, religious, and/or cultural networks raises the question of what attracted Chapin (and Burnham) to Philadelphia in the first place. Rather than diminish Eliphalet Chapin's role as regional innovator and trend-setter, this change in emphasis reshapes his role more accurately. As the HCFS makes abundantly clear by comparative analyses of a broad range of Hartford-area case furniture, Chapin developed a distinctive aesthetic that, when combined with what must have been effective business acumen, helped catapult him to preeminence among eighteenth-century Connecticut cabinetmakers. HCFS comparisons, which leave the Philadelphia question aside for the most part, track Chapin's influence within the greater Hartford area. It moved geographically as apprentices left his employ for other opportunities and through time as younger workers aged yet retained visible measures of his ideas and practices. HCFS comparisons yield patterns of similarity on three levels that translate into I) highly consistent work, both in terms of construction practices and design repetition, associated with direct production within Eliphalet Chapin's East Windsor shop; 2) Chapin "look-alikes" that embody construction differences or other variations from core shop practices, representing production by indi-

viduals who trained in the Chapin shop and resulting in what th e autho rs call "C hapin School"; and 3) more distant influences. Although th e nature of th ese findings and terminology by which they are expressed are not unusual in American furni ture history, th e size of th e sample and the scope of the comparisons are. This level of inclusiveness reduces th e risk of erro r and makes th e HCFS profile of Chapin and other regional cabinetmaking endeavo rs compelling rather th an speculative. The challenges to furn iture history raised in thi s essay recogn ize th e need for present scho larship to build on earlier work. Where meth od s are obscure, th e scholar must attempt to reconstruct how the study in questio n was conducted and to validate th e find ings. Mere acceptance risks repeating and amplifying any embe dded mistakes or groundless assumptions. Those of us engage d in presen t furn iture scholarship need to be rigorous and explicit in our meth od s so that our work in turn can be evaluated. Sample size matters. Consistency becom es meaningful not so much by not ing similarities as by estab lishing disimil arities to everything else, th ereby isolating th e objects or relationships in question. Pattern s observe d in physical properties of objects may be open to mo re th an one interpretation or concl usion, underscoring th e value of identifYing conjecture where and whe n it exists. T he reward s for greater attention and disclosure of method in American furnitu re history lie in more accurate renditions of human en deavor.

I. W illiam Macpherson Hornor, Jr., Blue Book, Philadelphia Furniture: William Penn to George Washingt on (Philadelphia: privately printed, 1935), p. 82; Ch arles F. Montgomery, "Some Remarks on the Practice and Science of C onn oisseurship," Walpole Society Note Book, 1961 (n.p.: Walp ole Society, 1962), p. 58.

2. Irvin g W. Lyon, The Colonial Furn iture ofN ew E ngland (reprint of jrd editi on of 1925with introduction by Dean A. Fales, Jr.; New York: E . P. Dutton, 1977), pp. xxiii-xxiv, 72, 171. No biographical information, including famil y relati on ships, accompanies the Chapin references. 3. Lockwo od, Colonial Furniture, r.no-rr, figs. I08, I08a. This twovolume editi on updated a single-volume edition of 1901. 4. R.T. H . Hal sey, "William Savery, the Colonial Cabinet-Maker, and His Furn iture," M etropolitan M useum ofA rt Bullet in 13, no. 12 (December 1918): 254-66, esp. 258. 5. Theoretically, if a craft sman made only a single type of object, only one object would be needed to define the pattern of his work. 6. Hewi tt, Kane, & Ward, Work ofMany Hands, p. 7; Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal Period (New York: Viking Press, 1966). 7. Hewitt, Kane, & Ward, Work ofM any Hands, pp. 154-56, no. 36. Compare to a labeled New York City example, no. 39. 8. Hewitt, Kane, & Ward, Work ofM any Hands, p. n 8; Great Riv er, no. 135. 9. H ewitt, Kane, & Ward, Work

ofM any H ands, pp. 178-80.

IO. For discussion of thi s general idea and many related topics, see John Lewis Gaddis, Th e L andscape ofH istory : H ow Historians Map the Past (New York: O xford University Press, 2002), pp. 8-n. II. For discussion of "workmanship of habit" and its application in object studies, see Zimmerman, "Wo rkmanship as Evidence," pp. 286-90.

12. Although not specifically referenced, thi s discussion includes many Winterthur theses that are monograph s of furniture makers. Other useful studie s include Michael Mose s, M aster Craftsmen of N ewp ort: Th e Toumsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N .]. : MMI Ame ricana Press, 1984); and James A. Slater, "Principles and Methods for the Study of the Work of Individual Carvers," in Pu ritan Grav estone Art, ed. Peter Benes, Dublin Seminar for New En gland Folklife: Annual Proceedings 1976 (Boston : Boston University, 1977), pp. 9-13. Attention to methods of analysis is more obscure in Peter M . Kenny, Frances F. Bretter, and Ulrich Leben, H onore L annuier: Cabinetmakerfrom Paris (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998), but the study is systematic and comprehen sive. 13. William Voss Elder III and Lu Bartlett,john Shaw, Cabinetmaker of Art, 1983), p. 29, & nos. 43-45, 48, 61.

ofAnnapolis (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum

14. Brock j obe, "A Desk by Benjamin Frothingham of Ch arlestown," Currier Gallery ofA rt Bulletin (1976): 3-23, esp. pp. 12, 16, 20. 15. Richard H. Randall,Jr., "Benjamin Frothingham" in Boston Furniture ofthe E ighteenth Century (Bosto n: Colonial Society of M assachusetts, 1974), pp. 22r49· 16. For discussion of consistencies among the rush- seat chairs, see Phi lip D . Zimmerman, "Philadelphia Queen Anne Chairs in the Co llections of Wright's Ferry Mansion," Antiques 149, no. 5 (May

486

Z I M ME R MAN

1996): 743-45. Popular use of an intaglio teardrop carving on cabriole legs to identity Savery's work is questioned in P hilip D . Z immerman, "Desk-o n-frame," Sewell C. Biggs Museum oj American Art: A Catalogue, 2 vols. (Dover, D el.: by the museum, 2002), I : no. 52. 17. A group of Philadelphi a high chests of drawers exhibiting great variety in carved pedim ent treatments is discussed in Philip D. Zimmerman, "Truth or C onsequences: Restorati on of W int erthur 's Van Pelt H igh Ch est," Winterthur Portfolio 33, no. I (Spring 1998): 59-74, esp. 65-66. 18. In the scientific commu nity "multiple regression analysis" uses two or more "predictor" variables to generate pred ictions, which represent results to the furnitu re historian. Regression analysis can also identity which variables cont ribute significantly to formin g th e result. The Work ofM any Hands study was, in essence, a multipl e regression analysis. M ost other studies, including the HCFS, are intuitively multiple regression analyses. Thanks to Professor Jam es N. Spencer of Franklin & M arshall Co llege for insights. 19. Kugelman, Kugelm an, and Lionetti , "Ox bow," p. 3C. For similar const ruction in a chest signed by John Janvier (1749-1801) or Joh n Janvier, Jr. (1777-1850), of Odessa, Del., see Phili p D. Zi mmerman , "Delaware River Valley C hests of Drawers, 1725-1800," Antiques 159, no. 5 (May 2001): 791-92, pis. 3, 3a.

stronger seat frame makes stretchers unnecessary, rear legs may be finished without a flat face for the join of the stretc her. Shaping the legs to an eight-si ded post (a square with chamfered edges), or completely round by removing the eight-si ded edges, or any combin ation is also a logical consequence. 29. Outside of C onn ecticut, such treat ments generally occur as quart er columns in Rh ode Island furniture and flat pilasters in Massachusetts ones. 30. Trent , "Ne w London C oun ty Joined Chairs," pp. 39-55. 31.Trent , "Co lchester Schoo l," pp. H3-15, H9-20. 32. Kirk, American Chairs, pp. 30-31. D avid Stod..ewell also mentioned th rough-tenons in English provincial chairs in "Notes on C onstru ction of Philadelphi a C abriole C hairs," Antiques 58, no. 4 (Oc tober 1950): 28733. Benn o M. Form an, "G erm an Influ ences in Pennsylvania Furniture" in Arts oJthe Pennsylvania Germans, ed. Catherine E. H utchins (Ne w York: W .W . Norton, 1983), pp. 168- 70. 34. Desiree C aldwell, "Germanic In fluences on Philadelphia Early Geo rgian Seati ng Furniture" (master's thesis, University of Delaware, 1985), pp. 24, 4r44; see also Trent , "New London County Joined Chairs," pp. 39-40.

20. No rtheast Auctions, M arch 6-7 , 2004, lot 418. 21. [Ch arles S. Parsons], The D unlaps & Their Furniture (Manchester, N.H. : Currier Galler y of Art, 1970), p. ro. Donn a-Bell e G arvin argued that a second high chest should be assigned to John Dunlap in "Two Hi gh Chests of the Dunlap School," H istorical New Hampshire 35, no. 2 (Summer 1980): 163- 85' 22. Population figures cha nged dr amati cally as town political bou ndaries changed. Populat ion figures beg inning 1756 are recorded on interne t site C onnecticut State Libr ary, Hi storical and G enealogical Resour ces, Populat ion of Co nnec ticu t Towns, 1756-1820 (http ://www.sots.state.ct.us/ RegisterManuaIlSectionVIII Populatioruyj e.ht m). 23. Edward S. C ooke, jr., Making Furnit ure in Preindust rial A merica: The Social E conomy of N ew tow n and Woodbury, Connecticut (Baltimore:John s H opkin s University Press, 1996), pp. 38- 39; Ann W. D ibble, "Majo r John Dunlap: The Craftsman and H is Communi ty," Old-Time New England, 68, nos. r4 (W inter- Spring 1978): 50-58. 24. Ph iladelphia furnituremaker W illiam Savery is th e classic example of one who shifted specialties as his career advanced; see Philip D. Zimmerm an, "William Savery," in American National Biography (New York: O xford University Press, 1999), 19: 320-2 1. 25. Although thi s discussion focuses on changes over tim e, parallel changes between urban cent ers and rural hinterlands also apply. 26. For discussion and application to Dunlap-type chairs, see Philip D. Zimmerm an , "Da ting Dunlap-Style Sid e Chairs," Antiques 157, no. 5 (May 2000) : 796-8 03. 27. Kirk , Early American Furniture, pp. 103-5; Kirk, American Chairs, pp. 54-56; Joh n T. Kirk, American Furniture and the British Tradition to I8Jo (New York: Alfred A . Knopf, 1982), pp. 160-6 1. 28. All of these construction practices are related structu rally, thu s they typically occur togeth er. The seat rails are deep, typically between three and four inch es, which produces a longer and stronger tenon. The deep rails accommodate vertical corner blocks, which create a stronger bond than hor izontal blocks. Because the

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Beyond Regionalism: Town History and Connecticut Furniture

Susan P Schoelw er

Connecticut's towns have long been recognized as fundamental building blocks of its political, economic, social, and cultural life, and they have often served as parameters defining the scope of individual furniture studies. For those interested primarily in questions of furniture production and attributions, the towns play an intermediary role. As Robert Trent has cogently argued, "the available evidence suggests that the town is not the appropriate frame of reference for analyzing the development of furniture styles and the furniture trades. Shop traditions are what need to be investigated, and shop traditions were not stationary."! As fixed places, however, towns counter the inconvenient mobility of both people and objects. Connecticut valley furniture began moving almost as soon as it was made, carried by marriage to new families and by migration to new settlements, first within the colony, then beyond, to nearby areas of New England and upstate New York, and eventually to the Midwest, South, and Far West. The antiques trade exacerbated this mobility, with Connecticut functioning as an important source of stock as early as the I870s.Judicious use of family histories, either preserved by descendants or reconstructed through genealogical research, can link these wandering objects to plausible original owners. If multiple artifacts can be traced to owners in the same town, they provide mutually reinforcing evidence of local production. Documentary evidence can then identity individuals or families that had the functional and economic means to produce or purchase these items. As a matrix for connecting historical people, movable property, and documentary evidence, the town offers at least a partial antidote to the anonymity of artifacts, long recognized as a major obstacle to tapping their potential as a distinct strain of historical evidence. To move beyond the centripetal consideration of objects and their production, to make good on the larger premises of material culture studies-that material goods are manifestations of the cultureis) that produced them and that objects can thus be employed as non-verbal

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evidence of past human activities, values, and attitudesit is essential to ground tho se object s in place and time. From twenty-first-century per spectives, the territory represented by furniture in this volume appears arbitrary and difficult to define. The scope might broadly be designated the middle C onnecticut River Valley, from Haddam, Connecticut Gust below Middletown), northward through Hatfield, Massachusetts (see map r), Politically, the territory centers on modern Hartford County, Connecticut, extending southeast to C olchester, in present -day N ew London County, and north to Sprin gfield and Northampton, in Hampden and Hampshire Counties of Massachusetts.' Historical geography makes sense of the se parameters: the furniture was all produced by craftsmen working in communiti es that descend ed from four pioneering Puritan town s-Wethersfield, Hartford, Windsor, and Springfield-founded on the Connecticut River in the mid-rojos. The four original valley settlements coincide closely with the local furniture style centers identified by the H artford Case Furniture Survey (HCFS): W ethersfield, Ea st Windsor, Colchester, and Springfield-Northampton. Hartford is the only one of the four initial town s not represented on thi s list; it is replaced by th e younger town of Colchester, which was found ed about 1700 by emigrants primarily from the older Connecticut River towns. To understand the story of eighteenth-century Connecticut valley furniture, it is necessary to explore th e interwoven historie s of the se towns) C O NNE C T I C U T

LO CALI SM

Am erican furn iture histori ans and collectors are accustomed to regional variation: within any given style craftsmen in different cosmopolitan centers produce distinct interpretations. Moreover, regional expressions are usually strongest in major urban seaports, where ideas are sharpened by competition and continually replenished by immi grant craftsmen. Furniture made outside such urban centers, especially that made in smaller town s in outlying rural areas, typically diminishes in quantity and quality. In the eighteenth-century Connecticut valley, however, local variation replace s regional variation: the presence of multiple local style center s preclude s the emergence of a single dominant interpretation. Moreover, the region's leading urban centers do not hold a corresponding rank in furniture production: despite slightly larger populations, more urban character, and commercial prosperity, the leading

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river-port town s of Hartford and Middletown did not become furniture style centers.t The distribution and specific locale s of furniture production in th e C on necticut valley raise two overarching questions. What factors caused or encouraged the development of multiple local style centers, instead of the more usual pattern of style diffusion from a single regional center? Why did furniture style centers emerge in certain com munities but not others? The limitations of available eviden ce and th eoretical models make definitive an swer s elusive. System ati c comparison of furniture style centers and other towns requires local economic and social analyses that have not yet been compiled. Modern academic studies are rich sources of data on various aspects of economic and social history, but the necessity of generalizing tend s to blur the portrait of any individual town. Moreover, economic historians have not been particularly interested in elite, locally produced furniture as a catego ry of analysis, and the resulting, aggregate figure s on craftsmen and con sumer goods are of limited use in constructing specific hypotheses about highly skilled and specialized cabinetmakers. Information on local economic history can be gleaned from nin ete enth-century antiquarian volumes as well as more recent popular publications; however, both tend to be impressionistic or anecdotal, poorly or unindexed, and short on comparative or analytical perspectives. The existing literature consequently falls short of providin g detailed and reliable data on individual town economie s and the position of cabinetmakers therein's Even with these limitation s, a cursory overview of Connecticut history reveals th e presence of deeply rooted centrifugal forces, resulting in a persistent localism that remains evident today. Geographic conditions and historical event s combined in the Connecticut valley to produce both a distinctive cultural region as well as strong local identities within that region. The valley's geography provided enviable advantages-access to the ocean, a temperate microclimate, and most important, expanses of fertil e soil." In the colonial period, the river was navigable to coastal vessels as far north as the rapids above Windsor, and to flatboats and smaller craft man y miles further. The rocky ridges that enclose the valley on the east and west insulate it from extreme temperature variati ons, enabling town s as far north as central Massachu sett s to support commercial cultivation of tobacco, a cash crop more commonly associated with tidewater Virginia. The intervale stretches several miles between ridges,

providing soil who se quality and quantity alike were unmatched in interior New England. Although much of th e alluvial plain s have been obscured by centuries of building, fields on th e lowest river terraces in Wethersfield and East Windsor still provide a powerful sense of how dramatically thi s landscape differs from the generally hilly, rocky, and heavily wooded terrain of the surrounding countryside. That desirable meadows along the river were both cleared and unoccupied could hardly have been seen as anything but doubly providential to Puritan settlers (the Native Americans who had created th ese desirable riverside "meadows" had themselves been mown down by epidemic disease). The C onnecticut valley settlements also possess a unique histori cal distinction: established by religiously idealistic and economically ambitious Puritans who paused only briefly in th e coastal colony of Massachusetts Bay, th ese pion eerin g interior settlements were at once an end point of the great Puritan migration across the Atlantic and the starting point of Anglo-American expa nsio n westward acro ss the contine nt of North America. Region al valley culture was persistently distinguished by this dual orientation, simult aneously connected to its Puritan counterpart to the east by heritage and commo n cause and isolated by the physical barrier of nearly one hundred miles of territory th at was initially occupied by Native American peoples and only gradually filled in with Puritan town s. Once established , Puritan culture per sisted longer and more tenaciously in th e Connecticut valley than elsewhere in New England. The Cromwellian Revolution of 1640 halted the exodus of Puritans out of England, and migration into th e valley subsequently slowed to a mere tri ckle. On the eve of the Revolution, nearly one hundred fifty years after settlement, the Connecticut valley population consisted overwhelmingly of densely intermarried descendents of the original settlers) The Puritans' Congregational religion remained the legally established, and thus tax-supported, church in th e colony and state of C onnecticut until 1818. 8 The factor s favoring the emergence of a distinctive regional culture- especially the oasislike quality of settlements connected by the river, the relative isolation of the interior sett ing and con sequent weakening of external stimuli, and the demographic and religiou s persistence- logically might be expected to have favored the evolution of a single preeminent center, established throu gh conce ntration of administrative, econ omic, and intellectu al activity. H owever, over a century and a

half elapsed before Hartford claimed such rank in the I790s, becoming the nation's first significant interior city. That the Connecticut valley flourished for so long without a preeminent entrepot represents a quite distinctive phenomenon in American history. Somewhat like the ancient Greek city states, the Connecticut valley prior to 1790 comprised a multicentered cultur al region, with political , economic , intellectual, and social capital dispersed among several identifiable nuclei.? Several key factors encouraged thi s phenomenonpatchwork settlement patterns, political and religious structures, attenuated contacts with th e mother countr y, and the organiz ation of maritime and trade activity. Patchwork settlement. Initial immigration int o th e valley did not represent any concerted strategy to expand the Puritan realm; rather, it resulted from separate and unco ordinated initiatives drawn by th e valley's rich land s and relative autonomy. Only two of the four original towns-Windsor and H artford-were settled according to the celebrated Puritan ideal of cohesive religious communities, congrega tions covenanted together under an especially charismatic and compelling mini ster, in search of a haven where they might be reasonably undi sturbed in their efforts to pursue their particular visions of G od's way. The other two were founded with economic aims more conspicuously in th e forefront-Wethersfield by a disparate group colorfully remembered as the "Ten Adventurers," led by a swashbuckling fur trader named John Oldham, C onnecticut 's version of the legend ary John Smith of Virginia; and Springfield as a frontier post serving the interests of prominent and wealthy Puritan merchant and fur trader William Pynchon. Divergent aims and leadership soon sundered any unity inherent in th e location of th ese outpost communiti es. By 1639, several factor s-including the need for common defense against ho stile Native American s (made urgent by the 1637 conflict remembered as the Pequ ot War), legal que stion s abo ut land titles and political status, and logistic al difficulti es created by the di stance from establi shed authority in th e Bay Colony-prompted the creation of the Connecticut C olony. Titled after the river's Algonki an name, this new political entity included only th e three lower towns-Wethersfield, Hartford, and Windsor. Springfield, separated geographically by the river's fall line, also diverged politically. In contrast to th e Puritan oligarchies that dominated the Conn ecticut Colony towns, Pynch on maintained individual control echoing th at of

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an English manorial lord. In 1641 he formally reattached Springfield to the Bay Colony, permanently bifurcating the river valley.'? While Springfield continued to be linked to th e Connecticut town s by economic, social, and cultural ties that ran north-south along the river, its political loyalties were hen ceforth directed eastward to Boston. Springfield's secession forced the Connecticut Colony's expansion to the south, east, and west; geography forced it out of the valley. Below Haddam, the river enters a narrow gorge through hard, crystalline rock that resists erosion, making the lower reache s of the river, like the eastern and western uplands, considerably less inviting for agriculture. Early occupation leapfrogged over th ese less desirable area s, creating noncontiguous settlements. By 1664 th e political entity of th e Conn ecticut C olony consisted of four clusters of En glish habitation-the core region of the three river towns plus the three previously independent colonies of Saybrook, New London, and New Haven, all located at good harb ors on Long Island Sound. Extensive territories occupied by N ative Americans separated the se four clusters of Puritan settlement. Noncontiguous settlement patterns persisted even as the se intervening land s were acquired from the Native Americans and allocated to additional towns. Within each town's boundaries, significant expanses of land remained either sparsely settle d or completely unoccupied, avoided as less desirable or deliberately held in reserve for future generations." Together, the agglomerative growth process and patchwork settlement pattern sowed the seeds of Connecticut localism, creatin g a situ ation in which preexisting local loyalties militated against the formation of colony-wide identity as well as the rise to precedence of anyone town over the others. The three river towns possessed chronological precedence and superior agricultural land s, but th ey were disadvantaged by their distance from the ocean and less direct contact with the moth er country and the outside world . New London and New Haven had better harbors with easier access to ocean-going trade, but neither possessed an agricultural hinterland cap able of producing significant quantities of commercial crop s for export. Still , the prosperity and prestige of New Haven was sufficient to compel a division of govern mental authority-for more than two centuries Hartford and New Haven served as co-capitals, with the legislature and courts alternating between them.

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Political and religious structures. Connecticut's government devolved from the Fundamental Orders of 1639, an ad hoc document by whi ch the preexi stin g river towns "covenanted together" to form th e new colony. Confirmed in the royal charter obtained by Governor John Winthrop, Jr., in 1662, th e terms of the Fundamental Orders remained the basis of Connecticut's government until 1818. Grounded on the autonomy of the founding town s, the Fundamental Orders provided for town -based repre sentation in th e lower hou se of the legislature. The Charter of 1662 reaffirmed this system, which remained in place for a stu nning tenure of 299 years, replaced by proportional representation only after contentious debate in 1961. Underlying, and indeed in spiring, th e political autonomy of Connecticut town s was th e region's pervasive adherence to con gregational precepts of church organi zation and governance. Following to its logical extreme the protestant rejection of prie stly hierarchies as unnecessary and malignant spiritual intermediaries, Connecticut's Congregational churches fiercely upheld the independence of individual congregations." This aspect of Puritanism proved a significantly divisive force. The rejection of any hierarchical structure for th e ordination and assignment of ministers meant that each congregation held respon sibility for selecting its own minister, whose particular interpretation of Scripture would in turn define and influence th e beliefs and practices of the community for years to come. Ironically, the difficultie s of choo sing an accept able minister not infrequently meant that congregations went for years without a permanent pastor. Questions of membership and relative authority between ministers and congregations also occasioned bitter disputes.v In I7II a meeting of mini sters and lay elders convened by the Connecticut legislature devised a plan for associations of ministers and con sociations of churches to provide a loose framework for church di scipline at a supra- congregational level; however, th ere was no mechanism for compelling individual churc hes to accept this plan, known as the Saybr ook Platform. Many (the East Windsor congregation among th e foremost) chose to retain autonomy by simply rejecting it. Even for those who did accept the platform, th e authority of the association or consociati on was not binding; many congregations ignored the rulin gs of mini sterial councils or appealed to the legislature. After decades of wrangling, the platform was formally repealed in 1784, returning Connecticut to a strictly

congregational, non-hierarchical structure of church governance.14 Attenuated contacts. Yet another factor that encouraged C onnecticut's autonomy and localism was the anomalous legal status created by the lack of a royal charter prior to 1662. The legitimacy of the Fundamental Orders, written by the colonists themselves, rested upon the authority of the river towns, whose settlement had been granted by the Massachusetts General Court. The resulting legal tangle made it propitious for early Connecticut officials to keep a low profi le in imperial politics, and there is evidence that they continued to do so even after Gov. Winthrop brilliantly negotiated th e royal charter of 1662. Well into the eighteenth century, economic hi storians have concluded, Connecticut reports to the British Board of Trade "always understated the amount of commerce and manufacturing in an atte mpt to keep England's interest in the colony low and to minimize outside interference with the colony's self-govern ment." If this was a "deliberate ploy to lull England into the belief that Connecticut was a thinly populated colony of mo stly farmers," as historian Bruce D aniel s has suggested, it succeeded . British interest in Connecticut remained de sultory. Connecticut never had a royal govern or; its chief executive office was an elective post, voted upon by the freemen of the towns. The colony's onl y colonial Customs House was located in New London, and imperial officials, who elsewhere provided immediate links to the mother country, and whose person al baggage served as conduits for the latest metrop olit an fashion s, had relativel y little impact on th e core region of the river towns.f From its very beginnings, Connecticut operated at a greater remove from the mother country than colonies whose initial footholds were located alon g the Atlantic. The vast majority of Connecticut's first generation settler s came from elsewhere in New England, wit h the result that the colony's early residents and its founding institution s were twice removed from the influence of th e mother country ("tw ice purified," from the Puritan perspective) . Throughout the colonial period, few immigrants arrived in Connecticut directly from England. Population growth came primarily from natural increase; new town s were founded and peopled by residents from older Connecticut communities, which thus attained the status of "mother towns." Similarly, although Connecticut residents of means certainly enjoyed a wide array of imported goods, those goo ds rarely arrived directly from overseas. The vast

majority of English goods were ordered from major mercantile firms in Boston or, after the midcentury revaluation of Massachusetts currency created a trade barrier, in New York. Furthermore, the shallow draft of the Connecticut River (only nine feet at high tide over the Saybrook Bar at the river's mouth) required goods on large ocean-going vessels to be unloaded and trans shipped . Even smaller vessels found the river passage difficult: in 1768 Fair T rader, a We st Indian sloop, required thirteen days to travel the forty miles from Saybrook up to its home port at Stepney parish, Wethersfield; it succeeded only with th e aid of towing by rowb oat s and lightening th e cargo to get over a notorious bar ju st above Middletown." Demographic persistence, fiercely autonomous communities, and attenuated cosmopolitan contacts encouraged a closed sho p mentality in fields as disparat e as politics, reli gi on, th e militia, and tavernkeeping.'? Woodworkers shared that mentality, so that shop traditions exhibited per sistence and exclusivity, generally admitting only apprentices and journeymen wh o had some connection s to a master and his family.IS The relative scarcity of immigrant craftsmen combined with the absence of imperial style-setters to favor th e continuation of forms and fashions that had already established popularity with local con sumer s. Manneri st styles popular in early to mid seventeenth-century England persi sted in the Connecticut valley until th e 1720S; locally made form s in the newer William and Mary style were corre spondingly rare. Disp ersed trade. C ommercial agriculture and riverborne trade provided Connecticut valley colonists with prosperity that was at once greater than that enjoyed in other areas of interior N ew England and more widely and evenly distributed th an in th e major seapo rt cities. By th e late 1640 S, only a decade after their arrival, C on necticut valley yeomen had achieved the rem arkable feat of producing for export small quantities of agricultural surpluses (grain and livestock), together with timber products harve sted from the surrounding forests. In the eighteenth century, standard export commodities included cattle, hogs, and horses; barreled meat, cider, tobacco, onions, grain, flour, flax, and flax seed; pota sh and timber products (pipe staves, hoop s, shingles, tar, and pitch) .'? River-borne commerce linked individual valley towns directly to the sugar-producing colonies of the We st Indies, and thus to th e notorious triangle trade, th e vast transatl antic profit-making enterprise th at supplied

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enslaved Africans to labor in the voraciously demanding sugar plantations, in exchange for rum and sugar coveted by Europeans and their American descendants. Compared to the plantations of the Carolinas and Chesapeake region, or even the grain farms of the MidAtlantic colonies, the scale of Connecticut's export trade was relatively modest, but it was nonetheless significant locally. Pumping cash and credit into the valley, the West Indies trade supported both farmers and nonagricultural townsmen, including traders and seafarers, shipbuilders and woodworkers.i? The expansion of Connecticut's trade with the West Indies in the late q20S and 1730S corresponds closely with experimentation with new furniture styles in the late 1730S and the appearance of the Wethersfield style the following decade . The organization of the West Indies trade had as nearly as much impact as the revenues it generated. The presence of at least one export-import trader in each river town created relatively closed credit networks that in turn encouraged local patronage. If farmers had no need to resort to larger urban centers to barter surplus, they had correspondingly little means of generating or repaying the credits needed to purchase goods outside their particular communities. Patronage of local craftsmen provided a means for traders to clear debts and increment circulating credits." C H A RAe T E R 1ST WIN D S 0 R,

AND

r c S 0 F WET HER SF IE L D, EA ST

WIN D S 0 R

Of the four furniture style centers in the preRevolutionary Connecticut valley, only SpringfieldNorthampton fits easily into standard patterns of style emanating from the most commercialized, urban communities in a region (what geographers and economic and social historians term higher-order central places)." As the oldest and most populous town in western Massachusetts, Springfield served as the lead ing market town and county seat for eighteenthcentury Hampshire County. Northampton, also a market town, acquired additional prominence from the prestige and wide-ranging influence of its pastors, Rev. Solomon Stoddard (1643-1729), known as the pope of the Connecticut valley, and his grandson and successor, Rev. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758).23 In the Connecticut section of the valley, the most populous and commercialized towns at the end of the colonial period, Hartford and Middletown, were not furniture style centers. That distinction belonged instead to the

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towns of Wethersfield and East Windsor (which economic historians have classified as second-tier central places) and Colchester (generally regarded as a third-tier country townl.r' Of these towns, Wethersfield and East Windsor are the most easily investigated, thanks largely to nineteenth-century antiquarians Henry Reed Stiles and Sherman Adams, whose two-volume compilations provide essential starting points for their early histories (including those of East Windsor, which became a separate town in 1768, and its southern section, which became South Windsor in 1845). Observations drawn about Wethersfield and East Windsor in turn provide a basis for considering the specific questions of why Colchester became a style center but Hartford did not, as well as for identifYing more general factors in the development of local style cenrers .i' The original towns of Wethersfield and Windsor both developed lucrative staple crops for export. Wethersfield began onion cultivation around qIO and subsequently became the Western Hemisphere's leading producer of this vegetable, used extensively as a cheap food for enslaved field hands on West Indian and mainland Southern plantations. In 1774 the town exported two million pounds, braided together into IOO,OOO "ropes" by local women.t" Windsor led the valley in tobacco cultivation. Numerous local residents participated in this trade, including Windsor joiner Timothy Loomis II (1691-1740) and his son Timothy III (1724-1786), who shipped 221 pounds of tobacco to Barbados in 1739, and East Windsor cabinetmaker Eliphalet Chapin, who sold merchant Ebenezer Grant 31 pounds of tobacco in 1771. Windsor also bred and exported riding horses, reputed to be among the finest in the colonies." Efforts to estimate the relative size and scope of mercantile activity in particular river towns prior to the Revolution are notoriously imprecise and inconsistent. The most comprehensive source of information on colonial Connecticut shipping was lost in q8I, with the burning of the Customs House at New London by Benedict Arnold. Much of what has been written on the subject is necessarily based on post-Revolutionary evidence, projected back onto the preceding period. For example, a total of 200 ships registered at Connecticut ports in 1774, and 72 of these are known to have hailed from New London; drawing on "local and indirect evidence" and "qualitative assessments," historian Bruce Daniels assigns 36 to New Haven; 15 each to Hartford,

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Middletown, and Norwich; 4 or 5 to Wethersfield; and at least r each to Windsor, Glastonbury, and East Haddam. 28 Data gleaned from tax lists, account books, receipts, correspondence, and other scattered and often fragmentary manuscript sources suggest that the concentrations observed in Hartford and Middletown in the Revolutionary era may not have been constant for the entire colonial period. Wethersfield may have initially led in export trade and shipbuilding, thanks to its possession of the colony's most productive farmland and its down-river location. Surplus grains for export were delivered to the town dock as early as 1647, and the Tryall, believed to be Connecticut's first ship, was constructed in Wethersfield in 1649.29 In 1692 the course of the river shifted at Wethersfield and the channel deepened, allowing more traffic to pass upstream to Hartford and Windsor.'? Wethersfield's early prominence in shipping and trade diminished, but the wealth that had been accumulated assured the town an influential economic, political, and cultural role well into the eighteenth century. In the 17IOS Wethersfield vied with Hartford and Saybrook to become the site ofYale College, whose classes had been conducted for three years in the home of Rev. Elisha Williams (1694-1755) in Wethersfield's Newington parish) ! Windsor's early commercial activity was more regionally focused and generally less extensive. The first English claimants to the land consisted of an expeditionary force sent out by Plymouth Colony to establish a fur trading post in 1633. By the 1650S, Henry Wolcott, son of Windsor's wealthiest original settler, was producing cider for sale, and a decade later he and his brother Josiah were shipping goods to St. Malo, Brittany, and importing sack, wine, "strong water," and sugar. Shipbuilding began by the early 1720S. By the end of the decade Ebenezer Grant (1706-97) had launched his career as shipowner and West Indies trader; he later became East Windsor's import-export merchant. By the 1770S five shipyards operated on the Windsor stretch of the river-two on the west side and three on the eastY There is considerable evidence that the two sections of Windsor developed rather differently, despite their administrative unity and other common bonds. In 1774, the first year for which separate figures are available, East Windsor had a population of 2,999 and a "moderate" density of 32-47 persons per square mile, while Windsor remained among the six most sparsely popu-

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lated towns in the colony, with 2,125 residents and fewer than 17 persons per square mile. Three years earlier, John Adams had been surprised by the location of his lodgings, at the local inn recommended by current almanacs: "Rode along the great River to Windsor, and put up at Bissalls-i.e. in East Windsor, for the Town ofWindsor it seems lies on the West Side of the River." Contrasts widened in subsequent years, as the western section remained more rural and thinly populated, and the eastern side became more densely occupied and developed more commerce and manufacturing, such as shipbuilding, milling, and artisanal enterprises. By 1782 East Windsor numbered 3,237 residents, and Windsor had 2,382)3 Between 1730 and 1790, the volume of shipping colony-wide multiplied more than a dozenfold, outdistancing population growth by a factor of four, with the sharpest increases occurring after the end of the Seven Years' War (1763) and the Revolution (1783). In addition, after 1740 the price of foodstuffs rose at a rate five times higher than other commodities. Locally,Wethersfield's shipping doubled during the two decades prior to 1750, and the resulting prosperity supported rising standards of living and aspirations to refinement, expressed in larger quantities of more genteel and stylish consumer goods and generally improved housing stock. An awareness of style and fashion-conveyed by the contrary description "old-fashioned" and by the listing of new forms (round and oval dining tables, tea tables, candlestands)-appears in local inventories about 1730, corresponding with the arrival of cabinetmaker William Manley and the emergence of distinctive Wethersfield versions of the Queen Anne style)4 The 1750S and 1760s witnessed a residential building boom in both Wethersfield and Windsor, as prosperous residents replaced earlier homesteads with larger and more stylish and comfortable dwellings. Improvements in housing stock were distributed widely throughout the population, testifYing to generally rising levels of gentility: by the early 1770s, Windsor had three two-story houses for every single-story dwelling; in Wethersfield's First Society (the central section of the town), a remarkable 80 percent of the houses had been upgraded to two stories. East Windsor's most ambitious pre-Revolutionary residence was the Ebenezer Grant house, built in 175r58-a formal Georgian dwelling with two main floors and two chimneys; symmetrical, central-hall floor plan; and clapboarded exterior featuring an elaborately carved

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2 H ouse built for John and Martha Willi ams Robbins, 1767, in the Stepn ey parish of Wether sfield (present day Rocky Hill), photographed in 1924 by]. Frederick Kelly. Connecticut Hi storical Society Mu seum, Kelly Collection, no. 890.

FIG U REI House built for Ebenezer and Ann Ellsworth Grant, 1757-58, in the eastern section of Windsor (later East Windsor and presently part of South Windsor), photographed ca. 1883- 89 by H.]. Rodgers, H artford. Connecticut Hi storical Society Mu seum.

FIG U R E

front doorway (fig. 1). At least a dozen houses in Windsor/East Windsor and another dozen in various sections ofWethersfield also displayed such "Connecticut valley doorways," a distinctive architectural feature consisting of double doors flanked by classical pilasters and topped by complex moldings; the most elaborate had imposing baroque scroll pediments (like the Grant house or the Churchill house in the Newington parish of Wethersfield, see cat. 17A), but triangular and unpedimented variants existed as well. These doorways appeared in the early 1750S in the Hartford area and spread relativelyquickly among gentry families throughout the valley and beyond, becoming a widely recognized symbol of prosperity, gentility, and authority. Wethersfield's colonial housing construction culminated in the impressive Georgian mansion erected in 1767 in Stepney parish by merchant John Robbins (1716-98). Among the region's most expensive preRevolutionary residences, it introduced in the valley such novel features as a brick exterior and Palladianstyle window (fig. 2).35 East Windsor and Wethersfield (like many Connecticut valley towns) erected new meetinghouses in the decades prior to the Revolution, and in these two the building rates were payable in the respective local staples: onions and tobacco. The East Windsor meetinghouse, built in 1761 and demolished in 1845, was fairly typical of the genre: a rectangular building sixty feet long by forty feet wide resembling from the exte-

rior a large residence in the Georgian style, finished in wooden clapboards and embellished with a baroque scroll-top doorway, sash windows with triangular pediments, and a bell tower at one end (fig. 3).3 6 The Wethersfield meetinghouse, built 1761-64, was of similar plan, but larger (eighty feet long by fifty feet wide) and significantly more ambitious (fig. 4). The congregation departed from regional precedent most dramatically by building in brick, a more expensive material with strong cosmopolitan associations. The resulting structure was regarded the most impressive religious building outside of Boston; ironically, the model to which this Congregational stronghold was traditionally compared was Boston's Old North, an Anglican edifice." The contrast between the genteel aura of the meetinghouse, the most conspicuous expression of the town 's assets and aspirations, and the pungent aroma of the onion fields attracted much comment. Jacque s-Pierre Brissot de Warville, for example, observed in 1792 that Wethersfield was "remarkable for its immense fields of onions, which are exported in prodigious quantities to the West Indies, and for its elegant meetinghouse, or church. On Sunday it is said to offer an enchanting spectacle by the number of young and handsome persons assembled there, and by the agreeable music with which they intermingle the divine service." Befitting the occupant of such an edifice, the salary paid to Rev. John Marsh, installed as pastor in 1774, was the highest in the colony (£135 annuallyl.P

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495

F IG U R E 3 East Windsor meetingh ouse, built in 1761 and de molished ca. 1845 (the n known as "Old M eetin g H ou se, South W ind sor"); shown in an early twenti eth-century postcard after an undated sketch by E rastus W olcott Ell sworth (1822- 1902) . C on necticu t H istorical Society M useu m.

The 1770S saw perhaps as man y as fifteen merchants based in W ethersfield, with at least six trading directl y with the We st Indies; some of these were shipbuilders, shipowners, or sea captains as well. In comparison, twelve wholesale and retail stores are documented in H artford in 1765, while Windsor and Ea st Windsor had one merchant each-Hooker & Chaffee and Ebenezer Grant, respectively. In 1773 a Windsor resident reported that "the rest of our sea vessels are all returned, and it was really a pleasant sight to see seven (from our steeple) coming up thro' the meadow at once." Such sights were soon absent from the local landscape: by th e end of the Revolution, merchants in both the Windsors and Wethersfield had ceased operations, and the We st Indies trade subsequently centered in Hartford and Middletown. The Revolution may have disrupted the relatively closed, local credit networks by interjecting military payments and credits origin atin g outside the com munity, thus contributing to Hartford 's po stRevoluti on ary development as a region al center. J? W H Y

F IG U R E 4 We thersfield meetinghouse, built 1761-64, pho tographed in 1976 by H erbert F. D unn after restoration to eighteen th-century appearance. Connecticut H istorical Society Museu m , 1988.I0 4.14I.

COLCHEST ER?

Colche ster's appearance as a major Connecticut valley style center is as conspicuous as Hartford's absence and, at first glance , as challe ng ing to explain. It wa s a younger town , located in th e uplands east of the Connecticut River, with no direct access to water-born e trade. The closest ports lay several miles away, to th e west and southwest, at Middle and East Haddam on th e C onnecticut River; and to the southeast at Norwich,

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at the head of the Thames estuary. According to standard economic indicators, lack of direct trade facilities combined with absence of evidence of inland market activity places Colchester among the country towns, the third and lowest order of central places, not typically locations for high-level specialized services such as fine cabinetmaking. Since the furniture does exist, the response has been to account for it by a short-term economic bubble resulting from extraordinary profits made by local merchants and farmers from Revolutionary War provisioning.s? Much like perceptions of the relative status of Wethersfield, Hartford, and the Windsors, modern understandings of colonial Colchester have been shaped by subsequent history and historiography. Three major cycles of economic expansion and contraction left relatively little continuity between the town's colonial and modern populations. Colchester's population grew by nearly 70 percent in the third quarter of the eighteenth century-from 2,312 in 1756 to 3,365 in 1782; it then slid downward due to emigration. By 1800 it had lost almost 20 percent of its peak population, and by 1820 the number had fallen below the 1756 level. Nineteenth-century industrialization-textile mills and Hayward Rubber factory, the town's major industry founded in 1847-attracted new residents, and in 1870 the population again approached its colonial high. As the mills closed, the population began to fall again, precipitously after 1890, reaching a low of 1,991 in 1900; it did not return to the 1782 figure until the mid-twentieth century. While the colonial growth had been almost entirely the result of natural increase, the two subsequent expansions were fueled largely by immigration. By the 1920S, the population of New London County (including Colchester) was 60 percent foreign born, and the persistence of old names among published biographies of local notables was much lower than in the river towns of Wethersfield and the Windsors.f Apparently no one possessed an an ti quarian bent, so Colchester lacks a nineteenth-century compendium of early records, genealogy, local lore, and narrative history comparable to Henry Stiles's and Sherman Adams's volumes on Windsor and Wethersfield. Geographically, the town of Colchester straddles the ridge separating the Connecticut River Valley from that of the Thames River, which drains most of eastern Connecticut. This location places it on the cusp of two distinct settlement and cultural zones, connected to both but central to neither: that emanating from the

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original river towns in Hartford County and that from the briefly independent colony at New London, along Connecticut's southeastern shore . Colchester's modern inclusion in New London County, combined with the presence in Colchester furniture of design features found to the east, in Rhode Island work, has resulted in its having been considered in the context of New London County furniture and history.P This orientation obscures extensive genealogical, social, political, and cultural ties linking the colonial residents of Colchester to the river towns. Colchester's ancient burying ground underscores this point with a remarkable vista that extends northwest to Hartford. Colchester's peripheral location and changing administrative status complicate its historiography. It was originally authorized in 1698 as a plantation by Hartford County proprietors, but the following year it was transferred to New London County. In 1708 it was returned to Hartford County, coinciding with the origins of most of its colonial residents, but in 1783 it was reassigned to New London County. The town consequently fell between the cracks of nineteenth- and twentieth-century county histories: it was no longer a part of Hartford County, but histories of New London County have little to say about its eighteenth-century period (for which years the records are with Hartford County).The dearth of narrative history on eighteenthcentury Colchester means that historians engaged in constructing broader economic, social, or cultural analyses of colonial Connecticut have had little secondary material on which to draw, and the town is nearly invisible in most general works . Considerable evidence suggests that the relegation of Colchester to third-tier "country town" status is an anomaly resulting largely from the lack of available narrative history. Both raw population and density figures place it on a par with other secondary towns . Between 1756 and 1774, Colchester grew by a rate of about 45 percent, faster than any of the river towns except Hartford; its 1774 population of 3,258 was roughly equivalent to the other furniture style centers; Wethersfield had 3,489 and East Windsor 2,999. By 1756 Colchester's population density had already reached the second highest category, putting it on a par with Hartford and Middletown, and it remained in this category of"densely" settled towns through the colonial period. Colony tax assessment lists provide yet another useful index to prosperity, with Colchester ranking close to Wethersfield in a second tier during the 1760s and

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I770s; after 1768 Colchester's list was consistently larger than Wethersfield's and East Windsor's; and during the Revolution, it even pulled ahead of New London.f C olchester's location and topography contributed substantially to its growth . Situated at the intersection of two major transportation axes, it also lay midway between th e early settlements at Hartford and New L ondon as well as the eighteenth-century ports of N orwi ch and Middletown. The ridge separating the C onnecticut and Thame s drainage areas offered a natural pathway toward Hartford, with few intersecting waterways to be traversed. Topography provided land eminently suited to livestock grazing (Connecticut's major com mercial agricultural activity in the late colonial period) and also an ample supply of waterpower, in th e form of numerous small rivers and streams that had th eir headwaters in Colchester's highlands. Although over a third of C olchester's land was stony, steeply sloping, and not particularly suited to agricultural purposes, th e remainder consisted of well drained glacial till, nutrient-rich sedime nt left behind from the last Ice Age . O ver time, th e area's numerous small watercourses had eroded th e hillsides, enriching th e valleys with furth er sedi ment. Both the till and the intervale lands were rem arkably versatile, supporting a range of crop s as well as pasturage. Given the high proportion of agricultu rally margin al land, the town's overall soil quality was sur prisingly high, with a productivity rating equivalent to th e river town of Middletown, just below that ofWindsor and Hartford, and well ahead of mo st interior Connecticut towns.t O n th e west side of Colchester, the Salmon River and its tributarie s led southwest to th e Connecticut River at E ast H addam; smaller watercourses on the east side of town fed into the Yantic River leading to Norwic h. Dropping down from the ridge line, these strea ms provid ed ample and acce ssible waterpower. Colches ter's early records contain numerous votes autho rizing variou s manufacturing enterprises, including gristmills and sawmills, a fullin g mill for processing and finishing woolen fabri c (1706), tanneries, an ironwo rks (1708), and a nail factory.45 Such enterprises migh t well explain Colchester's surprisingly high po sition in th e "index of com mercialization" con structed by historian Edward M. C ook, Jr., to assess relative property values by town. Based on the Connecticut grand list of 1774, C olchest er's com me rcial index of I.I22 ranked as the second highest in the entire colony, exceeded only by W ethersfield at 1.301. Middletown

and Hartford ranked substantially lower, at .938 and .908, respectively.P Because this index predates the Revolution, it excludes profits from wartime provisioning, thus confirming that the town's prosperity was already well established. Colchester's commercial specialization centered on cattle rai sing, including such related enterprises as meat-packing, hide-tanning, and cheese-making. Livestock had surpassed grain crops as Connecticut's overall agricultural focus early in the eighteenth century, a trend occasioned partly by necessity-the suitability for this use of the upland regions then being populatedand partly by opportunity-the rising demand for meat products to feed West Indian plantation workers as well as English and colonial troops fighting in several North American campaigns again st the French. Colchester residents benefited from, and may indeed have played a leading role in, the shift from grain to livestock pro duction. By the I770s, meat-packing had become Connecticut's leading industry, and the superior meat and higher prices associated with larger beef cattle encouraged enterprising farmers to turn from simple grazing to corn feeding, an enterprise for which Colchester, with its versatile soils, was aptly suited.v In 1771 the Colchester church was prosperous and ambitious enough to join the ranks of congregations building new meetinghouses. Later townsfolk recalled the resulting edifice as "truly beautiful and one of the finest in the whole colony." A drawing made a few years prior to demolition in 1841 suggests that Colchester's wood frame meetinghouse was somewhat simpler than its counterpart in East Windsor, lacking the latter's

F IG U R E 5 C olchester meetinghou se, built Inl and dem olished in 1841, as dr awn by John W arner Barber, ca. 1836. Bacon Academy appears to th e left. C onnecticut Historical Society M useum, 1953.5.47.

SCHO ELW ER

elaborate scroll-pediment doorframe and triangular window pediments (fig. 5). Substantial means and rising standards of gentility were also evident in the town's most notable private struc ture, the 1768 mansion house erected by Jonathan Deming (1743-88), who also owned important examples of Samuel Loomis group case furniture (see cat. 104) . Designed by Lebanon, Connecticut, joiner Isaac Fitch (1734-91), Deming's house was among the earliest Palladian mansions in Connecticut, adapted from an English pattern book (fig. 6).48 Yet another marker of Colchester's specialization and success in raising livestock was its contribution to the blockaded city of Boston in 1774-75. Whereas Wethersfield collected subscriptions in cash or grains, East Windsor sent grain, and Windsor sent grain plus a half barrel of pork, Colchester forwarded 101 sheep and 8 head of cattle. In the spring of 1775, Colchester's Col. Henry Champion (1723-97) was one of nine commissaries named by the Connecticut legislature to supply provisions to the militia forces; each of these commi ssaries was "a merchant skilled in bargaining for farm produce and other article s," and each was "located in a town whose hinterland possessed an available surplus." Champion, "a noted beef specialist," succeeded so well that he was subsequently appointed Commissary General of the Eastern Department of the Continental army, the appointment letter commending his "judgement, capacity, and experience in the business of procuring and purchasing fat cattle, especially beyond any other person in [Connecticut]" and also "his ability to promote the fattening of cattle and skill to purchase." In a much celebrated exploit, Champion and his son Epaphroditus (1756-1834) personally drove a herd of several hundred beef from Connecticut to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, during the desperate winter of 177r78, losing only 150 to the enemy en route and arriving just in time to avert starvation in Washington's army; the first installment, 20 head, was devoured within five days. Toward the end of the war, Epaphroditus Champion and his brother, Henry, Jr. (1751-1836), working with Hartford merchant Jeremiah Wadsworth (1743-1804) to supply the French army at Yorktown, accomplished the unprecedented feat of driving herds overland from Connecticut to Virginia. 49 Many individual Colchester residents (including known furniture patrons) can be identified among tho se active in the provisioning effort, as traders, as teamsters and conductors of supply trains, and as cattle

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F I G U R E 6 H ouse built for Jon ath an and Alice Skinner D eming, 1768, in Colche ster, ph otograph ed ca. 1880-1900 with later alterations to doors and first-fl oor windows; demolished in 1958. C onn ecticut Hi storical Society Museum, 1980 .24.13.

feeders. Certainly local farmers and traders profited from those transactions for which they actually received payment (many debts went uncollected or were eventually redeemed in depreciated currency or for a fraction of their face value). In December 1775 Eliphalet Bulkeley (1746-1816), the owner of a L ord group desk (cat. 99), transported chee se from C olchester to Washington's camp outside Boston , selling 107 pounds to Nathan Hale, among others. In August 1776, Julius Deming (1755-1838), brother of Jonathan and the owner of two Lord group pieces (see cats. 96, 97), was assigned by Champion to supervise the supply of fresh meat to the Continental army on Manhattan; between mid-September and mid-October, Deming delivered 560,875 pounds of beef and mutton. Colchester's prominence as a supply depot and center of commissary operations, the amount of provi sions raised locally, and Henry Champion's often-cited experience in the cattle trade point strongly to the preRevolutionary existence of a well-established and prosperous commercial livestock enterprise in Colchesrer.i? From its beginnings, the settlement at Colchester had been motivated largely by economic ambitions, echoing the example of the Ten Adventurers in Wethersfield rather than the communal migrations that had established Windsor or Hartford. Colchester's prospects attracted settlers from an unu sually large

499

number of town s, including all three of the initial Conne cticut River communities-Windsor, Hartford, Wethersfield-as well as Glastonbury, Haddam, and Saybrook; New London and Norwich along the Thames River; Kingston, Rhode Island; Springfield, orthampton, and H atfield in western Massachu setts, plus Watertown , outside Boston , and Barnstable on Cape Cod Y Emigrants from th e river town s included both woodworkers and members of leading merchant and gentry families, suggesting that the town was from th e outset endowed with both craftsmen and a modicum of capital. Investigati on of family ties to established woodworking shops in th e older river town s may illuminate th e origins of Colchester's di stinctive furniture. Nathaniel Foote (1647- 17° 3), remembered as "the father of C olchester," had been a carp enter and turner in W ethersfield. The Dickinson s and th e Gilberts of Colchester were related to W eth ersfield woodworkers. Windsor resident Nathaniel L oomi s (1663- 1732) had worked on th e Windsor me etinghouse prior to his removal to Colchester; his brother Samuel (1666-1745) was grandfathe r to cabinetmaker Samuel Loomis (1748-18 14).51 The mixing of settlers from various towns might have contributed to Colch ester's unusually freewheeling style. A final statistic that invite s further exploration is the relatively high local incidence of slavery. In 1774, the year in which C onnecticut's total slave population peaked at 5,5 IO, C olchester counted 173 slaves, representing slightly over 5 percent of its tot al population. No other Hartford C ounty town had as high a percentage of slaves. Middletown (the site of the colony's first slave market, opened in th e 1760s) counted 198 slaves, but th ese represented only 4 percent of the total population. H artford 's 145 and Wethersfield's 142 slaves made up approximately 3 percent and 4 percent of their respective residents, while Ea st Windsor and Windsor had far smaller slave populations, with 36 and 35 each, making up less than 2 percent of their residents.53 C olchester's slave population underlines the potential significance of one source of Colchester's prosperity th at has only recently begun to be systematically investigated: th e existence of an immense plantation founded prior to 1718 and located near the town's southern border with Lyme, in a district that split off to becom e th e town of Salem in 1819. E stabli shed by Salem, M assachusetts, merchant Samuel Browne (1669-1731), and subsequently owned by his son and

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grandson, this plantation's four thousand acres made it the second largest in southern N ew England. It was managed by hired overseers and worked by at least sixty slaves, a vast number by eighteenth-century standards (relatively few colonial Connecticut slave holders owned more than a single slave). The plantation's enterpri se centered on the West Indies, producing on a large scale the same commodities that farmers all over Connecticut were supplying on a small scale-livestock, barreled meat, cheese, grain, and wood products necessary to keep th e sugar plantations running. The last owner, William Browne (1737-1802), returned to En gland as a Loyalist exile, and his entire estate, valued at over £171,150, was confiscated by the state of Connecticut in 1780; nearly fifteen hundred acres of land in Colchester came on the real estate market, a rare boon in Connecticut's increasingly land-hungry society.54 The exact contributions of the Salem plantation to Colchester's prosperity, and thu s to the production of Colchester style furniture, remain to be determined. Its presence provides a particularly striking reminder of the close but as yet insufficiently examined economic links between the sugar plantation s of th e Caribbean and cabinet shops all over Connecticut. THE

DEVELOPMENT

STYL E

OF

LOCAL

CENTERS

In colonial Connecticut, numerous factors contributed to blurring conventional distinctions between urban and rural communities, high er and lower order central places. Priority of settlement gave the oldest towns prestige and influence, above and beyond any easily measurable economic assets. Distinctive land allotment patterns along the Connecticut River's banks resulted in relatively dense clusters of population in particular neighborhoods, to some extent blurring conventional distincti on s between urb an and rural communities. Even the most urban centers contained large numbers of farmers, cultivating lands outside the central residence zone; even the most rural districts supported at least one country storekeeper, and many contained various artisans and other providers of higher level services. Thriving woodworking shop traditions actively sought to sustain themselves and expand their opportunities by attracting both workmen and customers. Commercial agriculture and river-borne trade with the West Indies generated prosperity and dispersed buying power widely through out the valley, at the same tim e as direct local access to that trade created localized credit networks.

SCHOELW ER

Priority of settlement. The earliest towns possessed appreciable advantages-better land, access to water, and wealthier or more diverse initial settlers. In 1774 the "ancient towns" of Wethersfield and Windsor possessed a disproportionate share of large estates; higher average and median wealth figures indicate that common folk as well were generally better off than in newer towns. Moreover, by far the most significant product of these towns was people-much of Connecticut, plus significant segments of western Massachusetts, Vermont, Nova Scotia, New York State, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and beyond, were populated by Americans who traced their ancestry back to Connecticut's original river towns. 55 The genealogies of Connecticut's towns are nearly as complex and intertwined as those of early families and furniture dynasties, and they are just as important in understanding social, economic, and cultural patterns and relationships. Expansion consisted of two distinct processes: the division of town lands into smaller communities, and the outmigration ofgroups or families to found entirely new and often noncontiguous settlements. The initial category of town formation highlights the expanse of the first towns' territorial bounds and the degree to which each encompassed a core central place, subordinate nodes, and surrounding hinterlands. Wethersfield divided and then subdivided to form all or parts of the towns of Glastonbury, east of the river (I690); Berlin (I785), Rocky Hill (I843, formerly Stepney parish), New Britian (I850), and Newington (I87I). Hartford, having a smaller territory to begin, gave up East Hartford in I783 (which in turn hived off Manchester in 1823) and West Hartford in 1854. Windsor divided to form all or part of East Windsor (1768), Ellington (1786), and South Windsor (I845), all east of the river, as well as Bloomfield (I834) and Windsor Locks (I854), west of the river. Migration created even more complicated relationships between towns. In the early years of settlement, religious dissent and economic opportunism fueled considerable demographic mobility. Wethersfield residents became early settlers of Milford (I639), Stamford (I64I), Branford (I644), New London (I645), and Norwich (I659), all along or near the Sound, plus Hatfield (I672) and Williamstown (1765), Massachusetts. Wethersfield and Hartford residents settled Middletown (I65I) as well as Pittsfield, Massachusetts (I76I); Hartford and Windsor residents settled Farmington (I645), Litchfield (1720), and Harwinton (I737).

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Residents of all three river towns populated Haddam (I668), Colchester (I698) and Bolton (1720) as well as Northampton (I654) and Hadley (I659), Massachusetts. Hartford residents also settled New Harford (1738), Hartland (I76I), and Winchester (I77I), in the northwestern part of the colony. Windsor claimed to be the most prolific "mother of towns," with outmigrants going to Fairfield (I639) and Killingworth (I667) to the south; Hebron (1708) and Tolland (I717) to the east; Suffield (I670) to the north; Simsbury (I670), Torrington (1740), Barkhamsted (1779), and Colebrook (1779) to the west. Many of these newer towns also subdivided into additional communities.P The result of these town divisions and outmigrations was a bewilderingly thick and complex network of kinship and community relationships that is generally outside the purview of quantitative research and analysis.57 These networks provided links between craftsmen in established towns and consumers in newer settlements, where specific expertise might be lacking. In the 1740s, members of the Porter and Williams families in western Massachusetts purchased fashionable furniture from Wethersfield cabinetmakers William Manley and Return Belden (I721-64); in the 1750s, east-side Hartford joiner Oliver Easton (I732-6I) constructed scroll pediment doorways on mansion houses in Deerfield and Longmeadow parish, Springfield.f The legendary reverence of nineteenth-century antiquarians for the earliest settlements testified to the central, if not always tangible, importance of these communities. Considerable research has demonstrated that consumer choices are as, if not more, often motivated by emotional and symbolic considerations as by purely rational, economic interests. The four earliest settlements had a greater accumulation of both economic and cultural capital, resulting in consciously cultivated community identities and local traditions, which may well have found expression in the purchase and display of locally made furniture. That this self-conscious localism was particularly well developed in Wethersfield and Windsor is vividly demonstrated by their contention for the honor of Connecticut's "most ancient town," a rivalry that began as early as 1650 and remains active today.59 Settlement patterns. Population statistics alone are not definitive indicators of socio-economic categories. This is especially true in colonial New England, where the town represented an administrative and territorial unit rather than a population cluster. The rural town of

50 I

Farmington in 1774 had the third highest population in Connecticut (6,069), simply because its territory was by far the largest (225 square miles, more than twice the size of New Haven, at 8,259 the most populous town). Because each community's founders hoped to provide land reserves for future growth, even the smaller towns were extensive by preindustrial standards, significantly exceeding the ideal distances separating the lowest-level central places (slightly over an hour's walk) .60 The three original Connecticut River towns claimed territories ranging from 81 square miles (Hartford) to I74 (Windsor, the second largest town in the colony). Wethersfield, Hartford, and Windsor all initially extended the full width of the river valley, a distance of 12 or more miles from ridge to ridge . Even without attracting trade from neighboring districts, each contained enough territory to serve as its own hinterland; and each required smaller nodes of settlements within its boundaries-villages, hamlets, neighborhoods, crossroads. Population densities are somewhat more illuminating. In the I750S, when Wethersfield had become the dominant furniture style center in the Connecticut valley, it was also the region's most densely populated town. By 1774, Hartford had joined the ranks of "highly dense" towns; Farmington's density (fewer than 40 persons per square mile) was less than half that of both Hartford and Wethersfield. Even these comparisons are imprecise, because each town contained relatively dense nodes of settlements separated by relatively sparsely inhabited areas. However, the only systematic population figures available for colonial Connecticut are aggregated by town, making it difficult to assess or compare the absolute size or relative density of clusters within towns.P' Along the river banks from Middletown to Springfield, efforts to maximize access to water as well as intervale lands created pockets of population density that exceeded typical nonurban levels. Initial divisions of riverfront lands into long, thin lots running at right angles to the river ensured that each landholder had access to water transport plus a full range of available land types-law-lying marshlands for grass and hay to sustain livestock through the winter, slightly higher terraces for cropland, and forest-covered uplands for woodlots. On each side of the river, a single main road connected these lots, running parallel to the banks, at a distance just beyond the reach of the spring floods; houses at close intervals lined these roads for miles

502

(see map I). Numerous eighteenth-century travelers remarked upon the compact settlement of these riverside neighborhoods. In the I780s French nobleman Brissot de Warville described the Connecticut River Valley as "one continuous town," and London merchant Robert Hunter, Jr., observed, "I don't think any part of England is thicker settled than this state . There are houses about the whole way from New Haven [to Hartford]."62 The impact of the long lots on residence patterns was particularly evident in East Windsor. Town founders, envisioning no immediate habitation on eastside lands, made no provision for clustered home lots there; instead they divided all lands into "planting lots"-strips of land, fronting anywhere from one hundred feet to nearly a quarter mile along the river, and stretching eastward across the valley for three miles. After east-side settlement commenced in the I670s, smaller home lots were carved out fronting both sides of the north-south road that cut across the original long lots-both Eliphalet and Aaron Chapin purchased such quarter-acre properties along "The Street." Occasional crossroads leading away from the river never achieved the importance or the density of settlement associated with this main north-south axis. If the alignment of houses along "The Street" lacked the warrenlike quality of port towns such as Boston or Newport-or even Hartford's small network of intersecting streets and lanes-it was far more concentrated than the typical rural landscape.63 John Adams noted the distinctive character of the riverside communities during a 1771 tour that stretched from Enfield to Middletown: "I have spent this Morning in Riding thro Paradise. My Eyes never beheld so fine a Country. From Bissills [tavern] in [East] Windsor to Hartford Ferry, 8 Miles, is one continued Street-Houses all along, and a vast Prospect of level Country on each Hand, the Lands very rich and the Husbandry pretty good. The Town of Hartford is not very compact. .. . then rode to Wethersfield 4 miles, on the West Side of the River.-Here is the finest Ride in America, I believe. Nothing can exceed the Beauty, and Fertility of the Country. The Lands upon the River, the flatt low Lands, are loaded with rich, noble Crops of Grass, and Grain and Corn."64 Woodworking communities. Given the amount of construction necessary in establishing a new community, woodworking craftsmen were well represented among the settlers of the original Connecticut valley

SCHOELWER

towns. Earlier furniture historians assumed that seventeenth-century Hartford, being the seat of government, the preeminent pulpit, and the leading market town, must also have been the dominant furnitureproducing center; initial documentary research identified eleven joiners in Hartford prior to 1700, six in Wethersfield, and seven in Windsor. Recent investigations challenge that view, arguing that Windsor was "the region's premier woodworking community through the seventeenth century," with at least twenty-six woodworkers (joiners, carpenters, coopers, turners, and wheelwrights) arriving prior to 1640; more than two hundred are documented as having worked there at least briefly between 1635 and 1715. Wethersfield's early woodworkers were similarly numerous, with as many as twenty-seven identified in the first generation, including shipbuilders as well as the foregoing occupations. Numerous boxes, chests, and chests with drawers with plausible family histories testify to production ofjoined furniture in both Windsor and Wethersfield in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, carried out by multiple generations of workmen in several distinct, extended family shop traditions. In contrast, only one extended shop tradition in Hartford can be linked to surviving examples-the Spencer family shops, descended from joiner Nicholas Disbrowe (1612-83) and turner Thomas Spencer (160r87), are credited with making turned banister back chairs well into the early nineteenth century.65 Although the links between the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century shop traditions have just begun to emerge, it is clear that reservoirs of artisanal expertise were critical to the development oflater cabinetmaking centers. Given the low level of immigration to the Connecticut valley, the early shop traditions served as principal training grounds for subsequent woodworkers; moreover, evidence from Windsor indicates that, at least in that town, established shop traditions actively sought to maintain control of the woodworking trade through marriage alliances, apprentice placements, and participation in town and church building projects.v? There is considerable evidence of craftsman mobility. Apprentices and journeymen frequently moved to established shops in search of training or day wages; such workmen not infrequently married into the master's family and remained in their new locality. Aaron Colton (1758-1840) and Aaron Chapin (1753-1838) both moved from Springfield to East Windsor in the 1770s, the former to begin an apprenticeship with Augustus

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Fitch (1733-1815), and the latter, having finished an apprenticeship, to work in his cousin Eliphalet's shop; four years later, Aaron Chapin married Mary King (1756-1829), the niece of Windsor joiner Parmenas King (1713-1800). Other workmen, especially carpenters, joiners, and architectural woodworkers, followed the call of major building projects-the construction of a meeting- or court house or the finish work on a mansion house. Parmenas King, for example, in 1754 worked on houses in Deerfield and the Longmeadow parish of Springfield.I? Many woodworkers moved to new towns or recently opened districts, where they benefited from the land division and building boom that accompanied initial settlement. This was arguably the most persistent pattern, with many examples dating from the mid seventeenth century to well into the nineteenth century. In the late 1660s, Windsor joiner Thomas Barber, Jr. (1655-1712), and cooper Peter Buell (1644-1729) participated in the settling of Simsbury, where both became large landowners; Buell's brother Samuel (1641-1720), a joiner, was among the founders of Killingworth, along the Connecticut shore, in 1662. In the second quarter of the next century, William Manley of Charlestown, Massachusetts, moved first to Wethersfield, and then to Wintonbury, the western section of Windsor, which had only recently (1738) become populous enough to form a separate parish. In the 1760s, numerous craftsmen moved from the Connecticut valley to new towns in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts.P'' One of the most striking features of these migrations is the degree to which they deviate from the pattern predicted by cultural geographers and social and economic historians: that highly specialized craftsmen are likely to move to higher-order central places, in which larger populations and increased commerce will logically create more demand for their products. Although the economic distance between Hartford and its neighbors may have been less dramatic in the colonial period, all indicators point to the presence in Hartford of residents with greater wealth, and thus more purchasing power. The presence of consumers with money to spend did not translate into the development of a furniture style center. Eliphalet Chapin's selection of the community of East Windsor as the site for his cabinet shop, after his return from Philadelphia about 1771, presents a striking counter example. Talented and ambitious but effectively

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landless and undercapitalized, Chapin exemplifies the increasing numbers of young men who were "drawn or pushed into becoming tradesmen," as expanding commerce and consumer demand increased opportunities for artisans and dwindling land reserves limited those for farmers. Chapin was not a native of East Windsor, nor does he appear to have had strong dynastic ties to the community; indeed, the paternity suit that had prompted him to leave East Windsor in 1767 would logically have provided a strong incentive against his returning there. According to central place theory and other economic models, the logical course of action would have been for him to settle in Hartford. That he did not do so suggests that he saw East Windsor as an economically viable market, especially since his purchase of only a quarter-acre house lot demonstrates his intention of becoming a full-time craftsman, rather than part-time farmer-artisan. Indeed, there are relatively few confirmed examples of colonial Connecticut woodworkers moving to Hartford, while numerous Hartford craftsmen are known to have moved in the opposite direction, away from Hartford to other valley towns. Thus, the Spencer shop tradition dispersed as members of the second and third generations joined in the founding of new towns at Suffield (ca. 1694) and New Hartford (ca. 1738). Timothy Loomis III (1724-86) ofWindsor likely apprenticed with his maternal uncle, Hartford cabinetmaker Timothy Phelps II (17°2-56), but he then returned to Windsor to open his own shop. Parmenas King moved several times, from the eastern section of Hartford, to Harwinton (where he was one of the early settlers) to Enfield (where he married) to Windsor and, finally, to Wilbraham, a daughter town of Springfield, Massachusetts.P?

That woodworkers seem to have moved more frequently to the frontier than to Hartford suggests that they saw more opportunity in building new homes and community infrastructure than in producing luxury household furniture. Hartford's smaller territory combined with a higher proportion of well-to-do residents likely limited opportunities for the ultimate ambition of land ownership. Perhaps, as a result, Hartford shop traditions diminished over time as those in neighboring towns were strengthened by regular infusions of fresh talent. Production of more accomplished work might then draw Hartford patronage to Windsor or Wethersfield (at a distance of only three miles, Wethersfield center was actually closer to Hartford center than the

latter's own outlying districts); each such divergence of business would help perpetuate the cycle, to Hartford's detriment. Notably, this centrifugal migration pattern began to change only as Connecticut began running short of unallotted lands. The last towns to be settled were Barkhamsted and Colebrook, incorporated 1779; only four years later, Aaron Chapin's removal from East Windsor to Hartford marked the beginning of the latter's rise to prominence as a regional furniture center. CONCLUSIONS

The persistence of three of the valley's oldest communities among the colonial style centers suggests that historical assessments have been distorted by subsequent events. As the twenty-first century begins, Hartford and Springfield are postindustrial cities with populations of approximately 122,000 and 152,000, respectively. Wethersfield, Windsor, and East Windsor function largely as suburbs of the state capital at Hartford; they have dramatically lower and less densely settled populations of less than 30,000 each and arguably are little known outside the immediate region except as destinations for heritage tourism. Colchester, with a population of less than 15,000, is undergoing a transition from rural village to exurban community. The efflorescence of Connecticut's four local furniture style centers coincided with a period of increasing economic differentiation between its towns. During the third quarter of the eighteenth century, the hierarchy of central places was still fluid, with some towns supplying some specialized, central place services and other towns supplying other services. Towns like Hartford, Middletown, and Springfield evolved toward greater concentration of resources, attaining formal designations as cities shortly after the Revolution. Wethersfield and Windsor/East Windsor lost central place functions that they had held previously, when there had been fewer towns. Nineteenth-century antiquarian Henry Stiles aptly sketched these changes: "Windsor, in the early colonial days, was a leading commercial town and port of entry. This position it held until subsequent to the revolution, when its neighbor, Hartford, 'took a start' and left poor Windsor quite in the background." For much of the colonial period, Hartford's position relative to the neighboring towns of Wethersfield and Windsor might best be described as first among equals. The seat of government gave Hartford political precedence, but this advantage long was balanced by the rich agricultural resources ofWindsor and Wethersfield, the

SCHOELWER

former's large land mass, and the commercial advantages of the latter's downriver location.?? Previous efforts to identify and describe Connecticut furniture have foundered on the inescapable fact that, while there is abundant furniture made in Connecticut, th ere is no dominant aesthetic that can definitively be labeled, "Connecticut furniture.'?' Understanding furniture production in eighteenth-century Connecticut requires makin g sense of a number of discrete, contemporaneous local style centers. The familiar model of influence emanating outward from a single source doe s not suit colonial C onnecticut furniture; a mor e appropriate figure is one of parallel, sometimes intertwined, stylistic development. The persistent localism of Connecticut furniture is ultimately rooted in, and explained by, th e geography of the region and its history of settlement and economic developm ent. I. Lionetti & Trent, "C hapin Chairs," p. 1083. 2. Although the region is elsewhere termed the lower Conn ecticut River Valley, it excludes tha t portion below H add am, wh ich Connecticut residents would regard as th e lower sectio n of th e river, nearest Long Island Soun d. Co lchester was part of H artford County from 1698 to 1699 and again from 1708 to 1783; see John H . Long, ed., Connecticut, Maine, Massa chusetts, Rhode Island' Atlas ofH istorical County Boundaries (New York: Sim on & Schuster, 1994), pp. 22-46. 3. Even by preau tomo tive standards, th e distances separating these towns are not large. From East Windsor center to W eth ersfield center is a distance of only eleven or twelve miles- about a half-day 's journey by horse. Another twenty miles or so separa tes W ethersfield center from C olchester center. In 1771 John Adams, on a leisurely "jaunt" throu gh Conn ecticut, breakfasted in Eas t W indsor, "oared" his horse at H artford in midmorning, and lunched in W eth ersfield; see Buel & M cNul ty, Connecticut Observ ed, p. 34. 4. Population figur es for th e Connecticut towns in 1774 are as follows: H artford 5,031, Mi ddletown 4,878, W ethersfield 3,489, Colc hester 3,258, East Windsor 2,999; see website, Population of Conn ecticut Towns 1756- 1820, C onne cticut Secretary of State's Office, Interactive Conn ecticut State Register & Manual, http:// www.sots.state.ct.uslRegisterM anuallSectionVIIIPopulationI756.htrn. Spri ngfield and Northa mpton each had about 1,700 resident s in 1781; see Greene & H arrington, American Pop ulat ion before the Federal Census of1790 •

5. For a comparative study of New England town govern ment th at calls for "further attention" to "the economic roles of th e various towns," see Cook, Fath ers of the Towns, p. 75. A recent publication that combines multiple town histories with broader analytic perspectives is Lamar, Voices of the New R ep ublic; however, the focus is postcolonial and only one of th e furniture style centers (East Windsor) is specifically included. Leading social and economic history studies includ e Bushm an, Puritan to Yankee; D aniels, Connecticut Town; Main, Connect icut Society and Society and Economy .

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6. For an introduction to C onn ecticut valley geography, see Lewi s, "La ndscape and Environment," pp. 3-15; also D aniels, Connecticut Tow n, pp. 17- 19; Van Dusen , Conn ecticut, pp. 25-3I. 7. Sweeney, "Material Life," pp. 21, 26n, suggests th at "as late as th e 1730S and 1740s, 70 to 80% of th e residents in most town s" were directly descended from origina l setters, and as many as 90% from settlers arriving prior to 1690. 8. Pri or to 1818, Connecticut residents who could not demon strate th at th ey were memb ers of a recognized non -Congregation al sect were legally required to pay taxes to suppo rt th eir local Congregationa l church and its minister; M eyer, Conn ecticut Congregationalism, pp. 18- 19. M eyer's discussion at "C hurch Structure and Div ision s" provides a useful, altho ugh somewhat romanti cized, int roduction to th is no toriously complex topic. 9. Numerous historia ns and cultural geog raphers have noted that the C onnecticut valley diverges from prevailing models used to describe and interpret regio nal social and economic relationships; see Cook, Fath ers ofthe Towns, pp. 7r79; D aniels, Conn ecticut Town, p. 140, 142; Sweeney, "M aterial Life," p. 24. 10. Innes, L abor in a New L and, pp. xix-xx, r16; Van D usen, Conn ecticut, p. 43. II. D aniel s, Connecticut Tow n, pp. 9-17. 12. Thom as H ooker's treatise, T he Sur v ey ofthe Su m me ofChurch D iscipline (Lo ndo n, 1648) provided the most th orough theoretical ju stification for th e radical auto nomy of local congregations; see Lu cas, Valley ofD iscord, pp . 25-30. 13. Daniels, Connect icut Tow n, pp. IIO- II. 14. The imp act and effectiveness of th e Saybro ok Pl atform has been extensively discussed. E arlier histori ans regarded th e Pl atform as shifting C onn ecticut churches toward Presbyterianism and initiating an extended period of ecclesiastical harmony; see Van Dusen , Conn ecticut, p. II7. M ore recent autho rs have disputed thi s view, convincingly arguing th at th e platfor m was never successfully impl emented and th at deb ates over its provisions created further disharmony; see D aniel s, Connecti cut Tow n, p. II6; M eyer, Conn ecti cut Cong regat ionalism, pp. 16-18; Lu cas, Valley of D iscord, pp. 184-94; Bushm an , Puritan to Yankee, pp. 151-55. 15. D aniels, Connect icut Town, p. 48; W eaver, "Agrarian Economy," pp. 83-84. A customs hou se in Middletown was not established until 1795. 16. Ad ams & Stil es, Wetherifield, 1:47- 48. 17. Histori ans have long noted th e ext end ed tenure of many colonial Connecticut officeholders, and th e consequen tly low numbe r and narrow social range of th ose officeholders; militia election s typically effected officers according to a "strict senio rity system"; D aniels, Connecticut Tow n, pp. 131-3 4, 166; C hristop her Collier, "Steady H abit s C on sidered and Reconsidered," Connecticut R ev iew 5 (April 1972), pp. 28-37; Bru ce C . Daniels, "D emocracy and Oligarchy in Connecticut Town s: G eneral Assembly Officeholding, 1701-1790," Social Science Q uarterly (December 1975), pp. 460-75; Van Dusen , Connect icut, p. 124. The First Societies in both W eth ersfield and East Windsor exemplified the pattern of clerical longevity, with each having just three pastors from the I690S until after 1800. M inisters at Wethersfield's First Society were Rev. Stephen Mix (1672- 1738), Rev.James Lockwood (1714-72), and Rev. John Marsh (1742-1821); th ose settled by the East Windsor congregation were Rev. T imoth y Edwards

505

(1669-1758), fath er of New En gland 's most famous eighteenthcentury minister, Rev. Jonath an Edwards (1703- 58); Rev. Joseph Perry (1731-83); and Rev. D avid McClure (1748- 1820) . Simil ar patterns have been noted elsewhere in the colony; in New London County the average tenur e was more th an 40 years, with nearly three-quarters of the ministers holdin g only one pulpit and dying in office; D aniels, Conn ecti cut Tow n, pp. II2-13; Meyer, Connecticut Congregationalism, p. 15. Innkeeping licenses, although reissued annually by the county courts, tended to pass within families from one generation to th e next, creating dynastic patterns similar to those found among merchants and craftsmen; see Margaret C. Vincen t, "'Some suitable Sign e .. . for the direction of Strangers': Signboards and th e E nterprise oflnnkeeping in C onnecticut," in Schoelwer, L ions & Eagles & B ulls, pp. 40-41, 51-5 2.

24. D aniels, Connect icut Town, pp. 145-56, ranks 5 colonial Connecticut towns as prim ary urban cente rsj coastal port s (New H aven, New Lond on, and Norwich), plus 2 river ports (M iddletown and H artford); all served as major entrep6 ts and were "engaged heavily in a direct export trade." H owever, Middletown's development as an urban place occurred late in the colonial period, after about 1750. As secondary centers, D aniels identifies 25 towns that were either inland market centers or had direct external trad ing partners, but not both; the remainin g "country towns" possessed neith er of these criteria. All 7 of the river towns below the fall line ranked as secondary centers, prim arily because each (Windsor, East W ind sor, Weth ersfield, Gl astonb ury, Chatham, H add am, and East H addam) had at least one merchan t who engaged in direct trade.

18. Numerous authors have made thi s point about Conn ecticut woodwo rkers; most recentl y, see Trent, "Co nnecticut River Valley Woodworki ng D ynasties," elsewh ere in th is volume; Lane & White, Woodworkers ofW indsor, pp. 7-8.

25. It is possible that the paucity of Qu een A nne and Chippendale style case furniture firmly traceable to pre- Revolutionary H artford is at least partly a matter of lower evidence survival rates rather th an craft produ ction .

19. In 1647 th e Weth ersfield town meeting agreed to pay Na tha niel Di ckinson £9 in wh eat and peas, to be delivered "in any place in Weth ersfield, or at th e River Side, int o a Vessel," Wethersfield Town Votes, microfilm, C SL , 1:27. Much early historical writing on Co nnecticut agriculture and trade is distort ed by an idealization of ind epend ent , subsistence farmers, parallel to the romanticization of utopian religious communities. The most sophis ticated and com prehens ive review of the subject is D aniels, "Economic D evelopm ent, " pp. 429-50; see also, L ewis, "La ndscape and E nvironment," pp. 12-13; Sweeney, "Material Life," pp. 21-2 4; D estler, Prov isions State; Bushman, Pu ritan to Yank ee, pp I07-2 1;Weaver, "Agrarian Economy", pp. 82- 92; Martin, "Merchan ts and Trade," pp. 19-60. For specific references to export com modi ties from the original river towns, see Ad ams & Stiles, Wethersfield, 1:540-42 , 615-25; Stiles, Windsor, 1:422- 23, 540-42,7 67-70.

26. D estler, P rov isions Sta te, p. 13; W eaver, "Agrarian Economy," p. 82; H oward Russell, ''Allium Capa: T hree C enturi es of Onions," New England Galaxy 28 (1977): 12- 21; Adams & Stiles, Wethersfield, 1:614-15, 720- 25; H oward, Stories ofWethersfield, pp.84-86.

20. Hi storical opinion remains divided on th e exten t of Connecticut's surp lus and the impact of its export trade. The modest scale of these factors, in comparison to other colonial regions, is stressed by Sweeney, "Material Life," pp. 23-2 4; M ain, Con necticut Society, pp. 8-9, 14-15, 27-31; and Bushm an, Purit an to Yankee, pp. I07- 8. For the converse argument, that C onne cticut's ability to furni sh a disproport ionately high share of milit ary provisions during the Revolution de monstrates the prior existence of commercial agricultu re capable of produ cing significant surpluses, see D estler, Provisions State, pp. 7-8, 56-58. 21. For a similar argument on the "profound imp act " of dispersed commercial activity on the distinctive character of Connecticut valley mate rial culture, see Sweeney, "Material Life," p. 24; on the dependency inh erent in the "mo ney-barte r" system under which most colonial trad e was conducted, see Bushman, Puritan to Yankee, p. II9; also Weaver, "Trade," pp. 29-30 . 22. T he key statement of central place the ory is Walter Christaller, Centra l Places in Southern Germany, tr ans. C arlisle W . Baskin (Englewood Cliffs, N .].: Prenti ce-Hall [1966]), pp. 14-23; for various applica tions to colonial A merica, see Cook, Fathers ofthe Towns, pp. 75-79, and James T. Lemon , "Urbanization and the Development of Eigh teen th Ce ntury Southeastern Penn sylvania and Adjacent Delaware," William and Mary Q uarterly, jd ser., 24, no. 4 (Oc tober 1967): 503n. 23. O n Stodda rd's influence, see Lu cas, Valley ofDiscord, pp. 145-87; Sweeney, "Material Life," p. 21.

506

27. D aniels, "Eco nomic Develop ment ," p. 433; Weaver, "Agrarian Economy," pp. 82-83; Stiles, Windsor, 1:424, 766-68; D avis, "Eliphelet Chapin," p. 173. Tobacco was grown on valley farms from W eth ersfield north to H adley, M ass. As Ch apin's East Windsor land consisted only of a 1,4 acre home lot purchased in April 1771, it is possible that his tobacco was either obtained by bart er or represented his share of produ ction on the family homestead in Enfi eld. 28. D aniels, Connecticut Town, p. 153. 29. For an assessment of soil types by town , see D aniels, Connecticut Town, pp. 186-90; for 1647 export crops see Wethersfield Town Vot es, microfilm, CS L, 1:2730. Brenda M ikofsky, "Three Centuri es of C onn ecticut River Shipping," Sea H istory (Summer 1985), pp. lrl6; Crofut, Guide, 1:354; H oward, St ories ofWethersfield, pp. 30-3 1, 37-38. 31. Ad ams & Stiles, Wethersfield, 1:384-86; Van Dusen, Connecticut, p. 358; H oward, Stories ofWethersfield, pp 42- 44; Reynolds, Il7S, p. 7; L ois M . Wieder, "Wethersfield, 'the most auncient town' in Connecticut," Antiques I09, no. 3 (March 1976): 517. By 1775 W eth ersfield claimed more th an 30 residen ts with college degrees, mai nly from Yale. 32. Stiles, Windsor, 1:422-24. 33. Ad ams, D iary and Autobiography, as quoted in Buel & McNulty, Connecticut Observ ed, p. 33; for growth see Daniels, Connecticut Tow n, p. 60. 34. D aniels, "E conomic D evelopm ent ," p. 435; Sweeney, "Furniture and the Domestic Environm ent ," pp. 21-23. The pivotal discussion of eighteenth-ce ntury gentility is Bushm an, R efinement

ofAmerica. 35. Great R iv er, pp. 66, 81-85, IOO-lOI; Mi ller, Connecticut Valley D oorw ay s; Sweeney, "Mansion People," p. 242n.T he earliest

firmly dated example of a Co nnecticut valley doorway appeared on the Rev. Eliph alet Williams house, built 1750-51 in East H artford , just a few miles south of the Grant house.

SCHOELWER

36. Stiles, Windsor, 1:582- 86, 728-29; Samuel Wolcott, M emorial ofH enry Wolcott . .. (New York: An son D.F. Rand olph and Co. , 1881), pp. 414-15; Miller, Connecticut Valley D oorw ays, p. 36; Great R iv er, p. 91; Gr etchen Townsend Buggeln, Temples ofGrace: T he Material Transformation

ofConnecticut's Churches, 1790- 1840

(Ha nover: University Press of New England, 2003), pp. 85-88. 37· Kelly, Meetinghouses, 2:286-95; H oward, Stories ofWethersfield, p. 18. O nions were accepted for taxes at the rate of j d , per rope; Adams & Stiles, Weibersfietd, I:230-32. 38. Brissot de Warville, New Trav els, as quoted in H oward, Stories ofWesbersfield, pp. 84-85. Loyalist A nglican mini ster Samuel Peters (1735-1826), whose acerbic humor was rarely appreci ated by its subjects, remarked that Wethersfield residents "say [the meetinghouse] is much larger th an Solomon's Temple" and that the town "raises more onions than are consumed in all New En gland"; Peters, General H istory ofConnecticut (London, 1781), p. 183, as quoted in Adam s & Stiles, Wetbersfieid, 1:720-21. For Marsh's salary, see Reynolds, I77S, p. 8. 39· H oward, Stories ofWetherifield, p. 31; Daniels, Connect icut Town. p. 152; M artin, "M erchants and Trade," pp. u-16; Stiles, Windsor, 1:424-31,767-69. The H artford figure is based on advertisements in the Connecticut Courant for 1765, the first full year of the paper's publication. Windsor's shipping in 1773 described by O liver Welles to Peter Verstille, Windsor, April 12,1773, as quo ted in Stiles, Windsor, 1:426. A Scots Irish settlement established before 1720 in an outlying section of East Windsor (near present -d ay Mel rose) may have included traders, but thi s community evidently remained somewhat separate from th at along The Street, about 8 miles distant; Sweeney, "M aterial Life," pp. 22-23; Stiles, Windsor, 1:691-92; 821-22; 2:365-68, 464, 478-82, 753- 60. 40. Trent , "Colchester School," pp. u 6-17. 41. M arshall, N ew L ondon County, 1:177-85, 2U, 218-19; for similar examples, see Christopher Colli er, "T he Ups and Downs of the Connecticut Town in the Preindu strial Era," in Lamar, Voices of N ew R epublic, 2:245. 42. Myers & M ayhew, N ew L ondon County Furniture; Trent, "Colchester School," pp. U6-18. Colchester furniture is not included in Great R iv er. 43· Daniel s, Connecticut Town, pp. 59-62, 186-90. The annual lists of polls and ratable estate submitted by each town to the legislature for the years 1762- 1782 are published in vols. 12- 15 of Th e Public R ecords ofthe Colony ofConnecticut. I676-I776, ed. Ch arles J. H oadly, 15 vols. (Ha rtfor d, 1850-9° ); and vols. 1- 4 of The Public R ecords ofthe State ofConnecticut, ed. Charles J. H oadly and Leonard Woods Labaree (Hartfo rd: State of Con necticut, 1881-95, 1922, 1942). 44. The legislature's 1698grant author izing settlement specifically noted the new town's location "on the road [from H artford] to New Lond on." Daniels, Connecticut Tow n, pp. 186-90; Paul E. Waggoner, "Fertile Farms amo ng the Stones," and Robert M. Thorson, "T he Physical Environment of Connecticut Towns: Processes, Attitudes, and Percepti ons Then and Now," both in Lamar, Voices ofthe New R ep ublic, 2:45- 46, 227-

town. Such a measure depends directly on the value of property in a community, .. . and since property values would be highest in an urban area, and roughly proportional to the potential for the marketing of goods in rural areas, the index is related to commercialization in a clear way"; C ook, Fathers ofthe Towns, pp. 79, 199-2II. Outside the valley, Norwich ranked at 1.025, New H aven .813, and New London .588; by way of comparison, Boston rated 5646.0. 47- Daniels, "Economic Developm ent, " pp. 432, 441;W illiam N. Peter son, "Ships and Shipping in C onn ecticut 1790-18u," in Lamar, Voices ofthe New R epublic, pp. 135-36 ; Bushman , Puritan to Yankee, pp. 114-16; Destler, P rov isions State, pp. 9-12. 48. C rofut, Guide, 2:675; Great R iv er, p. I08; William L. Warren, Isaac F itch ofL ebanon, Connect icut: M asterJ oiner, I7J4-q 9I (Hartford : Antiquarian & Landmarks Society, 1978), pp. 22-34. The Deming house was demoli shed in 1958 but documented photographically. 49· Ad ams & Stiles, Weth ersfield, 1:421-28; Stiles, Windsor, 1:3IO, 629; Brown, Flintlocks, pp. 3, 43-45, De stler, Prov isions State, pp. 15-31, 4r45; De stler, "Co lonel Henry Ch ampi on, " p. 63. 50. Brown , Flintlocks, pp. 40-41, 44-46, 62n. 51. O n the early settlers of C olchester, see D. Hamilton Hurd, H istory ofN ew L ondon County, Connecticut (Philadelphia: J.N . L ewis Co., 1882), p. 367. 52. Sweeney, "W ethersfield, C onn ecticut , W oodworkers," p. 12 & table I; on April 2, 17u, Joseph Pomeroy wrot e from W indsor to Nathaniel Loomis in C olchester, regardi ng th e completion of Loomis's commission to finish the meetin gh ouse; see Stiles, Windsor, 1:235. Nath aniel Foote died before he could com plete a planned move to C olchester; his widow and children did move to the new town; Adams & Stiles, Wetherifield, 2:328 . 53. Stati stics compiled by Guocun Yang, "Fro m Slavery to E mancipation: The Afric an Am ericans of C onnecticut, 1650S-1820" (Ph.D . diss., University of Connecticut, 1999). A systematic discussion of enslaved and free blacks in the furniture-producing towns remains to be written; scattered information can be found in Stiles, Windsor, Adams & Stiles, Wetbersfield; Howard, Stories ofWetherifield, pp. 45-48; "Concentrated Hi story in Windsor," in Complicity, N ortheast M agaz ine, H artford Couran t, Septemb er 29, 2002, p. 25; Barb ara W. Brown and James M. Rose, Black R oots in South eastern Connect icut, I6so-I900 (D etroi t: G ale Research C o., 1980); James M. Rose and Barbara W. Brown , Tap est ry . A L iv ing History ofth e Black Fam ily in Southeastern Conn ect icut (New London: New London C ounty Hi storical Society, 1979). 54· See Crofut, Guide, 2:767-68 ; Brown, Flintlocks, pp. 51-53; Joel Lang, "T he Pl ant ation ext D oor: H ow Salem Slaves, Weth ersfield Onions, and W est Indies Sugar M ade C onn ecticut Rich," Complicity, Northeast Magazine, H artford Courant, Sept ember 29, 2002, pp. 5- 13; M ary E. Perkin s, Chronicles ofa Connecticut Farm (Boston: by th e autho r, 1905).

45. Marshall, N ew L ondon County, 1:181.

55. M ain, "D istribution of Proper ty," p. 76. For an int rodu ction to the wide-ranging impa ct of "M igrating Yankees," see Van Du sen, Connecticut, pp. 191-203. Daniels, "E conomic Developm ent ," p. 447, estimated that betwe en 1760 and 1790 as many as 60,000 people may have emigrated from Connecticut to other regions (over 40% of the colony's total population of 130,612 in 1756).

46. This index is calculated by "dividing each town's share of the colony's taxes by the total area of the town, and thereby computing an index of the hypotheti cal average value of the property in the

56. Daniels, Conn ecticut Town, pp. 29-3 0; Stiles, Windsor, 1:476-85; Adams & Stiles, Wetherifield, 1:137-69, 189-99 . Dates are those of town incorporation.

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507

57. Reconstructing these ties is largely the province of painstaking genealogy, long out of fashion in academic circles but recently revived as "family history" and demon strated to be of considerable value in illuminating otherwise elusive or invisible connections. See D. Brenton Simons and Peter Benes, The Art ofFam ily: Genealogical Artifacts in New England (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2003); Laurel Thatcher Ulr ich,

America: A Geog raphical Persp ect iv e on 500 Years of H istory, vol. I , A tlantic America, I492-I800 (New Ha ven: Yale University Press,

The Age ofHomespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation ofan American Myth ( ew York: Alfred A . Knopf, 2001), pp. 129-39;

64. John Adams, D iary and Autobiography, as quoted in Buel & McNulty, Connecticut Observ ed, P: 34.

Barbara Mc Lean W ard , "Women's Property and Family Conti nuity in Eigh teent h- Century Connecticut ," in Benes, P robate Inventories, pp. 74-85'

65. Kane, "Jo iners," p. 66; Sweeney, "Wethersfield, Connecticut, Woodworkers," p. 3; Lane & White, Woodworkers ofWindsor, pp. 5-6; Trent , "Spencer C hairs," pp. 191-92; H oopes, "No tes," PP·171-7 2 .

58. Sweeney, "Regions and the Study of M aterial Culture," pp. 15r58; Great R iv er, pp. 82-85, 212-13; Miller, Con necticut Valley Doorways, pp. 120-23.

66. Lane & White, Woodworkers ofWindsor, pp. 6-7 , n -12.

59.The Connecticut Code of Laws of 1650 explicitly determined that Weth ersfield was "the most ancient Towne." Howe ver, the question has stubbornly refused to die; see Andrews, R iv er Towns, pp. 16- 17; Stiles, W indsor, 1:55-56; Adams & Stiles, Wetbersfield, 2:867-72. 60. Cook, Fathers oft he Tow ns, pp. 78-79, 222n; D aniels, Connecticut Town, p. 144. An ideal size of 36 square miles was recommended in seventeenth-century advice on town planning and became formally inscribed on th e American land scape with th e enactment of the North west O rdinance of 1787 , which provided for the layout of 6 by 6 mile square townships th roughout th e Midwest; see Peter Benes, ed., New England P rosp ect: Maps, Place Names, and the H ist orical L andscap e, Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife: Ann ual Proceedi ngs 1980 (Boston: Boston University, 1981), p. xx; also Daniels, Connecticut Town, pp. 14-15, 144, 156. D aniels argues that the norma tive radius for lowest-order central places is about an hour's walk (roughly 4lh miles und er reasonably good cond itions). 61. In the entire colony, W eth ersfield's density was exceeded only by Norwich, which had significantly more land; D aniels, Connecticut Town, pp. 56-62 . Dir ect comparison of the population statistics for Weth ersfield and H artford is complicated by the significantly different dates at which their east-s ide territories separated to become independent towns: G lastonbury split from Wethersfield in 1690, nearly a century before East H artford incorporated in 1783. Thus, although H artford 's population exceeded that listed for Weth ersfield in 1756, 1774, and 1782, the adjusted figures for "ancient" Weth ersfield (including Gl astonbury) were consistentl y larger th an th ose for Hartford. Adjusted population figures are as follows: 1774 1782 175 6 Wethersfield prope r

2,483

2,389

2,733

"Ancient" Weth ersfield (including G laston bury)

3,598

5,560

6,079

Hartford

3,027

5,031

5,495

1986),p. 103. The domin ant pattern of linear settlement along the main north-south road is evident in maps of the east-s ide towns well into th e nineteen th century, and remains visible in an aerial vista of South W indsor today.

67. Trent, "Co nnecticut River Valley Woodworking Dynasties," elsewhere in this volume, esp. char t 4; M iller, Connecticut Valley D oorw ay s, p. 123. Colton's December 5, 1775, indentur e, Colton papers, CHS Museum Library. 68. Lane & White, Woodw orkers ofWindso r, pp. 36, 49, 51. O n Wintonbury's history, see Stiles, W indsor, 1:29r97. 69. Trent, "Spencer Ch airs," pp. 191-92; H osley, "Timothy Loomi s," p. 133; Mill er, Connecticut Valley D oorw ay s, p. 123. 70. D aniels, Connecticut Town, p. 142; Stiles, Windsor, 1:424. H artford's selection as the seat of government in 1639 undoubtedly owed much to the sheer geograp hic logic of its location, sandwiched between the other two settleme nts, as well as to the leadersh ip of its minister, Rev. T homas H ooker, whose 1638 Election D ay sermo n set forth the basic principles underlying the Fundamental O rders. After 1664 H artford shared the seat of government with New H aven until 187371. T he recognition of distinct strains in eighteenth-century Connecticut valley furniture is not a new concep t. Earlier efforts, most notably the three major survey exhibi tions (the 1935 Co nnecticut Tercent enary; the 1967 Connecticut Furniture; the 1985 Great River) have recognized these strains and illuminated them with increasing clarity; see Schoelwer, "Writings on Eliphalet C hapin," above.

62. Brissot de Warville, New Travels, p. 117, and Robert Hu nter, Jr., Quebec to Carolina in I78S-86; Being the Travel D iary and Observations ofR obert H unter f r., a Young Merchant

ofL ondon,

eds. Lo uis B. W right and M arion Tinling (San M arino, C alif: H untington Library, 1943), p. 149, both as quoted in D aniels, Connecticut Town, p. 166. 63. An drews, R iv er Tow ns, p. 61; Stiles, W in dsor 1:543-44; Ad ams & Stiles, Wetbersfield, 1:99- 101; D .W. M einig, T he Shap ing of

508

S C HOE L W E R

Maps

MAP

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CONN ECTI C U T

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I N I 75 5 . O ne of the few period maps encomp assing both th e Connecticut and Mas s-achusetts sections of the valley, this also suggests the topography of th e region. Several details are erroneous: the ridge runni ng imm ediately west of W indsor and H artford is omitted as is th e east-s ide road connecting Springfield and H artford. Additiona lly, th e towns of Suffield and E nfield are shown in M assachusett s, although they had become part of Connecticut in 1749. D etail from A Map ofthe most I nhabited part ofN ew England, containing the Prov inces of Massachusetts Bay and N ew H ampshire with the colonies of Connecticut and R hode Island, engraved in Paris by Georges Loui s Le Rouge, 1777, based on a 1755 map by Thomas Jefferys. Connecticut Hi storical Society M useum Library.

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MAP 2 CON NEe TIC U T I N I 765 . T he mid-eighteenth century boundaries of H artford County stand out vividly here. The town of Colchester, just east of Middletown, became part of New London County in 1783. Plan ofthe Colony of Connecticut in North-America, engraved by Abner Buell, 1766, drawn by Moses Park, 1765. Connecticut Hi storical Society Mu seum Library, gift of Newton C. Brainard and Charles S. Bissell, in honor ofThompson R. Harlow.

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MAP 3 CON NEe T IC UT I N 1 7 9 5. Num erous changes had occurred in the preceding decades. M ost notably, the large river towns of W indsor, H artford, and Middletown had divided, with their eastern sections becoming East Windsor (1768), East H artford (1783), and Ch ath am (1767). Connect icut From th e best Authorities, delineated and engraved by Amos Doolittle. Connec ticut H istorical Society M useum Library.

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ETHERSFI ELD, 1 794. Eliphalet Chapin's house and shop were located just south of the church in East Windsor, along the main north-south road that was long known simply as "The Street." Seth Pease, the cartographer of this manu script map, was Chapin's second cousin. A Plan of the Riv erfor a mill on the Island. Connecticut Hi storical Society Museum Library.

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ill A decorative turning th at is attached to and suspended from th e lower edge of an apron. (S ee cat. 95A.) dustboard [> A full-depth piece of wood that separates two drawers horizontally. It is set behind a drawer divider and keeps particles, particularly wood dust resulting from drawer side/runner abrasion, from dropping into the drawer below. Also used for security to restrict access from above. (See cat. 79C.) escutcheon [> A decorative trim, usually of brass, around a keyhole. A small shaped unit inside th e keyhole itself is called a driv e escutcheon. facade, types blockfront [> A tripartite surface that usually has raised side sections and a recessed center section; often decorated with carved shells at the top of each pan el. Sometimes called block and shell. (See cat. I04· ) bowfront [> A front in which the entire surface is convex. (S ee cat. I82.)

GLOSSARY

oxbow [> An undulating front in which the outer section s are convex and the central section is concave. Sometimes called rev erse serpentine. (See cat. 72.) reverse serpentine

[>

See oxbow {above}.

serpentine [> An undulating front in which the outer sections are concave and the central section is convex. (S ee cat. 90.) feet fillet

[>

[>

See foot. See under molding, specific designs.

finials [> Decorative ornaments that are turned, sometimes carved, and usually placed on the center and/or sides of the pediment of tall case pieces. flutes, fluting [> A series of parallel grooves, typically with rounded bottoms. foot

frieze drawer [> A drawer concealed within the cornice of a case piece. Also called torus draw er. (S ee cat. 5.) fjrlfot, fil'fot [> A decorative four-lobed pinwheel resembling a swastika with rounded arms. (S ee cat. 30.) gadroons, gadrooning designs.

half-lap

[>

See under joint.

joint

See under molding, types.

The junction of two parts.

blind dovetail [> A variation in which the joint is fully concealed. (See cat. 140A.)

spanish [> A carved, flaring, block-shaped foot with flutes. (See cat. IOC.)

half-blind dovetail [> A variation in which the wedge-shaped projection does not extend through the cavity, and the end grain is not visible. Also called half-lapped or stopp ed dovetail.

spool [> A small pad foot supported by a reel-shaped turned element. (S ee cat. SA.) frame-saw marks [> Irregularly spaced rough-textured lines resulting from the hand implement used to divide a thick board into two or more thinner boards.

sliding dovetail [> A joint consisting of a single wedge-shaped projection, elongated to run the full length or width of a board and inserted into a corre sponding groove in the adjoining piece. Commonly used for attaching bureau tops, drawer runners, and rear foot braces. (S ee cats. 98c, II3B.)

See under pediment. See under foot.

through dovetail [> A variation in which the wedgeshaped projection extends through its cavity and the end grain is visible.

frieze [> A decorative band commonly placed below the cornice of a case piece. (See cat. 179')

GLOSSARY

[>

[>

dovetail [> A traditional interlocking wood joint consisting of one or a serie s of wedge-shaped projections and corresponding cavities used to join boards at right angles. The interlocking elements are commonly called pins (the pieces separating the cavities) and tails (the wedge-shaped projections) . (Figure 4.)

pad [> A round foot terminating either a cabriole or straight leg, usually supported by a disk-shaped projection. (S ee cat . 20B.)

[>

See under bonnet.

butt [> Any joint where two boards join together without interlocking.

ogee [> A cyma-curved bracket foot, with a convex upper and concave lower section. (See cat. 67D.)

french foot

[>

incised molding

french [> A tapered foot that may flare outward at the bottom. (S ee cat. 166.)

[>

.

guttae [> Small pyramidal drops below a triglyph. These classical motifs are adapted as stylized decoration on the center plinth of case pieces with scrolled pediments made circa 1790-1810. (S ee cat . 67A.)

c1aw-and-ball [> A stylized design based upon the foot of a bird grasping a sphere; popular during the late eighteenth-century. (S ee cat. 59F.)

fretwork

See under molding, specific

glue block(s) [> A single or a series of small piece s of wood used to support two component parts joined at any given angle. Commonly used to reinforce attachment of feet to a case. (S ee cat. 59G.)

hanging box

bracket [> A vertically straight foot incorporating a horizontal extension (bracket) from the upper part of the foot where it joins the base molding. (See cat. 142.)

[>

SIS

half-lap l> A joint formed by two board s cut (rabbeted) to half thi ckn ess an d mat ed together.

kicker l> A woo den strip applied above a dr awer side to prevent down ward tipping as th e dr awer exits a case.

mitre l> A corner joint th at consists of two board s cut at an angle and join ed so th at no end-grain is exposed .

knee bracket l> A horizontal extension located at th e top of an ogee or bracket foot. (See cat. 70.)

mortise-and-tenon l> A joint consisting of a shaped, recta ngular or round, ext en sion (teno n) th at is inserted into a correspo nding cavity (mo rtise) .

,

knee return l> A horizontal component at th e top of a cabriole leg that integrates th e convex curve of th e kn ee with th e case or fram e; usually a separate applied piece. (See cat. 4SC.)

flanked pair of ten on s. (F igu re 4.)

latticework

round tenon l> A cylindrical exte nsion, commo nly used to attac h finials; ofte n misidentified as a dowel (which is a separate piece in serted into a joint).

lid supports

double tenon

l> A

through tenon l> A ten on that exte nds through it s mortised member and is visible at its end . (See cat. 9 IA .) rabbet l> L -s haped cuto ut at an edge to suppo rt or receive a correspo nding member; for example, a rabbeted midmolding th at suppo rts an upper case. kerfs, kerf marks l> Slot s resulting from a saw cut. C ommonl y visible on the in side face of a drawer fro nt.

l>

See under pediment.

l>

See lopers.

lopers l> A pair of retractable supports for th e lid of a fall-front or slant-lid de sk whe n opened. (See cat.

3S· ) midmolding mitre

l>

l>

See under molding, types.

See under joint.

mitred doors l> A period term referring to boo kcase doors wh ose inner stiles are beveled to overlap completely and so create th e visual effect of a single central stile. (See cat. 67B.) molding, types cornice l> The uppermos t molding on a case. (See cat. 48A.) drawer side l> A de cor ative treatment on the top edge of a dr awer side . (See cats. 67c, IOSE.)

'A CO LUMN

CASE S IDE

incised l> A simple scribed lin e used on drawerfront edges or bookcase door s to simulate cock bead. Al so called scribe. (See cat. 88.) midmolding l> A decorative trim appli ed to conceal th e tr an sition between a lower and upp er case. (See cat. 79D.) thumbnail l> A decor ative treatment commonly used on th e edge of lipp ed dr awers. (See molding, specific designs: ovolo and fillet. )

,

,

,

'~ ~

/,

,

/ /

molding, specific designs. (Fi gure S.)

RAIL

astragal bead

FIG U R E 4 Selected joints: (counter clockw isefrom upper left) double morti se and tenon; half-blind dovetail (also called stopped or half-lap dovetail); th rough dovetail; and half-blind dovetail incorporated into quarter -column housing.

A convex half-round, larger th an a bead.

A smaller convex half- round.

cock bead l> A narrow convex half- round used decoratively to tr im an edge, for example, a drawer surround or apron edge . cove

y6

l>

l>

l>

A con cave quarter- to half-round.

G LO S S A R Y

"-

D 0 ASTRAGAL

BEA D

--/

- --

LI"'/ --------C O VE

OVOLO AN D FILLET

T HUMBNA IL

COV E

F IG U R E 5 Specific molding design s: (left to right) astragal, bead, cove, ovolo and fillet, plus a compo und molding combining several profiles.

BEAD FI LLET

COMPOUN D MOL D ING

AN D FILLETS

fillet c- A narrow flat sectio n, often used to separate other moldin g profiles.

case below by a horizontal molding. (See cats. 57,

gadroons, gadrooning c- A carved molding con sisting of a series of short concave and convex lobes, set at a raking angle; usually applied to an apron or base. (See cat. 163.)

fretwork e- A n openwork or pierced pediment with varying geometric design s. (See cat. 161.)

ovolo and fillet c- Comp ound design com posed of a convex quarter-ro und and a narrow flat surface. Sometimes called thumbnail.

144·)

latticework c- A type of fretwork pediment simulating a basket weave. (See cat. 57') open c- A pedimen t that has no horizontal molding separating it from th e case below. (See cat. 92 .) removable c- A ped iment that can be lifted off of a case. (See cat. 68A.)

mortise and tenon c- See under joint. mullion e- Narrow divider between pane s of glass. muntin c- A vertical divider on a case piece com mo nly used to separate small drawers or lopers. ogee e- See cyma .

scrolled c- A swan's- neck shaped-tympanum th at lacks a roof and that usually terminates in a rosett e. (See cats. 57, In·) swan's neck c- A n arched, cyma-curved pedim ent resembling th e neck of a swan. (See cats. 27, 57.)

ogee foot e- See under foot. open pediment e- See under pediment. ovolo and fillet c- See under molding, specific designs. oxbow c- See under facade, types .

tympanum c- The face of a pedime nt to which all moldings and/or embellishments are applied . (See cat. 29.) peg e- A woo d fastener commonly used to lock a mortise-and-tenon joint. Also used as fasteners in lieu of nails or screws. O ften called p in.

pad foot e- See under foot. pad e- T he lowest element that raises the main shaped part of a foot from th e floor. (See cats. 20 B, 67D.) pediment c- The upp ermost section of a facade th at projects above th e heigh t of th e sides, usually with a top profile th at is pitche d or arched. balls c- A period term for a pediment design featuring small carved spheres integrated into carrotshaped openings. (See cat. 67A.) broken arch e- A pair of swan's neck arches interrupted in th e center (not terminating in rosettes). (See cat. 31.) closed e- A pediment visually separated from th e

G LO S S AR Y

pilaster e- A flat columnlike embellishme nt, often fluted; generally used in pairs to flank doors or drawers. (See cats. 129C, 144B.) pinwheel c- A circular decorative device with swirling rays. (See cat. 28.) platform base c- See under base construction. plinth c- A base or platform supporting a cartouche, finial, or colum n. (See cats. 40A, 59B.) plinth cap c- A n optio nal refinement, usually molded, that is applied to th e top of a plinth. (See cats. 57A, 125A.)

prospect [> Center section of a desk interior, often containing locked or concealed compartments; may be a removable unit. (See cat. 35D.) punchwork c- A surface decoration or texturing created with a stamping tool. (See cat. roSA.) quadrant base c- See under base construction. quarter column e- A quarter-round wood pillar or shaft, usually decorated with flutes or reeds and used to embellish the corners of a case. (See cat. I25A.) quarter-column housing e- The structural support system or casing for a column. (Figure 4.) rabbet c- See under joint. rails e- The uppermost and lowermost horizontal cross-members on the front of a case, visually similar to a drawer divider. rear foot brace e- A vertical structural support for a rear bracket or ogee foot, visible from behind. It is attached to the foot by a variety of methods, including dovetails and glue blocks. (See cat. 98c.) reeds, reeding e- A series of parallel beads or inverted flutes. (See cat. I25A.) removable pediment c- See under pediment. return r- See knee return.

secondary wood c- Any wood part not intended to be visible. serpentine c- See under facade, types. skirt e- See apron. sliding dovetail e- See under joint. spacer e- Any board used to fill an interior space for fastening and/or structural support; commonly used to bridge the gap between case sides and drawer runners when offset by legs and/or quarter columns. spandrel e- A triangular corner embellishment over an arch, commonly used on clock faces and in doorways. (See cats. 53, 55A, 75A.). spanish foot c- See under foot. spindle c- A short columnlike turned element. splay e- The raking of an ogee foot, measured degrees from the vertical. (See cat. 67D.)

in

split spindle c- A half-spindle, divided vertically, commonly applied to the fronts of upright document drawers in desk interiors. (See cat. 35A.) spool foot e- See under foot. spur e- A pointed projection commonly found on foot brackets and knee returns.

reverse serpentine e- See facade: oxbow.

stile c- The vertical member of a door frame; also the outermost rear vertical member of a chair back.

rope-turned column c- Column with spiral turnings of unequal diameter, resembling the strands of a rope. (See cat. II4.)

stop fluting c- A section of fluting infilled with reeding. (See cat. 121.)

rosette e- An embellished circular scroll terminating a pediment; also a circular stylized floral ornamental device elsewhere on a facade, for example, above a pilaster. (See cat. 94A.) scalloping e- A decorative edge treatment composed of a series of cyma curves and projections, commonly found on the edges of tops and the bottoms of aprons of Wethersfield style tables and case furniture. (See cat. 24') scribe marks c- Incised marks left by a pointed tool for layout or positioning. scribe molding e- See molding, types: incised. scrolled cornice e- See pediment: scrolled.

sub top c- An upper board or boards of a carcass to which the primary top is attached. Suffield notch e- Seeunder drawer, construction details. sunburst c- A circular decorative device with straight rays emanating from a central point. (See cat. 40A.) swan's neck c- See under pediment. template c- A pattern used to layout shapes such as legs or aprons. tenon, double tenon, through tenon e- See under joint. thumbnail molding e- See under molding, specific types. triglyph c- A fluted block, found on the frieze of the Doric order, with guttae below. (See cat. 67A.)

GLOSSARY

tympanum e- See under pedimen t .

ST OPPED BEVEL-LAP

APRON

valance e- A shaped wood facing usually placed at the top of pigeon holes in interior sections of desks or bookcases. (See cat. ISS.) valance drawer e- A small drawer fronted with a valance. (See cat. 53.)

\

well e- A concealed cavity located below the writing board in a desk.

Additional joints and construction fiatures:

8 Attachment of drawer runners to inside of apro n on high chest or dressin g table.

FI G U R E

NA IL

BOTTOM BOARD (C AN BE FLU SH W I TH BACK EDGE O F SIDE O R REC ES SED )

FIG U R E

6 Backboard attachment in grooves.

( OP TIONA L) MO RTISE RELIEV ED P OC KE TS

DADO FO R BO T TO M BOARD

DO VETAIL P INS

FI G U R E 7 Inside of oxbow drawer front, relieved at top in Chapin school manner.

G LOS S A R Y

5I9

Selected Cabinetmaker Biographies

Comp iled by J ulie M uniz

The following biographical notes provide basic facts about key cabinetmakers discussed in the catalog entries, as well as previously unidentified craftsmen. Information includes (to the extent known) dates and places of births, marriages, and deaths; names of parents and spouses; business relationships and relatives in woodworking trades; residence and shop locations; advertisements, bills and other documentation; and documented or attributed works. In addition to references specifically cited, the following resources were used in compiling this checklist: [Brainard, Harlow, and Bulkeley], Connecticut Cabinetmakers, parts I & 2; Bjerkoe, Cabinetmakers ofAmerica; Houghton Bulkeley pape rs, Newton Case Brainard papers, Thompson R. Harlow papers, and Connecticut Assessors, Warren collection (all CHS Museum Library); Great River archives (Wadsworth Atheneum; microfilm CHS Museum Library); David Hewett, Hewett's Database of American Cabinetmakers, version 1.0 (CD-ROM, 1998); Index of Early Southern Artists and Artisans at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, WinstonSalem, North Carolina; http://www.Ancestry.com; and http://www.FamilySearch.org. Ada ms, Le muel. Lemuel Adams first appears in Connecticut records as a par tner in Kneel an d & Adams of Hartford between 1792 and 1795. After the partnership dissolved, Adams worked independently in Hartford at a shop on Ferry Street, advertising frequently between 1796 and 1800 in the Connecticut Courant, American Mercury, and Middlesex Gazette. Several advertisements mentioned that he was seeking apprentices and journeymen to work in his shop; others stated that "he employs the best workmen from New-York and Boston." The account book of Hartford tailor Timothy Dodd (CHS Museum Library) lists the first names or nicknames of nine apprentices or journeymen working for Adams between 1795 and 1797; these individuals remain otherwise unidentified. Adams is best known for making seating furniture for the new State House in Hartford in 1796, for which a bill of sale exists

520

CAB I NET M A K E RBI

a

G RAP HIE S

(Hartford. State House. Documents connected with its building and history, 1789-1866, ms. 63688, CHS Museum Library). In 1800 Adams leased his shop to cabinetmaker Eli Wood (Conn ecticut Courant, 6/3oIr800); he subsequently sold it to Samuel Kilbourn. Adams moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where in 1801 he sold windsor chairs and cabinet furniture (Richards & Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, p. 381). On August 16, 1801, his wife of five years, Phila Warner (b. 1779 in Bolton), died in Norfolk. Later Adams may have moved to Lancaster, New Hampshire, and served as high sheriff from 1816 to 1820. His daughter Phila Martha transferred her church membership from Bolton to Lancaster in 1819. Barnard, Julius (1769-post 1812). Born in Northampton, the youngest son of Rachel Catlin and Abner Barnard, a wealthy clothier, Julius Barnard signed a desk and bookcase, possibly in 1788, while working as an apprentice to Eliphalet Chapin (cat. 67). By 1792, Barnard established a shop in Northampton, advertising that he had "worked sometime with the most distinguished workmen in New York" (Hampshire Gazette, 12/SIr792). Barnard is credited with making a high chest for Massachusetts Governor Caleb Strong (cat. 77) and chairs for cousin Samuel Barnard (cat 77A). In 1796 he married Lovisa Pynchon Pomeroy (1769-1810) of Northampton. In 1801, Barnard moved nearly 100 miles north to Hanover, New Hampshire, where he worked briefly before moving IS-20 miles south to Windsor, Vermont, in 1802, and then much further north to Montreal, Canada, in 1809. Barnard closed his business in 1812 and sold his stock, including "SI Breakfast and Tea Tables of every description ... an elegant mahogany Sideboard, ... Sopha, with arms ... a curled Maple Secretary, 3S new eight day Clocks, with and without cases . . . Mahogany 4 post Beadsteads with curtains . . . compleat assortment of Cabinet, Joiners and Carpenters tools.... Several hundred pieces of boards, among which are Mahogany, curled Maple & Cherry" (Montreal Herald, S/30h812; Collard, "Montreal Cabinetmakers," p. II37). Belden (Belding), George (1770-1838). George Belden apprenticed in Hartford under the supervision of Aaron Chapin, signing both a bureau and a desk and bookcase at that workshop (cats. 164, 167). Belden signed other pieces of furniture (see cat. 16S) after opening his own shop in Windsor in 1793, as

CABIN FTMAKER

BIOGRAPHIES

announced in his only known advertisement (Connecticut Courant, S/6h793). The parentage of George Belden is unclear, as two George Beldens were born around the same time. The more likely candidate was baptized in East Hartford on December 2, 1770 (Ea st Hartford, First Church, 1:37), the son of Abigail Bidwell (1736-1818) and Hartford joiner Nathan Belden (1736-94; a first cousin to Wethersfield joiner Return Belden). The other George Belden is reported in secondary sources as being born on November 24, 1770, to Lois Deming (b. 1722) and Nathaniel Belden (b. 1716) of Wethersfield (Andrews, Descendants ofJohn Porter, 2:S7S, and Roberts, "Denslow Genealogy," p. 86); thi s birth date could not be verified in primary sources. George Belden's marriage to Hannah Porter (I77S-1 834) of Windsor in 1796 brought him into the extended Porter and Colton families ofjoiners and cabinetmakers. Belden (Belding), Return (1721-64). Son of Mabel Wright and Josiah Belden of Wethersfield's Stepney parish (present-day Rocky Hill), Return Belden apprenticed with William Manley of Wethersfield ca. 1735-42. The apprenticeship is documented by two 1740 references in the account book of Wethersfield shopkeeper Elisha Williams, who also recorded a February 1745 credit to Belden for "I Chest of Draws £16-0-0, I Tea Table [£]1-7-6, I phanned Dressing Table £5-0-0," all shipped to Rev. Chester Williams of Hadley, Massachusetts, who had married Sarah Porter of Hartford the previous year (Williams account book, Wethersfield Historical Society; Miller, Connecticut Valley Doorways, p. 120). Return Belden died unmarried; his estate inventory included a variety of wood working tools as well as 42 desk escutcheons. For furniture possibly made by Return Belden, see catalog 17. Birge, Jonathan (1768-1820). Son of Priscilla Hammond and Jonathan Birge of Bolton, Jonathan Birge probably apprenticed with Eliphalet Chapin of East Windsor between 1782 and 1789; his stepfather, Amasa Loomis, owned a dressing table from the Eliphalet Chapin shop (cat. 65). Birge married Mary Bailey (1773-93) of Windsor in 1791, and Sarah Warner (1775-1855) of Bolton in 1794. The latter was a cousin by marriage to Lemuel Adams, whose wife Phila was the daughter of Sarah's unmarried aunt Martha. Birge became a well-regarded cabinetmaker in East Windsor; according to local historian Henry Stiles, "much of the best old furniture of the neighborhood is

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referred to as of his make" (Stiles, Windsor, 2:75). Clockmaker Daniel Burnap 's account book records considerable business between the two craftsmen between July q9r and November r802, including five clock cases Birge made for Burnap between r800 and r802 (Hoopes, D aniel Burnap , pp. 60-62). Birge died in his sleep on D ecember rz, r820 (Robbins, Diary, r:840). Jonath an Birge is not the same individual as John Burges, an apprentice who ran away from Chapin in q88.

Bosworth, Isaac (r807-72) . See catalog r84. Bradley, Amos (q69- r835). Amos Bradley was born to Amy Morris and Asa Bradley of the eastern section of New H aven (which became East Haven in r785); in q93 he married his first cousin Elizabeth Bradley (r77o - r853). In addition to being a cabinetmaker, Bradley served as town selectman (q 98- r80 0 , r8r4-r6) and state representative (r809-rr, r8r3) (Hughes, History of East Ha v en, pp. 3rr-2o). He signed and dated several pieces of furniture, including a bureau in q88 when he was only r9 years old (see cats. r85, r86). The similarity of his early work to that produced by Chapin schoo l cabinetmakers suggests that he served his apprenticeship in Hartford County. Bradley 's ledger (W interthur Library) reveals that like most cabinetmakers he made a wide assortment of furniture, including sideboards and windsor chairs as well as coffins and tools. The invent ory of his estate lists cabinetmaking tools, benches, and vises (valued at $37.48) and 325 feet of board ($7.69). Burnham, Benjamin (q39 ?-73). A cherry blockfront desk is inscribed "This Desk was maid in the year of q 69 Buy Benj" Burnam, that sarvfed his time in Felledlfay [Philadelphia]" (cat. 93). The identity of Burnham is un certain, but the most likely candidate is Benjamin Burnham, pos sibly born in Ipswich, M assachusetts, and husband of Catherine Trumbull Burnham (q3r-r803) of Colchester. According to family tradition, thi s Burnham was a cabinetmaker who died at sea in r773. His son, Jo seph (1773-r852), trained with Catherine Burnham's step-cousin Amos Wells before moving to Hebron where he worked as a cabinetm aker (Bulkeley, "Benjamin Burnham," pp. 28-33, and M yers & M ayhew, N ew London County Furniture, pp. 32-35). There is no documentary evidence that Burnham operated his own cabinet shop in Colchester.

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Case,]oshua (q 23-78). See catalog 162. Chapin, Aaron (q53 -r838). Born to Eunice Colton and Edward Chapin in Chicopee parish, Springfield, Aaron Chapin worked in East Windsor with his- second cousin Eliphalet Chapin from r774 TO Q83. In r777 he married Mary King (Q56-r829) of East Windsor and purchased land next to the shop. In Q83 he moved to Hartford to establish his own shop, which he announced in both the Connecticut Courant and the Weekly Inte/ligencer on December 9, Q83' In Q94 Aaron served as secretary of th e Hartford Society of Cabinetmakers (Ame rican M ercury and Connecticut Courant , 8/251r794)' For furniture associated with his shop, see cats. r64, r66-r69. In r807, he made his only son, Laertes Chapin, a partner and changed the firm name to Aaron Chapin & Son. O ver the ensuing years he devoted more and more time to mechani cal devices, specifically clocks and watches, while his son ran the furniture side of the business. Between r804 and r8r4 Chapin performed a long list of watch repairs for Dr. Mason Fitch Cogswell (account books, CHS Museum Library). In the r820S Chapin listed him self as a watch repairer in the Hartford city directory. Chapin, Aaron & Son (r80r43). The Hartford firm composed of Aaron Chapin and his son Laertes Chapin placed its first advertisement in th e January r4, r807, Conn ecticut Courant, announcing, among other things, that the partnership had "purchased the exclusive right of making, using and vending to be used, swing Cradles of all descriptions. " The firm continued to advertise over the years. In r837 it offered "Coffins, of different sizes and descriptions, and finished in the best manner, which will be trimmed to order... . Also, Cabinet Furniture and Chairs, a great variety, both elegant and plain, all of which will be sold as cheap as at any regular shop in thi s city. Clocks and Watches Repaired by A. Chapin, as usual" (Connecticut Courant, 6/24/'r837) ' Although Aaron died in r838, the name of the business endured another five years. Chapin, Amzi (r768-r835). Born in Chicopee parish, Springfield, the youngest son of Eunice Colton and Edward Chapin, Amzi Chapin apprenticed with and then worked for his brother Aaron Chapin from Q 83 until Q9I. During this time, he stamped his name on two stand tables and a card table (see figs. 7.3-7.5). Leaving Hartford , he embarked on a career as an itinerant

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singing teacher and compo ser but continued to make furniture and musical instruments as he traveled through the South and Midwest, with stops in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky (Thomas & Benes, "Amzi Chapin," pp. 76- 80). He married Hannah Power (1781- 1855) of Westm oreland County, Penn sylvania, in 1800. Chapin, Eliphalet (Q41-1807). Eliphalet Chapin was born in Somers, M assachusetts (later Connecticut), to Elizabeth Pease and Ebenezer Chapin II, who died in January 175I. In 1771 Eliphalet bought land in East Windsor and commenced business as a cabinetmaker. Two years later he married Mary Darling (1754-76), possibly from Bolton; in 1778 he married Anna White Read (ca. 1756-1834) of Canterbury. Signatures on various pieces of furniture in the Q80s and 1790S suggest that he train ed multiple apprentices. Only three advertisements by Eliphalet Chapin are known, one for a runaway apprentice in 1788 and two in the 1790Sfor the sale of his home, shop, and furniture stock (Conn ecticut Courant: r/7 & 1121/1788; 9128, IO/5 & IOh2h795; 8h4 & 8/zIh797)' For furniture attributed to the shop, see cats. 57-75· Chapin, Laertes (1778-1847). Only son of Mary King and Aaron Chapin, Laertes became a partner in Aaron Chapin & Son in 18°7, and is presumed to have trained under his fath er. H e had a position of responsibility in the shop that allowed him to sign bills of sale by at least 18°4, and he handled most day-to-day business at the shop from 1813 (the year of his marriage to Laura Colton [1788-1854], daughter of Aaron Colton, his father 's cousin). Following Aaron Chapin's death in 1838, Laerte s continued the business on his own. In the Hartford directorie s for 1843-45, the final two years the business was open, his listing was "Laertes Chapin, Maker and Dealer in Cabinet Furniture and Chairs, No. 295 Main st. (opposite Washington Market,) has constantly on hand a good assortment; also, Coffins of every description , and finished in the best manner, all of which are offered for sale at the lowest prices." The city directory for 1846 listed him as living in East Hartford, where he died the following year. Clark, Joseph Colville (d. 1799). See catalog 153. Cleveland, Jeremiah Clement (1794-1836). Born in Norwich to Elizabeth Clement and Rev. Aaron

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Cleveland, Jeremiah Cleveland moved to Hartford with his parents about 1803. An easy chair inscribed "Aaron Chapin and Son I Jeremiah C . Cleveland" suggests he trained with Aaron Chapin and Laertes Chapin (fig. 7.7). Ar ound 1819 Cleveland settled in Batavia, Ohio, where he married Elizab eth Robin son (1798-1865) of Martinsburg, Virginia, and continued to make and sell furniture (Edmund Jane s Cleveland and Horace Gillette Cleveland, comp s., Th e Geneaology of th e Cleveland and Cleaveland Fam ilies, ... 3 vols. [Hart ford: Ca se, Lockwood & Brainard Co., 1899], 1:515). A tower clock case in Lebanon, Ohio, is signed by him (Cincinnati Post, April 28, 1892, as cited by Donn Haven Lathrop, "Who Wa s Jeremiah Cleveland?" http://members.aol.com/donnllcleveland.html). Colton, Aaron (1758- 1840). Son of Mary Ely and Aaron Colton of Longmeadow parish, Springfield, Aaron Colton apprenticed to East Windsor joiner Augustus Fitch from 1775-79 (indenture, Colton papers, CHS Museum Library). In Q87 Colton married Elizabeth Olmsted (1762-1831) of East Hartford . H e became a leading member of the Hartford Society of Cabinetmakers (Am erican M ercury, 8h7h792, 8h5h794; Conn ecticut Courant, 8h7h792). During the 1790S and 1800s he actively advertised for apprentices and journeymen to work in his cabinet and sleigh making business. Only a few of his sales are recorded: Dr. Issac Bull credited Colton £3 for a bureau in 1791 (Bull account book, CHS Museum Library), and Dr. Mason Fitch Cogswell purchased a desk and bookca se in 1792 for $8 (Cogswell papers, CHS Museum Library). Colton signed and dated a straight-front bureau with french feet in 1801 (Richards, "Furniture," fig. 23). Aaron Colton was a cousin ofAaron Chapin and uncle of Rhodolphus Colton. In 1813 his daughter Laura married Laertes Chapin. Colton, Rhodolphus (1784-1838) . Son of H annah Colton and William Colton of Springfield's Longmeadow parish, Rhodolphus Colton belonged to an extended family network of prominent Hartford-area cabinetmakers, including his uncle Aaron Colton and first cousin once removed Aaron Chapin. A privately owned candlestand with hockey-stick shaped legs is signed "R. Colton 1806."A sideboard inscribed, "M ade by R. Colton Sept. 1807 for A. Chapin & Son" (cat. 169C), suggests he was then working for that firm as a journeyman. Colton married Love Wells (1786-1856) of

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Longmeadow in 1810 and subsequently moved to Lenox, Massachusetts. Deming, Oliver (1774-1825). Son of Hannah Standish and Lemuel Deming, Oliver Deming was born in Wethersfield on November I, 1774. He likely trained locally (perhaps with Israel Porter in Wethersfield) but did not remain in the Connecticut River Valley long. On August 30, 1802, an advertisement in the Connecticut journal announced "The Cabinet Business in its various branches is carried on at the old Stand of Heavey & Deming, in State-Street [New Haven], by josiah and Oliver D eming." The two worked together for almost fifteen years; then in the May 13, I8I7, Connecticut journal, "Oliver Deming informs his friends and the public, that he continues to carryon the Cabinet Business in all its branches at the old stand of J. & O. Deming, State-st." (J. Deming was Josiah Deming [1775-1850] of Guilford, a distant cousin who subsequently moved to Batavia, New York, and then Greencastle, Indiana.) Signed pieces by Oliver Deming include catalogs I75, I76. Deming married three times: Ruth Matthews (1776-1809) in 1806; Alice Stanley (I786-I8II) in 1809; and Mary Doolittle (I783-I859) ca. 1818.

Flagg, William (1772-1858). The son of Martha Bigelow and Dr. Samuel Flagg, both of Hartford, William Flagg placed nearly identical advertisements in the American Mercury and Connecticut Courant on July 4, I796, stating he had taken up shop in Hartford "two doors north of Mr. Babcock's Printing-Office, where he makes all kinds of Mahogany or Cherry Furniture ... in the neatest New York fashions." Flagg appears on the Hartford tax list for 1796 and the East Hartford tax list for I797 and I798, the year in which he married Susannah Pitkin (1774-1857) of East Hartford. Flagg's signature and/or incised initials on several pieces of furniture from the Eliphalet Chapin shop indicate that he trained with Chapin (see cats. 67, 69, 70, 90). A William Flagg is listed as a cabinetmaker in the Providence, Rhode Island, directory of 1826.

Torrington. He was working with Aaron Chapin in Hartford between 1805 and 1806, probably as a journeyman, when he signed and dated a sideboard and easy chair (cat. 169 & fig. 7.6). He also signed a card table, now at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum' of Art. Gillett "returned to" Wilmington, North Carolina, opening a cabinet shop that he advertised in the January I, 18°9, True Republican. He formed a partnership with Daniel Dewey in the short-lived Hartford firm Gillett & Dewey (American Mercury, 5h71r8I2; Connecticut Mirror, 4!IIIr8I4). Gillett's Wilmington shop advertised in the Cape-Fear Recorder of November 4,1816, that he carried an, "assortment of FURNITURE, equal in quality to that which he sold in this town for several years past, and cannot fail of being preferred to the trash that is shipped here to be sold at auction." Gillett remained in business in Wilmington until his death in 1837, at which time his shop was sold; the 8page sale account indicates that the shop had changed to a general mercantile business. His wife Sarah is identified by first name only. Grant, Erastus (1774-1865). Erastus Grant was born in Westfield, Massachusetts, on July 28, 1774, to Miriam Bliss and Alexander Grant, an East Windsor house joiner who had moved to Westfield about 1764 (Bulkeley, "Belden and Grant," pp. 73-74). The combination of familial ties in East Windsor and Erastus Grant's use of Chapin workshop practices (particularly quadrant-base construction) suggest he apprenticed in the East Windsor shop of Eliphalet Chapin (see cat. 183). An Erastus Grant-signed clock case, which was labeled by the firm of Lomis and Pelton in Lansingburgh, New York (cat. 18