Part 1

Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE CABINETMAKER in Eighteenth-Century _Williamsburg_

Giving Attention to the City's chief Craftsmen in the Furniture Way; and to their Tools & Methods of Working.

As interpreted by _JOHANNES HEUVEL_ Master Cabinetmaker of _Colonial Williamsburg_

_Williamsburg Craft Series_

_WILLIAMSBURG_ Published by _Colonial Williamsburg_ MCMLXIX

_The Cabinetmaker in Eighteenth-Century_ Williamsburg

The most historic piece of furniture in historic Williamsburg today is the throne-like Speaker's Chair that stands in the far end of the House of Burgesses.

It is the very same chair that stood there when the portly Peyton Randolph was speaker of the House, and men like George Mason and Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry raised aloft in that chamber the banner of human liberty.

The same chair was probably there in 1759, too, when a newly elected burgess stood in his place to receive the plaudits of the House for his bravery in the French and Indian War. From it Speaker John Robinson came to the embarrassed young man's rescue with the words: "Sit down, Mr. Washington; your modesty is equal to your valour, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess."

Perhaps the Speaker's Chair was among the "several other things" that were saved--along with the colony's records and the portraits of the royal family--when flames gutted the Capitol in 1747. If so, this chair _may_ be the very one installed when the Capitol building was first completed in 1705. The Assembly had specified that the burgesses' chamber should "be furnished with a large Armed Chair for the Speaker to sit in, and a cushion stuft with hair Suitable to it."

Because of these historic associations the Speaker's Chair may seem a most fitting key to open this account of furniture making in colonial Williamsburg. Its true aptness to the topic, however, lies in other circumstances: No one knows who made the chair or where it was made or even when it was made. And this kind of uncertainty pervades the entire subject of cabinetmaking in eighteenth-century Virginia.

To continue for a moment with the same example, the Speaker's Chair has the kind of scrolled arms frequently found on William and Mary furniture--a style that in 1700 was passing out of fashion in England. Its simple cabriole legs, with smooth knees and round feet, are typical of the early Queen Anne style just then coming into English fashion. The chair bears an overall resemblance, furthermore, to the one that stood in the House of Commons, as shown in contemporary prints. Finally, a great many items for the construction and furnishing of the Williamsburg Capitol were ordered from London.

All these circumstances give strong reason to think that the chair came from England. But they do not prove that it did. In fact, the stylistic concepts and the workmanship are such as might well have come from the shop of a Williamsburg cabinetmaker endeavoring, after the fire of 1747, to reproduce the original chair from memory.

The fact that it is constructed in part of American black walnut might seem to prove that the chair was made, if not in Williamsburg, at least in the American colonies. Unfortunately, it proves nothing of the kind. Because, among other reasons, they had found the American variety less susceptible to "the worm" than English walnut, English cabinetmakers preferred the American wood and used it extensively.

_GOODLY TALL TREES_

"Wheresoever we landed upon this [the James] River, wee saw the goodliest Woods as Beech, Oke, Cedar, Cypresse, Wal-nuts, Sassafras, ... and other Trees unknowne," wrote George Percy, one of the original Jamestown colonists in 1607. Captain John Smith, who explored and mapped both Virginia and New England, recorded that "all the Countrey is overgrowne with trees."

Indian clearings, even those made in the course of fire-hunting, were infinitesimal in the vast extent of the woods. The white man's efforts made a bigger dent, but after a century of English settlement the Reverend Hugh Jones could still report that Virginia was "one continuous forest." And the same was true of the whole Atlantic coastal area--to say nothing of the wilderness beyond the mountains.

The size of the individual trees in this primeval forest rarely failed to excite comment, beginning with George Percy's mention of the "goodly tall Trees" he saw near Cape Henry, the Jamestown settlers' first landing site. With an unlimited supply of very wide boards to be had for the sawing, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century colonial cabinetmakers found good use for them in table tops and leaves, and the sides and tops of chests. Boards were often 18 to 20 inches wide, and sometimes they measured as much as two feet in width. In colonial days even wild cherry sometimes stood 100 feet tall and four feet thick.

Up and down the coast of America grew an enormous variety of trees, both evergreen and deciduous. All of them found some use in the colonial home, from rough-hewn structural members to finely crafted furniture--and even to common hairbrushes and combs. In 1774 William Aylett of King William County, 50 miles from Williamsburg, advertised:

PLANK and SCANTLING to be sold by the Subscriber at his Saw Mill near _Aylett_'s Warehouse, _Mattapony_ River, upon the most reasonable Terms, and of the following Kinds, _viz._ White Oak, Black Walnut, Sweet Gum, Ash, Poplar, Birch (which makes elegant Furniture) best Yellow Heart Pine for Flooring, and clear of Heart and Sap if required, common high Land and Slash Pine for other Uses....

Almost anything could be made of wood, and almost everything was, including many of the articles we today are familiar with in steel, iron, copper, aluminum, alloys, plastics, and rubber. Pitchforks, tableware and kitchen utensils, wheels, axles, gears and bearings, tool handles and sometimes the bodies of tools, all were made, at least in part, of wood.

_THE WOODWORKING CRAFTS_

The variety of woodworking crafts was almost as great as the variety of trees. In Williamsburg alone--and Williamsburg was by no means an important center in this respect--mention has been found of all the following during colonial times:

cabinetmaker carpenter carver chairmaker chaisemaker chariotmaker coachmaker cooper gunstocker joiner millwright sawyer shipwright wheelwright woodcutter

In addition, there were such related crafts as upholsterer, lumber merchant, gilder, japanner, and coach painter.

Eighteenth-century Williamsburg was not, however, quite so crowded with woodworking craftsmen as this list would indicate. For if the guild traditions of the Old World required that each operation be the monopoly of a specific craft, in the New World practical needs tended to force a merging of related crafts. Only in a few of the big colonial cities--Philadelphia, New York, Boston, or Charleston--was demand great enough to keep some of the specialists going. Elsewhere the craftsmen of town or village had to be versatile--or go hungry. A Williamsburg cabinetmaker, thus, was likely to be also joiner, carver, and upholsterer--and probably undertaker as well.

Right here it may be well to explain the difference between joinery and cabinetmaking as crafts, always remembering that in Williamsburg and in most of colonial America both might be practiced by the same craftsmen. Joinery involved the making and installing of paneling, molding, mantel-pieces, staircases, and similar interior trim in houses. A joiner might also make furniture of the plainer sort. Cabinetmaking demanded skills of a higher order to create furniture having such refinements as curved surfaces, dovetail joints, cabriole legs, carved ornamentation, veneered or inlaid surfaces, and upholstering.

Joiner and cabinetmaker were both concerned basically with fitting together pieces of wood to make a whole structure. The pieces or parts had to be shaped, of course; and it was in the shaping processes--sawing, planing, and chiseling--that the worker's real skill showed up. Pieces properly formed will fit together neatly and enduringly, while no amount of glue will make a sound joint of pieces that do not fit.

Two crafts always prominent in Europe are noticeably absent from the list of Williamsburg woodworking crafts. Marquetry, the intricate inlaying of patterns in contrasting woods, seems not to have been much practiced anywhere on this side of the Atlantic; probably Williamsburg cabinetmakers were rarely, if ever, called on for inlay work. The absence of turnery from the list, however, does not mean it was unknown here but only that Williamsburg cabinetmakers customarily did their own lathe work instead of sending it out to a specialist.

Here, too, may be the best place to make first acquaintance of the four Williamsburg practitioners about whom most information survives. They--and the periods of their known activity as cabinetmakers in Williamsburg--are: _Peter Scott_, 1732-75, who lived across the street from Bruton Parish Church and had his shop somewhere nearby, and who was, for forty years, a member of Williamsburg's common council; _Anthony Hay_, 1751-67, whose "large Cabinet Maker's Shop" has been re-created on its original Nicholson Street site, who turned innkeeper as host of the Raleigh Tavern, and whose son George, as United States attorney, prosecuted Aaron Burr for treason; _Edmund Dickinson_, 1764-78, who probably worked in Hay's shop and eventually occupied it as his own master; and _Benjamin Bucktrout_, 1766-78, whose funeral side line became the chief business of his posterity in Williamsburg for several generations.

_PRIME FURNITURE WOODS_

When Anthony Hay died in 1770, his executors advertised for sale his two lots on Nicholson Street including a dwelling house, shop, and "Timber Yard." The reader should not assume from the words "timber yard" that Hay (and his successors at the same location on Nicholson Street, Bucktrout and Dickinson) supplied lumber to the town's other users. Probably it was stocked only for the proprietor's own use. In any event, the kinds of raw material that would have been piled in Hay's yard can be guessed fairly easily.

As we shall presently see, no surviving piece of eighteenth-century furniture can be positively traced to Hay or any other Williamsburg maker. But every piece having a possible claim to local origin, including the Speaker's Chair, contains either walnut or mahogany as the primary wood. Similarly, few documentary records survive to tell about the furniture actually made in Williamsburg shops and they do not always mention the kinds of wood used. Where they do, however, walnut and mahogany are invariably specified. Finally, archaeological excavation at the site of the Hay cabinet shop turned up a roughed-out table leg dating probably from Dickinson's occupancy. Quite well preserved in the damp silt of the stream bed, it was easily identified as walnut. All things considered, therefore, Hay's timber yard would surely have contained ample supplies of both walnut and mahogany.

American black walnut, known in England as "Virginia walnut," had been the most important of native woods to the colonial cabinetmaker since the seventeenth century. Strong, durable, hard enough to resist surface marring in daily use but still easy to work and carve, it shows a handsome grain, has a lovely color, and takes an excellent finish.

Known and infrequently used earlier, mahogany began to arrive in quantity both in the colonies and the mother country about 1725. In England, by the middle of the century, it had pushed aside walnut as a furniture wood. Mahogany never rose to the same pre-eminence in the colonies because other fine woods were so readily available. Mahogany was imported from Jamaica and Honduras legally, from Santo Domingo and Cuba illicitly via Jamaica. The wood from each source differed variously in its characteristic graining, color, strength, hardness, and workability. That from Santo Domingo, known as "Spanish mahogany," was considered most desirable.

The wood of the wild black cherry was a favorite among Connecticut cabinetmakers, as it was farther south too, because of its natural strength, close grain, warm color, and resistance to splitting and warping. Peter Kalm, the Swedish botanist who visited Philadelphia in 1748, wrote:

The Joiners say that among the trees of this country they chiefly use the wild cherry trees, and the curled maple.... The wood of the wild cherry-trees (Prunus Virginiana) is very good, and looks exceedingly well, it has a yellow color, and the older the furniture is, of which is made of it, the better it looks. But it is already difficult to get at it, for they cut it everywhere, and plant it nowhere.

Hay's yard might well have had some cherry in its piles of lumber, though probably not in great quantity. It might also have included a bit of maple--a primary favorite in New England--perhaps in some choice pieces showing the bird's eye, curly, wavy, blister, or quilted grain patterns that often occur in this wood.

In addition, cedar, hickory, ash, beech, birch, oak, elm, locust, apple, holly, and other hard woods might have been present in the Nicholson Street timber yard in small amounts. All could have found appropriate use in some kind of cabinetry.

_SECONDARY MATERIALS_

A piece of furniture need not be made entirely of prime wood, and rarely was. In the parlor of the Brush-Everard House in Williamsburg, for example, stands a sofa made in Philadelphia about 1770; it has eight legs that show, made of mahogany, and a frame that does not show, constructed of chestnut, maple, pine, and tulip poplar. Not every article can boast so many secondary woods, though the colonial cabinetmaker had a wide choice. The secretary-bookcase in the library of the same house was possibly made in Williamsburg and shows the more usual combination of walnut and pine as primary and secondary woods.

Colonial cabinetmakers customarily selected a secondary wood that answered the construction requirements of the article in question and that was locally available and therefore cheap. The secondary wood in a piece of colonial furniture is often the best clue to the place where it was made. Yellow pine and tulip poplar were most often used in Virginia and the other southern colonies; Hay and his successors would doubtless have stocked goodly amounts of both, and very likely also some white cedar and cypress.

Probably no list of the materials that might have been used in colonial cabinetry can hope to be complete. None, certainly, could pretend to completeness that did not include a word about nails, screws, glue, and cabinet hardware.

The colonial cabinetmaker used heated animal glue regularly. It was indispensable for veneering; for attaching carved surfaces and ornaments to their plain foundations it was almost as important; and any joint, however carefully made, was stouter for a bit of adhesive.

The eighteenth-century upholsterer, of course, could not have done his work without brass tacks, and quantities of them have been found in the course of archaeological excavation at the site of the Hay-Bucktrout-Dickinson cabinet shop on Nicholson Street. The colonial cabinetmaker sometimes used small nails for such special purposes as attaching drawer guides. But he would no more have nailed together a piece of furniture than would his modern counterpart. Screws he did use, for attaching cleats, braces, hinges, or other hardware. He used as few as possible, however, since all screws were handmade, probably imported, and certainly not cheap. If a joint needed to be reinforced, he used wooden pegs, not screws. (Treenails, used in house framing, were simply large pegs.)

Even the simplest piece of case furniture--such as a chest, press, bookcase, clock case, dressing table, or sideboard--needed at least one lock and possibly a set of hinges before it could leave the cabinetmaker's hands as a finished article. These items of hardware could be of iron on the cruder examples of cabinet work or of brass on the better ones. The door handles, drawer pulls, escutcheon plates, and other visible hardware on finer pieces were almost sure to be of brass, to be designed for ornament as well as utility, and to be imported.

A number of brass hardware items--whole and cut-down hinges and escutcheon plates in particular--have been excavated at the site of the Hay shop, most of them in ground levels associated with Dickinson's tenure. These seem to say that Dickinson was accustomed to working with fine furniture.

_SCRAPS OF EVIDENCE_

A great deal of authentic eighteenth-century furniture--both English and American in origin--has been assembled for display in the Exhibition Buildings of restored Williamsburg. The collection is acknowledged to be one of the finest in the country. Unfortunately, it contains not one stick of furniture that can be positively identified as coming from the hand of a Williamsburg cabinetmaker.

We do have, however, many bits and pieces of documentary evidence about various Williamsburg cabinetmakers of the colonial era and about the kind of work they did. A number of them, for example, advertised their services in the columns of the _Virginia Gazette_ from time to time. Practitioners of other crafts often listed at great length the wares they made and sold; but the cabinetmakers usually announced only that they stood ready to make to order any kind of furniture. They were confidently versatile, it would seem; that they kept busy making and doing all sorts of things is corroborated by other scraps of written and printed information.

Joshua Kendall, when he set up shop in Williamsburg, offered to make "_Venetian_ SUN BLINDS for windows."

In 1755 Peter Scott announced that he intended to leave for England and would sell his house and lots, "Two Negroes, bred to the Business of a Cabinet-Maker," and "sundry Pieces of Cabinet Work, of Mahogany and Walnut, consisting of Desks, Book-Cases, Tables of various Sorts, Tools, and some Materials." Apparently his plan did not materialize, for when he died 20 years later his estate included "A great variety of cabinet makers tools, Mahogany, Walnut, Pine Plank, like wise new walnut book cases, desks, tables, &c."

From personal account books of John Mercer, lawyer, and Robert Carter of Nomini Hall, planter and councilor, we know that Scott made a set of book shelves for the former and twice repaired tables for him, and that he made two card tables, one sideboard, and four picture frames for the latter.

In 1772 Benjamin Bucktrout submitted a bill for services to the same Robert Carter of Nomini Hall. It is worth quoting in full:

1772 £ _s_ _d_ June 15 To mending a Meusick Stand 0 1 6 Octbr. 26 To 8 Mahogy. Chares Stufed over the Rails 16 13 8 with Brass nails @£25/pr doz. To 4 Elbow Chares @ 55/ 11 0 0 Decemr. 29 To 65 feet of pine @ d 1½ 8 3½ To 150 8d nails for a packing Case for 12 0 Harpsecord 2/ makeing and packing do. 10/ £28 15 5½

Three years later Edmund Dickinson rendered a similar statement:

The Estate Colo John Prentis To Edmund B. Dickinson Dr

Novr 23d 1773 setting up bedsted 2/6 July 9th mend: & £ 1 2 6 Cleaning up 6 chairs 15th puting lock on closet 2 6 19 coffin for his Son William with Nails &c 2 15 - and attendance 1774 Jany 3d to 7 pulleys 17/6 January 21 setting 1 - - up bed at Mrs Hay's 2/6 April 25 takeing down bedsted 2/6 2 6 1775 June 14 mend: bedsted 1/3 augt 23d puting 3 3 lock on Room case 2/ Sept 6th mend: Mahogany table 2 6 25 putting up bedsted & Curtains 2 6 Novr 4 to a Coffin lined throughout for 5 15 0 himself & my Attendance £11 5 9

Putting together these and other bits and pieces, several conclusions seem warranted: Williamsburg cabinetmakers made furniture not only to order but for open sale in their shops; they probably spent more time repairing furniture than in making it; they were by no means too proud to undertake such incidental jobs as putting up and taking down bedsteads and curtains. Finally, they were capable of producing any and all of the major items of furniture: chairs, beds, chests, desks, bookcases, clothes and china presses, tables, and candlestands.

While perhaps not all of them would have had occasion to make every variety of the less common articles, some doubtless were called on for spinning wheels, bootjacks, bowls and trenchers, cradles, toys, tools, coffins, spice chests, fire screens, music stands, trunks, cellarettes, looking-glass frames, and so on and on.

_THE LATEST LONDON STYLES_

Every swing in London fashions in clothing, music, wigs, and the decorative arts was normally echoed a few years later by a similar but muted swing in colonial fashions. In each case the peak of the vogue (not necessarily the first evidence of it) in the colonies came a decade or two after the same style had reached its height in London.

The eighteenth century was the golden age of furniture design in England. The decorative tastes of the Restoration and of the reign of William and Mary set the stage for the appearance at the opening of the century of the curvaceous style known as Queen Anne. There followed a succession of partly overlapping, sometimes ill-defined and sometimes distinct styles in English furniture design and interior design. These succeeding fashions have since become known by the names of reigning monarchs or of men whose books of collected designs set or summarized the predominant taste of the years in question. We know these styles, and style periods, as early and late Georgian, Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton.