Southern Antiques

Front matter

SOUTHERN ANTIQUES

COPYRIGHT, 1931, BY GARRETT & MASSIE, INCORPORATED RICHMOND, VIRGINIA MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES

PREFACE

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

MORE and more there is apparent in the heart of the nation an instinctive turning toward the South and what it has to offer by way of its past. Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia call to mind a civilization on which the mind of America lovingly dwells, a group of early settlers whose memory is a matter of pride to their descendants scattered throughout the land, whose sacrifice, high thinking, and achievement is deep patterned in the upbuilding of the republic. Everywhere throughout this broad land of ours there is an instinctive groping for what remains of the beautiful and practical of that past.

Southern Antiques presents examples of the work of Southern craftsmen done from the time when the country was young, beginning in 1620, when the life of the Virginia colony was getting well under way, and continuing through the pioneer period when Maryland and the Carolinas fell into line around the middle and late part of the seventeenth century, and when Georgia more than half a century later took up her task. This means not only the period of early pioneering and the gradual setting up of homes as the colonies expanded and population increased, with simple furniture everywhere the order of the day. It means, likewise, the period of furniture development in England and on the Continent, matching in time the struggles of the French and Indian wars here, the agitations and discontent preceding the Revolution, the war itself, and the period of the early Republic as influenced by English masters. The book extends on through to 1820 when the Empire influence dominated and when James Monroe, the last of the Virginia presidents, in the period of the Virginia ascendancy, was entering his last term.

A book about antiques, to be of value in collecting, must present something typical rather than elaborate and highly developed, and what is said must be said in terms within the limits of the understanding and opportunity of the average collector. His need is for something by which he may be guided in his search; and the information must be given in a manner intelligible to him, and not, as it is, often obscure for him by the use of technical terms known only in the parlance of the cabinetmaker.

Mr. Burroughs has made this book for the lay reader as well as the collector. Furnishing historical background pertaining to the settlement and general life of the period, it shows something of the rise and progress of Southern furniture making, and ties up the craft with general movements originating elsewhere. Types are presented with some study accompanying each piece, in the light of the period in which it was made, with general summaries preceding, showing the development of Southern furniture, considered class by class.

Elizabeth Hatcher Sadler.

Careby Hall, Fluvanna County, Virginia. August, 1931.

SOUTHERN ANTIQUES

The Five Colonies

I

THE FIVE COLONIES

THE settlement of Virginia is a tale too often told to repeat. Whoever may have been the first to reach the shores, it is with the coming of Admiral Newport that history chiefly concerns itself, heading as he did, a company from London, aboard the Sarah Constant, Goodspeed, and Discovery. They set their stakes about fifty miles above the mouth of the river which they called the James, and set about speedily at Jamestown to meet the requirements of living, as best they might, and here achieved the first successful settlement of the white man on the North American continent, making of the spot one to which all Americans turn with instinctive reverence and faith—the spirit of the undertaking there embyronic of what the spirit of the nation was to be.

As the colony grew, the pioneers setting up homes pushed inland along the Virginia rivers through Tidewater, the York, the James, and the Rappahannock, later into Piedmont. On they moved into the mountains of the Blue Ridge and the far country beyond, with Williamsburg, Norfolk, and Alexandria the leading ports of the colony, and Richmond, Charlottesville, Staunton, and Winchester making a later appearance.

Settlement was first accomplished in Maryland with the arrival of Leonard Calvert in the Ark and the Dove, in which he came westward, as sent by his brother Cecilius Calvert (Lord Baltimore), with perhaps twenty gentlemen and two hundred working men and servants, largely English, to take possession of lands for which he held royal grant. In 1634 he sailed into the smooth waters of the Potomac, and pushed his way up the river to what is now Blackiston's Island, where he set up a cross at Saint Clements, later to fall back, however, seventeen miles down the Potomac near its mouth, to the site he chose for his capital; he called it Saint Mary's.

Much of the life of the colonist centered about the rivers. Along the James in Virginia, were scattered the homes of the planters, recalling the names of the Randolphs, the Byrds, the Carys, the Pages, too many to tell. William Randolph settled at Turkey Island, his descendants to scatter throughout the State along the river to Varina, to Tuckahoe, to Dungeness, and later, one of them along with Peter Jefferson to go to the mountain fastness of Albemarle, and open up the country where the Coles, the Rives, and others are found to this day. Williamsburg, settled in 1632, built itself rapidly and took a leading place in the life of the colony. It became the seat of the royal government, where William and Mary College was established, and where around its Palace Green and along Duke of Gloucester Street and elsewhere, homes of much excellence and finish were to arise, with furniture in keeping, to furnish fine background for the hospitalities they were to extend.

On the York, and on the Rappahannock at Corotoman, where lived King Carter, king of many lands; at Fredericksburg where Washington himself lived as a boy and where notables took quarter at the Rising Sun Tavern; at Rosegill, Sabine Hall, Mount Airy, and elsewhere were homes of splendor and charm, the master, himself, as well as his lady, a lover of fine trees, rare shrubbery and blooming flowers. There too, doorways flung wide, opening into paneled halls and showing furniture of distinction, either local-made or pieces of foreign importation, influencing that type which we seek in the South today.

On the Virginia side of the Potomac, with Alexandria as a center of trade and shipping, although each plantation maintained its separate wharf, as time progressed, little towns sprung up. On down the river, the homes of the planters increased, the list indeed a royal one, with the Washingtons first in Westmoreland on the Northern Neck, and George and Martha later at Mount Vernon; farther inland the Fairfaxes, George Mason among his books at Gunston Hall, and lower still, overlooking the river, Stratford, the home of the Lees. On the Maryland side, Marshall Hall; near by old Port Tobacco, Rosehill, Habre de Venture, home of Thomas Stone, the signer; La Grange, built by Doctor Thomas Craik; Mulberry Grove, home of the Hansons; Mount Victoria, Hard Bargain, Tudor Hall, Porto Bello, and Clocker's Fancy might be found.

Annapolis, having shaken itself into a dreamy existence on the banks of the Severn, with its quaint and winding streets, rare shops and homes of affluence, built in finest English style, where the Pacas, the Hammonds, the Chases vied with each other in the elegance of their surroundings, became the center of business and social life of the colony. It was to lead in the making of Maryland furniture for years.

Maryland, a royal colony in close touch with the mother country, imported rare pieces which were often used for examples, and perhaps, more than any of the colonies, clung to the English ideas in furniture making. Life was lived at the best, and fine furniture was a necessity. Throughout the State might be mentioned other manor houses and settlements contributing to the general need: between the Patuxent and the Potomac, in Calvert and Anne Arundel Counties, Tulip Hill, overlooking the bay; Belair, with its wealth of fine furniture and other spots through Prince George, and the upper bay counties and finally, Baltimore, the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Kent County, Queen Annes, Talbot, Caroline, Dorchester, Wicomico, Somerset, Worcester, each with its share.

In Virginia, the Eastern Shore jutting almost into Maryland, Accomac and Northampton Counties, early opened up, where many relics of the past survive today, seems almost a part of it. Hand in hand, the two colonies, Virginia and Maryland—Leah and Rachel, they were called—moved together, bound by mutual ties of blood, descent and marriage, defense and material interest in commerce and shipping, with the Potomac, the theatre of mutual business and social pleasure, a dividing line that served rather to bring together than to set them apart.

That certain piece of land in 1663, lying between Florida and Virginia, was granted by Charles II of England to Lord Clarendon and a number of noblemen, and they proceeded to set up a proprietary government. English settlers from Virginia had already established themselves on the north of it, at Albemarle, at the mouth of the Chowan River in North Carolina, and in 1670 the earliest settlement of the southern part of this territory was effected on the banks of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, under William Sale, to be moved in 1680 to the site of what is now the city of Charleston, South Carolina. There, with such inviting climate and fertile soil, newcomers were easily lured.

Governed though they were under one proprietary government, the two colonies remained separate and distinct, and grew in spite of difficulties between the people and proprietors, bent on serving selfish ends. The colony to the south, although much augmented in its population, was much retarded in its growth, due to dissatisfaction felt by the people with the governors sent them by the proprietors and the attempted enforcement of the laws of trade. Happily, in 1729, the two colonies were constituted each a royal colony—North and South Carolina. Complete separation was then established.

The population of this southernmost colony, South Carolina, soon assimilating itself, was composed of Englishmen of standing, English, Scotch and Irish dissenters, Dutch, Huguenots, Swiss, Quakers and Belgians. Too remote from the more northerly centers of population, she worked out her own fate largely alone, and cultivated her interest in England and the West Indies with the same interest if not more, than did those at Williamsburg or Annapolis, and maintained close relationship with the West Indies from whom so much of her population was derived.

Commerce, it has been said, was of noble origin in South Carolina. Despite the threat of pirates and the constant fear of Indians and Spanish and French to contend with on her borders, the colony on the Ashley prospered as the West Indian planters from early days cast their lot more and more within it, and the migration of French Huguenots, a steady and valuable one, continued. Due to the presence of many negroes, the plantations established within themselves such a highly organized plan as to create a system baronial in its sweep of power and influence. Plantation owners were often merchants and traders as well, and after the proprietary lord had been ordered to move his "Towne of Tradd" from Albemarle Point to the opposite peninsula, settlement throve and commerce walked with a high head through the winding streets of old Charles Town, building itself up into a rich city, with money enough not only to import luxuries but to attract high-class craftsmen as well.

A little more than one hundred years after the founding of the colony of North Carolina, her population numbered three hundred thousand people. They were English, Scotch, Swiss, Irish, and Moravians, and the mixing of these races has had a tendency to influence the design of furniture which they produced outside the larger settlements. In Mecklenburg County, and in and around New Bern and Edenton, as well as Raleigh, there is much extant of a highly picturesque past, showing remains of elegance in architecture and woodwork of unsurpassed artistry reflected in the making of furniture, which speaks for itself. It is recalled that at New Bern, John Hawks, from the Isle of Wight, and James Coor, whose work has been compared favorably with that of McIntyre, the master carver of Salem, did some of the carving and influenced, of course, the makers of furniture there, where unusual pieces are found today.

Contributing largely to the settlement of Virginia and North Carolina, and reaching into South Carolina, was an inland migration composed largely of Germans and Scotch-Irish, who took up their abode from time to time, as fancy moved them, in various settlements. Down through the Shenandoah Valley they came, on through the country of Winchester, Harrisonburg, Lexington, and southward toward Charlotte, even into South Carolina, carving out a destiny of their own, creating at times a unique civilization and leaving numberless witnesses behind in customs and traditions, old houses and furniture with marks of their own making upon them, as testified to in inventories and records. Much of this furniture, often pieces of worth, was made by the many cabinetmakers who made their way in and out of the various settlements in search of trade, as the small towns arose along the old post road.

A group of Germans, in America seeking opportunity for freedom in the exercise of their religion, followers of John Hus, established in 1753 a Moravian colony at Salem (now Winston-Salem), in North Carolina, where they constituted themselves on arrival into a community, made laws unto themselves, and put their imprint on much that remains to us today, and particularly on the types of furniture which have been found.

Georgia was the last to be established of the English colonies, the first settlement made at Savannah, in 1733, under James Oglethorpe. The early colonists were Germans, Scotch, Swiss, Portuguese, and English, but the majority after 1752 came from the Virginia Cavaliers. Lord Oglethorpe came over with the idea in his mind in setting up a buffer State by way of protection of Carolina from the French and the Spanish, to the south and west, and in making the colony a retreat for those suffering religious oppression in England, and for others desiring to free themselves of debt, with various schemes for them proposed. Silk raising was to be cultivated as a means of livelihood, but all this gave way in time, and Georgia finally yielded largely to the same influences surrounding the other colonies. More closely tied up with the English, however, the majority of the furniture of worth found there has proved to have been imported, not only from the home country but from New England as well.

Southern Cabinetmakers

II

SOUTHERN CABINETMAKERS

PERHAPS there is no more pronounced instinct in the general character of the early Southerner than that of home-making. Scattered throughout this broad land today, are houses dating back to within a few decades of the first settlement of the white man on the North American continent, and there is much about them of beauty and comfort to impress the traveler. The fact is obvious that the best of the energies of these valiant and resourceful people were employed in surrounding themselves not only with what was comfortable and enduring, but with what was made for beauty as well.

The manner of living on the best of the plantations is reflected in the wonder of today: the fine sites on high hills overlooking winding rivers that the masters chose for their houses; their gardens with boxwood, guelder-rose and moss fringes left to tell the story; the broad sweep of the lawn revealed through rare trees; white-columned houses with doorways of Ionic or Doric entablature; silver-plated door knobs, red walnut panelings, stairways with precious carving, and exquisitely made chimney pieces, with an abundance of servants to keep bright the crested plate, the china from Canton, fine glass and best furniture from England, brought often to their doors on their own ships.

All of this speaks of a passion for beauty of the owner; but back of it were hardships which even those best provided for had to endure, and the necessity always to cope with conditions as they were. It was inevitable that, out of it something fine as well as useful in the way of furniture making must evolve itself in these five colonies, with a need so immediate, the demand so increasing, and much of the material and labor at hand so easily obtained.

There were four carpenters numbered among the "Gentlemen" company composing the Virginia colony the year following their first arrival. Scant equipment was allowed in the ships coming over for many years, and furniture sent from England could not of course have met the demand. In 1748 there were three hundred thousand people to be provided for in Virginia alone, at a time when she extended from sea to sea. Because of the western expansion of the colony, the small farmer class living inland grew so rapidly that Tidewater aristocracy was in danger of being overwhelmed. Such a vast number of people needed furniture and needed it badly, and despite what they had with them or what followed them over, at least one-half the population must have supplied themselves with furniture at hand. What we know of what was owned at the time is derived largely from wills and inventories of the wealthy planters, and we cannot be guided solely by them.

"If you could help me to a carpenter, a bricklayer or mason, I would willingly pay you somewhat extraordinarily," was the cry of William Byrd, who having made his arrival in Virginia somewhat late in the sixteen hundreds, was ordering such and other goods of quality by the first ship from home, as he proceeded to set himself up. Carpenters and joiners, so varied were the uses to which they were put, were always in demand, and with the joinery of the first simple furniture corresponding to that of the house, we must believe that the work of furniture building was largely in their hands, as the cabinetmaker slowly emerged.

So excellent was the work that some of the Southern craftsmen eventually performed, that in 1768 we find Abraham Pearce, a cabinetmaker and carver from London, declaring in the South Carolina Gazette, that he "executes every Article . . . in the most elegant and workmanlike Manner," and announcing that, "Orders from the Country or any of the Northern provinces will be punctually complied with."

Landing, as the pioneers did, on barren shores, with the necessity for home-building ahead, the activities and resources of every one of them was called into play, and in every group there was some one or two, at least, who must assume the rôle of carpenter, if not, in fact, already chosen directly with reference to that trade. Shiploads, coming from time to time, provided them more and more, as the colonies pushed inward to meet further emergency. Plantation heads in need of extra help often secured such assistance, though it was necessary on the larger plantations for a cabinetmaker of ability to be numbered among the retainers, with need to be supplied both in the manor house and at the quarters as well.

As time wore on, and cabinetmaking progressed, various types asserted themselves. There were men putting out pieces of high merit, who worked independently, maintained fine shops, and were in the market for skilled craftsmen and apprentices as well, furnishing themselves with the best woods, and in time importing mahogany from the West Indies. Journeymen cabinetmakers went from place to place, supplied private needs, often on the plantation, or in shops and with other cabinetmakers, performed the task set for them, and moved on to other fields as the call arose. Considering the calls made for them in the newspapers, whether "taylors," weavers, or barbers or not, these journeymen laborers were in much demand. "Journeymen Cabinet Makers who understand their Business will meet with good encouragement by applying to Edmund Dickenson," we read, for example, in the Virginia Gazette, of Williamsburg, just following the Revolution, "Two journeymen chair makers" are listed as wanted by James Shackelford at Hanovertown, Virginia.

Apprentices were often bound. "Joseph Fontaine of Charles City County binds himself as an apprentice to George Donald, Cabinet Maker of Richmond for six years to learn the trade of cabinet maker," is set forth in the Gazette, and again, to the same man, we read at another time that "John Scott, guardian of Joseph Scott binds sd. Joseph as apprentice to learn the trade of cabinet maker." As advertised in connection with the vendue of an estate in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, among the salable articles we find a "White male servant versed in making chairs, tables and desks." The indentured, as well as the slaves, were often called to the bench; and sorry fellows some of them were, to be sure, impressed into service as need would arise, and perhaps often none too much in love with the task. An old Virginia newspaper records the disappearance of Joffath Rainbird, "a cabinet maker and Joiner by trade in Charles County, Maryland, a smooth-tongued, inſinuating Fellow and an Englishman born."

Two of them at a time took off from one of the Virginia plantations, Richard Kibble, "a ſquat Fellow of a ſwarthy Complexion," and Samuel Vlein, "ſmall and thin." Vlein's clothes must certainly have betrayed him, "a little White Cloth Coat with Cape, a white Jacket flowered on the Breaſt with green Silk, a white Linen Shirt, a black Wig, an old Hat, a Pair of red Camblet Breeches" and, not to mention osnabrigs, white stockings and old shoes. Kibble's was no better, "his coat a burnished color, green double breaſted Jacket, a check'd Shirt, a red ſpotted Silk Handkerchief about his neck, a black natural Wig, a good Hat with black Crape about it"; and to complete the picture, along with "greaſy Leather Breeches," worsted stockings and good shoes, "there were many Letters and Figures on his breaſt and left Arm . . . the End of his noſe turns up pretty much and he professes to be a Carpenter and Joiner by trade." Vlein and Kibble, both one-time convicts, joiners and carpenters by trade, God rest their souls.

By 1640 Virginia had almost fifteen thousand people, and the demand for furniture was steadily increasing. More than one family often lived under one roof; families were large, as a rule, and the door stood open for strangers and friends alike, at all hours. The amount of furniture required rose as the standards of living advanced. Virginia looked out for herself in this, one of her major needs, and her county files reveal a host of men at work. The earliest cabinetmakers recorded were those at Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. Norfolk, Fredericksburg, Charlottesville, Richmond, and Wheeling (now in West Virginia) had cabinet shops. Petersburg, Richmond, Blackstone, and Wheeling produced chairs from 1760.

One of the master designers of furniture in Virginia, perhaps, as time wore on, as well as in architecture, was Thomas Jefferson, whose experiences in Paris, Southern France, Italy, and England in the period of the classical revival of architecture and furniture, from 1784 to 1789, must have served him in good stead. Numbered among the books on the Monticello shelves was one entitled, in his manuscript catalogue, as follows: "Chippendale's Cabinetmaker's Designs. Fol. Gentleman and cabinet-maker's directory; being a collection of . . . designs of household furniture in the Gothic, Chinese and modern taste . . . (with) a short explanation of the five orders of architecture—3d ed London 1755."

One of Jefferson's notes, written while traveling in Europe, records a "Memorandum on a Tour from Paris to Amsterdam, Strasburg, and back to Paris," and describes "Dining tables letting down with single or double leaves," and shows a set of miniature drawings illustrating his ideas.

His outstanding design was, perhaps, the table on which he wrote the . In writing young Coolidge, of Boston, recently married to Ellen Randolph, child of the heart of his old age, to whom he was presenting the treasure, he wrote, "Now I still happen to possess the writing box on which it was written. It was made from a drawing of my own by Ben Randall, a cabinet maker in whose house I took my first lodging on my arrival in Philadelphia in May, 1776, and I have used it ever since, it claims no merit of particular beauty. It is plain, neat, convenient and taking no more room on the writing table than a moderate quarto volume, it yet displays itself sufficiently for any writing."

Jefferson maintained his own cabinetmakers at Monticello, and no detail, we are told, was too small for his own supervision. He, himself, tells the story of the grief of John Hemmings, his henchman at the bench, over the loss at sea of a piece made at his bench. "That beautiful writing desk he had taken so much pains to make for you." A clock, and other things at Monticello, record the genius of the mountain sage and philosopher. Dinsmore, a carpenter, likely assisted in this work.

Some mention, too, must be made of Bucktrout, who is known to have supplied Councillor Carter, in 1772, with eight mahogany chairs, and whose advertisement in the Virginia Gazette, August 11, 1766, announces that "Bucktrout, Cabinet Maker from London on the main Street near the Capitol in Williamsburg, makes all sorts of cabinet work, either plain or ornamental in the neateſt and neweſt fashion . . . . N. B. Where likewise may be had the Mathematical Gouty chair." In 1770, two bedsteads likewise were supplied the Councillor by another cabinetmaker from Williamsburg, Atwell by name.

Dr. Henry Berkley lists cabinetmakers in Maryland from every section of the State, as advertised in newspapers or noted in directories or otherwise: numerous men in Annapolis and the Northern Neck, in old Londontown and Dumfries, ports of shipping now extinct; in Frederick and Hagerstown, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and many in Baltimore, between 1746 and 1820, three hundred men or more plying their art.

Gerrard Hopkins, advertising as early as 1767, supposed to have had his training with Robert Moore, in Philadelphia, son of Samuel Hopkins, of Anne Arundel County, held forth at the Sign of the Tea Table and Chair in Gay Street, Baltimore Town, "and working in mahogany, walnut and cherry, sold things" in the newest fashions of that day. He continued to work for many years, dying as the century came to a close.

The cabinetmakers working at Annapolis were all English born, or sons of English artisans, we are told. Westward, in the State, they were English or largely German. The Baltimore cabinetmakers composed a varied group, with English, Dutch, German, Irish, Italian, and French found among the number. Some of the French, possibly from San Domingo, and Italians had shops for twenty years, and were building furniture during that time, the Reverdy Ghiselin chairs in the Saint John's College Museum representing some of their work.

Although many outstanding pieces are shown in this book, as a result of the workmanship of North Carolina craftsmen, the names of the men do not appear, except in particular instances. In that section of the State settled by the Germans and Scotch-Irish, where it is known that shops were frequent along the post road, many journeymen traveled back and forth in employment of their trade. In Wachovia, the Moravian settlement, in North Carolina at Salem, now Winston-Salem, two names, Feldhausen and Ingebretsen, are outstanding.

When the purchase of ground had been arranged in London, and in 1753 the foremost of the settlers having received a blessing for the undertaking, were ready to mount their horses for Philadelphia, there to proceed South to undertake the establishment of a colony in North Carolina, where their ideals of living and the worship of God might find realization, these two men were among the number, having been selected particularly in regard to their trade. Heinrich Feldhausen, born in Holstein, listed as shoemaker, carpenter, millwright, turner, and Pennsylvania farmer, in his certification for Moravian membership, must have been something of a man. Erich Ingebretsen, just thirty-one, born in Norway, likewise millwright and carpenter, was by no means an inconspicuous person, becoming as he did later, single brothers' vorsteher, church warder, and vestryman for the Parish of Dobbs.

Down the Chesapeake to Norfolk the little company sailed, there to take horse and make their way to Edenton, and, on through Guilford County, to the point of settlement at Bethabara and Salem. Here it was that the big work of the two craftsmen began, with the brothers' houses to be built, equipment to be provided, as they took their places as pioneers in joinery, where other joiners arose to meet the need. A cabinetmaker before many years is mentioned at Salem.

In Georgia various cabinetmakers have been listed, and there were as many as thirty accredited to Savannah; but there is little evidence of any work of outstanding merit being done there by the local men, although the influences surrounding the craft around Savannah could not have been far removed from those at Charleston, with the same ships calling often at both ports. Atlanta, as well as Savannah, had cabinet shops by the end of the eighteenth century.

Advertisements appearing, mainly in the South Carolina Gazette, from 1732 on, reveal the working of an unusually active line of men carrying on a high-class trade, some businesses of long standing, men of various birth and extraction, putting out furniture of exquisite workmanship. No attempt will be made to call the long list of these worthies, though many names will appear from time to time in this book, the total number of them, so far arrived at, considerably exceeding two hundred.