In the villages and towns tucked in along the coastal inlets and waterways of colonial and early Nineteenth Century southeastern Massachusetts, craftsmen toiled making furniture and other household goods. Artisans in these communities, dependent on and surrounded by the sea and linked by the abundant rivers crisscrossing the nearly 1,800 square miles of the area, drew on their own ingenuity, the styles and techniques observed in the next village, as well as the cities of Boston and Newport, New York, Philadelphia and even London. A compelling range of idiosyncratic furniture styles resulted.
“Harbor and Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710‱815,” on view at the Nantucket Historical Association Whaling Museum (NHA) through November 2, is a scholarly survey of the furniture traditions that emanated from the five counties of Plymouth, Bristol, Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket, Mass. Further, it is a study of the workers in those traditions, their patrons and the prevailing commerce and customs in the early maritime and seafaring communities.
Historian and exhibit curator Brock Jobe says the project was inspired by a 2002 invitation to deliver a lecture on early furniture in New Bedford and Providence at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. His initial research revealed scant scholarship on furniture of southeastern Massachusetts of the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Century, something that the historian has now rectified.
During the Eighteenth Century, nearly every village in southeastern Massachusetts had at least one furniture maker. For some, furniture making or joinery was their entire oeuvre; others divided their time between furniture making and farming, tool making, marine-related pursuits or carpentry. Initially, they worked using native wood, particularly pine or maple. Later, as their patrons prospered, they adopted imported wood, such as mahogany and, although limited, some walnut.
In the course of his study, Jobe observed a loose division of furniture styles along the dividing lines of the two major counties, Bristol and Plymouth; Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket are the counties of Cape Cod and the islands, and a similar division extends to the tip of the cape. Plymouth County extends from Cape Cod along Massachusetts Bay almost to Boston. Bristol County stretches from the Rhode Island border to Mount Hope Bay and Buzzards Bay. Joiners and carpenters in Plymouth County and the bay side of the cape looked generally to Boston for their inspiration, while those in Bristol County and the south shore of Cape Cod and the islands heeded the styles in Newport and Providence. Quakerism was an important factor, lending a quality of simplicity to the furniture not observed in that of many other colonies.
Wealthy citizens in colonial Plymouth County bought furniture from Boston, and sometimes from London via Boston. Those along the Rhode Island border and what is called today the South Coast looked to Newport and Providence, and further to New York and Philadelphia. By the Nineteenth Century, transportation was far more advanced and influences were more complex.
Going into the project, Jobe was not certain what he would discover and not certain that there was even enough material to warrant a book. Now, he views southeastern Massachusetts as “an untapped treasure trove.” Having identified more than 2,000 pieces of furniture, he is sure that at least another 2,000 pieces wait to be identified.
Jobe and his team visited hundreds of sites in the course of their painstaking examinations and pored over countless documents, unearthing “an object here, an object there,” as he describes it. Any great caches of objects had been dispersed long ago as families and their objects were frequently on the move by land and sea.
The single exception, a treasure trove for Jobe, was the Spooner House in Plymouth built in about 1749 and occupied by five generations of the Spooner family until 1954 when the last surviving Spooner left the house and its contents in trust; it is now a property of the Plymouth Antiquarian Society.
The team drew on the resources of museums, librarians, antiques dealers, auctioneers and collectors. Jobe described the discussions with dealers and pickers †who remembered “the old timers,” who remembered other “old timers” †as invaluable, adding that they provided essential information about objects, owners and craftsmen. Master picker and New Bedford dealer, the late Henry Brownell, in particular, knew where everything was, says Jobe.
The remarkable result was the identification of more than 1,050 furniture and clock makers in southeastern Massachusetts. They are discussed in detail in the book Harbor and Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710‱815 , by Jobe, Gary R. Sullivan and Jack O’Brien, and listed with their locations and particular pursuits in an appendix by Sullivan. Even more have come to light since publication in March. Jobe describes the project as “only a foundation,” adding, “I hope more will be done; more should be done.”
The Twenty-First Century perspective on early southeastern Massachusetts craftsmen provides a unique view of those artisans and their work, setting them in context with each other, even though they may never have had contact among themselves. Those early towns and villages were readily accessible by water. Overland exchanges between adjacent villages were often more of a trek than an easy sail across a bay or a river.
The area was hardly a backwater, however. Nearly every town had some shipping activity, which permitted the importation and exportation of cargo and prevailing styles and techniques and enriched certain of its citizens.
In the course of their research, Jobe and his team found a wide variety in styles and influences, even within the same town, a factor that he says made it hard to regionalize the objects. Philadelphia Windsor chairs, for example, turned up in New Bedford, Falmouth and Nantucket, where local craftsmen copied them for their own clientele.
One revelation, key to the entire project, was Sullivan’s discovery of the account book of Weymouth craftsman Abiel White. The book, which Sullivan copied for Winterthur, was invaluable for the light it shed on the business practices of a cabinetmaker of the era. The team also scoured estate lists, probate and other court records, deeds and period newspapers for information about cabinetmakers.
While the project has identified some 1,050 craftsmen in southeastern Massachusetts, six in particular left readily identifiable work. They are New Bedford brothers Cornelius and Ebenezer Allen, White, Lemuel Tobey of Dartmouth, Simeon Doggett of Middleborough and Samuel Wing of Sandwich. Works by these craftsmen have been identified and examples are on view.
Clocks were rare in most Seventeenth Century southeastern Massachusetts homes, appearing only in wealthier households and typically purchased from Boston, Providence or Newport makers or imported from England or Holland.
Only late in the century and into the next did clockmaking become a local industry. For about 40 years, Bristol and Plymouth county clockmakers turned out weight-driven clocks, usually in tall or dwarf cases. Some 115 clockmakers worked in the area between 1750 and 1850.
Sullivan has collected and dealt in antique clocks of southeastern Massachusetts for more than three decades. As co-author, with Jobe and O’Brien, of Harbor and Home , he located and researched the 22 clocks featured in the book. He says he sought “the most perfect examples,” only those with original components and in exceptional condition.
Three generations of the Bailey family of Hanover engaged in clockmaking. The earliest example is a cherry and maple tall clock with works and a brass dial by John Bailey II of Hanover, the most influential clockmaker of the area. He was the son of John Bailey, who was said to engage in clock repair or clockmaking, the brother of Calvin and Lebbeus and the father of John III and Joseph. Important examples by John Bailey III and by Calvin Bailey are also on view.
Sullivan’s favorite example is the Nantucket astronomical tall clock, circa 1790, in a figured mahogany case attributed to Cornelius Allen with works by Walter Folger Jr, one of the island’s more colorful characters. Sullivan writes that the islanders said of him, “He’s as odd as a huckleberry chowder.”
Folger devised this clock using an eight-day time and strike movement to which he added an astronomical mechanism powered by the same weight. His scientific ideas led to his being disowned by the Society of Friends, but his clock is regarded as one of the greatest achievements of the period. The clock was donated by a Folger descendant to NHA.
The result of the study is the landmark exhibit “Harbor and Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710‱815,” which comprises some 200 carefully chosen objects, 84 of which are furniture and 20 are clocks, more than 100 paintings, prints, photographs and other objects from 50 public and private collections.
The book Harbor and Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710‱815 serves as the exhibit catalog and will stand for years to come as an essential document in the canon of American furniture history. Written by Jobe, Sullivan and O’Brien, it contains entries by Derin Bray, Dennis Carr, Karin Goldstein, Forbes Maner, Nicholas S. Schonberger, Laura Simo and Martha Willoughby.
The Nantucket Historical Association Whaling Museum is at 15 Broad Street. For information, 508-228-1894, or www.nha.org .
