August, 1921 
19 
FURNITURE OF OUR FOREFATHERS 
Colonial Designs Both in the Original and in Reproduction 
Are Enjoying a Merited Popularity Today 
MARY FANTON ROBERTS 
T HE early American furniture has inher¬ 
ited the quality of the early American 
settler—-those men and women who sailed 
to this country three hundred years ago, be¬ 
cause they would not brook interference with 
a few fine spiritual ideas, who wanted a life 
suited to their own fearless outlook. And just 
as soon as they landed at Plymouth Rock from 
their little perilous crafts they started out to 
build houses and to make furniture, all of 
which expressed a very interesting condition— 
an old English culture, a recollection of free 
years in Dutch surroundings and the impres¬ 
sion of a new land in which there was freedom, 
and but little else. 
The preachers and the teachers, the farmers, 
the sailors and the cabinet-makers all set to 
work to build homes, to make furniture, to 
develop a life in which they could at least 
have absolute religious freedom. And so, out 
of the force of difficult circumstances, out of 
the memory of a rich, in¬ 
dustrial art in England, 
out of Holland’s free spirit 
and love of beauty, the fur¬ 
niture of our forefathers 
was developed. Naturally, 
from such conditions an 
environment was created of 
the utmost sincerity, per¬ 
manency and so far as pos¬ 
sible beauty. 
Men and women who 
build their own houses, 
homes they have risked 
their lives to achieve, never 
introduce an element that 
is cheap or shoddy or fan¬ 
tastic. With such people 
a real need is being met, 
serious conditions are be¬ 
ing coped with, new inter¬ 
ests are being expressed; 
and thus one sees in the 
old Colonial architecture, 
whether in New England, 
Pennsylvania or Virginia, 
and in the furniture of 
those days, a form and de¬ 
tail permanently beautiful, 
—old world ideals of living 
combined with this new ra¬ 
diant opportunity for free¬ 
dom, and, of course, the handicap of creating 
without trained artisans and without devel¬ 
oped building materials. 
Two different influences pressed down upon 
the furniture of this period most definitely; 
namely, the rich swashbuckling outline of the 
Jacobean idea and later the esthetic de¬ 
signs of the Adams brothers. Examples of 
the furniture of both these Periods were 
brought to America from time to time by the 
Pilgrim fathers, and then copied and adapted 
to the simple ways of living prevailing in 
Colonial times. 
Outside of these particular influences, vigor¬ 
ous or esthetic, you feel most searchingly in 
all the real New England furniture the quality 
of the New England conscience. In the mak¬ 
ing of those fine pieces, there was no waste, 
no superfluous ornament, no catering to the 
luxury of the merely idle, no hint in home or 
garden or fittings of sweet ladies sighing back 
of casement windows, or cavaliers lounging in 
spacious inns or courtyards. Chairs were 
made in these days for the tired worker, for 
the women at the loom; well made, to last, 
with a rare sense of proportion, a love of fine 
textures, the spirit of the real craftsman. 
Great chests were designed, high and low, and 
finely wrought, but simple. Beds were carved 
as time moved on, and draped with hand- 
woven linens, hand dyed and made. 
There was a great dignity about the lives of 
these pioneer men and women, and there was 
a great dignity in their houses and furniture. 
If you see a chaise-longue it is usually mod¬ 
eled from an old Jacobean piece, made a little 
plainer, with a simple Dutch head piece. And 
desks were devised in the simplest fashion, 
just places in which old letters and curios were 
locked. There was no ornamentation for these 
desks, and not many of them have survived. 
The finest were made of walnut and pine, 
severe and exquisitely pol¬ 
ished, and there were dish 
cabinets carrying a hint 
of the more elaborate crafts¬ 
manship of the William 
and Mary times, and little 
low stools, like the old cof¬ 
fin rests in England. And 
always the most delicately 
thought out and exquisitely 
wrought iron. Even to use 
with the stoutest types of 
Colonial furniture, the 
wrought iron was inde¬ 
scribably lacey, strong, 
suited to its purpose, well 
made, but with something 
of that thin, fine quality 
that was in the spirit of the 
religious pioneer himself. 
These artisans of wrought- 
iron had the love of their 
craft that one remembers in 
the work of the Italian 
goldsmiths. 
Today we are feeling more 
keenly than ever the charm 
of our own “Period” furni¬ 
ture—the Colonial. Weneed 
it in our modern Colonial 
houses, and in the new 
houses that are being built 
Harting 
Severe and strong, the early pine period was expressive of Puritanism .. In this group 
the desk and Windsor chair are pine. The pine candle stand is quite unique. The 
hooked rug, a glass bottle and an uncommon clock complete the setting. Courtesy 
of Benjamin Benguiat 
