58 
House & Garden 
EARLY AMERICAN CHAIRS 
The Chair is a Dependable Index of American Furniture History 
From the Earliest Days Up to the Era of Horsehair 
GARDNER TEALL 
I n colonial times life in the North and 
in the South presented definite con¬ 
trasts, just as it did in later periods of 
American history. The Cavalier settlers 
of the South had come to search for gold; 
the Pilgrim Fathers of the North had come 
to seek a haven wherein they, their chil¬ 
dren and their children’s children might 
find freedom to worship as they pleased. 
The Quakers likewise sought peace in a 
far country, while the thrifty Dutch of 
Manhattan Island and elsewhere set about 
their business somewhat differently than 
the Virginians set about theirs. How all 
these things affected the development of 
the arts and crafts in America forms an 
interesting study, and the history of fur¬ 
niture in the Colonies is an interesting 
repository of data. 
None of the earliest groups of settlers 
north and south appears to have brought 
over more than the scantiest amount of fur¬ 
niture. If we follow the vicissitudes of 
the chair throughout its history in Early 
American times, we shall find it an excel¬ 
lent index to the state of furnishings in 
general during the periods covered by our 
study. 
The Southern colonists before 1650 
appear to have given little thought to the 
matter of furniture, imported or locally 
constructed. Thomas Deacon, it is true, 
inventoried “a wainscott settle”, “a wain- 
scott cheare”, “a very old cheir” and “4 
old joynt stools” in his Virginia home in 
1647 and when, in the same year. Gov¬ 
ernor Calvert of Maryland died “2 
chayres and a forme” and “an old frame 
of a chayre” were among his effects. Per¬ 
haps chests served the early Southerners 
for seats until chairs became obtainable. 
By the third quarter of the 17th Century, 
however, the South was becoming lux¬ 
urious. The houses being built on the 
new estates called for more than the mere 
makeshifts of the earlier years. By 1685 
we find Colonel William Byrd writing 
back to England for twelve Russia leather 
chairs for Westover and by the end of the 
century no one had to stand up in a Vir¬ 
ginian mansion. There were turned and 
carved wooden chairs, Russia leather 
chairs, Turkey-work chairs, wicker chairs, 
straw-seated chairs, flag-seated chairs, 
chairs seated with rush, with the inner 
bark of the basswood tree, chair-tables, 
and the Dutch chairs were then beginning 
to make their appearance. 
Notwithstanding the great demand for 
furniture in the South, the Southern colo- 
A table chair of oak with a 
pine top that swings down level. 
This dates from 1625 to 1675 
An American wainscot arm¬ 
chair in oak, made about 
the middle of the 17th Century 
A heavily carved oak Ameri¬ 
can wainscot armchair from 
the latter part of 17th Century 
nists appear to have continued to import all 
their pieces from England or Holland and 
not to have attempted or to have given 
local encouragement to any attempt to in¬ 
troduce furniture-making in the southern 
settlements. The only instance, which I 
have been able to find on record is one 
already noted by Esther Singleton in iier 
book on “The Furniture of Our Fore¬ 
fathers”, where Thomas Bradley, a car¬ 
penter of Essex County, Virginia, was 
commissioned to make “a Chaire for the 
President of the Court at the upper End 
of the table next the shed”. This was in 
the year 1685. In substantiation of our 
surmise, one may quote Beverley’s “His¬ 
tory and Present State of Virginia” (1705) 
where we find the author criticizing 
the Virginians as follows: “They are 
such abominable ill husbands that, though 
their country be overrun with wood, yet 
they have all their wooden ware from En¬ 
gland, their cabinets, chairs, tables, stools, 
chests, boxes, cart-wheels, and all other 
things, even so much as their bowls and 
birchen brooms, to the eternal reproach of 
their laziness”. English life was being 
transplanted to the Southern colonies, and 
along with it English furniture and the 
Dutch furniture a little later which the 
English affected. 
In the Northern Colonies, a somewhat 
more independently American or new 
world life was entered upon by a local 
enthusiasm—one may call it that—for the 
development of everything of a self-sup¬ 
porting nature. That is not to say that 
the Northern Colonies cut loose from such 
imports as those that brought English and 
(Continued on page 106) 
