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Michigan 48106 A Xerox Education Company Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. MASTERS THESIS M-H128 HAYWARD, Mary Ellen THE ELLIOTTS OF PHILADELPHIA: EMPHASIS ON THE LOOKING GLASS TRADE, 1755-1810. University of Delaware, M.A. , 1971 History, modern University Microfilms, A XEROX Company . Ann Arbor, Michigan Js- I! MASTERS THESIS M-4128 YEHIA, Mary Ellen Hayward Please see HAYWARD, Mary Ellen University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan © 1973 MARY ELLEN HAYWARD ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE ELLIOTTS OF PHILADELPHIA: Emphasis on the Looking Glass Trade, 1755-1810 by Mary Ellen Hayward A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the reqm.rements for the degree of Master of Arts in Early American Culture. June, 1971 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received. University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE It has long been a matter of contention whether John Elliott, Sr. actually made the looking glasses that he sold in Philadelphia between 1756 and 1776. In this paper 1 will attempt to prove that Elliott imported almost all of the looking glasses bearing his label and that * these looking glasses were made in England. This conclusion is based primarily on the microscopic analysis of wood samples taken from the frames of labeled Elliott looking glasses and from the frames of looking glasses labeled by English makers. Documentary and stylistic evidence further substantiates the scientific findings. I also hope to prove that John Elliott, Sr., was a cabinetmaker in Leicester, England, before he came to Philadelphia in 175)3 and that he practiced the cabinetmaking trade in Philadelphia until about 1738, when he concluded that the importation of looking glasses was a more profitable business. Before I began this project little was known about the life and career of John Elliott, Jr. In this paper I will discuss his various business activities, his involvement in Quaker charities, and his role as a looking glass dealer in Philadelphia between I78U and 1810. Microscopic analysis of wood samples taken from looking glasses labeled by John Elliott, Jr., indicate that they were made in America. Further evidence supporting an American origin appears on three of Elliott1s iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. labels, which state that he sold "Looking Glasses of American Manufacture." Whether John Elliott, Jr., actually made these looking glasses in his own shop or obtained them from a local manufactory is still a matter of conjecture. The impetus for this study of the looking glass trades of John Elliott, Sr. and Jr., came from Mr. John J.Evans, Honorary Librarian of the Decorative Arts Photographic Collection of the Winterthur Museum. Mr. Evans has long been interested in the provenance of labeled Elliott looking glasses and has been collecting photographs^- and wood samples from labeled pieces for the last several years. Naturally, his file of documented Elliott looking glasses has been invaluable to me, as have been his long considered opinions regarding the true nature of the Elliotts' business activities. It would have been impossible to reach any conclusions regarding the provenance of labeled Elliott looking glasses without the expert aid of Gordon Saltar of the Winterthur Museum. Over the years Mr. Saltar has developed techniques for the identification of wood species through microscopic analysis. His identification of the types of woods found in the frames of labeled American looking glasses and in the frames of English-made looking glasses was essential to the development of this study. He was very generous with his time in analyzing the many samples I brought to him and in discussing the characteristics of the species of concern to me. I also owe a great deal to Judith Coolidge Hughes who lent me Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. five extraordinary notebooks containing photographs of labeled Elliott looking glasses as well as other contemporary examples accumulated by her over the years. It is Mrs. Hughes's belief that many of the looking glasses known today in America were actually imported from Northern Europe .in the eighteenth century. Although I cannot wholly subscribe to her opinions, Mrs. Hughes's discussions of her theories with me led to an investigation of the .importation of looking glasses from Northern Europe into Philadelphia in the eighteenth century. The results of this phase of the study are to be found in Chapter V. My most grateful thanks go to my advisor, Nancy Goyne Evans, Registrar of the Winterthur Museum. She kindly shared' her own research with me and gave me valuable manuscript references to John Elliott, Sr. and Jr., and to the looking glass trade in Philadelphia. She also laboriously read, re-read, corrected, and criticized my manuscript, despite her own time-consuming commitments at the museum. I also want to thank Benno M.Forman, Research Fellow and Teaching Associate at the Winterthur Museum, for taking such an interest in my project and giving me many references to the provenance of woods used in cabinetmaking in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many people have been kind enough to allow me to take wood sample from their labeled Elliott looking glasses. My thanks go to Mrs. T. Van C.Phillips and the late Mr. Phillips, of West Chester,Pennsylvania; Mrs. Donald F.Carpenter, of Mendenhall, Pennsylvania; Mr. Horace Hotchkiss, Curator of the Corbit-Sharp House in Odessa, Delaware; and, Mr. Travis Cox, Directed of the Chester County Historical Society, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. vi West Chester, Pennsylvania. Mr. H.Parrot Bacot, Director of the Anglo-American Art Museum at Louisiana State Univei'sity, kindly sent me a photograph of the labeled Elliott looking glass in the Museum's collection and a wood sample from its frame. Mrs. G.Dallas Coons ■ sent samples that she had taken from looking glasses attributed to Elliott and illustrated in the catalogue published by the Valentine Museum of Richmond, Virginia, entitled Charles Mavis: Tastemaker. Mrs. William D.Hershey, Curator at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia sent samples from the labeled Elliott looking glass in their collection, and Mr. Raymond Shepard, Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, provided samples from the labeled looking glasses at-his. institution. I also want to thank Miss Wendy Cooper, a Winterthur Fellow, for taking samples from the two labeled Elliott looking glasses originally purchased by Nicholas Brown & Company of Providence and now iri the collection of Mr. Norman Herreshoff of Bristol, Rhode Island. For the ease of the reader, eighteenth-century punctuation has been modernized in the quoted passages. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE ......... , . , ................................ iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .................. •........ ix ' INTRODUCTION ........................................ 1 NOTES TO INTRODUCTION.................................