Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106
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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. MASTERS THESIS M-6202 TRENT, Robert Francis, 1950- THE JOINERS AND JOINERY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS, 1630-1730. University of Delaware, M.A., 1975 Fine Arts Xerox University Microfilms,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 © 1974 ROBERT FRANCIS TRENT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TEE JOINERS AND JOINERY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS 1630-1730 by Robert F. Trent A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Early American Culture June, 1975 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Approved Pr<H§5sor in charge of thesis on behalr of the Advisory Committee Approved : ( - X __L Chairman p^the Department Approved CL^U Dean of the School of G r a d a t e Studies Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE Daring the 1950s and 1960s, scholarship of seventeenth-century American furniture history turned away from general criticism and towards in-depth studies of limited geographical areas; the area units studied were governmental ones, counties, because the probate records, court records, and deed books, the basic sources of information, are so organized. The purposes of these studies were four-fold: first, to document as many woodworking craftsmen as possible; second, to find as many documented furniture examples as possible; third, to attribute, where possible, documented furniture to documented craftsmen; fourth, to base all criticism on such "hard" information. The most significant studies have been made in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. In Pennsylvania, Margaret Berwind Schiffer's Furniture and its makers of Chester County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966) and Cathryn J. McElroy's "Furniture of the Philadelphia Area: Forms and Craftsmen Before 1730" (unpub. M. A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1970) provide basic information for two key areas. Connecticut has a solid tradition of scholarship headed by the late Houghton Bulkeley and Charles S. Bissell; Bulkeley's "A Discovery on the Connecticut Chest" (Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin, 23(1958), pp. 17-19) and "The Norwich Cabinetmakers" (Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin, 29(1964), pp. 76-85), and iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iv Bissell's Antique Furniture in Suffield, Connecticut 1670-1835 (Hartford: The Connecticut Historical Society and The Suffield Historical Society, 1956), established basic information later incorporated, along with infor mation provided by William L. Warren, Newton C. Brainard, and Thomas R. Harlow, Director of The Connecticut Historical Society, in a "Checklist of Connecticut Cabinetmakers" (Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin, 32(1967), pp. 97-144, and 33(1968), pp. 1-40). Coincidental with the publication of the "Checklist" was an exhibition catalogue, Connecticut Furniture Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Hartford; Wadsworth Atheneum, 1967); the introductory essay and catalogue, written by John T. Kirk, relied on much of the material published in the "Checklist." Patricia Kane, now Assistant Curator of the Garvan and Related Collections at the Yale University Art Gallery, published definitive re-evaluations of previous scholarship in "The Joiners of Seventeenth-Century Hartford County" (Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin, 35(1970), pp. 65-85, and Furniture of the New Haven Colony, The Seventeenth-Century Style (New Haven: The New Haven Colony Historical Society, 1973). The New Haven catalogue, an impressive work, is the model study for seventeenth- century furniture history publications at this time. In Massachusetts, . shaky scholarship on the period was typified by Irving P. Lyon's "The Oak Furniture of Ipswich, Massachusetts" (Antiques, xxxii (1937), pp. 230- 233, 298-301; xxxiii (1938), pp. 73-75, 198-203, 322-325; xxxiv (1938), pp. 79-81), Helen 0. Park's "Thomas Dennis, Ipswich Joiner; A Re-exam ination" (Antiques, lxxviii (1960), pp. 40-44) and "The Seventeenth Century Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. V Furniture of Essex County and its Makers" (Antiques, lxxviii (I960), pp. 350-355), Mabel M. Swan's "Newburyport Furniture Makers" (Antiques, xlvii (1945), pp. 222-225), and Dean A. Fales, Jr.'s "Essex County Furni ture-Documented Treasures From Local Collections, 1660-1860" (Essex Institute Historical Collections, CI(1965), pp. 167-244). Benno M. Forman, in his capacity as Research Fellow at the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, has rendered much of this work obsolete with his "The Seventeenth Century Case Furniture of Essex County, Massachusetts, and its Makers" (unpub. M. A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1968), "Boston Furniture Craftsmen 1630-1730" (unpub. ms., 1969), and "Urban Aspects of Massachusetts Furniture in the late Seventeenth Century" in John D. Morse, ed., Country Cabinetwork and Simple City Furniture (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1970), pp. 1-33. Since Mr. Forman's work covered Essex and Suffolk Counties in Massachusetts, Middlesex County was the appropriate area to investigate next, being the only remaining county in the Greater Boston area not studied. Middlesex County possessed in the seventeenth century a great port (Charlestown), a major governmental and educational center (Cambridge), and a vast frontier region reaching fifty miles into the wilderness, and thus could be expected to yield a rich diversity of documentary informa tion. The county records, housed at the County Courthouse Complex in the Lechmere section of Cambridge, survive fairly complete and in reasonably good condition. Finally, at least three well-documented pieces of furniture survive: the "Gregory Stone" court cupboard and the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "Hunt family" chest with two drawers at the Concord Antiquarian Society, and the "Sudbury" communion table at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Primary documents investigated were the Probate Records (1648- 1770), the Quarterly Courts Records (1649-1686), the records of the Court of Common Pleas (1686-1730), and the records of the Court of General Sessions (1686-1689, 1692-1730). The Probate Records consist of fifty- six folio volumes of wills, inventories, and guardianship judgements, and of the original papers from which the entries in the volumes were copied. The first fifteen volumes of the Probate are exact copies of the manuscript originals made in 1851; the remaining forty-one volumes are the manuscript originals. Apparently the original first fifteen volumes were discarded after the copies were made. The papers for each individual are housed inside manila folders kept in file dockets, and are referred to as the "First Series." There appears to have been some restoration work done on the documents, perhaps during the 1930s. The Quarterly Court Records are contained in three folio volumes and in folders. The three volumes comprise Volumes I, III, and IV of the court minutes; Volume II has been missing since at least 1850, since no copy of it was made at that time. Fortunately, the contents of Volume