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FURNITURE AND IDENTITY IN WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO,

1788-1825

Andrew Scott Murphy Richmond

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

May 2003

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number 1413560

___ ® UMI

UMI Microform 1413560 Copyright 2003 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A CONFLUENCE OF CULTURES:

FURNITURE AND IDENTITY IN WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO,

1788-1825

Andrew Scott Murphy Richmond

Approved: - UJ - VIh L. Brock W. Jobe, M.A. Professor in charge ofthe' thesis on behalf of the Advisory Committee

Approved: (2- js C. Curtis, Ph.D. :tor, Winterthur Program in Early American Culture

Approved: Mark W. Huddleston, Ph.D. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

Approved: Conrado M. Gempesaw II, Ph.D. Vice Provost for Academic and International Programs

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "No colony in America was ever settled under such favorable auspices

as that which has just commenced at the Muskingum."

—George Washington, 1788

iii

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A long, involved project generally incorporates the work, ideas, advice,

suggestions, and efforts of far more people than one can easily name in a page or two.

Thus, the following people are just a few of those responsible for the creation of this

thesis. First and foremost, I am grateful to Jane Sikes Hageman. It is her pioneering

work that has laid the groundwork for all of us who follow her. I am deeply indebted to

my advisor, Brock Jobe, for his continued encouragement, thoughtful comments, and

boundless enthusiasm. A meeting with him the bleakest February day can reinvigorate

the furniture scholar in anyone. I am also extremely grateful to John Briley and Kim

McGrew at the Campus Martius Museum in Marietta whose unflagging efforts lie at the

heart of the following pages. I owe a significant debt to Bill Reynolds, also at Campus

Martius, for his knowledge and his willingness to climb into the trenches with me.

Thanks also to Dr. Ray Swick of Blennerhassett Island Historical State Park; we had hot

weather, but a successful hunt. At the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus, Cliff Eckle

and Doug White provided generous access and great ideas. Charles Carroll at the Dayton

Art Institute and I spent a grand morning with John Magee’s desk, while Linda Showalter

at Marietta College’s Dawes Library was kind enough to spend extra time in Special

Collections as I transcribed the re-discovered Shipman daybook. I would also like to

thank David Vermillion at the Dawes Arboretum in Newark, Ohio, Mike Clum, George

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and Susan Delagrange, James Devilbiss, Karen Handling, the helpful folks at the

Washington County Courthouse and Public Library, as well as the interlibrary loan staffs

at numerous Ohio public libraries. Thanks also to Sumpter Priddy for his encyclopedic

memory, and for always reminding me to believe in the process.

I must also acknowledge here the life-long support and encouragement of my

parents, my sisters and their families, my grandmother Ellie, and my Nana. Although I

may now live 500 miles away, this thesis makes it pretty clear where my heart is.

Stephen King wrote, “To write is human, but to edit is divine.” With that in mind,

I must also thank my partner, Hollie, who reviewed this thesis almost as many times as I

did. Not only did she prove a great companion and a helpful assistant during numerous

long days traveling through the southeastern Ohio countryside, she was perpetually full

of encouragement and a plethora of helpful suggestions and comments. She is solely

responsible for helping me maintain my sanity over the past eighteen months.

Finally, I would like to thank my cats. They indeed contributed to what follows.

Elvis provided hours of service as a top-notch paperweight; John Henry frequently

serenaded me while I worked; Manny provided comic relief; and Love always kept me on

my toes and taught me to save my work regularly.

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For my classmates, Anne, Cedar, Erika, Joanna, Katherine, Kristen, Lori, Sarah,

and Scott, for their friendship, without which, this would have been a long and lonely

experience.

And for my nephews, Adam, Eric, Jacob, and Michael, whose lifetime of learning

is just beginning.

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES...... ix

LIST OF FIGURES...... x

ABSTRACT...... xiv

A CONFLUENCE OF CULTURES: FURNITURE AND IDENTITY IN

WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO, 1788-1825...... 1

Introduction...... I

Settling the Land Northwest of the Ohio River...... 5

Furnishing the Frontier...... 14

Furniture in Early Washington County: A Survey...... 24

Many People, Many Styles...... 40

From Philadelphia: Windsor Seating Furniture...... 49

Looking South: Inlaid Furniture...... 52

Native Land: Furniture and the Identity of Joseph Buell...... 58

Conclusion...... 68

NOTES...... 71

FIGURES...... 83

APPENDIX A: Carpenters, Joiners, and Cabinetmakers in Washington County,

Ohio, 1788-1825...... 117

vii

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX B: List of Probate Records Surveyed, 1788-1825...... 126

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 128

viii

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Percentage of Probate Records Which Include Luxury Goods,

by Type of Good, 1788-1825...... 11

Table 2. Quantity of Furniture Owned According to Probate Records,

1788-1825...... 26

Table 3. Furniture Forms in Probate Records, 1788-1825...... 28

Table 4. Chairs in Probate Records, 1788-1825...... 30

Table 5. Tables in Probate Records, 1788-1825...... 32

Table 6. Percentage of Households Owning Case Forms in Probate

Records, 1788-1825...... 35

Table 7. Furniture Forms Produced by Joshua Shipman, 1796-1803...... 36

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Map of settlement drawn by Rufus Putnam...... 83

Figure 2. The Point, lithograph by Ch. W. Elliot...... 84

Figure 3. Table with two drawers, possibly by Joshua Shipman...... 84

Figure 4. Sawbuck table, attributed to Truman Guthrie ...... 85

Figure 5. Chest, with the addition of two drawers and feet...... 85

Figure 6. Campus Martius from the West ...... 86

Figure 7. General Plat of Campus Martius, drawn by Winthrop Sargent...... 86

Figure 8. Blennerhassett comer cupboard...... 87

Figure 9. Glazed comer cupboard...... 87

Figure 10. Henderson comer cupboard...... 88

Figure 11. Jonathan Sprague comer cupboard...... 88

Figure 12. Detail: Sprague cupboard interior...... 88

Figure 13. Henderson cupboard, displaying the family's collection of ceramics and

Chinaware...... 89

Figure 14. Jonathan Sprague House, ca. 1800...... 89

Figure 15. Hanging saltbox...... 89

Figure 16. John Magee desk, dated 1819...... 90

Figure 17. William Mason desk, circa 1800-1813...... 91

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 18. Henderson desk...... 92

Figure 19. Detail: Mason desk interior...... 93

Figure 20. Detail: Henderson desk interior...... 93

Figure 21. Detail: Mason desk skirt...... 94

Figure 22. Detail: Henderson desk skirt...... 94

Figure 23. Detail: blown glass knob on Mason desk...... 95

Figure 24. Detail: blown glass knob on Henderson desk...... 95

Figure 25. Detail: case construction, Mason desk...... 96

Figure 26. Detail: case construction, Henderson desk...... 96

Figure 27. Map of Washington County...... 97

Figure 28. Henderson tall case clock...... 98

Figure 29. Henderson library bookcase by Marietta cabinetmaker Rood 98

Figure 30. Blennerhassett home as appeared in a contemporary engraving...... 99

Figure 31. Blennerhassett home as rebuilt by the state of West Virginia...... 99

Figure 32. Stamp used by Thomas Ramsey ...... 100

Figure 33. Bow back sidechair marked by Thomas Ramsey ...... 100

Figure 34. Bow back armchair marked by Thomas Ramsey ...... 101

Figure 35. Bow back armchair marked by Thomas Ramsey ...... 101

Figure 36. Detail: Ramsey armchair with plug replaced ...... 101

Figure 37. Rufus Putnam settee, marked by Thomas Ramsey ...... 102

with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 38. Windsor settee marked by Thomas Ramsey...... 102

Figure 39. Inlaid sideboard...... 103

Figure 40. Detail: inlaid flower and spandrel on sideboard...... 103

Figure 41. Inlaid bureau or chest of drawers...... 104

Figure 42. John Magee desk, dated 1819...... 105

Figure 43. Detail: Magee desk interior...... 106

Figure 44. Detail: Magee desk interior, with secret drawers...... 106

Figure 45. Detail: inlay on the lid of the Magee desk...... 107

Figure 46. Detail: skirt inlay on Magee desk...... 107

Figure 47. Vine and leaf inlay on bureau made in southwestern Pennsylvania, ca.

1810 108

Figure 48. Vine and leaf inlay on desk interior, Kentucky, 1800-1820...... 108

Figure 49. Vine and leaf inlay in desk interior of Tennessee desk, Greene County,

1836 109

Figure 50. Vine and leaf inlay on lid of desk by John Shearer. Berkeley Co., (West)

VA or Washington Co., MD, 1795-1805...... 109

Figure 51. Vine and leaf on tall case clock, southern Valley of Virginia, ca. 1810.. .109

Figure 52. Vine and leaf inlay on desk interior from Athens, GA, 1790-1800...... 110

Figure 53. Line and berry decorated chest of drawers, Chester Co., Pennsylvania...110

xii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 54. Map of the possible migration route of the vine and leaf inlay...... Ill

Figure 55. Buell desk-and-bookcase ...... 112

Figure 56. Buell tall case clock ...... 113

Figure 57. Map of the Point...... 114

Figure 58. Detail: bird and rosette inlay on Buell clock...... 114

Figure 59. Detail: leaf inlay on Buell clock ...... 115

Figure 60. Detail: urn and leaf inlay on Buell clock...... 115

Figure 61. Detail: vine and leaf inlay on Buell desk-and-bookcase bonnet...... 115

Figure 62. Detail: “inverse” vine and leaf inlay on the Buell clock...... 115

Figure 63. Detail: lid inlay on Buell desk-and-bookcase...... 116

xiii

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT

As the first step towards a long-term study o f Ohio furniture, this thesis examines

the furniture of Washington County, Ohio, beginning with the establishment of Marietta

as the first official settlement in the Northwest Territory in 1788, and ending in 1825,

when the building of canals and, eventually railroads, supplanted the Ohio River as the

primary connection between the East and the West. Using surviving furniture, probate

records, newspaper advertisements, and the daybook of cabinetmaker Joshua Shipman,

this thesis surveys furniture production and ownership and uncovers a culturally diverse

community with a seemingly unified commitment to the refinement of domestic spaces.

Settlers, such as Joseph Buell who migrated from Connecticut in 1789, began to reshape

themselves according to their new frontier surroundings. Not coincidentally, the

furniture of this period mirrors this change and served as a material symbol of their

evolving identities.

xiv

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A CONFLUENCE OF CULTURES: FURNITURE AND IDENTITY IN

WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO, 1788-1825

Introduction

The January 1946 issue of the Magazine Antiques proclaimed:

The Allegheny Mountains are still the Great Divide to many an antiquarian. East of them lie the states whose history reaches back into the 1600’s and 1700’s, where old-time craftsmanship has left its admirable products for the delectation of collectors. West of them is nothing— in this provincial view—but a vast expanse of modernism.1

The entire issue was devoted to Ohio decorative arts; however not a single article on

furniture appeared. Studies of Ohio furniture are scarce; only a few pioneers have

ventured into this realm. In the 1980s, the Columbus Museum of Art held an exhibition

entitledMade in Ohio: Furniture 1788-1888. About the same time, Jane Sikes Hageman

published her two-volume catalog of Ohio furniture makers. Although these works, as

well as the work ofthe numerous small museums and historical societies who exhibit

locally made furniture, are exceptionally important, they are essentially descriptive in

nature; no thorough, critical analysis of early Ohio furniture has been undertaken. This

thesis is the first step.

I chose Washington County as the subject for both logical and symbolical

reasons. As it was the new nation’s firstorganized settlement, an ample historical record

survives in the form of both documents and objects. But also, as the first officially settled

area in the state, it seemed the appropriate place to begin the study of Ohio furniture.

However, a project such as this, delineated according to modem political

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. boundaries and an imposed date range, is necessarily flawed. Obviously, the

Washington County of 1788 is much larger than the Washington County o f today;

borders have changed, and new counties have formed. Furthermore, both native

inhabitants and white settlers lived in the area long before 1788. Most importantly,

politics, economics, and cultural ideas about fashion and style rarely obey such artificial

divisions of time and space. Nevertheless, practicality dictates that such limits be drawn.

Any study of a region’s furniture must begin with the furniture itself. Fortunately,

a substantial body of furniture survives, but not all of it is discussed here. Many of the

surviving examples have histories that are dubious at best, while others have no

provenance at all. Those objects discussed here were chosen for specific reasons,

perhaps because they illustrate a particular stylistic characteristic, or because they have

reliable associations with a maker or owner. The bulk of the furniture included here is in

the collection of the Ohio Historical Society, located either in the main facility in

Columbus or at the Campus Martius Museum, OHS’s Marietta site. Several other objects

are in other public and private collections throughout Ohio and West Virginia.

Documentary sources are also critical in any furniture study. Probate records,

particularly inventories and estate sales results, offer evidence of the furniture that existed

in a particular place at a particular time. O f course, probate documents are somewhat

limited as they provide only a snapshot of what was owned at deathand included in the

inventory or vendue sale. These sources cannot indicate when specific pieces of furniture

were acquired or what such pieces looked like (aside from very vague descriptions).

Inventories also generally survive more often from uppper-class, white men moreso than

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the lower classes, women, and minorities. Despite these limitations, probate information

often provides the best record of furniture ownership.

For this study, seventy probate files were selected in a somewhat random manner.

Specific records connected to certain people, such as cabinetmakers, owners of surviving

furniture, and a few prominent citizens, were also examined. Because of time

constraints, some of these inventories were included with a larger group of randomly

chosen probate files. See Appendix B for a complete list of the probate files included in

the survey.

Cabinetmakers’ business records, such as account books and daybooks, are

equally vital in any furniture study, but are, unfortunately, extremely scarce. The

daybook of Joshua Shipman is the only known record of a Washington County

cabinetmaker; it is, in fact, one of only a very few to survive in all of Ohio. Shipman’s

daybook covers from November 1796 to November 1803, and is thus quite incomplete as

Shipman worked in Marietta from 1790 until his death in 1823. Moreover, the records

were poorly kept and include large gaps; only two years, 1797-1798, seem to be truly

complete. Still, Shipman did document enough in his daybook for it to be an invaluable

resource. It provides a glimpse of the wide range of a frontier cabinetmaker’s work, as

well as the variety of furniture he produced. It also offers the possibility of making

furniture attributions by matching up names in the daybook to names associated with

surviving furniture.

When armed with a significant body of artifactual and documentary material, a

serious study can begin. However, this thesis is not merely a history of Washington

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. County furniture. Instead, it is an investigation into a complex community using

furniture and the records of furniture production and ownership as its evidence base. The

goal is to use this information to identify the types o f furniture present in early

Washington County, to determine why this furniture looked the way it did, and to attempt

to discover what meaning was invested in the furniture by those who interacted with it.

In short, what does this furniture reveal about the people who made and used it?

Many dismiss the furniture of early Ohio as crude and primitive, sometimes as

plain and simple, or occasionally as quirky and odd. These descriptions all are accurate

to some degree, and they are the manifestation of the complex nature of the objects.

Furniture is, at its heart, utilitarian. Yet this study reveals that furniture also reflects the

strong desire of many early Washington County residents to refine their homes with

fashionable objects, and it embodies the desire of its makers and consumers to assert

simultaneously their connection to, and their distinction from, their parent culture(s).

These curious combinations of utility and decoration and of emulation and deviation

make these objects interpretively rich, and thus are precisely the reason for this study.

The furniture discussed here reflects the choices that life on the Ohio frontier prompted

the settlers to make and how these choices shaped both individual and collective self-

images.

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Settling the Land Northwest o f the Ohio River

As icy winter winds howled through King Street in early March 1786, a group of

eleven men gathered in a dimly lit comer of the noisy, crowded Bunch of Grapes Tavern

in Boston. The men, led by Rufus Putnam, who had served as an officer in the

Revolutionary War, formed the Ohio Company of Associates for the purpose of settling

the land northwest of the Ohio River. This land, only recently ceded to the United States,

included what would become Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of

Minnesota. The company was comprised mostly of New Englanders and successfully

lobbied Congress to pass the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which allowed for the sale of

land in the Northwest Territory. Potential settlers could purchase shares of the Company

at the price of one thousand dollars per share. Mannesseh Cutler of Connecticut arranged

the Company’s purchased of 1,781,760 acres o f land for an initial payment of five

hundred thousand dollars, with the balance due after the land was surveyed. Because the

Company paid in depreciated Continental Certificates, the land cost them approximately

12.5 cents per acre.2

The settlement was centered at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers

on the western edge of the Appalachian Mountains. It was less than a week’s journey

down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh, and the river offered navigable access on to what

would become Cincinnati, and allowed travel down the Mississippi River to New

Orleans, and eventually, the Gulf of Mexico. The land in the settlement was hilly and

broken by numerous creeks and small tributaries feeding into the Muskingum and Ohio.

Manasseh Cutler’s 1787 promotional pamphlet described the Ohio Company lands as

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “vastly valuable” with “as rich a soil as can be imagined, and may be reduced to proper

cultivation with very little labor.” He claimed it would be “difficult...to give a just

description of the territory under consideration, without the hazard of being suspected of

exaggeration.”3

Cutler’s perspective was one o f many, and the early settlers had a variety of

different hopes and expectations. For the older settlers, such as Company directors

Cutler and Putnam, the “western country” provided an opportunity for them to rebuild

lives greatly disrupted economically, politically, and socially, by the American

Revolution. They looked to the new settlement for order and stability,4 and to this end,

they latched onto the Federalist vision of an American empire expanding westward, but

rooted in the East. They saw the early American West, and especially the Ohio River

Valley, as a gateway, not a frontier, and as a crucial part of the growing national

economy, and they wanted to stake their claim.5 Moreover, they saw their settlement as a

chance to shape the future of all western settlement. In hisExplanation, Manasseh Cutler

professed that Ohio was to be a “wise model for the future settlement of all the federal

lands.”6

Younger men of the East, such as Joseph Buell of Connecticut, viewed the Ohio

Company settlement as another kind o f opportunity. Since he and many other early

settlers were too young to have fought in the Revolution, when, at the age of twenty-

eight, he purchased land along the Ohio River, he did so to make a life for himself and his

new wife. While Putnam and the others like him saw their settlement as “an honorable

asylum” from the post-Revolution turmoil in the East and the future “centre of a great

Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Empire,” Joseph Buell wanted a place to build a home, raise a family, and, perhaps, make

something of himself.7

While the specific goals of the settlers may have been different, everyone who

headed west shared the singular vision of a better life. For all, the West was a vast and

abundant wilderness that would provide them with the raw materials to improve their

circumstances and achieve some degree of prosperity. This vision lured members of the

Ohio Company, and thousands more, west, across the Appalachian Mountains into the

Ohio Valley.

The first group of settlers arrived in the Ohio Company lands in April 1788

aboard the flatboatMayflower. They immediately commenced building houses and

laying out a town in a grid pattern parallel to the Muskingum River, with town lots and

out-lots for each settler, as well as several public commons and a fortification. They

numbered the roads running north-south, and the roads stretching east-west received the

names of Revolutionary War heroes, such as Washington and Marion. The commons

received classically inspired names like Quadranaou, Capitolum, and Cecilia, and the

fortification was christened Campus Martius. The town itself was initially named

Adelphia, but then changed to Marietta after the queen of France.

Despite the prime geographic location and orderly development of the Ohio

Company settlement, the early years were difficult. Money was exceedingly scarce, and

attempts at agriculture were a struggle except along the waterways where the land was

reasonably flat. Efforts to produce cash crops, such as cotton in 1788 and rice in 1789,

all failed.8 As a result, the early settlers depended heavily on the assistance of the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. numerous squatters, who mostly hailed from Virginia and were of Scots-Irish descent.

Isaac Williams, a native of Virginia, generously sold com at a reduced price during the

famine o f 1790,9 and his wife, Rebecca, saved the life o f a young Marietta boy who had

been bitten by a copperhead snake.10

The new settlement grew slowly. By 1789, there were only four hundred

residents in Marietta,11 and by 1791, there were only twenty buildings erected at Campus

Martius.12 The organization of the Ohio Company was partly to blame for the sluggish

development. Land sales required the approval of the entire Company, and because some

of the associates remained in New England, those representatives in Ohio were prohibited

from selling additional lands to incoming settlers who had not made prior arrangements.

Thus, thousands of immigrants passed by Marietta because they could not buy land, and

headed further west, often to Kentucky.13 Company director Rufus Putnam quickly

recognized their plight. “It soon became evident,” he wrote, “that some new plan must be

adopted to divide lands or the settlement would come to naught.”14 So, in February,

1789, the Ohio contingent of the Ohio Company passed a resolution granting one

hundred acres of land to anyone willing to clear it, erect a house with a brick or stone

chimney, plant pear and peach trees, and provide for its defense for five years.15

Some immigrants did take advantage of this new offer, but new settlers were still

slow in coming. Manasseh Cutler’sExplanation piqued the interest of many New

Englanders, but he had not actually been to Ohio when he published it. News from the

settlement rapidly countered his claims and diminished interest in the western lands.

Timothy Flint of Massachusetts published some of the settlers’ experiences in his book

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Indian Wars o f the West,

The country was admitted to be fertile, but was pronounced excessively sickly, and poorly balancing by that advantage all these counterpositives of sickness, Indians, copper-headed and hoop snakes, bears, wolves and panthers.16

The rumors of hostile natives probably frightened the potential settlers the most.

In early 1791, these fears were reinforced by an attack on the Big Bottom settlement

thirty miles up the Muskingum from Marietta. Immediately, the residents of many of the

smaller settlements abandoned them to move into Fort Harmar,17 Campus Martius, or the

fortification at the rivers’ convergence, called “the Point.” Hostilities ensued for the next

five years, and immigration virtually stopped, while many settlers returned to the East.

As a result, by 1793, there were less than five hundred settlers left in the Ohio Company

lands.18 When General Anthony Wayne signed the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, the

bloodshed ended, but at a great price. Thirty-eight settlers had been killed and ten taken

captive. The war had cost the Company eleven thousand dollars-money it could ill-

afford to spend.

With the security of the settlement finally established, immigration began again;

but unfortunately, the opening of the Connecticut Western Reserve in 1795 prompted

most New Englanders to settle there. Many of those who ventured west down the Ohio

River also bypassed the hilly terrain of Washington County and headed further down

river into southwestern Ohio and Kentucky, where the flatter bottomlands were better

suited to agriculture. By 1800, the population of Marietta had only reached around five

hundred residents, and that of the entire county 5,247, compared to Hamilton County’s

(Cincinnati) population of 15,692.19

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To friends and family in the East, the Ohio Company settlement must have

seemed impossibly far, remote, and very isolated. At a time when a person might never

travel more than a few miles from home during his or her entire lifetime, the journey to

the Ohio Country was especially daunting. It took four to six weeks to travel from New

England to SummriH’s Ferry at the head o f the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania.

From there, it took six days to descend the river to Marietta, but one had to wait until the

river was high enough. All told, the trip o f over seven hundred miles typically took about

two months.

Coupled with this isolation, early reports of wild animals and native hostilities

created in the minds of those back East an image of the frontier family living in a log

cabin, wearing buckskin, and using beaver pelts as currency. For the earliest settlers, this

was not far from reality. Cabinetmaker and architect Joseph Barker described the early

homes as “laid up of learge Beech Logs & rather Open” with “puncheon floors & stairs,

&c.”20 But despite these primitive living conditions and economic hardships, even the

earliest residents of Washington County craved consumer goods. Such desires may seem

incongruent with frontier life, but many o f these settlers were not backwoods squatters,

but rather educated, cultured and affluent. Some were the sons of prominent New

England families who had moved west to make their own fortunes, or recoup them after

the Revolution, and they brought with them strong intentions of maintaining their

accustomed style of living.

Probate records, particularly inventories and estate sale results, provide ample

evidence of these early residents’ ownership of luxury items. When he died in 1801,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. William Alcock owned two silver watches, two pairs of silver sugar tongs, and a silver

cup, with a total value of S48.00.21 Timothy Danielson owned a library consisting of

eighty-seven volumes, which were valued at nearly $420.00 when he died in 1813.22

That even the earliest settlers owned luxury items such as silver and books indicates that

they brought with them as much as they could in order to furnish their crude early

dwellings in a familiar manner. However, the consistent, and in some cases, rising levels

of ownership suggest a strong and persistent local demand for luxury items.

Table 1. Ptzrcentage o f Probate Records Which Include Luxuiy Goods, by Type of Good, 1788-182523 Date Looking GlassesPictures Books Silver 1788-1795 30 0 70 40 1796-1800 40 0 40 40 1801-1805 30 0 50 50 1806-1810 30 0 70 40 1811-1815 40 10 50 20 1816-1820 80 10 60 30 1821-1825 60 20 50 70

The early residents of Washington County clearly viewed themselves not as

brutish backwoods ruffians, but as refined citizens bringing some semblance of civility to

the “western country.” They resisted the frontier stereotypes propagated by eastern

travelers and their scathing publications and strove to decorate their homes with whatever

“outward symbols of gentility” they could acquire.24 They also wrote to family and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. friends back east, praising the state of their society, despite the hardships of frontier life:

The progress of the settlement is sufficiently rapid for the first year...Our first ball was opened about the middle of December, at which were fifteen ladies, as well accomplished in the manners of polite circles as any I have ever seen in the old States. I mention this to show the progress of society in this new world; where, I believe, we shall vie with, if not excel, the old States, in every accomplishment necessary to render life agreeable and happy.25

With so many needs and desires to fulfill, merchants were among the earliest and

most successful settlers. Their account books from the period display a wide range of

goods bought and sold. In 1789, the firm of Backus and Kindall sold “japand tinware,”

as well as cookware, window glass, combs, spices, and a wide variety of foodstuffs,26 and

early newspapers advertised textiles such as calico, printed cotton, silk, and lace, as well

as ceramics, paper, quills, perfumes, and pictures.

To support this demand for fashionable items, some measure of economic

stability was required. Agricultural production increased, including the cultivation of

grains, and, in 1797, the raising of sheep began. The Ohio River provided a crucial trade

route from the East to the West (all the way to New Orleans and beyond), and those in

Marietta hoped to capitalize on its location. Thus a group of investors hired Stephen

Devol to build the St. Clair, and in 1800, the brig, loaded with flour and pork, sailed

down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers into the Gulf of Mexico. It stopped in Havana and

sold its cargo “at advantageous terms,” and then sailed north to Philadelphia. There,

Captain Abraham Whipple sold the ship and returned to Marietta.27 Between 1800 and

1808, over twenty ocean-going vessels were built in Marietta, ranging from 110 to 400

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. tons. The sale of the ships’ cargoes in the South and the sale of the ships themselves in

the East produced huge profits. The settlement was finally beginning to enjoy financial

prosperity, but, once again, the community would experience bad luck. President

Thomas Jefferson’s Embargo Act of 1807 dealt a severe blow to merchants throughout

the nation, including Marietta. The suspension of international trade eliminated the need

for ocean-going ships, and shipbuilding in Marietta ceased. The economy and the

population slumped. The prosperity had increased Marietta’s population in 1806 to

1,500, but by the 1820s, it had fallen once again to one thousand.28

Though the Washington County economy suffered with the loss of shipbuilding,

the short-lived industry still managed to establish the region as a vital economic link

between East and West. It provided the capital necessary for local farmers to expand

beyond subsistence to the larger-scale cultivation of livestock, and local entrepreneurs

began numerous small manufacturing enterprises, such as distilleries and tanneries. The

relative ease of moving surplus livestock and manufactured goods down the Ohio and

Mississippi Rivers fostered a brisk trade throughout the Ohio Valley, with Marietta as its

“hub.”29 The Ohio River teamed with fiatboats carrying flour, pork, salt, whiskey, and

other foodstuffs, as well as lead, lumber, and hardware. “Store boats” flying flags made

of calico brought a variety of household goods.30

At the same time, local merchants made regular buying trips to Philadelphia to

purchase the goods that their customers needed and wanted, such as salt, silk, velvet,

buttons, books, and pewter.31 Newspapers advertised goods “just received from

Baltimore and Philadelphia” and “suited to the present and approaching seasons.”32

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. English, French, and East Indian goods were widely available in local shops, and

residents eagerly purchased them.

To pay for such items, customers rarely used cash. Despite some degree of

economic stability, hard currency was even scarcer in Ohio than in other parts of the

country. Often, payment was in crops and sometimes in wood. The firm of Curtis and

Dunn advertised in the December 12, 1819 issue of theAmerican Friend that they had “a

large assortment of HATS, which they offer...for produce, wheat, rye, oats, com, and

lumber.”33 In Washington County, where land was plentiful, it too served as currency.

The high demand for quality household goods also attracted numerous artisans to

the Ohio frontier. William Moulton and his daughter, Lydia, were among the earliest

settlers in 1788. They immigrated from Newburyport, Massachusetts, and were part of

the siIversmithing dynasty their family had established there in the early seventeenth

century. David Anderson was a clockmaker and silversmith, while Azariah Pratt was a

blacksmith and silversmith; both men were working in Marietta before 1800. By the

mid-1820s, Sala Bosworth was painting landscapes of the Marietta area and portraits of

its citizens.

Furnishing the Frontier

The most important of the early craftsmen were the woodworkers. They literally

built Marietta and the smaller settlements in the Ohio Company lands. Joseph Barker

recalled that “Four surveyors & forty six Mechanics & labourers” came west as part of

the earliest groups of settlers, and many of these were probably woodworkers.34 Between

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1788 and 1825, Washington County was home to at least thirty-four carpenters, joiners,

and cabinetmakers, identified by newspaper advertisements, probate records,

contemporary accounts, and surviving furniture. Twenty-six o f the thirty-four worked

regularly as cabinetmakers or chairmakers, and two others worked as clock and

watchmakers. The other six performed various other woodworking tasks, such as house

carpentry and joinery, and may well have produced some furniture. Many more probably

produced furniture, but left no clear record of their work.

Thousands of acres of old growth forest provided these early furniture makers

with an ample supply o f wood. Cherry and walnut were the most plentiful primary

woods. Probate inventories frequently describe the more expensive furniture as being of

walnut or cherry, and Joshua Shipman’s daybook records the use of cherry and “Black

walnut” in the higher-end furniture.35 Mahogany was available in Washington County

very early, thought it was rarely used. In 1809, Alexander Hill advertised “a stock of the

first rate MAHOGANY and other suitable materials for carrying on the Cabinet business

effectually.”36 Three years earlier, however, George McCormick began making a suite of

mahogany furniture for Thomas Worthington’s home, Adena, in Chillicothe (Ross

County), about eighty miles west of Marietta, and thus the expensive wood likely passed

through the settlement as early as 1806.37

Tall, straight tulip38 trees grew in huge numbers and served as the most common

secondary wood, although many of the eastern-trained cabinetmakers appear to have

preferred the familiar white pine as it appears as a secondary wood in much of the early

furniture. Though little pine grew locally, its abundance upriver in western Pennsylvania

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. allowed for very inexpensive importation. In 1808, L.S. Parmelee advertised “For Sale,

One Hundred and Twenty THOUSAND FEET of SEASONED WHITE PINE BOARDS

and PLANK, By the Large or Small Quantity.”39 John Brophy also advertised pine

shingles and boards for sale at Point Harmar, suggesting he purchased them from one of

the numerous flatboats floating down the Ohio.40 In 1790, James Backus noted in his

journal that, along with walnut and tulip, oak, hickory, beech, elm, maple, and ash were

growing along the river.41 Other woods, such as butternut, locust, and yellow pine were

used for building and in some furniture.

The need for converting the vast forest into usable building materials necessitated

the establishment of sawmills. The Ohio Company thought the establishment of saw- and

gristmills so important that they passed a resolution in August 1787:

That as saw-mills and com mills will be necessary, in forwarding the settlement, proposals from any of the subscribers for erecting one or more of each kind, without expense to the proprietors, will be received by either of the Directors, the Treasurer, or at the Secretary’s office; and such proposals will be decided upon, as soon as may be, after the completion of the contract with the Treasury Board.42

Though the Indian war between 1791-1795 hindered the establishment of water-

powered mills, some were built. The Wolf Creek Mill was erected in March 1789. It

served as both a saw- and gristmill.43 In 1791, Jonathan Devol built a floating mill on the

Ohio River, taking advantage of the strong current near the island that Irish immigrant

Harman Blennerhassett would purchase seven years later. This mill, too, ground grain

and cut lumber. Pitsaws supplemented the wood produced by local mills, especially

when many, such as Wolf Creek, were abandoned during the war.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Perhaps due to some of these early problems with processing wood, lumber

retained a high value, despite the prolific forests. Estate appraisers often included it in

probate inventories. When he died in 1822, Zechariah Peck’s estate consisted only of a

silver watch valued at $2.25, a bureau valued at $5.00, and a large quantity of “poplar,”

cherry, and pine valued at $32.06.44 Furniture makers often acquired lumber by

frequenting estate sales. At the 1812 sale of the property of Gilbert Devol, William

Mason purchased 440 feet of walnut boards for $2.33, while Joshua Shipman purchased

1,908 feet of three-quarter-inch thick “poplar” for $7.44 and 292 feet of walnut scantling

for $2.92.45

Wood also served as a form of currency, especially with carpenters and

cabinetmakers. A. Walters, who maintained a cabinetshop in Parkersburg, on the

Virginia side of the Ohio, advertised, “He wishes to purchase a quantity of Walnut and

Cherry Plank and Scantling.”46 Certainly, Walters would have gladly exchanged finished

furniture for planks and boards. Joshua Shipman’s daybook contains several entries

where he received payment in lumber. In 1796, he credited Charles Greene for “43 feet

of boards.” In 1800, local merchant Dudley Woodbridge paid on his account with

Shipman with “360 Feet Blak walnut boards.” Later that year, one of Shipman’s biggest

customers, Ohio Company director Rufus Putnam, paid him with a large quantity of oak

and tulip boards.47 Woodbridge himself also accepted lumber as payment. On October

31, 1789, he received of Levi Munsell one hundred thirty-seven feet of cherry and oak

boards.48

For furniture hardware, these artisans had to rely upon the local merchants. It was

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. not until 1829 that the firm o f Dobbins and McElfresh advertised the opening of

Washington County’s first foundry. They specialized in “ALL KINDS OF CASTINGS”

in iron, and thus may have produced some furniture hardware, but even at this late date,

virtually all hardware was still imported from the East. J.B. Regnier advertised “A small

Assortment of HARDWARE” in 1808.”49 Dudley Woodbridge’s daybooks record

numerous sales of cabinet hardware, especially chest locks and hinges, and Levi Munsell

frequently purchased nails. In 1789, Isaac Mentor bought one pair of brass hinges and a

thumb latch, while Samuel Parsons, Charles Mills, and William Mason all purchased

chest locks. In 1793, Mason purchased:

16 knobs 1 brass desk lock 2 pair of brass hinges 2 cupbord locks 2 !4 dozen screws50

Tools were often purchased locally, either through merchants, or at the estate sale

of a cabinetmaker or carpenter. After the death of Benjamin F. Carlisle in 1824, his tools

were sold at a sheriffs sale. Included in the sale were:

Two Jointers-two Jack Plains-one Smoothing Plain- One Round and a half-Two augers-one Drawing knife-Three Chisels-one Spike Gimlet-one Gauge- Two Squares-one Bit Stock-one Rabit Plain Cabinetmaker51

Other woodworkers inherited their tools. William Mason specified in his will that “all

my Cabinet Tools be appraised...and one of the boys as they shall choose take them.”52

That Carlisle’s collection o f tools is so small suggests that he was not engaged in

complex woodworking. Mason’s 1814 inventory better illustrates the range of tools

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. owned by early Washington County cabinetmakers.

Cabinet tools 33 plains of different kinds 29 chisels 5 saws 6 Wood files or Rasps 3 Squares 3 Gauges 1 Oil Stone 7 Bitts and one Stock 1 Bevel 1 Adze the whole appraised at 55.00 53

With tools and materials readily available, all that remained was the establishment

of a business location. While many cabinetmakers moved their shops regularly, most

remained on or near Third, Ohio, Greene, and Front Streets, at the “Point” in Marietta.

Situated at the intersection of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, the Point was ideally

suited to serve as the commercial center of town, (see figures 1 and 2) Here, merchants

operated their stores, and many craftsmen set up their shops, all with easy access to the

river traffic. Joshua Shipman built a house on Front Street and maintained his shop in

the rear.

As early as 1796, local demand for furniture allowed cabinetmakers to expand

their businesses by hiring journeymen and taking on apprentices. In November of that

year, Joshua Shipman recorded in his daybook the hiring out of “Boy” to Abraham

Whipple for 45 per day (compared to85 per day for his own labor). “Boy” probably

refers to Shipman’s apprentice, James Kelley. In 1797, Shipman hired out James to

Rufus Putnam at 5s per day. Though Kelley may have started as Shipman’s apprentice,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. by 1802, he must have become a journeyman because he began to purchase hardware on

his own. In July, Shipman recorded selling “A pair of Chest hinges 0-2-3" to James

Kelley. Two other names appear in the daybook as probable employees of Shipman:

Charles and Ellet. Shipman also records the labor of Messrs. Parker, Stone, Pierce, and

Clark. Their wages, ranging from 3s to 6s per day, and their irregular appearance

suggests that they were unskilled or semi-skilled workers Shipman hired when he

required extra help.54

Other cabinetmakers also had apprentices and journeymen. In 1809, Alexander

Hill advertised:

A Boy who can come well recommended is wanted to learn the [cabinetmaking] business; Also a Journeyman who can handle with neatness and dispatch is wanted.55

Isaac Barstow requested an apprentice “to the House Carpenter and Joiner business;”56 in

1811 and in 1825, W.S. Clark wanted

To take an apprentice between 15 and 16 years old to the [chairmaking] business, who he will also instruct in painting-he must be a boy of good habits, &c.57

In 1819, cabinetmaker Hugh Hill posted notice that his apprentice, Asahel Clark, had run

away58 and in 1825, Nathaniel Petty offered a “Six cents and cut nail REWARD” for the

return of his son, Abraham Petty, a runaway carpenter’s apprentice.59

Like most rural cabinetmakers, those in Washington County were required to

engage in far more than making furniture in order to sustain themselves. Many were

farmers whose schedules were dictated by the seasons, while others pursued more diverse

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. types of work. Hugh Hill gave dancing lessons to supplement his income, while his

father, Alexander, “re-commenced in keeping a public house at his old stand on Greene

Street.”60 Most also worked in a variety of woodworking trades. Joseph Barker also

worked as an architect and general contractor. Aaron Yale owned an assortment of

cabinet tools, but also a bung borer, a key saw, and paint brushes, indicating that he was a

cooper, but also made locking chests, and painted furniture and possibly signs.61 William

Mason and Joshua Shipman both worked as house carpenters.

Shipman’s daybook records that he performed numerous tasks to earn his living,

furniture-making comprising only one segment o f his operation. He also mended,

bottomed, and painted chairs. He engaged in general house carpentry, made and repaired

gunstocks and handles for farm implements, performed turning work, and made several

wool wheels. He also occasionally painted signs and rented out oxen3s forper day. A

large portion of his work centered on making and installing doors and windows, and he

complemented this by selling window glass and the putty used to set them. In 1797

alone, Shipman made thirty-one windows, sold 1,350 “squares of glass,” setting 228 of

them. His daybook records the production of four- and six-panel doors, many of them in

cherry.62

Shipman also became involved in the Marietta shipbuilding industry. Along with

“A table for Cabbin” for the “Gentleman Owners of the Brig,” he produced pulley

blocks.63 In the 1790s, he probably made small ones for the sash windows he was

manufacturing, as well as some larger ones for agricultural and building use. Those he

made after 1800, including hundreds for Charles Greene, one of the main investors in the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. local shipbuilding concern, were probably large ones used to raise and lower the sails.

Because Shipman’s daybook is incomplete, it offers little evidence of a seasonal

work cycle, or of the ebbs and flows o f his career. In 1797, the most thoroughly recorded

year, his work remained fairly constant. He made little furniture in June and August;

however in June, his daybook records little business of any kind. In August, his time was

largely consumed by two jobs: the building o f a bam for Rufus Putnam in early August,

and the making of twenty-one window frames with a total of 504 squares of glass later in

the month for an unidentified patron. With Shipman’s regular employees and occasional

day laborers, he was able to undertake a sizeable amount of contract work while

maintaining a high output of furniture.64

His daybook reveals that his customers almost always paid with goods and

services. Credit was essential in Shipman’s business. While his daybook reflects a very

busy shop, it records very few payments on accounts. In December 1797, he exchanged

twelve squares of glass, one-half pound of putty, and the hauling of two loads “up the

Bank” for sixteen pounds of beef. He often accepted lumber as payment, and in 1799, he

took a book “for my boy” as payment. A bank note from David Putnam glued into the

daybook further illustrates the breadth o f payments methods acceptable to Shipman.65

While cabinetmakers such as Shipman had to accept a wide variety of goods in

exchange for furniture, they often used furniture as barter against items they sought to

purchase. In November 1789, merchant Dudley Woodbridge received of William Mason

a bedstead, for which he credited him twelve dollars. Thirteen years later, Joshua

Shipman also paid on his account with Woodbridge with a bedstead.66 Such exchanges

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. allowed local cabinetmakers to acquire the items they needed, and it provided the

merchants with finished goods to trade with other customers, either in Washington

County, or elsewhere. Merchants, like Woodbridge, thus helped local artisans develop

their businesses by providing them with a wider market for their goods.67

Shipman’s brisk business included a sizeable clientele; more than one hundred

individuals were recorded. He produced furniture and other items for some of the

settlement’s most prominent citizens, including merchants Gilbert Greene and Dudley

Woodbridge, and future Ohio governor Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr. Shipman also made a

bedstead, a “Cloathes press,” two benches, and a table for Harman Blennerhassett.

Numerous names are preceded by military titles. One of his best customers was Ohio

Company director General Rufus Putnam. He recorded Putnam’s name regularly

throughout the daybook in relation to a wide variety of tasks, including building a bam,

“pulling Down [his] Old house,” making him several windows and a six-panel cherry

door, renting him oxen, making and mending farm tools, and producing a significant

amount of furniture, including three bedsteads, a writing desk, a “Black walnut Desk,” a

cherry table, “A Clothes Chest,” and a kitchen table. It is possible that the two-drawer,

cherry table in figure 3 was made by Shipman, as in 1801 he charged Rufus Putnam for

“A Cherry table” and for “putting up A Table in office.”68 The price of the table, 0-19-6

or $3.25, suggests a large table, as does the special charge for its installation in the

office.69

The regularity of names in Shipman’s daybook suggests he had a network of

repeat customers. Although some cabinetmakers advertised, most did not, probably

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. because they utilized existing family and business connections to expand their client

base.70 Shipman’s customers must have recommended him to their families because

several surnames appear frequently. Gilbert and Jonathan Devol, as well as John and

Azariah Pratt purchased items from Shipman. Along with Rufus Putnam, several other

Putnams did business with him, including David, Ezra, Israel, and William.

The volume of business in his daybook indicates that Joshua Shipman was

considered a skilled artisan and a respected member of the community. His success also

made him moderately wealthy. When he died in October 1823, he left an estate worth in

excess of $1200.00. Like his customers, Shipman endeavored to surround himself with

stylish household items similar to those he had grown up with in Connecticut. Along

with a considerable collection of expensive furniture, such as a walnut bureau valued at

$12.00 and a desk-and-bookcase valued at $20.00, his estate included large quantities of

textiles and bedding, as well as a clock, and nearly $10.00 worth of silver.71

Furniture in Early Washington County: A Survey

The limited scope of Joshua Shipman’s daybook prevents it from demonstrating

long-term trends in furniture production. It covers from November 1796 to November

1803, but Shipman’s Marietta career began in 1789 and lasted until his death in 1823.

The daybook details the important time period following the Indian war when population

and economic growth resumed, including the surge in the economy as a result of the

commencement of shipbuilding in 1800. However, in reality, only in 1797 and 1798 did

he record entire years, leaving the other years partially recorded. Nevertheless,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Shipman’s daybook clearly illustrates the significant contribution local artisans made to

the refinement of early Ohio frontier life. Between August 1796 and January 1799, the

time the daybook records most completely, Shipman produced seventy-three pieces of

furniture, ranging from a three-shilling common chair to a dining table priced at 2-8-0.72

Since he was only one of eleven carpenters and cabinetmakers working in Washington

County before 1800, one can surmise that the quantity of furniture produced during this

period must have been considerable.

Probate records provide a more comprehensive picture of furniture in Washington

County. While inventories and estate sale results reflect furniture ownership, by

extension, they also reflect the furniture produced.73 The survey of probate records that

showed an increase in the ownership of luxury goods between 1788 and 1825 also

indicates that the amount of furniture owned in individual homes grew dramatically

during this time period. The earliest records make it clear that settlers only owned a few

pieces of furniture: a table, a couple of chairs, and perhaps a bedstead. In his 1790

inventory, Thomas Wells, despite having thirty-seven pieces of pewter (valued at $7.55)

and seven silver spoons (valued at $4.50), only owned a single chest (valued at $0.75).74

Silversmith William Moulton owned only two bedsteads, one chest, and two tables when

he died in 1795.75 As the settlement grew, so did the lists of furnishings on probate

inventories, from a few pieces to dozens. Edward Henderson, who died in 1805, owned

three tables, thirteen chairs, and two “underbeds.”76 Luther Dana’s 1814 inventory

reveals that he owned twelve chairs, three tables, a stand, and a desk.77 In 1825, Return

Jonathan Meigs, Jr. died leaving over seventy pieces of furniture, including eleven tables

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and thirty-eight chairs.78

During the thirty-seven years encompassed by the study, the average number of

pieces of furniture listed grew from less than two pieces of furniture per household to

twenty-six. Moreover, the average estate between 1788 and 1795 contained, .4 tables and

.3 chairs; by 1825, the median rose to 3.4 tables and 13.4 chairs per household.

Table 2. Quantity o f Furniture Owned According to Probate Records, 1788-1825 Years Average Average Average Average pieces number number number o f offurniture o f tables o f chairs chests and trunks 1788-1795 1.8 .4 .3 .5 1796-1800 3.1 .3 .6 .9 1801-1805 6.6 1.5 2.8 .8 1806-1810 12.2 1.2 6.1 2.4 1811-1815 14.7 2.0 7.3 2.2 1816-1820 17.0 1.9 7.6 1.8 1821-1825 26.0 3.4 13.4 1.1

This growth in furniture ownership is directly linked to the growth and

development of the settlement. Only a few pieces of furniture were transported westward

with the settlers, perhaps just a chest to carry their other smaller possessions. Upon

arrival, building a home took priority over acquiring nice furniture. A settler might have

bartered with a local cabinetmaker for necessary furniture, such as a table and chairs, but

these were likely crude forms and were not expected to find a permanent place in the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. home, (see figure 4)

A chest that held the family’s possessions during the voyage, now became

household storage. Such a chest as shown in figure 5 came west as a plain, six-board

chest. As the family outgrew the storage space it provided, they adapted the chest to

meet their needs. Vertical members were glued to the inside comers of the chest and

extended down through the bottom forming the outer stiles o f a case. The addition of a

second bottom and a center divider allowed the new lower case to hold two drawers.

Bracket feet lifted the modified chest off of the floor, literally elevating it above pure

utilitarianism.

As the settlement developed, the owner of such a chest may have replaced it with

new, more fashionable piece of furniture, such as a bureau. Others kept their older

furniture as long as it remained useful in some capacity. The growing amount of

furniture in the average home, especially chairs, most likely reflects not only the

acquisition of new furniture, but also the retention of older furniture. The frequent

appearance of “old” tables, chairs, and chests in inventories substantiates this.

As the volume of furniture produced and owned increased, so did the variety.

During the initial years, the settlers owned only basic forms of furniture. As time passed,

and as the settlement became more established, a wider range of furniture appeared,

including not only specialized forms such as candlestands and dining tables, but also

elaborate case forms, such as bureaus and desk-and-bookcases.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 3. Furniture Forms in Probate Records, 1788-1825 Year Forms 1788-1795 bedstead, chest, table, chair, stool bedstead, chest, chest with drawers, table, chair, stool, bookcase, 1796-1800 trunk bedstead, high post bedstead, children’s bed, underbed, chest, table, square table, kitchen table, table with leaves, breakfast table, chair, 1801-1805 common chair, Windsor chair, rocking Windsor chair, kitchen chair, trunk, desk, clock, stand, candlestand, bureau, cupboard bedstead, trundle bedstead, camp bedstead, underbed, chest, table, breakfast table, dining table, kitchen table, square table, chair, 1806-1810 common chair, Windsor chair, great chair, stool, trunk, desk, writing desk, stand, candlestand, cupboard, cradle bedstead, trundle bedstead, chest, chest with drawers, chest of draws, table, breakfast table, toilet table, dining table, kitchen table, dressing table, card table, tea table, table fall leaf table, square black knot 1811-1815 table, chair, Windsor chair, dining chair, great chair, stool, desk, desk-and-bookcase, tall clock, stand, candlestand, bureau, cupboard, clothespress, sideboard bedstead, child’s bedstead, underbed, chest, table, fall leaf table, dining table, kitchen table, breakfast table, work table, chair, kitchen 1816-1820 chair, arm chair, Windsor chair, settee, trunk, desk, desk-and- bookcase, clock and case, stand, bureau, cupboard, dressing glass bedstead, cot, underbed, trundle bedstead, chest, chest of drawers, table, dining table, breakfast table, pillar and claw table, kitchen table, office table, chair, Windsor chair, kitchen chair, Windsor rocking chair, common chair, common rocking chair, arm chair, 1821-1825 settee, trunk, desk, desk-and-bookcase, wooden clock, clock without case, eight-day clock, stand, basin stand, stand table, washstand, sugar stand, candlestand, bureau, cupboard, cradle, dressing glass, sideboard, sofa

Clearly homes in early Washington County were furnished in a manner that far

surpasses the popular image of a primitive frontier home. While simple, utilitarian forms

remained common, the explosion of furniture forms after 1800 signifies a tremendous

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and pervasive commitment to fashion and comfort. It also indicates that homes were no

longer the temporary log structures initially built in and around Campus Martius and the

Point. Instead, more settlers were erecting permanent structures, spacious enough to

accommodate more furniture, and having rooms designated for specific purposes and

requiring specialty forms.

The forms that seem to exhibit the greatest growth in variety, and thus the greatest

degree of specialization, are tables and chairs. Before 1800, only undescribed chairs

appear in the surveyed probate records. After 1800, chairs become the objects of

descriptors such as common, Windsor, kitchen, dining, great, and rocking. In some

cases, these descriptors indicate altogether different types of chairs, while in others, the

same type may be described by different terms according to their use or location within

the house.

The Windsor chair first appears in the sampled probate records at the opening of

the nineteenth century, but Windsors were not new to the area. Edward Henderson’s

1805 inventory lists “Seven old Windsor chairs.”79 They generally appear in groups of

six or twelve, sometimes referred to as a “half set” or “set.” Often, they are called “green

chairs” because green was the predominant color. Less frequent are “common” chairs,

which generally indicates rush-bottomed, slat-back chairs.80 Such chairs appear regularly

before 1810, but only occasionally after that, and are always valued less than Windsor

chairs. Armchairs, sometimes called great chairs, and rocking chairs are listed in both

common and Windsor forms and appear consistently throughout the survey.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 4. Chairs in Probate / ecords, 1788-1825 Year Common Kitchen Windsor chairs Undescribed chairs chairs chairs 1788-1795 0 0 0 3 1796-1800 0 0 0 6 1801-1805 6 2 20 0 1806-1810 14 0 16 31 1811-1815 0 14 3681 16 1816-1820 0 42 27-3384 19 1821-1825 5 24 67 35

With the decrease in common chairs after 1810, kitchen chairs begin to appear.

Kitchen and common chairs are likely the same form. In inventories where kitchen

chairs are listed, common chairs are not, and vice versa, and both are valued between

$0.25-0.50 each. The consistent appearance of commonor kitchen chairs in probate

records suggests that they remained a popular choice for inexpensive seating furniture.

The differing terms for the rush-seated, slat back chairs are, most likely, a simple

change in popular nomenclature.83 Because the change from “common” to “kitchen”

occurred after Windsor chairs became fashionable, it may indicate that most slat back

chairs became relegated to the service areas of the house, such as kitchens, while

Windsor chairs took their place in more formal spaces. Rufus Putnam’s 1824 room-by-

room inventory lists no chairs in the kitchen, but “One Rocking & ten Kitchen chairs” in

the “NW Room below.” This room, situated next to the kitchen, also contained “Linen

Wheels Swifts & Reel,” a “Sugar Tub,” and a “Desk & Bookcase.”84 It was probably a

multipurpose workroom, and thus the term “kitchen chair” referred to any inexpensive

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. rush-seated, slat back chair and not a new form of chair designed specifically for kitchen

use. While the difference between a common chair and a kitchen chair may be merely

semantic, the appearance of “dining chairs” in the 1814 inventory of William Mason may

imply the formalization of the function o f a room.85 In this instance, dining chairs are

probably Windsor chairs (they are valued about the same), but are in a room with a

specific function that is transferred to the chairs.

This trend of furniture specialization is more readily apparent in tables. Early

Washington County inventories include a variety of tables that are generally described in

terms of size (small or large), shape (square), some physical characteristic (with drawer

or leaves), or by wood (cherry or black walnut). The implication is that all of these tables

are multifunctional. Beginning about 1800, other table forms appear, this time classified

by function or location, such as kitchen, breakfast, toilet, dining, work, and office. Small,

square, and cherry tables continue in popularity for the duration of the study, but the

number of specialized tables increases.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 5. Tables in Probate Records, 1788-1825 Specialized tables Plain or (kitchen, dining, Year multifunction brea/fast, work, al tables86 office, tea) 1788-1795 4 0 1796-1800 3 0 1801-1805 12 3 1806-1810 4 8 1811-1815 10 10 1816-1820 11 8 1821-1825 15 19

This increase reinforces the division of household spaces according to functions.

The ownership of multiple tables and chairs, each described according to its specific

purpose, is indicative, according to Edward S. Cooke, of “the differentiation of life

processes that characterize more modem attitudes.”87 Although no one in the survey

owned full suites of kitchen and dining furniture, numerous individuals owned multiple

specialized tables. Jonathan Plimer’s 1807 inventory lists separate dining and breakfast

tables,88 while William Dana’s 1810 inventory lists a “large Dining Table,” a breakfast

table, and a kitchen table.89 Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr. firmly established a formal dining

space when he purchased “1 set pillar & claw Dining Tables,” which were valued at

$75.00 in his 1825 inventory.90

Rufus Putnam’s inventory, though not designating any space a “dining room” and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. not listing “dining chairs,” does clearly suggest as much. In the “SE Room below,”

Putnam had “Six Green chairs” and ‘Two Arm do,” two dining tables, a variety of

dishware, a carpet, and a gilt mirror. Although this room remained, to some extent,

multifunctional (it also contained a tea table and a work stand), its use as a formal dining

space is abundantly clear. Next to this room is the “SW Room,” which was furnished

with “Eight Green chairs,” “One settee & cushion,” and a pair of breakfast tables. This

room was also carpeted, and dressed with muslin curtains, another gilt mirror, a large

assortment of tea wares, including china and silver, and bottles of liquor.91 These two

rooms are situated on what appears to be the back of the house while the front door opens

into the kitchen. Such an arrangement seems backwards, but at the time, the house

formed the outer wall of Campus Martius and most of Putnam’s visitors probably entered

from the inside of the fort, into the dining room at the rear of the house.92 (see figures 6

and 7)

Upstairs, each bedchamber contained a bedstead, bedding, and a chest for storage,

but the “SW Chamber” was undoubtedly the best chamber. The carpeted room included

window curtains, a bedstead with over one hundred thirty dollars in bedding, and

numerous other textiles. Furniture included “One Stand Table and cover,” a clothespress,

“One case Drawers,” and a trunk. On the walls hung a looking glass and “One

Copperplate [print].”93 Putnam probably entertained in this room as well, and from the

window, he could look out upon the inside of the fort, and perhaps all the way to the

Muskingum River.

Originally, as part of the fortification wall, Rufus Putnam’s house was a simple

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. log structure with four rooms (two over two). By enlarging his home and covering it

with clapboards, which he did in 1796, and by placing such fashionable furniture

throughout, including a total of twenty-two “Green chairs,” located in the “SE Room

below,” the “SW Room,” and the “SW Chamber,” he advertised his wealth and gentility.

More importantly, through the use of specialized forms of furniture, such as dining tables

and kitchen chairs, he further refined his home by attributing certain uses to specific

rooms, and thereby he also clearly defined public and private areas. Such division of

household spaces suggests “the tendency to structure and formalize social interaction and

entertainment in the home.”94

While tables and chairs were becoming specialized, residents of Washington

County began investing larger sums of money in sophisticated case furniture. A study of

probate records reveals a significant increase in the ownership of more complex case

forms, such as desks and bureaus. This did not dramatically affect the popularity of plain

chests and chests with drawers, however. Rufus Putnam, who owned several pieces of

elaborate case furniture, also owned four chests, one of which was “coloured,” and a

trunk.95 In some instances, chests seem to have been “dressed up” by the use of more

expensive woods. Frequent references to chests in black walnut and cherry suggest that

early residents viewed them as a very practical form, but one that could still achieve some

level of refinement.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TableS. Pen:entage o f Households Owning Case Forms in Probate Records, 17'8i1-1825. Year Chests Cupboards Bureaus or Desks and and Trunks Chests o f Drawers Desks and Bookcases 1788-1795 40 0 0 0 1796-1800 60 0 0 0 1801-1805 40 10 10 20 1806-1810 80 30 0 10 1811-1815 90 10 30 30 1816-1820 80 30 40 60 1821-1825 80 50 50 40

Ownership of complex case furniture grew dramatically after 1800. The prices of

the bureaus and desks indicate that, unlike the case with kitchen chairs, their appearance

is not just a change in terminology, but rather a concerted effort on the part of

Washington County residents to obtain new, fashionable furniture. Throughout the

inventories, chests, with or without drawers, are typically valued at between $0.50 and

$3.00. Paul Fearing’s 1801 inventory lists a bureau valued at $9.00, indicating that it is

probably a new four-drawer chest on French or bracket feet.96 Prior to 1800, no desks

appear at all, but Jonathan Stone’s 1801 inventory lists a “Cherry Desk” at $24.0097 and

Edward Howard’s 1804 inventory lists a “Black walnut Desk” valued at $15.00.98 In the

penultimate group of inventories (1816-1820), five desks, one desk-and-bookcase, and

four bureaus appear. Only one desk, valued at $7.00, is described as “old.” All other

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. desks and bureaus are valued at higher prices, including Nathan Cole’s $18.00 desk,"

Benjamin Miles’ $18.00 desk-and-bookcase,100 and Oliver Dodge’s $15.00 bureau.101

The high values of these desks and bureaus clearly indicate that they were new, and

suggest that their owners had strong desires to create stylish homes. The appearance of

other even more elaborate and expensive case forms, such as clothespresses and

sideboards, as well as tall case clocks, and the frequent use of expensive woods on these

new forms, speaks to the refinement of early Washington County households.

Probate records mark the beginnings of this refinement sometime between 1801-

1805. Earlier records in the survey do not reflect such a high degree of sophistication of

household furnishings. However, by looking at furniture production through the daybook

of Joshua Shipman, rather than only ownership at death as reflected in the inventories,

one can see evidence of refinement in the mid-1790s.

Table 7. Furniture Forms Produced by Joshua Shipman, 1796-1803 Bedsteads bedstead, high post bedstead, cross bed, camp bedstead, child’s bedstead, cradle Tables and table, breakfast table, kitchen table, square table, dining table, Stands carrying table, leaf table, carrying leaf table, writing table, candlestand Seating common chair, dining chair, bench, stool, close stool Furniture Case coffin, child’s coffin, desk, writing desk, bookcase, cupboard, Furniture chest, clothes chest, clothespress, bureau

Shipman recorded his construction of complex case forms very early. In February

1797, he made “A Beaurow” for Charles Greene, for which he charged 5-0-0, or

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. $16.67.102 Later that year, he also made a clothespress for Harman Blennerhassett and

charged him 6-0-0, or $20.00. Shipman’s daybook also mentions the making of

specialized furniture forms. He made breakfast tables as early as 1796, dining tables and

chairs as early as 1797. At the same time, he continued to make plain chests and

multifunctional square and leaf tables for the duration of the period covered by the

daybook.103 Thus Shipman served both the needs and the wants of his clientele,

manufacturing both the utilitarian furniture they required and the fashionable furniture

they desired.

One form, in particular, provides clear evidence of the refinement of material life

on the Ohio frontier. Cupboards, which appear regularly throughout Shipman’s daybook

and the surveyed probate records, are a very basic form of storage furniture, yet they are

easily encased in a very elaborate, fashionable, and expensive skin. The daybook and the

surveyed documents list a total o f seventeen cupboards, and the disparity in values allows

for speculation regarding the quality and variety available. The six cupboards priced at

$3.00 and less are likely small and plain, or perhaps old. William Willington’s 1807

inventory lists a “Large Cupboard” valued at $5.00.104 Thus, the $5.50 cupboard Joshua

Shipman made for Gilbert Devol in 1802 is also likely a large one, as are two other

cupboards in the probate records valued at $5.00 and $7.00.105

Because Shipman specialized in the making of paneled doors, the $6.00 cupboard

that he made in January 1803 for W.R. Putnam may have resembled Harman

Blennerhassett’s cherry cupboard (see figure 8). In September 1797, Shipman charged

Charles Greene 4s per panel to make four six-panel doors.106 Based upon this,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Blennerhassett’s cupboard would have cost 1-4-0, or $4.00, plus the cost of the case, the

base, and the labor. A $7.00 cupboard, like the one listed in Robert Allison’s 1812

inventory, may have been of the more expensive walnut, or possibly had a glazed upper

door, as in figure 9.107 Shipman typically charged between6d-8d each for the purchase

and installation of glass panes.108 For the twelve “squares” in this cupboard, Shipman

would have charged between6s-8s, or $1.00-1.33. If Shipman had charged around $6.00

for a cupboard similar to Harman Blennerhassett’s, then, with the addition of glass, he

would have likely raised the price to about $7.33.

Nathan Cole’s 1817 inventory lists “One cupboard” valued at $18.00, in addition

to cherry and walnut tables, an $18.00 desk, a $20.00 clock, and $123.50 worth of

silver.109 While prices generally increased between 1803, the final year documented by

Joshua Shipman’s daybook, and 1817, Cole was still clearly a wealthy man, with what

was almost certainly a grand cupboard, which may have looked like the cupboard in

figure 10. This cupboard, was built between 1810-1820 for the Henderson family,

residents of Boaz (West) Virginia, just across the Ohio River. The cupboard is

exceptionally large, standing over seven feet tall and over four feet wide. It is on scale

with the Henderson’s monumental library bookcase (a form of cupboard) attributed to

Marietta cabinetmaker Rood about 1815.110

While the difference in the value of cupboards lends support to the discussion of

the refinement of household furnishings, an extant cupboard is perhaps even more

convincing. Jonathan Sprague built the comer cupboard upon his arrival in 1788. (see

figure 11) He split the walnut boards with a broad ax, smoothed them with a drawknife,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and assembled the simple cupboard with nails and screws he may have made at his own

forge.111 Though a rudimentary form, crudely executed, Sprague’s cupboard does not

appear to speak to any sense of refinement. While such a cupboard would have been

useful in any of the early homes, Sprague apparently intended this cupboard for more

than mere storage. The upper section contains three finely shaped shelves, all with plate

grooves (see figure 12), and is thus clearly designed for display. The Spragues were not

particularly wealthy; Jonathan’s estate was appraised at just over $1100 when he died in

1840, and the bulk of his estate was comprised o f livestock and tools. Perhaps his wife,

Hannah, treasured the small amount of pewter, brass candlesticks, and snuffer they

owned and desired a place to show it off.

A closer examination of the cupboards pictured in figures 8-11 reinforces a trend

in early Washington County furniture initially suggested by probate records. Soon after

settlement, and certainly by 1800, the lives of those who owned such cupboards had

become stable enough to warrant the purchase of a piece of furniture that was not easily

moved. Gerald R.W. Ward referred to the early cupboards of Connecticut as “relatively

immobile fixtures of a given room” and declared, “comer cupboards were even more

immovable than cupboards.”112 The size alone o f these cupboards prohibited them from

being purely utilitarian. It would have been impossible for one of the Hendersons’ or the

Blennerhassetts’ servants to reach something on the top shelf of their respective cupboard

without the aid of a stool. The magnitude of the Henderson cupboard and bookcase

especially would require the selection of permanent places within the home. Such a

commitment of money and space indicates not only a strong dedication to household

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. refinement, but also implies a confidence in the community and its future. Clearly, after

such a purchase, one must have believed they would remain in that home, or at least not

move far or often.

Cupboards like those in figures 8-11 loomed in their comers, dominating the

room. Their paneled doors and comice moldings gave them an architectural quality, and

their appearance in cherry and walnut underscores a transcendence of the commonplace

and mere practicality. Also, the existence of such cupboards suggests refinement in the

form of consumer goods requiring safe storage, and even display, (see figure 13)

Cupboards such as these, especially those with glass in the upper doors, were as much for

the display of treasured items as they were for the storage of them. Each stood as a

symbol of its owner’s commitment to home and community, and each advertised its

owner’s wealth and good taste.

Many People, Many Styles

Probate records reveal a pervasive desire to own new and fashionable furniture,

and seemingly everyone sought to project a refined self-image through that furniture.

While this yearning may have acted as a common denominator among all early

Washington County residents, the community was, in fact, comprised of a wide variety of

people with very different backgrounds, and thus divers definitions of style. Malcolm

Rohrbaugh notes:

The movement of people across the mountains-or through them- was more than simply the migration of individuals from one place to another. It involved partly the transference of an old society, partly the creation of a new one...The different requirements of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. new land settlement imposed new demands on the societies in process of taking shape.113

Accordingly, a complex mix o f regional cultures developed along the Ohio and

Muskingum Rivers, with each cultural group having its own ideals, wants, and desires.

While these groups often differed dramatically, they influenced each other through the

social and economic interactions their isolated community demanded, and they all shared

a similar relationship with their physical environment. Their material remains exhibit

this labyrinthine network of influences and display what Jules Prown terms their “cultural

fingerprint.”114

The most obvious manifestation of the numerous influences was Marietta itself.

Reflecting its founders, the planned layout o f the town was based on a New England

model, organized in a grid pattern with town lots and out lots, and several public

commons. However, unlike New England settlements, lots were chosen randomly, and

not according to a social hierarchy, seemingly confirming the self-defining nature of the

frontier. Moreover, the church and school did not front the main common. In this

somewhat egalitarian manner, the Ohio Company associates spread themselves and their

public institutions throughout the new city.115 Upon arrival, further modifications were

made to accommodate the complex system of ancient Native American mounds that

existed on the site. Surprisingly, they not only integrated these mounds into their town

plan, but in 1791, they made provisions for their preservation and decoration.116 From

the beginning, the plans of the associates and the landscape itself began dissolving the

settlers’ cultural ties to New England.

By about 1800, the growing influence of other regional cultures becomes apparent

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in domestic architecture. Jonathan Sprague built his home in Waterford Township, along

the Muskingum River, a few miles north of Marietta, about 1800. (see figure 14) In an

incredible departure from traditional New England architecture, Sprague built his house

of cut sandstone, resembling those built in western Pennsylvania and Maryland. Sprague,

who was bom in Nova Scotia, came to Marietta in 1788 with his father and brother from

New England, and has no apparent familial relationship with the mid-Atlantic region.

His near death in 1791 at the hands of a native may have driven Sprague to insist on a

strong, secure home, thus prompting the stone construction. The design, however, is

probably the result of the influence of either neighbors who had come from Pennsylvania

or Maryland, or perhaps his own trip through the area on his way to the headwaters of the

Ohio River at SummrilFs Ferry.

The development of a multiplicity of styles is even more readily apparent in

furniture. The hanging saltbox in figure 15, a product of the early settlement, illustrates a

stylistic connection to New England in the shell carving on its face. However, the

Windsor furniture of Thomas Ramsey, likely made between 1800 and 1815, introduces a

strong Philadelphia influence, and by 1820, little stylistic evidence remained relating the

furniture of Washington County to its New England roots. The explosion of inlay on the

fall front desk in figure 16 includes the owner’s name and date, “John Magee 1819,” as

well as a vine and leaf motif which ties this desk to case furniture with similar inlay

patterns coming out of the mid-Atlantic and southern backcountry.

Almost as quickly as it evolved from the strictly utilitarian and multipurpose to

fashionable and specialized, the furniture of early Washington County departed from its

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. New England roots to become a reflection of a population that was becoming remarkably

diverse. The first forty-seven settlers were of New England origin, as were 606 of 663

land purchasers between 1788 and 1792;117 however, the Indian war and the opening of

the Connecticut Western Reserve dramatically altered immigration patterns by greatly

reducing the influx of New Englanders. Many of the new settlers in the Ohio Company

lands came from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, and the deeds recorded in 1799

indicate that non-New Englanders acquired almost half of the land sold to immigrants.118

By 1810, when Paul Fearing enumerated the county for the federal census, the

multi-regional makeup of the population was clear. He identified 1,001 heads of

household, and though the census would not record birthplace until 1850, historian

Wayne Jordan utilized other sources and identified the probable origins o f627 of these

heads of household. His research showed that only 367 heads of household were of New

England origin, while 86 came from Pennsylvania, 75 from Virginia, 23 from New

Jersey, 16 each from New York and Maryland, 2 from Delaware, and 42 from foreign

countries. Jordan, using an average of six persons per family, then calculated that only

2,202 of the 5,991 residents o f Washington County were from New England, while 1,308

were from other states, and 252 were from foreign countries. Of the 374 unidentified

heads of household (2,244 persons), Jordan asserts that the majority was likely of

Pennsylvania and Virginia origins, concluding that “being less literate, they left fewer

records o f their lives, and are therefore harder to identify.”119

Washington County, however, was more than merely a “melting pot” of

immigrant settlers. It was a central point of a vast web of economic and social

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. relationships connecting southeastern Ohio to western Pennsylvania, western Virginia,

Kentucky, and beyond. Marietta was as closely linked to Belpre and Wolf Creek as it

was to Pittsburgh, Parkersburg, and Lexington. For example, twice each year, Dudley

Woodbridge sent representatives to buy goods from Philadelphia merchants such as Isaac

Gibbs, Joseph J. Miller, and Joseph Stanbury. His account book denotes business

transactions with customers throughout southeastern Ohio and western Virginia, as well

as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Louisville, Kentucky; and as far away as Tennessee and

Missouri.120 Consequently, the furniture of early Washington County reflects a very

complex set of regional influences.

Not only was Washington County enmeshed in this economic web that extended

far up and down the Ohio, it was also very closely linked to the communities on the

Virginia side of the river, such as Williamstown and Parkersburg. The Virginian

squatters had proven critical to the survival of the earliest Ohio Company settlers, and

later, residents on both sides of the river would participate in what was, for all intents and

purposes, a joint economy; farmers and merchants north and south of the Ohio mutually

engaged in the river trade. Early newspapers of the area catered to settlements on both

sides of the river and had names likeThe Ohio Gazette and Virginia Herald and simply

the Western Spectator.

The desks in figures 17 and 18 reinforce the notion that these close economic ties

resulted in the formation of a larger cultural community. William Mason built the desk in

figure 17 sometime between 1800 and his death in 1813. Made of cherry and tulip, it is a

large desk, over fifty-three inches tall, and probably designed to be used while standing

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. or sitting on a tall stool. The desk in figure 18, made of walnut and tulip, and likely of

the same time period, descended through the Henderson family o f Boaz, (West) Virginia,

which lies just across the river near Williamstown. Although the two desks are clearly

products of different shops, they are stylistically very similar.

Their similarity is rooted in their overall simplicity. The interiors are nearly

identical, with the only difference being a slight change in drawer configuration, and the

pigeonhole arches are virtual duplicates, (see figures 19 and 20) Although the front skirt

on the Mason desk has been damaged and partially repaired, its profile closely resembles

that of the Henderson desk, (see figures 21 and 22) Most importantly, both desks retain

their original blown glass knobs on the drawers and lid supports, (see figures 23 and 24)

Such knobs would have necessarily been imported, possibly from Pittsburgh where glass

production began in 1795.121

Although these desks share several stylistic similarities, a closer look proves their

construction is vastly different. Mason built his desk rather crudely. The top of the case

is dovetailed, but the case has no bottom; the lower drawer sits only upon the front of the

case and thin drawer supports on either side, (see figure 25) Moreover, Mason merely

nailed the front skirt onto the bottom of the case, rather than mortise-and-tenoning it into

the sides; this much weaker joint likely resulted in the significant damage done to the

skirt over the years.

The Henderson family desk, however, was more solidly built. The case is

dovetailed at the top and has a full bottom that is set into grooves in the sides, (see figure

26) The drawer blades are nearly twice as deep as those on the Mason desk. The front

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. skirt was applied in three pieces, the center and the facing of each foot, and is separated

from the case by a thin cockbead.

Because of their central location, the Henderson family could have purchased the

desk from a maker in Parkersburg, Williamstown, Belpre, or Marietta, (see figure 27)

The Hendersons were certainly familiar with the craftsmen across the river, and they had

purchased furniture from other Washington County craftsmen, (see figure 28 and 29)

Cabinetmakers north and south of the Ohio frequently had customers who lived on the

opposite shore, in part because the newspapers carried ads for makers in both counties.

A. Walters advertised in theAmerican Friend in 1819 that he “Respectfully informs the

Public that he has established himself in Parkersburgh, Va. near the public square where

he carries on the [cabinetmaking] business in all its various branches.”122

Regardless of the Henderson desk’s origins, the similarities between it and the

Mason desk are striking. The close resemblance of the skirts and overall appearance, as

well as the arrangement of the desk interiors, and use of identical glass drawer pulls all

suggest a unified sense of style and fashion. Traditional history has portrayed the Ohio

River as the barrier separating the slave South and the free North, but clearly the story is

more complex. This over-simplified dismissal of geography belies the level and depth of

interaction between river families. The river acted as unifying force between these

settlements, providing them both with a vehicle to get what they needed and to sell what

they cultivated or manufactured. However, a deeper relationship evolved between the

residents of southeastern Ohio and western Virginia that transcended their economic

integration. Documentary evidence indicates that settlers engaged in frequent and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. intimate social interaction. Residents of both Washington County, Ohio and Wood

County, Virginia (now West Virginia) participated on joint hunts for wolves and other

predators that endangered their livestock,123 and Manasseh Cutler recorded in his journal

that while visiting the area, he saw New Englanders from Marietta and Virginians

worshiping side-by-side at Campus Martius.124 Clearly, the river settlements formed an

economically and socially cohesive community, and the two desks suggest the cross-

cultural development of a shared sense of fashion and furniture style.

No individuals better illustrate this relationship than Harman and Margaret

Blennerhassett, the very wealthy Irish couple who purchased an island on the Ohio River

between Parkersburg, Virginia and Belpre, Ohio, (see figure 27) Though technically

Virginians, the Blennerhassetts literally lived on the border between Ohio and Virginia,

and their home reflected their life in the median. Their home, which was built between

1798-1800, was a monumental plantation mansion, measuring 186 feet from side to side,

and encompassing a central structure, with two wing buildings connected by piazzas, and

over seven thousand square feet of living space.125 (see figure 30 and 31) Access to the

island, and thus to the house, was provided by a ferry operated by one of the

Blennerhassetts’ slaves, Moses, between Parkersburg and the island’s formal north shore

entrance. The lavish estate also included a stately English garden. Harman

Blennerhassett claimed, “The houses and offices I occupy stand me in upwards of

$30,000, not mentioning the gardens and shrubbery, in the English style, hedges, post

fences, and complete farm-yards, containing bams, stables, overseers’ and negro

houses.”126 A boat descending the Ohio would come around a bend near Belpre and a

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. break in the trees on the island would reveal the opulent home of the Blennerhassetts to

travelers, loudly proclaiming the wealth and taste of its residents.

The Blennerhassetts spent money just as liberally furnishing their island home.

They filled rooms with Turkey carpets, European curtains, oil paintings, and printed

wallpapers. Harman Blennerhassett’s library consisted of thousands of volumes. The

drawing room included black walnut paneling from floor to ceiling, and many of the

doors were also of walnut and adorned with silver knobs. The dining room contained a

banquet table that sat fourteen on a set of twelve side chairs and two arm chairs made by

the Findlay brothers of Baltimore. It was in this room that the Blennerhassetts often

entertained. As a result, by the end of 1800, Blennerhassett Island had become one of the

social centers of the Ohio River Valley, on both sides of the river, and the

Blennerhassetts themselves had become leading figures in the Washington-Wood County

area.127

While Harman Blennerhassett furnished his island home with a variety of

imported goods and furniture, he also patronized local artisans. He hired Marietta

cabinetmaker and architect Joseph Barker to oversee the building of his mansion.128

Blennerhassett also hired John Richardson, another Marietta craftsman, and his seven

journeymen to build furniture for his home,129 and he purchased furniture from other area

cabinetmakers, including Joshua Shipman. In fact, through the building and furnishing of

his estate, Harman Blennerhassett pumped thousands of dollars into the local economy at

a time when it was beginning its recovery following the Indian war. Beyond this, he also

heavily invested in the firm of Dudley Woodbridge, Jr., and in the shipbuilding industry

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. during the opening years of the nineteenth century. Through their social status and their

investment in area businesses, the Blennerhassetts solidified the connection between

residents of Washington County, Ohio and Wood County, Virginia.

At the same time, the Blennerhassetts’ importation of goods from Philadelphia,

Baltimore, and elsewhere, brought in stylistic influences from throughout the Ohio

Valley and the East. The visitors to the island sought to purchase for their own homes

furniture like that which the Blennerhassetts owned and thus helped propagate these

stylistic influences throughout the region. More directly, local craftsmen, like Shipman,

who worked for Blennerhassett, adapted some of the stylistic characteristics they saw on

his imported furniture and integrated them into the furniture they later produced for their

Washington County patrons.

From Philadelphia: Windsor Seating Furniture

Windsor chairs were the favorite seating form and were available in green, black,

and blue. All o f those that survive from the area are either overpainted in black, or

completely stripped of paint, but many still have remnants of their original green paint,

which was clearly the most popular color. Of the at least eight chairmakers who worked

in Washington County before 1825, most probably made Windsors. Abner Corwin

advertised in theAmerican Friend in 1819 that he “still carries on the business of making

LITTLE WHEELS, WOOLEN WHEELS, PATENT WHEEL HEADS, CHAIRS, and

SCREWS for cider presses.”130 As his business dealt largely with turning work, he likely

made Windsors. Sylvester and Brock made chairs on Greene Street from 1815-1825, and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. W.S. Clark advertised a chairmaking business “in the house formerly occupied by

Sylvester and Brock” in 1825. Chairmaker Stephen Smith also worked on Greene Street

between 1800-1815.131 Three Windsor chairs survive with an attribution to Joseph

Barker,132 while cabinetmaker John Richardson made chairs for Harman

Blennerhassett.133

The maker who left the most significant body of identifiable work was Thomas

Ramsey; however, he also left one of the smallest documentary records. He worked in

Pittsburgh in the 1790s with William Davis,134 and he probably moved to Marietta about

1800, but the exact date o f his immigration is unknown; however, by 1806 he was doing

business with Jonathan Baldwin in Marietta,135 and he served in the Marietta regiment

during the War o f 1812.136 The large increase in Windsor chair ownership after 1800

(see table 4) may indicate Ramsey’s arrival.

At least three chairs and two settees survive bearing the mark “T. Ramsey.”137

(see figure 32) His work closely resembles that of many chairmakers in Pennsylvania,

and while in Pittsburgh, he and the other chairmakers looked to Philadelphia for the latest

styles. Like the work of William Cox or John Ackley and Joseph Henzey of

Philadelphia, the plank seat on the surviving marked Ramsey bow-back side chair is

shield shaped, and the face of the bow is beaded, (see figure 33) While Ramsey’s bow

curves inward just above the seat to form a waist, just as in Philadelphia bow-backs, the

sharp outward curve gives the back a distinctive light bulb shape. Ramsey further departs

from the typical Philadelphia style by not segmenting the seven posts.138 Side chairs

made by Ramsey and Davis in Pittsburgh also lack the segmented posts, but these chairs

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. have the earlier baluster-turned legs, while the later Ramsey chair has bamboo-tumed

legs and stretchers.

Bamboo turning had reached Pittsburgh by 1800 as Ramsey’s former partner was

making chairs with this feature.139 Ramsey may have brought bamboo turning to

Washington County, or such turning may have arrived earlier, via trade. His bamboo

work is exaggerated, with deeply incised lines and very large swells just above sharply

tapered feet. On his bow-back armchairs, Ramsey combined bamboo and baluster

turning. Like their Philadelphia models, these chairs have wider seats. The face of the

bow is beaded only above the arms and rounded below. The simple sawn arms scroll

forward and are mortise-and-tenoned into the bow. The chair in figure 34 has stouter legs

than Ramsey’s side chairs, but they are not significantly thicker than the Philadelphia

armed bow-backs made by Ackley and Henzey. The chair has lost some height, and the

castors are obviously a later addition. Interestingly, while his Philadelphia

contemporaries used sawn ogee-curved arm supports, Ramsey used steeply angled,

turned supports, and in this case, baluster-turned supports.

In figure 35, Ramsey also used turned arm supports, but here, they are bamboo-

tumed. The medial stretcher is also bamboo-tumed, but the legs are simply turned, and

extremely chunky. Like his other Windsors, the posts are not segmented; the central five

posts extend upwards and are topped with a crest rail forming a headrest. Its original

owner was likely a large, infirm or elderly person, thus the headrest and very sturdy legs.

Confirming this, the chair had been cut out to accommodate a chamber pot and,

presumably after the person passed away, the plug was refitted so the chair could return

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to its original form, (see figure 36)

Windsor settees were also favored in early Washington County. Figures 37 and

38 illustrate two settees, both marked “T. Ramsey.” Both are bow back settees, which

gained popularity in Philadelphia in the 1790s.140 The two are very similar in that both

have plain posts, and the simple sawn arms are mortise-and-tenoned into the beaded bow.

In both, the arm supports and all the legs are baluster-turned, while the medial stretchers

are bamboo-tumed, and the side stretchers are single swelled turnings. Ramsey’s unusual

mix-and-match use of turnings on Windsor chairs and settees strongly suggests that he

made parts in bulk and used what was handy when assembling chairs. Ramsey may have

even brought extra turned parts from Pittsburgh when he moved west.

Thomas Ramsey undoubtedly helped popularize Windsor chairs in early

Washington County. But the demand was so great that local merchants occasionally

imported them. Augustus Stone advertised in the August 8,1822 issue of theAmerican

Friend that he had “just received a quantity of Windsor Chairs from Pittsburgh, which are

of superior quality.”141 Like Ramsey, it is probable that other Washington County

chairmakers styled their Windsor chairs after the Pennsylvania models, and importation

allowed them to remain informed of the latest fashions.

Looking South: Inlaid Furniture

Other regional styles also migrated into Washington County to be adapted by

local cabinetmakers. Elaborate inlaid decoration became fashionable in the first quarter

of the nineteenth century, and many of the motifs on surviving furniture relate to designs

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. used by cabinetmakers throughout a broad geographic area. The sideboard in figure 39,

circa 1800, is probably one of the earliest sideboards made in Washington County; the

form does not appear in the probate records survey until after 1810. The case is walnut

rather than mahogany, which is far more typical on such elaborate forms. The squareness

of the case and unusual drawer configuration reveal a maker with little experience in

making such sophisticated forms. On either side of the central door, the bottom row

consists of a single drawer, with pulls at either end. The top row mimics this

configuration, but is instead two knife drawers flanking a central drawer. The sideboard

is simple in design and provincial in its execution, but it displays a variety of inlays,

including stringwork, cut comer inlay on the drawers, and short vines which curve up

from the top of the half ovals on the legs. The vines each have a bud and three fine

leaves and terminate in fan-shaped flowers, possibly stylized carnations. The fan inlays

in the spandrels of the center section, as well as the small overall proportions of the

sideboard, suggest a strong Maryland influence.142

While the inlay on the sideboard is restrained, the inlay on the chest of drawers in

figure 41 is much more extravagant. It is an imposing chest, standing nearly forty-five

inches tall. The unusually large top drawer seems as though it should contain a desk, but

does not, and is positioned over three graduated drawers and high French feet. These

features suggest a transitional chest, perhaps dating to between 1810-1820. The primary

wood is cherry, and there are a variety of secondary woods. All the drawer bottoms are

white pine, while the drawer sides and backs are made of cherry, tulip, and oak. The

back of the case is also of oak. The case is simply constructed with plain board sides

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. dovetailed only at the top, very shallow drawer blades, and thin drawer supports. This

construction is reinforced with numerous glue blocks on the underside of the chest and on

the bottom of each drawer.

Elaborate inlay covers the entire facade of the chest. Along with stringing and

multi-wood banding, the chest is decorated with quarter fans, a half fan, compass stars,

and ivory escutcheons. None of these individual inlay motifs relate to specific regions;

most appear, in some variation, in a number of geographic areas. Taken as a whole,

however, the variety of the inlay on the chest and the exuberance with which it is applied

resemble the treatment on the inlaid furniture coming out of western Maryland, as well as

the southern backcountry (western Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee).143

The inlay on the John Magee desk (see figure 42) is just as flamboyant and is not

only one o f the most visually stunning pieces of early Washington County furniture to

survive, but also one of the most sophisticated in terms of its design and construction.

Along with a finely shaped skirt and French feet, the chest exhibits a very skilled and

consistent hand and a commitment to proper proportion. The four graduated drawers

measure, from bottom to top, six, five, four, and three inches in height, and are

constructed with seven, six, five, and four well-cut dovetails respectively.

The interior of the desk is constructed with as much attention to proportion and

consistency as the drawers and bears a remarkable resemblance to the typical interior of a

Philadelphia desk from the 1760s and 1770s. (see figure 43) It contains a central

prospect with two drawers topped by pigeonholes, flanked by document drawers, and two

bays also with two pigeonholes over double drawers. The interior drawers have

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. serpentine fronts, and, with the exception of the prospect drawers, are finished with lion’s

head brasses.

Within the “old fashioned” desk interior, the maker incorporated some odd

features. The pigeonhole dividers are cut with open circles that, although very

decorative, have no apparent function. The secret drawer that slides out from the top of

the prospect is not too unusual, but the secret drawers that slide out from behind both

sides of the interior are. Access to these drawers is gained by using a small hooked tool

that fits into a notch in the lower edge of the left side of the prospect and thereby allows

the entire prospect to be removed, (see figure 44)

The mathematical precision and consistency with which the desk is constructed

seems incongruent with the unorthodox nature of some of the design features. Added to

these curious details is the very bold use of inlay, including the light and dark wood

banding and especially the meandering vine and leaf inlay that covers the entire fa<;ade of

the case and the drawer fronts. The lid, too, is ornamented with vine and leaf inlay,

including a large foliate sprig at the center, (see figure 45)

Inlaid on the front of the skirt is “John Magee -1819.” (see figure 46) Although

the desk has often been attributed to him, Magee was more likely the owner. Little is

known of him, aside from that which can be culled from census and tax records. He was

a farmer of Irish descent who settled in Washington County very early. During the

Indian war, he served at the garrison in Belpre. In 1810, his name appears on the tax lists

in Marietta Township, and the 1820 Federal Census lists him as a farmer in Salem

Township. He may have owned another, similar piece of inlaid furniture. A miniature

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. chest of drawers survives in private hands that is also of walnut and has turned feet and

an elaborately shaped skirt. The two lobes o f the skirt are inlaid with the initials “J” and

“M” which may be for John Magee. This chest, though certainly by a different hand, has

similar banding above the skirt and vine and leaf inlay running up the canted comers.

The origins of the meandering vine and leaf pattern of inlay have proven

somewhat elusive.144 It has appeared on furniture from a very wide geographic area, and

most of the pieces date between 1790 and about 1820. In Washington County, along

with the Magee desk and miniature chest of drawers, there is a tall clock and a desk-and-

bookcase, both with histories of ownership in the Buell family of Marietta (see next

section). Several desks and bureaus made in southwestern Pennsylvania have vines and

leaves running up canted comers. The pattern also appears on case furniture from central

and eastern Kentucky and eastern Tennessee, (see figures 47-49) Slight variations of the

pattern, most of which usually include flowers, also appear in western Maryland, the

Shenandoah Valley, western Virginia, western North Carolina, and as far south as the

Georgia Piedmont.145 (see figures 50-52)

Side-by-side comparisons of vine and leaf inlay of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky,

and Tennessee suggest they are more closely related than the vine and leaf inlay o f

Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia (though those regional variations are undoubtedly

related as well). Differences in the fullness and spacing of the leaves and the length of

the vine curves indicate the hands of numerous craftsmen. Without a common source for

the purchase of vine and leaf inlay, just how this pattern pervaded such a wide geographic

area is not entirely understood. The appearance of the pattern throughout the upper Ohio

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. River Valley suggests that river trade between western Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, and

northern Kentucky played a vital role. The migration of cabinetmakers may also have

transmitted this motif from one region to another. One possible origin of the vine and

leaf is the line and berry inlay so popular in Chester County, Pennsylvania in the middle

of the eighteenth century.146 (see figure 53) Perhaps as the line and berry migrated west

via the Ohio and south through western Maryland and the Valley of Virginia, it evolved

into the meandering vine and leaf, (see figure 54)

While the origins of the vine and leaf inlay may be at present unknown, its

appearance in early Washington County is significant. The motif further emphasizes

both early residents’ strong desire to refine their homes through the use of highly

ornamented furniture and the multi-regional influences that impacted area furniture

fashions. Yet the quality of the case furniture on which it appears strongly suggests that

the vine and leave pattern was available only to the wealthy. More importantly, with the

wide variety of inlays available, it also likely represents a conscious choice on the part of

the maker and/or the buyer. Because so little of the inlaid furniture has a documented

provenance or a reliable attribution to a specific shop, it can be useful in seeking meaning

only by comparison to pieces of furniture which have such associations. Even the John

Magee desk is relegated to use as a comparative object since little is known of Magee and

nothing of the desk’s maker.

Fortunately, two important pieces of furniture survive with both the vine and leaf

inlay and the necessary provenance. The desk-and-bookcase and a tall case clock with

histories of ownership in the Buell family of Marietta (see figures 55 and 56) were

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. expensive pieces of furniture when originally purchased, and they are covered with an

assortment o f inlaid motifs, including the meandering vine and leaf. Both pieces appear

in Joseph Buell’s 1812 probate inventory and both, when put in the context of what is

known of Buell, can fill some of the gaps in his documentary record. Finally, through

extrapolation, we can begin to see a clearer image of the culturally, socially, and

politically complex community that developed at the confluence of the Ohio and

Muskingum Rivers.

Native Land: Furniture and the Identity o f Joseph Buell

After Sergeant Joseph Buell completed his three years military service in the west

in the fall of 1788, he returned home to BCillingworth (now Clinton), Connecticut. Prior

to his departure from Fort Harmar, where he had served most of his enlistment, he made

plans to return to the newly settled lands north of the Ohio River. In August, he noted in

his journal:

27th. Judge Symmes, of New Jersey, landed here, on his way to Miami [Cincinnati], with a number of families. I purchased four hundred acres from him, lying in the reserved township, at fifty cents an acre. Paid him one hundred dollars, the balance in a year.”147

During Buell’s six months in New England, he married Siba Hand and prepared

for his new family to return to the Symmes settlement in southwestern Ohio with the

family of cabinetmaker Joshua Shipman. Both men’s plans changed, however, and the

twenty-eight year old Buell set out for Ohio with his brother, Timothy, and his friend and

military associate, Levi Munsell. They arrived in Marietta, and, after a brief stay, began

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. their journey to the Symmes settlement, only to return for fear of an Indian attack. Buell

and Munsell abandoned plans of going further west, and instead erected a large frame

building at the comer of Front and Greene Streets, which they opened as a tavern called

the Red House.

Life in Marietta proved very good for Buell. His wife joined him in 1790, and the

tavern prospered. Its location at the Point made it a favorite spot for local artisans and

merchants, as well as the flatboatmen with whom they did business. In 1801, Buell built

his family a brick home, allegedly the first in the settlement, near the Red House at the

comer of Greene and Second, (see figure 57) The tavern became even more successful

when shipbuilding began in Marietta in 1800, as the Point evolved into the commercial

center of Marietta. While the end of shipbuilding seriously affected busines, Buell had,

by this time, invested his growing fortune in thousands of acres of Washington County

land. Upon his death in 1812, Buell owned seventeen lots in Marietta, containing over

twenty buildings, and thirty-eight lots outside of the city.148

Between his military service and his financial success, Joseph Buell quickly

became a leading citizen in the young city. He received an appointment of major general

in the local militia, and served as an Ohio State senator from 1803-5, and as an associate

judge in the Court of Common Pleas from 1803-1810. His most famous public role was

his seizure of boats belonging to Harman Blennerhassett, which were to be used in his

alleged conspiracy with Aaron Burr to incite revolution in the Far West.149

In addition to with large tracts of land and a host of public honors, Joseph Buell

also amassed a sizeable estate totaling over $22,000. Despite the staggering size of his

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. holdings, his shortage of ready money is clear. According to his inventory, the vast

majority of his wealth was tied up in land (nearly $9,500) and in notes (nearly another

$9,500), and Buell had less than $100 in cash at the time of his death. In the years prior

to his death, Buell lent thousands of dollars to dozens of people, and seemingly few paid

him back. In March 1809, Buell published a notice inThe Ohio Gazette and Virginia

Herald:

PAY OR BE SUED THE LAST TIME FOR ASKING I am under the necessity of calling on all persons indebted to me, to call and make payment; those who do not comply with this request will be in troduced to the sheriff or constable, without respect to persons. JOSEPH BUELL150

Such attempts to recoup lent money met with little success. As early as 1799, Buell spent

a great deal of time in court suing his debtors. In the three years between 1799 and 1801,

not a court term passed without Buell suing at least one person for money owed him.151

In spite of the large amount he accumulated, investing money in land did not

prove much more fruitful for Buell. He expressed as much in a letter to his son, Daniel,

whom he had sent to Connecticut for schooling. Daniel responded, “I am well aware of

the difficulty of turning property into money in the western country, and also of its very

great scarcity.”152 For the Buell family, money was, indeed, scarce, and despite their

wealth, Joseph feared they would be unable to send Daniel to college.

Regardless of the Buell family’s lack of specie, Joseph managed to accumulate a

significant collection of household goods. Along with large collections of books, silver,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. chinaware, and glass, as well as huge amounts of bedding and other textiles, Buell’s

inventory lists over 180 pieces of furniture. This total includes three clocks, fifteen case

pieces, thirteen tables (five of which are dining tables), and 108 Windsor chairs (in light

brown, dark brown, “chocolate,” green, black, and yellow). Nearly all of the case

furniture is described as being of cherry or walnut.153 That Buell invested so much

money in furniture certainly suggests that he relied on his credit with others just as much

as they relied upon their credit with him. More importantly, however, it indicates his

very strong desire to create an orderly, comfortable, and genteel home for his family. In

his mind, Joseph Buell’s brick home, located in the heart of the community, must have

been one of the most refined homes in early Washington County.

Buell’s commitment to refinement extends beyond the quantity of furniture he

purchased. It is reflected in his choice o f furnishings as well. Even though his inventory

does not list items in specific rooms, some of the forms listed make it clear that such

room designations were firmly in place. For example, while dining tables appear

throughout the inventory, and thus may have served multiple functions, the sideboard

listed on the first page indicates that one room was used as a formal dining space. Buell’s

inventory also lists a card table valued at ten dollars. The presence of a card table also

signifies a designated household space, specifically, a parlor, or some other formal

entertaining room; moreover, card tables, through their function, also reflect a form of

ritualized gentility.154 Older ways, however, were not completely abandoned. Buell still

owned, as did most other residents of Washington County, a variety of multifunctional

furnishings, including plain chests, and numerous “small Cherry Tables.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For Buell, an integral part of the refinement of his home involved validation from

his visitors. His displays of wealth and taste must have prompted compliments. Having

designated spaces was one method of garnering attention. Another method of

proclaiming his gentility was to purchase trendy furniture for these areas. He owned

Windsor chairs in a range of colors, but more importantly, in different shapes. Most of

Buell’s Windsor chairs were likely bow backs and some are even described as such. For

example, “5 Brown Windsor Chairs (round backs)” are valued at $5.00. However, also

listed are “6 Brown Windsor Chairs square Tops” at $7.50 and “1 Great Windsor Chair

square top” at $1.75.155 Square-backed Windsor chairs achieved popularity in

Philadelphia at the end of the eighteenth century,156 and by the early nineteenth century,

they had reached Pittsburgh. By 1810, they would have been considered very

fashionable in southeastern Ohio, thus Buell’s new Windsor chairs would have made an

impressive statement to any of his guests.

Also contributing to the exhibition of importance are the several large and

expensive pieces of case furniture. Along with the sideboard, valued at $15.00, are three

bureaus and cases of drawers, a “Bureau & Top,”157 three desks, a desk-and-bookcase,

and a “Clock & Case.” All of these are in cherry or walnut, and range from $8.00 to

$50.00.158 A visitor to his home would have encountered not only a great deal of

furniture, but also large and impressive pieces in every room, and, as a result, would have

certainly held Joseph Buell in awe.

Such a collection served Buell in other ways beyond making a statement

regarding his wealth and taste. It proclaimed his status and asserted his position within

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Washington County society. For example, his desk-and-bookcase “symbolized [his]

involvement in a cosmopolitan and commercial culture that was distinct from the

traditional popular one.”159 Thus despite his continual lack of money, Buell was able to

use furniture to advertise his wealth and power.

Joseph Buell also seems to have also used his furniture to express something less

tangible than refinement and status. With the diversity of both population and furniture

styles in Washington County, one might expect that settlers from New England would

prefer furniture reminiscent of home, while settlers from Virginia would prefer southern-

styled furniture. Surprisingly, as a native New Englander, Buell invested large sums of

money in furniture that not only incorporated several regional styles, but also deviated

wildly from traditional New England fashions.

The desk-and-bookcase and tall clock listed in his inventory survive, and both

display exuberant inlay. Moreover, a bureaus listed in Buell’s inventory is described as

inlaid and was probably as elaborately inlaid as Buell’s surviving furniture. Like other

Washington County inlaid decoration, the inlay on the Buell desk-and-bookcase and tall

case clock is enthusiastic and covers nearly every surface, and while many of the specific

motifs, such as banding, stringing, fans, paterae, and foliate designs, are found throughout

the nation, the assemblage of such a variety of inlays suggests a strong southern

influence. Moreover, several of the inlaid ornaments on the tall case clock are likely

from, or at least very closely relate to, inlay produced in Maryland. The rosettes and the

bird on the hood are possibly from the shop of John Bankson and Richard Lawson in

Baltimore.160 (see figure 58) The foliate motifs in the comers of the case door and the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. front panel of the base also strongly resemble a motif used by Bankson and Lawson, as

well as those used on a clock whose works are signed, “John Reynolds, Hagerstown.”

(see figure 59) Further, the urn and leaf central motif on the door is identical to that used

on a clock signed by Joseph Graff, also of Hagerstown.161 (see figure 60)

Of course, both the desk-and-bookcase and the tall case clock incorporate the

meandering vine and leaf inlay, (see figure 61) The maker of the clock case added a twist

by creating an “inverse” vine and leaf running up the canted comers of the case and base

by veneering a light wood on the canted comers and inlaying a dark wood, (see figure 62)

A similar feature is found on a growing group of Norfolk, Virginia furniture, but this

effect was achieved by merely incising the lightwood veneer to reveal the darkwood

beneath.162 On the desk-and-bookcase, vines and leaves run up the stiles of the case and

decorate the front skirt, the pediment, and the desk lid. On the lid, the use of round,

berry-like termini, rather than leaves or flowers, may help build a connection between the

vine and leaf and the Chester County, Pennsylvania line and berry patterns, (see figure

63)

The use of so many disparate inlay motifs on the Buell tall case clock and desk-

and-bookcase might seem unusual. In a small frontier community where cabinetmakers

and patrons interacted economically and socially on a daily basis, such furniture must

have been the result of a significant collaboration between Buell and the maker(s). The

question then arises, why did Joseph Buell, a settler from Connecticut, commission

multiple pieces of expensive furniture with such heavy southern influence? The simplest

answer is that such furniture was the most fashionable in the area. The large numbers of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. settlers from Maryland and Virginia who came to Washington County after 1795,

including the trend-setting Blennerhassetts, combined with large-scale trade throughout

the Ohio River Valley, may have completely transformed the local fashions.

Changing fashions undoubtedly played a significant role in Buell’s choice o f

furniture, as his purchase of new square-backed Windsor chairs indicates. But the

ornamentation on his tall case clock and desk-and-bookcase represent such a dramatic

departure from his Connecticut origins that one wonders if this furniture reflects

something deeper than just the latest fashion. It may be that Buell used this furniture to

construct a new image of himself, one separated from his New England roots and much

more connected to his new home along the Ohio River.

Buell’s choice of where to live in Marietta reinforces this. While Rufus Putnam

and the other older members of the community, most of whom were conservative New

Englanders, built their homes in Campus Martius along the Muskingum, one mile up

from the Ohio, younger men like Buell often settled at the Point, among the working

class, and at the center of the business district.163 Thus in early Marietta, the population

split geographically, and this geographic schism occurred very nearly along generational

lines.

This physical divide quickly developed into an ideological rift. Those, like

Putnam, at Campus Martius were primarily interested in turning their settlement into an

economic link between the East and the expanding West. To accomplish this, they

believed they must remain under the auspices of a strong federal government, and as

Surveyor General, Rufus Putnam was the government’s local representative. Meanwhile,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. most of the younger generation of settlers at the Point, Buell among them, found they had

little connection to the Ohio Company and its vision. These men were the artisans,

tavemkeepers, merchants, and laborers who formed the economic backbone of the

settlement. They were a socially and economically diverse group who largely distrusted

the Federalist (and probably paternalistic) leadership of the older generation at Campus

Martius.164 The post-war influx of southern immigrants, most of whom were Jeffersonian

Republicans or backcountry settlers with a general suspicion of the federal government,

caused the diverging ideals of those at Campus Martius and those at the Point to rend the

community in what Kim Gruenwald dubs “the revolution of 1800.” As a result, Putnam

was replaced as Surveyor General, and local control was established with Ohio statehood,

both in 1803.

Joseph Buell also sided with the Republicans, despite owing much of his political

success to Rufus Putnam.165 Although his financial success and land holdings rivaled

those of anyone at Campus Martius, Buell must have felt a stronger connection to his

friends and neighbors at the Point who, like himself, had worked hard to make something

o f themselves in the vast wilderness. Perhaps his pride in his own accomplishments in

the “western country” outweighed his loyalty to the antiquated system of patronage that

the older generation of settlers embodied. Buell’s political realignment may have been

only one symptom of a much more dramatic shift in his self-image.

Though he may have been bom and raised in New England, after 1803, Joseph

Buell was technically an Ohioan, and may have begun to view himself as such. His

abandonment of his New England patron and his participation in the push for Ohio

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. statehood certainly seem to indicate this. More tangible evidence, of course, covers the

surface of his desk-and-bookcase and tall case clock. Certainly, the location of Buell’s

home, within sight of the Virginia shore, and his constant business and social interaction

with people from Virginia, Maryland, and throughout the South, may have shifted his

stylistic “reference point” away from the fortified walls of Campus Martius, where a

puritanical conservatism still held sway.166 It seems, though, that Buell’s stylistic shift

was a more conscious one, and was, along with his political conversion, indicative of his

burgeoning Ohio identity. In fact, he may have commissioned the inlaid furniture as an

“external prop” to reinforce this new identity.167 Such props, likely situated in his front

parlor and in his office, would serve to declare publicly, and to remind Buell himself, that

although he has New England roots, his home is now Ohio.

Although not to the degree that Frederick Jackson Turner proclaimed, the Ohio

frontier did have a democratizing effect on those who settled there. Upon arrival,

everyone faced the difficult task of clearing land and building a home, but after years of

hard work and entrepreneurial efforts, the social hierarchy had been somewhat rebuilt.

Now, in the place of lineage and patronage stood wealth and status, embodied in material

goods. Men like Joseph Buell could cast off the yoke of aristocracy and assert their own

position in society through the purchase of stylish furniture.168 It is no accident that the

political revolution of 1800, which sounded the death knell of the old guard of the Ohio

Company, coincided with the increased appearance of elaborately inlaid furniture.

Perhaps to some, such furniture became the weapon of choice in the cultural revolution

that marked the beginning of an Ohio identity.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Conclusion

To be sure, the Ohio Company settlement at the confluence of the Ohio and

Muskingum Rivers quickly developed into a very complex society. As the first organized

settlement in the Northwest Territory, it was seen by many as the model for all future

westward expansion. Its settlers hailed from all over the map, and each group brought

plenty of cultural baggage, including contrasting ideas of fashion and taste. The Ohio

River, the lifeblood of the settlement, provided a means to import goods that were

necessary for survival as well as those desired by local residents, and it also provided

access to points further south, giving Washington County farmers and merchants new

markets to sell their goods. Such a wide trade network further increased the regional

influences acting upon local styles. The common denominator among all settlers,

however, was the desire to build a better life, and in doing so, most hoped to create a

home which reflected a sense of refinement and gentility.

One of the staples o f a refined life was furniture, and fortunately, the Ohio frontier

was well populated with joiners and cabinetmakers, like Joshua Shipman, who

manufactured not only the furniture of necessity, but fashionable and sophisticated

furniture which allowed patrons to advertise their refinement. Although a wide range of

complex furniture forms were made and owned in Washington County, a distinct regional

style did not develop. Instead, makers drew upon the many regional influences present

and built furniture that embodied a fusion of styles, the particular mixture of which was

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. determined through a collaboration between the cabinetmaker and his patron.

Such collaborations allowed men like Joseph Buell to do more with furniture than

simply display their status. Buell’s surviving furniture reflects his changing ideas about

himself. The importance of objects in the construction of a self-concept is clear for Buell

and undoubtedly many like him. While the elder Buell readily assumed his new identity,

he did not sever all ties with New England, choosing to send his son, Daniel back to

Connecticut for schooling. In a letter home in April 1811, Daniel laments his

unhappiness at being so far from home, and at the same time, he expounds upon the

significance of objects in the creation of the self:

You doubtless know the sensations to which a young man is subject when he leaves his Native Land.. .to travel to a foreign country and take up his abode among strangers.. .When the mind becomes familiarised to certain objects by a continual [countenance] of them for a number of years.. .they make so great an impression, that a total erasure of them is impossible—but on the contrary, we naturally form a lasting attachment for them.. .So it is with me, I believe, if I had no particular friends & connections to heighten my attachment to the Western Country—Yet, I should have a particular partially for it—and think no other Country was equal to it—because it is the place of my birth—I have spent my youth in it—and have imbibed its principles and manners—And if I should not again see it for a number of years to come, it would be impossible for me to be indifferent towards it.169

If Daniel could not fully divorce himself from his Ohio roots, then his father could not be

indifferent towards his New England roots. But since he had, for more than twenty years,

“imbibed [the] principles and manners” of the Ohio country, Joseph Buell undoubtedly

owned “certain objects” which allowed him to “form a lasting attachment” to it.

Although he was a New Englander by birth, Buell became an Ohioan, and his furniture

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. reinforced this outlook to others, and to himself.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Notes

1 “Salute to Ohio,” Magazine Antiques, January 1946, 25.

2 The Ohio Company was unable to raise the necessary money for the second installment on the purchase. They therefore retained only the land that had already been paid for, which amounted to about 750,000 acres.

iLife, Journals, and Correspondence o f Rev. Manasseh Cutler, ed. LL.D, William Parker Cutler and Julia Perkins Cutler, v. 2, An Explanation o f the Map which Delineates that Part o f the Federal Lands Comprehended Between Pennsylvania West Line, the Rivers Ohio and Scioto, and Lake Erie (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke and Co., 1888), 396-7.

4 Andrew R.L. Cayton and Paula R. Riggs,City into Town: The City o f Marietta, Ohio, 1788-1988 (Marietta: Marietta College Dawes Memorial Library, 1991), 20.

5 See Kim M. Gruenwald, “Marietta’s Example of Settlement Pattern in the Ohio Country: A Reinterpretation,”Ohio History 105 (Autumn 1996), 125-144; and Timothy J. Shannon., “The Ohio Company and the Meaning of Opportunity in the American West, 1786-1795,” The New England Quarterly 64 (September 1991), 393-413.

6 Cutler, 399.

7 James M. Vamum, An Oration Delivered at Marietta, July 4, 1788 (Newport, RI: Peter Edes, 1788), 2 and Cayton and Riggs, 20.

8 Cayton and Riggs, 47-79.

9 S.P. Hildreth, Pioneer History: Being an Account o f the First Examination o f the Ohio Valley, ” (Cincinnati: H.W. Derby & Co., 1848), 354.

10 Cayton and Riggs, 64-5.

11 Cayton and Riggs, 58.

12 Cayton and Riggs, 30.

13 Hildreth, 224.

14 History o f Washington County, Ohio with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (Knightstown, IN: H.Z. Williams and Bro. Publishers, 1881), 54.

15 Archer Butler Hulbert, ed., The Records o f the Original Proceedings o f the Ohio Company, vol. 1 (Marietta, OH: Marietta Historical Commission, 1917), 76-7.

16 Timothy Flint, Indian Wars o f the West (Cincinnati: E.H. Flint, 1833); quoted in History o f Washington County, 49.Ohio,

17 Fort Harmar was established at the juncture of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers (opposite the Muskingum from the site of Marietta) in 1785, in an attempt to oust squatters from the area.

18 Kim M. Gruenwald, “Marietta’s Example of Settlement Pattern in the Ohio Country: A Reinterpretation,”Ohio History 105 (Autumn 1996), 134.

19 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Decennial Census o f Population, 1800-2000, by County, ONLINE, Ohio Department of Development, 2001, Available: http://www.odod.state.oh.us/osr/pophist.pdft4 November 2002].

20 Joseph Barker, Recollections o f the First Settlement o f Ohio, ed. George Jordan Blazier (Marietta, OH: Marietta College, 1958), 68.

21 Probate file, William Alcock, 20 March 1801, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

22 Probate file, Timothy Danielson, 7 May 1813, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

23 Ten inventories were chosen for each of the seven time periods delineated. Practicality prohibited the sampling to be truly random. Specific inventories were sought for various purposes and time constraints required these to be included in the study along with other, randomly chosen inventories. Despite this, the general trends illustrated by the tables should remain hue. See Appendix B for list of probate records included in the survey.

24 Richard L. Bushman, The Refinement o f America: Persons, Houses, Cities (NY: Vintage Books, 1992), xv-xvi, 384-7

25 Henry Howe, Historical Collections o f Ohio (Columbus: Henry Howe & Son, 1888), 779-780.

26 Account Book, Backus Woodbridge Collection, The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27 Williams, 376.

28 Cayton and Riggs, 58.

29 Kim M. Gruenwald,River o f Enterprise: The Commercial Origins o f Regional Identity in the Ohio Valley, 1790-1850 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002), 43.

30 Michael Allen. Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth o f the Alligator Horse (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 63.

31 Account books, Backus Woodbridge Collection, The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

32 Western Spectator (Marietta), 23 May 1812 andThe Ohio Gazette and Virginia Herald (Marietta), 21 March 1808.

33 American Friend (Marietta), 24 December 1819.

34 Barker, 25.

35 Daybook, Joshua Shipman, Dawes Memorial Library, Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio. The disorganized nature of Shipman’s daybook makes specific page or date references difficult. All future references to Shipman’s daybook refer to the single volume owned by the Dawes Library at Marietta College.

36 Ohio Gazette and Virginia Herald (Marietta), 6 February 1809.

37 Jane Sikes Hageman, Ohio Furniture Makers Volume (By 1, the author, 1984), 72.

38 Tulip (Liriodendron tulipifera), often called tulip poplar, yellow poplar, or just poplar, is not actually a member of the poplar family (Populus). Although “tulip” is the more appropriate term, “poplar” is often found in early Washington County documents. Joel Oaks’ 1823 inventory includes a “poplar chest” and 800 feet of “poplar,” and Joshua Shipman frequently received “poplar boards” in payment. To be correct, and to avoid confusion, “tulip” will be used here, except when directly quoting period sources.

39 Ohio Gazette and Virginia Herald (Marietta), 17 November 1808.

40 American Friend and Marietta Gazette (Marietta), 16 May 1827

41 James Backus journal, Backus Woodbridge Collection, The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42 Ohio Company Proceedings, v.l, 16.

43 Hildreth, 423.

44 Probate file, Zechariah Peck, November 1822, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

45 Probate file, Gilbert Devol, 26 June 1812, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

46 American Friend (Marietta), 19 March 1819.

47 Daybook, Joshua Shipman.

48 Account books, Backus Woodbridge Collection, The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

49 Ohio Gazette and Virginia Herald (Marietta), 11 August 1808.

50 Account book, Backus Woodbridge Collection, The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

51 American Friend and Marietta Gazette (Marietta), 11 March 1824.

52 Probate file, William Mason, 22 February 1814, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

53 Probate file, William Mason, December 1813, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

54 Daybook, Joshua Shipman.

55 Ohio Gazette and Virginia Herald Marietta), 6 February 1809.

56 Western Spectator (Marietta), 14 January 1811.

57 American Friend and Marietta Gazette (Marietta), 27 May 1825.

58 American Friend (Marietta), 1819.

59 American Friend and Marietta Gazette (Marietta), 29 July 1825

60 American Friend (Marietta), 8 October 1814.

61 Probate file, Aaron Yale, 12 May 1821, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ohio.

Daybook, Joshua Shipman.

63 Daybook, Joshua Shipman.

64 Daybook, Joshua Shipman.

65 Daybook, Joshua Shipman.

66 Account book, Backus Woodbridge Collection, The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

67 See also Gruenwald’s River o f Enterprise for a more detailed analysis of merchant contribution to the local economy.

68 Daybook, Joshua Shipman.

69 Daybook, Joshua Shipman.

70 Philip Zea, “Rural Craftsman and Design,” inNew England Furniture: The Colonial Era, ed. Brock Jobe and Myma Kaye (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1984), 57

71 Probate file, Joshua Shipman, 17 December 1823, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

72 Daybook, Joshua Shipman.

73 Though some furniture, such as chairs, were imported from the East by local merchants, there is little evidence to support the importation of large quantities o f furniture. Larger forms, such as case furniture, was occasionally imported by the very wealthy.

74 Probate file, Thomas Wells, 4 June 1790, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

75 Probate file, William Moulton, 16 May 1795, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

76 Probate file, Edward Henderson, 23 August 1805, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

77 Probate file, Luther Dana, 20 April 1814, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78 Probate file, Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., 28 November 1825, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

79 Probate file, Edward Henderson, 23 August 1805, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

80 Nancy Goyne Evans,American Windsor Chairs (NY: Hudson Hills Press, 1996), 720. Joshua Shipman makes several references to bottoming chairs in his daybook and confirms the type of chair that “common” describes.

81 Six of the number included in this cell are described as “new chairs.” Their value, $0.80 each, indicates them to be Windsor chairs, which range from about $0.75 to $1.00 each, rather than common or kitchen chairs, which range from about $0.25 to $0.50 per chair.

82 One inventory lists “Settee and Windsor chairs” valued at $18.00. Given the typical value of Windsor chairs, $0.75-$1.00, and settees, $1.75-$3.00, an estimate of 12-18 chairs and one settee for $18.00 seems appropriate.

83 Edward S. Cooke, Jr.,Making Furniture in Preindustrial America: The Social Economy o f Newtown and Woodbury, Connecticut (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 99.

84 Probate file, Rufus Putnam, 24 September 1824, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

85 Probate file, William Mason, 22 February 1814, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

86 “Stand tables” appear in several inventories. This term generally refers to a tilt-top table. Although tilt-top tables are most often associated with tea, the use of a more generic name suggests that these tables remained multifunctional.

87 Cooke, 101.

88 Probate file, Jonathan Plimer, 1806/7, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

89 Probate file, William Dana, 30 August 1810, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

90 Probate file, Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., 28 November 1825, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

91 Probate file, Rufus Putnam, 24 September 1824, Washington County Courthouse,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Marietta, Ohio.

92 The Putnam house was originally only one room deep and situated just south of the northwest blockhouse of Campus Martius. In 1796, Putnam purchased the blockhouse and used the lumber to build the addition on the back (Muskingum River side) of the house. This addition became the “SW Room” (dining room), “NW Room below” (parlor), “SW Chamber,” and the “NW Chamber.” (Source: Campus Martius exhibit)

93 Probate file, Rufus Putnam, 24 September 1824, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

94 Cooke, 114.

93 Probate file, Rufus Putnam, 24 September 1824, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

96 Probate file, Paul Fearing, 14 November 1801, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

97 Probate file, Jonathan Stone, 2 September 1801, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

98 Probate file, Edward Howard, 17 December 1804, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

99 Probate file, Nathan Cole, February 1817, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

100 Probate file, Benjamin Miles, 12 May 1818, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

101 Probate file, Oliver Dodge, 22 October 1817, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

102 Throughout his daybook, Shipman recorded prices in terms of pounds, shillings, and pence. He does record a few transactions in dollars and cents, including two loans in December, 1797 which provide a conversion rate between the two currencies: $1.00 equals 0-6-0.

103 Daybook, Joshua Shipman.

104 Probate file, William Willington, 1807, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

105 Daybook, Joshua Shipman.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 106 Daybook, Joshua Shipman.

107 Probate file, Robert Allison, 21 December 1812, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

f AO Throughout the daybook, Shipman lists sales of “squares of glass” (also referred to as “squares of sashes”) and he charges for “setting of glass.” He typically charges 6d for the glass and between\Hd-2d for installation. In October 1797, Shipman charged “Mr Burlingame” 2-0-6 for “81 Squairs of Sashes” and 0-6-0 for “Setting glass,” for a total of 2-6-6, or slightly less than Id per square.

109 Probate file, Nathan Cole, February 1817, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

110 Family history attributes the library bookcase (see figure 29) to Rood and was built around 1815 for their Willow Island home (about thirty miles upriver from Henderson Hall). The owner of this home was Alexander Henderson, Jr., the father of George Washington Henderson, who built Henderson Hall in 1836 and 1856-9. Alexander also purchased the William Green clock (see figure 28) for Willow Island, and probably the comer cupboard in figure 10.

111 Warren Vincent Sprague,The Sprague Family in America (Rutland, VT: Tuttle Co. Printers, 1913), 204.

112 Ward, Gerald R.W. “Some Thoughts on Connecticut Cupboards and Other Case Furniture” in Old-Time New England: New England Furniture, (Boston: SPNEA, 1987), 70,78.

113 Malcolm J. Rohrbaugh, The Trans-Appalachian Frontier: People, Societies, and Institutions, 1775-1850 (NY: Oxford University Press, 1978), 5.

114 Jules David Prown, “Style as Evidence,”Winterthur Portfolio 15, no.3 (1980), 200.

115 Cayton and Riggs, 24.

116 Ohio Company Proceedings, v. 1, p. 89.

117 Albion Morris Dyer, First Ownership o f Ohio Lands (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1978), 56-82.

118 Deed Book, 1799, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio. 193 deeds recorded, 122 sold locally, 40 to New Englanders and 31 to Virginians, New Yorkers, Marylanders, and Pennsylvanians.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119 Wayne Jordan, “The People of Ohio’s First County,”Ohio History 49 (January 1940), 36-38. See also Cayton and Riggs, and R. Douglass Hurt,The Ohio Frontier (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996).

120 Account book, Backus Woodbridge Collection, The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio. See also Gruenwald, River o f Enterprise, 94.

121 The glass knobs on both desks give every indication of being original, but little could be found to identify the likely place of manufacture of these pulls. Similar pulls in pressed glass became popular in the late 1820s and were manufactured in large numbers in Pittsburgh.

122 American Friend (Marietta), 19 March 1819.

123 Gruenwald,River o f Enterprise, 103.

124 Gruenwald,River o f Enterprise, 14.

125 Ray Swick, An Island Called Eden: The Story of Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett (Parkersburg, WV: Blennerhassett Island Historical State Park, 2000), 20.

126 William H. Safford, ed., The Blennerhassett Papers (Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach, Keys, & Co., 1861), 46

127 Swick, passim.

1281.T. Frary, Early Homes o f Ohio (NY: Dover Publications, 1970), 113.

129 “Back Through the Years,” Citizen-Advertiser (Auburn, NY), 22 March 1938.

130 American Friend and Marietta Gazette (Marietta), 6 August 1819.

131 Much of the information on the early chairmakers was obtained from James F. Hovey, Early History o f the Marietta Chair Company (Marietta: Marietta Chair Company, 1896).

132 The Barker attribution has always accompanied the chairs, but no documentation exists to support it.

133 Harman Blennerhassett (Blennerhassett Island) to Dudley Woodbridge Jr. (Marietta), 8 January 1806, Backus Woodbridge Collection, The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

134 Evans, American Windsor Chairs, 131

135 Richard Walker and Clyde K. Swift,Baldwin's Day Books, 1794-1814 (privately

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. printed,1981 ), 92 .

136 Information courtesy of William Reynolds, Marietta, Ohio.

137 One of the three is also stamped with “[illeg] CRAWFORD.” Nothing is known of Crawford, but because the stamps are different, he may have been a merchant.

138 Posts which are segmented are divided into sections by inscribed lines. They resemble a very flat bamboo turning. See Evans,American Windsor Chairs.

139 Evans, American Windsor Chairs, 131.

l40Evans, American Windsor Chairs ,106.

141 American Friend (Marietta), 16 August 1822.

142 See Baltimore Furniture (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1947), particularly numbers 41-42; Gregory R. Weidman,Furniture in Maryland, 1740-1940 (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1984); and William Voss Elder III and Lu Barltett,John Shaw, Cabinetmaker o f Annapolis (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1983), particularly number 38.

143 See Ronald L. Hurst and Jonathan Prown,Southern Furniture, 1680-1830 (NY: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997);Kentucky Furniture (Louisville: J.B. Speed Art Museum, 1974); Derita Coleman Williams et al, The Art and Mystery o f Tennessee Furniture and Its Makers through (Nashville: 1850 Tennessee Historical Society and Tennessee State Museum Foundation, 1988); and Gregory R. Weidman,Furniture in Maryland, 1740-1940 (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1984).

144 I had hoped to really dissect this motif and trace its appearance and movement, but it has grown into a separate project. The discussion included here is merely preliminary.

145 See Made in Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh: Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, 1982); Ronald L. Hurst and Jonathan Prown,Southern Furniture, 1680- 1830 (NY: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997); Kentucky Furniture (Louisville: J.B. Speed Art Museum, 1974); Fancy Forms and Flowers: A Significant Group o f Kentucky Inlaid Furniture (Lexington: Headley- Whitney Museum, 2000); Derita Coleman Williams et al, The Art and Mystery o f Tennessee Furniture and Its Makers through (Nashville: 1850 Tennessee Historical Society and Tennessee State Museum Foundation, 1988); Gregory R. Weidman, Furniture in Maryland, 1740-1940 (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1984); and Henry D. Green,Furniture o f the Georgia Piedmont Before (Atlanta: 1830 The High Museum of Art, 1976). A cross-vine and leaf pattern appears on some Providence,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Rhode Island furniture, but that appearances do not seem to be related. See catalog number 48 inThe John Brown House Loan Exhibition o f Rhode Island Furniture (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1965).

146 See Lee Ellen Griffith, Line and Berry Inlaid Furniture: A Regional Craft Tradition in Pennsylvania, 1682-1790 (Thesis, University of Delaware, 1988).

147 Joseph Buell, “Journal” in Samuel P. Hildreth,Pioneer History: Being an Account o f the First Examinations o f the Ohio Valley, and the Early Settlement of the Northwest Territory (Cincinnati: H.W. Derby and Co., 1848; reprint, Athens, OH: E.M. Morrison., Publisher, 1968), 163.

148 Probate file, Joseph Buell, 5 November 1812, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

149 Williams, 466-468.

150 Ohio Gazette and Virginia Herald (Marietta), 20 March 1809.

151 Register, Court of Common Pleas, 1799-1801, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

152 Daniel Buell, Connecticut, to Joseph Buell, Marietta, Ohio, 4 January 1811, Buell Family Papers, The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

153 Probate file, Joseph Buell, 5 November 1812, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

154 Gerald R.Ward, The Work o f Many Hands: Card Tables in Federal America, 1790- 1820 (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1982), 17.

155 Probate file, Joseph Buell, 5 November 1812, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

156 Evans, American Windsor Chairs, 133.

157 The “Bureau & top” probably refers to a linen press.

158 Probate file, Joseph Buell, 5 November 1812, Washington County Courthouse, Marietta, Ohio.

159 Cooke, 114.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 160 Information courtesy of Sumpter T. Priddy HI.

161 James Biser Whisker et al, Maryland Clockmakers (Cranbury, NJ: Adams Brown Company, Inc., 1996), 161-2, 196.

162 This technique seems to have Scottish origins, and typically, the light wood veneer is colored. Information courtesy of Sumpter T. Priddy III.

163 Cayton and Riggs, 67-68.

164 Cayton and Riggs, 21 and 87. Andrew Cayton’s numerous works finely detail the politics of settlement in the Ohio territory.

165 Kim M. Gruenwald, “Marietta’s Example of Settlement Patter in the Ohio Country: A Reinterpretation,” 140-1.

166 Zea, 47.

167 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, ’’Why We Need Things,” inHistory from Things: Essays on Material Culture, ed. Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1993), 22.

168 See Ann Smart Martin, ‘Makers, Buyers, and Users: Consumerism and a Material Culture Framework,” Winterthur Portfolio 28 (1993); Richard L. Bushman, The Refinement o f America: Persons, Houses, Cities (NY: Vintage Books, 1992); and Cary Carson, ed.,O f Consuming Interests: The Style o f Life in the Eighteenth Century (Charottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994).

169 Daniel Buell, Connecticut, to Joseph Buell, Marietta, Ohio, 13 April 1811, Buell Family Papers, The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83

R— Mw1hperm, sionofthe Figure 2. The Point, lithograph by Ch. W. Elliot. Published in Hildreth,Pioneer History.

Figure 3. Table with two drawers, possibly by Joshua Shipman. Courtesy Ohio Historical Society Campus Marti us Museum. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 4. Sawbuck table, attributed to Truman Guthrie. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

Figure S. Chest, with the addition of two drawers and feet. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 6. Campus Martius from the West. Lithograph published in Hildreth, Pioneeer History.

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Figure 7. General Plat of Campus Martius, drawn by Winthrop Sargent. The location of Putnam's house is in blue. Published in Hildreth,Pioneer History.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 8. Blennerhassett comer cupboard. Figure 9. Glazed comer cupboard. Courtesy the Courtesy of Blennerhassett State Historical Park. Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Photograph by the author. Museum. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 11. Jonathan Sprague comer cupobard. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Figure 10. Henderson comer cupboard. Martius Museum. Photograph by the author. Courtesy Henderson Hall. Photograph by the author.

Figure 12. Detail: Sprague cupboard interior. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 13. Henderson cupboard, displaying the Figure 15. Hanging saltbox. Courtesy the Ohio family's collection of ceramics and chinaware. Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Courtesy of Henderson Hall. Photograph by the Photograph by the author, author.

Figure 14. Jonathan Sprague House, ca. 1800. Located near Coal Run, Washington County. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 16. John Magee desk, dated 1819. Courtesy the Dayton Art Institute. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 17. William Mason desk, circa 1800-1813. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 18. Henderson desk. Courtesy Henderson Hall. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission Figure 19. Detail: Mason desk interior. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

Figure 20. Detail: Henderson desk interior. Courtesy Henderson Hall. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 21. Detail: Masou desk skirt. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

Figure 22. Detail: Henderson desk skirt. Courtesy Henderson Hall. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 23. Detail: blown glass knob on Mason desk. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

Figure 24. Detail: blown glass knob on Henderson. The shadow around the base of the knob is wear from the loose knob. The slotted post is a replacement. Courtesy Henderson Hall. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 25. Detail: case construction, Mason desk. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

Figure 26. Detail: case construction, Henderson desk. Courtesy Henderson Hall. Photogaph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. L»«t • OHIO. ^ PARK£flS0U«G Sen/* + m*i*a -/r/irA

Blennerhassett Island

Figure 27. Map of Washington County. Published inHistory o f Washington County, (1881). Ohio

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 29. Henderson library bookcase by Marietta cabinetmaker Rood. Courtesy Henderson Hall. Photograph by the author.

Figure 28. Henderson tall case clock. Works by William Green of Marietta. Courtesy Henderson Hall. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 30. Blennerhassett home as appeared in a contemporary engraving. Published in Henry Howe, Historical Collections o f Ohio.

Figure 31. Blennerhassett home as rebuilt by the state of West Virginia. Photograph by the author.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 32. Stamp used by Thomas Ramsey. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

Figure 33. Bow back side chair marked by Thomas Ramsey. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

100

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 34. Bow back armchair marked by Thomas Ramsey. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Figure 35. Bow back armchair marked by Society Photograph by the author. Thomas Ramsey. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

Figure 36. Detail: Ramsey armchair with plug replaced. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

101

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 37. Rufus Putnam settee, marked by Thomas Ramsey. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author

Figure 38. Windsor settee marked by Thomas Ramsey. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

102

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 39. Inlaid sideboard. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society. Photograph by the author.

Figure 40. Detail: inlaid flower and spandrel on sideboard. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society. Photograph by the author.

103

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 41. Inlaid bureau or chest of drawers. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

104

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 42. John Magee desk, dated 1819. Courtesy Dayton Art Institute. Photograph by the author.

105

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 43. Detai: Magee desk interior. Courtesy Dayton Art Institute. Photograph by the author.

Figure 44. Detail: Magee desk interior, with secret drawers. Courtesy of the Dayton Art Institute. Photograph by the author.

106

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 45. Detail: inlay on the lid of the Magee desk. Courtesy of the Dayton Art Institute. Photograph by the author.

Figure 46. Detail: skirt inlay on the Magee desk. Courtesy of the Dayton Art Institute. Photograph by the author.

107

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTE TO USERS

Copyrighted materials in this document have not been filmed at the request of the author. They are available for consultation at the author’s university library.

Figures 47-53 on pages 108-110

This reproduction is the best copy available.

IJMf

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 54. Map of the possible migration route of the vine and leaf inlay. Blank map courtesy of About.com.

I l l

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 55. Buell desk-and-bookcase. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 56. Buell tall case clock. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society. Photograph by the author.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 114

______Figure 61. Detail: vine and leaf inlay on Buell Figure 59. Detail: leaf inlay on Buell clock. desk-and-bookcase bonnet. Courtesy the Ohio Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society. Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author. Photograph by the author.

Figure 60. Detail: um and leaf inlay on Buell clock. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society. Photograph by the author. Figure 62. Detail: "inverse" vine and leaf inlay on the Buell tall case clock. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society. Photograph by the author.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 63. Detail: lid inlay on Buell desk-and-bookcase. Courtesy the Ohio Historical Society Campus Martius Museum. Photograph by the author.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX A

Carpenters, Joiners, and Cabinetmakers in Washington County, Ohio, 1788-1825l

Anderson, D.B. (Marietta) - The Ohio Historical Society owns a “lighthouse” clock with

works made by Anderson in 1824. Though this particular clock has a painted tin base, it

is likely that Anderson made works for wooden shelf and case clocks. Anderson, one of

the early settlers, also worked as a silversmith.

Barker, Joseph2 (Wiseman’s Bottom and Marietta; lived 1765-1843, worked 1786-

1843)- Joseph Barker left Amherst, New Hampshire for Marietta in 1789. His father,

Deacon Ephraim Barker, was an architect, housewright, and cabinetmaker in New

Hampshire. Joseph apprenticed to his father at age fifteen after being educated at Exeter

Academy. In Marietta, he continued to design and build buildings and furniture. Along

with numerous structures in Marietta, he is credited with overseeing the building of

Blennerhassett Mansion. Three Windsor sidechairs at Campus Martius and a cherry [and

‘All woodworking trades are included because most artisans engaged in very diverse work that likely included some furniture making in most cases. This list will, very likely, change, grow, and evolve as research continues.

2This list includes entries from Jane Sikes Hageman’s list that appeared in herOhio Furniture Makers, but any additions and/or corrections have been made. Much of the information contained here comes from Hageman’s book and the names appearing in Hageman are in bold. One name, John Magee, was included in Hageman, but was not likely engaged in any woodworking trade.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. mahogany] card table at Blennerhassett Mansion are attributed to Barker. He also

participated in the shipbuilding industry that flourished in Marietta between 1801-1808.

In 1795, he moved up the Muskingum River to Wiseman’s Bottom and built a brick

home that still stands. A fire in his shop there forced him to move his business back to

Marietta.

Bastow, Isaac (Marietta) - In the Western Spectator in 1811, he placed a want ad for an

“Apprentice to the House Carpenter and Joiner business.”

Beebee, (Marietta) - Advertised in theAmerican Friend in 1817 that he had

“commenced the Cabinetmaking business” on Ohio Street. The ad was signed “Powers

and Beebee.”

Blanket, David (Fearing) - A notice in the December 4, 1823 issue of theAmerican

Friend and Marietta Gazette advertised Blanket’s estate sale “consisting principally of

cabinet tools.”

Booth, James M. (Marietta) - Maintained a cabinet shop in Marietta, according to W.S.

Clark’s 1825 advertisement.

Brock, (Marietta) - Worked with William Sylvester as a chairmaker, according to

W.S. Clark’s advertisement.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Carlisle, Benjamin F. (Marietta) - A March 11, 1824 advertisement in theAmerican

Friend and Marietta Gazette indicated a sheriffs sale of Carlisle’s property, which

included a large assortment of woodworking tools, including planes, saws, gauges,

chisels, and bits.

Clark, Asahel (Marietta) - Cabinetmaker Hugh Hill advertised his missing apprentice,

Asahel Clark, in the American Friend in 1819.

Clark, W.S. (Marietta) - Advertised in theAmerican Friend and Marietta Gazette in

1825 has having “commenced in the chair making business in the house formerly

occupied by Sylvester and Brock, a few rods west of Esq. Booth’s Cabinet Shop.” In the

same ad, he also expresses his desire to take on an apprentice.

Corwin, Abner (Marietta) - Advertised in theAmerican Friend in 1819 that he “still

carries on the business of making LITTLE WHEELS, WOOLEN WHEELS, PATENT

WHEEL HEADS, CHAIRS, and SCREWS for cider presses.”

Green, William (Marietta) - Henderson Hall (Boaz, West Virginia) owns a tall clock, ca.

1815, with a face signed “Wm. Green/Marietta, Ohio.” Michael Rolston, owner of

Henderson Hall, asserts that the works are English, so Green’s specific contribution to the

creation of this clock is unknown.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Griggs, Samuel (Marietta) - mentioned in Williams history

Guthrie, Stephen (Marietta) - Came with brother, Truman, and father, Joseph, who

owned a share in the Ohio Company. Stephen purchased furniture hardware from Dudley

Woodbridge. Hageman cites that he received hardware in 1793 that was purchased by

Joseph Barker who may have employed Guthrie.

Guthrie, Trum an (Belpre) - Came with brother, Stephen, and father, Joseph, who

owned a share in the Ohio Company. A sawbuck table in the collection of the Ohio

Historical Society Campus Martius Museum is attributed to Truman Guthrie.

Hill, Alexander (Marietta) - Advertised in Ohiothe Gazette and Virginia Herald in

1809 that he had “on hand a quantity of the first rate CABINET WARE.” He also wished

an apprentice and a journeyman.

Hill, Hugh (M arietta) - Hugh was the son of Alexander Hill. He advertised a lost

apprentice, Asahel Clark, in the American Friend in 1819. An ad in theAmerican Friend

and Marietta Gazette in 1823 identified Hugh Hill as a cabinetmaker and announces that

he “has commenced a dancing school at Major A. Hill’s Assembly Rooms.”

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Huvey, Henry and John (Marietta) - The Huveys were cabinetmakers and

housewrights in 1796. They worked on the Lutheran Church in Marietta. (Information

Courtesy of William Reynolds, Campus Martius Museum)

Lothrup, Seth (W aterford) - In theAmerican Friend and Marietta Gazette in 1824, a

notice entitled “And Absconder!” appeared warning folks about Seth Lothrup, “By

profession a Cabinet Maker” in Waterford.

Mason, William (Marietta and Lowell; lived 1767-1813, worked 1791-1813) -

William Bond Mason traveled from his home in Lincoln, Massachusetts to Ohio with the

original band of forty-seven settlers in 1788. He married fellow settler Susannah Cobum

in 1790. In 1796, he and his family moved up the Muskingum River to Lowell. He was

a member of the Society of Masons American Union Lodge I as a professional

cabinetmaker. He helped build the Rufus Putnam House in 1788. The Campus Martius

Museum owns a cherry fallfront desk built by Mason.

Petty, Abraham (Waterford) - Nathaniel Petty, presumably his father, advertised in the

American Friend and Marietta Gazette in 1825 that Abraham, a seventeen-year old

carpenter’s apprentice, had run away.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Powers (M arietta) - Advertised in theAmerican Friend in 1817 that he had

“commenced the Cabinetmaking business” on Ohio Street. The ad was signed “Powers

and Beebee.”

Putnam, Allen (Marietta) - His 1806 probate inventory includes a large number of cabinet

tools, including many plains; also included in the inventory is a “book of architect.”3

Ramsey, Thomas (M arietta) - Though several marked chairs and two settees survive,

little is known of Thomas Ramsey, other than he immigrated from Pittsburgh in the late

1790s. The Ohio Historical Society own two chairs stamped “T.RAMSEY” and two

settees stamped multiple times. Though some may have come from his Pittsburgh shop,

many have solid local provenances. OHS also owns a Windsor sidechair marked with

Ramsey’s mark along with “[illeg]. CRAWFORD.” Crawford’s identity is unknown.

When in Pittsburg, Ramsey worked with W. Davis.

Richardson, John (Marietta; bom ca. 1772, worked ca. 1794-?) - Richardson was a young

cabinetmaker when he was hired by Harman Blennerhassett to make furniture for his new

home on the island in the Ohio River near Belpre. He and seven journeymen worked in

3The sample of probate records examined revealed widespread ownership of basic woodworking tools. Therefore, only the names of two tool owners are listed here. Allen Putnam owned an architecture book which suggests he was, by trade, a woodworker; and Aaron Yale, who very large assortment of woodworking tools more than likely indicates he was some sort of woodworker. Certainly, a more thorough examination of probate records would reveal other heretofore-unknown woodworkers.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the shop and on the island for several years. A letter from Harman Blennerhassett to

Dudley Woodbridge, Jr. states, “Tell Mr. Richardson I wish him to down with the chair

backs as soon as he can come. I shall try then to engage him to furnish us with a

bedstead and a small chest of drawers.”4 He was allegedly offered, and refused, a

captaincy in the army Aaron Burr was allegedly raising to separate the western states and

territories from the Union. A portrait of Richardson, in an inlaid frame possibly of his

own making, hangs at the reconstructed Blennerhassett Mansion.

Rood, (Marietta) - Henderson Hall owns a substantial two-piece bookcase in cherry

and walnut on turned legs. Family history attributes it to Rood in about 1815.

Shipman, Joshua (Marietta; lived 1767-1823, worked ca. 1788-1823) - Shipman and his

family planned to make the trip to Ohio in 1789 with Joseph Buell and his family.

However, Shipman’s plans fell through and instead, he arrived in Marietta in 1790. He

and his family resided in Campus Martius during the Indian hostilities. At that time, he

maintained his shop on the Muskingum River, near the stockade. After the closing of the

hostilities, Shipman built a house on Front Street between Washington and Sacra Via,

and his shop was in the back. He worked as a contractor, carpenter, and cabinetmaker.

He oversaw construction of the Marietta Academy in 1798-9 and the Congregational

Church in 1807-8. He also engaged in the shipbuilding business that was successful in

4 Harman Blennerhassett (Blennerhassett Island) to Dudley Woodbridge Jr. (Marietta), 8 January 1806, Backus Woodbridge Collection, The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Marietta between 1801-1808. One of his daybook survives in the collections of Marietta

College; it covers from August, 1796-November, 1803. The large cherry table at the

Campus Martius Museum, which has Rufus Putnam/Land Company provenance, may

have been made by Shipman.

Smith, Nathaniel (M arietta; died 1817) - Advertised Windsor chairs inAmerican the

Friend in 1815.

Smith, Stephen (Marietta) - Worked on Green Street between Front and Second ca. 1800-

1814/5, according to James F. Hovey’s Early History o f the Marietta Chair Company.

Sprague, Jonathan (M arietta; lived 1767-1840) - Jonathan Sprague came to

Washington County with his brother, William, and his father, Joshua, from

Massachusetts in 1788. Though not a joiner or cabinetmaker by trade (he was a farmer

and millwright), Jonathan helped build the blockhouse at Campus Martius, and he built

furniture for his own use. A walnut comer cupboard at the Campus Martius Museum was

built by Sprague around 1788 using “a broad-ax and drawing knife” and is the earliest

surviving piece of Ohio furniture. He served at the Waterford Garrison during the Indian

hostilities. He was nearly shot by an Indian near a creek just south of Zanesville, which

now bears his name. He and his wife settled in Waterford Township in a plot of land on

the Muskingum across from Coal Run. There, in about 1800, Sprague built one of the

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. three stone houses in Washington County. In 1803, he built the Island Mill on the

Muskingum.

Sylvester, William (Marietta) - from Massachusetts, worked on Green Street from 1815-

1825, according to James F. Hovey’s Early History o f the Marietta Chair Company. He

worked with Brock, according to W.S. Clark’s advertisement of 1825.

Wells, Robert Jr. (Marietta) - Advertised in theAmerican Friend in 1813 as having

“having commenced [a cabinet making] business at the shop lately occupied by Maj.

Alexander Hill.”

Yale, Aaron - His 1821 inventory includes seventeen planes, four squares, two gouges,

six chisels, a key saw, and numerous other tools. Such a large collection of woodworking

tools suggests that he practiced some form of woodworking.

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List o f Probate Records Surveyed, 1788-1825

Name Date

Alcock, William 20 March 1801 Allison, Robert 21 December 1812 Baker, Samuel 29 July 1816 Berthe, Lewis 4 November 1796 Bliss, Amos January 1793 Brough, Bridget 8 November 1822 Burroway, Isaac 18 March 1803 Cadot, Claude 5 January 1797 Case, John 3 March 1803 Cole, Nathan February 1817 Convers, Benjamin 3 May 1790 Cook, Joseph March 1825 Curtis, Eleaser 26 March 1803 Dana, Luther 20 April 1814 Dana, William 30 August 1810 Danielson, Timothy 7 May 1813 Davis, Jonas 21 Mary 1795 Delong, Jonathan February 1815 Demmings, Abigail 12 December 1823 Devol, Gilbert 26 June 1812 Dodge, Oliver 22 October 1817 Drown, John 6 May 1816 Fairchild, Major 20 January 1796 Fearing, Noah 29 April 1809 Fearing, Paul 14 November 1801 Ford, Giles 11 January 1798 Frothingham, Ebenezer Jr. 30 April 1791 Gardner, John 12 February 1795 Glidden, John March 1818 Goodale, Nathan 5 February 1796 Gray, William August 1812 Greene, John 1813

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Henderson, Edward 23 August 1805 Hoagland, Cornelius March 1818 Howard, Edward 17 December 1804 Hummel, Jacob 4 October 1802 Jennings, Jonathan 14 February 1809 Johnson, James Late 1790s Kime, Nathan 27 February 1808 Levins, John 22 December 1798 Mason, William December 1813 Maxson, Henry 12 September 1812 McIntosh, John 20 October 1822 McNeal, James 9 November 1808 Meigs, Return Jonathan Jr. 28 November 1825 Miles, Benjamin 12 May 1818 Morse, Obadiah 4 October 1822 Moulton, William 16 May 1795 Nibert, Anthony 2 November 1796 Nixon, John November 1817 Noble, H.W. 10 June 1816 Oaks, Joel 16 May 1823 Owen, Oliver 16 December 1825 Peck, Zachariah November 1822 Plimer, Jonathan 1806/7 Pradel, Julien 16 April 1796 Prioux, Nicholas 19 June 1798 Putnam, Aaron Waldo January 1823 Putnam, Allen 11 June 1806 Quiffe, Remy Thierre 2 November 1796 Stems, Amos May 1813 Stone, Israel 12 November 1808 Stone, Jonathan 2 September 1801 Throop, Zebulin 20 September 1793 Tupper, Benjamin 15 May 1792 Tuttle, Simeon 17 November 1817 Warth, Robert 13 May 1794 Wells, Thomas 4 June 1790 Willington, William Late 1807 Wilson, George 4 December 1807

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