USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Concord > Handbook, Concord Antiquarian society, Concord, Massachusetts > Part 4
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The chest-on-chest belonged to Hugh Cargill, who died in 1799 and left to the town the present Poor Farm. The date 1790 is carved in a partition between the upper and lower sections of this piece. The drawers contain bits of old needlework, old gowns and lace, or whatever else of women's finery is not accommodated elsewhere in the house.
The slant-top desk opposite is a well-made piece, of wild cherry, cer- tain features of which suggest the work of Joseph Hosmer, discussed in the notes on Room II. Over it hang two of a set of aquatint engravings, published in 1794 by Laurie and Whittle of London as illustrations for Thompson's Seasons. The other two are across the room.
A maple tea table near by is interesting for the free-hand arrangement of the scallops about its top. It belonged to Dr. John Cumming, owner of the bannister-back armchair in Room 5.
Between the windows is an excellent example of the Massachusetts block-front bureau, inherited from Dorcas (Barrett) Gerrish, who also
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owned the Pembroke table in Room 7. The block-front style, while no doubt derived remotely from certain continental types, was developed in its present form in New England and brought to highest perfection in Rhode Island, where it falls well within the Chippendale period. The shell ornament for which the Newport block-fronts have become fa- mous is used sparingly in the Massachusetts type, which depends for beauty mainly upon proportion and skilful handling of the blocking. The bureau in this room shows the flat blocking which is more usual, and usually more attractive, than the curved blocking seen on a similar piece in Room 10. Flanking it on either side is a pair of country Chippendale chairs which exemplify in an interesting way the tendency of provincial craftsmen to cling to the traditions of early joinery even in pieces pur- porting to follow later fashions. These chairs, with their Stuart-turned bases and Spanish feet, their Queen Anne splats joined firmly to a cross- piece above the seat, and their "Cupid's-bow" top rails, have the quaint originality which gives country-made furniture a charm all its own.
The corner cupboard in the room came from the house in Concord formerly owned by Deacon Thomas Barrett, destroyed in 1862. Such pieces were often built into the dining rooms of early houses, and appear in early inventories as "beaufatts," "beaufets," "bowfats," etc.
In this one is displayed the first group of the Society's large collection of so-called Chinese, or Sino-Lowestoft, an often crude Chinese export porcelain decorated with European designs, shipped in great quanti- ties to Europe and America in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The American China trade began about 1784, when the privateers which had been sent out by American merchants during the Revolution began to be diverted to commercial purposes in distant lands. From that time until the beginning of the War of 1812, Chinese "Lowestoft" was brought on order into this country in steadily increas- ing amounts.
A glance at any cupboard such as ours serves to show the great diver- sity in the quality of paste and decoration of such wares. Generally speaking, the finer sets are believed to have been made at the great pottery center, Ching-tê-chên in Kiang-si, to the north of Canton, while the coarser grades came probably from the factories to the south. Many
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THE ENTRANCE HALL
were decorated at Canton, often in designs made specially to order, and all were shipped from there. In view of the hundreds of Chinese pot- teries engaged during this period in making wares for the European trade, any effort to distinguish between them, except in this general way, would be practically hopeless. Some classification of patterns may be possible. In general the simpler sprigged or banded patterns seem to be earliest in this country. Later patterns show the influence of the classic revival and of the designs of Robert Adam, as witnessed by the tea set in our Alcove.
Room 9 THE ENTRANCE HALL
In passing through the entrance hall on our way to the second floor, we step back to the time when the famous Hancock house dominated Beacon Hill in Boston. No house in New England was so much admired, and none rivalled it in elegance or in the comfort of its appointments. Only the best materials had been allowed to go into it, and only the most expert workmen engaged to use them. So carefully was the work on the interior done that although the house was occupied by 1740, the pan- elling of its great rooms was not finished until five years later.
Our stairway contains five posts from the side stairway of this house, which was among the first in this country where three balusters turned with different kinds of spirals were used on each step. This plan became very popular, and was copied in the better New England stairways down to Revolutionary times. The carved spindles of our stairway are old. The others are reproductions.
The architecture of the hall was designed as a dignified and appropri- ate setting for the stairway. The paper is a copy of an early Georgian paper. The damask curtains hang straight beneath a shaped valance in a manner shown in engravings of the mid-eighteenth century. The furni- ture, with the exception of the group at the foot of the stairs, is in har- mony with this setting.
A copper plate by the front door is dedicated to the memory of Mr.
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and Mrs. Edwin Shepard Barrett, late of Concord, whose children con- tributed largely towards the fund that built this house. Mr. Barrett was a direct descendant of Colonel James Barrett of Revolutionary fame. A crayon portrait of his grandmother, Mrs. Nathan Barrett, who was Mary Jones of the old "Bullet-Hole House" in Concord, hangs at the far end of the hall.
A handsome looking-glass on the right wall shows in its elaborately carved and fretted frame the full development of rococo influence. Be- neath it is an interesting single-leaf table, probably made to push against another table to increase its size. The unusual thickness of the pads be- neath the Dutch feet, and the angle at the knees, suggest a date rather late in the Queen Anne period. The chairs, which are earlier, have been referred to in the notes on Room 5.
Two tall clocks are in the hall. The one to the front is of American make. The other, on the landing, was made by Henton Brown of Lon- don, who worked between the years 1726 and 1766. It belonged to Dr. Abel Prescott (1718-1805), who also owned a number of the pieces shown in the Queen Anne Room.
The looking-glass on the stairway is a good example of a pedimented type which developed alongside and apparently independently of the cut and fretted types shown in the previous rooms. Such glasses, follow- ing the lines of the overmantels and other architectural features of the period, were introduced into this country soon after 1750, and remained popular until the close of the Revolution. This one belonged to Jona- than Heywood of Concord (1747-1807).
Above the upper landing are the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Hapgood Wright of Concord and Lowell, Massachusetts, donors of a fund for centenary celebrations in Concord. Mrs. Wright's portrait, painted prob- ably soon after her marriage in 1835, seems to have been retouched in 1844, and bears this date on the back, with the signature of Thomas Bayley Lawson of Lowell. Lawson, who also worked in Boston, is best known for his portraits of Webster, Clay, and other political person- ages.
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THE SOURCES OF FEDERAL STYLES IN AMERICA
In those years shortly before and during the Revolution, when our strained relations with the mother country had cut us off from English influences, a radical change took place in the architecture and house furn- ishings of Europe. The rococo style had reached a point where further exaggeration became impossible, and a reaction was inevitable. This came in England in the form of the work of Robert Adam and his brothers. On a tour of Italy at the close of his architectural studies, Adam had come into contact with the revival of late Roman classic forms resulting from the recent excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii. He returned home teeming with new ideas based on these forms, and within ten years com- pletely revolutionized the taste of England.
Finding that the old-style furniture was out of place in the new houses he was building, he took to designing not only the furniture but the metal work and textiles for them, and even the personal belongings of the ladies who lived in them. The best artisans and cabinetmakers of the day worked for him, including Chippendale himself, whose only docu- mented work is, strangely enough, furniture made to the designs of Adam.
In this new style, classic arrangement and detail used solely for deco- rative effect prevailed, but marked by a delicacy and attenuation of pro- portions unknown in previous periods. Delicate ornamentation, sug- gested by the painted and stucco ornament of Pompeii, presented new motives, such as flutings, reedings, Greek key designs, swags, pateræ, and so forth. Much of this ornament was made of composition set in moulds and glued to the surface to be decorated, as on the mantel in Room 12. It was painted in light colors, pale green, pink, white, and cream, to harmonize with the delicacy of the design.
In the furniture, simple classic forms following structural lines took the place of the curved construction of the preceding periods. Legs were straight and tapering, sometimes rounded or reeded. Curves were con- fined to the fronts of tables, sideboards, bureaus, etc. Cabinet pieces were decorated with inlay set in classic or geometric patterns; while chairs continued to be carved, or were painted in the French style. New and
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exotic woods of light color, sometimes stained with brilliant effect, were employed.
New pieces of furniture were also evolved, most important of which was the sideboard, first suggested by the Adam arrangement of a side table flanked on either side with pedestals surmounted by urns. This arrangement was combined in a single piece by the cabinetmakers who followed Adam, many of whom in the succeeding years issued design books embodying the new ideas in more or less individual ways.
Since these ideas did not reach America until the beginning of the so- called Federal period, when the books of Shearer, Hepplewhite, Shera- ton, and others were all available, our American furniture drew from all these sources more or less indiscriminately. Thus it is difficult in most cases to trace a given piece to a single origin.
An excellent group of this period is at the foot of the stairway in the entrance hall. The sideboard, showing the simple lines and inlay of the Hepplewhite style as we find it interpreted in this neighborhood, be- longed to Samuel Barrett, who died in 1804, and whose son Samuel owned part of the furniture in Room 12. The coffee urn of painted tin is in a design first introduced by Adam. Of the knife boxes, the larger one belonged to Jonathan Fay, who died in 1811. The smaller was given by General Israel Putnam to General Eleazer Brooks of Lincoln at the close of the Revolution. It contains a number of the original forks bearing the mark of J. Parsons & Company, workers at Sheffield between 1783 and 1792.
Room 10 THE YELLOW BEDROOM 1790-1800
The Architecture
Generally speaking, the trend in panelling in American interiors is from smaller to larger sized units; from groups of small panels set with bevelled edges, to large panels, often used singly, and set as in the over- mantel of this room, without a bevel, flush with the stiles and rails. This
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THE YELLOW BEDROOM
overmantel with its narrow mantelshelf, the first to appear in the house, presents a development dating well towards the close of the eighteenth century. It was bought at Ipswich, Massachusetts. The cornice of the room is an adaptation of one in a house of 1790, formerly in Charles- town, Massachusetts.
An interesting step in the development of efficiency in the fireplace is shown in the cast-iron fire frame, an improvement believed to have been invented by Benjamin Franklin, and called by his name.
The Furnishings
It will be noted that in colonial times the preference of our forebears was for stout fabrics and strong colors in furnishing their rooms. Wall papers and upholstery fabrics, often brought from France or England and awaited tediously for months, were not easily replaced, and were chosen with an eye for durability even before beauty. Woodwork, when painted at all, was usually of a color sturdy in proportion to the char- acter of the other furnishings. But in the early nineteenth century, following the fashion for delicacy set in England by Robert Adam, all this was changed. In the Yellow Bedroom white painted woodwork, used extensively by Adam, and popular here throughout the Federal period, is shown for the first time in this house. Here too are the first white muslin window curtains and bed hangings. The latter were made from a pair of old French embroidered Swiss curtains dating from about 1 800. The bedspread and window curtains are of modern Swiss approxi- mating as nearly as possible the quality of the old. Another old muslin of a different pattern is used for the crib cover. The wall paper is a copy of a Directoire paper said to have been much in favor during the early years of the Republic.
The furniture, except for a piece or two of earlier date, shows both Sheraton and Hepplewhite influence. A charming and characteristic piece is the corner washstand, once the property of John Richardson, a hotel keeper in Concord in 1795. The bed, with its inlaid pedestals and swelled and reeded posts, embodies much of the best expression of the period. It belonged to Joseph Dudley of Concord (1743-1807), who also owned the two yellow "fancy" chairs in the room. Very little
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of the painted furniture of this period has survived with the original paint intact. These rare little chairs show in a quaint provincial form the kind of classic motives employed for such decoration.
Motives of similar inspiration were used in the decoration of mirrors, clocks, pottery, and other accessories of the period. These were frequent- ly combined with patriotic emblems designed to give vent to the feelings of national pride which ran so high during the early years of the Re- public.
"A water pitcher on the bureau in this room reflects the universal love of the great leader who had saved the nation and guided its early for- tunes. Hundreds of these "Washington pitchers" and similar articles were made and shipped into America during the years between 1790 and 1812 by English potters, who were shamelessly willing to glorify the new nation at the expense of their own if they could at the same time acquire that nation's trade. This pitcher was made at the Herculaneum factory at Liverpool between 1794 and 1796. The design shows the head of Washington, with Liberty and Justice, surrounded by fifteen stars and the names of the fifteen States in the Union from 1792 to 1796. On the opposite side is a fanciful arrangement of Masonic emblems, a com- bination of designs no doubt frequent and logical, since Washington was at the time Grand Master of the Lodge at Alexandria, and the foremost American Mason.
Two block-front pieces of the previous period afford opportunity for an interesting comparison of the two types of blocking usually found in this neighborhood. The desk belonged to Dr. John Cumming (1728- 1788), and now contains various related relics of local import. Among them are fragments of the first lead pencils made in the United States by William Munroe of Concord.
Above the desk hangs the pastel portrait of Captain George Davidson, topographer and artist on board the ship Columbia when she discovered the mouth of the Columbia River in 1793. A number of Davidson's drawings of the West Coast are now treasured by collectors.
The samplers in the room speak for themselves. A very beautiful ex- ample on the mantelshelf, wrought by Lucretia Buttrick, offers an amus- ing reminder of the affectations of the nineteenth century in the careful
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THE REEDED ROOM
picking out of all the dates. As the young lady was evidently so loath to divulge the secret of her age, it would no doubt be out of place for us to supply the missing data in this place.
Room II THE REEDED ROOM c. 1800
Although, as we have just seen, a few families in Concord were using furniture in the new styles very soon after the close of the Revolution, our collection shows that these styles did not become general here until well after 1800. Thus a bedroom in a country house built at about that time might very well have been furnished as we find this room, chiefly with furniture in the style of the preceding years.
The Architecture
The woodwork of the room presents a fine provincial rendering of the classic theme, enriched by reeded detail. Rooms of this general char- acter are found all up and down the New England seaboard, and are believed to have been executed in many cases by men who, like Samuel McIntire of Salem, had learned the art of wood-working on board ship. This room came from a house in Essex, Massachusetts, and follows the usual arrangement of the period, in which the cornice and dado assume the relations of the classic orders. The panelled overmantel has now dis- appeared, and the mantelshelf is wider and more prominent. The reeded pattern of the dado is repeated and accented with excellent effect by the reeding on the mantelpiece. The paint matches the ivory color of the original coat.
The Furnishings
The wall paper, while harmonious in design, was chosen primarily as a foil for the figured bed and window hangings. These are of the toile- de-Jouy so popular in this country during the early years of the nine- teenth century. The design is a delicate pastoral, said to have been the
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first drawn by Jean Baptiste Huet for Oberkampf, about 1780, and in- cludes a number of his famous farm animals and fowl.
Appropriate in a room with such hangings are the portraits of Chris- topher Coates and his wife, the former long known in this neighbor- hood as the first calico printer in America. He lived in Carlisle, Massa- chusetts, early in the nineteenth century and was then working in a fac- tory in Lowell, where many of our early calicoes were printed. This fac- tory had been established in Waltham in 1816 by Francis Cabot Lowell, and was moved to Lowell in 1823. Whether Coates had printed calicoes before its time is not known.
Much of the furniture in the room was made by Joseph Hosmer, farmer, patriot, builder, and cabinetmaker, who lived in the house just beyond the railroad bridge on Main Street, and had his workshop there. Hosmer was the descendant of a long line of Concord builders, the first of whom came from Kent with Simon Willard. James Hosmer, the second, is referred to in an old deed as "Carpenter and Architect," and doubtless learned his trade in England, since he was married there. There is a tradition that he buried all his tools before leaving to fight the Indians in King Philip's War, and that they were never recovered after he was killed at Sudbury. One cannot help speculating as to whether he may not have been the maker of some of the pieces in Room I.
At the time of the outbreak of the Revolution, Joseph Hosmer was Lieutenant of a company of Minute Men, and a member of the Com- mittee of Safety. With the cry, "Will you let them burn the town down?" he is said to have precipitated the order for the Minute Men to march on Concord Bridge.
The furniture attributed to Hosmer falls well within the period of Chippendale influence, and marks him as a cabinetmaker of the first order. He is known to have learned his trade from Robert Rosier, a French- man who had married a relative of Hosmer, and who "was a very ex- cellent cabinet-maker." The bureau nearest the window, the chairs, and the desk are all Hosmer's work. The latter, an excellent piece of crafts- manship, was made for his own use, and stood in his office for many years. The chairs are typical examples of provincial work, showing the per- sistence of certain features of early joinery into the Chippendale period.
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The splats are simplified versions of the typical New England design seen in Room 7. The pair of chairs flanking the desk were made for Captain James Barrett, and came to the Society from his daughter, Mrs. Dorcas Barrett Gerrish. The bureau, with its fine proportions and deli- cately carved feet, is in interesting contrast to the somewhat clumsier piece in the same style on the opposite side of the chimney piece. These bureaus contain old textiles and jewelry, and costume accessories of all kinds.
Of the fine pair of early Empire mirrors above the bureaus, one came from Miss Polly Kettell (1750-1843), the other from Deacon Elisha Tolman, who had it before 1818.
The high chest belonged to Ebenezer Stow, who married Mary Hart- well in 1775. Stored away in its drawers are daguerreotypes and ambro- types of many well-known Concord people. The workmanship of this piece is strikingly similar to that of the chest-on-chest in Room 8, and of several other pieces owned in Concord, one of which has been tradition- ally attributed to another member of the Hosmer family, cousin to Joseph.
The other pieces of furniture in the room are of about the same time as the Hosmer furniture, showing various local interpretations of the Chippendale style. The beautiful claw-and-ball-foot bed came from the Tufts family, descendants of Peter Tufts of Malden, Massachusetts (1617-1700), who settled in Lexington about 1775. The tea table, also from Lexington, is a good example, showing the elongated claw-and- ball foot with low curving leg often attributed to Salem, but probably made throughout northern New England.
The corner cupboard came from the old Potter house on Fairhaven Road in Concord, built in 1723 and destroyed in 1877. The mouldings of the cornice correspond with the earlier time. On the front is painted the date 1725 and the name of Judah Potter, who died in 1731. The shelves now hold Sino-Lowestoft in characteristic shapes, decorated for the most part with sprigged or landscape patterns.
Very characteristic of the early nineteenth century are the funeral pieces and other needlework pictures shown in this room and the adjoin- ing Alcove. An early and less than ordinarily lugubrious one, which hangs
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near the entrance door, offers the comforting assurance that "There is rest in Heaven," worked in memory of the Reverend Asa Dunbar, Henry Thoreau's maternal grandfather, who died in 1787.
The charming needlework picture over the desk was worked by Miss Lydia Hosmer (1790-1873), daughter of Elijah Hosmer, who, with her sister Sarah, was a loved figure in the town for many years. Late in life the two ladies, who never married, became known for their interest in the family histories and traditions of the town, and it is through their efforts that many of these have been preserved. The embroidery was made in 1808 in one of the young ladies' finishing schools which in those days specialized in such work, and is a copy, in accordance with the usual practice, of an illustration for Sterne's Sentimental Journey. The scene is that in which the sorrowing of Maria is depicted. The melancholy lady sits with her dog at the foot of a large tree, as described by Mr. Yorick, who may be discovered at the coach window in the background of the picture. "At a little opening in the road leading to a thicket I discovered poor Maria sitting under a poplar. She was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand; a small brook ran at the foot of the tree. .. . She was dressed in white, and her hair hung loose .... Her goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog in place of him, which she kept tied by a string to her girdle: as I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with a string. "Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvo,' she said." This delicate bit of artistry, with the water color, "Fishing Party," in the Alcove, won for Miss Lydia premiums at the cattle show of 1812.
Near "Maria" hang the silhouette portraits of Timothy Blood and Susan Flint, his wife, cut by William King of Salem, "cabinetmaker, turner, profilist, and scamp." Since taking "profile likenesses" was only one of King's numerous "projects," at which he worked only between the years 1804 and 1809, examples of his work are rare.
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THE ALCOVE
Miss Lydia Hosmer was, as we have seen, a young woman more than ordinarily talented in her day. Her "Fishing Party," hung by the win- dow in this room, is a quaint individual rendering in water colors of George Morland's "Angler's Repast," published by William Ward in 1780, in which the costumes have been changed to conform with the fashions of 1812, and a few changes made in the foreground to Miss Lydia's liking. The picture was long believed in Concord to represent the familiar Concord River picnic, which time-honored institution no doubt inspired the choice of a print to be copied.
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