The wainscot chairs were all of wood, seats as well as backs, usually of oak. They were frequently carved or panelled. One now in Pilgrim Hall is known as the Winslow chair. Another fine specimen in carved oak is in the Essex Institute in Salem. Carved chairs were owned only by persons of wealth or high standing, and were frequently covered with "redd lether" or "Rusha lether." Sometimes the leather was stamped and different rich fabrics were employed to cover the seats. "Turkey wrought" chairs are frequently mentioned. Velvet "Irish stitch," red cloth, and needlework covers are named. Green appeared to be, however, the favorite color.
Cane chairs appeared in the last quarter of the century. It is said that the use of cane was introduced into furniture with the marriage of Charles II. to Catharine of Braganza.
The bow-legged chair, often with claw and ball foot, came into use in the beginning of the eighteenth century. "Crowfoot" and "eaglesfoot" were named in inventories. These are copies of Dutch shapes.
Easy-chairs also appeared at that date, usually as part of the bedroom furniture, and were covered with the stuffs of which the bed-hangings and window-curtains were made, such as "China," "callico," "camblet," "harrateen."
The three-cornered chair, now known as an "As you like it" chair, appeared in the middle of the century under the names of triangle, round-about, and half-round chair.
The chairs known now as Chippendale may date back to the middle of the century; Windsor chairs, also known and manufactured in Philadelphia at that date, were not common in New England till a score of years later, when they were made and sold in vast numbers, being much more comfortable than the old bannister or slat-backed chairs then in common use.
Another piece of hall furniture deserves special mention. Dr. Lyon gives these names of cupboards found in New England: Cupboard, small cupboard, great cupboard, court cupboard, livery cupboard, side cupboard, hanging cupboard, sideboard cupboard, and cupboard with drawers. To this list might be added corner cupboard. The word court cupboard is found from the years 1647 to 1704. It was a high piece of furniture with an enclosed closet or drawers, originally intended to display plate, and was the highest-priced cupboard found. Upon it were set, in New England, both glass and plate. The livery cupboard, similar in its uses, seldom had an enclosed portion. "Turn pillar cuberds," painted and carved cupboards, were found. The item of cupboard in any inventory was usually accompanied by that of a cupboard cloth. This latter seemed to be the most elegant and luxurious article in the whole house. Cupboard cloths of holland, "laced," "pantado," "cambrick," "kalliko," "green wrought with silk fringe"—all are named. Cushions also, "to set upon a cubberds head," are frequently named. They were made of damask, needlework, velvet or cloth. A corner cupboard was apparently a small affair; a japanned one is named. What we now call a corner cupboard was then known as a beaufet.
The hall was naturally on one side of the entry and opening into it. On the other side, in large houses, was the parlor; this room was sometimes used as a dining-room, sometimes as a state bedroom. It frequently held, in addition to furniture like that of the hall, a chest or chests of drawers to hold the family linen, and also that family idol—the best bed.
Of the exact shape and height of the bedsteads used by the early colonists, I find no accurate nor very suggestive descriptions. The terms used in wills, inventories, and letters seem too vague and curt to give us a correct picture. What was the "half-headed bedstead" left with "Curtaince & Valance of Dornix" by will by Simon Eire in Boston in 1658? Or, to give a fuller description of a similar one in the sale of furniture of the King's Arms in Boston, in 1651, "one half-headed Bedsted with Blew Pillars." I fancy they were bedsteads with moderately high headboards. It is easy enough to obtain full items of the bed itself and the bed-furniture, its coverings and hangings. We read of "ffether beds," "flocke beds," "downe bedds," "wool beds," and even "charf beds," the latter worth but three shillings apiece, all of importance enough to be named in wills and left with as much dignity of bequest as Shakespeare's famous "second-best bed." Even so influential a man as Thomas Dudley did not disdain to leave by specification to his daughter Pacy a "ffeather beed & boulster." In 1666 Nicholas Upsall, of Boston, left a "Bedstead fitted with a Rope Matt & Curtains to it." In March, 1687, Sewall wrote to London for "White Fustian Drawn enough for curtains, vallen counterpaine for a bed & half a duz chaires with four threeded green worsted to work it." In 1691 we find him writing for "Fringe for the Fustian bed & half a duz Chairs. Six yards and a half for the vallons, fifteen yards for 6 chairs two Inches deep; 12 yards half inch deep." This wrought fustian bed was certainly handsome.
By revolutionary times we read such items as these: "Neet sette bed," "Very genteel red and white copperplate Cottonbed with Squab and Window Curtains Fring'd and made in the Newest Taste," "Sacken' & Corded Beds and a Pallat Bed," "Very Handsome Flower'd Crimson worsted damask carv'd and rais'd Teaster Bed & Curtains compleat," "A Four Post Bedstead of Mahogany on Casters with Carved Foot Posts, Callico Curtains to Ditto & Window Curtains to Match, and a Green Harrateen Cornish Bed." Harrateen, a strong, stiff woollen material, formed the most universal bed hanging. Trundle-beds or truckle-beds were used from the earliest days. So there was variety in plenty.