Illus. 109.—Bill of Lading, 1716.
Illustration [108] shows a mahogany desk with serpentine front and claw-and-ball feet, owned by Mrs. Alice Morse Earle, of Brooklyn. The serpentine drawers of this piece and the one preceding are carved from a solid block, not quite so thick as is necessary for the block-front drawers. This desk was made at about the same time as the secretary in the last illustration.
The bill of lading in Illustration [109] is preserved in the house known as the “Warner House,” in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, built by Archibald Macphaedris, a member of the King’s Council. It was commenced in 1712, and occupied in 1716, but not finished until 1718. Mr. Macphaedris died in 1729, and his widow, upon her second marriage, gave the house to her daughter, married then to Colonel Jonathan Warner, and the house has remained ever since in the possession of their descendants.
The rooms are panelled, and are filled with the furniture bought by successive generations. Upon the walls hang Copley portraits of Colonel Warner and his wife and her haughty mother, Mrs. Macphaedris (who was a daughter of Lieutenant-Governor Wentworth), and of Colonel Warner’s young daughter Mary, in her straight little stays, which are still preserved, along with the garments, stiff with gold embroideries, which Colonel Warner and his wife wore upon state occasions. A number of the illustrations for this book were taken in the Warner house, which is one of the best-preserved old houses in the country, and which, with its furnishings and decorations, presents an unusually good picture of the home of the wealthy colonist.
The quaint wording of this bill of lading, and the list of furniture mentioned, make it interesting in this connection, but none of the pieces of that date remain in the house, which was evidently refurnished with great elegance, after 1760, when the old furniture was probably discarded as “old-fashioned.”
Illustration [110] shows a bookcase built into the Warner house. It is made of mahogany, and stands in every particular exactly as it was originally made. The bill of lading of 1716, shown in Illustration [85], mentions a bookcase, but this bookcase is of later date, and was probably bought by Colonel Warner for his daughter, as the books in the case are all bound alike in a golden brown leather, with gilt tooling, and each book has “Miss. Warner” stamped in gilt letters upon the cover. The books are the standard works of that time,—Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser, “The Spectator,” Fox’s “Book of Martyrs,” and all the books which a wealthy man of those days would buy to furnish a library. The dates of the editions vary from 1750 to 1765, so the latter date may be given to this bookcase. It was once entirely filled with “Miss. Warner’s” books, but early in the nineteenth century, during a great fire in Portsmouth, the books were removed for safety, and all were not brought back.
