Colonial Homes and Their Furnishings

by Mary Harrod Northend

By the middle of the seventeenth century, chairs had come into more common usage, the type then in favor being strong and solid of frame, with seat and back covered with durable leather or Turkey work. Generally, the legs and stretches were plain, though sometimes the legs and back posts were turned.

Specimens of the turned variety, which are the first seats that really could be termed chairs, are very scarce to-day, the best examples being found at Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth, in the home of Hon. John D. Long at Hingham, Massachusetts, in the Heard house at Ipswich, Massachusetts, and in the Waters collection at Salem, where one specimen shows a covering which is a reproduction, having been fashioned to exactly match in design and texture the original one it replaced when that one wore out.

The year 1700 marked the introduction of the slat-back chair, which enjoyed a long period of popularity. The number of slats at the back, characteristic of this type, varied with the time of making, the first specimens showing but two, while later types showed five. These chairs were solid and strong of frame, and in Pennsylvania were made curved to fit the back, affording a comfortable support. They included, in addition to ordinary chairs, armchairs, and it was to an armchair of this make that Benjamin Franklin affixed rockers, thus inventing the first American rocking-chair and inaugurating a fashion that has never waned in popularity. This first rocking-chair and its contemporaries, which did not antedate the Revolutionary War by any great number of years, had rockers that projected as far in the front as they did at the back,—a peculiarity that makes them easily recognizable to-day. Later, this objection was remedied, and the present type of rocking-chair came into fashion.

Plate XXV.—Chippendale, Lord Timothy Dexter's Collection, H. P. Benson; French Chair, showing Empire influence; Flemish Chair; Banister-back Chair.

From 1710 to 1720 the banister-back chair was much used, though it never enjoyed equal favor with the slat-back type. Instead of the horizontal slats typical of the earlier model, the banister-back chair showed upright spindles, usually four in number, and generally flat, though sometimes rounded at the back. Its seat, like that of the slat back, was of rush, and it was fashioned of either hard or soft wood, and almost always painted black. One interesting example of this make is found at "Highfield," the ancestral home of the Adams family at Byfield, Massachusetts, having been brought here in the early days of the dwelling's erection by Anne Sewall Longfellow, who came here the bride of Abraham Adams, and who brought the chair herself from her old home across the fields that divided the two estates, so that no harm would befall it. It has been carefully treasured by her descendants, and to-day occupies its original resting place by the side of the wide old fireplace, where, on the night before the Battle of Bunker Hill, leaden bullets used in that historic encounter were cast.

Slightly later than these types came the Dutch chair, sometimes severely plain in design, and again pierced and curiously carved. One excellent example of this model, formerly owned by Moll Pitcher, the famous soothsayer of Lynn, who told one's fate by the teacup at her home at High Rock, is now preserved in a Chestnut Street dwelling at Salem, and shows the straight legs and straight foot of the best class of the Dutch type, and the usual rush seat. Most Dutch specimens found their way to Dutch settlements, though many were brought to New England direct from northern Holland.

Easy chairs which came into style not long after the slat-back model, proved the most comfortable type yet invented, and served as a welcome variation from the straight and stiff-backed chairs up to that time in favor. They were stuffed at back and sides, and covered with patch or material of like nature. Owing to the amount of material which was used in stuffing and covering them, their cost was considerable, varying from one to five pounds, according to the style and quality of covering used.

The most common and popular chairs of the eighteenth century were those of the Windsor type, manufactured in this country as early as 1725, and deriving their name from the town in England where they originated. The story of their origin is most interesting. The reigning George of that day, the second of his name, saw in a shepherd's cottage a chair which he greatly admired. He bought it to use as a model, thus setting the stamp of kingly approval on this type, and bringing it into immediate favor. It is not related what color he had his chairs painted, but the general coloring employed was either black or dark green, though some chairs were not painted at all. The finish of the back of this type was varied to suit different fancies, some few having a comblike extension on top as a head-rest, while others had a curved or bowlike horizontal top piece, like a fan. These types originated the names comb back and fan back, by which Windsor chairs of these types are known. American manufacturers in general copied the English styles, though they also developed several variations. Many American Windsors, particularly the fan backs, are equipped with rockers, the date of their manufacture coming after the Revolution.