Plate XC.—Paper hung for Wedding of Dorothy Quincy, Quincy Mansion.
The chairs in this room are rare examples of Chippendale, 1791, and Sheraton, the latter being one of the best examples of the master's make, and showing the fan back design, which is more usually found in the South, rather than in the North. Here, as in the dining-room, are narrow shutters with hinged panels, which could be bolted and barred against attacks of the Indians.
Back of the dining-room, and one step lower, is the old kitchen, built in 1636, the most interesting room in the house, containing a great many household articles of early colonial days. The broad, hand-hewn beams bear the marks of the axe, and the great fireplace is flanked on one side by larger brick ovens and on the other by a secret passage. Back of the chimney is a ladder which leads to the secret closet above, also a little dumbwaiter shaft, through which food and water could be sent to the people in hiding.
In previous years, an underground passage led out of the kitchen to the brook. Through this contraband goods were smuggled. The entrance to this passage has now disappeared, so that the exact locality is not definitely known.
The window glass was made at the first glass factory in America. This was erected by a guild of Hollanders who had established themselves in Quincy. The worthies of Quincy objected to the large families of the emigrants, and they were driven out and moved to Maine. The first iron foundry in this country was built beside this brook, which was sometimes known as Furnace Brook.
Plate XCI.—Chambers in the Quincy Mansion.
Above the kitchen is the Coddington Chamber, named for the original builder of the house and fittingly furnished with rare pieces of the colonial period. Above this is a very low attic, lighted from the upper panes of the chamber windows and reached by the secret passage behind the chimney. At the further end of this attic is a trap-door connecting with a second attic, through which one could escape by galleries below the dormer windows, and thence reach the ground.