Figure 43. EMPIRE WORK-TABLE.
CHAPTER V.
COLONIAL AND LATER PERIODS.
Under the broad head of Colonial Furniture may really be classed all the "movables and chattels" which belonged to the early settlers, while to be entirely correct, this characterization belongs only to such furniture as was brought in or made before 1776. As the pioneers came from many lands, so many different kinds of furniture will be included in the list.
We must begin at the South, with the melancholy little plantation at Jamestown. Through evil times the feeble colony struggled, harassed by poverty, disease, savage foes, and internal dissensions. There in 1607 were planted the first beginnings of the settlements which were in three hundred years to cover a continent. Traces of the little colony have almost disappeared now by the action of the James River, high tide covering the brick foundations of the ancient buildings. Walking along the shore one may find little red and white clay pipes, in smoking which, filled with the fragrant weed, the pioneers forgot their woes. Glass beads striped like gooseberries, to take the eyes of the Indians in barter, pieces of water-soaked brick from these toil-built houses, and even traces of the days of Smith, sword-hilts, bits of armour, balls, etc., and—more pathetic mementos of Jamestown's trials—human bones and coffin-handles.
Yet in 1639, thirty-two years after the foundation of the colony, there were in Maryland some planters called "rich," who measured their worldly goods by their value in tobacco, the raising of which weed had proved their only salvation. The laws regarding its cultivation, particularly in Massachusetts, were very stringent. It was only to be grown as medicine and used privately. It was considered a more harmful indulgence than liquor, and the "Creature called Tobacko" was hemmed and hedged about with rules and restrictions. It circumvented them all, was planted and grown, and finally became a commodity of much value and a medium of exchange. About ninety years later we find an item which shows how universal had become its use. The will of May Bickley, attorney general of the province of New York, filed April 27, 1724, directs that he "wishes to be buried without pipes and tobacco as is usual."
