The woods used by these cabinet-makers embrace all kinds, walnut, maple, cherry, nut-wood (hickory), poplar, ash, and pine. American dealers imported mahogany also in quantities, and it was for sale in planks as well as made up into furniture.
"New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury" for 1774 published the following advertisements.
"To be sold by Leonard Kip, A quantity of New Beef by the barrel, Honey by the barrel or half barrel, Albany boards and planks, Highland butter in firkins and European Goods. Which he will sell very low for cash or short credit, at his store in Dock Street opposite Mr. Gerardus Duyckinck's."
The following also appeared in many issues of the paper.
"Mahogany Furniture, 3 elegant desks & book cases, 1 chest upon chest of drawers, 1 lady's dressing-chest & bookcase, 3 desks & 1 pr. card tables, 2 setts of chairs, 3 dining-tables & 5 breakfast tables, 1 clock-case furnished with a good plain 8 day clock, Sundry stands, etc. The above articles are well made and most of them are of wood of the first quality and will be sold as low as any furniture of equal value in the city by Willett & Pearsey, cabinet & chair-makers, at the sign of the clothes-press nearly opposite the Oswego Market, at the end of Maiden Lane."
In Philadelphia, renowned for its manufacture of household goods, the trade was so large and important that the "Journeyman's Cabinet & Chair-maker's Philadelphia Book of Prices" was issued. In a second edition (1795) are given the prices of many local furniture-makers, such as:
"A plain mahogany high-post bedstead £1. 4s. 6d.
"A plain sofa 6 ft. long, with 6 legs, fast back & no low rails. £1. 8s. 0d."
The desk shown in [Figure 48] is a piece found at Bedford Springs, Pa., a place which was known as a "resort" as early as 1778, and had houses with plastered walls, quite an unusual luxury in country regions, though as these Springs were frequented by the fashionable society of Philadelphia and New York, who went for the waters, special effort was used to make the place attractive. The desk is mahogany and solid, not veneered. It has a roll-top of the style made by Sheraton, which falls back behind the drawers and cupboards. The brasses are new, and the lid has been restored; otherwise the desk is as it was made. It stood for many years in one of the little outside houses near the main hotel, and when, a number of years ago, a visitor asked to buy it, the proprietor told him the piece was known as "Jimmy Buchanan's desk." Mr. Buchanan was in the habit of spending his summers at Bedford Springs and always occupied the room where this desk was. In 1857, when as President Buchanan he arrived at Bedford, the proprietors in his honour had refurnished his room. They were congratulating themselves that the President would be gratified at what they had done for him, when he suddenly came into the room and demanded in a rage what had become of the desk. If it was not forthcoming he would go elsewhere. He could use it, he said, to write on, and then the drawers were roomy and just suited him for his clean shirts. It is needless to say that the desk was brought down from the garret, and was never removed from the room when President Buchanan visited there.
Illustration: Figure 51. WINDSOR CHAIRS.