—"5 fluted brass candlesticks, 2 pr. common ditto, 1 doz. iron ditto, 10 pr. snuffers; 11 feather beds with bolsters and pillows, etc."
Figure 63. FRENCH BED.
The enemy left him nothing, even taking his "Iron chain for Smoke Jack." Much of the furniture listed in these inventories was evidently of American make, for the woods mentioned are bilstead, gum pine, walnut, cherry, or red cedar. The last was the favorite. "Bilstead" was maple.
The beds were chiefly of three styles, field beds, high four-posters with testers and valance, and low four-posters, with an occasional "English" or "French" bed. There were beds much plainer than the carved ones we so much admire, but in any case the bed was the most valuable household possession, as it had always been. In 1640 William Southmead's house in Gloucester, Mass., is valued at £8, and his feather-bed, bedstead, and appurtenances at the same sum. In 1628 a pair of sheets was furnished to each Massachusetts Bay Colonist. Linen and flannel sheets were the ones in use. After spinning became universal and flax abundant, homespun sheets abounded,—"20 and 1 pr." is not an unusual number; and where there were several daughters whose chests had to be filled, the number was many times greater. Table linen also was of domestic manufacture.
One of the fashionable patterns of beds shown in the English books imported into the Colonies, and made by American cabinet-makers, was known as the "field bed." The one shown in [Figure 61] is in the Whipple House, Ipswich, and is draped with the netting curtains, heavily dotted and fringed, which were customary in its day. Early in 1700 there was an auction sale of Governor Cornbury's effects in New York, and the following advertisement concerning them:
"A fine yellow Camblet bed lined with silk and trimmed with fine lace, which came from London. One fine field bedstead and curtains. Some blue cloth lately come from London for liveries and some broad gold lace. A very fine medecine chest with a great variety of valuable medecines. A parcel of sweetmeats and jelly glasses. A case of 12 knives and 12 forks with silver handles. A large iron fireplace and iron bars all to be seen at the Fort.
It seemed as if the field bed had been made here, as it is specified that several of the other articles came from London. "The Journeyman's Cabinet & Chair-makers Philadelphia Book of Prices" gives in 1795 the price of a mahogany field bed, with sloped roof, at £1 7s., while one of poplar, with the roof sloped each way, cost but one pound. The carving of the posts was of course extra and was to be paid for according to time. Each inch that the bed was longer than six feet and wider than four feet was to be charged for at the rate of two pence per inch. This may be the reason why many of the beds were so narrow. It is often stated that the field bed was in use for a few years only, about the middle of the 18th Century, while in fact it was here, imported and of domestic make for fully one hundred years, and I am by no means sure that Governor Cornbury's was among the earliest.
Figure 64. HIGHBOY.