Great attention was paid to the draping and arranging of the curtains, valances, and testers of the high four-posters. Heavy materials of silk and woollen were used, as well as cotton stuffs. Men paid great attention to the colourings of their bed furniture, as we have seen in several inventories, and Horace Walpole chose for his own bed at Strawberry Hill purple cloth lined with white satin, and bunches of feathers on the tester. Hepplewhite spent much pains on the details of his beds, and recommended that the valance be made very full, in which case it was called the "petticoat valance." There were also elaborate details for tying back the curtains and trimming them with gimp and fringe. The bed-drapings, even in early days, were often very valuable. Col. Francis Epes, of Henrico Co., Va., has in his inventory dated October 1, 1678:
"One large new feather bed with camlett curtains and double vallins lind with yellow silke, bolster, pillow, counterpane, Rodds and hooks tops and stands, 1 curtaine and some Fringe damnified £24 5s. 0d."
The low-post bed was also a very handsome piece of furniture, and in many cases the post was surmounted by a pineapple, like the example shown in [Figure 62.] This bed has passed through a career of violent contrasts, and it is only within a year that the four posts were rescued from a barn, where they afforded convenient roosts for poultry. The side and head and foot boards had passed entirely out of sight, no doubt in some moment of stress they had fed the family cooking-stove. The missing parts have been restored in solid mahogany, and it makes a very handsome piece of furniture. It belongs to Mr. William M. Hoyt, of Rochester, N. Y. The acanthus leaves on the lower parts of the legs are unusually handsome. The posts are 63 inches high, and the brass drops which conceal the screw-holes have been restored from a bed of the same period.
An unusually elegant example of the French bed is the one given in [Figure 63]. This bed is of rosewood, with legs of splendidly carved dolphins, and on the side rails and rolling ends are very rich ormolu decorations cut from solid brass. The medallions directly over the legs show Fame blowing her trumpet, and the rams' heads terminating the head and foot boards where they rest upon the wood above the stars are solid brass also. This bed has been many years in this country, and stood in the bridal chamber or guest-room of the old Van Rensselaer Manor House at Albany, N. Y. This room was situated on the ground floor to the right of the front door.
A most necessary piece of furniture which every housekeeper endeavoured to own was some form of "highboy," as it has come to be called, or a chest-on chest of drawers. [Figure 64] depicts a fair example of the highest style of perfection to which these articles reached. Few are found more ornate than this. The wood is mahogany, and is richly carved on the knees, with the upper and lower drawers ornamented with shell and scrolls. The escutcheons and handles are original, and the only defect is the loss of the two ornaments which decorated either side of the top. The date of this chest of drawers is anywhere from 1750 to about 1780, the overlapping drawers making it more likely to approximate the earlier date. Belonging to about the same period is the corner cupboard shown in Figure 65. This is of cherry, with the broken arch-cornice and Gothic door. It has turned posts with rosettes which Sheraton often used, and the cupboard doors overlap and are panelled. The back of the cupboard is of pine, as are the shelves. The wood is a rich dark colour and unpolished. Similar pieces, though not exactly in this form, are to be met with in Virginia and are doubtless of native manufacture.
Figure 65. CORNER CUPBOARD.
Figure 66. INLAID AND LACQUERED TABLE AND CHAIR.
American makers used not only mahogany, cedar, ash, elm, pine, maple, cherry, poplar, and walnut, but could inlay with "King, tulip, rose, purple, snake, zebra, Alexandria, panella, yew, and maple." There were cabinet-makers in every town, and many of them put out as handsome work as their contemporaries in London. In Chapter V mention has been made of the cabinet-makers of the eighteenth century, but furniture was made in the Colonies even before that. The native joiners began to work as early as 1622, for Phineas Pratt, of Weymouth, Mass., was what we now call a cabinet-maker, and before 1700 Boston had at least 25 cabinet-makers whose names appear in various records. We have also spoken of Connecticut chests, and their manufacture somewhere in that State. There is also another style known as the Hadley chest. Mr. Lockwood, in his fine work on furniture, places the date of these chests as ranging from 1690 to 1720. They come in one-, two-, and three-drawer patterns, varying in height from 32½ inches in one-drawer size to 46 inches for the three-drawer style. The peculiarity of these chests is their decoration, their shape being similar to other chests of the same period. In addition to being carved they are stained as well,—red, mulberry, and black being the colours chosen. On the central panel of the front the initials of the owner were usually roughly carved; the decoration of the chest, confined to the front, being a rude vine, while the sides are panelled. The top, body of drawers, and back of chest are always pine, the thrifty New England craftsman saving his hardwood for places where it would show. There is a very fine specimen of these Hadley chests in the Museum at Deerfield, Mass. Several more are in collections gathered in Massachusetts or adjoining States. The black-stained pine ornaments do not always mark a piece as of domestic manufacture, for pear-wood was used by the Dutch, and even occasionally by the English, stained black to imitate ebony, which was always more or less costly.