"The inventories of the household effects of many of the early citizens of New York might be given, to show the furnishings of these homes. I choose the belongings of Captain Kidd to show that 'as he sailed, as he sailed' he left a very comfortable home behind him. He was, when he set up house-keeping with his wife Sarah in 1692, not at all a bad fellow, and certainly lived well. He possessed these handsome and abundant house furnishings:

Parcel linen sheets, table cloths, napkins, value thirty dollars. One hundred and four ounces silver plate, value three hundred dollars."[226]

The floors were not carpeted in colonial times till late in the period, and, really, a carpet in those days was not to place on a floor but it was a cover for a table or cupboard. Sometimes sand was placed over the parlor floor and marked off into ornamental figures. The walls of the rooms were wainscoted and painted. In some of the houses of the wealthy, there were hung on the walls rich cloths and tapestries and sometimes leathern hangings and in later times there were paper-hangings of strong and heavy material. The ceilings were usually left entirely open, showing the beams and rafters, often rough hewn. Prints were placed on the walls, beings pictures of ships, battle scenes, and the like, and there were paintings, usually portraits of ancestors.

Cupboards were found in all the houses and they were of various kinds and sizes, to fit into different places and for many uses. One parlor piece was a kind of writing-desk, the scrutaire, spelled in many ways in old inventories and at present time secretary. There were tables of many kinds. There were dressers and dressing-glasses in frames of walnut and olive-wood and with gilt and japanned frames. The chest was an indispensable piece of furniture and there were all kinds and sizes and of different woods and some had most beautiful carvings and inlayings. These chests were greatly needed for each household had an abundance of household linen and many a goodly quantity of silver. The time was told by means of sun-dials and hour-glasses, but there were also numbers of watches and clocks among the colonists and later there were all kinds of clocks for sale.

Chairs were in use very little, if at all, in early colonial days, as stools and benches took their place. Later chairs were greatly in use and of many kinds. There were three general kinds—turned chairs, in which the seats were often of flags and rushes; wainscot chairs, being all of wood, including backs and seats; and covered chairs, sometimes covered with leather and again with rich cloths, velvets, etc. Cane chairs were not introduced into the colonies till quite a late period.

The one piece of furniture that more than any other was a distinguishing mark of class was the bed, which graded from none at all in the cabin of the very poor to the great bed of state in the parlor of the very wealthy. There was, sometimes from poverty, sometimes from other causes, no bed in the house of a colonist, all sleeping on the floor, usually though, having placed on it deer, buffalo, or bear skins. Sometimes a pallet of bed-clothing was spread on the floor. In other homes there was but one bed for the father and mother, the rest of the family sleeping on the floor. Sometimes the bed was nothing more than a wooden box with bedding on it. The primitive fashion of sleeping on the floor might have occurred in any or all of the homes of the very early settlers and especially so when they lived in caves and wigwams and under trees, but it was not very long till beds were brought in from Europe or made in this country and there became a great variety in style and price.

The trundle-bed was used, being pushed under a high bedstead in the daytime. There were sometimes two standing and two trundle beds in one room. A common form of bed in the early times of the colonists was one that was built into an alcove or recess in a room, somewhat like a bench, with doors about it, which were kept closed to shut the bed off from view when not being used. Another form of bed was the slawbank. The slawbank was a frame with a cord bottom, fastened to the wall of the room on one side with hinges and on the other side having two legs to hold it up from the floor. When not in use this bed could be pulled up and hooked against the wall and there were closet-like doors to shut it in or curtains to drop down over it to hide it from view. The bed of all beds was the state-bed, the household idol, kept in the parlor, and not even shown to vulgar eyes and used only on very rare occasions. This was a great carved four-poster, very costly, with richly embroidered coverlets and hangings of brilliant hues.

There was no lack of bedding after the early struggles, as there were good feather beds with coverlets of all kinds, an abundance of linen sheets, and also flannel sheets were used, but cotton sheets were not plentiful. There were bolsters and pillows and coverings for them. "Such poor people in the colonies as had tastes too luxurious to enjoy a deerskin on the hearth were accustomed to fill their bed-sacks and pillows with fibrous mistletoe, the down of the cat-tail flag, or with feathers of pigeons slaughtered from the innumerable migrating flocks. The cotton from the milkweed, then called 'silk-grass,' was used for pillows and cushions. In the houses of the prosperous, good feather and even down beds were in use. The Pennsylvania German smothered and roasted himself between two of these even in summer nights and sometimes without sheets or pillows."[227]

The furniture of those early days was usually set up from the floor on legs, as, chests of drawers, dressing-cases, side-boards, and the like were often a foot off the floor, so that they could be thoroughly swept under. Cooking utensils, too, were often set on feet, such as pots, kettles, gridirons, skillets, and the other sorts, which was for the purpose of placing them above the coals and ashes of the open fireplace.