AMONG collectors in America there is an ever-increasing interest in “things American.” One of the most attractive fields in which one’s hobby may browse is that of old furniture. Nearly every one appreciates the early furniture of good design and cares to know something of its history. America, both in colonial times and in the period following the Declaration of Independence, produced pieces of many sorts. Some of it was excellent, most of it was good, and a little of it was wholly of an indifferent quality. As table-makers the early American craftsmen exhibited much skill, and such examples of their work as are to be met with cannot fail to attract the attention of the alert collector who, having a house of his own, knows that by some mysterious providence, no matter how small that house may be, there will always seem to be room in it and need in it for “just one more table,” if the table is a “find” and of interest as an American antique of genuine authenticity.

With tables, as well as with other pieces of furniture, the early American craftsmen who produced the finer examples did not allow themselves any decided departure from European models that were sufficiently numerous with the American furniture-makers by the close of the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the nineteenth. Naturally, much furniture from England came into the colonies throughout the period of settlement and development, followed by many pieces of French design and manufacture.

If we turn now to English reflections in American work we shall find comparisons of decided interest. There is often little or nothing to distinguish early American pieces from their English prototypes. However, there was no “slacking,” in quality of material, workmanship, of finish in American furniture. The colonial cabinet-makers were thorough and conscientious, although not always “artistic,” perhaps. Certainly these craftsmen had at their command the finest woods—maple, pine, walnut, birch, chestnut, and the ships brought in quantities of mahogany. Extant examples of this early craftsmanship show at once the intrinsic merit of stanch construction and virile line that makes them so much sought by collectors. Their sincerity of design, while not always accompanied by the refinements of striking grace, compels our attention and respect.

Previous to 1776 we must expect American native furniture to run parallel in style (with natural lagging tendencies, of course) to the English periods with which they were contemporary. In earliest colonial times, times when voyages were few and far between, large shipments of furniture were not to be considered. As the wealth of the individual colonists increased, luxuries came to hold a place in trade which they could not have held at an earlier day in the New World. With the advent, too, of colonial officials, fat of purse, sent over by the mother country, came articles to enhance as well as to continue their comfort. One could be more contented with an easy-chair than without, and little by little the rude bench furniture of the Pilgrims was locally developed (reverting to English patterns) into a more attractive and acceptable sort of furniture, or was augmented by importations. At the same time this increased demand for cabinet-making invited English craftsmen to seek their fortunes in the New World, and before long a very respectable home industry, both in the North and in the South, was making its influence felt.

Fortunately New England thrift (or perhaps it was conservatism) has preserved to us many pieces of this early American furniture, some of it dating back to the time of King James II. These New England Jacobean pieces follow simple lines in general, with here and there a piece of ornate type. In the reign of William and Mary and that of Anne a rapidly increasing number of English craftsmen migrated to the American Colonies, where they helped to perpetuate the styles of this period. It is not at all uncommon to meet with very fine examples of the Queen Anne period which were contemporaneously produced by American craftsmen; in fact, some of the New England cabinet-makers became so proficient that the products of their shops rivaled the output of British makers both in staunchness of construction and accuracy of contour. The well-proportioned cabriole legs of many pieces of this description extant—the generic term for furniture with a “knee,” derived from the French cabriole (goat-leap)—are as well designed as any of the examples then being produced in the mother country by the skilled English cabinet-makers. Naturally, the local colonial production of Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton styles was supported by the affluence to which the colonies attained. During the troubles of the Revolution the importation of mahogany by the colonies was diverted by Great Britain. Substitutes, for the time—and this began to mark a decline, with fluctuations in the materials used—had to be found, such as that of the sweetgum tree, Liquidambar Styraciflua, which in appearance and general character is very similar to mahogany, its distinguishing features being a slightly lighter color and grain.

The Dutch influence seems less to have entered the traditions of American furniture than that of England or of France. A fair amount of furniture was imported by the Dutch of New Amsterdam from Holland, and numerous authentic pieces of this Dutch furniture have come down to us; such, for instance, as the gate-leg table which is preserved in the Manor House at Croton-on-Hudson. But local cabinet-makers soon came to blend features of the English styles with those of the Dutch designers and finally purely English styles superseded the others.

Still another local division of colonial furniture was that introduced by those settlers known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. This type of “Dutch” must not be confounded with the Dutch of New Amsterdam. Coming to Pennsylvania, these immigrants brought with them their gaily painted peasant furniture, and in the early days of the colony they produced much of that sort for their own use. Hence their furniture cannot be said to have been a product designed for the market. Examples of it did not stray far from the locality of their production, save in those instances where the settlers emigrated to other parts of the country. Even then it appears to have exerted little or no influence outside Pennsylvania territory. Stiff, conventional flowers and fruits, birds, and decorative bands characterize the decorations. Pieces of this sort are still to be found in central and southeastern Pennsylvania, although the majority of such decorated wood antiques extant consist of bridal chests and small boxes.

In the North much of the early furniture, especially tables, was made of maple, pine and birch. Walnut, of course, was a great favorite, particularly with the earlier cabinet-makers of Pennsylvania, where superb slabs of beautiful black walnut were milled from the wonderful old trees, that so soon disappeared through this demand.

We must not be surprised to find so little early furniture of the South, for, despite the wealth and culture of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Maryland in colonial times, these Southern colonists were equally fashionable, and discarded the old for the new before the dawn of the nineteenth century, earlier than did the Northerners. A search of the southern states will scarcely yield one piece of Jacobean design. A hunt for original William-and-Mary will be equally fruitless. But in the style of Queen Anne, many excellent pieces will be found.

No story of American furniture, no matter how brief, can be written without mentioning the name of Duncan Phyfe, the New York cabinet-maker whose artistic products justly won him the sobriquet of “The American Sheraton.”

The period between 1795 and 1830 was marked by a persistent disinterest in all “things English,” and an ardent admiration for all “things French,” and this prejudice showed itself in the furniture. American cabinet-makers adapted these French designs according to their lights, and the result was not always unsuccessful. At the very end of its influence the work sank to a low level of artistic merit. Before that time it had known the apex of artistic line in the works of Phyfe, and if we are to judge American Empire, it were better to use the high standards set by his famous productions.

The tables of this period were usually made with square ends, the dining-tables being of the extension type having drop leaves and other leaves which could

be inserted on pedestal tables. At this time centre-tables came into vogue. These were ordinarily circular in shape and usually rested on ornate pedestals rising from a plinth supported by winged claw feet. Some of these tables were rectangular and some had double tops that folded out or could be turned up against the wall. The “sofa tables” of Phyfe’s design were oblong and had narrow drop leaves at both sides, the ends supported by the Lyre motif.