THE
CABINETMAKER
in Eighteenth-Century
Williamsburg
Giving Attention to the City’s chief Craftsmen in the Furniture Way; and to their Tools & Methods of Working.
As interpreted by JOHANNES HEUVEL
Master Cabinetmaker of Colonial Williamsburg
Williamsburg Craft Series
WILLIAMSBURG
Published by Colonial Williamsburg
MCMLXIX
The Cabinetmaker
in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg
The most historic piece of furniture inhistoric Williamsburg today is the throne-likeSpeaker’s Chair that stands in the farend of the House of Burgesses.
It is the very same chair that stood therewhen the portly Peyton Randolph was speaker of theHouse, and men like George Mason and Thomas Jeffersonand Patrick Henry raised aloft in that chamber the bannerof human liberty.
The same chair was probably there in 1759, too, when anewly elected burgess stood in his place to receive theplaudits of the House for his bravery in the French andIndian War. From it Speaker John Robinson came to theembarrassed young man’s rescue with the words: “Sit down,Mr. Washington; your modesty is equal to your valour,and that surpasses the power of any language I possess.”
Perhaps the Speaker’s Chair was among the “severalother things” that were saved—along with the colony’srecords and the portraits of the royal family—when flamesgutted the Capitol in 1747. If so, this chair may be the2very one installed when the Capitol building was firstcompleted in 1705. The Assembly had specified that theburgesses’ chamber should “be furnished with a largeArmed Chair for the Speaker to sit in, and a cushion stuftwith hair Suitable to it.”
Because of these historic associations the Speaker’s Chairmay seem a most fitting key to open this account of furnituremaking in colonial Williamsburg. Its true aptness to thetopic, however, lies in other circumstances: No one knowswho made the chair or where it was made or even when itwas made. And this kind of uncertainty pervades the entiresubject of cabinetmaking in eighteenth-century Virginia.
A sketch of the Speaker’s Chair, reproducedfull size from the 1777 journalof Ebenezer Hazard, a New Englandbookseller, historian, and surveyorgeneral of the Post Office.
To continue for a moment with the same example, theSpeaker’s Chair has the kind of scrolled arms frequentlyfound on William and Maryfurniture—a style that in 1700was passing out of fashion inEngland. Its simple cabriolelegs, with smooth knees andround feet, are typical of theearly Queen Anne style justthen coming into Englishfashion. The chair bears anoverall resemblance, furthermore,to the one that stoodin the House of Commons, asshown in contemporary prints. Finally, a great many itemsfor the construction and furnish