A "Vendue" or Country Auction in the Forties 
 
Quest 
 
 of f fie 
 
 Colonial 
 
 Rjpberfand 
 61iz,eJ3eth 
 Shackleion 
 
 Illustrated wftti ma-ny 
 photographs eoidwrth 
 
 decorations by 
 Heirry Fenn 
 
 New York 
 
 The Century Company 
 
 t921 
 
 4 
 
Copyright, 1907, by 
 THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 Copyright, 1906, by 
 THE CURTIS PUBLISHING Co. 
 
 4_r 
 
 Published October, iqffj 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 i MAKING A BEGINNING 3 
 
 ii FEELING OUR WAY 22 
 
 in THE FINDING OF OLD-TIME HOUSES .... 50 
 
 iv ALTERING THE HOUSE . . 67 
 
 v SOME EARLY ACQUISITIONS 81 
 
 vi THE COUNTRY AUCTION 100 
 
 vn ON RAMBLING DRIVING TRIPS 118 
 
 vin THE FIELD IN NEW YORK AND VICINITY . .141 
 ix THE FIELD IN PHILADELPHIA AND VICINITY . 167 
 
 x IN VIRGINIA AND DELAWARE 183 
 
 xi IN MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT . . . 203 
 
 xii THE EASTERN SHORE 227 
 
 xin BUYING APPARENT WRECKS 252 
 
 xiv REPAIRING AND POLISHING AT HOME . . . .277 
 
 xv IN THE DINING-ROOM 298 
 
 xvi IN THE ROOM OF THE GREAT FIREPLACE . .315 
 
 xvii THE ROOM IN YELLOW 333 
 
 xvni THE OUTFITTING OF A GUEST ROOM . . . .354 
 
 506* 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 xix MAKESHIFTS 370 
 
 xx FAKES : How TO RECOGNIZE AND AVOID THEM, 380 
 
 xxi FINDS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES 399 
 
 xxn THE END OF IT ALL 414 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 A " Vendue " or Country Auction in the Forties . . . Frontispiece 
 
 I PAGE 
 
 Candlesticks and Snuffers 5 
 
 Brass Andirons 16 
 
 Typical Legs and Feet of Important Styles . 26 
 
 Chippendale Chairs .29 
 
 Sheraton Chairs 33 
 
 Heppelwhite Chairs 38 
 
 Empire Chairs .....41 
 
 " The single street of the attenuated town " 53 
 
 " Facing out toward the ancient sign was a large, square-front, red- 
 brick building, stately but desolate. ... In the middle front, 
 beneath a charming beehive window, was a portico, stone- 
 floored, with four white columns rising to its little roof " . . 60 
 
 Heavily Underbraced Chairs, known to be late Seventeenth Century 69 
 
 The Hall . . . . . .''". . !/*; .*.-; v <;/ . :* ... 84 
 
 Old Mahogany Mirrors 87 
 
 Eighteenth Century " Bonnet-top " Clocks 94 
 
 Fire-screen, Mirror, and Chippendale Arm-chairs, sold at a country 
 
 auction 108 
 
 A Sheraton Desk, closed and open ; bought at a country auction for 
 eight dollars 113 
 
 Charming old chairs of simple design, none of which is of mahogany . 124 
 "The sight of chairs upon a porch." Banister-back and Windsors, 131 
 Tea and Antiques 146 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "That happy find a 'shabby-shop' !" 146 
 
 In the Village of the Furniture Census 155 
 
 Pennsylvania High-boy and Chest-on-chest 173 
 
 The Empire Sofa, with Winged-claw Feet, and carefully graduated 
 Acanthus Carvings. It is eight feet long and has unusually 
 graceful curves in the arms and back 180 
 
 Sheraton Sideboard, showing knife-boxes in place 189 
 
 Heppelwhite Furniture, from Virginia 197 
 
 Two Fine Chippendale Designs 206 
 
 Old New England Pieces, showing " Willow " Brasses and Carved 
 
 " Rays of the Sun " 217 
 
 Empire Sideboards, with Pillars and Claw Feet 231 
 
 Old Mahogany Tables 242 
 
 Heppelwhite Low-boy and a Heppelwhite Fireside Chair Restored 
 
 from Wreck 260 
 
 Windsor Chairs 267 
 
 Empire Book Case, Unrestored, of about 1810, with Rosette Brasses 
 
 and Claw Feet, and Glass in Latticed Design 282 
 
 A chair made nearly a hundred years ago 288 
 
 Old banister-back, 150 years old 288 
 
 Slat-back armchair of about 1780 288 
 
 "A little Lowestoft, a little Wedgwood, a little silver-lustre, a little 
 
 old Sevres " 301 
 
 The Dining-room ; with perfect example of round Sheraton dining- 
 
 table, and the Bethlehem corner-cupboard 309 
 
 "That room of spacious coziness, to which distinction is given by 
 
 the eight-foot fireplace " 320 
 
 A slant-top secretary of about 1 770. The claw-and-ball feet are short 
 
 and heavy, as they should be on so heavy a piece of furniture, 327 
 
 viii 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Room in Yellow 342 
 
 A Chair owned by Anthony Wayne : a Chippendale of faultless pro- 
 portions 346 
 
 An Open-work Brass Fender, Eighteenth Century ; found in South 
 
 Carolina, thrown away, under a porch 346 
 
 The Heppelwhite Four-poster, draped and stripped, showing how 
 
 the metal bed is used 357 
 
 " An old black-fronted Franklin, brass-banded and brass-knobbed," 363 
 A china cupboard, or "beaufait," built in the wainscoting . . . 367 
 The Aaron Burr room, showing old wall-paper at the right . . . 367 
 "When all was done, it looked like a simple fireplace " . . . . 374 
 Empire Console, bought in 1907, in New Jersey, for one dollar . 383 
 
 Low-boy of 1750, with Cabriole Legs and Original Brasses, from a 
 
 cellar in Connecticut 383 
 
 Little Tables of Ancient Make 393 
 
 An eighteenth-century, brick-paved, wainscoted hall, showing a 
 
 Windsor chair with a desk arm . 409 
 
 " Crosswise on the wagon was an ancient claw-foot sofa " ... 409 
 
The Quest of the Colonial 
 
The Quest of the Colonial 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MAKING A BEGINNING 
 
 WITH ourselves, the kettle began it! Or 
 was it the first pair of candlesticks ! Or 
 the Shaker chair ! Rather, it would seem, 
 on looking back upon the gradual inception of the 
 plan, that it was the combined influence of the chair 
 and the candlesticks and the kettle. 
 
 The kettle, a charming ebony-handled thing, squat, 
 round, of captivating curves, the body of it made in 
 two parts but with such skill that the brazed edge 
 almost defies detection and there is thus the air of 
 
 Is! 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 having been hammered out of a single sheet, came 
 ancestrally, having crossed the ocean many decades 
 ago. 
 
 The candlesticks caught the eye, one day, by a 
 felicitous chance, on the window-ledge of a shop 
 prosaically devoted to the buying and selling of 
 scrap metal. They are nine and a quarter inches 
 high and of excellent design. Indeed, after all 
 these following years of quest and success, they 
 stand honorably among our treasured acquisitions. 
 Very dirty they were, those brasses, in that old-metal 
 window, and the fragments of tallow dip candles 
 were green in their sockets. They were indubitably 
 old as well as graceful, and they were offered and 
 purchased at the price of twenty cents apiece. To 
 be sure, they needed burnishing, but that was but a 
 small matter. 
 
 The chair was an acquisition still more delightful 
 in the course of its coming. For there was a Shaker 
 settlement near the city where we used to live, and 
 it was a pleasure to visit there, so hospitable were 
 the kindly aged folk, and amid such an aroma of 
 sweetness did they lead their celibate lives. 
 
 We wondered at times, finding them so gently 
 cordial to us, when we knew that the cold text of 
 their religion taught them to be distrustful of people 
 
 [4] 
 
Candlesticks and Sniffers 
 
 i Brass candlesticks; Delaware. 2 Bought for ten cents; Sheffield plate. 3 Sheffield; 
 classic pillar. 4 Sheffield; rococo. 5 Sheffield pair; concave panels. 6 Brass; old French. 
 7 The first acquisition ; from junk-shop window. 8 Bedroom candlestick. 9 Old snuffers. 
 10 From old warship. 
 
MAKING A BEGINNING 
 
 of the outside world and to hold but necessary com- 
 munication with them, whether they hoped to draw 
 us in as proselytes for their community, so sorely in 
 need of younger blood; but if they ever cherished 
 the hope that we should find inward and spiritual 
 grace among them they assuredly gave no outward 
 and visible sign that such was their thought. They 
 were hospitable, in a simple, old-fashioned way, and 
 we were welcome to enter their doors, to walk through 
 their halls, with polished floors, covered with long 
 strips of rag carpeting, and with everywhere an odor 
 of herbs and of sanctity; we were welcome at their 
 meals of bread and butter, and fried chicken, and 
 jelly of apple and sauce of pear, when, in silence, 
 the men ate at a long table at one side of the great 
 dining-room and the women, as silent, at the other. 
 Back to back they sat, with the broad space between ; 
 and one standing in the middle would have seen, on 
 the one hand, a line of men's heads, bent over the ta- 
 ble, a row of blue coats, with tails carefully parted 
 on either side of the low-backed chairs, and, on the 
 other side, a row of little muslin caps, and plain 
 tippets and dresses of calico. 
 
 These people, self set apart from the world, 
 showed us the inside corners of their warm hearts; 
 and it seems, looking back upon it, as if the taste for 
 
 [7] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 the quaint and the old-fashioned, even then strong 
 within us, was strengthened by knowing these folk, 
 who seemed like veritable bits out of the past. They 
 themselves realized that there was something in ac- 
 cord between us, and one of the oldest of the Sisters 
 gave us her own particular chair which had been 
 made specially for her, in her youth, when she taught 
 sewing to the children whom they then had in their 
 school. 
 
 It is a slender, narrow rocker, with slim, high 
 back; impossible to rock, indeed, for the dear old 
 lady had found it liable to tip over backward, or to 
 threaten to tip, and so had had one of the Brothers 
 saw off the rockers short and fasten on the stubby 
 ends prohibitive bits of cork. The chair, charm- 
 ingly proportioned, with low-set arms, has nothing 
 about it that is elaborate; the code of Shakerism al- 
 lows nothing of display; but it is most carefully 
 made, is splint-bottomed, with a curious variety of 
 Roman-key design, and the ends of the arms and the 
 tops of the side pieces end in delicately ovaled 
 knobs. 
 
 The chair stands in a corner of our guest-room, 
 holding in kindly remembrance the kindly folk, hun- 
 dreds of miles from where we now are, by whom, 
 long ago, we were made welcome guests. 
 
 [8] 
 
MAKING A BEGINNING 
 
 And so, from the possession of these grew the idea 
 of outfitting our home with the charming and stately 
 furniture of the past, with the mahogany and the 
 walnut, the brass and the china, of the olden time. 
 Even with this beginning, the idea was slowly 
 adopted, with much of hesitating dubiety as to the 
 possibility of it all. For, until we had well begun, 
 the plan seemed so impractical, so impracticable ! 
 
 This sense of the ultimate futility of the attempt, 
 even after a few delightful acquisitions, was strong 
 within us because of our living in a city of the Mid- 
 dle West, where old-fashioned furniture is, necessa- 
 rily, far less common than in the Eastern States, but 
 even had we then lived in the East there would have 
 been little encouragement shown us. To see the 
 charming things of long ago is offered with generous 
 freedom, alike in the superb collections of public or- 
 ganizations and in the fine old Colonial mansions, in 
 various States, given into the charge of patriotic so- 
 cieties and filled by them with the furniture of the 
 past. But the line between seeing and acquiring is 
 clearly drawn. Those who show with opulent free- 
 dom will only suggest, for purchasing, to go directly 
 and prosaically to the shops where things with claim 
 to age are sold. 
 
 But it was no part of our scheme to obtain our 
 
 [9] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 treasure prosaically or from sources open to any de- 
 gree of doubt. From the very first we experienced, 
 with the joy of having, the concomitant joy of get- 
 ting. With our earliest acquisitions, the Shaker 
 chair, the candlesticks and the kettle, there was the 
 tang of some delightful association and the charm of 
 the personal touch, and we were resolved, having de- 
 lightfully begun, not to be content with methods 
 and results less interesting. 
 
 And hete, first, is the fact which, little appre- 
 ciated, lies at the bottom of it all. There is, as yet, 
 no essential scantiness of supply of the delightful 
 and desirable old! There is just enough of scanti- 
 ness to render the quest alluring. 
 
 And it would be strange if there were any prohibi- 
 tive scantiness. A century ago there were in exis- 
 tence millions of pieces of furniture of the shapes 
 that are now held in admiration. Things that are 
 now the possessions of a few were then the common 
 possession of all. In one single year, near the open- 
 ing of the century just past, the shop of a single 
 Connecticut maker turned out the movements for 
 three thousand tall clocks. Other things were made 
 in numbers proportionate tables, chairs, bureaus, 
 andirons, candlesticks. So many were the mechan- 
 ics engaged in the manufacture of furniture, that the 
 
 [10] 
 
MAKING A BEGINNING 
 
 trade came to be in some degree specialized, and 
 there were men engaged in nothing but the construc- 
 tion of Windsor chairs ! 
 
 All of these millions of articles were not de- 
 stroyed, all were not worn out and thrown away or 
 turned over to museums. An enormous total is still 
 in existence ; great numbers of pieces may be sought 
 out and secured by the collector of to-day. 
 
 Realizing this and how few realize it! it is but 
 a matter of learning where to seek with the greatest 
 prospect of finding. 
 
 Although it is in the East that far the greatest 
 number remain in existence, we found that in the 
 Middle West there came many a fine specimen by 
 ox-cart from Connecticut to the shores of Lake Erie ; 
 many were flat-boated down the Ohio in the early 
 days of settlement or trailed through Cumberland 
 Gap by the pioneers of Kentucky; and, farther 
 South, many a piece went westward from the Caro- 
 linas, or, entering the Mississippi, remained at some 
 point along the river's banks. Although the bulk 
 of furniture remained in Boston, New York, Phila- 
 delphia, in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, 
 or elsewhere near the coast, the early folk of Cleve- 
 land and Louisville and St. Louis, of Pittsburg, Cin- 
 cinnati and New Orleans, were not without old 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 treasures. In what was deemed the backwoods 
 there were houses of log or hewed timber in which 
 family silver alternated with gourds, and in which 
 fine mahogany stood on puncheon floors. And, in 
 the West as in the East, during the period that the 
 taste prevailed the taste which has so strongly re- 
 vivedadditional furniture was made, on the grace- 
 ful lines of the old, by local cabinet-makers. And 
 outside of the known lines of travel and of settle- 
 ment, many a piece of fine design has wandered er- 
 ratically to some most unexpected spot and is wait- 
 ing to be discovered and appropriated. 
 
 Theoretically, there is no reason, except the pow- 
 erful one that the old was all hand-made, why the 
 furniture of to-day is not fully as beautiful as that 
 of the past. But it is not, any more than the 
 churches of to-day equal the ancient cathedrals. 
 In such cases it is matter of fact, not of theory. The 
 graceful lines and proportions, in furniture, are 
 mainly of a bygone era, save in the cases of success- 
 ful imitation. And, in addition to the actual grace, 
 the actual beauty, there is the charm of association 
 with an interesting past. The tender grace of a day 
 that is dead lingers about the stately fireirons of the 
 time of Washington or the beautiful chair which was 
 used in a house of Revolutionary fame. The charm 
 once felt, it never disappears. 
 
MAKING A BEGINNING 
 
 There are so many directions in which one may 
 profitably go, in the search of the old, that it must 
 needs be matter for needful planning. By a judi- 
 cious distribution of vacation trips many a point can 
 be touched. By those of greater leisure there can be 
 any degree of expeditionary meanderings. Often a 
 business trip takes one to a place where a longed-for 
 treasure may be secured. 
 
 The quest will be likely to last over years. But 
 it is such an enjoyable quest, in its experiences as 
 well as in its rewards, that one does not wish it to be 
 shorter. Old-time acquisitions can never be very 
 greatly prized if, with a full pocketbook, a visit is 
 made to a dealer and instructions given to outfit the 
 house. It is the personal touch which comes from 
 the personal finding, it is the definite associa- 
 tion, it is the knowledge that one knows precisely 
 what, in each case, one is getting, it is the personal 
 adventure, and oftentimes the personal history, that 
 give value, in addition to the value the find has in- 
 trinsically. 
 
 With patience and attention, with watchfulness 
 and an ever-ready preparedness to take advantage 
 when opportunity offers, the search for the furni- 
 ture of our forefathers is as easy as it is full of de- 
 light and of surprises. "> 
 
 But, first, some misconceptions must be put away. 
 
 [13] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 In America no one, no matter how wealthy, can fill 
 his house with genuine pieces of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, for the museums and a few old families have 
 almost every piece. Few, no matter how wealthy, 
 can fill their houses with pieces of a period anterior 
 to the Revolution. And it is because of these facts, 
 which are well known, that the gathering of furni- 
 ture of the olden time is looked upon as an insuper- 
 able task. 
 
 Fortunately, it was not until more than a quarter 
 of a century after the close of the Revolution that 
 the commonizing change in the making of furniture 
 came. The triumph of the styles of Heppelwhite 
 and of Sheraton came late in the eighteenth century. 
 The triumphant beauty of the early Empire came, 
 as the name denotes, early in the nineteenth. 
 
 But, in spite of this, the term "Colonial" is at- 
 tached to all of the furniture of the early times and 
 the early shapes. It has come to be so generally em- 
 ployed, and is a term in itself so suggestive and so 
 sonorous, that it would be invidious indeed to strive 
 to limit its use with chilly literalness. 
 
 Nor must all of "Colonial furniture" needs be of 
 mahogany. There is no such narrowing limitation. 
 Mahogany is the most beautiful of all wood for this 
 purpose, yet many of the finest old shapes are of 
 
 [HI 
 
Brass Andirons 
 
 i Found under a porch in South Carolina. 2 Rights and lefts; made for the inn fireplace 
 in 1825 3 The oldest pair ; full of wasps when found. 4 The acorn-top andirons from blen- 
 nerhassett Island. 5 From near the Connecticut line. 6 From an old house in Tallahassee. 
 
MAKING A BEGINNING 
 
 walnut or hickory or cherry or oak or ash. The 
 greater part of the finest old French furniture, too, 
 was not of mahogany. 
 
 With the furniture of the past there should go the 
 brass and the iron, the silver and the pewter, of the 
 corresponding time. Certain prints and silver and 
 porcelain from the other side of the Atlantic, if they 
 harmonize in design and period, are acquisitions. In 
 short, in the gathering of "Colonial furniture," of 
 furniture of the past, think of no restriction but that 
 of unbeautiful shape, no limitation but that of unat- 
 tractiveness. One thing after another should be so 
 chosen as to be a lesson in good taste. 
 
 And so, with these preliminary suggestions as to 
 the limitations which broaden the possibilities of the 
 quest, we shall return to the narrative of our own 
 getting, as in no better way can we illustrate the 
 methods and the potentialities. 
 
 The love for the antique grows by what it feeds 
 on. Deep within our hearts lay that love, ready for 
 development and growth. 
 
 And Fate was very complaisant in those early 
 days of our gathering. It is likely enough that, had 
 there then been numerous disappointments, our ar- 
 dor would have been chilled. But, as encourage- 
 ment at the commencement, and marking the ever- 
 
 '[171 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 existent possibility of finding prizes in unexpected 
 places, we secured a distinguished pair of brass and- 
 irons at a place where it would have been deemed 
 absolutely impossible to get them. 
 
 That impracticable place was Blennerhassett Is- 
 land ! For almost every particle of the furnishings 
 of that stately mansion which made the island fa- 
 mous was lost in the fire and looting which followed 
 the failure of Burr to carve for himself, out of the 
 West, an empire that was to wax strong among the 
 nations of the earth. Now but the barest vestiges 
 of the foundations of the mansion are to be seen. 
 And as for the furniture and the smaller belongings 
 of the scholar and gentleman who cast in his fortune 
 with the would-be Napoleon, the island was long 
 ago swept clear of any trace of them. 
 
 And yet, when we went there, we found a treasure 
 out of the past ! And it was not something offered, 
 by an island resident, as having belonged to Blen- 
 nerhassett or as having been used by Burr. 
 
 There had been a heavy flood in the Ohio ; one of 
 those floods which come every dozen years or so, 
 when the stream swells to mighty volume and over- 
 flows vast stretches of land and sweeps away fences 
 and houses and barns. 
 
 In walking about the little island, with a man who 
 
 [18] 
 
MAKING A BEGINNING 
 
 had long lived there and who was well acquainted 
 with the outlines of the great, semi-circular house, 
 with the site of the old-time landing place, with the 
 curious local history, he remarked that Blennerhas- 
 sett had not chosen most wisely from the standpoint 
 of one who wished to use the island for residence 
 purposes only, because, rich as it is as farm land, and 
 superbly located as it is in the midst of the bending 
 stream, it becomes periodically untenable. 
 
 Then, thus reminded, he went on to tell how, 
 driven to the mainland by the last flood, he watched 
 the water's steady rise during the day, and next 
 morning, looking across at his submerged island from 
 his West Virginia refuge, he saw that a dwelling- 
 house had stranded there. In the course of the day 
 he was able, with a companion, to row over to it. 
 No one was within. But the furniture was in place, 
 just as the fleeing family had left it; and the two 
 men put into their boat this pair of acorn-top and- 
 irons, which they lifted from the hearth, and a little 
 round-topped hair trunk which was standing in a 
 corner. 
 
 Another morning came; but the river had risen 
 afresh in the night, and had picked up the stranded 
 house and carried it away. They opened the trunk, 
 but there was nothing in it to give the slightest hint 
 
 [19] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 as to where the house had floated from. It might 
 have floated a hundred miles or more. A mystery 
 it had come, and had but touched there for a few 
 hours on its way to the oblivion into which it disap- 
 peared. 
 
 The man, although impressed by the strangeness 
 of it all, clearly set no particular value on what he 
 had found; his "plunder," as he called it. He 
 showed the andirons, and we admired them. 
 
 "Should n't you like to trade those for a ham- 
 mock?' 
 
 It was certainly a curious thing for two travelers 
 to have, and, in truth, it was an odd chance that it 
 happened to be in our possession at the psychic mo- 
 ment. We had left it on the mainland while we 
 rowed over to the island, and it had seen a summer's 
 use. 
 
 The unexpectedness of a hammock appealed to 
 him. 
 
 "Yes; if I like the looks of it," he said. 
 
 He liked it, and the precious andirons became 
 ours. 
 
 Now, when one can go to the place where, a cen- 
 tury ago, every vestige of movable interest vanished, 
 and find the very floods work in his behalf to carry 
 to his feet a pair of brass andirons, with a strange 
 
 [20] 
 
MAKING A BEGINNING 
 
 association of romantic Blennerhassett and a haunt- 
 ing history full of possibilities for the andirons 
 are of a design such as those which came across the 
 mountains in the earliest days of Western settle- 
 ment, and the house which held them came floating 
 out of vagueness only to vanish into misty vague- 
 ness again anything is possible. 
 
 These andirons came shortly after the Shaker 
 chair, and had strong influence in confirming us in 
 the thought of realizing our dream of charming po- 
 tentialities. 
 
 Our Lares and Penates were to be of mahogany 
 and brass ! 
 
 [21] 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FEELING OUR WAY 
 
 VERY early in the quest of the old, one comes 
 to realize that there is often an important 
 difference between finding a prize and se- 
 curing it. Many of those who possess old furniture 
 have a high and just appreciation of it, and in such 
 cases the right-minded collector does not wish to get 
 it. But there are other owners, who neither prize a 
 thing themselves nor permit it to pass into other 
 hands. 
 
 In the garret of one of the oldest houses of the 
 Western Reserve we discovered an old grandfather's 
 clock. It had been made in Connecticut; it had 
 been carried to the shores of Lake Erie in those early 
 days when the wilderness was still unbroken, when 
 the pioneers took with them indispensable furniture, 
 household supplies, clothing, shoes for every mem- 
 
 [22] 
 
FEELING OUR WAY 
 
 her of the family for years to come and for children 
 still unborn. And here the clock was, after years of 
 usefulness, lying flat on its face on the floor. It had 
 lain there, said the owner, indifferently, for thirty 
 years, waiting to be repaired. He would neither re- 
 pair it nor set it up, nor would he let any clock-lover 
 obtain it. 
 
 And so, although there is somewhat of whimsical- 
 ity in feeling annoyance because a man does as he 
 pleases with his own, we none the less felt annoyed. 
 
 It was not long after this experience that we ob- 
 tained, from an old house on Long Island, the tall 
 grandfather's clock which we still possess. And our 
 difficulties with it have been full of amusing instruc- 
 tion for us. 
 
 The clock is of good shape and design, it is of 
 good height, full seven feet and five inches, and the 
 >p is of that charming "broken-arch" or "bonnet- 
 >p" design which first made its appearance in the 
 furniture of Queen Anne's time, and was not much 
 ised before 1730. 
 
 But this clock does not date back so far as that. 
 
 ie dial-plate is of white enamel, and this alone, to 
 begin with, would show that it was not made before 
 the latter part of the Revolution. Before that the 
 dials were of metal; of silver-plate or of brass. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 There are other indications which fix the date at not 
 long after 1790. 
 
 There is neither date nor the name of the maker, 
 but it is often surprising, in fixing the age of furni- 
 ture, how much can be determined from the style 
 and the ornamentation. 
 
 The design, on the upper part of the dial-face of 
 this clock, of an eagle, two American flags and two 
 shields, shows that it was not made before the eagle 
 became the national emblem. 
 
 And this design is amusingly worthy of examina- 
 tion as an example of bucolic heraldry. The shields 
 are held out on the ends of two sticks, giving the pre- 
 cise effect of spades. The flags are a trifle nonde- 
 script in character. The colors of flags and spades 
 are soft red and white and blue, softened still more 
 by age. But the eagle is brown a golden eagle 
 and with outstretched wings is perched, not on some 
 classic pedestal, but on the ridge of a barn! The 
 barn is tiny. It is scarcely half the size of the 
 eagle itself. But it is none the less, unmistakably, 
 a plain barn, such as the maker of the design must 
 often have seen large birds perched upon. The entire 
 effect, although it can scarcely be called artistic, is 
 very pleasing, and proves at least an independence 
 of thought on the part of the simple-hearted maker. 
 
 EH] 
 
Typical Legs and Feet of Important Styles 
 
 i A cabriole or bandy leg, with a web foot; Chippendale period. 2 A cabriole leg, with 
 claw-and-ball foot ; Chippendale. 3 The tapering inlaid leg used by Heppelwhite. 4 The 
 slender fluted or reeded leg typical of Sheraton. 5 The winged-claw foot typical of the 
 Empire period. 6 The snake-foot, with its swelling spread at the end ; made after 1740 
 
FEELING OUR WAY 
 
 The tall cased-in clock stands with a dignity and 
 simplicity of line that are very charming. And it 
 cost but twelve dollars, which is very little for an 
 old, brass-ornamented grandfather's clock. 
 
 But it has wooden works ! And among the mis- 
 takes which collectors just beginning are liable to 
 make, the getting of a clock with wooden works is 
 one. 
 
 Not but that wooden works have some degree 
 of special merit. They seem, indeed, to give an air 
 of greater simplicity and age. But, although this 
 effect is right enough as to simplicity, that of age is 
 quite factitious. As a matter of fact, all of the old- 
 est tall clocks have works of brass. The putting in of 
 works of wood came through an enforced simplicity 
 of life resulting from the Revolution. Economy of 
 price was suited to the hard and barren years of the 
 end of the century: 
 
 Clocks of this kind are to be prized, as they rep- 
 resent an unquestioned Americanism. Most of 
 them were made in Connecticut, a place noted for 
 the manufacture of other small, round, wooden 
 things besides cog-wheels of clocks, and the one we 
 have was doubtless carried thence across the Sound. 
 But their disadvantage lies in liability to get out of 
 order, and in the difficulty of getting them repaired. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 One is tempted to wish for the reincarnation of that 
 ancient clockmakers 5 guild, of nearly three hundred 
 years ago, whose members were authorized to seek 
 out and confiscate clocks, as the old charter naively 
 had it, "with bad and deceitful works." Ask a mod- 
 ern clockmaker to repair wooden works, and he will 
 shake his head, with a smile. "No one can do that 
 nowadays !" 
 
 Our tall clock stopped running, after a house mov- 
 ing, and nothing would coax it to go. It was ob- 
 durate. No one could be found who could over- 
 come its exasperating inertia. 
 
 Once in a while we tried to fix it ourselves, and a 
 kitchen table covered with wooden wheels that 
 looked like pie-crust markers became a familiar 
 sight. We vainly tried to decide upon the part that 
 failed. We vainly made easy the way of the possi- 
 ble transgressor with tallow or the prized panacea 
 of graphite. Vainly we tickled the escapement with 
 quill of oil. Long it stood, silent and lifeless, as if 
 worn out with keeping time. But at length we 
 heard of a queer mechanical genius who lived soli- 
 tary, on a solitary farm, some miles away. 
 
 No sooner heard of than we drove there with pen- 
 dulum, weights and works. We found him living in 
 the midst of a medley of mechanical contrivances. 
 
 [28] 
 
Arm-chair of early and rare 
 design 
 
 Chair with jar-shaped splat 
 and cabriole legs 
 
 Early type, wooden seat 
 
 4 
 Back with simple, fine lines 
 
 5 
 
 Jar-shaped splat, with urn ; 
 spade feet 
 
 6 
 
 A good, average example of 
 Chippendale 
 
 Chippendale Chairs 
 
FEELING OUR WAY 
 
 His water was pumped, his cattle were fed, his wag- 
 ons were hitched, his clothes were hung upon the 
 line, his doors were opened, his shingles were made, 
 his wood was sawed, by one or another of his queer 
 devices. A vastly interesting character, he; and if 
 the getting of wooden works in a clock could but as- 
 sure the resultant finding of such a human treasure, 
 then the getting of wooden works would be the thing 
 advisable. 
 
 To him the fixing of the wooden works was easy. 
 He delighted in doing what no one else could do. 
 And the old clock ticks in our hall, in solemn dig- 
 nity, as becomes the representative of exigent, inex- 
 orable, but gravely decorous Time. 
 
 No one can gather a collection without, in the be- 
 ginning, making mistakes. Now and then, as others 
 do, we picked up the wrong thing, and, finding it 
 out in the course of time, discarded it. It would 
 be difficult to name any line of acquisition in which 
 greater care is requisite. Not only is eternal vigi- 
 lance the price of having genuine specimens but it 
 must be a vigilance well informed. And even 
 though the pieces in a collection be genuine, there 
 must also be, to enjoy them to the full, some knowl- 
 edge of styles and names and makes. 
 
 There are no names in more common use, in de- 
 
 [3-1] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 scribing styles of furniture, than those of Chippen- 
 dale, Heppelwhite and Sheraton. To these might 
 be added numerous others, the most important being 
 Empire, Adam and Jacobean. 
 
 Chippendale was a cabinet-maker of the middle 
 of the eighteenth century. He published a book of 
 designs of furniture, and his name has come to stand 
 for the work of an entire school. There are few ar- 
 ticles of furniture on this side of the Atlantic that 
 were made in his own shop, but other workers copied 
 him closely, as he intended them to do. More than 
 four-score cabinet-makers of London are known to 
 have subscribed for his book, and workers in Amer- 
 ica also eagerly followed his style. 
 
 He was a man of forcefulness and originality. He 
 eschewed inlay and veneer and depended for his 
 effects on proportion, strength and craftsmanship. 
 The typical Chippendale chair, in particular, is al- 
 ways recognizable. It has a certain bow-shaped top, 
 and down the middle of the back runs a graceful per- 
 forated splat. 
 
 There is a wide variety of shape with Chippendale 
 furniture. That he expected. With the design for a 
 certain kind of a chair he would not only give dimen- 
 sions, and rules for putting together, but he would 
 show differences of possible detail, so that the cabi- 
 
 [32] 
 
With typical space above the 
 seat, below splat and 
 
 cross-bar 
 
 A back view, showing 
 structure 
 
 Sheraton Chairs 
 
 Typical rectangular back 
 Beautiful example. The three 
 feathers are used because 
 the Prince of Wales was 
 Regent when this chair was 
 made 
 
 With graceful, perforated 
 balusters. Cushion hides 
 
 space above seat 
 With wide space under cross- 
 bar 
 
FEELING OUR WAY 
 
 net-maker using his designs could present them all 
 for the choice of the customer for whom the work 
 was to be done. Different splats were shown, and 
 often a single cut would present one leg straight and 
 one leg cabriole, one-half of a chair with infoliated 
 carving, or shell ornament, or fretwork design, and 
 the other half without; so that one single cut might 
 stand for a dozen different chairs, making thus va- 
 riety in unity. 
 
 To some extent Chippendale adapted from exis- 
 tent shapes. And, oddly enough, not all the shapes 
 known as his are to be found in his published book. 
 
 He made no sideboards, as the term is nowadays 
 understood. His sideboards were but side-tables. The 
 sideboard with drawers came in later and may be 
 either Sheraton or Heppel white or Empire; al- 
 though it has come to be common, especially with 
 dealers, to use the term "Chippendale sideboard" on 
 account of the appeal of the name. 
 
 After some years of vogue, the Chippendale style 
 was displaced by others, but it has recently come into 
 its own again. 
 
 Heppelwhite was a London cabinet-maker who 
 came into prominence about the time of our Revo- 
 lution. His chairs were less strong than those~cTf 
 Chippendale, because of the construction of the 
 
 las] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 backs, which were always of the shape of heart or 
 shield or oval, and most of them delicately beauti- 
 ful. Fewer of these chairs are in existence, as they 
 did not wear well. 
 
 Sheraton, who rose to prominence a few years 
 later in the century than Heppelwhite, never made 
 chairs with backs like those of either of his prede- 
 cessors. The distinguishing feature with his chairs 
 is that the back, except for the uprights on either 
 side, never comes to the main body of the chair; 
 there is never a splat reaching to the seat; and al- 
 ways there is a connecting piece, or cross-rail, run- 
 ning horizontally from upright to upright, just 
 above the level of the seat. His backs, in general 
 effect, are square or rectangular. 
 
 Many of the Chippendale chairs have straight legs 
 and many have cabriole legs. Neither the Shera- 
 ton nor the Heppelwhite is ever cabriole. 
 
 Sheraton and Heppelwhite, although they dif- 
 fered so radically as to their chair backs, were 
 greatly alike in their methods, in spite of the fact 
 that they rather scorned each other. Their tables, 
 sofas and sideboards are often greatly similar, with 
 an airy lightness of effect, and with straight legs ta- 
 pering delicately downward. They never used the 
 claw-and-ball, or that kind, known as web-foot, 
 
 [36] 
 
Shield-shaped back 
 
 Arm-chair with oval back and 
 garland 
 
 Heppelwhite Chairs 
 
 Arm-chair with upholstered Shield-shaped back, no under- 
 back . bracing 
 
 Side chair with delicate oval A perfect type, with heart- 
 back shaped back 
 
FEELING OUR WAY 
 
 which may be described as a suggested claw. Chip- 
 pendale used not only the plain foot, usually very 
 solid and substantial, but often the web and the 
 claw-and-ball. 
 
 The typical Sheraton leg is round and delicately 
 reeded, or fluted as it is sometimes called; the typical 
 Heppel white leg is four-sided and never fluted; and 
 in this lies the most apparent point of differentia- 
 tion. 
 
 Both these men used various fine woods in beau- 
 tiful inlay-work and delicate marquetry. 
 
 The Heppelwhite furniture averages a somewhat 
 higher beauty than the Sheraton, and is particularly 
 noteworthy in chests of drawers and sideboards, 
 with curving fronts, swelling or serpentine, and in 
 perfect little card-tables, delicately inlaid, made to 
 stand, when not in use, half circularly against the 
 wall. 
 
 The name of Adam is less known, and this is largely 
 because the Adams (there were two of them) made 
 no furniture themselves, and did little besides mak- 
 ing designs for special rooms. They flourished at 
 the close of the eighteenth and into the nineteenth 
 century, and, having closely studied classical and 
 Continental styles, much of their work was distin- 
 guished and beautiful. 
 
 [39] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 Something should be known of the stately seven- 
 teenth-century furniture, with its beauty of carving 
 and painting, its cane-work and wainscoting. It is 
 important to remember that in that century there 
 was no mahogany in furniture, as that wood did not 
 come into use until about the year 1700, and not 
 commonly until about 1725. The famous furniture 
 collections show notable seventeenth-century exam- 
 ples; there are some fine ones in Independence Hall, 
 there are some still in possession of private families, 
 and the collector may hope at any time to secure one 
 of the prizes. Furniture of the early half of that 
 century is known as Jacobean. 
 
 Empire is a famous classification in old furniture. 
 It denominates the style that arose in France from 
 the revolt that accompanied the revolution against 
 the old order of things in art as in government. It 
 attained its greatest vogue in the period of the First 
 Empire, and was deeply influenced by study of the 
 ancient classic forms, and still more by Napoleon's 
 campaign in Egypt, which had appealed powerfully 
 to the French imagination. Now it was that the 
 winged claw came in; now came the sphinx, the lion 
 and the griffin; now came a revival of the classical 
 acanthus; and now came a wealth of pineapple tops 
 and legs carved in twisted rope. There were splen- 
 
 [40] 
 
Arm-chair with fine 
 canework 
 
 Simple chair, showing char- 
 acteristic Empire curves 
 
 Empire Chairs 
 
 Side view of No. i, showing 
 characteristic classic curves 
 
 in legs and back 
 Side chair with a harp back ; 
 the front legs show a curve 
 
 Arm-chair; curves of the back 
 and arms show the period 
 
 French chair, showing the 
 " N " of Napoleon I 
 
FEELING OUR WAY 
 
 dor and beauty in the Empire style, but soon its very 
 opulence, its very enthusiasm, caused it to degener- 
 ate into the monumental, the extravagant and even 
 the grotesque. Its best years in France were from 
 1803 to 1807 showing the weakness of nomencla- 
 ture, for Napoleon was not Emperor until after 
 1803, and the most splendid time of his Empire was 
 after 1807. 
 
 The style came to America in the opening of the 
 century, and was adopted and followed with enthu- 
 siasm, but at the same time with a saving restraint, 
 although here, too, the style gradually degenerated. 
 
 From the first, there was one important difference 
 between the Empire furniture of France and the 
 Empire of America. In France, ormolu was freely 
 used, and over-decoration the sooner resulted. In 
 the United States ormolu was little used. With us 
 the same ornaments were used as by the French, but 
 where the French made them of ormolu the Ameri- 
 cans carved them out of the wood. The influence 
 of ormolu, however, is seen in the brass-tipped feet 
 of a considerable number of Empire pieces of Amer- 
 ican make. 
 
 The taste for sideboards with drawers having rap- 
 idly extended in the quarter of a century following 
 their introduction, there were many made in Empire 
 
 (%*] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 style, and many are still obtainable. There were, 
 too, some splendid Empire sofas. On this side of 
 the Atlantic it is hard to find good Empire chairs. 
 
 These are the principal great styles in regard to 
 which the beginner should, from the first, have a 
 clear idea. 
 
 But he must also understand that not only is there 
 wide variety within each style, but that there are 
 many pieces of old furniture which so combine var- 
 ied styles, or are so different from any precise style, 
 as to make specific classification impossible. Often 
 one can only say, "an old chest of drawers," "a five- 
 slatted chair," "a slant-top secretary," "an eigh- 
 teenth-century sofa," "a snake-foot tea-table." At 
 least one hundred and forty cabinet-makers are 
 known to have subscribed for the book of designs 
 which, following the example of Chippendale, Sher- 
 aton issued, and among these there were many who, 
 instead of copying precisely, made variations to suit 
 their individual fancies. 
 
 There are, too, certain names of a different kind 
 of derivation and of narrower application. 
 
 Such, for example, is the Pembroke, the name ap- 
 plied to long and narrow tables, square-sided, with 
 ends either square or oval, and with drop-leaves at 
 the sides so long as to reach almost to the floor. 
 
 [44] 
 
FEELING OUR WAY 
 
 These came from the name of the eighteenth-century 
 Lady Pembroke who first ordered one made. 
 
 The name of Windsor, applied to the style of 
 chair which held wonderful popularity for a century, 
 arose, so says the charming old tale (for every tale is 
 charming that puts royalty in a cottage), from the 
 fact that George the First saw a chair of this design 
 in a humble cottage near Windsor, and was so im- 
 pressed by it that he had a number made for his own 
 use, thus giving the design an instant popularity. 
 
 Never did any chair attain a wider vogue. King 
 George chair though it was, Jefferson sat in one 
 when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, and 
 a greater George than the king of that name had a 
 chair of this pattern in his bedroom at Mount Ver- 
 non, and thirty on his piazza ! 
 
 The terms Dutch, French, Spanish, when used in 
 regard to furniture, are self-explanatory, and to 
 some degree useful in establishing the origin of the 
 forms ; but when one finds Spanish chairs commonly 
 made by English workmen, Dutch pieces made in 
 Scotland, French pieces made in Maryland, the 
 practical utility of the terms diminishes. For cen- 
 turies past, there has been a vast intercourse between 
 various nations and continents, and chairs and ideas 
 have alike been interchanged. 
 
 T45] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 A century ago the winged claw came from Egypt. 
 Long before that the claw-and-ball came from Hol- 
 land. But Holland had found it in China! 
 
 The claw-and-ball is one of the links uniting us to 
 the haunted and mysterious past of the human race. 
 For the ball, held in the clawed foot, is the egg 
 which is of such supreme importance in the mythol- 
 ogy of the world. What came to us from China, by 
 way of Holland, owed its inception to the same 
 deep-based belief that made the egg a part of the 
 monster Serpent Mound of Ohio. 
 
 Although the terms French, Dutch, Spanish, Ital- 
 ian will, for the reason pointed out, only serve to 
 embarrass the beginner, he will take a keen delight, 
 later, in widening his horizon by learning consider- 
 able in regard to them and in acquiring a know- 
 ledge of the great French styles that preceded the 
 Empire: the Louis Ouatorze, magnificent and im- 
 posing as befitted the reign; Louis Quinze, rich and 
 sumptuous but overdone, fancy run riot in wood; 
 Louis Seize, delicate and charming, seeming to tell 
 of the beauty and sparkle and wit of the ancien re- 
 gime. The term Boulle is applied to work rich in 
 tortoise-shell and inlay, with metal and thin brass, 
 and is the name of the seventeenth-century cabinet- 
 maker who perfected this kind of work. 
 
 [46] 
 
FEELING OUR WAY 
 
 And, after all these, the deluge of the machine- 
 made! "What a fall was there, my countrymen!" 
 
 The beginner, with a clear outline knowledge of 
 styles and periods, and having familiarized himself 
 with shapes from pictures such as here given, will be 
 prepared to avoid pitfalls such as would entrap the 
 uninformed. And he should, as opportunity offers, 
 study the old collections, such as are displayed at 
 Stenton in Philadelphia, at the Van Cortlandt man- 
 sion in New York, at the Essex Institute in Salem, 
 and Girard College, and the fine collection of chairs 
 at the Museum of the Arts of Decoration in Cooper 
 Union, and pieces of a century and more ago that re- 
 main in historical buildings such as Independence 
 Hall, Carpenters' Hall, Faneuil Hall, and the City 
 Hall of New York. 
 
 And then, prepared for the search of the old and 
 the beautiful, he should set forth with the idea that 
 it is possible to come upon a prize at the most unex- 
 pected time or place. Emerson once asked Thoreau 
 where he found so many Indian stones. "Every- 
 where!" responded Thoreau, stooping as he spoke 
 and picking up a beautiful spear-head. Thus it is 
 with old furniture. The possibilities lie in myriad 
 places. He that seeks is sure to find. 
 
 Driving, one day, through a district that was new 
 
 ['47] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 to us, we came to a lonely cross-roads, where stood 
 a deserted house, dilapidated, ancient, shingled to 
 the ground. The yard was overgrown with mighty 
 weeds. But the real collector never ignores a dilap- 
 idated and deserted old house. 
 
 The floors were falling in, the roof was half gone, 
 there was not an article of furniture in the rooms on 
 the ground floor or the second floor, or in that place 
 where furniture is so frequently found, the attic. 
 
 But the stars in their courses fight for old furni- 
 ture. In leaving, a sort of lean-to, off the kitchen, 
 was looked into, and in that lean-to, with the roof 
 partly fallen down over it, was a good-looking, old- 
 fashioned corner-cupboard, which needed only slight 
 repairs to put it into presentable condition. The 
 house was a tenant house and the last tenant had 
 moved away some years before, taking all his belong- 
 ings with him. "Something there, did you say? It 's 
 just a bit he did n't care to carry off, then." 
 
 Which illustrates the point, so often tending to 
 the good of the collector, that all the world does not 
 have the same taste as himself. Many are the 
 persons, rich and poor, who care nothing for grace- 
 ful old furniture and the serene touch of age. It is 
 fortunate that it is so, for if all the world wished for 
 these things there would soon be none left to seek for. 
 
 [48] 
 
FEELING OUR WAY 
 
 "Old friends, old times, old manners, old books, 
 old wine," were what Hardcastle loved. And many 
 will add to these old furniture. For the old times 
 and the old manners come dreamily back amid the 
 fine old shapes of the past. No old book is so fas- 
 cinating as when read from the depths of an ancient 
 fireside settle. Nothing tastes so good as when 
 served on old mahogany. And it is charming to see 
 old friends seated in one's old chairs or circled about 
 a splendid table of the past. 
 
 f49] 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE FINDING OF OLD-TIME HOUSES 
 
 HOW pleasurably the discovery of the "Old 
 Stone House," as we always called it, 
 comes back to us! We came across it 
 shortly after having realized that we should like to 
 live in an old-time house that would be in harmony 
 with old-time furniture. 
 
 The house stood upon a hillside, in the midst of a 
 grove of old apple trees, and was but half an hour 
 by railroad from the Western city which was at that 
 time our home. We were passing, on the highroad; 
 and the captivating site and the prepossessing pro- 
 portions and an air such as appertains to the charm- 
 ing stone cottages which one sees by the roadside in 
 England or Scotland, irresistibly attracted us. We 
 mounted the stone steps that led up from the road, 
 so that we might see if the unoccupied aspect were 
 but an accidental simulation. The house was as 
 
 [50] 
 
THE FINDING OF OLD-TIME HOUSES 
 
 empty as it looked, and so, that very afternoon, that 
 very hour, we sought out the owner and learned up- 
 on what terms it might be had. 
 
 With the coming of the spring we were living 
 there ! And in that living we tasted a new savor in 
 life. 
 
 An old house is not, indeed, an indispensable ad- 
 junct for the lover of the old. Furniture of old de- 
 sign has charm even in a modern house or in a city 
 apartment. But it is a source of additional gratifi- 
 cation to house one's ancient things in a building that 
 is also associated with the past. 
 
 That little house of stone which was our initial 
 triumph residential, was such an individual house! 
 Old it was, for that part of the country, dating back 
 as it did to the early part of the century just past. 
 What is old or ancient in the Middle West is not so 
 ancient in New York, and what is ancient in New 
 York is not ancient in England, and what is ancient 
 in England would be deemed youthful in Rome. 
 
 This house possessed the charm of personal touch 
 and of personal achievement, although not in any 
 sense of distinguished history. It had been built in 
 spite of daunting obstacles, and about the building 
 of it there was a pretty tale of marital devotion. 
 
 It was of the sandstone of the neighborhood; 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 heavy-caved it was, and the front windows looked 
 out over a river valley and those at either end into 
 apple trees and up and down a sweeping hill and val- 
 ley view. 
 
 Half a dozen veritable ghost stories, too, had 
 clustered about it. One ghost dug in the cellar for 
 a pot of gold; another dragged a chain across the 
 roof; and there were several more. We heard, one 
 midnight (yes, literally at midnight!), the ghost 
 delving with a mattock in the cellar; we heard the 
 rattled chain; and we understood how it was that a 
 deep-seated dread had gradually grown, and why 
 there were some rooms in the house into which resi- 
 dents of the vicinity would on no account enter. 
 
 We had the fascinating experience of laying a 
 few of the ghosts by determining the source of the 
 sounds, and as to one closed room, without door or 
 window, which had been closed in, by the original 
 builder, under the long eaves, as a matter of con- 
 venience, and about which a tale of ghostliness had 
 grown, we settled the tradition by opening the room 
 to household use and finding that squirrels had been 
 holding ghost carnival there with nuts. 
 
 It is pleasant to look back through the years, at 
 that stone house on the hillside, with the apple trees 
 all about it and the spring of water in the cellar. It 
 
 [52] 
 
"The single street of the attenuated town.' 
 
THE FINDING OF OLD-TIME HOUSES 
 
 is altered now, in itself and its surroundings, but we 
 speak of it here, as it was the natural outcome of the 
 gathering of old furniture, and points out a kind of 
 possibility open to the collector who has love and 
 faith. 
 
 We smile, too, in retrospect, when we remember 
 that we really had quite a reputation, then, as the 
 possessors of Colonial furniture, in spite of what we 
 now know to be the fact, that our pieces were at that 
 time meagre and few. 
 
 A spinning-wheel, for example, ought not really 
 to stand for very much, even though charmingly 
 made, and even though accompanied, as ours was, 
 with a greater wheel for the making of yarn, for 
 such pieces, even though of history, are not for use, 
 nowadays, nor are they precisely ornamental, except 
 in some corner of a large house, where they can with 
 propriety and effectiveness be placed. Yet those 
 wheels did much to give us a status ; and there were 
 in addition the Blennerhassett andirons, an old chest 
 of drawers, some china and candlesticks, the brass 
 teakettle, and some other articles. Perhaps we had, 
 in some quarters, a rather higher reputation then, as 
 collectors, than we even now deserve; all of which 
 but tends to amuse one as to the opinions of the 
 world. 
 
 [55] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 We began to realize that we could not remain 
 there forever, that our gathering of furniture must 
 be for some Castle in Spain, still to be acquired; and 
 for a few years there was an interregnum of living 
 in the larger cities of the East. But whether in a 
 house in Philadelphia or an apartment in New 
 York, the search for furniture was never forgotten. 
 On the contrary, we were finding new and wider op- 
 portunities and it was a period of interesting acqui- 
 sition. 
 
 The progress of our quest, and the pleasures which 
 such a quest may give, were marked at this time by a 
 dinner which it was now possible to furnish forth in 
 Colonial form. 
 
 The soup was served from a huge and aged blue 
 tureen and each of our friends had an old blue bowl. 
 A pewter platter, mighty in diameter, held a turkey 
 which, in accordance with old-time formula, had 
 been fed on beech nuts. A Virginia ham, a verita- 
 ble Smithfield, boiled in cider and baked with cloves, 
 was also enthroned in blue, and corn-pone and 
 Maryland beaten biscuit added their effect. An an- 
 cient tall tankard of pewter held cider, and a pewter 
 mug was at the side of each plate. Each of the enor- 
 mous dinner plates was old and blue. The salts 
 were three-legged and of the past. The cups were 
 
 [56] 
 
THE FINDING OF OLD-TIME HOUSES 
 
 of varying degrees of interest. One had belonged to 
 that Major Tallmadge whose prompt action in the 
 Andre case, in defiance of the hesitating demur of 
 his superior officer, was of such vital importance to 
 the Republic, and it came to us through a lineal de- 
 scendant. Another, from a friend in Concord, had 
 been part of a set owned by that Major Butt rick at 
 whose command was fired the shot heard round the 
 world. One was from an old family of Tallahas- 
 see, one came from England, another from Scotland. 
 Six of the spoons were of the "rat-tail" variety; 
 three, of Austrian make, had been given us by a 
 friend whose family had brought them from that 
 country many years ago, and the other three, a pre- 
 cise match, were found in Venice, a city which was 
 long held by Austria. The tablecloth was of linen 
 spun and woven four generations back, and the 
 liqueur glasses were all old ones, of varying shapes, 
 picked up, each in a different city of the old world, 
 as Tours, Padua, Basle, Milan. The table was an 
 old Sheraton, of mahogany, and the room was 
 lighted with candles; each candlestick having a his- 
 tory or an association with some interesting locality. 
 At length, while we were still city dwellers, we 
 discovered the house which was to be a further re- 
 alization of alluring possibilities. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 Toward the close of a day in early spring we en- 
 tered an old-time town, less than fifty miles from 
 New York City. We were visiting friends, who 
 lived in a house that stood before the Revolution, 
 and after dinner we strolled down the single street 
 of the attenuated town, a street shaded by beautiful 
 trees and with close-by hills looking sleepily down 
 upon it. 
 
 And at the end of the village stood an ancient 
 quadrupedal sign, placed high upon its pedestal of 
 granite, in the midst of a tiny triangular green. And 
 facing out toward the ancient sign was a large, 
 square-front, red-brick building, stately but desolate, 
 maple-shaded, and with a monster trumpet vine 
 clinging to its front. 
 
 At once it fascinated us. In the middle front, 
 beneath a charming beehive window, was a portico, 
 stone-floored, with four white columns rising to its 
 little roof and with an iron railing bending down at 
 either side of the generous stone steps and termina- 
 ting at the bottom in clustered bars surmounted by a 
 round brass knob at either side. 
 
 Solid shutters shut in the windows; yet not for- 
 biddingly only with a sort of austere reserve. 
 And we peered into the hall through the narrow win- 
 dows at either side of the door, and gained an im- 
 pression of spaciousness and freedom. 
 
 [58] 
 
THE FINDING OF OLD-TIME HOUSES 
 
 The owner crossed the street from his house, see- 
 ing that a neighbor with visitors was looking at the 
 once-while inn. "Should you like to look through 
 it?" he said. 
 
 "Yes, indeed; we are interested in buildings with 
 old fireplaces." 
 
 The owner smiled. "There are sixteen of them, 
 counting fireplaces and Franklins !" 
 
 We entered through the heavy-paneled door. We 
 walked through the spacious hall, eleven feet wide 
 and thirty-seven feet long. We looked at the arching 
 in the centre with its supports of fluted pilasters. 
 
 It was a case of love at first sight. We opened 
 room after room. We handled brass knobs. We 
 fumbled latches. We counted the fireplaces. We 
 mounted to the outlook, in the centre of the roof, 
 and looked at the hills and the sweeping stretches of 
 woods and pasture-land. We went down into the 
 great cellars, ranging beneath the entire house. We 
 stood behind the bar in the taproom. We peered 
 into the mud-turtle roof of the old brick oven. We 
 peered behind the fireboard of the largest of the fire- 
 places. And before long we were able to make the 
 building our home. 
 
 A staidly restful village, this, out of our Ameri- 
 can past. It was prosperous and busy, back in 
 stage-coach days, but it* has shed the raspy burr of 
 
 [61] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 business and only the sweet kernel of repose re- 
 mains. The atmosphere of a serene and mellow 
 past enfolds it, and the old-time inn shares to the 
 full the charm of mellowness and serenity. This 
 building was not constructed until after the Revolu- 
 tion, but Washington himself often rode past where 
 it stands and once he camped on the low-sweeping 
 ridge over which the morning sun looks in at our 
 front windows. The entire vicinity is rich in mem- 
 ories of the brave and stately American officers and 
 of their proud, peruked and periwigged allies of 
 France. 
 
 So much for the setting. And, for the house it- 
 self, it is associated with many a famous man of the 
 past, with Aaron Burr, and Martin Van Buren, and 
 Horace Greeley, and Washington Irving, and Gou- 
 verneur Morris, and many another of national or lo- 
 cal fame. 
 
 The stately old Georgian house was bare of fur- 
 niture ; but its rooms were of the kind that seem half 
 furnished even when empty, so perfect in proportion 
 they are and of such dignified fineness of line. And 
 in the rehabilitation, one could not but have the 
 pleasurable feeling as of restoring to the building 
 its own, of placing old furniture in rooms that had 
 been made for it. 
 
 [62] 
 
THE FINDING OF OLD-TIME HOUSES 
 
 With a garden, and flowers, and an orchard of 
 two-score trees, we could feel that we had delight- 
 fully gone back to the land as well as gone back into 
 the delicate atmosphere of the past. 
 
 Exceptional, all this? No. Others have done 
 similarly. Almost any one can do similarly if he so 
 wishes. And, in regions where there is nothing of 
 old-fashioned architecture, houses may be built like 
 those of the past. A group of lovers of the old in 
 one of the cities of the West recently bought a near- 
 by village, every house in it, and all the land, and 
 then remodeled the houses with great effectiveness 
 after old designs and are allowing no new houses to 
 be built except of the same general style. 
 
 But in many a section no altering, no copying is 
 needed. At almost any place within from twenty- 
 five to fifty miles of New York, Boston, Philadel- 
 phia or numerous other cities often at still nearer 
 points you may be sure of finding an empty old- 
 time house. 
 
 If such a house be desired for use in summer only, 
 or if nearness to. a city be not essential, the field is 
 vastly wider. In the Berkshires, sought out though 
 they are by thousands as a place of recreation, there 
 are scores of deserted houses open to the storms of 
 winter and the sun of summer. We counted over 
 
 [63] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 thirty in a single day's drive in the Farmington 
 valley. 
 
 But it is the possibility of finding old-time houses 
 within easy reach of great cities that is most unex- 
 pected and captivating. 
 
 Not that they give every indication of being ready 
 for delightful occupancy. On the contrary, they 
 are apt to give a first impression of being highly un- 
 desirable wrecks ; as being, for one reason or another, 
 impossible; and they are liable to be weather-beaten 
 and in need of paint and their surroundings to be 
 overgrown with weeds. It is with old houses as it 
 is with old furniture : the eye of faith is necessary. 
 
 Why, some time after our happy discovery of it, 
 and before we knew that we should be able to 
 live here ourselves, we told of it to two friends who 
 had confided to us their longing to find some old 
 place in the country not too far away from New 
 York. They came here ; they looked the house over ; 
 but they had not the eye of faith, and they decided 
 that it would not do. "Why, the walls of the hall 
 are blue and the woodwork is red!" they exclaimed 
 in horror ! 
 
 The charge was true enough. The evidence of eye- 
 sight was incontrovertible. But how long should it 
 have taken them to change the two offending colors'? 
 
 [64] 
 
THE FINDING OF OLD-TIME HOUSES 
 
 Those friends have been here, since and noted, 
 with a puzzled surprise, that the hall is white and 
 buff, as befits a Colonial hall and as this one was 
 originally. 
 
 It was with pleasurable zeal that we began to 
 settle ourselves in the once-while inn, with its an- 
 cient sign-post, so picturesquely placed, and its mon- 
 ster lilac bushes. And an interesting coincidental 
 touch is that Shakespeare uses the name, saying that 
 "in the suburbs," at an inn of this very name, "it is 
 best to lodge." 
 
 One evening, recently, there was seated with us 
 a fine old lady, whose memory ran far back into the 
 past. She spoke of tales that were told when she was 
 young, and of her own far-away girlhood here; she 
 told of men and women of a time that is past and of 
 how, at balls at this inn, guests came from many 
 miles away to dance till dawn, and of nights upon 
 which, men said, there was high play here and great 
 sums lost or won. And then she told of how, in this 
 very room, she had once sat close to Washington 
 Irving, fine gentleman of the old school that he was, 
 and of how he looked and acted and spoke. "Mr. 
 Irving was not precisely what one would call a 
 handsome man," said the old lady softly, "but one 
 could not miss seeing that he was a distinguished 
 
 [65] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 one." And she told with awe, too, of how he briefly 
 referred to his late friend, Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 And the old clock ticked in the hall, and the leap- 
 ing fire glimmered in the score of reflections in the 
 room, and outside, in the darkness, rows of reflec- 
 tions of candles were shining, as if to light all of us 
 back into the glamour and the mystery of the past. 
 
 rrf r ^^T? T I r?7?= ^ 
 
 [66]' 
 
IIIIUMIIIIIIMIIIIHI|lllllllirBM Him 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ALTERING THE HOUSE 
 
 AD so, with the old white-porticoed maple- 
 shaded house in our possession, it was to be 
 a pleasant task to place properly within it 
 the old furniture that we had, and then to look about 
 for enough more to make the house complete. And 
 the great halls and the lofty rooms, corniced with 
 simple elaborateness, were a charming incentive. 
 
 "Old houses mended, cost little less than new be- 
 fore they're ended!" cried the cynical Colley Cib- 
 ber; but assuredly that was very far from being the 
 case in the rehabilitation of the once-while inn. For 
 although the building, naturally enough, had some- 
 what of a dilapidated appearance when we first saw 
 it, it was firm and strong in essentials. The great, 
 thick walls were good, and the roof was good, and 
 the flooring was good, and the ceilings in every room 
 
 [67] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 but one were good. With such excellent points in 
 our favor we could afford to smile at Gibber's cyni- 
 cism; although perhaps a complete restoration, out- 
 side and in, including eaves and waxed floors and 
 the addition of porcelain tubs and various conveni- 
 ent sundries not absolutely essential, would make 
 Gibber sager than he seems. 
 
 The red and the azure-blue of the halls, from top 
 to bottom of the house, a sort of acreage of space 
 when we came to look at it, was among the things 
 imperatively demanding attention. But a man, 
 working for a couple of days, sandpapered away the 
 offending colors, with only the accompaniment of 
 clouds of dust, and then the white for the woodwork 
 and the soft buff for the walls were quickly put in 
 place; the walls being treated in tempera that is, 
 the color being applied with size instead of oil. 
 
 The old kitchen of the inn was a great room, 
 twenty-six feet by sixteen, occupying the ground 
 floor of an extension at the rear, opening from the 
 end of the main hall. At the farther end of this 
 room was a huge brick fireplace, whose structure ex- 
 tended from ceiling to floor, the opening in the brick 
 being of the capacious width of eight feet, a height 
 of six feet, and a depth of three. At the side was the 
 ancient oven, built into the depth of the chimney. 
 
 [68] 
 
n en 
 
 i 
 
ALTERING THE HOUSE 
 
 There were wooden cupboards along two of the 
 walls, there was a decrepit sink, and the fireplace it- 
 self was bricked in at either end, besides holding in 
 its middle an utterly dilapidated range. 
 
 But in spite of the discouragements in aspect, the 
 lines were there, and the fireplace was there, and the 
 oak floor was there, and therefore the possibilities 
 were there. 
 
 And, first, it was a sin against opportunity to use 
 such a room for a kitchen. Its shape, and the hos- 
 pitably capacious fireplace, and the pleasant loca- 
 tion at the end of the hall, and the pleasing view 
 toward the hills, and the fact that this comfortable 
 room had a lower ceiling than any of the principal 
 rooms of the house, all combined to mark it out as a 
 sitting-room, a working-room. 
 
 He who would successfully adopt an old house 
 must approach it with openness of mind and a readi- 
 ness to metamorphose, and one of our first cares was 
 to make this room what it was so closely fitted fon 
 
 Nor was it a difficult task. Like most of the em- 
 inently fit things to be done about a house, it was 
 easily done. 
 
 The wooden cupboards along the walls, snuffy 
 and of no design, were removed, as was also the sink. 
 A pickaxe cleared away, in an hour, the broken old 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 range and the brick at the fireplace ends. The 
 hearth, of brick, was good and sound, and in front 
 of this, before the oak flooring began, was a surface 
 of brick, two feet wide, supported upon an arch in 
 the cellar. 
 
 The brick of this two-foot section had woefully 
 sunk, and a workman who was to repair it sent word 
 that he could not come. It was a case of immediate 
 need; and again, like many another case, presented 
 not nearly so formidable a difficulty as it at first sight 
 appeared to do. For, after all, "another man may 
 do what has by man been done !" So, in the even- 
 ing, with the butcher knife the sunken brick were 
 lifted out, disclosing the bed of sand on which all 
 old hearths are laid. The gutter by the roadside 
 was full of fine sand, and some fifteen bucketfuls 
 raised the bed to its proper level. The bricks were 
 then relaid, and sand and water were used to fill up 
 the crevices as the amateur worker had seen them 
 used in the laying of brick sidewalks when he was a 
 boy; and in less than two hours what had threatened 
 to be a formidable taskVas entirely completed. 
 
 The walls of the old room had had many a coat of 
 whitewash in the years that had gone. Scaly and 
 yellow and blistered they were; but a man with a 
 hoe soon peeled them down to the original surface. 
 
 [72] 
 
ALTERING THE HOUSE 
 
 Friendly discouragers told us that paper could 
 never be made to stick on such a wall ; but there is a 
 way to make it stick. The paperhanger first put on 
 vinegar to kill the action of the lime, then glue; 
 then, at the end of a day's work in another room, he 
 took what paste he had left and a pound of glue, and 
 brushed over the ceiling and walls with this stick- 
 iest of mixtures. Then, indeed, the wallpaper 
 stuck ! 
 
 Low shelves for books were now placed against 
 the walls, for the greater part of three sides of the 
 room, and then all was ready for the furniture. 
 "There was in the rear of the house," once wrote 
 Hawthorne of another charming old building, "the 
 most delightful little nook that ever afforded snug 
 seclusion." And, somehow, we now had such a 
 nook, except that it was not precisely what one 
 would term little. But it was none the less snug, 
 with its three windows, and the cavernous fireplace 
 in which the flames would leap and roar. 
 
 But, having metamorphosed the kitchen into a sit- 
 ting-room, it was necessary to transform some other 
 room into a kitchen. However, there was a room 
 all ready to our hand the taproom ! For in an inn ' 
 that is no longer to be an inn, nothing so lags super- 
 fluous as the taproom. This one was conveniently 
 
 [73] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 situated for the new service to which we destined it. 
 It was a matter of putting the wooden bar down in 
 the cellar, of altering bottle cupboards into dish cup- 
 boards, of transposing some shelving into a side- 
 table ; and the thing was done. 
 
 In this room stood one of the ancient Franklins; 
 open-front arrangements of iron with gracefully 
 curving jambs, half stove and half fireplace, of a 
 good deal of dignity in appearance, brass orna- 
 mented and with bands of brass; the fire to burn on 
 a flat open hearth, with the use of andirons; and 
 such things were eminently fitting in a house of this 
 sort because of their really having been the inception 
 of the famous Colonial personage whose name still 
 clings to them : the many-sided genius who, not con- 
 tent with fetching fire from the sky, wanted to show 
 people how to use fire in their own houses. 
 
 This particular Franklin, however, had to be 
 taken out, as it was not fitted for kitchen use. It 
 was then a simple matter to have the wall bricked 
 up where it had stood. Then a modern cooking 
 range was set up (for the love of the old does not 
 properly or advantageously carry with it a love for 
 the defects of the old) ; and there was our kitchen, 
 with a door into the broad hall directly across from 
 the dining-room. 
 
ALTERING THE HOUSE 
 
 The double parlors of the inn, one of which we 
 made our dining-room, possessed fireplaces which 
 had been bricked up. This bricking up of old fire- 
 places is often done and looks formidably final, but 
 it was the task of less than half an hour to have the 
 brick torn out and ready for removal. Finely pro- 
 portioned fireplaces were revealed; but alas! there 
 were none of the treasures which we had fancied 
 might be there. In many an old house there are the 
 fine andirons, or cranes, or perhaps even a fender, of 
 iron or the now precious brass, hidden away and for- 
 gotten behind the boards or brick with which the 
 fronts of ancient fireplaces are closed. In this en- 
 tire inn, however, with its wealth of fireplaces, we 
 found but one pair of andirons thus forgotten but 
 it was a pleasure to find those ! 
 
 Putting the rest of the house in a state of prepara- 
 tion for furniture was now, in the main, a matter of 
 no lengthy detail. 
 
 A hole in the wall between the once-while kitchen 
 and the dining-room, for convenience in serving, was 
 no longer of use, and it was bricked in and papered. 
 Every Franklin in the house was painted black. 
 Here and there was a stovepipe hole through the 
 ceiling, and every such mar was repaired. 
 
 Wallpaper had to be chosen for the various rooms, 
 
 [75] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 and this was a matter requiring time and care, to se- 
 cure papers which should accentuate the old-fash- 
 ioned period, harmonize with furniture and pictures, 
 and be beautiful. In a general way, our choice fell 
 upon greens and yellows, of which, in these days, it 
 is possible to secure specially effective designs. 
 
 Some of the doors were without their original 
 brass knobs; and in those cases new knobs were put 
 on new old knobs, that is, as we possessed a con- 
 siderable number of old ones, picked up, from time 
 to time, in anticipation of need, at junk shops or 
 village carpenter shops, and even two pair that we 
 found on a street stand in an out-of-the-way corner 
 of Naples. It is well to cultivate the habit of gath- 
 ering such things the small change of furniture, so 
 to speak. 
 
 The front door was without its original knob, and 
 had an ugly one of white crockery. There was a 
 similar one for the bell wire. Fortunately, in our 
 possession was a pair, found long before in Penn- 
 sylvania, of beautiful oval knobs, of brass, attract- 
 ively grooved in rays, and these were used. 
 
 The old knocker had long since disappeared, leav- 
 ing upon the door only the marring marks of bolt- 
 holes stuffed with putty. By sheer luck an ancient 
 knocker, found in Quebec and long treasured, was 
 
 [76] 
 
ALTERING THE HOUSE 
 
 not only precisely the style of knocker for the door 
 but its bolts so exactly fitted into the ancient holes 
 that it was not necessary to damage the door in the 
 slightest degree in putting it on. A number of old 
 residents have said, "Why, I see you have found the 
 original knocker!" 
 
 In addition to the brass knocker and brass knobs 
 thus placed beneath the white portico, there was a 
 brass knob on either side of the steps at the foot of 
 the rail. These last knobs, however, did not ap- 
 pear to be of that metal; for so long a period that 
 village memory ran not to the contrary they had 
 passed as knobs of iron painted green; but a thor- 
 ough polishing showed the brass. 
 
 The banisters needed a few new spindles and the 
 village carpenter, himself an aged relic of the past, 
 was willing to replace them but was fluttered by 
 the very thought. Weeks went by. But when, one 
 day, a spindle to serve as a pattern was pried out of 
 its place and carried to his shop and laid down be- 
 fore him, all was at once simplified. "Why, of 
 course!" And that afternoon he appeared at the 
 inn with the new pieces made carefully out of a ma- 
 hogany plank, and forthwith proceeded to put them 
 in place. 
 
 With the gate beside the house there was more 
 
 [77] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 difficulty. A stone wall was there, and in the wall 
 a gap with a pair of iron sockets which had once sup- 
 ported the gate, which long before had gone gone 
 none knew whitherward, perhaps on some old-time 
 night of Hallowe'en. 
 
 The old carpenter shook his head. "A long and 
 expensive job! The hinges will have to be made 
 specially to fit these sockets, to begin with!" He 
 shook his head dolefully. "And I have n't any suit- 
 able wood, either!" And, after another presenta- 
 tion of the case on our part, "What do you want a 
 gate for, anyway?" he asked whimsically. 
 
 But, driving with a friend a few days afterward, 
 a fallen fence and gate were spied. The owner, 
 found, had no use for the gate. It looked as if it 
 would fit the gap in the stone wall. And so we tri- 
 umphantly carried it home, and it was not only 
 found to be a perfect fit in width, but its hinges were 
 precisely the kind of hinges needed for the sockets 
 and of precisely the needful size. The gate needed 
 to be turned upside down, to match the way of 
 swinging, but that was easily done. The friend as- 
 sisted, and gleefully helped to saw and nail. In a 
 little while an ordinary picket gate had been trans- 
 formed into one with diagonal crosspieces, to look 
 the better in a stone wall, and the thing was done. 
 
 [78] 
 
ALTERING THE HOUSE 
 
 After a while it came to us that another problem 
 was to be solved. The inn was a little too large. 
 More than the two lower stories was not needed. 
 But to lessen the roominess it was not necessary to 
 tear anything down. A partition was placed across 
 the hall, at the head of the upper flight of stairs, shut- 
 ting off the entire third floor completely : a partition 
 simply constructed by setting up packing frames 
 which had been on screen doors shipped from the 
 city. The frames fitted with almost no trouble at 
 all. They were easily covered with a few hangings, 
 giving them an air of completeness. And there was 
 a far greater sense of coziness, and a house easier to 
 keep warm; and at the same time, by a convenient 
 arrangement of doors, we were still able to go into 
 the third floor, through a door into the room at 
 the head of the stairs and from that room into the 
 next, and so around the screen, and thence, if desired, 
 to the outlook. The original builder could not 
 have made it more ready to our hand in this re- 
 spect. 
 
 None of the changes were difficult of achieve- 
 ment, and they were made by simple methods and 
 with no great outlay. 
 
 And now, in regard to this inn which was our 
 home and no longer an inn, we thought of those 
 
 [79] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 words of good omen of old Doctor Johnson : "There 
 is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by 
 which so much happiness is produced as by a good 
 tavern or inn." 
 
 [80] 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SOME EARLY ACQUISITIONS 
 
 THE house altered into readiness, we prepared 
 to furnish it. And it seemed that it would 
 be an excellent thing to have each of the 
 rooms furnished in a different style: one Heppel- 
 white, one Empire, one Chippendale, one Sheraton, 
 and so on; or at least that the prevailing furniture 
 in each room should be of the same style. But that 
 would be impossible for us to carry out with any- 
 thing like completeness. It could be done only with 
 free expenditure of money and time unless there 
 should be exceptional opportunities. But it was 
 well to have such a scheme in mind as an ideal, to be 
 adopted as far as possible whenever opportunity 
 could be made. 
 
 In any case, no piece of furniture should be se- 
 
 [81] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 cured not proper in design and age, except in those 
 few cases of indispensable need where a less desira- 
 ble piece should be used until precisely the right 
 thing could be found; and then we should promptly 
 get rid of the offending substitute. 
 
 The floors were to be bare if they could not be 
 correctly covered. Good hand-loom Oriental rugs 
 of satisfactory vegetable dyes fit any date and go 
 with any style of furniture; and this whether the 
 rugs are . old or of modern make. But the color 
 scheme must always be kept in mind. Fur rugs and 
 skins go admirably with Colonial furniture. Braided 
 rugs are a charming survival of a past industry, and, 
 especially if they are made with thoughtfulness as 
 to size and color, are very effective in many a place. 
 Rag-carpet rugs are also good, if of a predominant 
 color to go with the color tone of the room. It is not 
 always realized how much, in general effectiveness, 
 depends on the color. For braided rugs, or rag-car- 
 pet rugs, there is always some weaver or braider to 
 be found who will be delighted to have intelligent 
 co-operation and who will carefully make just the 
 kind of rug one wishes. 
 
 At the sides of the hall, midway in its length, and 
 opposite the side recess in which is the stairway, are 
 four fluted pilasters, from which spring arches, in- 
 
 [82] 
 
SOME EARLY ACQUISITIONS 
 
 closing a square with groined and vaulted ceiling. 
 From the centre of this vaulting we hung a chande- 
 lier which deserves its name; for it is for candles 
 only, of which it holds the Colonial number of thir- 
 teen. It is painted buff, with black trimmings, and 
 has oval reflectors and graceful sconces. It is of 
 iron and tin, and is about three-quarters of a century 
 old. 
 
 Just inside the door is a mirror with a mahogany 
 frame, three feet and a half by one and a half, 
 straight- topped, and with slightly projecting cornice. 
 It is of the general type of mirror of from eighty to a 
 hundred and twenty-five years ago, and is itself 
 about a century old. 
 
 Until the sixteenth century, the woman who would 
 hold up the mirror to Nature had to hold up one of 
 metal, for glass mirrors did not come in until then, 
 and they were introduced by the Venetians. In 
 England glass mirrors were not made until a little 
 more than two hundred years ago the ever-delight- 
 ful Pepys tells of a looking-glass sent to the wife of 
 Charles the Second by the Queen of France but, 
 as glass mirrors were undoubtedly in use in America 
 before the era of English manufacture, they must 
 have been of Continental, and probably Italian, 
 make. 
 
 [85] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 Our mirror has the effective pineapple ornament, 
 the emblem of hospitality, which makes it the more 
 fitting for a piece of furniture beside the door. Be- 
 low the pineapple, on either side, is the carved pillar, 
 with twisted-rope design, ending at the bottom in a 
 tassel. 
 
 There is a narrow strip of wood across the upper 
 part of the mirror, dividing the inclosed space into 
 two parts. This division was introduced in early 
 days from the impossibility of making single pieces 
 of glass as large as was desired; it was long impossi- 
 ble to make a piece wider or longer than four feet; 
 but even after the art of glass-making was better 
 understood the practice was continued from the be- 
 lief that the crosspiece was necessary to a proper ap- 
 pearance. It was from this reason that mirrors of 
 the size and period of that in our hall are in two 
 pieces. 
 
 The mirror was discovered in a barn, and was en- 
 tirely without glass. It was thickly marked by 
 flies; thickly, as only a thing can be which has long 
 hung in a screenless, not neat, kitchen of the coun- 
 try. Probably the farm-hands had used it, for 
 many years, as long as a broken piece of glass re- 
 mained in the corner. Then, when that fragment 
 disappeared, the mirror was thrown into the barn; 
 
 [86] 
 
Old Mahogany Mirrors 
 
 i Veneer and gilt ; and of a shape preceding Empire. 2 Carved mantel-mirror, late eighteenth 
 century. 3 Empire ; with twisted rope pilasters ending in rosettes. 4 Empire ; with twisted rope, 
 tassel, and pineapple. Bought for thirty-five cents 
 
SOME EARLY ACQUISITIONS 
 
 saved from complete destruction by a dim idea of 
 some time repairing it. 
 
 It cost us, misused and shattered as it was, pre- 
 cisely thirty-five cents! 
 
 Being of beautiful mahogany, although the 
 beauty was hidden by dirt, it was easily cleaned and 
 polished. 
 
 And this matter of misuse and discolor points out, 
 what the collector early learns, that neither color 
 nor previous condition of servitude prevents a piece 
 from being desirable. 
 
 There is a curious point about this frame, common 
 to numerous other old frames, and typical of the 
 time when artisans had personal pride in each piece 
 of work. The topmost band of the cornice of the 
 frame is not, like all the rest of the frame, of mahog- 
 any. It is of rich-looking cherry. And the reason 
 was long ago explained to us by an old cabinet- 
 maker who had learned some of the secrets and ways 
 of the past direct from old-time workers. Mahog- 
 any, beautiful as it is, would, in the opinion of some, 
 be too dark for effectiveness at the top of a frame. 
 There, brilliant relief was sought for, to bring out 
 the color and design and lines of all. And in 
 consequence a moulding of cherry was often used as 
 the surmounting piece. . 
 
 [89] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 There being no glass in the mirror, it was neces- 
 sary to remedy that defect, and two pieces of beveled 
 glass were put in. Nor is this anachronistic, though 
 many claim that beveling has no place in old-fash- 
 ioned mirrors. It is curious how widespread is that 
 idea. As a matter of fact, beveled glass was long 
 ago made by the Venetians, and Venetian glass- 
 makers were fetched to England, two hundred years 
 ago, to teach this branch of the art, among others, to 
 English workers. 
 
 Our mirror has the small rosettes on the upper cor- 
 ners, as was customary; but they are of wood, in- 
 stead of, as some are, of brass. It does not have the 
 drop-acorn ornaments, as do several old mirrors of 
 the vicinity. 
 
 Many mirrors of the period reaching from the late 
 seventeen-eighties to the end of the first quarter of 
 the nineteenth century are known as Constitution 
 mirrors, and are surmounted by the eagle, which 
 sprang into popularity on becoming our national 
 bird. Many of these are beautiful specimens and 
 for that reason have been freely reproduced; so 
 freely that the collector must be specially on his 
 guard or else he will acquire a replica instead of^an 
 original. 
 
 This particular mirror that we are describing has 
 
 [90] 
 
SOME EARLY ACQUISITIONS 
 
 the square-lined top, without the eagle. There may 
 have been, originally, in the upper section, some pic- 
 ture instead of glass. Numerous mirrors of that 
 time were made with rudely pictured rural scenes or 
 battle pieces. 
 
 Beneath the mirror stands a small, square, Hep- 
 pel white table, with two drawers ; a table that looks 
 well in that location, and is also exceedingly useful, 
 for a small brass salver stands on top and the 
 drawers are convenient for gloves and other articles. 
 
 The question of pictures came next. They must 
 harmonize with the hall and with the furniture of 
 the olden time, and they must look well. 
 
 More pictures were used in the past than is gen- 
 erally supposed. Many an ancient house had tap- 
 estry, many a house had pictured wallpaper ; but, on 
 the other hand, paintings have been in high repute 
 for centuries, and great numbers were made; the 
 family portrait was an institution; and many prints 
 and engravings and etchings were highly esteemed 
 and commonly owned in the eighteenth century. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson had, at Monticello, one hun- 
 ^red and twenty pictures of one kind or another, 
 some of them being copies of the great masters. 
 Washington also possessed a large number of pic- 
 tures, their total value being inventoried at a little 
 
 [90 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 over two thousand dollars. Other men of Colonial 
 times had similarly large numbers of pictures, and 
 many are therefore still to be found. 
 
 Unless, however, one has sufficient wealth to buy 
 the work of the great painters of the past, he may 
 not care to have only such pictures as ornamented 
 the walls of, say, the eighteenth century. But one 
 may find good etchings, or other pictures, made at 
 the present day, which represent subjects of the 
 past, or he may find pictures whose date is immater- 
 ial through being such as are of any time and all 
 time. 
 
 For this old hall we were fortunately able to sup- 
 ply a series of prints representing scenes and cities 
 of the Napoleonic wars, these being steel engravings 
 made in the long ago, printed in colors, and acquired 
 by bequest instead of quest, after long possession by 
 older hands. 
 
 Then, to complete, there are a few other old-time 
 prints one of them of particular interest for this 
 building, with its association with Washington Irv- 
 ing, as it is of Aston Hall, the original of the hospit- 
 able old English house which Irving describes under 
 the name of Bracebridge. 
 
 The Napoleonic series and the others being all of 
 a size, all framed alike in black passe-partout, all 
 
 [92] 
 
Metal face and phases of i 
 
 The wooden-works clock 
 
 Eighteenth Century " Bonnet-top " Clocks 
 
SOME EARLY ACQUISITIONS 
 
 accurately spaced and all put at the same height, 
 serve to accent the general effect of the hall, both as 
 to design and age. 
 
 On one side was placed the wooden-works, seven- 
 day, grandfather's clock. There are some old grand- 
 father's clocks that have chimes for the playing of 
 airs, others that mark the tides, the phases of the 
 moon, and not only the hours but the day and the 
 month; so that a simple tall clock, without such 
 things, is not the greatest prize possible. But it 
 being unexceptionable so far as it goes, we deemed 
 it best to secure it when we had the opportunity, for 
 it does not prevent our some day getting a more 
 elaborate one. Meanwhile, the sober ticking, as of 
 a Time that marches instead of flies, is an agreeable 
 sound. To awake in the night and hear it gives an 
 "impression as if everything is going on as it ought. 
 And it is pleasant, returning after an absence of a 
 few days and opening the house, to hear it sonor- 
 ously tick out a welcome. 
 
 It is natural to think of the grandfather's clock as 
 being of an older type than the clock which has nei- 
 ther long pendulum nor long case. But that is a 
 mistake. Grandfather's clocks did not come in till 
 some time after this country began to be settled, and 
 before they appeared there were in use here both 
 
 [95] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 clocks with weights and clocks with spiral springs. 
 The pendulum dates back only some two hundred 
 and fifty years ; before that time a balance control 
 was used. And not until after the day of long pen- 
 dulums did the day of long clock-cases come, and 
 then it came by evolution, because they were needed. 
 At first the long pendulums were used on the old 
 "wag-at-the-walls," as they were termed, and to 
 protect the pendulums, which were frequently 
 stopped or broken, the making of tall cases began. 
 There were few grandfather's clocks before the be- 
 ginning of the eighteenth century. 
 
 With clocks which, like ours, have the weight 
 cords running over narrow-grooved pulleys, there is 
 likely to be difficulty in finding strong enough cord. 
 The chains, used on many clocks, cannot be used on 
 these. After our weights once came down with a 
 great crashing in the middle of the night we set 
 about finding the right cord, and did so, at length, 
 in a fishing-tackle shop where there was line spe- 
 cially made for the holding of tarpon or some other 
 wild creature of the seas. 
 
 The cost of the clock, twelve dollars, was very 
 low, even for one so simple as this. For the elabor- 
 ate ones, it is not to be wondered that high prices 
 are often asked, when we consider some of the prices 
 
 [96] 
 
SOME EARLY ACQUISITIONS 
 
 of the past. None were low ; and an advertisement 
 in a New York paper of 1816 tells of a tall clock 
 with musical attachments which was to be had for 
 thirteen hundred dollars! And a New York ad- 
 vertisement of some fifteen years earlier arouses 
 wondering interest, for it is of a clock, declared to 
 have been the property of Louis the Sixteenth, 
 which, although it had cost five thousand livres, 
 could be purchased for five hundred dollars ! Was 
 it genuine? one wonders. Or had some dealer 
 even then acquired the reprehensible habit of mis- 
 representation? And what became of it in the cen- 
 tury that has since passed? 
 
 A few chairs are all that the hall needs ; and one of 
 them, simple though it is, is of a great deal of char- 
 acter. It is of ash, without arms, is rush-bottomed, 
 and has four slats across the back. The slats are 
 carefully graduated in width for the sake of effect, 
 the narrowest being at the bottom. The side-posts 
 stand absolutely perpendicular, from top to bottom, 
 with an odd primness of effect, but the four slats are 
 on a light and swaying bend both upward and back- 
 ward. This chair was made nearly a hundred years 
 ago, in a little Pennsylvania town, and stood for 
 forty years as the entry-chair in the hall of a Penn- 
 sylvania lawyer. There are also chairs of this type 
 
 [97] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 that are made with five slats instead of four, but 
 they are much more rarely found. 
 
 A chest stands near one end of the hall, a low 
 chest of black leather studded with brass nails, iron 
 handled and lined with old blue paper. It is a cen- 
 tury old, was made at Galashiels in Scotland, and 
 traveled to India and back in the possession of a 
 British officer who served in the old wars there; 
 afterward it came to America. 
 
 In the early days, chests were of great importance 
 as part of the furniture of a house, being used for 
 the storage of linen and silver. One may still hope 
 to find a fine chest of oak or dark walnut with some- 
 what of ornamentation, or even a carved and painted 
 old chest of English make. It would be unlikely, 
 now, to find one of the corniced marquetry chests of 
 the early Dutch, but even that need not be looked 
 upon as altogether impossible. 
 
 At the farther end of the long hall is the door 
 opening into the room with the big fireplace, and 
 upon this door is placed an ancient iron knocker, ac- 
 quired through the chance of happening to pass by 
 an old house in the heart of London, literally under 
 the shadow of Westminster, as the old house was 
 being demolished. The demolition had reached the 
 first floor; in half an hour the door would have been 
 
 [98] 
 
SOME EARLY ACQUISITIONS 
 
 thrown down; but the offer of a shilling promptly se- 
 cured the knocker, with bolts and all complete. 
 
 It is seldom that one can find an article actually 
 in place, in that sense; but it is always highly satis- 
 factory to find old furniture in use in the house that 
 has long held it; or, what is even better, for the 
 pieces are likely to be better preserved, in the very 
 house where they were long used, but in the garret. 
 
 And one of the ways of securing things at the 
 house for which they were originally bought or made 
 is to attend a good country auction. 
 
 [99] 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE COUNTRY AUCTION 
 
 THERE is fascination in the very thought of a 
 country auction. Not, indeed, that there is 
 always something to be picked up, but that 
 there is an ever-present possibility. There is an al- 
 lurement in the very sight of a country auction bill, 
 whether it be tacked on the oak tree at the watering 
 trough or hung on a string in the village store. 
 
 Nor is this merely a modern idea. Those who 
 like to know that in their quest of things of the past 
 they are following in the footsteps of the notable 
 people of a bygone time, will not only remember 
 that auctions have long been held in high esteem 
 (they are as old as the Romans), but that the very 
 Father of His Country went one day to an auction 
 at the breaking up of a neighbor's establishment in 
 the Potomac region, and there purchased furniture 
 to the value, as the queerly precise old record has it, 
 
 [100] 
 
THE COUNTRY AUCTION 
 
 of one hundred and sixty-nine pounds, twelve shil- 
 lings and nine-pence! That Washington, although 
 he bought from a full pocketbook and spent a lavish 
 total, was not able to resist entirely the delight of 
 getting things at as good a bargain as possible, and 
 that he was reluctantly forced upward on different 
 purchases, shilling by shilling and penny by penny, 
 is amusingly apparent. How delightful would be a 
 full and accurate account of his behavior and his 
 bidding at that auction ! 
 
 Nowadays, in many districts, when an auction 
 impends, handbills are distributed to every little 
 store and post-office within a radius of some ten 
 miles or so, and tacked upon trees at cross-roads. 
 Placed thus in public view, the bills are commented 
 upon by the critical and combined intelligence of the 
 neighborhood. 
 
 The important announcements, from the local 
 viewpoint, are of horses and cattle, of farming 
 machiner^, of chickens and of hay. Yet almost al- 
 ways, if looked for, may be found the words, tucked 
 away somewhere down toward the bottom, "House- 
 hold furniture." Sometimes the descriptive "old- 
 fashioned" accompanies the words. Sometimes 
 there is an item of "coverlids and homespun blan- 
 kets." And "coverlids and homespun" are likely 
 
 [ 101 ] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 to portend ancient chests of drawers and Windsor 
 chairs. 
 
 The auction will not be quite so promising as to 
 results if the house is near a summer resort or any of 
 the host of places to which urban dwellers crowd 
 during the distinctly suburban months. And yet 
 this does not make so much difference as it might, for 
 most auctions are held in the spring or fall, before 
 the tide has set from the city or after it has ebbed 
 cityward again. 
 
 Most promising, is the little auction where the 
 number of articles is small, where comparatively few 
 people will be attracted, and where, at the end of the 
 little handbills, is modestly printed the announce- 
 ment that articles sent in by neighbors will be dis- 
 posed of at the same time. 
 
 There is always the likelihood that such an an- 
 nouncement will fetch to the light of an auction- 
 eer's day the single pair of unused andirons from the 
 garret of the aged spinster, the rare candlesticks 
 which some old settler long since discarded and for- 
 got, the four-post bed, the set of drawers, or some- 
 thing else equally interesting, which inquiring search 
 would not have revealed but which the owner is as 
 glad to sell as you are to buy. It is astonishing how 
 many old pieces are put away and forgotten and re- 
 garded as of no value; and on the other hand, it is 
 [102] 
 
THE COUNTRY AUCTION 
 
 astonishing at how much beyond even the city prices 
 some of the country dwellers value their old-time 
 articles. To buy something old at a country auction 
 or a country house, having behind it no dealer's 
 guarantee of quality or condition, having the trouble 
 and expense of getting it home, ought properly to 
 carry with it the benefit of a lower price than for an 
 article repaired and polished, put in perfect condi- 
 tion, and delivered. 
 
 On a beautiful October day we set forth to an 
 auction at a house a dozen miles off, situated eight 
 miles from a railroad and far from any town. We 
 carried our luncheon, and oats for the horse, and 
 were equipped for results. We had first inter- 
 viewed our neighbors, and were told that the auc- 
 tion was held because of the death of an aged 
 woman, long occupant of an ancient house ; that her 
 family had lived and died there for a hundred and 
 twenty-five years; that there were only distant kin 
 who felt no personal interest in either the house 
 or the furniture ; and that the house was full of old- 
 fashioned things. 
 
 And so we went brightly on through the bright 
 October day. The sun was cheerful and warm, and 
 the air was a caress. 
 
 We approached the house. It was venerable and 
 wind-beaten and gray, standing high up toward the 
 
 [103] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 top of a hill, with the old road sweeping by its door. 
 Its ancient shingled sides told of multitude of an- 
 tique treasures within. Wagons filled with coun- 
 try folk were converging on the spot from all direc- 
 tions. It was assuredly going to be a notable 
 auction ! 
 
 We reached the place, and the horse was tied to a 
 fence along with a long line of other horses. In the 
 front yard was a lot of kitchen material : wash-tubs, 
 glass fruit jars, ironing boards, clothes-pins, pie-tins, 
 frying pans, and a medley of similar things, little 
 and big. There were men and women poking 
 about. Other men and women, gathered in knots, 
 were enjoying the reunion that comes with every 
 auction for an auction in the country brings many 
 people together for perhaps the only time in weeks 
 or months. 
 
 We were still elated. This exhibit of simple ar- 
 ticles on the grass was to make it unnecessary for the 
 auctioneer to lead the throng into the kitchen and 
 cellar on his course through the house. 
 
 We went to the door. A grim-visaged woman 
 stood on guard. Glancing beyond her, one could 
 see only a great bareness. "Every thing 's out there 
 in the yard !" she snapped. 
 
 "But the furniture?" 
 
 [104] 
 
THE COUNTRY AUCTION 
 
 "There ain't any." 
 
 "But the bill said" 
 
 "It 's all sold." 
 
 And such was actually the case. Every thing ex- 
 cept a few stray worthless pieces had been disposed 
 of at private sale, or had been taken away by the 
 relatives, who, we learned, had swooped down and 
 seized everything worth taking, although they had 
 not even seen the house or their aged relative for 
 many years. 
 
 Needless to say, we did not wait for the sale, al- 
 though the auctioneer was clearing his voice and be- 
 ginning to gather the people together. They were 
 not all disappointed, of course. There are often ex- 
 tremely desirable bargains to be had in the matter 
 of glass jars and ironing boards and frying pans. 
 And for ourselves well, it was a beautiful day for 
 a drive, and it is illuminating and mildly chastening 
 to learn thaV all expectations do not materialize and 
 that every country auction is not a treasure field. 
 
 But there was recently a sale which furnished pe- 
 culiarly good examples of the possibilities that lurk 
 within the country auction, and at the same time 
 showed what wonderful prizes one may at any mo- 
 ment secure. The house whose furniture was sold 
 out was built before the Revolution, and the roll of 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 its guests included names famous in our history, 
 such as Alexander Hamilton and General Montgom- 
 ery and John Jay, and one whose entertainment was 
 matter of condolence as well as respect, General Bur- 
 goyne. It was peculiarly a house from which no 
 collector could ever have hoped to secure a single 
 article, any more than from a museum. Yet all the 
 belongings were recently sold at auction ! 
 
 And chief among the articles of interest, finer even 
 than the set of two hundred pieces of old blue Can- 
 ton china, was a set of Chippendale chairs, twelve 
 in number. 
 
 These twelve chairs, beautifully designed and 
 made, and two of them with arms, were used at the 
 time of General Burgoyne's reception there, an hon- 
 ored prisoner, after his surrender at Saratoga and on 
 his way toward the coast. And there is a curious 
 point about them. Although distinctively Chippen- 
 dale in design, and in the unmistakable central splat, 
 they show a Dutch influence in that the top line of 
 the back merges into the side lines without a break- 
 giving the effect, that is, as if of a single piece, 
 rounded and bent, instead of one piece at each side 
 and one at the top. Chairs with this peculiarity are 
 usually known as Dutch chairs, but in this case the 
 Chippendale characteristics far outweigh the Dutch 
 
 [106] 
 
THE COUNTRY AUCTION 
 
 and the beauty of design has been but slightly less- 
 ened. 
 
 There was an auction sale of a different class, not 
 at all a notable one, just a few months ago, only 
 eight miles from our home, at which there were op- 
 portunities such as one can ordinarily only dream of. 
 
 Unfortunately we did not go, being informed by 
 some who ought to have known better that there 
 was nothing of much interest there. Particulars of 
 the sale came later, from a friend ; and here, literally 
 set down, are some of the prices at which sales were 
 actually made, only fifty miles from New York. 
 
 A fine and ancient armoire, of dark oak, heavy, 
 dignified, impressive, went for six dollars. Good 
 armchairs, the kind which Sheraton himself called 
 "fancy" chairs, light and delicate, painted, and with 
 touches of gil^ sold for thirty-five cents each. Some 
 mahogany chairs, of late Empire, were bid off at ten 
 cents apiece less. An admirable mahogany chest of 
 drawers, with oval brasses, was knocked down for 
 one dollar! A plain chest of drawers of cherry, 
 with wooden knobs on the drawers, was bid in for 
 twenty-five cents. 
 
 Thus it is that the country auction tantalizes with 
 its potentialities. 
 
 One day we set off to an old house upon one of the 
 
 [ 109 ] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 oldest roads of the countryside, a thoroughfare fa- 
 miliar to the troops of the Revolution. 
 
 But we found it a place where the penalty of too 
 much prosperity had been paid. Generation after 
 generation had thrown away the old and purchased 
 new. There were but few things in the house for 
 which a collector could care, and for those few the 
 prices were run up by the dealers, and then, when 
 they would go no higher, by a man who had come 
 with apparently unlimited money and the intention 
 of procuring a household furnishing of antiques. 
 
 But the auction was an amusing one. The auc- 
 tioneer, genial, loud-voiced, ready-witted, knew al- 
 most everyone in a first-name intimacy. As he led 
 the way from room to room, he interspersed the sell- 
 ing with jests and pleasantries. One woman had 
 recently married a second husband, and he was al- 
 ways calling her, with intent to embarrass, by her 
 earlier married name. It so happened that her buy- 
 ings of the prosaically useful were many, and it gave 
 the auctioneer the frequent opportunity to call out 
 to his clerk to set the sale down to "Mrs. Brown." 
 No matter how often he did this, she was each time 
 genuinely taken off her guard, so deeply had the sec- 
 ond marriage impressed her. And so, to his cue of 
 "Mrs. Brown," she invariably gave her agitated con- 
 
 [no] 
 
THE COUNTRY AUCTION 
 
 tradiction, "No, no, no ! Mrs. Jenkins !" To the in- 
 tense amusement of the crowd. 
 
 In one room was a fine old bellows. A number 
 examined it appreciatively. The man who had 
 come prepared to bid for everything openly admired 
 it. It was of graceful shape, rather large, heavily 
 bossed upon one side and showing a generous wealth 
 of brass nails on its margins, and it possessed an un- 
 usually long and heavy and business-like brass nose. 
 Naturally, it showed hard usage, and its leathers 
 showed holes. None the less, it was a distinct po- 
 tential prize, one of the very few possibilities. 
 
 But the auctioneer, when he picked it up, saw only 
 the holes in the leathers; and so, to make a "lot" 
 with it, he held up at the same time a spittoon of 
 mottled brown crockery, past its prime. "How much 
 am I bid for {he lot?" he asked. 
 
 There was a sudden chill. All at once it seemed 
 that nobody wanted a fine bellows, in spittoon en- 
 vironment. To the admirers of the bellows, includ- 
 ing him of the plethoric purse, it seemed that they 
 were asked to bid not on the bellows but upon its 
 obnoxious associate. 
 
 "Ten cents!" There was no other bid, and the 
 bellows was ours. 
 
 "No; I don't want the other;" and the auctioneer 
 
 [in] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 smiled appreciatively and handed the spittoon, as a 
 gift, to a patriarchal farm-laborer in the front row, 
 who bore it off in toothless glee. 
 
 It mattered not, now, that to the very rich had 
 gone the very little of braided rug and acorn mirror 
 and quaint old chair which the sale had afforded. 
 Our bellows for ten cents! a bellows for which we 
 had been prepared to bid high had redeemed the 
 day. It mattered not that there were holes in the 
 leathers. By chance, by the fate that watches over 
 true lovers of the old, there was a piece of morocco at 
 home of size sufficient to make new leathers for it, 
 and it took but an hour to do the work. 
 
 Considered simply as a money proposition, it 
 would have been more economical to purchase a bel- 
 lows in the regular way, instead of taking two per- 
 sons and a horse, and an entire day, for a cross-coun- 
 try drive and an auction sale. But as it is we have 
 a particularly fine bellows, which reminds us of a 
 fine old house of the olden time and of the varied 
 amusing experiences of a pleasant day. 
 
 At this same auction we missed an unusual oppor- 
 tunity. A great lot of carpet was put up in one lot : 
 ingrain, of good quality, and not much worn, but of 
 such colors and designs as to displease everybody 
 through their glaring gaudiness. The entire lot was 
 [112] 
 
THE COUNTRY AUCTION 
 
 knocked down for a trivial sum, we looking on indif- 
 ferently. And not until afterward did it occur to 
 us that the carpet should have been bought; not to 
 use as a carpet, but to be cut into strips, and made, 
 by the local weaver, into rugs ; for it could have been 
 done in such a way as to lose all the gaudiness and 
 make the rugs of softly warm colors and modestly 
 attractive effect. 
 
 All good auctions are not in the country. There 
 are some city auction sales which it is a satisfaction, 
 and perhaps a pleasure, to look in upon : auctions at 
 those shops which make a specialty of handling the 
 antique. For at such places there is always the pos- 
 sibility of seeing just the piece you wish, and not 
 a copy but a valuable original. Naturally, in the 
 large cities theje are likely to be so many people 
 present as to make low prices unusual for desirable 
 articles. But the prices are often very fair. 
 
 There are, too, sales in the city at the breaking up 
 of homes; it may be because a family has died out, 
 it may be from the same reason that caused the Sed- 
 ley sale at which Becky Sharp was present and where 
 the well-intentioned Dobbin purchased a piano, and 
 where there were also disposed of certain magnificent 
 mahogany tables. 
 
 It has come to be rather the custom, however at 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 least in New York for the sale of the furnishings 
 of an old city home to be held at one of the principal 
 auction-rooms. For the sale of special collections in 
 this manner, catalogues are printed, often illustrated 
 ones, and the articles are on preliminary exhibition 
 for several days. 
 
 It is worth remembering that, at the large shops, 
 the end of the day is likely to be the best. The auc- 
 tioneer is tired, and begins to lessen his attempts to 
 raise prices; and most of the people are restless and 
 beginning, more or less actively, to think of home; 
 many are actually leaving. Drop into the rooms 
 just for those final psychic moments, and you may 
 "learn something to your advantage," as advertise- 
 ments have it. 
 
 It was at such an hour in the late afternoon that 
 six beautiful old blue dinner-plates were put up 
 plates worth at least a dollar each, and at ordinary 
 prices two or three dollars. There was no competi- 
 tion, not a single opposing bid following the opening 
 tentative one, and the plates came to us for ten cents 
 apiece ; and this in a sale at a fashionable shop where 
 the wealthy congregate. It was at such a time that 
 a dark blue teapot came to us for eighty cents, for 
 which a dealer, who had missed noticing that it was 
 up, at once offered us five dollars. 
 
 [116] 
 
THE COUNTRY AUCTION 
 
 It is not always that purchases can be made for a 
 little. The price that lies in antique buys, as Hood 
 would have expressed it, has been the undoing of 
 many a pocketbook. But it is interesting to know 
 that such low prices are possible and that at no time 
 need the buyer of moderate means go to a high ex- 
 treme. 
 
 One of the most charming of the Elian essays ex- 
 patiates on the pleasure which accompanies the pur- 
 chase that is a triumph. A purchase is but a pur- 
 chase when there is a plethoric purse, declares Elia, 
 and he lovingly turns over and over his immediate 
 text is the gathering of some old china the thought 
 of the keen pleasure that accompanies the purchase 
 exultant. 
 
 [117] 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ON RAMBLING DRIVING TRIPS 
 
 DRIVING into Massachusetts, one day, just 
 over the line from New York State, and de- 
 scending a long hill into the depths of a nar- 
 row valley, we came upon a fine old house, of sun- 
 bleached white, set back from the road among old 
 vines and bushes and with great maples shading the 
 broad and generous doorway. A modest sign, "For 
 Rent," was nailed upon the gatepost. The whole 
 place had an air of repose and the charm of 
 days gone by. Leaving the horse, we went 
 in through the gate. What a paradise for 
 a home! Many miles from a railroad; and 
 what an air the place had! We walked up the 
 path, with the grass hanging over it from the tangled 
 lawn. There was an old portico with seats on either 
 side. There was a knocker on the door. The door 
 was shabby. The sidelights gave a glimpse of the 
 
 [us] 
 
ON RAMBLING DRIVING TRIPS 
 
 hall, with wallpaper in mottled marble blocks. An 
 old clock stood at the bend of the stairs. Two green 
 Windsor chairs were in the hall. 
 
 The caretaker, an old farm-hand from a neighbor- 
 ing field, came in at^the gate. He gave us the key 
 and sat down on the doorstep to wait and smoke. 
 
 We went through the house. There were old set- 
 tles by the kitchen hearth. There were two four- 
 poster beds. There were old splint-bottom chairs. 
 There were candlesticks of pewter and brass, and 
 iron fire-dogs. 
 
 The whole house had a scattering of furniture, 
 but was far from completely furnished. Yet there 
 was enough for the suggestion of a fascinating home. 
 
 We were completely carried away with our find of 
 this old house, apparently forsaken by its owners 
 and awaiting a new home-maker. We went back to 
 the door. The old man rose up and after a moment 
 of hesitation grinned. Just why he should grin was 
 not apparent, but that it was from a sense of some 
 subtle joke which he was enjoying was quite clear. 
 
 "What place is this ?" 
 
 "The old W place." 
 
 "How long since it has been occupied^" 
 
 "Nine years. And last spring, Mr. G , the 
 
 present owner, fixed it up." 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 "Is any of the furniture to be sold, or is the house 
 to be rented furnished?" 
 
 But the man was a Yankee. "Do you want to 
 rent or do you want to buy?" he asked. 
 
 We were not Yankees, but he was answered with 
 another question: "What is the rent?" 
 
 "Six hundred dollars for the season !" he 
 lined out slowly, as if he were relishingly rolling the 
 money under his tongue. 
 
 We were surprised, and said so, for we knew 
 something of rents in neighborhoods far from a rail- 
 way. 
 
 "Yes. Six hundred dollars! That 's what 
 he 's looking to get. You 're only nine miles from 
 Lenox over that mountain, though it 5 s thirteen by 
 road." 
 
 He looked at us. "Do you want to rent it?" 
 
 "No." We smiled. We knew that there was to 
 be some explanation. 
 
 "Well, I'm to give anybody that looks at it one of 
 these." 
 
 With that he shoved out, with a motion like that 
 of breaking coal with a poker, a card; and the card 
 was that of a well-known dealer in antiques on 
 Fourth Avenue. 
 
 It was all plain. It did not need the garrulous 
 [120] 
 
ON RAMBLING DRIVING TRIPS 
 
 explanation of how the dealer had leased the old 
 house, bought what old things he could in the vicin- 
 ity, and sent out others from his New York shop. 
 
 The old caretaker walked down to the hitching- 
 post with us. "You 're the fourth ones to look at 
 it. Lenox don't seem to come over very fast. I 
 helped put up those beds and balance that clock on 
 that turning step of the stairs. It would n't hold 
 the fourth corner of the clock, so I put a stick under 
 
 it. Yes, the W s are all dead. The house has 
 
 been for rent for seventy-two dollars a year for year 
 after year, and now this New Yorker has it and puts 
 in these old traps. Don't you want to buy any of 
 them? The o&er folks took off chairs and candle- 
 sticks. The price is pasted on 'em. Ninety dollars 
 for that clock. It 's pine and won't go. Fifteen 
 dollars apiece for those old green chairs ; the price is 
 on 'em under the seat. A hundred dollars for the 
 dining-table. No? You are the beatenest folks! 
 You don't seem to care for these things. You came 
 over the wrong mountain. The folks from over 
 Lenox mountain just paid what the label said and 
 went off tickled to death." 
 
 There was certainly nothing the matter with the 
 old farmhouse except the rent; nothing the matter 
 with the articles the dealer had put in except that 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 he was asking more than New York prices on ac- 
 count of their present environment. It was cer- 
 tainly an amusing and unexpected way to sell an- 
 tiques and enhance the rentable value of a house. It 
 could not be called a trap, for the articles of furni- 
 ture were all genuine. 
 
 Driving trips need not always be distant from 
 one's home. At times the most surprising discover- 
 ies may be made but a short distance from where one 
 lives. 
 
 We were out, one day, driving about the country, 
 and came to a road so steep that the buggy seemed in 
 imminent danger of sliding down over the back of 
 the horse. The happy nomenclature of the neigh- 
 borhood, so it appeared, had given to this road the 
 cognomen of the "Teakettle Spout," on such an 
 abrupt and dipping line was it constructed. 
 
 At the foot of the descent a little stream forced its 
 way with clamorous perseverance over the rocks 
 with which the bed was filled. And on the farther 
 side, on a sort of shelf of land a little above the 
 brook, stood an ancient gabled cottage with dentilled 
 portico. 
 
 A widow lived there, with her son and an ancient 
 servant a servant such as these modern days can 
 never develop! Old, old she was one could al- 
 
 [1-22] 
 
= 8 
 
 JH 
 
 "E- 
 
 J 
 *s 
 
 *S 
 . 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 "o 
 
 he 
 
ON RAMBLING DRIVING TRIPS 
 
 most think her older than the house and with such 
 an ancient unstayed gown, and with a perfect gem 
 of a mulberry-colored melon bonnet of cotton print, 
 shaped like a scoop, quilted with cottony puffs and 
 lined ridges, and encompassing a gentle, faithful 
 face. Sukey; that was her fitting name. And in 
 that lonely house, in that steep valley, with such a 
 servant, it seemed certain that there must be 
 treasure. 
 
 Falling into a talk of old times and old things, 
 we were shown up the steep stairs into the attic. 
 Well, there \ras not so very much, after all; but 
 there were cupboards and chests, and a litter of jugs 
 and baskets, badly broken and in sad repair. 
 
 And there, against the farther wall, was an an- 
 cient four-poster, piled high with blue feather-ticks. 
 It was a slender Heppelwhite frame, without elabor- 
 ate ornamentation, but well and capably built. 
 Ornamentation, indeed, is more apt to be lacking on 
 old four-posters than on any other class of furniture. 
 The drapery, the curtains, were more depended upon 
 for fine looks than was the framework. Even George 
 Washington, when at home, slept in a bed of com- 
 paratively plain frame. The poet's ideal of the 
 builders who, in the elder days of art, wrought each 
 minute and unseen part with greatest care, does not 
 
 iml 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 hold as to bedmaking in the eighteenth century; nor, 
 in fact, does it hold to any appreciable extent in the 
 art work of centuries ago, human nature being al- 
 ways pretty much the same and there never having 
 been very much of strong determination to beautify 
 what was to be hidden. 
 
 With no difficulty, the four-poster was obtained, 
 and it was arranged that the son was to drive it 
 within a few days to our home. 
 
 And so, one morning, there was the sound of a 
 wagon stopping at our door, and looking out, w r e 
 saw the son of the widow. But where was the four- 
 poster ! It was not visible, and so the presumption 
 was that the young man had come to say that, after 
 all, they did not wish to dispose of it. 
 
 But the bed was there ! At the house we had told 
 the widow that we did not care for the four pieces, 
 full of rope-holes through which, in old-time days, 
 the rope was crossed and crisscrossed to make a 
 strong foundation for the bedding and to hold the 
 bedstead together. For although they appeared to 
 be clean enough, it seemed obviously better not to 
 use them. Without these rope-holed pieces the bed- 
 stead, when taken down, was but a bundle of sticks 
 the four posts and the slender bars of the canopy, 
 and the graceful head-board. 
 
 [126] 
 
ON RAMBLING DRIVING TRIPS 
 
 The problem presented by a bed that was now 
 without ends and sides was overcome by the use of 
 an iron bedstead strictly hygienic and up-to-date 
 old enough in association, too, if one must insist, for 
 of Og, King of Bashan, we read that "his bedstead 
 was a bedstead of iron." It exactly fitted the space 
 between the upright posts. To the corners of this 
 iron bedstead the posts were fastened. A valance 
 was made to cover the iron frame. All that showed, 
 therefore, was just what ought to show: the canopy 
 and the posts and the head-board. 
 
 The posts show not only above the valance, but 
 clear to the floor, outside of it; for we remembered 
 the admirable suggestion of Chippendale that it is a 
 grievous fault to hide the legs of a bed, because there 
 is then the appearance of posts supported upon cloth. 
 
 In meeting strangers, on one's random rambles in 
 the country, offense is often needlessly given, and 
 an opportunity lost, by the blunt inquiry as to whe- 
 ther things are for sale. Most people rightly resent 
 this. They dislike having a stranger come to their 
 door and, pointing to this or that article, ask, "How 
 much?" Even though they may really wish to sell 
 they resent the implication that they have the ap- 
 pearance of being so poor as to desire to dispose of 
 anything, or the alternative implication that they 
 
 1*7] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 do not themselves have sufficient taste to care for 
 what others deem beautiful. 
 
 But the danger of giving offense, of hurting the 
 feelings of the sensitive, of making one's self disa- 
 greeable, and of thereby losing the chance of an ac- 
 quisition, is entirely avoided by an inquiry as to 
 whether the owner of the thing you want knows of 
 any one in the neighborhood who possesses similar 
 articles and would be willing to sell. It is really 
 astonishing what a difference the use of this formula 
 makes. Many a person who would coldly draw 
 away from a direct question is quite ready to sell 
 when he thinks your inquiry is directed toward his 
 neighbor ! 
 
 Few things are more exasperating for the collec- 
 tor wandering away from the beaten track, driving 
 off into one country district or another, than to come 
 upon fine old articles ruined deliberately; not worn 
 out, but so smashed or altered as to be useless. The 
 memory of a splendid grandfather's clock lying in 
 hopeless fragments upon a woodpile, comes 
 strongly; so does the memory of two sofas one, so 
 ingeniously mangled, Procrustes-like, to fit into a 
 recess too small for it, that it was irreparable, and 
 the other, a fine Empire, with its back sawed off to 
 make it into a nondescript bench with ends; the 
 
ON RAMBLING DRIVING TRIPS 
 
 sawed-off pieces having then been burned up, mak- 
 ing restoration impossible. 
 
 On the other hand, eyes are often gladdened, as 
 one drives along some out-of-the-way road, by the 
 sight of charming Windsors upon a porch, or quaint 
 old settles, or even, what we once saw on the veran- 
 dah of a delightful little low-browed house, a black 
 banister-back chair made nearly two hundred years 
 ago. There is keen pleasure in seeing these, without 
 the disturbing desire to possess them. 
 
 Driving one day through one of the oldest neigh- 
 borhoods of the Western Reserve, we stopped at a 
 venerable house, white and narrow eaved. And in 
 the garret was a curious sight. There were lines oil 
 lines of ancient coats and gowns, the old clothes of 
 the family's ancestors, preserved partly, no doubt, 
 from a feeling of pride, partly, no doubt, from some 
 vaguely transmitted instinct of thrift. There the 
 old clothes hung, ghostly, limp, strange, swaying 
 slightly as the door opened upon them, as if startled 
 out of mysterious reveries. 
 
 In the same garret stood, primly, some enormous 
 old-fashioned bandboxes, covered with gay-flowered 
 paper. And there, too, we came across a silver 
 toddy ladle, with long and flexible handle of whale- 
 bone; and in the bottom of the bowl of the ladle was 
 
 [ 1 29 ] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 welded a shilling of George the Third; as, within 
 three such ladles which we once saw in a house near 
 Oxford, were welded silver coins of the time of 
 Anne. 
 
 After learning not to be too quick to consider a 
 piece of furniture older than it is, it is important not 
 to go to the other extreme of being too quick to con- 
 sider it new. At any time, and especially upon driv- 
 ing rambles into comparatively unfrequented re- 
 gions, the very old may be happened upon. 
 
 Stopping, not far from one of the battlefields of 
 the South, at a great old house from whose size and 
 appearance we should have expected much, but where 
 we knew it was unlikely that the exigencies of war 
 had left a single thing of the past, we found bare- 
 ness and comfortlessness, but hospitality. We found 
 a genial man, the sole occupant, who, it being a cold 
 day and the fire being unresponsive, poured oil upon 
 the troubled flame directly from a large can, with the 
 nonchalant remark: "It 's all right; it 7 s Georgia 
 State test!" And in this house, in spite of its bare- 
 ness, we found an enormous armoire, huge in size, 
 with ball feet; it was at least a century and a half 
 old, and stood against the bare wall, defiant, lonely, 
 striking, though not really beautiful. 
 
 The unexpected may at any time be met with. 
 
 [130] 
 

 " The sight of chairs upon a porch." Banister-back and Windsors 
 
ON RAMBLING DRIVING TRIPS 
 
 At a house, almost a cabin, near a village which 
 gave its name to one of the great battles, we found 
 the owner and occupant to be the descendant of one 
 of the old families, ruined by the Civil War and its 
 havoc. His father had lived in a great house which 
 had been destroyed; but servants had saved, and he 
 now proudly took out and displayed, old commis- 
 sions and letters and seals of Colonial and Revolu- 
 tionary days, and, at the last, the uniform of a colo- 
 nel in the Mexican War, with sword and soft red 
 sash. 
 
 It was in a blealTand scantily-settled hill country, 
 some fifty miles from the town, Gallipolis, where 
 unhappy exiles from France, refugees from the 
 French Revolution, vainly tried to hew homes out of 
 the Ohio wilderness, that we came upon a sunny 
 farmhouse, a veritable bit out of New England, the 
 home of one of the early settlers, where, in a cup- 
 board off the dining-room, there were forty pieces of 
 lavender "sprigged" china, the cups and sugar-bowl 
 and plates being of octagonal form; and in this 
 house there were old prints, framed in narrow black 
 as they would be framed to-day, of battles and he- 
 roes of the War of 1812. 
 
 And in Kentucky, driving along the fine limestone 
 pikes near the Ohio, where, in a dry season, the white 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 dust rises in clouds and settles like snow upon the 
 shrubs and grass, where there are mighty oaks and 
 lines of silver poplars, where houses, old and new, 
 look out toward the magnificent river and where the 
 friendly people cordially give a welcome, there are 
 numerous things of value. 
 
 One is first attracted by the tall ten-rail fences 
 which give such an impression of the jumping 
 powers of Kentucky colts, but one is more attracted 
 by the recurrent old-time houses of squared timbers 
 and by the things of the olden time still to be found. 
 In some of the better houses there are fine treasures, 
 but even in many a simpler house there are articles 
 of what may be termed the splint-bottom school 
 of antiques; iron fire-dogs, simple chairs, old waffle- 
 irons, long-handled, not for the purpose of supping 
 with a certain distinguished one of evil reputation 
 but for holding the irons over the blazing coals in 
 deep fireplaces. 
 
 If one only realizes it, it is sometimes as easy to go 
 from one place to another, within reasonable limits, 
 on a vacation outing, as to remain fixed at one point. 
 It was on a brief summer driving trip that we went 
 through the French Creek region of the northwestern 
 part of Pennsylvania; that region in which Wash- 
 ington first won reputation, early in the 1750*5, as 
 
 [134] 
 
ON RAMBLING DRIVING TRIPS 
 
 envoy from the Governor of Virginia to the com- 
 mandant of a French fort but a few miles from Lake 
 Erie. 
 
 We stayed over night at a somewhat old-fash- 
 ioned hotel in a little town; and the room in which 
 Lafayette had slept, on the occasion of his triumphal 
 progress through the United States when an old 
 man, was shown us, and the ball-room where he had 
 danced. It was doubtless a mistake of the stone- 
 mason that made the date upon the building, cut in 
 the stone upon the^ront, a year later than that of 
 Lafayette's visit! 
 
 However, the house had a good deal of dignity of 
 its own; and it also had a really good specimen of 
 Empire sideboard, very large, with pillars and claw 
 feet, that stood out of sight in a passageway between 
 dining-room and kitchen. 
 
 The proprietor was pleased that it was looked 
 upon as of any interest. Frankly, he did not greatly 
 value it. "I am using it, you see," he said; "but if 
 you care to have a carpenter build a set of shelves, 
 with doors, in there for me, to put my dishes in, you 
 may take the sideboard away." 
 
 Well, there were reasons why it was inconvenient 
 to remain there and superintend the necessary work; 
 and generous though the hotelkeeper's offer was, its 
 
 [ 135 ] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 acceptance would have made the obtaining of the 
 sideboard an expensive matter, after all as all who 
 have had doors and shelving built to order will 
 understand but the incident shows anew how on 
 every hand lie possibilities. 
 
 But one does not always meet with moderate esti- 
 mates of value, even in little-visited neighborhoods. 
 
 "Be you looking for blue plates'?" was the in- 
 quiry once addressed to us by a woman in the front 
 door of an isolated house. She had a few rather 
 good ones; plates worth fifty cents apiece in the 
 shops, in current money with the merchant. But 
 she had been influenced, isolated though she was, by 
 the unwise talk of some one who, not from love of 
 the old or from consideration for the owner, but 
 from uninformed enthusiasm, had set prices out of 
 all reason upon her pieces. 
 
 "Be you looking for blue plates'?" We looked at 
 them; but found that the owner firmly, almost ag- 
 gressively, was holding them at five dollars a plate. 
 
 And we once came across a farmhouse where a 
 woman, after showing a fairly good pattern of old- 
 fashioned coverlet, remarked that if any one should 
 ever want to buy it she would "let it go" for fifty 
 dollars. It was we, not she, who let it go. 
 
 No matter how far one may travel in excursions 
 
 [136] 
 
ON RAMBLING DRIVING TRIPS 
 
 into the country, it is difficult to find a district where 
 the professional dealer has not been. The trail of 
 the dealer is over almost all. He finds his profit in 
 the lonely farmhouse. Nowhere else can he obtain 
 the real things so cheaply. And even if dishonest 
 in the matter of being willing to sell imitations, he 
 none the less finds his profit here, for he can pick up 
 fine old pieces for far less than he could have them 
 manufactured. 
 
 Yet the dealer, with all his persistent cleverness 
 and his experience, misses many a treasure. He is 
 often unable to impress the people that they should 
 sell to him. Family pride is apt to assert itself, 
 even though there may be no real desire to retain the 
 desired piece. To sell to a lover of the old, to one 
 who really admires the things for their own sake, has 
 in it no sting. But to sell for mere money, and very 
 little at that, is another matter. 
 
 But, on the other hand, there are many folk who 
 have no dislike of selling to dealers; who, indeed, are 
 more ready to sell more cheaply to them; for, so it 
 appears, the dealer must be at the expense of hand- 
 ling and repairing before he can sell again ! A sort 
 of topsyturvydom of logic, but none the less fre- 
 quently met with. 
 
 These itinerant dealers, who do so much to make 
 
 [137] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 hard the way of the amateur collector by seizing 
 upon things before his appearance, are of two kinds : 
 the junk dealers, who frankly buy as scrap and who 
 are fatal to many a candlestick and many a pair of 
 andirons, and* the furniture men who buy as furni- 
 ture, and who are fatal, from the collector's view- 
 point, to many a rare old specimen. 
 
 Sometimes a quite obvious opportunity to ac- 
 quire a good bit remains curiously open, in spite of 
 the indefatigable collectors and dealers. 
 
 In an empty, deserted, ruined house, and put 
 away behind a door, in a cellar, and forgotten, we 
 once came upon a pair of good iron hand-wrought 
 andirons. There was some reason why, that day, it 
 was not convenient to carry the big pieces of iron 
 with us, and so we drove regretfully on without 
 them. 
 
 But, a year later, we were driving once more down 
 the charming road, a river on one side and a rocky 
 hill on the other, and once more we came to the old, 
 deserted house, which was just a little more ruinous, 
 just a little more falling to pieces, than it had been 
 when we first discovered it. 
 
 Naturally, the thought of the andirons once more 
 came. And so, into the empty house (the door had 
 long since disappeared), across the quavering floor, 
 
 [138] 
 
ON RAMBLING DRIVING TRIPS 
 
 down the trembling stair and there, tucked away, 
 just as they had been found and left twelve months 
 before, were the andirons! 
 
 The owner, in a house not far away, was found, 
 and gladly took a silver quarter in exchange for the 
 rusty fire-dogs whose existence had been so com- 
 pletely forgotten. 
 
 Always one is upon the verge of the unanticipa- 
 ted, the unlooked-for; except, indeed, that the unex- 
 pected happens so often to the enthusiast as thereby 
 to lose much of its unexpectedness. 
 
 We were driving along a road of alluring beauty, 
 between Tyringham and Great Barrington, amid the 
 tender glory of the sweeping hills, and we stopped at 
 an empty cottage whose door stood invitingly open. 
 This cottage had been examined but a short time be- 
 fore, so we learned, by former President Cleveland, 
 with the view of possibly making it the summer 
 home for himself and his family, so commanding 
 was its location on the hillside with a superb view 
 stretching away for miles. 
 
 Meadow grass swept up to the very door, and 
 right at the entrance was a flowing spring. Some of 
 the rooms were unplastered, some had stone fire- 
 places, and all were empty of furniture. 
 
 From the side door the path led between lilac 
 
 [139] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 bushes and tansy to a little barn and a littler tool- 
 shed. The barn, like the house, was entirely empty, 
 and so was the shed. 
 
 Against the wall of the shed was a cupboard made 
 for holding glue and nails and workshop odds and 
 ends. 
 
 The cupboard was bare but its door instantly 
 attracted attention. It was a complete mirror 
 frame! with sides and top and bottom complete, 
 and even the wooden stripping of the back. 
 
 [140] 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE FIELD IN NEW YORK AND VICINITY 
 
 NEW YORK, trie exponent of the present, the 
 representative of the modern, the strenuous 
 city of the twentieth century, in which no 
 crime is so serious as being of the past, would scarcely 
 be looked upon as a place for the collector of the an- 
 tique. Yet in New York City there is much that is 
 old, and in its near vicinity there is even more. 
 There are, too, in New York, as residents or tran- 
 sients, more people seeking for the old than seek for 
 it in any other of our cities, and therefore the de- 
 mand is met with a supply, even if the supply is far 
 from being in every case all that it might be. 
 
 So eager is the desire to tear down old-time build- 
 ings, that it is difficult to imagine things of the past 
 in the spick-span structures that have arisen in their 
 place; and it was a keen pleasure to find unexpec- 
 
 [HI] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 tedly in one of the newest of apartment houses, a 
 really astonishing collection, brought to New York 
 by the descendants of an old family coming here 
 from the South, and consisting of portraits, old let- 
 ters from presidents and generals, jewels of the wife 
 of an officer of Washington, old mahogany, even a 
 painting by that remarkable artist, of almost a cen- 
 tury ago, Chester Harding, who, from being a painter 
 of houses became a maker of portraits and in the very 
 beginning of his career went to Paris but it was 
 Paris in Kentucky! for his artistic experience, and 
 then painted the great folk of the earth. 
 
 There is a splendid collection of antique furniture 
 in the Van Cortlandt mansion house, in charge of one 
 of the patriotic societies; and it points the possibili- 
 ties of what may be in this great city, that the finest 
 sofa there was donated by a sergeant of the New 
 York police force. 
 
 One comes to know of many a beautiful piece in 
 private ownership and to divine that there must be 
 in all a vast number; and, wherever things are, the 
 collector who has faith and experience knows that 
 possibilities of securing them must from time to time 
 arise. 
 
 Of course, there are great shops where an- 
 tiques, or alleged antiques, are sold, but, for our- 
 
 [142] 
 
NEW YORK AND VICINITY 
 
 selves, we came to prefer the pleasure of dropping in 
 upon a curious old Austrian, who keeps a little shop 
 in rather a shabby part of the city. A man of curi- 
 ous personal history he; twenty-one years he served 
 in the Austrian army, and fourteen of those years 
 was stationed as a soldier in Venice. He and his 
 four brothers were in the crushing defeat of Solfer- 
 ino ; and, of the five, only he escaped with life. 
 
 His shop, as one would expect, is like a shop in a 
 quiet street of a foreigiytown. He always has about 
 the same row of dusty pewter mugs and jugs, the 
 same stand of arms, the same group of fire-irons and 
 brasses and samovars, the same dusty old bronze 
 lamps and hot-water dishes; but somewhere in that 
 shop is always a bit of treasure. Perhaps it is a hel- 
 met coal-scuttle, perhaps a silver candlestick, perhaps 
 a pewter tankard, a brass fender, a tall clock, a Shef- 
 field tray, an old mirror frame. 
 
 His is not the smart shop of big prices. His is 
 that happy find a "shabby shop" ! 
 
 His prices have gone up somewhat with the pass- 
 ing of the years. He will tell you that things are 
 harder to get than they used to be before the growth 
 of interest in antiques, and that now "when I go to 
 an auction on Long Island I can hardly get through 
 the crowd of carriages at the door." Naturally 
 
 [M3] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 enough, the helmet coal-scuttle, in brass, for two dol- 
 lars, is now but a memory of six years ago; now, at 
 eight dollars each, they stay with him but a day. But 
 there are other things on which prices have not pro- 
 portionately changed. 
 
 To the favored few he gives the key to his cabinet 
 of small and precious things ; gives it and turns away 
 to leave one in peace to look over the seals and mini- 
 atures and ivory-bound prayer-books and tortoise- 
 shell snuff-boxes of generations ago. It is a fetching 
 process, this exploration ; it seldom fails of the result- 
 ant "How much*?" and then there will be two or 
 three things set together and the old Austrian will 
 teeter up and down on his toes and say, "So much for 
 the lot!" 
 
 A type, this, of an interesting class of dealer that 
 is supposed never to have existed in this country or 
 else to have passed away ; and yet he and such as he, 
 although in limited number, may be unearthed. 
 
 In the neighborhood of New York there are many 
 small towns where treasures of old furniture can still 
 be found. What used to be the most promising of 
 these towns is on Long Island, within pleasant trol- 
 leying distance of the city, and a shop there should 
 be described, on account of its being typical of a 
 class. 
 
 [144] 
 
Tea and Antiques 
 
 That happy find a ' shabby-shop ' 
 
NEW YORK AND VICINITY 
 
 An old man, himself a lover of the antique, bought 
 and stored a prodigious number of old tables and 
 chairs, bureaus and desks, andirons and fenders and 
 candlesticks. His was distinctly one of the "shabby 
 shops," to use again a term beloved of the collector. 
 No cabinet-maker's strategy improved his pieces, no 
 smell of linseed oil or shellac marked efforts to 
 brighten their dinginess. There were the dust and 
 the smell and the breakages that go with so many of 
 the things of long ago. 
 
 The owner of this great collection spent his time 
 in looking for more. Although his stock filled an 
 old-fashioned country store, and three barns and an 
 attic, there was not room for all his acquisitions, and 
 we have seen a bandy-legged claw-and-ball table be- 
 side the hencoop, exposed to the weather, and several 
 old sofas, of no mean design, with only tarpaulin to 
 cover their gray hairs. 
 
 With what eagerness, on our first visit, we 
 mounted the store porch and approached the door. It 
 was locked. We shook it and peered in. Against the 
 window frame hung several brown silver salvers. 
 They were dull and unpolished, but fine. Old candle- 
 sticks, broken blue teapots, and the odds and ends of 
 years of gathering filled the rest of the window. 
 After peering for many minutes a man showed him- 
 
 [147] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 self, who, spearing us with his single eye, suspiciously 
 demanded to know if we wanted anything in partic- 
 ular. 
 
 What we wanted was to see the dealer, of whom 
 we had heard, and then under his guidance to see his 
 stock. So the first inquiry was for the dealer. 
 "He 's over in Connecticut, to a sale." 
 We naturally wanted to see the stock anyhow, 
 having trolleyed out there for no other purpose. 
 But the one-eyed seemed to resent any idea of look- 
 ing at the stock and was even disinclined to accept a 
 hint as to opening the door. No museum attendant, 
 after the closing hour, could have been more disoblig- 
 ing than was this supposed-to-be clerk in the middle 
 of the afternoon. 
 
 "Well, have you any open-work brass fenders'?" 
 He grudgingly opened the door. We entered. 
 But there was barely room to move. Back to back 
 there were chests of drawers and shabby high-boys, 
 there were sofas rampant, there were beds with test- 
 ers and beds with low posts jostling one another, and 
 there were chaotic masses of work-tables, candle- 
 stands and mirror frames. On the walls, upon pegs, 
 hung innumerable chairs. In the corners were piles 
 of things randomly heaped, good, bad and indifferent 
 merged indistinguishably. 
 
 Our eyes grew accustomed to the dim light that fil- 
 
NEW YORK AND VICINITY 
 
 tered in through dirty windows, and, although the 
 one-eyed could not at once discover where any brass 
 fenders were lost, we saw an inlaid dressing glass 
 which greatly pleased us. But the man took a 
 queerer turn and said that he did n't know what to 
 charge, and, anyway, Mr. H didn't care particu- 
 larly about selling that. 
 
 So it was with many aawther thing; and the ran- 
 dom prices he now and then consented to give seemed 
 to have little connection with the value of the arti- 
 cles, and we left him to lock up and returned to the 
 city. 
 
 On the occasion of another trip, a year later, we 
 found the old man who was the collector of this great 
 mass of treasure. And we discovered his secret. He 
 really did not want to sell ! He wanted to gather 
 in. A Sheraton sofa was picked out but he did not 
 want it to leave his sight. He evaded putting a 
 price on it. He showed a poor and featureless one 
 and offered that instead. He had little to say and 
 little to sell. He was a veritable miser of old furni- 
 ture! 
 
 He died, not long after this, and his heirs showed 
 clearly that they were not of his way of thinking. 
 For all the shabby old treasures were sent to Fifth 
 Avenue, and during six days' rapid selling, following 
 wide advertising, they were auctioned to make a New 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 York holiday. They were sold in their shabby, un- 
 repaired condition, so that the buyers could see pre- 
 cisely what they were getting, but there was the pro- 
 viso that every article should be put in perfect con- 
 dition, and be properly polished, before delivery. 
 
 This occurred but recently, and is another example 
 of twentieth-century opportunities. 
 
 In contrast to that man of Long Island is one 
 whose place is near the Kill van Kull. This man's 
 establishment has a widespread area of back rooms 
 behind the store front, but the stock is so variable 
 that there may not be a single piece worth buying or 
 there may be a dozen choice bits. 
 
 We have never seen the owner at his shop. He 
 spends his time in trips that take him not only to 
 near-by points but even as far as Pennsylvania and 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 His wife meets customers ; and though she does not 
 seem to know a Chippendale from a Jacobean by 
 name, she knows them in value, and her "Them 's 
 seven dollars," or "Them 's one dollar" covers the 
 ground. 
 
 When, perhaps in Westchester or in some New 
 Jersey village, this man finds a Heppelwhite side- 
 board or a slant-top secretary, he sends word to a few 
 of his customers clients is perhaps a good word 
 
NEW YORK AND VICINITY 
 
 and they are in his shop when the crated piece ap- 
 pears. He takes it as a compliment to his shrewdness 
 when his shop is empty of all but the trash that seems 
 bound to accumulate about every antique dealer, no 
 matter what his knowledge. 
 
 We came to know the dealer personally in a curi- 
 ous way. One morning, some men were heard, with- 
 in the portico of our home^ apparently fumbling at 
 the knocker on the front door. Then came a voice : 
 "I '11 give you three dollars for one like that." It 
 was clearly a case of one man offering another a price 
 for a knocker like our treasure from Quebec, with 
 the added implication, in the absence of knowledge 
 of identity and purpose, that a price was put upon 
 that particular knocker ! 
 
 Now, that was not a thing to be taken lightly; and 
 so there was the prompt overhauling of two forms 
 disappearing down the village street. 
 
 Then, for the first time, was met the owner of the 
 Kill van Kull shop ! With a local guide he was cov- 
 ering the neighborhood, seeking what old pieces of 
 furniture he could, financially speaking, devour, and 
 in all honesty of purpose he had been explaining to 
 his guide that knockers such as ours are always desir- 
 able. 
 
 He came back to the old brick building and, enter- 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 ing, his eyes at once glanced upon a treasure which 
 erstwhile had stood in his own rambling establish- 
 ment. He recognized it at once, for thus it is with the 
 enthusiastic vendor of treasures. Then he looked 
 at our other things, and, moved thereto by fellow 
 feeling (for this class of dealer is always a lover of 
 furniture at heart, and not a salesman), he launched 
 into curious details of what his trips had taught him, 
 especially in regard to our particular countryside; 
 telling of here a cupboard, there a chest of drawers, 
 there an old clock, which he had been on the trail of 
 and in hopes of getting but which we might secure 
 even if he did not. His familiarity with roads and 
 houses was astonishing. He had unearthed curious 
 secrets of garret and cellar, and frankly talked of 
 them. And from him we learned to realize more 
 fully, not only what treasures the perseverance and 
 ingratiating ways of such men secure, but also that 
 there are country dwellers who, ready enough to sell 
 to the amateur, will not sell to the professional 
 dealer. 
 
 By way of contrast there has sprung up in the 
 immediate vicinity of New York, within driving or 
 easy automobiling distance of the city, a new type of 
 shop, fascinating in appearance, where the wares are 
 spread through sundry rooms, with an air of furnish- 
 
NEW YORK AND VICINITY 
 
 ing rather than of display, and where, in the midst 
 of a glow of polished mahogany and Sheffield plate, 
 luncheon and tea are served, so that while you eat 
 you are tempted. The opportunity for talk while 
 tea is sipped leads to many a purchase, large and 
 small, and a most delightful sort of shopkeeping is 
 thus carried on. As to reliability and genuineness, 
 it is merely as it is everywhere else that is, the 
 judgment of the buyer himself must always in the 
 last resort be relied upon to pick the true from the 
 false, if any should be false. 
 
 On the Jersey side of the Hudson, less than twenty 
 miles from New York City, we called on an aged 
 couple on the day of the fiftietl/ anniversary of their 
 wedding. And their house is one of the many re- 
 minders that much of the antique is still to be found. 
 
 But, alas ! their sitting room that day displayed an 
 incongruous sight. For in a semi-circle were ten 
 armchairs of painfully modern construction, sent in 
 as anniversary gifts by relatives, and these chairs had 
 displaced the charming old furniture that the cou- 
 ple loved. But elsewhere in the house there were 
 still the treasured old articles. 
 
 After a while, we strolled out into the garden, 
 and we all sat down beside an overgrown mass of 
 fragrant box under the shadow of an ancient well- 
 
 [1/3] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 sweep, where moss pinks were growing in fragrant 
 beds. And the dear old lady gave us strawberries 
 and cream in delightful old saucers of lustre-ware, 
 and the pitcher and bowl were of lustre-ware as well. 
 Somehow, it was all like a leaf out of the past; the 
 fine old faces, in an environment still older. 
 
 It is one thing to state, in broad generalization, 
 that within the immediate vicinity of New York 
 there are countless articles of old furniture ; it is an- 
 other to tell definitely what some particular locality 
 can show, so that the collector may be stimulated to 
 new efforts and a deeper enthusiasm. 
 
 And so, selecting one single village, we took its 
 furniture census. 
 
 The village is less than two hours by rail from 
 New York, it is a village of ancestry, of the leaven 
 of the Colonies and the Revolution. It is, too, a 
 village in whose vicinity, upon little lanes and cross- 
 roads, still dwell colored folk, lineal descendants of 
 those slaves of New York who were not freed until 
 three-quarters of a century ago. 
 
 The village has more old furniture than some; 
 it has less than others; it may therefore well stand as 
 an example of what still exists in some of the towns 
 not far from the metropolis. 
 
 For sale? Most fortunately, no ! For if the old- 
 
 [154] 
 
" O 
 
 era. 
 
NEW YORK AND VICINITY 
 
 time treasures were all upon the market the field 
 would all too soon be exhausted. And yet, by 
 chance or mischance, almost anything is apt some 
 time to be obtainable. The piece which cannot, to- 
 day, be purchased at any price, may be for sale to- 
 morrow. And when such things are for sale, it 
 would please those who have long treasured them to 
 know that they are to pass into the hands of such as 
 shall long treasure them in turn. 
 
 Here, literally enumerated, naught to exaggerate 
 nor aught to set down excessively, is what is in that 
 town. 
 
 Beginning on the outskirts of the village, there is 
 a rambling old house, connected with the literary his- 
 tory of a bygone generation, and in this house there 
 are silver candlesticks and two silver candelabra, a 
 Chippendale chair, a set of fine old Canton china, and 
 two good corner-cupboards built into a wainscoted 
 wall. 
 
 Next comes a still more ancient house : a picture- 
 esquely low-eaved cottage, sheltered under the shoul- 
 der of a hill; and here are an Empire sofa, an old 
 settee, rush-seated and slender-spoked, blue coverlets, 
 and, chief pride of the cottage, a fine armchair that 
 was made more than a century and a half ago. 
 
 Another house ; and here are a grandfather's clock, 
 
 [1/7] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 old silver, Windsor chairs, and a Heppelwhite side- 
 board sadly broken but with all the fragments care- 
 fully kept with intent to repair. 
 
 Continuing, we reach a house whose stately charm, 
 antedating the Revolution, lies in gambrel roof, 
 and small-paned windows, and felicitous chimneys, 
 and white paint, and perfect proportion of parts, and 
 magnificent encompassing trees. And it holds 
 wealth of the old-fashioned, to match such an exter- 
 ior chests of drawers, innumerable tables, a tall 
 clock, a wardrobe with bonnet-top, a cabinet, a side- 
 board and many chairs. On the door is an old brass 
 knocker. 
 
 The setting down of these literal facts must seem 
 like a fairy tale to those who believe that almost all 
 old-fashioned furniture has been seized upon. 
 
 In another house there is a really splendid chest of 
 drawers, there are old brass fenders, blue and white 
 coverlets, blue Spode, a particularly beautiful pair 
 of brass tongs, a grandfather's clock, a brass knocker, 
 an old tip-table; and, until recently, there lay, for- 
 gotten and neglected, in the wagon-shed, a fine old 
 sofa, which needed but renovation to make it an or- 
 nament to any house. 
 
 Chippendale chairs, Windsor chairs, an Empire 
 sideboard with pillars and claws, a mirror such is 
 the treasure of another house; and, continuing the 
 
NEW YORK AND VICINITY 
 
 furniture census, we next note a little old dwelling, 
 inhabited by an aged widow, where there are a full 
 tea-set of beautiful Lowestoft, a pair of andirons, 
 and a tall clock. 
 
 Across the street from this house is one in which 
 are an old Dutch wardrobe, paneled, of oak, a four- 
 post bed, a rare mantel clock in brass and mahogany, 
 a lustre pitcher, a chest of drawers, a bookcase with 
 paneled glass, and a brass knocker. 
 
 A little down the street, and there stands a house 
 wherein is a fine old set of drawers. Until a few 
 years ago the house was furnished from top to bottom 
 with things ancient, most of which were widely scat- 
 tered at an auction following the owner's death. 
 
 Another house, and we find an old mirror; in an- 
 other, a Sheraton desk ; another, cranes and pothooks. 
 
 Then a house where, until recently, there were a 
 number of splint-bottom and Windsor chairs, which 
 some one from New York, finding that the owner 
 would sell, purchased for twenty-five cents apiece. 
 
 Another house shows a brass door-knocker; an- 
 other has a candlestand and a fine desk. And then 
 comes one, lived in by a venerable man, whose taste, 
 running to the modern, has filled his old white house 
 with furniture of the latest design, while his attic is 
 crowded with old-fashioned pieces which he will not 
 even think of parting with and which he rarely per- 
 
 [159] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 mits any one to see, he being over ninety and not 
 much liking to be disturbed. A brass knocker on the 
 side door, the fifth thus far in this little village, is 
 the only sign, below the garret, that the building 
 holds anything of old-time note. 
 
 Another house, and there is a rare set of three din- 
 ing-tables, rope-legged, and of mahogany; there is a 
 brass fender; there is an old-fashioned dressing-glass 
 and table; there are old blue dishes; there is an old 
 traveling-case, of mahogany and brass, with its bot- 
 tles and drinking-glasses. 
 
 Another house has an old and desirable sideboard, 
 which a dealer's recent offer of fifty dollars did not 
 tempt the owner to part with, and a brass knocker. 
 In another there is a mirror of mahogany, with or- 
 molu mounting. Another has a Sheraton table, a 
 bandy-legged table, a knocker, and chairs and candle- 
 sticks. In the next a banjo clock had just been sold. 
 In another are a Chippendale chair, a mirror with 
 acorn drops, old-time silhouettes, a mahogany dining- 
 table, and tea-tables of ancient make. 
 
 Almost through the little village now, we come to 
 a house in which are an unusually beautiful chest of 
 drawers of Empire design, a Lowestoft cream- jug, 
 rush-bottomed chairs of very graceful pattern, and 
 very fine andirons. 
 
NEW YORK AND VICINITY 
 
 On the farther edge of the village is a house in 
 which are two sideboards, one Sheraton and one Em- 
 pire, an Empire cheval glass, a diamond-paned sec- 
 retary, andirons, tip-tables, two chests of drawers, 
 and eigjit old decanters of cut glass ! 
 
 Near by is a house with a brass knocker, and a 
 French bed that has roll ends. Then a house in which 
 is a great four-post Empire bed, a set of Sheffield- 
 plate silver in fascinating shapes, and an Empire 
 clock. 
 
 And in the immediate vicinity of the village 
 there is a house in which are a beautiful specimen of 
 five-slat chair, a Continental mirror, old andirons 
 and candlesticks; and another house wherein are an 
 Empire table, with pillars elaborately ornamented, 
 a swell-front cabinet, and a tea-table. 
 
 Confident though we were, from past experiences, 
 that we should find many a specimen of the old, the 
 total of the enumeration amazed us. It is putting it 
 moderately to say that in that one little village there 
 is enough to stock a museum. And there is many an- 
 other village with treasure equal or superior. 
 
 It is not only the big but the little, not only the 
 piece of fine furniture but the piece of what may be 
 called kitchen furniture, which one may unexpec- 
 tedly find. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 On a Westchester road, at a long distance from 
 any other house, we once came across one of those 
 pathetic marks of where a habitation had been a 
 line of stone foundation and a few scattered bricks. 
 Fire had utterly destroyed the house ; no attempt had 
 been made to rebuild ; the ruins had been overhauled 
 with care, and then vines had grown clusteringly 
 over the burnt stone and brick. 
 
 There, unearthed by some chance, by the sliding of 
 some pile of ashes, lay a huge iron gipsy kettle with 
 three legs. Picturesque in shape it was and of un- 
 usual size. There was nobody of whom to buy it, it 
 was as deserted and lost as if it were in mid-ocean, 
 and so it went along with us. It was red with rust, 
 but a coat of dead black transformed it into a most 
 satisfactory wood-box, to stand beside one of our fire- 
 places in which the andirons are of iron the wood- 
 box in the adjoining room, where the fireplace 
 fittings are of brass, being a large brass kettle, even 
 larger than the iron one just described, which a 
 farmer's wife gladly disposed of to us in exchange 
 for a preserving kettle of modern make purchased for 
 her at the village store; for there are many who are 
 quite ready to give the ancient in exchange for the 
 new. 
 
 In one particular, the vicinity of New York, es- 
 
NEW YORK AND VICINITY 
 
 pecially here and there on Long Island, and a little 
 in the Hudson River region and in near-by parts of 
 Westchester County, is different from the rest of the 
 United States in that it shows more of the Dutch in- 
 fluence. And this means not only Dutch ideas and 
 peculiarities, as, the Dutch paneled armoires and 
 heavy cupboards, and the blue tiles, with Scripture 
 subjects, around fireplaces, and similar things to go 
 with the old Dutch "stoops," but the influence of the 
 Orient; for the Dutch, great traders that they were, 
 brought home with them from the East, along with 
 the spices and silks for which they more specifically 
 sailed, specimens of ebony furniture, of teakwood, of 
 sandalwood, of wicker, and the grotesque designs 
 of the Chinese. 
 
 The quest of old-time furniture leads one into 
 many a strange and interesting place. But never 
 was there a more picturesque experience encountered 
 by furniture-lovers than befell us in the hilly region 
 north of New York City. 
 
 At the foot of a long, steep road, a road at whose 
 summit had taken place one of the noted tragedies of 
 the Revolution, stood an old broad-fronted house. 
 It was on the verge of becoming decrepit. One end 
 had noticeably sagged, and there was a tottering nod- 
 dingness about the entire structure. On the door 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 was a fine old brass eagle knocker, and, wishing to 
 make some inquiry about the roads, it was gently 
 touched gently, because of the peacefulness of the 
 ancient house and of the environing hills, glorified 
 by a sun-bright haze. 
 
 And as the knock at the door of an ancient castle 
 might be expected to draw forth an armored custo- 
 dian, so this knock summoned a fitting warder 
 
 An old, old man, stepping out of the dim past into 
 that old doorway, appeared there. He was straight 
 and slender and tall. His hair was iron-gray and 
 his black tie was worn like an old-time stock. His 
 tail-coat hung in full folds about his shrunken form. 
 A distinguished-looking man he was, and he gave the 
 wished-for information in a soft and gentle voice, 
 and with the manner of old-fashioned courtesy. 
 
 Asked if his house were a house of history: "Not 
 exactly," he replied; "and yet, many a man of his- 
 tory, many an officer, has eaten and slept here. This 
 was an inn long before the Revolution and during 
 that war, and this road was one of the principal high- 
 ways between New York and Connecticut. But 
 won't you come in, both of you?" his glance taking 
 in the waiting figure in the carriage. 
 
 We entered the hall: a hall of considerable dig- 
 nity. An old-fashioned lantern hung from the cen- 
 
NEW YORK AND VICINITY 
 
 tre, and a stairway swept upward with low and easy 
 steps. Political woodcuts of the past were lined 
 along the side of the hall, and an ancient clock ticked 
 steadily as it had ticked there for decades. 
 
 In^very room was some treasure. But, best of 
 all, in a broad, low room directly off the hall, there 
 was a carved mantel of wood and there was a rarely 
 beautiful Heppelwhite chair with characteristic 
 shield-back of fine mahogany. This chair, not 
 strong structurally, was very heavy when lifted, 
 showing the density of West Indian mahogany. 
 There was a Sheraton side-table with wings and 
 reeded legs; in a cupboard in the chimney-corner 
 there were bits of china which he lovingly took up 
 and told about; and there was a Chippendale table, 
 than which we have never seen one more beautiful, 
 with cabriole legs, and claw-and-ball feet, and elab- 
 orate workmanship in every detail; the edges were 
 carved and the sides were carved and the bends of 
 the cabriole legs were carved. 
 
 He fondled the old things caressingly, and spoke 
 gently of the past. "I am ninety-three years old," he 
 said quietly. 
 
 In a corner beyond the marvelous table stood an 
 old octagonal mahogany music-stand, and on the 
 table lay a flute. We knew at once that it could be 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 only his. And could any musical instrument be 
 more fitting ! 
 
 His eyes lingered lovingly upon it. At a hint 
 that it would be a pleasure to hear him, he took it 
 up. Then his blue eyes grew brighter, his face 
 lighted up anew, and he played old tunes, ballads of 
 the long ago, with a soft shrilling of the notes, al- 
 most as if a ghost were playing in a dream. 
 
 [166] 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE FIELD IN PHILADELPHIA AND VICINITY 
 
 FOR the lover of the old, the sign of ancient 
 furniture always possesses a potential attrac- 
 tion, whether it be represented by the "Anti- 
 chita" of a back street in Perugia, the "Anciens Meu- 
 bles" of Tours, or the "Antiques'" of Fourth Avenue 
 or Pine Street. 
 
 On our own side of the water, antiques of all 
 things are apt to run in fashions, although fashion 
 is supposed to have nothing to do except with the 
 things of to-day. 
 
 In the fashionable shops, fashion rules in the set- 
 ting forth of the old ! At one time no prominent es- 
 tablishment will dare be without its pair of stone 
 lions; at another time, the old stone cistern-top of 
 Italy, with grooves worn by the ropes of centuries, 
 will be everywhere in view. One suspects that the 
 ropes are sometimes of the twentieth century, but 
 
 1*167] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 none the less, if there is a place to put it, one cannot 
 be in the fashion without the stone well-curb! At 
 another time, no sign of stone is to be seen, except on 
 inquiry, and articles of wood arbitrarily rule. And, 
 according to fashion, the ruling wooden furniture 
 may be Dutch or French or our own Colonial. 
 
 But the real collector cares nothing for the passing 
 fashion, and is therefore likely to be best pleased 
 with the out-of-the-way shops where fashions are un- 
 known. In Philadelphia, as in other large cities, 
 these are tucked away in odd corners. 
 
 Not that the large shops are to be arbitrarily 
 avoided. One may find there precisely the genuine 
 bit he has been searching for. And in Philadelphia, 
 on an average, prices are likely to range lower than 
 in New York. 
 
 Philadelphia and its vicinity offer a fruitful field. 
 A loan exhibition given in the Germantown quarter 
 of the city, only a few years ago it was in 1902 
 gave some indication of the prodigious number of 
 old pieces still preserved. After all, it need not be 
 wondered at. For in that section there is an impos- 
 ing array of Colonial homes, and the entire city is a 
 city of ancestry. Not only, therefore, did all the 
 exhibits have a local habitation, but many were con- 
 nected with historical names. There was profusion 
 
 [168] 
 
PHILADELPHIA AND VICINITY 
 
 of old silver and pewter, of brass and china; there 
 was profusion of swell-front chests, of pieces of in- 
 lay and marquetry, of pieces of oak and walnut and 
 cherry and mahogany. Naturally, too, there were 
 fine sjtecimens of the Windsor chair, Philadelphia 
 being the city in which that style of chair was first 
 made in this country, not long after King George the 
 First established its vogue in England. 
 
 One knows that the field must be broad in which 
 there are such gleanings, and so the quest of old-time 
 furniture thereabouts has the constant fascination of 
 probable success. 
 
 When the breaking up of some old family, or the 
 death of its last representative, brings about the dis- 
 persion of old furniture, and the goods are to be 
 sold, it is not customary, as it is in New York, to 
 hold the sale at a shop, but in the old house itself. 
 
 One such sale, and it was typical, was held not 
 long ago in a house in the central part of what is 
 known as Old Philadelphia, near Rittenhouse 
 Square. An aged spinster, last of her line, had died, 
 and strangers went tramping through the house that 
 had sheltered her forefathers and then herself. 
 
 Even here, with the passing of the years, the mod- 
 ern had crept in, but there was still much of the old, 
 particularly in the sitting room, which, in accordance 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 with ancient Philadelphia custom, was situated on 
 the second floor of the extension, above the dining- 
 room: this situation of the sitting room of the old 
 families giving that darkened effect to the houses, 
 after nightfall, that so puzzles visitors from other 
 cities. 
 
 There were book-cases, and tables, and chairs; 
 there was a rare dressing-glass, in old lacquer; there 
 was a fire-screen, a tiny square of mahogany, which 
 pushed up and down, adjustably, upon a slender 
 spindle ; and there was some of the rare Belleek ware, 
 made in Ireland half a century ago; a tea service, 
 cups and saucers and teapot and bowl, all of the dis- 
 tinguished Belleek shape, low, squat, and broad: a 
 kind of ware whose manufacture has been revived in 
 Ireland, of late years, and is coming again upon the 
 market. 
 
 In the numberless little trips which may be made 
 in the vicinity of Philadelphia the impression of the 
 existence of a great quantity of old-time material, in 
 private houses and in shops, is confirmed. 
 
 At a town upon the Delaware, less than an hour 
 by rail from the city, we found a curious little wist- 
 ful-faced, droop-shouldered man; silent, rather; al- 
 most shy, indeed. His shop seemed to have but lit- 
 tle in it. A few candlesticks, a piece or two of ma- 
 
 [170] 
 
PHILADELPHIA AND VICINITY 
 
 hogany, some china which, if one were disposed to 
 be captious, might scoffingly be set down as modern 
 reproduction. 
 
 At jjrst the man was torpidly indifferent ; but we 
 knew of him by reputation and therefore knew that 
 there was more to him and to his ancient furnishings 
 than appeared upon the surface. But nothing had 
 given a hint of what was really to come. 
 
 Slowly he thawed; slowly he perceived that he 
 was talking to some one who appreciated and cared; 
 and he led the way into a long and narrow room be- 
 hind his little shop. It was full of treasures; and 
 then he led the way upstairs, through his living 
 rooms, and into apartments filled to overflowing 
 with ancient things, where old cupboards and secre- 
 tary drawers hid quantities of glass and genuine 
 deep blue china. 
 
 Then down the street we went with him, and 
 through a passageway, into a cold and drafty barn 
 crowded full with antiquities. 
 
 In one of the dark corners stood, side by side, a 
 high-boy and a chest-on-chest, names often used in- 
 terchangeably, although, properly speaking, a chest- 
 on-chest comes practically to the ground, whereas a 
 high-boy leaves sufficient space for cabriole legs. 
 
 This high-boy was one with its top constructed for 
 
 [171] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 the display of china, and in appearance it was not 
 much later than the date at which high-boys first ap- 
 peared; that is, about the beginning of the eigh- 
 teenth century. The chest-on-chest was of a later 
 date; naturally enough, as, although there were a 
 few in use by 1 750, they did not become at all com- 
 mon before the time of the Revolution. 
 
 Then there was an odd interlude. There was still 
 more to show, he said, but he had promised to act as 
 pall-bearer at a funeral and he hoped that we would 
 excuse him for a while. He assumed black hat, 
 black coat, and air of decent mournfulness, and 
 we watched him go away. With an open trust much 
 at variance with his initial and almost churlish tor- 
 pidity, he offered to leave us in charge of one of his 
 places, to look about, while he was away! But we 
 did not wish to remain as guardians in his absence, 
 and therefore interested ourselves in the task, that at 
 first seemed hopeless, of finding an attractive lunch- 
 eon: and found, after a while, a wonderful darky, 
 in an unpromising looking place, who gave us delec- 
 table deviled crabs and other fruit of the sea. 
 
 Then back from the funeral came the dealer; but 
 not until he was out of his black clothes and their 
 concomitant mournfulness was he himself again. 
 
 This time he led us to a boathouse, with a shaky 
 
eg. 
 
PHILADELPHIA AND VICINITY 
 
 floor, where through great ragged holes we could see 
 the Delaware coursing beneath. Here were gath- 
 ered mqpy additional pieces of the old and valuable. 
 Once, in New York, we came upon a corner-cup- 
 board holding up a roof which had settled down 
 upon it ; once in New Jersey, we looked at a chest of 
 drawers, with a serpentine front, which stood in a 
 corner where the floor was dangerously sinking; and 
 here, on the Delaware, were pieces of furniture 
 which threatened to fall into the river if we should 
 step across the shaky floor to reach them. 
 
 There were chairs needing faith as well as works 
 to restore them, there were candlestands which, re- 
 versing nature's law, could maintain a balance only 
 when standing on their heads. Everything was as 
 he had obtained it ; nothing had been repaired, noth- 
 ing restored. But in spite of a glad willingness to 
 show his wares to those who would appreciate, it 
 was clear enough that his personal desire, apart from 
 needful considerations of prosaic dollars, was to 
 hoard and not to sell. 
 
 In truth, this man and his establishment were cur- 
 iously, in character, like the old collector and his 
 rambling warerooms on Long Island; and since doc- 
 tors are a class by themselves, and lawyers and 
 business men and mechanics, why should there not 
 
 [175] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 be distinctive traits about a class who handle and 
 sell the old for the love of it ! 
 
 If one is to consider all of Pennsylvania as being 
 in the vicinity of Philadelphia, it opens a wide field. 
 The line of southern counties is rich in articles of the 
 early time, and one may go as far as Westmoreland 
 County and the Ligonier valley, where the stone 
 houses, stone chimneyed, give a not misleading prom- 
 ise of early treasures, or even so far as that region of 
 homely and delightful romance, Mrs. Deland's "Old 
 Chester." One may explore the south and west of 
 Pennsylvania with deep pleasure in the exploration 
 and with satisfaction in results; but it is not posi- 
 tively needful that one should go so far; there is 
 much to be had within easy distance of Philadelphia. 
 
 We wandered at random, one autumn day, 
 through a charming inland town, some twenty-five 
 miles from the city. Old trees shaded the old houses 
 and old-fashioned flowers bloomed in the old gar- 
 dens. 
 
 We turned a corner, rounding a large and com- 
 fortable house, and saw, standing within a porch of 
 generous proportions at the side, a thin and fluttery 
 elderly little Quakeress. 
 
 She was talking with a townsman, who was halt- 
 ing with reluctant feet, looking back longingly at a 
 
 [176] 
 
PHILADELPHIA AND VICINITY 
 
 bundle of magazines which he had just set down, 
 and trying to overcome his cautious frugality. 
 
 "The^ may take them or leave them, just as thee 
 chooses," said the little Quaker lady, bringing the 
 incident to a close with a mild peremptoriness under 
 which the man went shamefacedly away. 
 
 It was evident that at this house, although there 
 was no sign or announcement, something was being 
 sold. If one thing, why not another 4 ? And it was 
 a charming house, with charming possibilities. 
 
 And so one of us stepped inside, and the Quaker- 
 ess stood smiling a greeting from the top of the few 
 steps. 
 
 "Can you tell me if any one in this town has a 
 claw-footed sofa, and would be willing to part with 
 itV 
 
 "We have one here, and are willing to sell it to 
 thee," was the reply. 
 
 She asked us in, and called her husband. 
 
 And we saw, directly facing us, set in front of a 
 closed fireplace, precisely such a sofa as we were in 
 search of. In every particular it answered the re- 
 quirements which we had in mind. It was eight 
 feet long, inside measurement. It was done in dark 
 leather, however, rather worn by years of use, in- 
 stead of its original covering. It was a thing of 
 
 [177] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 perfect lines and curves. It had claw feet, and 
 above them were elaborately broad and spreading 
 wings. Each arm was in a superb double curve, 
 and the faces of the arms were beautifully carved in 
 acanthus leaves, with the carving narrowing and 
 broadening to follow the changing line of the wood. 
 The back was elaborately carved from end to end, 
 with a charming interrupted roll in the middle. At 
 each end, under the lower curve of the arm, was a 
 space for one of the old-fashioned hard cylinder pil- 
 lows a fashion of much older date than this sofa, 
 but revived a century ago but we discarded the pil- 
 lows as the sofa was finer and in better proportion 
 without them. 
 
 This sofa had been used by the two Quakers for 
 thirty years, and before that had been in possession 
 of the one from whom they obtained it for some 
 forty-odd years; tracing back the pedigree, thus, to 
 1830. Previous to 1830 there is no record of it; 
 but it could scarcely have been much more than 
 twenty years old at that time, as it is of early Em- 
 pire style. 
 
 The Quakers showed us through their house ; they 
 had decided to sell what they had, and give up 
 housekeeping, although they had been housekeeping 
 all their married life. We went from room to room, 
 
 [178] 
 
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 1 ! 
 
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 I 3 
 3 I 
 
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 C rt 
 
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PHILADELPHIA AND VICINITY 
 
 and up waxed stairs, and saw old-time bits at every 
 turn, on every side. And again we thought, what 
 quantities of old furniture still exist, when this 
 house, found so entirely by lucky fortune, was but 
 one out of many. 
 
 The sofa was not the only article that was ob- 
 tained from them. We secured a high-boy, well 
 over the century mark in age, and worthy of its 
 name, it being more than six feet high. It is of wal- 
 nut, with wealth of drawers graduated in size. 
 Bandy-legged it is, and has web feet; web as distin- 
 guished from claw, the rib of the toes being indica- 
 ted instead of completely carved; a style often used 
 on fine old pieces from their being considered less 
 breakable than the claw-and-ball. 
 
 And now, here is the strangest part of a strange 
 story. The two Quakers sold scarcely anything be- 
 sides what they sold to us. Ready to dispose of 
 their old treasures as they were, they were ready for 
 a short time only. Whatever had turned them in 
 that direction was so soon and so completely altered 
 as to cause them to decide to keep their home and all 
 their household goods, after all. Surely an old- fur- 
 niture providence watches over the ardent collector. 
 
 They felt no regret for having sold to us ; at least, 
 if they did they stoutly maintained to the contrary, 
 
 [181] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 and they wished nothing undone that had been done. 
 Only no more was to be sold, whether to ourselves 
 or to any one else. 
 
 And we found that we had made two delightful 
 friends, of tastes congenial; friends whom it is a 
 pleasure to meet and to hear from. "We were sorry 
 to have missed you the other afternoon" in such 
 wise writes the old gentleman. "Come again; come 
 again on the first day of the week. For in the 
 Friends' calendar the first day of the week is conse- 
 crated to the social amenities." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 IN VIRGINIA AND DELAWARE 
 
 IT was eighty-seven years ago that Sydney Smith 
 penned his famous gibe upon all American books 
 and statuary and plays and pictures ; though why 
 he should have been so sweeping is not altogether 
 apparent, for in the very year that he wrote his gibe 
 there died an American painter, Benjamin West, a 
 native of Pennsylvania, who had been honored with 
 membership in the academies of Florence, Bologna 
 and Parma and had been president of the Royal 
 Academy. 
 
 At least the witty Englishman said nothing in 
 criticism of American furniture; although he proba- 
 bly did not know that there had been many an Amer- 
 ican cabinet-maker who had done fine and artistic 
 work. Nor was all the work merely copies of forms 
 from abroad, for the American alertness and origin- 
 ality of spirit caused the adaptation and alteration 
 
 [183] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 of English, Dutch and French forms, and even their 
 improvement, as with the shapes of Empire when 
 that style was declining in Europe. 
 
 In both the North and the South a great propor- 
 tion of the furniture was made by native cabinet- 
 makers, even before the Revolution; and after the 
 war importation still more decreased. 
 
 In the South, however, the proportion of native- 
 made furniture was never so great as in the North, 
 and therefore in the South there is more probability 
 of finding specimens of English, Dutch or French 
 manufacture, more likelihood of picking up an Eng- 
 lish Chippendale or Sheraton or a French Empire in- 
 stead of one of American make. 
 
 The lists of cabinet-makers of a century or more 
 ago in the different cities do not, at first sight, seem 
 to bear out the idea of a distinct difference in the 
 two sections of the country in the matter of furni- 
 ture making, for comparison of the number of 
 Charleston cabinet-makers with those of Boston, or 
 those of New York with those of Baltimore, does 
 not exhibit any marked unlikeness. But the shops 
 in the Northern cities averaged a larger size, or at 
 least more of an annual output; and, more impor- 
 tant than this, there were great numbers of makers 
 of furniture scattered through a host of little towns 
 
IN VIRGINIA AND DELAWARE 
 
 and villages in New York and Pennsylvania and 
 New England, whereas in the South there were com- 
 paratively few outside of the larger places. 
 
 There was some degree of importation into Vir- 
 ginia and the Carol inas, from the other side of Ma- 
 son and Dixon's line, but this was never extremely 
 popular; if furniture was to be imported it might as 
 well be imported from Europe ; the sense of close and 
 personal and friendly connection with England en- 
 dured in the South much longer than in the North. 
 
 A narrow and uncompromising critic, writing two 
 hundred years ago of his impressions of Virginia, and 
 not understanding that a region of plantations could 
 not fairly be expected to manufacture as much as 
 other parts of the country, complained bitterly of the 
 Virginians that "though their country be overrun 
 with wood, yet they have all their wooden ware from 
 England their cabinets, chairs, tables, stools, 
 chests." Less of it remains than might be expected 
 from the splendid furnishings recorded of some of 
 the great houses. But those were the exceptions, 
 and as an offset many a house went bare enough. 
 After all, the greatest amount of old furniture, as a 
 total, in the Northern States and Colonies, was in 
 the homes of the middle class ; a class which, practi- 
 cally, did not exist in the South. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 That Washington, at Mount Vernon, had chairs 
 alone that were valued at nearly seven hundred dol- 
 lars, does not imply that Virginia was filled to over- 
 flowing with fine chairs. 
 
 And there is a grim reason why much of the splen- 
 did furniture that once existed in the South has dis- 
 appeared that is, the ravages of two wars. In this 
 respect almost all of the South was more or less af- 
 fected. 
 
 In Northern Georgia, along the line of Fed- 
 eral advance, it may almost be said that scarcely 
 a house of importance was left standing, and, "They 
 do say," observed the late Henry Grady of Atlanta, 
 at a banquet, as he turned to General Sherman, "that 
 you were rather careless with fire !" 
 
 In the vicinity of Harper's Ferry, where old 
 houses were allowed to remain they were mostly 
 stripped of old furniture; and the region where 
 Grant and Lee struggled was sadly devastated. 
 
 Now and then a piece escaped destruction by a 
 curious chance. A family in Charleston proudly 
 preserves a fine bookcase whose drawers are not the 
 original ones those having been destroyed by the 
 British, who used them as horse-troughs ! 
 
 Naturally, in the War of the Revolution the 
 North also suffered; and an angry letter from Han- 
 
 [186] 
 
IN VIRGINIA AND DELAWARE 
 
 x 
 
 cock, he of the great signature, voices his lament that 
 British officers, using his house, had "defaced and 
 removed" his carpets! "And I must submit," he 
 bitterly concludes. One wonders what he would 
 have done and said if his house had been burned, as 
 were those along the coast of Long Island Sound, in 
 the foray of Arnold, or those of the lower part of 
 New York City during the British occupation. 
 
 And the South, lamenting with justice the destruc- 
 tion by fire in the wars, at least escaped one exper- 
 ience of old Marblehead, where, one wild winter in 
 the middle of the Revolutionary War, snow fell 
 so deeply that the people were unable to obtain wood 
 and were forced to burn even chests of drawers and 
 other furniture. 
 
 But in the South, in spite of the extirpatory ex- 
 periences of war added to the usual wear and tear of 
 time, there are great numbers of fine pieces still to 
 be found. Even the most fortunate collector must 
 not hope to come upon some piece of the seventeenth 
 century, as he may still hope to do in New England; 
 but he may find wide variety and richness of beauty. 
 
 And one must not confine his search only to 
 houses of age or pretension. As with the man with 
 the heirlooms in the cabin near the battlefield, there 
 are things to be found in shabby places, the original 
 
 [ 187 ] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 houses having been destroyed; and in many a negro 
 cabin there may be found some broken, almost worn- 
 out, but still beautiful, specimen of attractive old 
 furniture. 
 
 This came about with perfect naturalness. A 
 piece of furniture past its usefulness, ready to be re- 
 placed by a new piece, would not be made into kind- 
 ling, would not be put away in a corner of the barn. 
 It would be passed ahead to favored slaves, just as 
 coats and dresses were tossed to them. Most of the 
 furniture so given away has been completely worn 
 out and destroyed; but enough remains to be a 
 highly desirable object of search. And, besides 
 what was given to the colored folk in the days of 
 prosperity, they gathered and took to their huts 
 many a piece when the mansions were looted and de- 
 stroyed. Negroes are apt to be careless in breaking 
 and handling furniture in their own homes, but at 
 the same time they have a curious instinct for pre- 
 serving things, even when broken, hence the value 
 of this hint in regard to their possession of ancient 
 pieces. 
 
 One of our tilting-tables, a real beauty, came from 
 a negro home in Virginia; it was in sad shape, but 
 capable of repair. 
 
 And from a cabin in Virginia there came one of 
 
 [188] 
 
r 1 
 
IN VIRGINIA AND DELAWARE 
 
 the very finest sideboards that we have ever seen; 
 much like, in general design, the beautiful one in 
 the collection at Stenton. 
 
 It is of mahogany, of Sheraton type, and has 
 felicitous recesses and charming curves and manifold 
 drawers. 
 
 It was discovered in its sordid condition and en- 
 vironment by a friendly acquaintance of ours, in 
 whom age had not withered enthusiasm. He pur- 
 chased it for two dollars two dollars! and sent 
 it to his home in the North. 
 
 It was a melancholy wreck. One of the delicate 
 fluted legs was broken off and lost. Much of the 
 sideboard was a smear of molasses and bacon and 
 grease. The deep receptacles for wine bottles had 
 long been used as bins for corn meal and brown 
 sugar, and had been cut and slivered by scoops and 
 spoons. There was ruin and uncleanliness. It re- 
 quired elaborate repairing and entire polishing. But 
 when the repairing and polishing were done the side- 
 board was a beauty ! 
 
 The fortunate finder was old. Knowing that we 
 wished to possess just such a sideboard as this, he 
 said that it should come to us at his death. We did 
 not know him intimately; there was but the friendly 
 tie of fellow-collectors. So there was no thought of 
 
 [191] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 taking it as a gift. And, indeed, there were rela- 
 tives in regard to whom he wished to present a clear 
 front financially. So he told his intended executor 
 the very reasonable sum that was to be paid by us for 
 the sideboard upon his death. 
 
 Meanwhile we came to know, and to smile at, the 
 whimsy of certain friends of ours who, waiting for 
 the death of a distant relative who was to bequeath 
 them her library, took unto themselves no books 
 whatever, although, their relative being but fifty 
 years of age, they passed by many a need and many 
 a chance. 
 
 But it did not occur to us that we were leaning 
 upon a still more fragile reed. Sideboards flashed be- 
 fore our vision, desirable sideboards, Heppelwhite, 
 Empire and nondescript, which we might have had 
 for the metaphorical song; but we would none of 
 them, waiting as we were for the still more beautiful 
 one ! But we learned never to put off till to-morrow 
 what can be bought to-day. 
 
 We went abroad; in our absence the intended ex- 
 ecutor died; our kindly acquaintance himself then 
 died; there was no written memorandum of his in- 
 tention; and, one of his distant relatives becoming 
 executor, took such a fancy to the sideboard that he 
 bought it in for himself ! 
 
 [192] 
 
IN VIRGINIA AND DELAWARE 
 
 x 
 
 And so, we who had so well learned the necessity 
 of acting when a bargain offers, had not only, 
 through no fault of ours, lost that most desirable 
 sideboard, but, distinctly through our own fault, had 
 let slip opportunities to obtain something nearly as 
 good. 
 
 Although there is general harmony of style in the 
 furniture of the North and the South, there are at 
 the same time some interesting differences. New 
 Orleans, though not so rich in the old as would be 
 expected from its history and from the extent of its 
 old French Quarter, still shows more of the furniture 
 of Louis Quinze and Louis Seize than does any other 
 part of the country. In the South there are more 
 couch-chairs than in the North; the chaise-longue 
 of the French, long and narrow, with a piece like 
 a chair-back at one end. In the South, too, there 
 are more of what are known as double-chairs, a self- 
 descriptive name. In Virginia and Maryland one 
 may sometimes find an Empire sideboard .with a mir- 
 ror at the back. There are more corner-cupboards 
 in the South with glass in the front of the lower half 
 of the cupboard, than in the North; although it is 
 not customary with Southerners to term them corner- 
 cupboards, but beaufaits or buffets; bo-fat being a 
 customary local pronunciation in Virginia. The 
 
 [195] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 dinner-wagon, too, may be considered a Southern 
 institution and name, it being a double-decker side- 
 table. 
 
 In a Virginia house, in the lower Shenandoah re- 
 gion, we came across an old lustre pitcher of unusual 
 size. It held at least a quart and a pint, instead of 
 being of the small capacity of most of the pitchers of 
 this ware. The owner, an old man living solitary 
 there, was glad to sell it for a dollar. 
 
 But, noticing something in the bottom, beneath 
 the accumulated dust of years, one of us took it out 
 and handed it to him. It was a piece of linen lace 
 and a pair of knitting needles. 
 
 A change came over the old man's face. He 
 spoke in a low voice, with a sort of awe. "This is 
 
 what my wife was working on when " And as 
 
 he turned the pieces over, and looked at them and at 
 the pitcher in which they had so long been hidden, 
 his mind was busy with the past. It was clear, too, 
 that he would be heartbroken at losing, now, that old 
 pitcher which his wife had used for that final putting 
 away: a putting away which was to have been but 
 for an hour or two! He did not ask that we con- 
 sider the sale unmade; but when the pitcher was of- 
 fered to him again he eagerly grasped it, with a 
 grievous sort of joy 
 
 [194] 
 
IN VIRGINIA AND DELAWARE 
 
 It was also not far from the Shenandoah, ravaged 
 as the entire region was by war, that we discovered 
 half a dozen old blue sugar-bowls, in a row upon a 
 window sill. And each bowl had a hole in its 
 bottom! No; nothing to do with war or soldiers- 
 it was only that the owner had made them into 
 flowerpots ! 
 
 In the ever delightful Old Dominion, there are 
 many fascinating and romantic houses which have 
 withstood time and war. Some of them are shat- 
 tered, unrestored, still in disrepair, waiting for hap- 
 pier days; as, one of the most famous old mansions, 
 with wainscoting and wine cellars and broad stair- 
 cases and oak floors and many-paned windows, 
 where the present occupants have a tin bath-tub sus- 
 pended by rope and pulley from the ceiling of the 
 hall. The explanation is divertingly simple. It is 
 because of leaky roof and rains! During a long 
 storm, that tub is likely to be more than once filled, 
 and each time, as the water reaches the running over 
 point, it is lowered and emptied and drawn up again 
 and all without a particle of embarrassment on 
 the part of any one, but as if the whole world were 
 in the habit of thus treating leaks ! 
 
 In the vicinity of old Smithfield, that little town 
 famous for its hams and its church by Sir Christo- 
 
 ,[ 195 ] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 pher Wren, there are many things to be found. And, 
 indeed, the whole region round about Williamsburg, 
 the early capital of the Commonwealth, repays a 
 search. It is fitting that in a town where there is a 
 "Palace Green," and a "Duke of Gloucester 
 Street," there should still be some of the fine old 
 houses; it is fortunate that this ancient Colonial re- 
 gion was not so greatly harried and burned in the 
 Civil War. And a most slender-legged Heppel- 
 white card-table (one of a pair), with charming 
 curves, discovered upon the side porch of a house, 
 with a water bucket set upon it, shows that here, as 
 in so many places, it is a matter of keeping ever on 
 the alert. 
 
 It was from a negro cabin hereabouts that we se- 
 cured a good brass candlestick. 
 
 "But is n't there a pair of them"?" 
 
 "Yes, suh," the young negro woman drawled, 
 "but it 's in the pickle barrel." 
 
 "Lost, you mean?" 
 
 "No, suh; gran'ma' s a pow'ful han' at makin' 
 pickles; they ain't nobody makes 'em as green!" she 
 said proudly. "An' she greens 'em by keepin' the 
 can'lestick in among 'em, suh!" 
 
 Delaware, it would almost seem, is too small a 
 State to consider very specially; but it is temptingly 
 
 [196] 
 
A pair of card tables, inlaid in satin wood ; one of them " found on a porch with a 
 water bucket " 
 
 An inlaid Heppelwhite sideboard 
 Heppelwhite Furniture, from Virginia 
 
IN VIRGINIA AND DELAWARE 
 
 easy of access from some of the large cities, and its 
 very smallness has preserved it from too close an ex- 
 amination by collectors. The entire State gives the 
 impression of being one long sloping bank, rising 
 easily from the water and dotted with houses, many 
 of them old. 
 
 Not every one, however, can hope to be so fortu- 
 nate there as a friend, a Western man, who went 
 into Delaware distinctly on a search for the old, and 
 picked up a set of eight beautiful Sheraton chairs, 
 two of them armchairs, for a dollar and a quarter 
 each! 
 
 This friend, a professional man in active practice 
 in a Western city, has an admirable method of pro- 
 cedure. He takes a trip every year or so into some 
 old-furniture region, carefully choosing the most 
 promising place. Some little time before he goes he 
 has a newspaper of that neighborhood, usually the 
 principal newspaper of a county seat, insert a notice 
 that he wishes to procure an old table, a chest of 
 drawers, a sideboard, or whatever he most desires. 
 Answers to his advertisement are to be addressed to 
 his initials, in care of the newspaper, so that those 
 who reply will have no idea that he is a man out of 
 the West, for that would materially increase the 
 prices, human nature being what it is. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 He goes to the town ; he inquires for his letters at 
 the newspaper office. The editor is almost always 
 glad to gossip with him about furniture in the vicin- 
 ity, feeling that he has been taken into his confi- 
 dence. He goes to see those whose answers promise 
 well; and, with all this as a foundation, he is likely 
 to find precisely what he is looking for, and at least 
 gains a wide knowledge of the furniture of that par- 
 ticular countryside. 
 
 Delaware is not among the most beautiful of the 
 States; but there hangs about it an all-pervasive odor 
 of peaches, and the thought brings up the memory of 
 the sight of endless lines of heaping peach baskets, 
 set out in the market centres to which the peach 
 growers resort. 
 
 We feel warm and cordial toward the little State, 
 for it has been good to us, in furniture, out of all 
 proportion to its size, even though we did not have 
 our friend's luck in finding Sheraton chairs. 
 
 We gathered a charming pair of candlesticks, of 
 brass, small, and with fluted pillars, for but thirty 
 cents each. And a candle-stand, of mahogany, of 
 exquisitely dainty shape wanting one foot out of 
 three, but that was a small matter cost but half a 
 dollar. It is always a pleasure to find a "bargain," 
 if you do not have to feel that you have "beaten 
 [200] 
 
IN VIRGINIA AND DELAWARE 
 
 down," but that the seller is as pleased as yourself 
 with the price. 
 
 We remember, too, besides various old houses of 
 the State, a shop surely unique an auction shop 
 whose proprietor is of spiritual kin to the old furni- 
 ture men of Pennsylvania and New York of whom 
 we have already told; an auction shop which is a 
 succession of warerooms of old furniture ; not, all of 
 it, old in the sense of being Colonial or Empire, but 
 where, in this room or that, you come upon some real 
 treasure which the proprietor has gathered in and 
 which he is in no hurry to sell. Through one room 
 after another, one wanders back through the unpre- 
 tentious establishment, and must surely come away 
 with something desirable. For our part, we secured 
 a mahogany low-boy, inlaid with satin-wood. It is 
 a straight-legged Heppelwhite, with two drawers at 
 either side and one across the top, and an arching 
 opening for the knees. It was a wreck, as is usual 
 with the pieces of this type of dealer. 
 
 And we have, too, from Delaware, a corner wash- 
 stand, a dainty Sheraton; and in Delaware we 
 also secured an old-time washbowl to fit the opening 
 in the stand. 
 
 Throughout much of the South it is possible to 
 pursue a line of collecting which admirably supple- 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 ments that of old furniture; in a broad sense it is 
 really furniture. 
 
 In many a little village, and in many an isolated 
 mountain home, the old-time art of making patch- 
 work coverlets is remembered and practised. Some 
 may be found that are generations old; others are 
 new, but made in precisely the old-time way, and 
 after the same patterns. 
 
 Many are in gorgeous colors, in glowing yellows 
 and greens and purples; and, being a matter of 
 housewifely pride, they are often thrown with osten- 
 tatious carelessness over the "gallery rail" so that 
 their glory may be seen. 
 
 At a little inn at King's Mountain, not far from 
 the famous battlefield, the bed of state had upon 
 it precisely nineteen coverlets! There was no 
 thought that any mortal could or would sleep be- 
 neath such a padded mountain. But it was the most 
 natural method of display, and an admirable talent 
 and an admirable display it was. Each quilt had 
 its name. There were the Western Star, the Rose 
 of the Carolinas, the Log Cabin, the Virginia Gen- 
 tleman, the Fruit Basket, the Lily of the Valley in 
 short, there were just as many special names as there 
 were designs. We wonder how many have been 
 added since we were there ! 
 
 [202] 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT 
 
 WE know of a dear old gentleman, the rec- 
 tor of a church in a neighborhood where 
 a thinnish stream of association has en- 
 riched the soil with a mild growth of historical in- 
 terest, who possesses a hand-saw and a love for the 
 old. With this love for the old goes a generosity, 
 whimsical as it is broad, which leads him to wish to 
 share his treasures with all the world. And therein 
 lies the utility of the saw ! 
 
 Let there but be the felling of a tree under which 
 some notability once passed or rested, and he will 
 saw off graceful sections of the wood and mail them, 
 each one carefully labeled, to a myriad of his friends 
 (and every one who knows him is his friend), so that 
 they may share with him in the possession of such a 
 memento. 
 
 Let there be the tearing down of a building in 
 
 [203] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 which some man of note lived or made a speech or 
 was married or did some other of the many things by 
 which men of note render buildings of interest, and 
 he will acquire sundry oaken beams, and indefatiga- 
 bly use his hand-saw, and elaborately label and mail, 
 so that, again, the world may share with him in his 
 treasure. 
 
 Once, so great were his enthusiasm and his gener- 
 osity, he even sawed into little bits, and mailed, an 
 old settle upon which a man of distinction had once 
 sat! It was badly broken, he explained; too badly 
 ever to be of use ; and from his description it seems to 
 have been one of those settles, with long, high, 
 solid backs and fine carving, which, because of their 
 protection against draughts, were long in common 
 use in front of fireplaces, but were practically dis- 
 placed, a little more than a century ago, by double- 
 chairs and settees. 
 
 Some one may have represented to the kindly rec- 
 tor the iconoclastic sin of destroying old furniture 
 even by a parson's saw, or he may never have found 
 another piece which in his opinion defied repair; at 
 any rate, that was the one time we have heard of in 
 which his saw and his generosity were busy with 
 more than beams and trees. 
 
 Necessarily, there is diversity as to what consti- 
 [204] 
 
Walnut double-chair ; in Massachusetts 
 
 Settee ; with shell carving on the cabriole legs 
 
 Two Fine Chippendale Designs 
 
MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT 
 
 tutes a valuable relic of the past, and how that relic 
 should be treated. In a Connecticut town, one of 
 the old residents proudly preserves and displays a 
 pair of buckskin breeches worn by one of his for- 
 bears in a Revolutionary skirmish within the borders 
 of the State. The relic is not quite intact, the pres- 
 ent possessor explaining that the circular hole was 
 cut by himself, when a lad, to furnish forth a needful 
 cover for his baseball that is, what we should now 
 call a baseball, although when he was a boy it was 
 the ball used in one-old-cat or long-ball, or perhaps 
 rounders. 
 
 Connecticut, at the present time, is one of the very 
 best States for the satisfactory search for old furni- 
 ture. It does not have so much as Pennsylvania; 
 but among the smaller States it has probably the 
 most. In early days, Massachusetts had more than 
 any other State; but in Massachusetts the museums 
 and the collectors have been more active than any- 
 where else, and there has been a consequent deple- 
 tion of the total of possible acquisitions. 
 
 There are a great number of Colonial dwellings 
 in existence in Connecticut. There are a host of 
 houses, old and new, where Colonial articles are still 
 to be found. And the frequency of intermarriage, 
 in a considerable portion of the State, and the f ree- 
 
 [207] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 dom of the descendants of the original population 
 from outside influences, have served to strengthen 
 the conservative spirit; and, a conservative spirit al- 
 ways tending toward preservation, alike of things 
 material and tangible as of principles and ideas, it 
 is not to be wondered at that many homes and much 
 furniture have been saved. 
 
 The first President, within a few months after his 
 inauguration, took a trip through a considerable part 
 of New England, driving with his carriage and four 
 horses ; and of Connecticut he wrote with curious de- 
 tail, observing the absence of the very rich and the 
 very poor, and noting that the general type of Con- 
 necticut house had a door in the middle and a stair- 
 case facing the door, each house being from twenty 
 to thirty feet in width and from thirty to fifty in 
 length, exclusive, as he whimsically wrote, of "a 
 back shed, which seems to be added as the family in- 
 creases." 
 
 The State still possesses in a general way that an- 
 cient desideratum of neither poverty nor riches, al- 
 though some of the wealth of New York has flowed 
 over its borders and the advance of civilization has 
 brought its inevitable accompaniment of poverty; 
 but from Washington's rather dry description of the 
 Connecticut houses their charm and proportions 
 
 [208] 
 
MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT 
 
 would scarcely be understood. Washington was 
 raised amid the traditions of the finest Southern 
 homes, vastly improved in appearance as they were 
 by their setting in the midst of luxuriant estates and 
 rich plantations, and the stony fields of Connecticut 
 were bleak to his eyes and insensibly detracted from 
 the aspect of the houses as well. And, too, he was 
 in the humor, on that driving trip, to see things in 
 dry and dubious light, for New England as a whole 
 had not welcomed the new Constitution and Govern- 
 ment Governor Hancock of Massachusetts tried to 
 snub him and Rhode Island had so acted that he re- 
 fused to enter its borders and his trip was itself but 
 a politic effort, hesitatingly made, to secure harmony 
 among the Thirteen. Had he seen and written of 
 Connecticut at a happier time he would have been 
 impressed by the alluring roads, the low-rounding 
 hills, the loosely-piled stone walls separating field 
 from field, and the white houses, charmingly built, 
 gambrel roofed, primly porticoed, shaded by mighty 
 trees. 
 
 And in loitering over these fascinating roads one 
 comes to learn that there is not only much of the ma- 
 terial, the actual, that has been preserved, but that 
 there are also interesting survivals of the ways and 
 the customs of the past. 
 
 [209] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 For in many a town and hamlet the old cottage in- 
 dustries are carried on. And to find them is like 
 finding, in English Westmoreland, women weaving 
 linen as it was woven there by women of centuries 
 ago. 
 
 In many a Connecticut cottage baskets are made, 
 of splints, of ancient manner of manufacture and of 
 ancient shape ; so strong, these baskets, that the han- 
 dles defy the hardest pulling. And we bought, one 
 day, a quaint basket, of old-fashioned design, which 
 the sweet-faced ancient woman who sold it said had 
 been made "for carrying cakes to church socials." 
 What a sermon lies in that text ! The simplicity of 
 it all, the primitiveness, the nonrealization of any- 
 thing out of the way or uncommon! Baskets of 
 that shape had been so long made for the carrying of 
 cakes to the social gatherings of the church that they 
 were merely a matter of course, as from time im- 
 memorial. 
 
 We said, an "ancient" woman. And indeed that 
 was what she was. Through the operation of some 
 inscrutable law, one never finds young folk engaged 
 in these old-fashioned occupations. And the aged 
 have the aspect, the manner, the skill, of such as 
 have been thus engaged for all their lives. Where 
 did they hide, one wonders, when they were young? 
 [210] 
 
MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT 
 
 What was it that turned their thoughts to the follow- 
 ing of these ancient handicrafts, assuming the man- 
 tle as it dropped from those who were passing away? 
 Whatever the explanation, the fact is always the 
 same. 
 
 Wagon-loads of baskets leave the little villages 
 and are peddled through the countryside for miles. 
 Many an aged village worker makes ladders of wear- 
 defying strength. Many an aged woman makes for 
 sale the braided rug and the rug that is hooked the 
 essential feature of the latter art being the hooking 
 of brightly colored rags through bagging. 
 
 Wonderful old counterpanes are made, of pre- 
 cisely the kind that were made in the first century of 
 Connecticut history. By fine needlework, and a be- 
 wilderingly unlimited number of stitches, muslin is 
 puffed over soft cotton into a white area of exquisite 
 design. The women sit forever over the frames on 
 which the counterpanes are spread. Watching a 
 Connecticut housewife at work on such a piece, the 
 thought irresistibly comes that, had Penelope hap- 
 pily had such a task during the journeyings of Ulys- 
 ses, it would have kept her sufficiently engaged dur- 
 ing even so lengthy an absence as his without having 
 to undo any of the work at night. It is considered 
 exceedingly modest, even in a region of modest 
 
 [21]-] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 prices, to charge four dollars for merely marking out, 
 on the cotton, the pattern of a good counterpane. 
 
 Many an old man puts rush or splint seats in 
 chairs; and a very pretty art it is, with much of cu- 
 rious skill and lore. Rushes, the old men will tell 
 you, must be gathered only in June. And the dif- 
 ference between a bottom of rush and a bottom of 
 flag, or cat-tail, is not always apparent from the 
 upper surface, but, turning the chair upside down, is 
 at once to be seen, the distinction lying in the matter 
 of the strips being round or flat. 
 
 Connecticut is the home of the old "banjo" clock, 
 as well as of the tall clock with wooden works, but 
 these two industries have vanished with that of the 
 wooden nutmeg. 
 
 It is in Connecticut that the weaving of rag car- 
 pets continues to be an art. And in one little cot- 
 tage, far from a railroad, where the rags must be sent 
 by stage, if sent by any but the people round about, 
 we discovered a weaver who will weave (and did 
 weave for us) a pair of really beautiful silk rugs, 
 two and a half yards in length, for three dollars! 
 the rags being supplied to him but he furnishing the 
 warp and cutting and sewing the rags and hemming 
 the ends. 
 
 In a State where so much of the old-time handi- 
 
 [212] 
 
MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT 
 
 craft work is continued as a business, it is natural 
 that there should be considerable continuance of the 
 old-fashioned as ordinary household occupations. 
 Old women may be seen, working out of doors, be- 
 side great kettles of brass or of iron which are sus- 
 pended between forked sticks over blazing fires, and 
 busy with the mysteries of various dyes for carpet- 
 ing or clothes ; with logwood or butternut or indigo. 
 Many a household makes its own soap ; an admirable 
 hard, dry product, compounded of fat and potash. 
 Here and there is a household that still molds its 
 own candles; and we learned of a woman, old and 
 indigent, who still makes the primitive dip! The 
 ancient method of scouring pots and pans with equi- 
 setum, the horse-tail, otherwise known as "Dutch 
 rush" or "scouring rush," valuable from its granules 
 of silica, has not been forgotten. And there are still 
 Connecticut housewives who know how to bleach 
 beeswax in the traditional way. 
 
 It is a pretty thing to see this. A kettle of yel- 
 low beeswax is warmed into fluidity and set upon a 
 table. Beside it stands a bucket of cold spring wa- 
 ter. The woman dips her hand in the water; then 
 plunges the hand into the beeswax; withdrawing it 
 quickly, it is covered with wax which, owing to the 
 water, slips off like a glove. She hangs this glove 
 
 [213] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 of yellow wax on a line in the sunshine; she hangs 
 another and another; the bright sun bleaches them 
 gradually to a pure white; and then all are thrown 
 into the kettle again, and melted down, and the 
 product is white beeswax. 
 
 And, added to all these things, Connecticut is the 
 home of the old-time County Fair. Here it is in its 
 glory, in variety of little and big, from the great fair 
 whose week shows an attendance of tens of thous- 
 ands to the little and oftentimes more interesting 
 ones where the exhibits are simple and the attend- 
 ance can be estimated by hundreds. 
 
 There are fine old towns along the Sound, and 
 toward Rhode Island, that hold much treasure of old 
 furniture. New Haven is particularly rich in such 
 possessions. And there are inland sections, and 
 some in the direction of the New York line, away 
 from the railroads, that go sleepily on as if not 
 knowing that the twentieth century has come knock- 
 ing at their doors. Here and there in the un- 
 touched portions of the State are villages which look 
 precisely as they must have looked before the Revo- 
 lution; and in such places the furniture seeker is op- 
 timistically cheerful whenever a fan-light swims into 
 his ken. 
 
 The finding of old-fashioned things possesses 
 
 [214] 
 
MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT 
 
 somewhat of the erraticalness of wireless telegraphy. 
 A piece of old furniture may be discovered in the 
 locality where one would most naturally look for it, 
 or, like a wireless message, it may be picked up quite 
 unexpectedly, at a distance from any point where it 
 logically belongs. 
 
 But in spite of delightfully erratic chances which 
 so often put things in the path of the collector in un- 
 anticipated places, the most natural neighborhoods 
 for finding ancient treasures are those where the 
 things were commonly made and used by everyone; 
 and it is for this reason that Connecticut and Massa- 
 chusetts are so well worthy of close scrutiny. 
 
 In an old Massachusetts house there was recently 
 a quantity of old furniture, and an acquaintance of 
 ours determined to acquire it. 
 
 "But the owner is worth half a million dollars!" 
 came a neighbor's alarmed warning. 
 
 "That so*? But I don't want his money I just 
 want his furniture !" And he got what he wanted. 
 
 There is unbounded wealth of old furniture in 
 Massachusetts. As a Colony, and as a State in the 
 early days of the Republic, it contained more pieces, 
 in quantity, than any other. But the field has been 
 worked with a zeal commensurate with the value 
 and with the vast number of potential prizes, 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 and the summer colonists have vied with collectors 
 in carrying the quest into almost every corner. And 
 yet, so much existed here that it has been impossible 
 for collectors, museums and summer colonists, inde- 
 fatigable though they have been, to find and appro- 
 priate all that is capable of being acquired. It is 
 still an admirable field. 
 
 Some years ago, in the ancient town which is of 
 greater historical interest than any other in the State 
 except Boston, we met an aged man who was custo- 
 dian, in his own house, of the local museum. Most 
 of the pieces belonged to him personally and numer- 
 ous others had been loaned to him, for at his death 
 the town was to become the owner and custodian. 
 His mind had begun to grow a little dim, but the 
 passion for collecting, that had been his one passion 
 since his youth, was still as strong as ever. Moving 
 gently toward the close of a long life, his fading eyes 
 looked lovingly over the treasures he had amassed. 
 No miser ever felt keener delight in counting gold. 
 And yet, he was no miser. Under no consideration 
 would he sell to anyone; but it was from him that 
 there came to us as a gift, the cup of Major Buttrick. 
 
 In every part of his large house there was a mass- 
 ing of all varieties of household belongings. There 
 were corner-cupboards, some made to stand detached, 
 
 [216] 
 
" 5" 
 

MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT 
 
 others which had been built into the walls of old 
 houses. China filled the cupboards, and in one was 
 what many consider the finest lot of Lowestoft in 
 the United States. 
 
 He did not, indeed, realize the full value of every- 
 thing. It was enough for him to collect the old; it 
 was for others to divide and sub-divide into grades 
 of interest. It was a town legend that, regarding 
 this very Lowestoft, some one commented with a cry 
 of surprise upon what it was. . "What a lot of 
 Lowestoft !" 
 
 Whereupon he responded, with a look of high dis- 
 pleasure, that it was not "low stuff"; it had been 
 Mrs. So-and-so's "very best china" ! 
 
 Beginning to collect, in an old neighborhood, long 
 before the general era of furniture collecting, he was 
 able to gather numerous specimens of the earliest 
 forms. For example, he had some of the earliest 
 bureaus, or low chests of drawers, of which scarcely 
 any are known of as existing previous to 1750, as be- 
 fore that time armoires and chests and tall cupboards 
 were used. The bureaus became so rapidly popular 
 that many were in service by the time of the Revolu- 
 tion, and a vast number by 1800, many having claw- 
 and-ball feet, and fluted columns at the sides, and 
 charming serpentine fronts, and perhaps even panels 
 
 [219] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 of satin-wood set in the midst of the mahogany. 
 This style of furniture, as well as others, could be 
 studied in his collection, and he loved to speak of 
 points which to him seemed important. One might 
 smile at some of his classifications, but no one could 
 smile at his ability to find and secure precious things. 
 
 That he freely offered us the privilege of sleeping 
 in a room that was so crowded with antiques that 
 there was scarcely space to move, and of sleep- 
 ing there in a Jacobean four-poster which he be- 
 lieved had come over in one of the trips of the May- 
 flower, was the crowning proof of his love for fellow 
 collectors but the room and the bed were of so ex- 
 traordinary a mustiness that we declined the privilege. 
 
 Another Massachusetts town, Salem, is dear to 
 memory, not only from its treasures of the past but 
 from being the place where, Westerners that we at 
 that time were, we first saw a grandfather's clock 
 ticking away, in a private house, in the very corner 
 in which it had ticked through the Revolution. 
 
 In another old house, locally known as that of 
 Roger Williams, were some Windsor chairs of par- 
 ticularly fine proportions, weather-beaten out of 
 all color and so worn on their "saddle-seats" that the 
 tops of the front legs were in sight ; and these chairs 
 remain with the clock, in our memory, because of 
 
 [220] 
 
MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT 
 
 their having been the first of that design which we 
 actually handled. 
 
 In a corner of this old town, we secured two very 
 fine old sugar bowls for the sum of twenty-five cents 
 apiece; and these two bowls are among the prized 
 smaller pieces of our belongings. 
 
 Among the beautiful Berkshire Hills one's first 
 feeling is that there can be nothing left to find in a 
 region so dotted with summer homes. One is temp- 
 ted to give over, for once, all thought of acquiring 
 ancient things, and to resign oneself to the fascina- 
 tion of a peculiarly charming hill country. 
 
 And yet it was in the very heart of the Berkshires 
 that we discovered the old mirror as the cupboard 
 door of the tool shed ! 
 
 We stayed for some time in one of the many old 
 houses, which, in New Jersey, are invariably termed 
 "Washington's Headquarters," but which in all the 
 other Twelve, including Massachusetts, are usually 
 and modestly set down as "houses where Washing- 
 ton slept." A comfortable, gable-roofed house, this, 
 now used as an inn, with a monster chimney in the 
 very heart of it, opening with hospitable fireplaces 
 into various rooms ; and, even if it may not have been 
 drowsed into fame by our first President (and, after 
 all allowances for the necessity of his having to sleep 
 
 [221] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 somewhere for the many nights of his lifetime, a too 
 ready credulity of sleeping tales would make him 
 out as a descendant of all Seven of the Sleepers), it 
 has at least been slept in by a more recent President, 
 and from its felicitous location upon a hillside it 
 looks out upon a winding road, a delightful little 
 stream, and a scene of radiant charm. And in this 
 old house, among other reminders of the past, were a 
 four-poster, two sets of andirons, three fine mirrors, 
 one Empire and two of them Constitution, and 
 wealth of blue dishes ! 
 
 Again showing, all this, that everywhere, even in 
 those regions where one would least expect antiqui- 
 ties to remain, they are still to be found. And, as 
 always, where they are to be found, there are con- 
 stantly recurrent chances to obtain them. 
 
 But at least in Boston, one is liable faintheartedly 
 to think, there can be nothing obtainable. There 
 are, however, antique shops in Boston, with good 
 and bad, genuine and imitation. And there are 
 many private houses in which are great numbers of 
 desirable articles; and always, from time to time, 
 there are such changes of ownership, such dying out 
 of families, such dispersion of goods from one rea- 
 son or another, as to give the watchful collector op- 
 portunities. 
 
 [ 222 ] 
 
MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT 
 
 And there is still a distinctly ancient quarter of 
 Boston; a neighborhood where old houses nod 
 sleepily toward one another across narrow ways, 
 where many a "bull's eye" of the primitive glass- 
 makers is to be seen, and where, although most of the 
 old-time furniture and fittings have been removed, 
 leaving the habitations to the occupancy of folk who 
 are not precisely to be deemed descendants of Alden 
 and Priscilla, there are still some things to be found. 
 
 In one of the oldest houses, now occupied by Rus- 
 sian Jews, we came upon a superbly beautiful shell- 
 top corner-cupboard, but so built into the wall as to 
 involve very considerable expense in removal, even 
 were permission to be gained and the piece pur- 
 chased. We found the room used as a kitchen by 
 the thronging inhabitants of the building, and the 
 cupboard was a sad and unclean wreck; yet it 
 showed, again, that hope should spring eternal in the 
 collector's breast. 
 
 Of all the States, Massachusetts is the one in 
 which the study of old furniture from examples can 
 most satisfactorily be pursued. 
 
 Not only in Boston are there fine collections to be 
 seen; furniture in museums and in place in histori- 
 cal buildings ; but other towns also have splendid ac- 
 cumulations. There is the fascinating display of 
 
 [223] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 the Essex Institute, at Salem; there is the old furni- 
 ture gathered at Concord; there is the collection at 
 ancient Plymouth, where, in spite of poetical decla- 
 mation, the breaking waves did not dash high nor is 
 the coast rock-bound ; and there are the valuable col- 
 lections of Worcester, Deerfield, and other places. 
 
 One may study the cabriole legs and shell orna- 
 mentation that were new and fashionable in the time 
 of Queen Anne new, in a sense only, for the bandy- 
 leg first came from China, in the ships of Dutch 
 traders. One may study old chairs, and begin to 
 realize the general truth of the saying that the heav- 
 ier the underbracing the greater the age ! One may 
 
 see, too, that chairs were not at all common until the 
 
 / 
 
 Cromwellian era and the feeling of equality that 
 came in with his Commonwealth; for, before that, 
 stools and forms were usual for all except the head 
 of the house. One may find original old chairs in 
 Spanish leather a type frequently counterfeited 
 nowadays, with convincing display of disrepair and 
 raggedness. And in collections such as these may be 
 seen early upholstered chairs upholstery having 
 come originally from Venice, the city of wealth and 
 luxury and, by contrast, early English and Ameri- 
 can chairs with solid splats, and then the earlier sim- 
 ple splats preceding the beautiful ones of Chippendale. 
 
 [224] 
 
MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT 
 
 Brass handles, too, may profitably be studied in 
 these collections, if the collector has passed the first 
 stages of what has to be learned; but, interesting 
 though this branch is, and often valuable in fixing 
 an otherwise doubtful date, it is so involved by the 
 frequent use of old handles on new pieces and new 
 handles upon old pieces that deductions are liable to 
 confuse rather than enlighten. 
 
 So much, in collections like those of Massachu- 
 setts, tells of history as well as age; so much is 
 connected with people whose names are household 
 words; that the pleasure of examination and study 
 is greatly enhanced. 
 
 The collector will not find things labelled Jaco- 
 bean or Elizabethan, Adam or Heppelwhite, Chip- 
 pendale or Sheraton. Such distinctions he must 
 learn elsewhere. But he will learn the most valua- 
 ble secrets of all; he will learn, by comparison 
 of dates, what shapes go with certain periods, and 
 what shapes lap over from one period to another; 
 and he will train his eye. 
 
 And, supplementary to what may be learned in 
 important collections, there are books, like the edi- 
 tion of "Cranford" which is illustrated by Hugh 
 Thomson and the edition of "Elia" illustrated by 
 Charles E. Brock, which set one back into the very 
 
 [22*] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 atmosphere of the past, for the pictures are made 
 from sympathy and full knowledge, and show old- 
 fashioned rooms just as they were really furnished 
 and lived in, and the characters costumed in the old- 
 time way. 
 
 I 225] 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE EASTERN SHORE 
 
 THE Eastern Shore ! What suggestive power 
 these words have! What visions of hos- 
 pitable living they conjure up! 
 
 And there is such delightful arrogance in the 
 name. It is as if all the other eastern shores are of 
 no account ; as if, literally, they do not exist, and as 
 if everyone must instantly comprehend that, when 
 the Eastern Shore is mentioned, there is no possibil- 
 ity that anything but that part of Maryland which 
 lies on the eastern side of the Chesapeake can be 
 meant. 
 
 A journey thither is but the matter of a few hours 
 from Philadelphia, down through the peach orchards 
 of Delaware and into the land of charm, where there 
 are romantic houses, and far-inreaching inlets, and 
 huge oaks, and brilliant holly bushes, and honey- 
 
 [22?] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 suckle, and where, with unexpected appreciation of 
 the highest demands of "local color," scarlet tana- 
 gers now and then flit across the white shell roads. 
 
 We chose at random for our stopping place, a 
 town, a county seat, whose name had a pleasing 
 sound. It proved to be a quaint old place, with 
 houses whose dormer windows suggested attic trea- 
 sure and whose roofs of shingle were green with 
 heavy moss. 
 
 Yet there were not many houses of real distinc- 
 tion within the town itself for it had been the cus- 
 tom, with most of the families of prominence, to live 
 away from the towns in houses facing tidewater and 
 surrounded by broad acres. 
 
 Buzzards were much in evidence too; an affable, 
 amicable, neighborly breed, who loiteringly fly over 
 the fields or perch in unostentatious lines upon back 
 fences. Colored folk give the impression of being 
 all-pervasive; and, as in other parts of the South, 
 there is considerable old furniture in their posses- 
 sion, although perhaps so dilapidated as to be be- 
 yond repair. 
 
 A Heppelwhite sideboard, with two legs missing, 
 was propped up in the shed of a negro family, in the 
 outskirts of the town. The brass handles had dis- 
 appeared, but a nail projected from each drawer in 
 
 [228] 
 
THE EASTERN SHORE 
 
 equivalence. Seed-corn, and mule medicine, and 
 bits of old iron, were in the drawers. But we did 
 not seriously consider its rejuvenation, as at that 
 time we were anticipating the possession of a side- 
 board from another part of the country. 
 
 At the edge of the shaded green beside the court- 
 house, black men and women were seated in rows, 
 selling their wares in public market. Such shad there 
 was, and such oysters ! A basket was all that each 
 one had and the emptying of that meant a prosperous 
 day's work. The residents were out getting sup- 
 plies. Men who gave critical attention to the choice 
 of shad, and who were followed each by his old 
 dusky servant with a lidded basket, were a common 
 sight. A reputation for hospitality and good 
 living is not founded on telephone orders to the 
 butcher. 
 
 The warm spring air, the line of horses at the 
 hitching bar, the general aspect of plenty of time, the 
 homely character of the simple market by the road- 
 side, carried one back many years from the life of to- 
 day. This is a sort of living which was typical of 
 much of the South before the Revolutionary War, 
 and one can understand the story of the colored ste- 
 ward who, for a dinner at the executive mansion on 
 Cherry Hill, in New York, bought, to please Presi- 
 
 [229] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 dent Washington, an early shad, for two dollars 
 but only to have it coldly ordered away as a rebuke 
 for such extravagance. 
 
 But, fascinating as were the roads and the trees 
 and the water, the shad and the oysters, the poke- 
 weed shoots and the baskets of beaten biscuits, we 
 had not gone to the Eastern Shore altogether for per- 
 ishable delights or for scenery. 
 
 After a general look about the town we came again 
 to the business street. The shops were close to- 
 gether, and there were stationers and booksellers, and 
 vendors of needles and pins, the modern idea of con- 
 solidation not having penetrated here. 
 
 Along the thin brick pavement, under the wooden 
 awnings which extended over the sidewalk and rested 
 upon curbstone rods, we walked slowly on, until, just 
 beyond the onions and radishes of a green-grocer, we 
 caught sight of an Empire sideboard, upon whose 
 front and ends and top the polish had whitened un- 
 der the influence of drip from the awning. 
 
 It came to us that this must be the sideboard of 
 which our innkeeper, garrulously discoursing of old 
 furniture for our behoof, had told. "He bought my 
 grandfather's sideboard at a sale, suh, and wanted 
 to sell it to me for four dollars! And I told him I 
 would give him three dollars for it, suh, and then I 
 
 [230] 
 
Empire design, with swell-front cupboard 
 
 From Maryland ; with centre tmusually high above the floor 
 
 Empire Sideboards, with Pillars and Claw Feet 
 
THE EASTERN SHORE 
 
 worked up to three fifty, but we have n't come to 
 terms yet, suh." 
 
 There were four fine columns across the front. 
 There were three large cupboard doors. There was 
 a claw foot at one end and a short stub, toe- 
 less and shapeless, at the other, giving it a cant 
 forward that threw its bottle drawers open with a 
 rakish and desperate look. At each end, under the 
 board of the top, on pulling a brass knob, there ap- 
 peared a long mahogany slide, thus increasing the al- 
 ready generous length very considerably. How 
 many glasses and bottles and custard cups had been 
 set forth on those slides ! And what a clever idea it 
 was, and one so very easily made use of. 
 
 We entered ; and found that we were in the under- 
 taking shop of the county. An old man greeted us, 
 and told us he was tending the shop for his son, who 
 was out. The old man liked to talk, and he told 
 how many years he had been a cabinet-maker and 
 how many great men of the Shore he had measured. 
 
 He was very much out of patience with the fac- 
 tory furniture of to-day, and with the heavy varnish 
 put on with a brush. He was full of tales of old 
 times and old ways, and told how Admiral B used 
 to have his mahogany polished. "No shellac in that 
 house! No French polish for him! No stuff of 
 
 [237] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 that kind! Just a big cork and a darky and bees- 
 wax! That was the old Admiral's way and it 's the 
 way of the whole Eastern Shore, and it 's the best 
 way only you can't get a darky nowadays who '11 
 rub all day on the top of a dining table." 
 
 The sideboard at the front was spoken of, but as a 
 piece of furniture it did not seem to please the old 
 cabinet-maker particularly and he sniffed out that his 
 son had bought it and wanted to sell it. "He 's been 
 offering it for four dollars but maybe he '11 take less. 
 There 's a better one out in the barn, for four dol- 
 lars, straight." 
 
 It soon appeared that the old man had a positive 
 dislike for veneer; and as the Empire sideboard was 
 veneered on its whole face, on all its panels and on 
 the margins of doors and drawers, the reason for his 
 dislike of the piece was sufficiently evident. And 
 for our part, the knowledge that the innkeeper was 
 trying to get it because of its having belonged to his 
 grandfather was alone sufficient to restrain us from 
 trying to make an acquisition. 
 
 The old cabinet-maker of the Eastern Shore dis- 
 liked veneer because he was of what may be termed 
 the school of Chippendale, who, although veneer 
 was in use long before his time, notably by Boulle, 
 and in his time, by Riesener, stoutly made all of 
 
 [234] 
 
THE EASTERN SHORE 
 
 his effects by solid wood alone. But Sheraton and 
 Heppelwhite used veneer with admirable effective- 
 ness, and the Empire workers used it even more al- 
 though oftentimes to less good purpose. 
 
 There is a widespread prejudice against veneer, 
 not based upon full knowledge, like that of the old 
 cabinet-maker, but owing its strength to the figura- 
 tive use of the word as meaning surface gloss or 
 false pretense. 
 
 But veneer is often admirable, and whether or not 
 it is so depends upon the motive of the cabinet- 
 maker as well as his skill. If used as a makeshift or 
 mask it should be condemned as false. 
 
 The top of a table or bureau is sometimes veneered 
 to obtain the highly desired "quartered" effect, or 
 "tree" pattern as it is sometimes called, but flat 
 veneered surfaces are much more easily damaged 
 than are solid tops. Water or oil spilled upon veneer 
 is liable to raise blisters, which are serious deface- 
 ments, whereas spill-marks upon solid wood are 
 easily effaced. 
 
 But there are some curved surfaces, such as round 
 pillars, with which beautiful effects can be secured 
 with veneer, through the natural lines of the grain 
 of the wood, where effectiveness would largely be 
 lost with solid wood unless it were carved. Carving 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 was used by some old-time makers where effects in 
 veneer and inlay were depended upon by others. 
 
 There are sometimes edges and panels effectively 
 veneered, and admirably so where the edges are pro- 
 tected by the surrounding wood from damage. 
 That some of the best old furniture shows mahogany 
 veneer upon solid mahogany, well illustrates what is 
 meant by an honest and admirable use of veneer. 
 
 Leaving the old veneered sideboard, the cabinet- 
 maker adjusted a bell so that it would ring when the 
 door opened and led us back into his yard and barn. 
 
 And a great surprise was in store for us. For in 
 the barn, half-filled as it was with hay and corn, 
 stood nine pieces of exceptionally fine mahogany. 
 
 Near the door was a solid, dark, huge corner-cup- 
 board, with bonnet-top; or "broken-arch" top as it 
 is frequently termed; it being the style, introduced 
 two hundred years ago into furniture, in which 
 the pediment is broken by a space in the middle. 
 The cupboard was polished by the cork and beeswax 
 and rubbing of many years and gleamed dully amid 
 the litter of the shabby barn. The cupboard doors 
 were solid instead of one being of glass, and this was 
 a distinctly unfavorable point, even though they were 
 of good wood and of good proportions. On opening 
 the doors, it was seen that there was a curious blem- 
 
 [236] 
 
THE EASTERN SHORE 
 
 ish though a tribute, of sorts, to the good cheer that 
 had once been there for rats had gnawed great 
 holes through every shelf. 
 
 Balanced with its legs in air was a small work- 
 table with two drawers and rope-carved legs. This 
 table had a slide below the drawers from which tat- 
 ters of green silk still hung where the silk work-bag 
 used to be, as seen so often in old-time pictures. The 
 price of this little table was seven dollars; and this 
 seemed curious, for it was not of so fine a style as 
 the great corner-cupboard or as other pieces there. 
 But the explanation was simple. It was small, and 
 would for that reason sell more readily, for the ex- 
 press charges would be light. And it was ready to 
 use except for a new silk bag. 
 
 Purchasers dread the express charges on heavy old 
 pieces ; and the amateur in collecting fears, to face the 
 world with a sideboard without a leg. A pillar 
 gone, or an urn missing from a mirror top, sends the 
 value sharply down in the judgment of most pur- 
 chasers. A small chip in the veneer will check the 
 otherwise ardent buyer of a chest of drawers, al- 
 though it could be mended for fifty cents, or by 
 twenty minutes' work if the purchaser would do it 
 himself at his home. 
 
 In that shabby building, too, there was a tilting- 
 
 [237] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 table which would both revolve and tip, and which, 
 moreover, had a raised edge to prevent cups from 
 slipping off. A treasure, that, indeed ! To be sure, 
 the slender graceful snake feet had been painted red 
 and the top had been roughly used for holding flower 
 pots, but the flame of the wood still glowed, and the 
 table could easily be restored to full beauty. 
 
 There was, too, a dining table of heavy fine dark 
 wood; a Pembroke table which sounds so very 
 much better than merely to say that it had two leaves 
 which hung almost to the floor. This is the sort of 
 table that, if it belonged to one's grandfather, one 
 would be glad to place in the middle of the dining 
 room, but which, unless it have some such personal 
 association, repels by its long and dolorously droop- 
 ing leaves. 
 
 Such examples of what may be found by a 
 stranger making a flying visit, at random, are suffi- 
 cient to give an intimation of what is still to be dis- 
 covered along the Eastern Shore. 
 
 It used to be not uncommon for some of the big 
 salesrooms to say in their advertisements, that they 
 were going to dispose at auction of carloads of "old 
 furniture from the Eastern Shore" ; and the picture 
 of a country denuded of its treasures had begun to 
 fix itself in our minds ; and had we not known some- 
 
 [238] 
 
THE EASTERN SHORE 
 
 thing of the ways of advertisers we should not have 
 had the courage to go into that particular field in 
 search of furniture. As a matter of fact, a collec- 
 tion of furniture offered for sale as being from a 
 specified locality, is likely to contain not only pieces 
 that are genuinely from that locality, but pieces from 
 much nearer home and even imitations and reproduc- 
 tions. Many a lot of furniture to which an attrac- 
 tive name, such as the Eastern Shore, or Beaufort, 
 is attached, consists of the fraudulent new as well as 
 the genuine old. It is not uncommon, too, in dispos- 
 ing of the belongings of some well-known collector, 
 to augment the total with other articles, good or 
 bad. 
 
 But, although not nearly so much as has been 
 claimed has been taken away from the Eastern Shore 
 by dealers, great quantities have been taken, and we 
 deemed ourselves fortunate to discover nine good old 
 pieces in one old barn. 
 
 While we were still in the barn, looking over the 
 things with the old cabinet-maker, the bell jangled 
 and we heard active approaching footsteps, and the 
 son appeared. A wiry alert sort of man he was, and 
 he began by saying that there was little profit in the 
 sale of furniture in such a broken-down condition. 
 
 "What I mean to do is fix it up. If I can only 
 
 [239] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 get the time I can make these old things worth while. 
 I was up in Baltimore last winter and I saw tables 
 that were tables! Polished well, I should say 
 they were! And inlaid! well, all along the edges 
 there were lines, and down the legs there were rows 
 of tapering flowers! I found where I could buy 
 such things for inlay work and I bought a whole out- 
 fit. Just as soon as there 's a lull in our undertaking 
 business we 've been pretty busy, you know," he 
 interpolated brightly "I mean to get these old 
 things out and fix them up. Father, here, could do 
 it but he does n't feel like beginning at it, and any- 
 way, we 've both been too busy." 
 
 "How much do you want for the tip-table?" he 
 was asked. 
 
 "You can have that for three dollars. You can 
 scrape that paint off and get the surface off the top 
 and you '11 have a fine table and fine wood. Father 
 taught me all he knows, and it 's no small learning 
 when you learn cabinet-making from a man of the 
 old school." 
 
 The young man turned to the hay-mow and 
 dragged down by one leg a graceful but shattered 
 bandy-leg table. It was of the Chippendale period 
 or older. It had graceful curving legs, slim above 
 the feet and ending in perfect bird's claws clasping 
 [240] 
 
"A tilting- table which both revolves 
 and tips " 
 
 Claw-and-ball table which cost one 
 dollar 
 
 I 
 
 A winged-claw table ; bought for one dollar Simple work-table, with rosette brasses 
 
 Old Mahogany Tables 
 
THE EASTERN SHORE 
 
 a ball. The top was formed of what had been the 
 extension leaves, and was fastened to the frame by 
 coarse wooden pins. It had seen service as a drip- 
 board for dishes and the beautiful hard wood had 
 been made fairly fuzzy by hot water. 
 
 The top, being larger than it ought to be, had 
 been the salvation of the graceful legs and of the 
 claw-and-ball feet, for, projecting so far as it did, it 
 had protected them from serious mars. 
 
 It was evident that the top was large enough and 
 to spare for the cutting from it of a top of good pro- 
 portions, and that the fuzzy surface could be planed 
 away, thus getting down to the fine dark grain. 
 
 The young man went to his workshop, and re- 
 turned with a handful of the inlays that he had told 
 of purchasing. They looked as if they were made of 
 yellow celluloid or, rather, they looked like dark 
 macaroni cut into inlay designs. There were drooping 
 garlands of bellflower, and corner designs, and little 
 panels for drawers, and wooden ovals for keyhole 
 escutcheons. Such things we had seen many times 
 in the finished products in the fine shops where An- 
 tiquities with a big A are sold, but we had not 
 thought to handle them, loose, in an old barn on the 
 Eastern Shore. 
 
 He laid some on the bandy-leg table. Inlays 
 
 [243] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 were pushed along the fuzzy, water-ruined top, with 
 a suggestive hand. Memories of that Baltimore 
 shop were crowding in his mind. It was clear that 
 he thought the graceful old Chippendale table would 
 look very fine smartened up with this Heppelwhite 
 ornamentation; with an oval panel in the middle, 
 with a heavy line all around the edge, with geomet- 
 ric figures at the four corners. 
 
 "Should you like to sell it as it stands'?" we asked, 
 but thinking that a man so ardent in affection for in- 
 lay would be hard to persuade to part with an oppor- 
 tunity of using it. 
 
 "Oh, yes. As it stands you can have it for a dol- 
 lar," he said. 
 
 Of course it at once became ours, and for three 
 dollars the tilting-table became ours too ! And these 
 were the prices at which the dealer first offered them 
 there was no beating down. And therefore there 
 was again that sense of pleasure which accompanies 
 a pleasant triumph. 
 
 "I '11 see to the shipping," he added casually; "I 
 can get time between funerals to send them to the 
 station." 
 
 The old Pembroke table, not nearly the equal of 
 the others in design, but with its wood in good con- 
 dition, he prized more highly. And we almost felt 
 
 [244] 
 
THE EASTERN SHORE 
 
 like buying it to save it when he explained his 
 reason. 
 
 "You see, a table with big wings like that has got 
 a lot of good flat wood in it. I can get let me see, 
 five feet wide, eight feet the other way I can get 
 forty square feet of West Indian mahogany out of it. 
 That 3 s where I get some money out of old furniture ! 
 I knock the leaves off, and crate them up rough and 
 easy, and get a good price for all I can send to that 
 man I told you of, in Baltimore." 
 
 Leaving his shop, after securing the treasures that 
 we most cared for, we went forth to see the country 
 beyond the limits of the town. 
 
 A long drive over the white shell roads, past giant 
 oaks in the fields and holly bushes gleaming with 
 glossy green and with the blue of the broad tide- 
 water inlets constantly coming into view, brought 
 us in sight of many stately old homes, well placed, 
 with terraces and groves, and always facing toward 
 some arm of the bay. 
 
 These inlets, and the fine old homes as well, have 
 names well chosen and old and full of charm. 
 
 The houses are a delight to any lover of the old, 
 for not only do they outwardly possess beauty and 
 distinction, but they have wainscoting in their halls, 
 and twirled balustrades upon the staircases, and fire- 
 
 [245] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 places in their drawing rooms, and corner-cupboards 
 in their dining rooms or buffets, we should call 
 them here on the Eastern Shore. The houses have 
 also window seats in the bedrooms, cranes in the 
 kitchens, and knockers on the doors, and in some of 
 them there are quantities of fine furniture. And as 
 to this point, one must needs bear in mind, as else- 
 where in regions of fine houses, that at any time 
 there may be a sale and a dispersion. There had 
 been a sale at one of the great houses the winter be- 
 fore we were there. 
 
 We returned from our long drive thrilled and filled 
 with the spirit of it all. Our dreams were haunted 
 by old Gilbert Stuart gentlemen in mulberry-colored 
 coats who sat in fireside chairs and read in the wain- 
 scoted rooms and took candles up broad and easy 
 stairs on their way to bed. 
 
 Next day we went to a shore town with a name 
 suggestive of green quadrangles and stone halls, and 
 found ourselves in a small and quiet village with a 
 number of well-kept houses, some small byways, 
 and a willow-shaded landing. Unimportant, and 
 far away, was the railroad. The Chesapeake was 
 sparkling and blue ; and the winding tidewater estu- 
 aries tempted with their fascination. 
 
 The inn was a rambling structure, part new and 
 
 [246] 
 
THE EASTERN SHORE 
 
 part old, and we were shown into the older portion, 
 overlooking the water, and our room was one that 
 was legendarily associated with a noted figure of 
 Colonial and Revolutionary period; a room with 
 wainscoted side, and a fireplace, and many elusory 
 and annoying drafts. 
 
 Early in the morning we took a boat, the typical 
 boat of this part of the world; a "cunner" thus the 
 Shore pronounces it, and the word was once, pre- 
 sumably, "canoe" ; but "canoe" gives the impression 
 of lightness, airiness, and paddles, while a "cunner" 
 is long and heavy, and carries a good stout sail, and 
 needs a man and a boy to handle it in a wind, and is 
 capable of speed. "Gunners" are made of four hol- 
 lowed pine trunks, and fit the landscape just as the 
 boats with prairie-schooner tops fit Como or the la- 
 teen sails fit the harbor of Salerno. 
 
 We sailed up long stretches of sparkling estuary, 
 past house after house built in 1720 or 1740 and as- 
 sociated with men who served with Braddock or 
 signed the Declaration or won fame as general or 
 admiral. 
 
 Sweeping up one of the tidewater inlets before a 
 sharp wind, the spray dashed in over the bow, and 
 our boatman adjusted what may be called a wooden 
 fin, to heighten the bow and keep off the flying 
 
 [2*7] 
 
 13 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 water. The shape of the fin and the purpose for 
 which it was used seemed strangely familiar. Where 
 had we seen such a thing *? And then it came to us. 
 In crossing from Monnikendam to Marken, in a high 
 sea, the old Dutch skipper, in his ribbed knee-stock- 
 ings, and trousers of wonderful cut, and his silver- 
 buttoned jacket, stooped and slipped just such a fin 
 into place as a wave came over the bow, remarking 
 stolidly that out on the North Sea it must be "vind- 
 isch und sturmish." It was curious to recognize the 
 similarity between the methods of the Zuyder Zee 
 and the Chesapeake. 
 
 Ahead of us, in the estuary, was a rounding curve 
 of land, a little higher than the neighboring river 
 bank. It sloped on three sides gently and grassily 
 to the water. There was a stretch of silvery sand 
 where the tide rose and fell below the grass line. 
 There were great elms in park-like plenty. From 
 the water's edge and the ruins of a small landing a 
 broad path went up, very straight, to an old house. 
 It was Easter week, and that path, grassgrown now, 
 was still bordered on either side by the green and yel- 
 low of daffodils. We could see that, as the path ap- 
 proached the house, it rose by two stone steps to a 
 smooth terrace immediately in front. 
 
 We were rounding the bend, when a gust of wind 
 
 [248] 
 
THE EASTERN SHORE 
 
 took us very suddenly and the pole of the rudder 
 cracked off short, and the boatman turned the craft 
 toward the shore and grounded it under the bank. 
 He would borrow an ax, he said, to cut and trim a 
 new rudder pole from a cedar tree. 
 
 So we landed, to explore this enchanted land. We 
 walked under the elms around the headland so that 
 we might go up the daffodil path. The house to 
 which it led was low and rambling, with wings. 
 The main part had four dormer windows and was 
 bowered in honeysuckle. It was empty, and in care 
 of a negro. He came from his cabin, some distance 
 away, opened the door, and told us the owners would 
 be glad to have us see the house and rest in the 
 shade. 
 
 The house was built for hospitality and not for 
 solitude. It had individuality. It welcomed us 
 although it was empty. We entered the great room 
 under the dormers. It had a waxed floor and low 
 ceiling. On the side toward the daffodil path and 
 the water there were two windows and a door. On 
 the opposite side were other two windows and an- 
 other door, and the river-like estuary so curved that 
 they also looked out toward the water. The rising 
 sun would shine in at one side and the setting sun at 
 the other. This room, which had been the library, 
 
 [249] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 was unusually long, and at either end stood a fire- 
 place, set in a paneled and wainscoted wall. 
 
 And how charming it would be to take such a 
 home in such a region to nil it with old furniture 
 treasures gathered hereabouts and from other regions 
 as old. Why, it would be the very poetry of living ! 
 The gleaming water, everywhere the magic touch of 
 a charming age, everywhere repose and peace and 
 beauty, with honeysuckle and oaks, with scarlet birds, 
 with climbing vines and nodding dormers, with fires 
 flaming joyously at each other from opposite ends 
 of the noble library, and with the long room, like 
 the hall of the famous chateau of the Cher, "illum- 
 inated from either side by the flickering river-light" 
 what could possibly be more felicitous! 
 
 People can almost always find the house for which 
 they earnestly seek, the house which their tempera- 
 ment and needs demand. Hawthorne, in New Eng- 
 land, found the Old Manse and- the little red house 
 at Stockbridge Bowl; Stevenson, on the Pacific, 
 found his Silverado ; and others may find a Silverado 
 or an Old Manse as they alternatively prefer. 
 
 The thirty houses of the Farmington this house 
 and other empty houses that we found, along this 
 Eastern Shore our own old inn all show what 
 may be done by him who would do it. And always, 
 
 [250] 
 
THE EASTERN SHORE 
 
 a region of such houses tells unmistakably that it is 
 a region where charming old furniture may be ac- 
 quired. 
 
 Charming ? Of course ! Old furniture is always 
 charming ! Why, even when Hardcastle tried to be 
 sarcastic, with Marlow, he could n't help expressing 
 the beauty and the charm of the very things that the 
 present generation has come to collect with such en- 
 thusiasm. "There 's a pair of silver candlesticks, 
 and there 's a fire-screen, and here 's a pair of brazen- 
 nosed bellows perhaps you may take a fancy to 
 them? There are a set of prints too, and there 's a 
 mahogany table that you may see your own face in." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 / 
 
 BUYING APPARENT WRECKS 
 
 IT is not only the pleasure and the fascination of 
 successful pursuit that appeal to him who 
 searches out old furniture. It is the feeling that 
 the prize won is to be established in his house, and 
 that it is to be an ever-present satisfaction there. 
 For our own part we found, as many others have 
 found, that the feelings and the pleasures are pre- 
 cisely such as these. The initial triumph, the sense 
 of satisfaction in getting our own pieces of furniture 
 into the once-while inn, the keener pleasure of plac- 
 ing them in the best position, and the lasting satis- 
 faction of having them where their shape and their 
 associations speak to us, are what constitute the 
 charm. And if a number of the articles cost but a 
 trifle, the pleasure is augmented. Just as the Met- 
 ropolitan Museum, of New York, recently told with 
 pride of the acquisition of a splendidly carved an- 
 
 [252] 
 
BUYING APPARENT WRECKS 
 
 cient newel post and panels, secured in France, at a 
 house in course of demolition, for two dollars each ! 
 
 A friend, who also loves the old shapes, likes to 
 say: "I will get my furniture in modern reproduc- 
 tions. What pleasure is there in buying junk?" 
 
 Well, there certainly would be but little pleasure 
 in buying old furniture if it were to remain as junk. 
 Apparent junk must be viewed with the eyes of com- 
 mon-sense and faith. If a piece is too badly broken 
 to be satisfactorily repaired it ought not to be ac- 
 quired. Of this class was a great four-poster we 
 once saw, that had possessed splendidly carved posts 
 and pineapple ornamentation, but which, to make it 
 fit into a low-eaved corner, had been ruthlessly sawed 
 off at the tops of all four posts to a ruinous short- 
 ness ; and then the sawed-off pieces had been burned. 
 That bed was not worth accepting even had it been 
 offered as a gift. But many a broken or hard-used 
 article of furniture can be restored to its pristine 
 strength, and, so far as appearance goes, may almost 
 fit the lilting old rhyme about being given a polish 
 of so brilliant a hue as to make it look newer than 
 when it was new. 
 
 And so, it is one answer to our friend that no pieces 
 should be gathered except those which are suscepti- 
 ble to treatment (in our own case he recognizes, al- 
 
 [253] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 belt with grumblings, that there may be something 
 in this practical view), and it is still another an- 
 swer that by far the greater part of modern repro- 
 ductions miss the precisely perfect proportions. 
 This, which seems absurdly unnecessary, is just as 
 absurdly true. It is with copyists of old furniture 
 as it is with copyists of old buildings: the infinite 
 personal care of the past is likely to be lacking in 
 these modern days, and to copy accurately is an art 
 hard to acquire even with the aid of measurements. 
 At the same time the copyist feels an almost irresist- 
 ible tendency to "improve" upon the original with 
 little changes or adaptations here and there : little in 
 themselves, perhaps, such changes, but vastly impor- 
 tant in effect. 
 
 Moreover, all the fascination of the veritable 
 touch of the past, the tender or stately charm of as- 
 sociation, is lost in the modern copies of the old. 
 
 Not only may it be expressed, as a general rule, 
 that nothing of the broken should be purchased 
 which is not capable of good and adequate repair, 
 but conversely it may be stated that nothing which is 
 wanted and which is capable of repair should be 
 passed by on account of its wrecked appearance. 
 But the art of knowing what is reasonably capable 
 of repair is a difficult one to master. 
 
 [254] 
 
BUYING APPARENT WRECKS 
 
 Naturally and unavoidably, the beginner will 
 make some mistakes. It is only by experience, and a 
 gradually acquired knowledge of what it is possible 
 for him to do or to have done, that he can gain the 
 ability to decide. And what is possible for one man 
 may not be possible for another. It is well for a 
 collector to find one of those old-fashioned crafts- 
 men, usually French or German, who make a spe- 
 cialty of doing curious and clever handiwork. 
 
 But, although broken furniture ought often to be 
 purchased, one should not permit himself the accum- 
 ulation of broken glass or china. That is something 
 which will surely be regretted, for broken china gives 
 an effect of dilapidation to an entire house that all 
 else in the way of strength and solidity cannot off- 
 set. It is seldom that broken china or glass, except 
 for very simple breaks, can be so repaired as to be 
 satisfactory in both strength and appearance ; and if 
 it cannot be thus repaired if it be a pitcher with a 
 handle gone, or a sugar bowl with a great chip in its 
 side, or a platter with a section missing do not lis- 
 ten to the voice of the inward tempter, telling of 
 what a rare design it is or of what a beautiful color. 
 
 Except for a museum, all furniture and china 
 should be capable of handling and use. There is lit- 
 tle pleasure, and much inevitable dissatisfaction, in 
 
 [255] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 the possession of china that must not be touched or 
 chairs that must not be sat upon, in tables precar- 
 iously patched or glass bowls perilously pieced. 
 
 With furniture, much can be done. In our own 
 collecting, in the earlier days, we allowed a number 
 of valuable articles to escape us because we did not 
 then have the necessary knowledge and experience. 
 But when one reflects that many of the most sincere 
 dealers, who really love the goods they handle, sell 
 old furniture just as they find it, whether broken or 
 whole, one begins to realize that there must be high 
 potentialities of mending. 
 
 In our own experience, no piece that we ever re- 
 stored was so broken, so utterly a wreck, as a mighty 
 fireside chair that we picked up on one of our South- 
 ern visits. It is so tall as to hide with its magiste- 
 rial back the tallest man who seeks its comfort; it is 
 portly of width (it is three feet and ten inches across 
 the arms) and of stately, rounding curves. In age 
 it is well over a century. 
 
 When discovered, in a shed, the chickens had been 
 roosting upon it, which was far from adding a dis- 
 tinguished air, and there was no trace whatever of 
 the seat. That had completely vanished. The 
 leather covering was hanging, here and there on the 
 sides and back, in strips and fragments. The chair 
 
 [256] 
 
BUYING APPARENT WRECKS 
 
 had suffered the penalties of popularity. Little was 
 left, indeed, but the outline shape and the frame- 
 work, but the framework was mighty and the shape 
 was fine. Yet even the frame, although intrinsi- 
 cally strong, had become racked and loosened. 
 
 But the chair was full of possibilities, and was 
 purchased. Wrapped in burlaps, it was shipped up 
 by water and rail. This wrapping was for two rea- 
 sons. For once, enthusiastic collectors though we 
 were, we fear we were not proud of having quite 
 such a forlorn wreck, quite such a thing 
 of rags and tatters, carried into our home, 
 past the eyes of our friends. But better rea- 
 son than this regard for appearances was our desire 
 not to let the freight handlers know how bad it 
 looked. It was sure of more careful handling, 
 wrapped carefully, than as an apparent jumble of 
 fragments. And we knew that until it should be re- 
 paired it could not stand much more of hard usage. 
 The chair cost four dollars, but that included wrap- 
 ping in new burlaps and the cartage. 
 
 The pads on the sides and back were fortunately 
 still in place; they were of good curled horsehair; 
 and as their proportions would bear mightily on the 
 comfort of the rehabilitated chair, they were taken 
 off carefully and kept separate, so as to resume their 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 places unaltered in quantity, and each pad was thor- 
 oughly cleansed by a soaking in gasoline. 
 
 The next task was to take out all the tacks and 
 nails. And although the time-worn query of where 
 all the pins go to is still unanswered, we felt that we 
 had found a complete reply to the question of where 
 all the tacks go. For it seemed as if their number 
 in that chair was legion. Every one was taken out, 
 thoroughly to clean the chair, and to make sure that 
 old nails should not interfere with the placing of 
 the new ones, and to preclude the possibility of an- 
 noying scratchiness through the new upholstering. 
 
 Then the great frame was thoroughly blocked, 
 for the old blocks had fallen away and permitted it 
 to waver. Square new blocks were placed where the 
 solid mahogany legs join the frame of the seat, and 
 firmness was restored. 
 
 The chair stood, now, a bare wooden frame, and 
 the next task was to scrape and polish it; an easy 
 task, because all the wood that was to show was the 
 four short legs and the strong cross-braces strong 
 enough, these, to illustrate the old rule in regard to 
 chairs, that the heavier the underbracing the older 
 the chair. 
 
 A new seat was next provided. Originally, the 
 chair had no springs, but there was no reason why 
 
 [258] 
 
Heppelwhite Low-boy and a Heppel white Fireside Chair 
 Restored from Wreck 
 
BUYING APPARENT WRECKS 
 
 springs should not be used, and so a number of up- 
 holsterer's springs were set in place, with webbing 
 and hair. The pads were then replaced on the back 
 and the sides, and stout muslin was stretched over 
 all. 
 
 The chair, which had thus gradually grown and 
 developed, was no longer just a form, but a form 
 clothed -in white, and showing by this means all of 
 its proper lines. 
 
 Next came the final upholstering. We needed it 
 to be in yellow, and so it was covered with a yellow 
 linen taffeta, fastened with brass nails all around the 
 edges a total of precisely 379 brass heads in sight! 
 Yet they are scarcely noticeable, so long are the 
 curving lines they follow and so merged are they in 
 the yellow covering of this most comfortable old 
 Heppelwhite fireside chair. 
 
 _ And now the chair stood once more perfect : once 
 more it was what its builder had intended it to be, a 
 thing of beauty and promising to be a source of com- 
 fortable joy forever. And it may be added that a 
 point to consider, in choosing such a broad-backed 
 chair, with arms, is to see that the line of the arm 
 continues, with a slight projection, to the back of the 
 chair, thus giving a comfortable elbow support 
 throughout the whole width of either side. Num- 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 bers of these old chairs were made with the line of 
 the arm merged wholly into the sheltering sides, and 
 they thereby lack in comfort. 
 
 No one can understand the handicraftsmanship of 
 the old days till he has stripped a fine old chair to its 
 skeleton. Many a little structural secret will be dis- 
 covered which would never have been guessed had 
 the chair merely been sent to an upholsterer, with- 
 out examination. For example, with this great 
 fireside chair it is really marvelous that, without 
 weakening the structure a particle, there should be 
 long narrow spaces, almost the length of the back 
 and the sides, left in the framework for the purpose 
 of allowing the covering to be drawn through and 
 cinched. No upholsterer's needle was necessary on 
 this chair, and every line of its shape is clean-cut and 
 clear. 
 
 Early in your collecting, search out some man who 
 is a deft repairer of furniture, a man who has come 
 to some inheritance of the ways of the olden time; 
 and then fasten to him with hooks of steel. The 
 man who will "putter" patiently over a broken frag- 
 ment, who will handle it intelligently, is a prize to 
 the lover of old furniture. For there are many re- 
 pairs which one cannot do himself; many which only 
 the skilled craftsman can accomplish. 
 
 [262] 
 
BUYING APPARENT WRECKS 
 
 Good fortune gave us the acquaintance of an old 
 German who had a little shop in that picturesquely 
 rambling part of New York still known as Green- 
 wich Village, and at that queer corner where Wav- 
 erley Place bifurcates. He died a year or so ago; 
 he and his wife, who was his companion in a 
 strangely solitary existence in the heart of the great 
 city, were taken away by a call which came with lit- 
 tle warning and simultaneously to both of them. 
 But while he lived he was the perfection of a furni- 
 ture repairer. 
 
 He was from Mainz ; this man of patient skill and 
 infinite pains ; and, learning that we knew his native 
 town, he spoke, now and then, with a shy pleasure, 
 of the majestic Rhine, of the islands, of the vine- 
 yards and the wine, of the old-time streets of Mainz, 
 and of the great old Cathedral, the Dom, with 
 houses built so closely against it as to leave only two 
 narrow entrance ways into its wide interior. His 
 eyes glowed with pleasure at a reference to his be- 
 loved Mainz or to the Rhine ; but it never stopped his 
 slow and patient work, his thoughtful, near-sighted 
 peering. He possessed in rare degree a knowledge 
 of the furniture craftsmanship of the Old World. 
 He could polish to perfection, too but he was old, 
 and his arm easily grew weary, and so, although now 
 
 [263] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 and then polishing a piece for us, he taught us the 
 valuable art by careful precept and example, so that 
 if we wished we could do it ourselves on any of our 
 own furniture. 
 
 He had little patience with those who did not pos- 
 sess some knowledge of furniture making, and it was 
 amusing to see him use shiny varnish or, worse yet, 
 what he called "daub," for such customers as he did 
 not consider of the elect. "It is just so good for 
 them," he would say with a shrug of the shoulders. 
 "They know not the difference, they!" He had 
 goodly store of old mahogany boards, for use in 
 mending, and could do wonders with them. 
 
 His apron of blue ticking, his dry-smoke cigar, his 
 favorite phrase following his peering examination; 
 "I make it all right! I make it flush mit dat!" his 
 nodding self-communion as he planned how to go 
 about some difficult job, all were suggestive of the 
 completed success that was sure to follow. It was a 
 pleasure to watch his delicate handling of a piece of 
 French Boulle, wrecked by the steam heat of an 
 American home, or his masterful relaying of the in- 
 lay of a shattered Sheraton table. 
 
 One can usually find such a man in any of the 
 great cities. Generally, too, such a man's prices are 
 inversely as to his skill. This old German carved for 
 
 [264] 
 
BUYING APPARENT WRECKS 
 
 us, in mahogany, a piece of ornamentation several 
 inches long, to replace a lost fragment and match a 
 piece on the opposite side of a table; the copy was 
 exact, the carving was fine, and the charge was only 
 half a dollar! 
 
 An especially difficult little job was the straight- 
 ening of the warp in one half of the top of a swing- 
 and-turn fine mahogany card-table ; one of those tops 
 that turn on a pivot and fold up into half space. 
 The table had drifted into a kitchen before we ac- 
 quired it, and had been used for ironing and press- 
 ing clothes, and one of the halves was exceedingly 
 warped. 
 
 The man of Mainz tried, first, the usual panacea 
 of removing the offending board, scraping off the 
 varnish, wetting the board upon the reverse side, and 
 then letting it stand in the sun. But this simple- 
 seeming remedy for once would not answer, effica- 
 cious though it generally is. Then he studied it 
 long and carefully. "I cut it into strips !" he cried 
 exultantly. Whereupon he cut it into six pieces 
 and, reversing them alternately as he laid them 
 down, and using the plane a little, he triumphed 
 completely. There was about a quarter of an inch 
 lost in sawdust, and for this width he put in a strip 
 of mahogany from one of his many boards ; and the 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 job was done. And so beautifully glued and pol- 
 ished were the pieces that it is almost impossible to 
 discover the joinings, even by close examination. 
 
 But there was one time when even the old German 
 could not help us, once when we learned that every- 
 thing is not so easy as it seems. We had found two 
 oval Sheraton tea-boards (one thinks of Franklin's 
 letter home to his wife, telling her of the English 
 way of using tea-board and tea-cups). The tea- 
 boards were of rare design, delicately inlaid in the 
 centre and brass-handled on the ends. But the encir- 
 cling upright edges of thin wood, an inch in height, 
 had left their sockets and sprung out of place, and 
 unless this could be remedied the tea-boards would 
 be hopeless wrecks. 
 
 But they seemed to be particularly easy to repair ; 
 it was almost the kind of thing we could have done 
 ourselves, so we rashly thought, even though we had 
 then had but little experience in repairing. But, 
 alas ! it was not an easy thing at all. The old Ger- 
 man solemnly shook his head. It irked him to say 
 that there was something he could not do. But the 
 boards must, he said, go to some one who had a 
 steaming room and could steam the rims into shape. 
 No glue could possibly make the strips, as they were, 
 stick in their precarious grooves. "If they were but 
 
 [266] 
 
A New York chair made A Pennsylvania chair 
 before 1750 of 1790 
 
 With splat ; therefore Simple design for 
 made in Great Britain a porch 
 
 What is termed an ' 
 tension Back" 
 
 Locally called a 
 string " 
 
 Fiddle- 
 
 Windsor Chairs 
 
BUYING APPARENT WRECKS 
 
 square-cornered!" and he shrugged his shoulders in 
 despair. 
 
 Finally the man with a steaming outfit was found, 
 a French cabinet-maker and repairer so far over on 
 the East Side as to be beyond the numbered avenues 
 and on a lettered one. He was an expert worker 
 and at the same time an enthusiast. He did the 
 needful steaming, and he found it necessary, too, to 
 make a mold the exact size of the rail-edges, for the 
 forming of a new section of rail. All of which was an 
 object-lesson as to the difficulty of doing some repairs. 
 
 Of course, in this case the game was worth the 
 candle; and being human, it soothed us for our 
 worry and trouble that, after paying the skillful 
 Frenchman's most reasonable charge, he courteously 
 asked permission to copy the boards, so highly did 
 he admire them. 
 
 A comparatively simple case of repair, though at 
 first it had much the appearance of being hopeless, 
 was in regard to a fine mahogany table with claw- 
 and-ball feet, dating back into the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. Such a wreck it was, that the man who un- 
 earthed it charged only a dollar for it and then be- 
 lieved that he was taking an unfair advantage! 
 "Don't buy it," he said; "you can't possibly get it re- 
 paired, and I don't like to sell such a thing." 
 
 [269] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 And he would have been right had it been our in- 
 tention to have it restored as it originally was. 
 That would have been impossible, or at least so dif- 
 ficult as to cost an unreasonable sum. It was a table, 
 two legs of which turned most unexpectedly on 
 wooden hinges, to support queer wings. It was a 
 highly elaborate affair, and must have been the pride \ 
 of some one's heart in an old Colonial home. 
 
 It was a pity to reduce its dimensions; but it was 
 best to restore as much as possible, and without re- 
 duction nothing at all could be done. Heroic treat- 
 ment was imperatively called for. 
 
 The top was so mangled as to be worthless. But 
 a wing, hanging precariously by a broken hinge, was 
 made into the top by the man of Mainz. Then, re- 
 taining the fine original four legs and all of the 
 frame, and having it all polished, the table became a 
 beauty, and its surface was still considerable, being 
 three feet nine by one foot eleven. Upon the sides 
 it was unavoidable, in the rej uvenation, that the orig- 
 inal wooden hinge should show; but such a blemish 
 may readily be overcome by spreading over the side 
 a covering of veneer. 
 
 The restoration of a fine Heppel white piece, which 
 had been the lower half of a high-boy or perhaps of 
 a cabinet desk, is another illustration of the miracles 
 
 [270] 
 
BUYING APPARENT WRECKS 
 
 that can be done. The upper part having vanished 
 into limbo, there was only an open space where the 
 top ought to stand, and the veneer and inlay had all 
 sprung from the drawer fronts and from the face of 
 the framework and were hanging loose in dejected 
 sheets. The satisfactoriness of design, and the 
 beauty of the wood itself and of the inlay that was 
 still upon the tapering legs, made it seem worth 
 while to take some trouble. 
 
 And it was not so desperate a matter, after all. 
 The veneer was entirely removed and all the glue 
 cleaned off. Then the veneer was carefully relaid 
 and with that simple task the thing was done, ex- 
 cept for the top; and for that, a new top was cut 
 from a fine piece of mahogany. The very simplic- 
 ity of many such a task in the hands of an intelli- 
 gent and skillful cabinet worker is often a surprise 
 even to those who have had experience in restor- 
 ations. 
 
 We had a chair, of Chippendale design, so filled 
 with worm-holes that it seemed an impossibility to 
 restore it; and the bottom ends of three of the legs 
 were so worm-eaten as to be positively feathery. 
 There were special reasons why we wished to pre- 
 serve this chair. Nor was the task a specially diffi- 
 cult one, in spite of appearances. First, corrosive 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 sublimate was painted over all the holes. This was 
 colorless, and effectually disposed of any life that 
 might exist in the depths. Next a cement of bees- 
 wax and resin was applied, to fill the holes, and it 
 was mixed with enough of dry vermilion to give the 
 needful color. 
 
 A simple way to apply such a cement is to run it 
 in with a chisel heated in a candle flame, using a 
 worn-out chisel, as its temper may be ruined by the 
 heat. Lay the cement on the hole and draw the 
 heated chisel over it. Then, with a sharp knife, 
 scrape off all that is superfluous. 
 
 The chair was now ready for the German cabinet- 
 maker. He cut the feathery bottoms from the three 
 offending legs, taking from an inch and a half to 
 three inches from each, and then, with the care that 
 goes only with workers of his class, he modeled three 
 new pieces to match. And it is not an easy thing to 
 do, with an old-time, hand-made chair whose legs 
 run down in different and heedful proportions. 
 
 With small things, wonders can often be worked. 
 There was a Sheffield-plate candlestick, ten and a 
 quarter inches high, of absolutely perfect shape, but 
 broken into two pieces and lop-sidedly fastened with 
 a rat-tail file pushed up through the middle where 
 the cement filling had fallen out. It was a wob- 
 [272] 
 
BUYING APPARENT WRECKS 
 
 bling, broken wreck; it was excessively dirty; and it 
 seems preposterously impossible to say that all the 
 owner wanted for it was ten cents; one cent an inch 
 and the final quarter inch thrown in ! 
 
 The ten cents was at once forthcoming, and the 
 seller was pleased. It was so far from being a case 
 of belittling on the part of the purchaser; of "It is 
 naught, it is naught, saith the buyer : but when he is 
 gone his way, then he boasteth"; that it was the 
 seller who belittled it and who was ready to boast of 
 having got anything at all for so worthless a thing. 
 
 We took it to a silversmith, for it was a case for 
 delicate work. It was beautifully mended and pol- 
 ished, and would now command a considerable price 
 at any antique shop. 
 
 More doubtful was an impulse which led us to 
 secure, one day, a silver-plated soup tureen, corpu- 
 lent in shape and long in the legs. For a soup tu- 
 reen it had a lofty, not to say spindly, aspect, and al- 
 though it might once have had pretensions as a sil- 
 ver-plated article, almost the last of the plating had 
 disappeared. There was, however, much of the 
 graceful about the article if it could but find its 
 proper niche in the world. 
 
 One day, at Tiffany's, he of the favrile glass, we 
 saw a workman securing a beautiful green color by 
 
 [ 273 ] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 brushing acid over bronze that shade of green 
 which gives a metal the aspect of the pieces dug up 
 at Herculaneum. Here was the hint and acid 
 was experimented with upon the tureen. But it was 
 not of the same metal as that upon which the work- 
 man had been operating, and acid only turned it 
 black. But it was an idea not to be relinquished, 
 and there was further experiment, and finally a 
 green paint, diluted to attenuated thinness, was 
 stroked over the silver-denuded tureen, making it the 
 color of beautiful green bronze. The village black- 
 smith was next seen and he cut a hole through the 
 cover of the tureen. Then, through the lid, a fat 
 lamp-bowl was set, the hole where the soup-ladle 
 handle used to go through giving a space in which to 
 get at the filling hole of the lamp. A green shade 
 of proper hue was easy to find, and we had a unique 
 and most pleasing lamp ! 
 
 So strangely are some things acquired and with 
 such sequence of good fortune, that one is over and 
 over again tempted to believe that nothing is impos- 
 sible. Now, here are two actual happenings. And 
 they are told as encouragement to those who seek in 
 hopes of finding. 
 
 A mirror came to us as a gift; a good mirror, in a 
 narrow mahogany frame, the measurements being 
 
 [274] 
 
BUYING APPARENT WRECKS 
 
 eighteen inches by fourteen. It had been a dressing- 
 table mirror and had once swung between two slen- 
 der uprights above some little drawers, to which they 
 were attached. It was a good mirror even by itself, 
 but we naturally regretted the absence of the drawers 
 and the uprights, which had been lost or destroyed. 
 
 Then, at an auction sale, not long afterward, what 
 should be put up but a set of little drawers, for the 
 top of a dressing-table, surmounted by slender pil- 
 lars between which a mirror was intended to swing. 
 The wood was of mahogany, with profusion of fine 
 inlay. But there was no mirror! And on that ac- 
 count there was no competition in bidding. 
 
 When we say, literally, that without changing the 
 mirror frame or the uprights, that mirror which had 
 come to us from one source precisely fitted the frame 
 and uprights picked up at an auction, surely nothing 
 could be much more curious. 
 
 Once upon a time we became the possessors of a 
 brass fire-shovel with an exceptionally fine handle, 
 but with the shovel portion so worn out as to be both 
 useless and unattractive. A year afterward, for 
 twenty-five cents, we secured a brass shovel of fine 
 Openwork pattern, which had no handle! And it 
 precisely matched our handle ! A worker in metals 
 put the two acquisitions together, and the result is an 
 
 [275] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 unusually long-handled fire-shovel, of fine design 
 and workmanship, all of a brass which takes a splen- 
 did polish, and with the parts so well matched that 
 no one could ever guess, what is really the case, that 
 the two pieces came together from places six hundred 
 miles apart. 
 
 [276] 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 REPAIRING AND POLISHING AT HOME 
 
 IT is not as if the dictum of Miles Standish about 
 doing a thing one's self could always be applied 
 to putting into good condition old furniture that 
 has suffered from age and use. Often, and perhaps 
 generally, if one wants an article of furniture well 
 repaired, the best way is to send it to an expert 
 craftsman. But, on the other hand, there are a 
 great many things which one can do one's self, and 
 which it is convenient and advantageous, as well as 
 economical, to do. The cultivation of a certain 
 handiness and adaptability in regard to old furni- 
 ture tends to increase the enjoyment of the collector. 
 "Now, what are you going to do with that?" 
 asked a friend, as he looked at a shabby wooden 
 chair, perhaps no older than 1815, whose top rail 
 was missing from the back, leaving curving, horn- 
 
 [277] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 like projections above the middle slat and the slender 
 spokes. He smiled as he asked the question, and 
 there was the suggestion of gentle scoff in his voice. 
 
 In truth, there was not a promising outlook for 
 filling the gap where that top slat ought to be (slats, 
 it should be said, are strips running horizontally 
 across a chair back, and a splat is the piece run- 
 ning vertically from top to bottom in the middle), 
 for we knew from the mate of the chair that a new 
 slat would be hard to make. For one reason, it 
 would have to be bent on a difficult and unusual 
 curve, and unless made precisely right it would look 
 decidedly unattractive. 
 
 We looked at it thoughtfully. "You mean, that 
 it is a subject for the scrap-heap?' 7 
 
 "Well, you 've got to get a scrap-heap some day," 
 he responded airily, "and you may as well begin 
 with this old chair like those early Ohio settlers, 
 you know, that took a nonogenarian along to begin 
 the cemetery with." 
 
 In the face of this friendly taunt we were bound 
 to make use of that chair. And, when the idea 
 came, it was, like many another illuminative idea, 
 extremely simple. The curving projections were 
 sawed off, close above the middle slat. The knobs 
 were planed and smoothed into a receding curve. 
 
 [278] 
 
REPAIRING AND POLISHING AT HOME 
 
 Then, as the chair had always been a painted one, it 
 was sandpapered, and painted a cream white, and 
 placed in front of a dressing-table; and guests have 
 used it there and expressed their wonder that there 
 should be such a fetching, short-backed chair. 
 
 Before one can really come to the love of furni- 
 ture he must patiently and personally handle it till 
 he has patiently and personally learned it. 
 
 You are, say, more or less hazy in regard to the 
 actual construction and merits of a Chippendale 
 chair. Well, after first catching the chair, choosing 
 a shabby one that needs general restoration and pol- 
 ishing, take a stout, broad-bladed knife and begin to 
 scrape. Hold the edge of the knife to the wood at 
 right angles and draw steadily toward you. The 
 chair, in its checkered career, has probably had sev- 
 eral coats of varnish and probably a coat of paint. 
 Work hard, and see that every particle of this coat- 
 ing falls to the floor. No injury will come to the 
 wood if you use care. Good mahogany seems glad 
 to be scraped, and is not easily scratched or raised in 
 shavings, when the knife is heavy and straight and 
 the strokes even and if there are no digging motions. 
 Instead of a knife, glass is used by some, but it is 
 treacherous and easily scratches. 
 
 As the chair is cleared to the wood, and you thus 
 
 [270] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 become on intimate terms with it, you will increase- 
 ingly realize that the patient, personal touch is caus- 
 ing you to take in to the full every point of outline 
 and beauty. As each corner is finished you will no- 
 tice not only the curves but the mode of construc- 
 tion; as you work on, over the curves of the perfor- 
 ated splat and the shape of the stalwart legs, you 
 will begin to understand a Chippendale chair, you 
 will see why this cabinet-maker of St. Martin's Lane 
 could give his name to a school of design, as the mon- 
 archs of France, on their side of the Channel, gave 
 theirs. As the American dealers of to-day patter of 
 Chippendale and Heppelwhite and Sheraton, and 
 perhaps even of that Shearer whose fame was almost 
 lost in the glory of his rivals, so, in the shops of 
 Paris, the dealers' talk is punctuated with the famous 
 Quatorze and Quinze and Seize. 
 
 By the time you have your chair scraped and clean 
 you have not only learned the merits of construction, 
 but you have discovered the faults and weaknesses 
 that time has brought to your specimen. 
 
 Even the beginner can do many things toward res- 
 toration, and it is a particularly keen pleasure to see 
 a battered treasure return to beauty under one's own 
 hands. A table-top comes to mind as one of the 
 things that yielded some of these thrills. It had 
 seven marks, round and sunken, where the wood was 
 
 [280] 
 

 Empire Book Case, Unrestored, of about 1810, with Rosette Brasses 
 and Claw Feet, and Glass in Latticed Design 
 
REPAIRING AND POLISHING AT HOME 
 
 crushed by sharp blows, apparently from a hammer. 
 An old cabinet-maker had told us how to raise such 
 dents, and we followed his directions although with 
 misgivings as to success. Water was dropped in 
 each depression ; blotting-paper was laid over it, and 
 a warm flatiron, not so warm as to scorch the wood, 
 was placed over each blotting-paper. The old cab- 
 inet-maker had smiled queerly when he said that it 
 would need many applications. For a whole day, 
 each time those irons were found cool more water 
 was applied, with a blotter and another mildly warm 
 iron. Slowly, magic was done; slowly the wood 
 swelled and rose ! Fortunately, no wood was miss- 
 ing. The blows had merely sunk into the table 
 without breaking it. Moisture and heat gradually 
 swelled the sunken fibre and it resumed its old 
 smooth surface, while at the same time there was no 
 effect whatever upon the wood surrounding the 
 dents, which therefore remained level and smooth. 
 
 Hammer dents, it is well to remark, ought always 
 to be looked upon with suspicion, and the piece of 
 furniture upon which they are found should be ex- 
 amined, as to authenticity, with unusual care, for 
 the making of such dents is a trick often resorted to 
 by the unscrupulous to give a false appearance of 
 age to a counterfeit. 
 
 The most effective way .to treat fine woods, after 
 
 [283] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 they have been scraped clean and repaired, is by 
 means of what is known as French polishing. And 
 French polishing may be done at one's own home, 
 with keen pleasure in the result of one's efforts', and, 
 it may be added, with a very considerable financial 
 saving, for it is an expensive kind of work to have 
 done by a professional polisher. It is a fascinating 
 art to understand, and here is how it is done. 
 
 Let us presume that the article to be polished is 
 of mahogany and yet, except for very slight modi- 
 fications called for by questions of coloring and fill- 
 ing, the rules will fit almost any wood. 
 
 First, the piece of mahogany, after it is scraped to 
 the wood, is rubbed with powdered pumice-stone and 
 boiled linseed oil rubbed hard and long with a 
 rough woolen rag, such as a piece of ingrain carpet or 
 horse-blanket. Seeing a workman in the Rue St. 
 Antoine at this very work, and examining his rubber, 
 we found that he had a stone within it to give a hard- 
 ness to the pressure of the cloth and oil and pumice- 
 stone upon the wood. Since then, with us, a stone is 
 used and it is certainly an aid to efficacy. The 
 beauty of the finished work depends upon the 
 smoothness given the wood by this rubbing. 
 
 But veneered wood must not be thus rubbed, for 
 it would soften the glue, nor does veneer aeed it, for 
 
 [284] 
 
REPAIRING AND POLISHING AT HOME 
 
 the wood chosen for veneer is usually very smooth 
 and close-grained. Wood which has been well 
 cared for and is unmarred under the old polish does 
 not need this preliminary work to be long continued, 
 for the effect of the pumice-stone and oil of years 
 ago has not been lost. 
 
 Should a soft place appear where some inferior 
 piece of wood has been used, apply a coat of glue 
 and water and leave until dry. This will harden 
 the grain of the wood. 
 
 Crevices should be filled with a cement of beeswax 
 and resin and vermilion, heated together, and run 
 into the hole with a warm chisel. Should a depres- 
 sion be found in an otherwise smooth surface, as is 
 frequently the case at the centre of a knotty and gor- 
 geous part of the mahogany, do not try the water and 
 blotter method, for, the wood not having been 
 crushed, it will not rise. But, with a brush, dip into 
 the bottle of polish, described below, and generously 
 cover this spot. As often as this hardens drop more 
 until the depression is built up to the proper level. 
 When perfectly hard it can be rubbed smooth with 
 the rest of the surface. 
 
 We have always found sandpaper, even of the 
 finest quality, a scratchy and poor substitute for 
 pumice and oil and energy. 
 
 [285] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 After the surface feels smooth and satiny, wipe 
 the wood dry and clean, and place it in a well- 
 lighted room where there will be no dust. It is well 
 to do the work in a room where tools and bottles 
 shall remain undisturbed. 
 
 Now, for the actual polishing, have a wide- 
 mouthed quart bottle for the necessary mixture. 
 There is some divergence among workers as to this, 
 but here is a mixture that we have found admirable : 
 One pint of grain alcohol; four ounces of dry shel- 
 lac of a light color, crushed small; and half an 
 ounce each of gum arabic and gum sandarac, pow- 
 dered fine. This bottle must stand on a sunny 
 window-sill, or on a warm register, or in a hot sand 
 bath, but never near fire, for three days; and with 
 sundry shakings it will turn into a thick and rather 
 clear liquid with no sediment or undissolved matter. 
 The sandarac sometimes settles, but still has a slight 
 waterproofing influence in the mixture. 
 
 Now to begin- In your hand have an inch-thick, 
 four-inch square, of folded flannel, soft and fine. It 
 must be covered with a piece of old linen which is 
 not linty. Open the square and pour in from the 
 bottle a tablespoonful or less. Gather the corners 
 and edges into the hand so that a round, plump cush- 
 ion, with the polish in the heart of it, protrudes, cov- 
 
 [286] 
 
REPAIRING AND POLISHING AT HOME 
 
 ered with the fine linen. Touch this linen with one 
 slight dab of linseed oil and take a cautious light 
 stroke down the grain of the wood toward the light 
 from the window. Very slowly, and without ever 
 resting this dauber on the wood, a back-and-forth 
 movement must be made. The polish begins to ap- 
 pear. The wood glows. The fire of its color gleams. 
 Happiness steals over you. You return to the bottle 
 for more. As skill grows you can sail gayly back and 
 forth and by many parallel long strokes you will 
 cover the small surface you are first attempting. For 
 you will be wise, and not begin with the top of the 
 dining-table, but take a leg or, better still, a candle- 
 stand or a dressing-glass frame. 
 
 After you feel master of the back-and-forth stroke, 
 try a circular movement, which seems to surface 
 things over and make progress. Return to the bottle 
 for more liquid as needed, and renew the linen 
 should it wear through, for the wool fibre will stick 
 to the wood and destroy your surface. A very oc- 
 casional dab of oil will be necessary on the linen. 
 
 One beauty of French polishing is that it is dry at 
 once. There is no waiting to see if it is going to 
 harden or set. 
 
 Keep on until the quality of the polish is deep and 
 resplendent, until it suits taste and fancy, and until 
 
 [269] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 you are sure you have never seen a finer finish any- 
 where, in friend's or rival's home or in dealer's shop. 
 Your arms will be weary and your hands very sticky 
 by this time; but rinse them in alcohol and save the 
 rinsing in a bottle, for you may use it later. 
 
 Next morning it is a little appalling to see how 
 much the fine polish has gone in over night. But 
 this is not very discouraging, for it has really gone in 
 and has not evaporated. Instead of going on at 
 once with more polish, take the old pumice-stone and 
 oil rubber and rub the surface down to dullness ; with 
 a less vigorous stroke, however, than on the bare 
 wood. Wipe clean, and again take the linen-cov- 
 ered, soft, woolen rubber (which will keep for many 
 days without hardening if dropped in a covered can 
 when not in use), and begin to put more polish on. 
 Were you pleased yesterday? You will be more 
 than that to-day. How the polish improves is a 
 constant delight. The beauty, and the possibilities 
 of beauty, in mahogany grow upon you, and you see 
 in fancy the shabby old desk and the Empire work- 
 table undergoing this very metamorphosis within the 
 week. Put on all the polish that the wood requires ; 
 be sure to put on enough; and leave it again over 
 night. 
 
 In the morning comes the last and most delicate 
 
 [290] 
 
REPAIRING AND POLISHING AT HOME 
 
 of the operations. The work can be left as it is so far 
 as durability is concerned, but another hue to the 
 rainbow can be added by what is called spiriting off. 
 
 Take a roll or piece of soft linen, such as a fine but 
 worn-out handkerchief. Tear off hems and mono- 
 grams or fold them in, to insure softness. Take the 
 alcohol you used for rinsing your fingers, or put a 
 few drops from the polish bottle into fresh alcohol. 
 Moisten your soft roll of linen in this and skim over 
 the surface of your work with it. The end to be ac- 
 complished is to run the polish together into a hard 
 and resisting surface. This moist rag will do won- 
 derful things if a little skill is acquired in its use, but 
 one lingering smear of it will lift the polish from the 
 wood and leave the work of days a ruin, only to be 
 scraped away. 
 
 French polishing leaves a brilliant deep polish on 
 the wood, which a blow will not turn into a yellow 
 mark, with fractures, as is the case with varnished 
 wood, and it is as good and strong as ingenuity has 
 invented. Should a duller surface be desired; and 
 it is more effective on sombre old chests of drawers 
 and many heavy old pieces ; rub the finished surface 
 very gently, and very little, with flannel and pumice- 
 stone and oil. It is the work of a few moments to 
 change from brightness to dullness, yet we have 
 
 [291] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 known bills to be sent with six dollars' extra charge 
 for this desired dull finish. 
 
 There are many "superstitions" to be followed, as 
 coffee drinkers call such ceremonies as putting sugar 
 in the cup first and coffee on top. 
 
 Never use the polish bottle on a dull or humid 
 day. It will be contrary and sticky. Scrape and 
 rub with oil and pumice on the dull days. You 
 must have bright skies for good polishing. 
 
 There are many more points which emergencies 
 will teach. If a bubbly ugly smear appears, showing 
 where the polish has stuck to the rubber instead of to 
 the wood, stop all work on that part for the day. 
 Next day, when it is hard, rub with pumice-stone 
 and oil and see if you can go on with the polish. If 
 it is not a bad case this can be done. If it has been 
 a case of leaving the rubber on the wood while you 
 went downstairs, you had better betake yourself to 
 the knife and scrape clean for a new beginning. 
 
 When flutings, or receding angles, or carvings 
 which cannot be reached by the rounding surface of 
 the polisher are met with, a slim and slender brush 
 of fine hair should be dipped in the bottle and the 
 liquid lined into these difficult places; then the pad 
 may be resumed for the polishing of the surfaces 
 around these same parts. 
 
 [292] 
 
REPAIRING AND POLISHING AT HOME 
 
 Now and then a stain is absolutely necessary, 
 where a patch is to be made like the original. Never 
 use a colored varnish or a commercial stain, but dye 
 the bare wood with a dye made of bismuth brown 
 and alcohol, to which a granule of aniline red is 
 added. 
 
 A patch around a keyhole, or an inset of new 
 and light-colored mahogany, may be darkened by 
 wiping over with lye water and rinsing off. 
 
 The continued application of lye or caustic soda 
 in any form causes mahogany to darken into pur- 
 plish hues. Many restorations come home from 
 workshops of high repute with this queer dull purple 
 gleaming from the wood as the result of an easy way 
 of removing the old varnish with lye. Time and 
 again have the uninspired restorers of old furniture 
 pooh-poohed the folly of scraping wood and advo- 
 cated the lye-can. With lye, the old varnish or 
 polish comes off in one-eighth of the time needed by 
 scraping, but the fire of the wood disappears too, and 
 there comes in its stead the ugly purple which has 
 little resemblance to the rich color of good wood well 
 treated. 
 
 Inkstains so frequently sink into the very fibre of 
 the wood that it is well worth knowing that, if cov- 
 ered with a drop of water into which one or two crys- 
 
 [293] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 tals of oxalic acid are then pushed, the ink will dis- 
 appear. But watch the operation, and wipe away 
 the acid as soon as the cleansing is complete. Re- 
 member, too, that oxalic acid is poison. 
 
 For the many things, little and big, that may be 
 done at home, it is well to set aside a small room as 
 a home workshop. We set apart such a room, away 
 from the main part of the house, and gilding, uphol- 
 stering, cabinet-making, polishing and general re- 
 pairing are carried on with a very simple array of 
 tools in which hatchet and tack-hammer and kitchen 
 knife play star parts. 
 
 However, we have one useful machine. It is 
 made from an old sewing-machine, so antiquated as 
 to have no friend or owner. It is now a brass pol- 
 isher! Polishing andirons and candlesticks and 
 pewter mugs and pewter platters is always looked 
 upon as a task out of usual household lines. Silver 
 is polished without a murmur, but brass and pewter 
 are looked upon with no eye of favor in the kitchen. 
 And so, we had to present the polishing of brass and 
 pewter as an easy task; hence the sewing-machine, 
 made over with a felt burnishing wheel by a village 
 artisan. No longer, now, is burnishing a task, and 
 the machine was not difficult of construction. The 
 arm was knocked off, and the felt-covered wooden 
 
 [294] 
 
REPAIRING AND POLISHING AT HOME 
 
 wheel was attached. In buffing, putz or brass polish 
 is used. 
 
 It is always pleasant to know a simple method by 
 which some serious-seeming difficulty may be over- 
 come. An old banister-back chair, which antedates 
 the days of Chippendale, with generous rush seat, 
 and a front rung with a huge knob in the middle, was 
 preliminarily cleaned of its green paint ; then, its dull 
 black was restored by first applying logwood boiled 
 in water, and, when this was dry, by brushing over 
 with vinegar in which rusty nails had been left for 
 several hours. The chair had a dirty mussy brown 
 color when the work was done, but in a few minutes 
 the color became ebony-like, and was a great success. 
 The advantage of this, over painting it black, is that 
 the very fibre of the wood is dyed, and the chair does 
 not, therefore, wear white on the arms and edges. 
 
 It is always well to have on hand a sheet of ma- 
 hogany veneer, which can be purchased at some wood 
 warehouse where you have spied the sign of "Ven- 
 eer" from passing trolley or from high-level bridge. 
 Scissors will clip a piece of harmonizing streak and 
 grain for some spot where it is needed; and with a 
 clean surface, freshly-made glue and a heavy weight, 
 or, still better, a wooden clamp, you can easily do 
 the work of mending veneer. Or you may relay 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 loose veneer by cleaning it, using fresh glue, and re- 
 placing it under pressure. The glue should be of 
 fine quality; preferably, of German make. 
 
 A blister in old veneer may be laid by slitting it in 
 the middle and pouring in some glue, working it 
 thoroughly under every part of the blister, pressing 
 out all that you can, and then laying a very heavy 
 weight on it. 
 
 Time enters into all these things, and the beginner 
 is apt to become impatient while waiting for glue to 
 harden and veneer to adhere. 
 
 Once learn the art of putting in rush seats in 
 chairs it may easily be learned from some worker 
 of the old school and you are not only ready to re- 
 pair a rush seat that has become broken and ragged 
 by use, but you need never hesitate about acquiring 
 some fine old chair, with broken bottom, when oppor- 
 tunity offers, although you would probably let the 
 prize pass if you had not learned this art. 
 
 There are many things which the collector himself 
 may do. You may put on missing handles of brass 
 or glass first waiting until, in some junk-shop or 
 odd corner, you find the handle of precisely the pro- 
 per period. You may do a myriad of things with 
 broken furniture, thereby acquiring personal knowl- 
 edge of the admirable old-time ways, and, especially 
 
 [296] 
 
REPAIRING AND POLISHING AT HOME 
 
 if you live at some distance from a city, saving your- 
 self endless trouble in shipping articles of furniture 
 back and forth. Beginning by doing the work from 
 motives of economy or convenience, you will soon 
 acquire a real love for it. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 IN THE DINING-ROOM 
 
 IN the ancient Pennsylvania Bethlehem, beside the 
 Lehigh, a town intimately connected with the 
 romance and tragedy of early settlement, there 
 still stand houses built by Moravians of the olden 
 time. And on Easter morning, long before dawn 
 and preceding the sunrise service, a score of trom- 
 bone players wake the sleeping people, playing first 
 up in the white-pillared dome of the old Moravian 
 church, and then at point after point throughout the 
 town in front of the building in which Lafayette 
 lay wounded and where Washington visited him, 
 and beside the ancient structure where Pulaski was 
 presented with a banner by the Moravian maidens, 
 and at many another spot. 
 
 A town, this, in which a lover of old furniture 
 would especially like to obtain some examples of the 
 old; but our stay there was but during Easter Day. 
 
 [298] 
 
IN THE DINING-ROOM 
 
 But mark, again, how Providence watches over 
 collectors! In an aggressively modern New Jersey 
 town, a year or so afterward, a friend said : 
 
 "I wonder if you want to buy a piece of old fur- 
 niture a corner-cupboard. A family have moved 
 back to their old home, leaving their furniture to be 
 sold. Most of it was modern and sold readily. All 
 that J s left is their corner-cupboard, and it J s too old 
 for anybody's taste here. They want to sell it for 
 five dollars. They brought it when they came here 
 from their old home, Bethlehem." 
 
 And that is how it comes that this memento of the 
 ancient Pennsylvania town stands in a corner of our 
 dining-room and for only five dollars and freight! 
 
 An adequate, capacious, good-looking old cup- 
 board it is, made to lift apart in two pieces, as was 
 customary in making tall articles of furniture. The 
 upper half is fronted with a swinging glass door, and 
 the lower half with swinging doors of wood. By a 
 strange perverseness, the cupboard had been given a 
 coat of red varnish stain, but this was easily taken 
 off by scraping. 
 
 In this corner-cupboard, and in a cabinet on an 
 adjoining wall, there are china and glass and silver, 
 a little Lowestoft, a little Wedgwood, a little old 
 Sevres, a huge old English soup tureen, a huge blue 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 platter, with bowls and pitchers and cups and 
 plates. 
 
 It seems a contradiction; but most old American 
 china was of English make. It was a comparatively 
 advanced period before there was much made on this 
 side of the ocean, and even the greater portion of 
 those old dishes which show pictures of American 
 scenery were made in Staffordshire. 
 
 The study of china is one all by itself, requiring 
 long and patient research and application ; and after 
 one has examined the work of the great potteries of 
 the world and supplemented this by a study of the 
 examples in museums, there comes a wide humble- 
 ness of judgment, so difficult, often, is differentia- 
 tion of the various makes because the different per- 
 iods and factories so frequently overlap and resemble 
 one another in style and appearance. As a rule, it 
 is those who have acquired but a surface knowledge 
 who are able to be most offhandedly positive as to 
 age and make. 
 
 But there is much that may positively be learned. 
 There are marks and signs and surfaces to consider. 
 There are times when one may feel certainty. As, 
 when a friend shows some china, insisting and be- 
 lieving (such is often the effect of mistaken family 
 tradition) that it is "over two hundred and fifty 
 
IN THE DINING-ROOM 
 
 years old," it may perhaps be of a kind that you 
 know was not made until the early part of the nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 The prices of china vary, not alone from age, or 
 from beauty of design or color, but also from rarity. 
 As to this, there is a great arbitrariness of assumed 
 value. At a sale, a blue plate of fair appearance, 
 with an old Albany picture upon it, was about to be 
 knocked down to us for fifty cents, when two men, 
 who at that moment happened to notice it, eagerly 
 joined the bidding, and one of them finally obtained 
 it for twenty-eight dollars. This was solely because 
 it was one of an historical series, now hard to find. 
 
 Pennsylvania had quite a share in the outfitting of 
 our old dining-room; although it might more natu- 
 rally have been New York from the number of dis- 
 tinguished men of that State who, like Washington 
 Irving, have in past generations dined within it ! 
 
 It was from Pennsylvania that even the dining- 
 table came ; a table of fine Sheraton design, with del- 
 icately fluted legs. It is of mahogany, and is made 
 in two pieces, each semi-circular in shape, with the 
 leaves dropping against each other in the middle. 
 When the leaves are down the table is a circle; but 
 it may, if desired, be used as two separate side-tables, 
 each standing against the wall with curved front. 
 
 [303] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 It was obtained direct from a family, themselves 
 lovers of the antique, who had long possessed it, and 
 is one of our treasures in appearance. It cost us 
 twenty-four dollars; not a special "bargain," and 
 yet much less than we should have had to pay for a 
 well-made modern table of similar size. 
 
 The buyer of the antique is liable to lose sight of 
 the essential dearness or cheapness of a thing. He 
 is liable to compare prices, not with ordinary prices 
 of to-day, but with what he paid for special "finds." 
 The collector who thinks a beautiful old mahogany 
 table, in good condition, dear at twenty dollars, for- 
 gets that for a modern table, of some inferior wood, 
 he would expect to pay at least over forty. The col- 
 lector who thinks a superb old chair dear at five dol- 
 lars, forgets that in a modern shop, for what he 
 would consider a common chair, he would be asked 
 at the very least eight or twelve. Often, as we have 
 found in our own experience, charming old pieces 
 are offered at delightfully low prices but one must 
 not expect to furnish his entire house at such prices ! 
 
 From to-day's paper let us quote, from advertise- 
 ments of modern furniture, probably all machine- 
 made, a few prices that are expected to seem highly 
 attractive to purchasers. Hall clocks, in the style 
 we call "grandfather's," with mahogany cases, are 
 
 .[304] 
 
IN THE DINING-ROOM 
 
 two hundred and sixty-three to three hundred and 
 ninety-six dollars, and with cherry and oak cases 
 ninety-eight dollars and upward. A mahogany arm- 
 chair, a "veritable gem set with a superb silk damask 
 seat in choice colorings," is nineteen dollars. An 
 "aristocratic, quarter-sawed oak dresser" is offered 
 for forty-eight dollars. A chiffonier (what a word 
 to use, when we have the good old "chest of draw- 
 ers," or, if French be preferred, "bureau" for 
 "chiffonier" means a rag-picker or a receptacle for 
 rags, or, when applied to furniture, should be used, 
 as with the French themselves, in the cognate sense 
 of describing a work-box for small pieces) well, a 
 chiffonier is offered for thirty-seven dollars. When 
 you pick up a fine old-time chest of drawers for ten 
 dollars and pay the repairer and polisher another ten, 
 you have a piece incomparably beyond this.. 
 
 And yet, as we read the advertisements farther, 
 we see that this new century has something distinc- 
 tively and strikingly its own to offer! For sixty- 
 two dollars and a half you may have, combined in 
 one single piece of furniture, "a smart mirror, a 
 handsome tall clock, hooks for your hat, and a rest- 
 ful seat!" 
 
 With this, we may well return to the dining-room. 
 An important part of its lighting is a reminder, 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 again, of Pennsylvania, for around the walls are 
 placed half a dozen brass candelabra which we found 
 thrown away under the stairs of a little old Quaker 
 meeting-house, in that State. Each of the candel- 
 abra holds a single candle. Only the curving pieces 
 of brass, with the candle holders, could be found, but 
 we were able to supply, in mounting them, small 
 Empire torches, of metal, with formal ribbons, in 
 the same metal, at either side. The candles are 
 placed at the same height as those upon the 
 mantel, and with these, and a few candles upon 
 the side table, the room is amply and softly 
 lighted. 
 
 The prevailing color is yellow, but there is also 
 much of blue in the room. The wall paper is yellow, 
 and the large rug in the centre of the room is blue, 
 with a braided hearth rug of blue and white in front 
 of the fireplace. Between this room and the next 
 hang woven curtains which may be drawn together, 
 to separate the rooms, when it is not desired to draw 
 the sliding doors. There are two sets of these curtains, 
 those in the dining-room being blue. These blue cur- 
 tains are a pair of coverlets, of old-time design, of 
 white linen and indigo blue wool, hand woven in 
 beautiful and intricate pattern, purchased from a 
 Connecticut housewife who wanted but three dollars 
 
 [306] 
 
IN THE DINING-ROOM 
 
 for them. And only those who know such coverlets 
 know what tedious and lengthy work they represent. 
 In their present position they look not in the least 
 like coverlets, but as if they had always been hang- 
 ings. 
 
 No provision having been made, by the builder of 
 this house, for curtain rods at these doors, the want 
 was filled with lengths of gas pipe. They make ad- 
 mirable rods, in appearance and serviceableness, and 
 are painted white and sunk in the door frames. 
 
 In a window-recess is a little kettle-stand whose 
 acquisition was of droll unexpectedness. It is 
 square-topped, and has a raised rim and snake feet, 
 and its appearance shows it to be of about 1775. It 
 belonged to a neighbor who traced its possession 
 back ancestrally into the eighteenth century. He 
 was a man who could never think of such a thing as 
 selling a household belonging; but he coveted a cer- 
 tain unpedigreed white hen, and for the possession 
 of that fowl, termed by him a "Brammy," he gladly 
 bartered this table. 
 
 On the mantel there is a yellow brass jar, besides 
 the brass candlesticks, and behind them, in a digni- 
 fied line, stand on edge a row of large old plates, a 
 set of half a dozen, in a deep blue. 
 
 Within the fireplace is a pair of old brass and- 
 
 [307] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 irons. These we found, several years ago, in the 
 granary of a tumble-down, gambrel-roofed old 
 house, on a road in New York near the Connecticut 
 line. When the first fire was blazing on them, out 
 came angry wasps who had built mud cells in the 
 concealed hollows of the pillars, giving quite a 
 Whittier-like effect of being "hissing hot" between 
 "the andirons' straggling feet." 
 
 Beside the fireplace is a pair of bellows, brass stud- 
 ded, picked up on a Naples street for half a lira, ten 
 cents. 
 
 There is a trivet, too. There was a time when we 
 were not quite sure of the meaning of the word, and 
 when asked, "Do you have trivets in your part of 
 the country?" we could almost have answered, as 
 did the woman of the Tennessee Mountains when 
 asked by the missionary if there were many Presby- 
 terians thereabouts, that we did not know them by 
 that name, but that the inquirer might look over the 
 skins nailed on the barn door. 
 
 But we soon learned what a trivet is, and we have 
 one, a simple three-legged fireside crane; and when 
 we read in Lamb, as we chanced to shortly after 
 acquiring it, of the man who assisted at the cook- 
 ing by removing the trivet from the fire, we knew 
 just what was meant. There is some latitude in 
 
IN THE DINING-ROOM 
 
 shape, but the general purpose is always the same 
 and a very helpful purpose it is. 
 
 Upon the trivet hangs the old brass kettle, flattish 
 and rounding and ebony-handled, that was among 
 the very earliest of our acquisitions. 
 
 In telling of what is in these rooms it is only that 
 the experiences may arouse suggestions; it is not in 
 the least as if the methods were offered as models. If 
 we were writing anything didactic, it would only be 
 some such advice as not to overcrowd your home 
 with articles as if it were a museum; not to lose ef- 
 fectiveness of appearance and comfort by overfilling 
 your rooms and cabinets and mantelpieces. It is 
 your own home, and the principal object is to make 
 the home attractive and comfortable. 
 
 A tea-table, quaintly square topped and square 
 fronted, is in one wall space beside the fire, and upon 
 it stands, against the wall, one of the oval wooden 
 tea-boards. We like the fine old name, tea-board, 
 rather than its substitute, tea-tray, which somehow 
 suggests something not at all like it; if it is only a 
 tray call it a tray, but we ought not to take away 
 from the dignity of the really charming old articles. 
 The great Wedgwood loved them. In his show- 
 rooms, he displayed his exquisite tea-sets upon ma- 
 hogany tea-boards. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 Against one of the walls stands a side-table, of 
 San Domingo mahogany, of really noble fire and 
 color. And, with the chairs, the room seems to have 
 enough in it, save only for the lack of the missing 
 sideboard. 
 
 The question of what pictures to hang in a dining- 
 room is an important one. It is a room in which 
 people spend a considerable portion of their time and 
 in which none but pleasurable and comfortable 
 thoughts should be evoked. For our own part, we 
 have no love for pictured quail hanging by their toes, 
 neither do varnished tarpon or fuzzy caribou seem 
 agreeable dinner companions. Conversation and 
 thoughts, at dinner, are supposed to range through a 
 wide and agreeable field, and there is no reason why 
 pictures should not be equally agreeable. 
 
 And so, we hung a few etchings of subjects which 
 strike no jarring note, and in one corner is a large 
 pastel, which, as if the artist knew that we needed a 
 picture distinctly blue, has that color in domination. 
 
 The chairs for a dining-room ought, of course, to 
 be of one set, and often do we think with envy of the 
 Sheratons found by our friend in Delaware. Still, 
 our own chairs are very satisfactory six chairs and 
 two armchairs, in dark leather and they have an 
 unusual history. 
 
IN THE DINING-ROOM 
 
 They were purchased, far back in the fifties, by 
 those from whom we inherited them. At the time 
 of their purchase the prevailing styles were grievous 
 mid- Victorian. 
 
 But the buyers did not want mid- Victorian, and 
 they described what it was they sought. 
 
 "But they don't make that kind nowadays !" pro- 
 tested the dealer, the proprietor of one of the largest 
 furniture shops of the Middle West. 
 
 "Then we '11 wait till they do," was the reply. 
 
 It was quite a time afterward, so the story was 
 long ago told us, that the dealer one day sent word to 
 them that he had a set which they would surely like. 
 
 They went, and he showed them these. They 
 were of good wood, of the form known as "steeple- 
 back," high and narrow, with an oval, upholstered 
 panel and a rather pointed top, and of comfortable 
 and dignified mien, as befits the chairs of a dining- 
 room. 
 
 "Yes; those will do very well;" and they were at 
 once purchased. They looked new; there was no 
 thought of their being anything else ; there was noth- 
 ing said as to being old or new, but the shop was one 
 that handled new goods only. 
 
 Not till forty years afterward did the secret come 
 out, and then it came through a reupholstering. And 
 
 [315] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 the secret was, that these fine strong chairs had all 
 been old at the time of their sale in the fifties! 
 Here and there were telltale shreds and portents, un- 
 questionably pointing out the fact that they were, as 
 their shape had all along implied, of early in the 
 century ! 
 
 [SHI 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IN THE ROOM OF THE GREAT FIREPLACE 
 
 SHALL I not take mine ease in mine inn?" de- 
 mands FalstafF, voicing thus a widely human 
 appeal for comfort. And in this once-while 
 inn there is one room peculiarly fitted either for tak- 
 ing ease or for working. It is that room of spacious 
 coziness, to which distinction is given by the eight- 
 foot fireplace. 
 
 Other rooms of the inn have loftier ceilings, and 
 finely modeled cornicing, and proportions that are a 
 dignified delight to the eye. But always there is the 
 desire for the most cozy room for work or for relaxa- 
 tion. Why, even the stately palaces have their cozy 
 quarters! At Versailles, the visitor sees a succes- 
 sion of mighty rooms and is then pleased with the 
 snug little corner where Marie Antoinette led her in- 
 timate life. We are all human, whether monarchs 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 or Americans, and share the universal human love 
 for coziness. And so, shall we not take our ease, or 
 our work, in this low-ceilinged room of the inn! 
 FalstafI loved to take his ease, so the picture of com- 
 fort is given us, in front of a sea-coal fire ; but surely 
 he would have loved a great fire of wood leaping and 
 roaring in such a fireplace as this. 
 
 The rising sun comes in at one side of the room 
 and the setting sun at the other. From the win- 
 dows, there is first the grass, and then the light lines 
 of stone walls, and then the trees and the mounting 
 hills; and, inside the room, there is first a dull soft 
 green paper, and then the light lines of the old 
 grooved chair-rail, and, rising above this, a green 
 paper covered with trees of a green that is darker. 
 At the windows are curtains of white muslin, with a 
 pattern of little white trees ; the curtains being hung 
 in the fashion followed by Martha Washington at 
 Mt. Vernon, with a frill across the top, and side 
 breadths falling straight at either side but not cov- 
 ering the glass, and all being within the casing of the 
 window. 
 
 Within the great fireplace are a pair of iron fire- 
 dogs, topped with heavy faceted balls. A big black 
 iron kettle on the hearth holds some wood, but a con- 
 venient reserve supply is in the lowest of the wooden- 
 
THE GREAT FIREPLACE 
 
 doored hutches at the side of the fireplace, used orig- 
 inally for oven and cupboards. There is fascination 
 in the word, as well as in a hutch itself perhaps 
 owing to memories of the hutched treasures that were 
 forthcoming on a certain gay evening spent by King 
 Richard and the Clerk of Copmanhurst and we use 
 the upper hutches for the laying by of other things 
 than wood. 
 
 The erstwhile crane had disappeared, and we 
 mourned for it, for although we could find cranes 
 a-plenty, we could hear of none of a size sufficient 
 for so ample a space. But at length, upon a scrap 
 heap, a dozen miles away, the requisite crane was 
 discerned ! It was not eight feet in length ; we could 
 not hope to find one that size; but as this one had 
 filled the entire space of a five-foot fireplace, it 
 would stretch its single arm past the middle of ours. 
 It was carried home in triumph. A village mason 
 dug out a few bricks, set the crane, and solidly re- 
 placed the bricks. And the crane swung there as 
 naturally as if it had never swung anywhere else. A 
 few pothooks are upon it, gathered from this place 
 and that; and a quaint little black kettle, three-leg- 
 ged, hangs there; and a splendid great copper tea- 
 kettle, loaned us by a descendant of one of the early 
 State Governors. Up the chimney, black-throated 
 
 [31*7] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 with the smoke of so many years, we like to hang 
 flitches of bacon, or a ham. 
 
 There are iron tongs and a long iron poker for 
 the fireplace is in iron with the exception of the cop- 
 per kettle and the brass nose on the bellows. About 
 the poker there seems to hang an old-time charm. A 
 most capable implement it is, three and a half feet in 
 length, with oddly curved handle and still more 
 oddly two-pronged points ; and in its coat of the dull 
 black which, for effectiveness, it is well to use on 
 fire-irons, latches, and other pieces of iron, it looks 
 particularly efficient, and as if it were a relic of the 
 past. It has attracted much attention, and we have 
 by more than one been told that it is "just such a 
 poker as my grandfather used to have." 
 
 But it is not old. Neither did we ever see an old 
 one like it. We had no idea of deceiving anybody. 
 We began to use the poker as a needful makeshift 
 till we should secure an old one, and we still use it, 
 so serviceable it is in handling the logs, even though 
 we have come into possession of a good old poker of 
 equal length but with a single prong. It is not the 
 first time, in the history of the world, that the unped- 
 igreed has received more attention than the legiti- 
 mate. 
 
 Till now, we have never told it; but this two- 
 
 [318] 
 
THE GREAT FIREPLACE 
 
 pronged poker, this "devil-stick" as it has naturally 
 come to be called, is but a discarded net support 
 from a tennis court ! 
 
 Upon the brick face of the side wall of the fire- 
 place is a bunch of bayonets, each with a history or 
 association. Bound together, and with the "butt- 
 ends up, they form candle holders. Not only is this 
 utilitarian and effective, but it follows the traditions 
 of the old-time armies, for many a tent has been thus 
 lighted. 
 
 Above the fireplace, in the two- foot space between 
 its top and the ceiling, runs a hewn oak beam, and 
 against the lower, edge of this is now placed a ten- 
 inch-wide shelf, extending the entire width of the 
 brick facing of the fireplace. This relieves a certain 
 bareness of aspect which would otherwise be there, 
 and the shelf is so painted as to harmonize with the 
 color of the brick, this end being attained by color- 
 ing it with a mixture of brown floor stain and red 
 roofing paint. Upon this shelf, and not too crowded, 
 is a line of pewter and glass. 
 
 An old lady, in New York, promised to fetch from 
 her old home in an inland county, a tall lidded pew- 
 ter tankard, holding about two quarts. She did so, 
 and gave it to us, and it stands upon this shelf. It 
 came to her by descent from the family of an ances- 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 tor who was one of the "Signers," as those who put 
 their names to the immortal Declaration are briefly 
 and honorably termed ; it is known to have been part 
 of the household effects of about his period; it was, 
 therefore, probably enough used by the "Signer" 
 himself; "But," says the donor, with anxious femi- 
 nine honesty, "I don't know for sure that it was his, 
 although I know it was so near him !" 
 
 Two old pewter cups, on this shelf, came to us at 
 the break-up of a New York family. They are of 
 the type with glass bottoms; and one would like to 
 fancy them as coming from those old "Border" days, 
 when men would not drink in doubtful company, ex- 
 cept from glass cups or cups with glass bottoms, so 
 needful was it that they keep their companions' dirk 
 hands every moment in view ! 
 
 There are a few other flagons and mugs and plat- 
 ters; and there is, too, a toby. This came oddly to 
 us. An old Irish woman, who had long worked for 
 us in New York, was deeply interested in our acqui- 
 sitions. She was an interesting compound of ignor- 
 ance and intelligence, and loved to tell of how, al- 
 though coming to this country in the last year of the 
 Rebellion, she did not know that any war was in 
 progress ! She told of getting a position in a board- 
 ing house on Houston Street and of how she found 
 
 [322] 
 
THE GREAT FIREPLACE 
 
 the boarders all fighting with one another on the first 
 night of her service, after which fight she swept up 
 "three basketfuls of broken crockery!" It was a 
 curious sidelight on manners and local history. 
 
 She said she would fetch to us an old thing that 
 she had long possessed; "an old man that I keep 
 matches in; an old man with a queer look in his eye" ; 
 and the piece proved to be this fine old toby, of the 
 kind described by Dickens in his novel of eighteenth 
 century London, as being "a jug of well-browned 
 clay, fashioned into the form of an old gentleman," 
 the said gentleman, chancing to be full of liquor, be- 
 ing raised "till he stood on his head on the lock- 
 smith's nose." 
 
 Beneath the shelf there is, just what should be 
 there, an old gun; not quite an "ole queen 7 s-arm 
 fetched back from Concord busted," but an army 
 piece connected with a war and a battle of a later 
 date than the Revolution. 
 
 Here and there in the room are candlesticks, sil- 
 ver or brass, with candles in them ready for use, thus 
 again placing utilitarianism to the fore. All of the 
 candlesticks have some especial history or reason for 
 being; and one, squat and low, heavily silverplated, 
 with extinguisher attached, came from one of the 
 ships of the old navy, of the days long before there 
 
 [323] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 were electric lights in the cabins. It was disposed 
 of, with other fittings, at the breaking up of the ship, 
 and from the friend who obtained it, years ago, it 
 came directly to us. It is beaded with a circlet of 
 rope, is marked with an anchor, and bears inconspic- 
 uously the initials, "U.S.N." 
 
 Beside this great fireplace, which so broadly dom- 
 inates the room, and in relation to which so many 
 things fall in place, one may always sit with pleas- 
 ure, whether to read or to talk, and, when the autumn 
 storms blow, "drink deep of the pleasures of shelter." 
 
 There are numerous old houses still to be found, 
 containing fireplaces nearly as large as this. An ac- 
 quaintance in another State possesses a house a cen- 
 tury and a half old, in the wing of which is a fire- 
 place of capacious width. To make it impossible 
 for thieves to climb down and steal, he has had a 
 wrought iron grill made to be closed every evening 
 in front of the fireplace efficacious, this, but far 
 from good looking. He was evidently not familiar 
 with tales of wonderful escapes in the old days, when 
 political prisoners were kept for years in big rooms 
 with big fireplaces, or it would have occurred to him 
 that an easy way to make such a fireplace prohibi- 
 tive to clamberers is to set iron bars across, firmly 
 mortared, a little up the chimney and out of sight. 
 
 [324] 
 
THE GREAT FIREPLACE 
 
 At one side of our own fireplace room is a cedar 
 chest, rug covered and cushioned, and facing it, 
 across the room, is the desk. It is of good mahog- 
 any; but, after all, it is Honduras, and not of the 
 darker and still more beautiful San Domingo. It is 
 what would be termed a slant-top secretary, and the 
 slanting piece unfolds down and outwards, and rests 
 on two "stops," to make a writing surface. The 
 desk has claw-and-ball feet, which are properly short 
 and heavy, as they should be on such an article of 
 furniture. 
 
 It is impossible to fix the date of this desk with 
 positiveness, except that it is well over the century 
 age. It appears to be of about 1770; and this, 
 among other reasons, from the markings of the orig- 
 inal brass handles. The handles which were on it 
 when we obtained it are not of the same age as the 
 desk, which is apt to be the case with the handles of 
 old pieces. But the original markings may still be 
 discerned, although they were filled in and polished, 
 and they point to a style that was common about a 
 century and a quarter ago. And, too, the drawer- 
 fronts overlap; they extend over the drawer-open- 
 ings instead of fitting entirely inside, making the 
 face of each drawer larger than the hole that the 
 drawer slides into ; and tin's is another of the numer- 
 
 [ 325 ] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 ous indications which, put together, infallibly indi- 
 cate age. 
 
 There is wealth of drawer and cubby hole, but no 
 secret compartment ! For that, search was made in 
 vain. One should always examine an old desk for 
 this, as secret compartments were not uncommon in 
 the old days. And one may readily satisfy himself. 
 Measure the outside dimensions; then measure each 
 drawer and pigeonhole; and if at any part there is 
 discrepancy, investigate there for the space. Be- 
 hind the swing-door compartment which is so com- 
 mon in old desks, in the centre of the pigeonholes, is 
 a favorite place for the concealed cavity, and it is 
 usual to get at it by touching a spring and drawing 
 the entire swing-door compartment forward like a 
 box whereupon the space is disclosed, behind. 
 
 When this old desk was obtained it was among 
 our first cares to varnish, lightly, the inside of each 
 drawer. It is well to do this with the drawers of 
 any old piece, for it gives an assurance of cleanliness 
 and a sense of making the piece one's own. 
 
 Extremely low book shelves occupy the greater 
 part of the lower wall space. The floor is covered 
 with some rugs; the large one in the centre of Orien- 
 tal make, several woven of torn cloth strips, and one 
 "hooked" in a pattern of woolen tufts. Two of the 
 
 [326] 
 
A slant-top secretary of about 1770. The claw-and-ball feet are short 
 and heavy, as they should be on so heavy a piece of furniture 
 
THE GREAT FIREPLACE 
 
 rag rugs were woven in colors to match the colors of 
 the room; it is as easy to do this as to have rugs 
 woven at random; it requires only somewhat of se- 
 lection of rags and directions to the weaver as to the 
 warp. 
 
 The chairs, as the chairs in such a room ought to 
 be, are peculiarly for comfort and use. There is a 
 great fireplace chair; also a chair in leather, easy, 
 broad, rotund and low ; there are a couple of Connec- 
 ticut splint-bottoms from the musician's gallery of a 
 ballroom of a century ago; for the desk there is a 
 Windsor armchair. This, one of the household be- 
 longings of a great-grandmother, came through rea- 
 sons genealogical and was sent from the other side 
 of the Atlantic. 
 
 A peculiarity of this chair is its unusual lower 
 bracing, a rung stretching from one front leg to the 
 other, but sweeping far back under the chair, semi- 
 circularly, in so doing, so as to be out of the way of 
 the feet, and being met, at the back, by two short 
 bracing pins, one leading to each of the rear legs. 
 
 There is a curious point to notice in the construc- 
 tion of this Windsor chair. Its back, instead of be- 
 ing of an unbroken line of spokes, has a splat down 
 the centre (there being an extension back, there are 
 in this case two splats, one above the other), and this 
 
 [329] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 peculiarity, of a splat in the back of a Windsor, may 
 always be looked upon as showing that it was made 
 in Great Britain. We have never heard of an 
 American Windsor made in this way, nor of other 
 collectors who have found or heard of any, and if 
 any have been so made they are very rare. 
 
 We call this chair an "extension back." It is 
 not that the chair-back is necessarily higher than 
 with other Windsors, but that, to make the chair 
 stronger, there is a hickory arm line extended around 
 the entire back, making two sets of short spokes in- 
 stead of one set of long. It was in an extension- 
 back Windsor that Jefferson sat when he wrote the 
 Declaration of Independence. 
 
 There is also a rocking-chair in this room; it is, 
 after all, a kind of chair indigenous to our soil. 
 Rockers were made in America before they were 
 made anywhere else in the world, and it seems proba- 
 ble that none were made much before the time of the 
 Revolution. Comfortable chairs that they are, one 
 thinks with amusement of the serious-minded Thor- 
 eau striving long to make his favorite chair a thing 
 of ease, and trying upon it one pair of rockers after 
 another until, shortly before his death, he succeeded 
 in getting it precisely to suit him, by making a 
 thing which was of distressing discomfort to any 
 one else. 
 
 [330] 
 
THE GREAT FIREPLACE 
 
 In choosing which pictures we should hang here, it 
 was endeavored to harmonize them, not only with 
 the spirit of the olden time but also with the charac- 
 teristics of the room itself. 
 
 A few photographed Corots harmonize delightfully 
 with the suggestion of subdued greenery in the room 
 and with the trees and the greenery seen from the 
 windows. Such pictures as these are of any time or 
 all time. A Corot is always as old as Nature her- 
 self, and always as young as to-day. 
 
 Beside the fireplace hangs a little painting of a 
 fireplace in an ancient house ; and, near by, a photo- 
 graph of Mona Lisa smiles the enigmatical smile that 
 has piqued and fascinated the centuries. Among the 
 other pictures is an attractive old engraving of a 
 military scene in ancient Leipsic. 
 
 The windows look forth on a garden in which 
 stands a sun-dial, always a thing of allurement in 
 connection with an old house and old furniture. It 
 should itself be old, if possible; yet even the most 
 modern copy carries the subtle suggestion as of cen- 
 turies. Our own is American, dates from early in 
 the past century, and is fortunate in having been 
 made for almost this identical latitude. It came un- 
 expectedly, in the trunk of a visitor who had saved 
 it from her father's garden and knew how highly we 
 should esteem it. 
 
 [331] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 The charm of a sun-dial is always increased if it 
 bears a motto on its fingered face; and it may be 
 such an optimistic boast as, "I only mark the shining 
 hours," or such a monitory preachment as, "The 
 night cometh." 
 
 Yet, even though the night cometh, your sun-dial 
 will still with a little arithmetic mark the shining 
 hours of the moon as well ! You have but to note 
 the hour pointed out by the moon's shadow; then 
 find the age of the moon, by days, in the calendar; 
 and then take three- fourths of that number and add 
 it, as hours, to the hour the shadow shows; and you 
 have found the time. On the sixteenth night of the 
 moon, therefore, the sun-dial points the time without 
 necessitating any effort mathematical. 
 
 [332] 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE ROOM IN YELLOW^ 
 
 POOR Deborah Franklin, while her Benjamin 
 (who must have had admirable domestic dis- 
 cipline ! ) was in Europe on one of his extended 
 absences, refused to put in place some pictures which 
 needed hanging, so fearful was she of displeasing the 
 eminent man, her husband, by driving nails in places 
 of which his superior judgment would not approve. 
 Many a house owner of to-day dreads the blemish of 
 nail-holes, and yet they are not nearly so much of an 
 injury to appearance as are the triangles of wire 
 which reach from the pictures to a molding just un- 
 der the ceiling line. It seems strange that such un- 
 necessary and disturbing wires should be tolerated, 
 for they are a jarring feature in any carefully- 
 planned room. 
 
 [333] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 For our own part, we permit no marring sign of 
 nail or wire or picture molding to appear. The wire 
 is stretched tightly across the back of the picture, and 
 hung upon a small wire nail, driven down at an acute 
 angle into the wall. If driven straight in, the nail 
 is liable to crush down in the plaster; neither does a 
 nail driven in straight hold so great a weight as does 
 one driven in on a downward angle. Lath and plas- 
 ter will hold any ordinary picture; almost, indeed, 
 an extraordinary one, and it is not necessary to go 
 tapping in search of joist or scantling. The pic- 
 tures are hung on what may be called the "eye line," 
 and with nothing considered but the needs of the 
 room and the light on the pictures. 
 
 Should it be desired to change the position of a 
 picture, the nail can be drawn out, upward, and the 
 hole will not be seen if it was made with a small and 
 pointed nail; or, even if sharp eyes detect it, it does 
 not compare as a blemish with the lines of wire 
 which the other method of hanging tolerates in sight 
 at all times. 
 
 Should fear be felt for the safety of a heavy pic- 
 ture or mirror, use a screw instead of a nail, and set 
 it in with plaster of paris, and to this, when hard, the 
 heaviest picture may be trusted. 
 
 The first room opening from the great old hall is 
 
 [334] 
 
THE ROOM IN YELLOW 
 
 distinctively a room in yellow, and all of its pictures 
 are framed in simple gilt. The tall windows look 
 out at the roadway and the triangular green, and an- 
 other window looks upon the garden, but the light 
 that comes into the room is softened by the greenery 
 of maple trees in front and by the quivering leaves 
 of locusts at the side. 
 
 The windows are recessed, for the walls are heavy 
 and eighteen inches thick, and these recesses are pan- 
 eled, long and gracefully, up the sides and at the tops. 
 
 Beneath the windows, between the sill and the 
 floor, there are broad panels of wainscoting in har- 
 mony with the woodwork of the room. 
 
 The ceiling is bordered by a delicate cornice. It 
 is of charming design, and very simple, with mold- 
 ings and corner squares which repeat the moldings of 
 the door-frames and window-frames. An engirding 
 line of stucco traces its course along the ceiling, about 
 nine inches from the cornice design, and has graceful 
 ogee curves to mark the angles of the room and the 
 projection of the fireplace. 
 
 The fine old ceiling and the walls had not passed 
 through the years entirely unscathed, for there were 
 holes where lamps had hung, and there was a tin pot- 
 lid which covered a huge round space connecting 
 with a register above, and there were sundry other 
 
 [635] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 blemishes as well. Great pleasure was it to have 
 the ceiling and cornice carefully mended by a good 
 workman, and the walls, after each crevice and nail- 
 hole was smoothed, covered with a paper of rich yel- 
 low, of the shade known as Colonial. This room 
 and the adjoining dining room rooms almost of a 
 size, and with the same characteristics of cornice and 
 fireplace and windows, and opening into each other 
 with a broad archway, fitted with sliding doors 
 were papered with precisely the same design. The 
 ceilings being unusually high, a stripe was carefully 
 avoided, and a conventional pattern chosen which, 
 at the length of the room, merges into a plain sur- 
 face. The paper runs from baseboard to cornice 
 without border or break. 
 
 The windows have net curtains next to the glass, 
 with one small wreath, and a margin of tape, and 
 straight and simple folds reaching from a plain brass 
 rod at the top, to the floor, thus defining the recess of 
 the windows. 
 
 Handwoven curtains of dull, soft yellow were 
 hung in the archway ; and, to continue the effect, the 
 ceiling was washed, in distemper, in a light cream. 
 
 The problem of floor covering was then to be met, 
 and many a shop was visited and many a rug spread 
 down, for our requirements were not precisely easy 
 
 [336] 
 
THE ROOM IN YELLOW 
 
 to meet. The rug must be large, must not be be- 
 yond a modest price, and must be in yellow or a 
 color in harmony with that. 
 
 At last, we came across a Persian rug, which we 
 knew was precisely the thing we sought. Its back- 
 ground was a dull yellow and it was thirteen feet by 
 ten. 
 
 "I will give you this rug at a very low price," said 
 the dealer, "if you can use it, for there is little de- 
 mand for this color." And he named a price ab- 
 surdly low. Thus do even the collector's require- 
 ments sometimes become a final advantage. 
 
 The brass knobs on the dark doors, the yellow up- 
 holstering of the dark furniture, a fox skin in front 
 of the hearth, brass andirons and fire shovel, all add 
 to the soft yellow effect of the room. And in the 
 corner, upon a bandy-legged table, stands a jar from 
 Palermo, of common glazed earthenware, but of 
 perfect and ancient curves seldom found even in 
 Italy and of a rare dull yellow hue. Something 
 from Europe, if characteristic of the real Europe 
 and not of the tourist trade, and if it was made nat- 
 urally, a bit of metal or pottery by a handicrafts- 
 man working as his ancestors worked, and after the 
 same models, seems old and harmonizes with the old 
 for it has essential characteristics of age. 
 
 [337] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 There was little hesitation about the placing of 
 furniture in this room, for it was schemed into posi- 
 tion, in day dreams, even before paste and paint 
 brush were used. 
 
 A sofa was naturally to be a principal piece, and 
 we had one of Empire design. 
 
 Chippendale looked upon the sofa, which was be- 
 ginning to make itself felt in England in his time, 
 as something French, and his own most distinguished 
 sofa, a style which it is still possible to find although 
 extremely difficult, looks like three chairs built in a 
 row and is really a settee rather than a sofa. At the 
 recent dispersion of the furniture of an old Balti- 
 more house, such a Chippendale settee was sold. 
 
 Sofas did not become common until the time of 
 Heppelwhite and Sheraton, both of whom made ex- 
 tremely beautiful ones, in their respectively charac- 
 teristic styles. 
 
 The early Empire furnished fine sofa designs, 
 which were copied and adapted by the best workers 
 in our own country. 
 
 Our sofa stands, long and hospitable, between the 
 two front windows, and it is not so far from the fire- 
 place as to miss the influence of the friendly glow. 
 "What did he mean by ah-peer*?" demanded Silas 
 Lapham, of his wife, after the departure of the prig- 
 
 [338] 
 
THE ROOM IN YELLOW 
 
 gish architect ; and his question did not display an al- 
 together unreasonable ignorance, for it is so needless, 
 in America, to pronounce such a word in the French 
 way. 
 
 Most old furniture puts its best feet foremost, and 
 this sofa is like the rest, in that its front legs are 
 elaborate wing-and-claw, while the rear legs are un- 
 carved. 
 
 This sofa is of San Domingo mahogany, the kind 
 of mahogany most highly esteemed by old cabinet- 
 makers. For some years past the principal commer- 
 cial source of San Domingo mahogany has been 
 doors from old houses and leaves from old tables. 
 West India mahogany means practically the same 
 thing. 
 
 This kind of mahogany is heavy, weighing some 
 six pounds to the square foot, one inch thick, and 
 much of the Honduras and Mexican mahogany is not 
 much more than a third as heavy, and is softer and 
 of coarser grain. 
 
 A great deal, and probably by far the greater part, 
 of the so-called mahogany of to-day is nothing but 
 birch. 
 
 Mahogany has been used in furniture making 
 for only two hundred years and came into real 
 vogue some quarter of a century after its in- 
 
 [339] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 troduction. Its admirable texture and color, and its 
 susceptibility to carving and polish, and its strength, 
 won for it wide popularity in England and America. 
 In France it also became popular, but never suc- 
 ceeded in displacing French walnut. 
 
 The subject of woods is an interesting one. In the 
 United States, a hundred years ago, in addition to 
 the familiar kinds of wood, the cabinet-makers used, 
 largely for insets and veneers, holly and button and 
 king and tulip wood, snake and purple and zebra 
 wood, Alexandria and Manila wood, cedar and satin 
 and yew (the yew was a favorite of Louis the Four- 
 teenth, for furniture), and rosewood. This last 
 wood came into considerable use for entire pieces 
 in the time of Victoria, but in spite of certain good 
 points, and its fortunate name, it is of a rather un- 
 beautiful purplish black, not to be compared with 
 the serene beauty of mahogany or the dignity and 
 reserve of walnut. 
 
 The cabinet-makers who worked in such queer 
 woods did queer things with them or at least we 
 might fairly suppose so on reading of their charges 
 for plinthing and therming and dovetailing, for 
 plowing and tonguing ends, for making cross-bands 
 and octagonals and toad-back moldings. 
 
 The piano, between the door and window, is, nat- 
 
 [34] 
 
THE ROOM IN YELLOW 
 
 urally, not old. It is, perforce, a youthful interloper. 
 Yet its dark wood, and perhaps a sense of the very 
 inevitableness of its lack of an old age, make it seem 
 entirely fitting. The imagination feels the fascina- 
 tion of spinet and virginal, of clavichord and harpsi- 
 chord, and pictures fair women of the past lightly 
 touching their keys. But, after all, the modern 
 piano is more desirable than any of these, even in the 
 eyes of the most confirmed lover of the antique. 
 The old forms look very decorative though and 
 it seems that they may even be utilitarian, for 
 there comes to mind an old harpsichord, with finely 
 tapered legs, and distinguished appearance, which is 
 utilized by a Savannah family for the storage of 
 bath towels ! 
 
 So far back as the close of the eighteenth century, 
 a New York advertisement declares that "the piano 
 forte is become so exceedingly fashionable in Europe 
 that few polite families are without it," and it was 
 many years ago that the manufacture of domestic 
 pianos succeeded importations. 
 
 Near the side window of this room, in the corner 
 beside the arch, is the old tilting table from the East- 
 ern Shore, with its graceful snake feet, and its great 
 glowing disc of mahogany glimmering softly with 
 lights from the windows and from the fire, and ready 
 
 [343] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 to be drawn forward for use as the afternoon moves 
 toward its close. 
 
 The place of honor beside the hearth is held by 
 one of the "seats of the mighty." It is a chair, 
 which was once the property of General Anthony 
 Wayne at his home at Waynesborough, and came 
 to us from a friend who had obtained it thirty years 
 before from a certain Lydia, widow of a relative of 
 the General. The entire furniture of the old home- 
 stead at the time of General Wayne's occupancy still 
 remains there, the treasured possession of his de- 
 scendant except this chair, which descended collat- 
 erally and finally came our way. 
 
 It is a Chippendale, and is broad in the seat, and 
 strong, for Chippendale designed chairs for men who 
 wore great-skirted coats and women with full-hooped 
 petticoats, not for fragile maidens in skimpy, high- 
 waisted gowns or for gallants all sentiment and in- 
 croyables. Sheraton and Heppelwhite made chairs 
 for these latter, so slender and delicate that few sur- 
 vive for our delectation. 
 
 The front legs of the Wayne chair are cabriole and 
 end in webbed feet. The back of the chair has an en- 
 laced splat of graceful jar shape. The spaces be- 
 tween this splat and the side pieces of the back are 
 as carefully planned as is the splat itself. 
 
 [344] 
 
A Chair owned by Anthony Wayne : a Chippendale of faultless proportions 
 
 An Open-work Brass Fender, Eighteenth Century 5 found in South 
 9 Carolina, thrown away, under a porch 
 
THE ROOM IN YELLOW 
 
 So well proportioned is this chair, and so perfect 
 a specimen of Chippendale's art, that we are of the 
 opinion that it came from the master's own work- 
 shop. Anthony Wayne was a man of wealth and 
 prominence and position, even before the Revolu- 
 tion. What more likely than that he, like many 
 other rich men, should send to London for furniture, 
 and that, sending there, he should order from the 
 cabinet-maker of greatest distinction, of that time. 
 It is certain that some of Chippendale's chairs came 
 to America. 
 
 The chair is of sober brown walnut and has come 
 down through all these years unscathed and un- 
 harmed, for it has always been carefully cared for. 
 The seat lifts from the frame, which shows as a mar- 
 gin around the upholstering. This seat was high 
 when we first saw the chair, and was covered with a 
 log-cabin pattern in patchwork. On removing this 
 cover, two waistcoats of ancient cut and snuff-col- 
 ored cloth came to light, capacious and many-but- 
 toned; but not military! Under them was the 
 original cover of the chair, a dark deep red stuff of 
 heavy, coarse weave, with a brocade-like pattern in 
 still deeper red. Chippendale's own words come to 
 mind as to the best covering for such a chair: "If 
 the seats are covered with red morocco they will have 
 
 [347] 
 
 18 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 a fine effect," he writes, adding, "They are usually 
 the same stuff as the curtains." 
 
 As the cover was quite worn through, and the 
 cushion was much flattened, the seat was reuphol- 
 stered. For our room, red would not do, so a piece 
 of dull yellow silk brocade, with a small square pat- 
 tern, was used. The original hair was used for pad- 
 ding the seat white horse-hair, as straight as when 
 it grew on a horse and as many as possible of the 
 old hand-made tacks were also replaced. 
 
 The top rail of the back of a pure Chippendale 
 chair is a thing of beauty. On the Wayne chair it 
 is the shape of a bow, dipping to join the splat, 
 gently sweeping toward the sides, and ending in a 
 slightly pro jecting^ curve at either end. 
 
 The back is exactly twenty-two inches high, which 
 is a height spoken of as admirable by Chippendale. 
 Just twenty-two inches is the front width of the 
 generous seat. 
 
 The gentle art of finding Chippendales has given 
 us, for this room, two other chairs of this design, each 
 with straight heavy legs and graceful backs, and 
 quite different from the Wayne chair. One of these 
 chairs has a splat so perforated as to look like several 
 separate reed-like pieces, rising and joining, and then 
 spreading to meet the top rail. 
 
 [348] 
 
THE ROOM IN YELLOW 
 
 Near the fireplace is a chair of the slender-legged 
 type of Sheraton, with a curved and crested sort of 
 top. It might be called a Sheraton-Gothic, and is 
 one of the many examples which remind the collec- 
 tor how easy it has been to combine styles, and how 
 useless it is to attempt to classify every chair arbi- 
 trarily. 
 
 A slender-spoked Windsor, of graceful propor- 
 tions, is also here. It is marked with the name of 
 the maker, burned in, but without giving his town or 
 State. It can be definitely traced back, however, to 
 1790 and to Pennsylvania. 
 
 Windsors are of considerable variety in shape, but 
 there are always unmistakable characteristics. The 
 curving back, of slender spokes of hickory or similar 
 wood, is the principal distinguishing mark. The seat 
 is always of one piece of wood and it is usually sad- 
 dle-shaped. The legs, set firmly into holes bored 
 in the wooden seat, are lathe-turned. It may almost 
 be said that there never was an ungraceful Windsor. 
 They are by no means among the most precious of 
 old chairs, but they are always honored and desir- 
 able. There are a couple of Windsors in a corner of 
 old St. Paul's in New York and when a Colonial 
 Society attends service there, it is a matter of jestful 
 comment that the sexton jealously holds down one 
 
 [349] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 of the chairs and his assistant the other, so that the 
 chairs shall be safe. 
 
 The bandy-legged table upon which stands the 
 yellow jar, is the one which we found, as a wreck, 
 for one dollar in Maryland. The andirons are 
 those from Blennerhassett that were among our 
 earliest possessions and are still among our most 
 prized. 
 
 The pictures are mostly paintings of scenes well 
 known and loved; one shows our old stone house 
 environed by apple trees ; another, the red-tiled roofs 
 of the Ohio town of Zoar; another, the valley of the 
 Seine from Meudon. 
 
 Following the admirable French idea of simplicity 
 in furnishing the mantel, only a clock, and two tall 
 candlesticks, and one single slim glass vase, stand 
 there. The clock is old, with Empire case and orna- 
 ments, and has two small sphinxes, in brass, at the 
 sides, surmounting narrow lines of brass pedestal; 
 and the front of the case, beneath the white porcelain 
 face, is of mahogany overlaid with curious brass 
 arabesques. 
 
 The candlesticks are tall, being eleven inches high, 
 and have beaded bands around the base; in two 
 places, in the stem, they become very slim; between 
 these slim places are concave panels, making a grace- 
 
 [350] 
 
THE ROOM IN YELLOW 
 
 f ul and unusual design. They are of Sheffield plate ; 
 a treatment of silver highly valued by connoisseurs 
 and collectors, but to a great extent superseded by 
 electro-plating, since its discovery. 
 
 Sheffield plating, a name so important to collec- 
 tors, is one may almost say was! an interesting 
 process. Thin plates of silver are wired upon one or 
 both sides of an oblong ingot of copper. The ingot 
 is placed in a furnace so arranged that its interior 
 can be constantly watched, for the metal must be 
 withdrawn at the exact instant of adhesion, as fus- 
 ion would otherwise take place. After the removal 
 of the wire, the ingot is put back and forth between 
 rollers until it has become a sheet of the required 
 thickness. No matter how thin it is made, the rela- 
 tive thickness between the copper and the layers of 
 silver is maintained. Ornamental borders, how- 
 ever, were necessarily plated by a separate process or 
 were often of solid silver. 
 
 Across the mantel stands an old Empire mirror, of 
 a kind which came into common use shortly after 
 1800, and of which many were made from 1810 to 
 1820. This measures five feet and an inch in 
 length and two feet in height, and two upright mold- 
 ings divide it into three sections of glass. Very sim- 
 ple in design is the whole thing, with gently swelling 
 
 [351] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 puffs in the moldings of top and sides, and without 
 extravagance of outline or decoration. 
 
 We found this in Delaware. It had fallen from 
 its sometime high estate, and was painted an unani- 
 mated mud color. Four dollars was the purchase 
 price, and it was sent to a gilder's to have it put in 
 order. There, many discouragements were offered, 
 among them the strange idea, fixed in so many mod- 
 ern workers' minds, that a new mirror could be made 
 for less money than the restoration of this old one. 
 Finding that we did not wish a new mirror, the gilder 
 was still very dubious about gilding the old; it 
 would cost, he declared, at least twenty-eight dol- 
 lars, and might not be satisfactory even then. 
 
 So the mirror was sent home and set up in our own 
 workroom, where we could at least experiment with 
 it. Scraping easily took off two coats of paint, and 
 underneath was a surface of real gold-leaf which 
 would make an excellent base for the new gilding. 
 
 After a little smoothing and a coat of varnish, the 
 mirror was given a coat of bronze powder, of a good 
 gold color, moistened with banana oil and applied 
 with a fine camel' s-hair brush an inch wide. As 
 gold powders are of varying tints, and a quiet hue 
 was desired, a little red and black oil color was 
 stirred in the banana oil until, by experiment, the 
 
 [352] 
 
THE ROOM IN YELLOW 
 
 desired tone was reached. Green would have given 
 a green hue had that been wanted. A few days 
 after, having some powder left, the mirror was given 
 a second coat, and following that a light coat of 
 varnish to protect the gilt from fingermarks when 
 dusting. 
 
 The entire thing was done for an outlay of one 
 dollar, and the result is admirable in appearance. 
 Perhaps it may not last as long as a bronze-gilt ap- 
 plied by expert hands, but it can be easily renewed, 
 and the work of another coat would be but half an 
 hour's task. 
 
 [353] 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE OUTFITTING OF A GUEST ROOM 
 
 IT is perhaps a question, whether it shows the 
 eternal youth of the world or its illimitable age 
 at least, it shows an eternally continuing similar- 
 ity, in spite of vast changes in social life, household 
 ways, habits of thought, civilization, government 
 that so much of the past would precisely fit to-day. 
 
 Now, look at Elisha, nearly three thousand years 
 ago. At a place where he is staying, a local com- 
 mittee comes to tell him that "the situation of the 
 city is pleasant," but complains of the water supply. 
 When mischievous children cry out in glee at his 
 baldness he becomes angry, as might an irascible 
 bald-headed gentleman of to-day. When a woman 
 does him a disinterested favor he cynically asks her 
 in what quarter she expects his influence in return. 
 
 [354] 
 
THE OUTFITTING OF A GUEST ROOM 
 
 One feels in quite a modern atmosphere. And 
 when the woman of Shunem entertains him, she of- 
 fers the precise essentials of the hospitality of to- 
 day: she welcomes him to dine, and then has him 
 conducted to his room, having "set for him there a 
 bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick." 
 
 Thus the first recorded summary of what must 
 needs be in a guest room was the same three thousand 
 years ago as it is now : to give a bed and a light, and 
 conveniences for sitting down and for the toilet. 
 
 The bed, naturally enough, is the principal feature 
 of any guest room. And the lover of the old wishes 
 to have one with four high posts and a canopy top. 
 
 It is not so easy to find old four-posters as to find 
 some other classes of furniture. When worn out, a 
 bedstead was generally thrown away. There was 
 no other purpose to which it could be put, and it was 
 not often kept just for an indefinite desire of keep- 
 ing, as was many an old table and cupboard and 
 chest-on-chest. 
 
 As with so many things that look well, the incep- 
 tion of the four-poster did not come from any 
 thought of looks, but of utilitarian comfort. It was 
 highly advisable it was practically necessary in 
 the raw winter climate of England or the United 
 States, before the days of well-heated houses, to 
 
 [,355] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 afford more protection to a bed than came from 
 quilts and blankets. And the consequent four posts 
 and curtains are so decorative that it is still a pleas- 
 ure to see them. 
 
 The bed in the guest room of the once-while inn 
 is not only of the olden time, in both age and appear- 
 ance, but it possesses also the hygienic merits of the 
 most advanced beds of to-day, having set within it 
 an iron bed as already described. 
 
 Its four slender Heppelwhite posts are sur- 
 mounted by a canopy which rises in the middle in a 
 bow-shaped curve, so that, although the posts are but 
 six feet high, and the canopy is therefore at that 
 height at both the head and the foot, it sweeps up in 
 the middle in this bow-shaped curve, giving an airy 
 and spacious effect. 
 
 The canopy is covered with a corded cream-white 
 French chintz, old-fashipned in appearance, in a 
 pattern of great sunny, luxuriant roses. It not only 
 looks well, but befits the past, as, at the period at 
 which this bed was made, bedroom hangings in- 
 cluded such materials as damask and fustian and 
 chintz. "Bought my wife a chint," records garru- 
 lous old Pepys. The chintz for this bed is probably 
 of much the same material as that referred to by 
 Franklin, who sent from England, for bed and win- 
 
 [356] 
 
The Heppelwhite Four-poster, draped and stripped, showing how 
 the metal bed is used 
 
THE OUTFITTING OF A GUEST ROOM 
 
 dow hangings, "fifty-six yards of cotton, printed 
 curiously from copper plates." 
 
 Coverlid and valance are of the same chintz as the 
 canopy, and so are the panels at the head and the foot 
 of the bed, and there is a narrow box-plaited frill of 
 chintz outlined around the edge of the canopy and 
 fastened with brass tacks. Two or three chairs are 
 covered with the same old-fashioned looking mate- 
 rial, and there are box-plaited frills of it across the 
 top of each of the three windows. 
 
 One obtains in this manner a distinctively old- 
 time effect, and it is added to by the long white mus- 
 lin curtains and the white muslin that covers the 
 dressing-table. 
 
 The frame of the bed, undraped, is rather plain, as 
 were by far the greater number of antique beds, they 
 offering only shape in their framework and relying 
 for further effectiveness upon draperies or hangings. 
 
 Although there is a scarcity of old-fashioned beds, 
 they are still to be found, of various degrees of elab- 
 orateness or the reverse. Fortune, in the shape of a 
 neighbor, brought us our second one the other day, 
 with enormous posts, the neighbor offering it as a 
 friendly gift. "But you must n't think this is much," 
 he said, in modest disparagement; "for, to tell 
 the truth, I paid only eighty cents for it, at an auc- 
 
 [359] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 tion, and the posts are too high for my rooms, but I 
 know your ceilings are high enough." 
 
 And here is a suggestion for a different treat- 
 ment from that of the four-poster first described. 
 We shall set it up in the English style, like that bed 
 which Mr. Pickwick prepared to sleep in by mistake 
 on a certain eventful night : a bed will be set inside 
 the posts, in such a way as to leave, inside the hang- 
 ing curtains, "a little path, terminating in a rush- 
 bottomed chair, just wide enough to admit of a per- 
 son's getting into or out of bed." 
 
 Beds were held in such consideration, in past 
 times, that it is a pity that so many collectors entirely 
 neglect them, through not understanding that the 
 stately frames can be used with modern springs and 
 up-to-date adjuncts. Mary Washington willed to 
 George her best bed, and Shakespeare, dying, grimly 
 willed his second-best to that Ann whom, very con- 
 siderably older than himself, he had married when 
 but a lad under age. 
 
 Next to the bed, following the order for old Elisha, 
 comes the dressing-table. In this room it is four feet 
 six inches long, and only two feet three inches high 
 a comfortable, agreeable height for its purpose. 
 Beneath the table, and out of sight behind the mus- 
 lin covering, there is necessarily quite a space ; and it 
 
 [360] 
 
THE OUTFITTING OF A GUEST ROOM 
 
 is always an excellent thing to put in such a place, 
 for hats and miscellaneous finery, two or three of 
 those old-time, gorgeously papered bandboxes of the 
 poke-bonnet era. An old-fashioned mahogany- 
 framed mirror, large enough for use by one either 
 sitting or standing in front of it, leans, from the ta- 
 ble, against the wall. 
 
 It is probable that Elisha had some indoor ablu- 
 tionary means, but, whether he had or not, the guest 
 of to-day must not be without such facilities. 
 
 And so, in this room, there is an old square wash- 
 stand, from an old home garret, and the top is so 
 made that the washbowl fits into it. 
 
 We were fortunate in obtaining, from the aged 
 owner of a very old house, a pitcher and bowl, of a 
 charming soft-hued blue, without a chip or a mar 
 upon either one of the pieces. 
 
 They are of an old-fashioned kind, made in Eng- 
 land, and display a picture, large in the bottom of 
 the bowl and a trifle smaller upon either side of the 
 slender octagonal pitcher, which purports to be a 
 view of Niagara Falls. But what a Niagara! It 
 is given as a sort of Yosemite, with one fall above 
 another; at one side of the larger and lower fall are 
 some Indian wigwams, on the other bank is a mas- 
 sive European castle, and in the foreground, look- 
 
 [361], 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 ing with awe at the falling water, stand a group of 
 men and women fashionably costumed. But all the 
 work is most admirably done. 
 
 Instead of coming to the inn, this pitcher and 
 bowl came near to going in a far different direction. 
 The aged owner said that she had no desire to keep 
 the articles, but that her niece, "a red-headed art 
 student, down to New York," wanted them. 
 "But," continued the owner thoughtfully, "she never 
 said anything about money." When the observa- 
 tion was made a second time, it took on the propor- 
 tions of an undoubted hint and when negotiations 
 were complete (the owner wanted only a modest 
 three dollars for the set!) the woman was still mur- 
 muring, "My niece never, no never! said anything 
 about money." 
 
 It is still an amusing memory, how carefully those 
 pieces of blue were driven home, held in the lap with 
 possible excess and superfluity of caution. 
 
 For the stool that Elisha was given, a chair would 
 certainly answer; but, fortunately, this room can 
 match the literal stool, with a low cricket from an 
 old New York house. Of the chairs, the one most 
 prized is the old Shaker rocker which in the early 
 days of our collecting meant so much to us. 
 
 It is not necessary to limit a room to the single 
 
 [362] 
 
" An old black-fronted Franklin, brass-banded and brass-knobbed 
 
THE OUTFITTING OF A GUEST ROOM 
 
 Shunamite candlestick. And therefore, as a collec- 
 tor naturally picks up old candlesticks in a great 
 variety of places, there are sufficient to put a pair 
 upon the mantel and another pair on the dressing- 
 table. 
 
 With the four-poster, and the rose-colored chintz, 
 it was particularly needful that a corresponding air 
 of the old time be maintained throughout, and so, for 
 the walls, there was selected a white paper, relieved 
 by chintz-like stripes, with a design in small pink 
 roses and attendant greenery. 
 
 It is a cheerful, sunny room, and there is an old 
 black-fronted Franklin, brass-banded and brass- 
 knobbed, built within a white mantelpiece of wood. 
 
 Within the fireplace stand brass andirons, with 
 iron feet, from an old house in Tallahassee, and 
 above, on the wall, is a picture of Mayflower days. 
 There are also in the room a few old-fashioned prints 
 and six small colored prints of famous old houses. 
 
 Upon the floor are rugs, several of them woven or 
 braided for this room, with rose or pink effect. A 
 little care in the selection of cloth and in the choice 
 of warp will secure whatever harmony and predomi- 
 nance of color may be desired. At Mount Vernon 
 great attention was given to hand-weaving for floor- 
 covering; and at one time Martha Washington went 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 beyond this, by having some old silk gowns frayed 
 out, spun roughly, and woven into covers for the sit- 
 ting-room chairs, on the looms in her own spinning- 
 sheds. 
 
 This guest room is the first room at the top of the 
 stairs leading up from the broad hall; and up the 
 stairway there is a mounting line of pen-and-ink por- 
 traits, by cartoonists, "to brighten and shorten the 
 way." On the landing is a corner shelf with half a 
 dozen candlesticks above and half a dozen pair of 
 snuffers below (all old, and of various associations), 
 ready for those setting bedward. 
 
 It has been a delight to outfit, also, the other 
 rooms besides the guest room upon this floor : rooms, 
 little or big, with pleasing outlook upon village 
 street or stone-walled meadows or wooded hills. 
 
 Upon the walls of one of these rooms (it claims to 
 be the room in which Aaron Burr slept) we found a 
 wall-paper of old-fashioned block pattern, with 
 white strongly predominating, but with a sprig of 
 green flower, shaded in black, upon each block. 
 
 Tradition, local memory, village authority undis- 
 puted, declare the paper to have been put on in 1842, 
 and it is certainly like patterns of that period. It 
 seemed a pity to cover it and yet there were a num- 
 ber of blemishes that could not be overlooked, and, 
 
 [366] 
 
o 
 bx> 
 
 * 
 
 B O 
 
 : 1 
 
 o '3 
 
THE OUTFITTING OF A GUEST ROOM 
 
 of course, it was quite impossible to find any paper 
 like it to use in repairs. But here is a stratagem 
 which may be suggestive to others who may come 
 upon a similar problem. Very carefully, the paper 
 was stripped from the broad chimney-breast above 
 the fireplace, and the fragments, cut into pieces, of a 
 shape to match the lines of the pattern, were pasted 
 over the little holes and blemishes. There was 
 enough to make the paper everywhere perfect in ap- 
 pearance: everywhere but on the denuded chimney- 
 breast. In covering that, a green cartridge paper, of 
 a green to match the sprigs in the squares, was found. 
 Upon this was placed, in relief, a white garland of 
 Georgian style. The woodwork of the room was 
 painted white. Andirons of black iron were placed 
 in the fireplace. Brass candlesticks were set upon 
 the dark marble mantel. Between them is a small 
 bust, in faience, of a sober-faced Donatello boy. And, 
 thus retaining the old wall-paper, there seems some- 
 how to have been retained also the subtle charm of 
 old atmosphere and simplicity. 
 
 [369] 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 MAKESHIFTS 
 
 THACKERAY, in his delightfully reminiscent 
 description of a room full of "old armour, 
 prints, pictures, pipes, china (all crack'd), 
 old rickety tables, and chairs broken-backed," tells 
 of utilizing a Mameluke's dagger for the toasting of 
 muffins. 
 
 So naturally does the collector turn toward expe- 
 dients and substitutes that it would almost seem 
 there must be some occult connection between things 
 of the past and makeshifts. And it may be that 
 some makeshifts which have come in our way may 
 prove suggestive to other collectors, meeting unex- 
 pected problems. 
 
 Makeshifts are of two kinds: those which are in- 
 tended to be permanent, and those which are for only 
 temporary use the latter class representing, so to 
 
 [370] 
 
MAKESHIFTS 
 
 speak, the substance of things still hoped for and the 
 former being an evidence of things that will not be 
 seen. 
 
 Among our own permanent makeshifts is an ar- 
 rangement for a pair of candle-brackets. Needing a 
 light upon either side of an old dressing-glass, the 
 proper candelabra were searched for in vain. So 
 two hat-hooks, of brass, of the largest size the big 
 kind made to bolt through hat-racks were pur- 
 chased. They have quite a satisfactory curve and 
 stand up with a good deal of dignity. They are 
 bolted through short pieces of wood which project a 
 little above the back edge of the dressing-table. On 
 the top of each hook is soldered the metal end of an 
 electric light bulb of just the right diameter for a 
 candle. And, to provide against drip, there is 
 slipped over each candle-holder a glass disc of the 
 kind long made and used for this purpose. 
 
 Makeshifts are not necessarily small. On the 
 contrary, they may be of considerable consequence. 
 And in regard to this class it may be worth while to 
 give an experience in the making of a makeshift fire- 
 place. The dining room of a house in the city in 
 which we lived just previous to adopting this old inn 
 had two windows, both in one wall, opening on a 
 brick-paved path and an eight-foot fence, the room 
 
 [371] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 thus being in dull shadow, with nothing to relieve 
 its box-like quality of shape. 
 
 We possessed, to put in it, the corner-cupboard of 
 Bethlehem, and had selected a very light yellow pa- 
 per in a chintz stripe to heighten the ceiling and 
 brighten the room. White paint and a light rug 
 and ceiling, and very thin muslin at the windows, 
 were materially to aid in the brightening effect. 
 
 The corner-cupboard would fill one corner but a 
 fireplace was needed in the other ! We did not own 
 the house. It was a matter for cogitation. And the 
 result of the cogitation was a determination to have 
 a fireplace, of sorts, constructed. 
 
 It was not the kind of a job to give a carpenter 
 unless, indeed, one could discover a carpenter with 
 imagination. To explain the idea would give a 
 wrong impression of something absurd or else tre- 
 mendously elaborate. 
 
 Left by the outgoing tenant, in the cellar, were 
 scrap ends of wood, a few long boards, a window 
 sash and, most fortunate of all, and as if Fate had 
 definitely intended it, a shelf with two heavy wooden 
 brackets. We felt like Robinson Crusoe taking an 
 inventory. 
 
 One evening, after paperhangers and cleaners had 
 gone home, saw and hammer were seized, and some 
 
 [372] 
 
MAKESHIFTS 
 
 of the boards were made into a sort of large frame- 
 work, like a capital H, of the size of the corner into 
 which the fireplace was to fit, and of just the length 
 to reach from the ceiling to the floor. Pieces of 
 wood were nailed, after mitering the ends, against 
 the base of the wall, at the ceiling line, and in the 
 centre. Then the H- frame was raised and nailed in 
 place. 
 
 The shelf was then adjusted as a mantel. Boards 
 were placed as side panels. The open space be- 
 tween shelf and ceiling was covered with light 
 boards. These upper boards were then covered with 
 pasteboard, tacked on, and all the cracks were liber- 
 ally pasted over with cheesecloth. The window 
 sash from the Robinson .Crusoe pile was sawed down 
 into a piece framing three square openings, and this 
 was placed immediately below the mantel-shelf, and 
 over the apparent fire space. 
 
 All was now ready for the paperhanger, and next 
 morning, in papering the entire room, he papered 
 right across the corner upon the boarded space above 
 the mantel-shelf, and there was thus gained all the 
 effect of a regularly covered wall. The panels on 
 either side of the fire opening were painted white. 
 A line was marked to indicate the hearth limits, and 
 then, to secure a hearth-like aspect, melted glue was 
 
 [375] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 spread over the space and, before it dried, fine brown 
 sand, obtained at a bird store, was thickly whisked 
 over it with a broom. There was thus obtained the 
 appearance of a hearth of sandstone. 
 
 Blue and white tile were fitted into the space in 
 the section of once-while sash. The space behind 
 the fire opening was so boarded in as to look like a 
 fire-back, and this apparent fire-back was first 
 painted red to resemble brick, next blackened with 
 stove blacking and soot, and then, for a parting 
 touch, whitened with gray soot, taken from the range 
 flue and thrown against it indicating intense heat! 
 
 Hickory sticks were piled within the fire space 
 upon brass andirons. The mantel-shelf was given 
 a few old pewter tankards to hold. A picture was 
 placed on the apparent chimney-breast. And when 
 a plate-rail was made to take in the corner fireplace 
 in its course around the walls, the status of that fire- 
 place as a fundamental part of the room was forever 
 established. 
 
 And, when all was done,< it looked like a simple, 
 capable, well-proportioned fireplace; and never was 
 there a single visitor who doubted that it was real 
 and had always been there. 
 
 It was also in that house that a problem in regard 
 to lighting apparatus presented itself. In a promi- 
 
 [376] 
 
MAKESHIFTS 
 
 nent place was a chandelier of fairly good shape, ex- 
 cept as to the four arms and the globes. To remedy 
 this, a hint from an old church was acted upon. 
 The tips and the globes were taken off, and four 
 straight white porcelain candles, of the sort made to 
 allow the gas to pass through them and burn at the 
 tops, were put on. They looked precisely like four 
 wax candles. Thus was secured a good-looking 
 chandelier of candles, with the light of gas. 
 
 Since coming to the old inn we have had various 
 opportunities to use makeshifts, and quite a number 
 of things jaave been adapted to some use more or less 
 different from their original one. 
 
 A bejlows possessed the advantages of age and 
 shape, but that of usefulness was rather diminished 
 by its being without a brass tip. But how easily 
 the lack was remedied by using the nozzle of a piece 
 of worn-out hose ! 
 
 Two of the wooden doors beside the eight-foot 
 fireplace were without handles; so, upon one was 
 placed an ancient wrought-iron latch, found in the 
 garret of a house built by Louis the Eleventh; and, 
 from the other door, there now faces out, as a handle, 
 the wrought-iron head of a lion, made for the end of 
 a water pipe in an ancient garden. For fireplace 
 woodboxes old kettles of iron or of brass are used. 
 
 [377] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 The porch at the side of the house was bare of 
 railing or banister. Two long straight-backed set- 
 tees from an old ball room were fitted and fastened 
 there, and at once there was not only a railing but 
 an attractive set of seats from which to view the or- 
 chard, the trees and the hills. 
 
 The kitchen was rather short of cupboards, and, to 
 supply what was needed, an old-fashioned secretary 
 was set up in a corner, with drawers below and doors 
 above. The shelf where the writing-slab folds back 
 upon itself gives no suggestion of being a desk in its 
 kitchen surroundings; it is merely a convenient nar- 
 row shelf, midway up the side of the cupboard. 
 There were no handles on the piece when it came to 
 us, and we put on handles of white porcelain. It 
 now looks precisely like a capable kitchen cupboard, 
 and is eminently useful. 
 
 For one of the upstairs rooms, an old cupboard, 
 tall and of severe plainness of aspect, was made into 
 an attractive wardrobe by the use of brass knobs for 
 handles, and some white paint. In this same room 
 stands a mahogany dressing-table, with the old 
 glass whose setting of little drawers and swivel 
 posts fitted the mirror so opportunely , Instead of 
 placing the glass on top of a chest of drawers or on a 
 muslin-covered dressing-table, a plain mahogany ta- 
 
 [378] 
 
MAKESHIFTS 
 
 ble was used, and a complete article of furniture in 
 mahogany was thus formed. 
 
 A most successful adaptation in silver is owned by 
 a friend in the shape of two fern-dishes, four-footed, 
 oval, of silver, and of old-fashioned workmanship, 
 with a two-inch openwork rail. He showed a sol- 
 dered hole in the bottom of each dish. "Yes; old 
 cruet-stands. I had the handles sawed off and 
 there you are !" 
 
 - It^is impossible to offer much definite advice in 
 regard to makeshifts, for it is seldom that the cir- 
 cumstances of any two cases are precisely the same. 
 
 Napoleon once wished a chemical experiment 
 made immediately, in his presence. "But I have no 
 pestle or mortar!" lamented the chemist. Instantly 
 Napoleon was in a heat of impatient anger. "Re- 
 member, sir," he said sternly, "that every table-top 
 J5 a mortar and every chair-leg a pestle!" 
 
 [379] 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 FAKES: HOW TO RECOGNIZE AND AVOID THEM 
 
 IT was long ago remarked, sagely, that the world 
 is given to lying, and it is not charging the sellers 
 of old furniture with more than the average of 
 tergiversation to suggest that some of them make 
 misrepresentations; although many a piece is pre- 
 cisely what it is claimed to be, and many another is 
 offered honestly upon its merits, of which the buyer 
 must judge. 
 
 As to date and history, there are peculiar tempta- 
 tions toward misstatement. Many buyers attach so 
 much higher a value to an article with a history that 
 the manufacture of imitations with fine old dates 
 cut on them is quite an industry. It is a particularly 
 barefaced kind of imposition. 
 
 And yet, dates are by no means always to be 
 doubted. Sewall, he of diary fame, in getting a 
 
 [380] 
 
FAKES: HOW TO RECOGNIZE THEM 
 
 chest for each of his children, had each chest marked 
 with the date of the youthful owner's birth. 
 
 In learning to discriminate between the genuine 
 and the imitation the old-furniture collector comes 
 to see that there is much to consider and that con- 
 stant watchfulness is necessary. 
 
 Here is a rule which, in buying, gives a sense of 
 security. It is: If less is paid for an antique than 
 it could be made for, it must needs be genuine. 
 
 But, after the buyer is satisfied as to the age, he 
 may very properly pay much more than the cost of 
 making, on account of considerations of rarity or 
 shape. 
 
 The danger of being imposed upon is further min- 
 imized by buying articles that have not been re- 
 stored. It is safer to buy them worn and unre- 
 paired, and to have the mending and polishing done 
 afterward. 
 
 Entering, one day, an antique shop in an old 
 Massachusetts town, we were told by the clerk that 
 the proprietor was in the workroom behind. But 
 it proved to be an inopportune time, and he was dis- 
 tinctly embarrassed, for he was putting the finishing 
 touches to a fine Chippendale chair. He grinned 
 with a sort of sheepish defiance, and said: "At any 
 rate, I made it out of the wood of an old tree, and so 
 
 [381] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 it will really be an old chair. And I '11 stain it to 
 look like mahogany !" 
 
 An acquaintance, who possesses and highly prizes 
 a supposedly ancient Chippendale of beautiful de- 
 sign, has not noticed, or at least has not drawn a 
 deduction from the notice, that there is yellow in the 
 gleam of the wood at the edges qf the arms, where 
 touching and handling have already begun to wear 
 away the polish and the artificial stain. The chair 
 was bought at the sale of some studio effects, but the 
 buyer should not only have observed that the wood 
 was not so heavy as good mahogany ought to be, but 
 ought to have been suspicious of the deep red color, 
 for it pointed infallibly to imitation or at least to 
 mahogany ill-treated. 
 
 With oak, deceit is often attempted. From two 
 hundred to three hundred years ago, oak was what 
 was most commonly used for furniture ; but, of that 
 early period, it is seldom that a veritable piece is 
 found, outside of museums; hence the temptation to 
 counterfeit. 
 
 There are various methods of darkening new oak 
 to the color and appearance of old ; a curious one is to 
 use a wash of old iron in hot vinegar, to give the req- 
 uisite hue, before the piece is polished; or acids and 
 stains and fumes may lend their aid. Another 
 
 [382] 
 
Empire Console, bought in 1907, in New Jersey, for one dollar 
 
 Low-boy of 1750, with Cabriole Legs and Original Brasses, from a cellar 
 in Connecticut 
 
FAKES: HOW TO RECOGNIZE THEM 
 
 method is to coat new-made oak furniture with 
 paint, and then remove the paint, in patches, 
 with potash. And, for the worm-holes that 
 are so often found in the genuine articles, of 
 different woods, they are looked upon by many as 
 such indubitable signs of age that, to meet the 
 demand, they are sometimes put into new wood, 
 one method of perforation being with very fine 
 drills. 
 
 An acquaintance called one evening to inquire 
 what we did to our old chairs and things when they 
 had worm-holes, and he explained that he had ac- 
 quired an old worm-eaten desk upon which he 
 wished to apply the remedy immediately. We tried 
 to laugh a little at the enthusiasm which would not 
 permit another night of life to worms which had 
 been at work for decades, but the inquirer was a new 
 and very ardent collector. 
 
 We told him to scrape, where the worm-holes were, 
 to the bare wood, and with a brush dose all the holes 
 with corrosive sublimate. We also suggested that 
 where fuzz showed at a worm-hole a thin wire would 
 sometimes drag out the worker. Being a doctor, he 
 got corrosive sublimate without difficulty, and next 
 day we went over to see his prize. 
 
 The desk was of shapely Empire design, but the 
 
 1385] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 brasses were oval plates that did not belong with it. 
 However, new brasses are often put on old pieces. 
 But the thing looked wrong. The drawers, pulled 
 out, showed great spills of ink and general duskiness. 
 That is a master-stroke of the artful reproducer. 
 Spilled ink within desk drawers is looked upon as 
 the sign and symbol of extreme age it is offered as 
 proof positive of antiquity when, as a matter of 
 fact, a drawer is one of the last places where ink 
 would by any reasonable chance be spilled. The cor- 
 ners of the drawers were telltale. The dovetailing 
 suggested machinery, being as even as the corner of 
 a starch-box. 
 
 And, somehow, the purchaser's pride seemed to 
 have waned. Then, with a smile, came the words: 
 "That sublimate wash is a good thing. I think the 
 worms are pretty dead, now. Here J s one I dug out 
 with a wire!" And he displayed an infinitesimal 
 bird-shot. 
 
 The blow was fatal to his collecting. Within a 
 week his Morris chair was dragged again into light 
 and he planned to "do" his dining room in Mission 
 furniture. His dream of Empire was past. 
 
 One of the things to be looked upon with suspicion 
 is the finding of an old document, to the dealer's in- 
 tense surprise, in a secret drawer. 
 
 [386] 
 
FAKES: HOW TO RECOGNIZE THEM 
 
 Old methods of dovetailing are seldom followed 
 in reproductions. Look with doubt upon bureaus 
 and desks whose brasses point to previous to. 1770 
 but whose drawers can be pushed in instead of being 
 stopped by projecting edges. Preserve a cautious 
 attitude toward pieces which, although in the main 
 new, have had old parts grafted on them. Orna- 
 ments and carvings, in relief, may be reproductions 
 made by filling a mould with mahogany sawdust and 
 glue, under pressure ; the mixture will take a polish, 
 but has not the texture of the genuine wood. 
 
 But, after all, buyers deceive themselves more 
 often than sellers intentionally deceive them. And 
 the collector will meet with quite as much honest 
 misrepresentation as dishonest misrepresentation 
 based upon mistaken family tradition or upon ignor- 
 ance of styles. 
 
 A dear old lady in Massachusetts prizes among 
 the chief of her household possessions an ancestral 
 bed "in which Washington once slept." She is ab- 
 solutely sure of this, and it would be needlessly cruel 
 to say anything to the contrary to her; but, alas ! the 
 combination of twisted rope and pineapple and acan- 
 thus leaf points to a period when Washington was 
 "dust and his good sword rust." It may be added 
 that the acanthus leaf, when found alone, although 
 
 [387] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 it is usually associated with Empire, is an old orna- 
 mentation as well, it being of the Renaissance. 
 
 Family tradition, no matter how honest, how sin- 
 cere, must always be received with caution. Even 
 an unbroken tradition is never strong as to precise 
 dates. Under the merging influence of time, cen- 
 turies are blended and decades imperceptibly melt 
 into one another. Many a piece of furniture of not 
 more than one hundred years in age is held by family 
 tradition to be "over two hundred and fifty years 
 old." 
 
 But if, for example, tradition has it, unbrokenly, 
 that certain furniture was part of a wedding outfit 
 of a certain couple, then the chances are that tradi- 
 tion is true, and, without trusting to that for the 
 date, the time of the wedding may be looked up in 
 some record and the age of the furniture thus fixed. 
 
 A friend who lives in a charming old Italian villa 
 feels no doubt that the furniture is of the period of 
 1702, not only because there is every sign of age, but 
 because tradition has it that the furnishings were 
 part of the original furnishings of the villa, and the 
 records declare that the house was built in 1702. 
 
 More than anything else, a collector comes to 
 cultivate plain common-sense in examining old fur- 
 niture; he judges largely, of course, by his know- 
 
 [388] 
 
FAKES: HOW TO RECOGNIZE THEM 
 
 ledge of makes and styles, but he also weighs not 
 only the statements of the would-be seller, whether 
 he be a professional dealer or a simple householder, 
 but also the probabilities of correctness, as gathered 
 from the seller's personality, manner, and surround- 
 ings, and the likeliness of his really knowing the ac- 
 tual truth. And as experience and observation 
 widen there comes a sort of intuition, a sixth sense, 
 upon which one must learn to rely. 
 
 Too much credulity and too great a readiness to 
 doubt are alike to be avoided. 
 
 When your old brass andirons totter and fall 
 apart when a fire is built, and you see a stream of 
 white solder on the hearth, do not too rashly decide 
 that you have been deceived, for many a pair of gen- 
 uine old andirons, in which the central interior rod 
 has been worn out by time, has been repaired with 
 solder instead of by blacksmith's work. 
 
 A genuine letter from South Carolina, offering 
 some old chairs and slender-legged card-tables, was 
 shown year after year by one antique dealer to ex- 
 plain the source of supply of a line of old pieces 
 which was kept constantly replenished from the 
 workshop. The glamour of that letter removed 
 doubt from the minds of a long series of purchasers 
 of "those dear little Carolinian tables and chairs." 
 
 [389] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 Proprietors of the elaborate old-furniture shops 
 study closely the pictures of furniture in the various 
 collections, and also the descriptions given in books 
 on furniture. 
 
 In a recent book, one of the pictures was that of a 
 beautiful mirror with its principal ornament missing. 
 The author described the mirror in terms of high 
 praise and suggested that the missing ornament was 
 probably of gilt and urn-shaped. And already some 
 of the large shops offer a "veritable antique" pre- 
 cisely similar to that picture except that the missing 
 ornament, richly gilt and of urn shape, is trium- 
 phantly in place. 
 
 There are many Empire chests of drawers in ex- 
 istence that are spurious, and some of them are made 
 ingeniously by splitting Empire bed-posts and using 
 the pieces as pilasters on the front corners of very 
 plain and simple chests of drawers. As many as 
 sixteen pilasters can be had from one old set of high 
 posts. 
 
 The vaulting ambition to deceive sometimes o'er- 
 leaps itself, as when genuine old Windsor chairs of 
 hickory or ash are taken in hand and masqueraded 
 into mahogany, so that a better price can be ob- 
 tained. It is probably safe to say that no old Wind- 
 sor chair was ever made in mahogany; certainly, if 
 
 [390] 
 
FAKES: HOW TO RECOGNIZE THEM 
 
 there ever were any, they were very few; mahogany 
 was never deemed a good wood for the Windsor 
 bendings. 
 
 The grain of different woods can easily be 
 learned at least, that of oak, and also that of nut 
 woods, such as walnut. These, no matter how they 
 are dyed or stained, still retain some characteristic 
 which should never allow them to be mistaken for 
 mahogany. 
 
 A pillar which shows the flowerlike flames of ma- 
 hogany is necessarily veneered, and the line where 
 the veneer joins can be found; yet many a prospec- 
 tive purchaser of a table whose pillar shows a flam- 
 ing glow and a fine pattern in the grain such as are 
 found only in quarter-sawed wood, is assured that it 
 is solid mahogany. 
 
 Dutch marquetry, in really beautiful pieces, is to 
 a considerable extent sold nowadays; and more than 
 once we have seen it described as "old" Dutch mar- 
 quetry. Some of it may be old, for there was a 
 great deal of fine marquetry made in the old days; 
 but in the Holland workshops marquetry in old pat- 
 terns is now turned out in large quantities. Much 
 of it is highly desirable in shape; the only defect is 
 a possible tendency not to stand the steam heat of 
 American houses, there being a great number of lit- 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 tie pieces fastened on with glue. If the buyer does 
 not look for age and history and association there is 
 no reason why it should not be bought. 
 
 "Old Dutch" is by common acceptation supposed 
 to imply the Colonial period of Stuyvesant and Van 
 Twiller and other Knickerbocker worthies, and so 
 one is apt to consider "old Dutch silver" to be quite 
 antique. There is, of course, genuine old Dutch sil- 
 ver still obtainable ; but it is something that lends it- 
 self readily to reproduction; and the market for it 
 being great, and purchasers being very willing to be- 
 lieve in its genuineness, there are, for example, more 
 veritable old Dutch chatelaine bag-clasps for sale in 
 New York than all the ladies of Amsterdam ever 
 possessed. An officer of the Dutch army who knows 
 a great deal about old silver, and has a fine collec- 
 tion, especially rich in the quaint silver toys now so 
 rare, has told us that little really good old silver is 
 now to be had in his country, and that the making 
 of reproductions is a recognized industry which de- 
 ceives only the stranger. In the American market 
 a piece of sixteenth century or seventeenth century 
 Dutch silver is most probably only a copy, made in 
 Holland, of a design of that period. 
 
 And as for windmills and "Apostles" upon spoons 
 of course, there are originals, but such things grow 
 
 [39 2 ] 
 
Little Tables of Ancient Make 
 
 i Tea-table with raised rim and snake feet. 2 Tilting table with "fire-screen" top. 3 Traded 
 for a Brahma hen. 4 Tilting table of 1825. 5 A slender candlestand of 1770. 6 Heppelwhite 
 work-table, inlaid in lines 
 
FAKES: HOW TO RECOGNIZE THEM 
 
 on silverware in America much oftener than they did 
 long ago in Germany and the Netherlands. 
 
 A curious industry, which was never intended in 
 its early days to possess any misleading trait, flour- 
 ishes on the East Side of New York. The little 
 shops of Russian Jew copperworkers began to be 
 known, a few years ago, to a constantly widening 
 public. The little dark rooms, where handicrafts- 
 men work at forges just as their forefathers worked 
 in Russia, began to be visited by wondering purchas- 
 ers of the brasswork. People went away, telling of 
 their prizes in "old copper." The number of these 
 shops rapidly increased. The dealers soon found 
 that Americans wished to believe that what they 
 bought was old ; that visitors must have the ancient, 
 "brought from Russia," with some far distant place 
 of manufacture definitely proved by a hieroglyphical 
 Hebrew mark. 
 
 It is really admirable work, most of it, in samo- 
 vars and platters and candlesticks, and there is a 
 small proportion of the really old but if you have 
 a dealer's confidence he will tell you that little of 
 this really old goes to visiting buyers or to the up- 
 town shops that have begun to handle these wares. 
 
 When a public exhibit of old furniture is permitted 
 to give incorrect information, it is peculiarly un- 
 
 [395] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 fortunate. In this respect Philadelphia has several 
 sins to answer for. In the collection of the oldest 
 Philadelphia library is a grandfather's clock that is 
 said to have been the property of Oliver Cromwell. 
 This belief is based upon the tradition that the auc- 
 tioneer who sold it, a half-century after Cromwell's 
 death, declared that it had once been the Protector's. 
 A slight enough basis, this, for the perpetuation of 
 such a claim! Surely, never before or since was 
 auctioneer's careless boast so honored ! 
 
 One feels at once a sense of annoyance and incre- 
 dulity, and then wonders if there is no way of set- 
 tling such a question. And there is. For the name 
 of the maker of the clock is upon it, and, from the 
 records of the association of clockmakers it is learned 
 that he did not finish his apprenticeship and reach 
 the dignity of maker until after Cromwell's death. 
 
 In examining this or other clocks, it is well to re- 
 member that long pendulums were not applied to 
 clocks until nearly 1660, that a paper calling atten- 
 tion to an improved pendulum was read before the 
 Royal Society ten years later, and that not until 
 about 1680 did pendulums begin to be commonly 
 made in London. Short pendulums came in at a 
 still later day. 
 
 In the same collection is a fine old desk, once Wil- 
 
 1396] 
 
FAKES: HOW TO RECOGNIZE THEM 
 
 liam Perm's. It is genuine; but incorrect restora- 
 tion put upon it the bonnet-top of a later period, and 
 not until after many years of exhibition, and of giv- 
 ing a wrong impression of style, did the manage- 
 ment, very recently, have the incorrect top taken off. 
 
 In the extremely valuable Girard collection is a 
 desk, with a music-box concealed in its top, upon 
 which one plainly reads the date, "1795." But it 
 is of a style not made until into the iSoo's, and the 
 observer is at once unsettled and disturbed. It is 
 only with difficulty, the desk being in the centre of a 
 railed-off section, that some small lettering can be 
 made out to the effect that it is the music that is of 
 the date of 1 795 ! 
 
 Philadelphia is not the only place to show such 
 mistakes of knowledge or judgment, for in the col- 
 lection at Mount Vernon a beautiful chair of Louis 
 the Sixteenth is marked as being pi the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 The collector, seeking to ada to his own treasures, 
 must be watchful in regard to "improved" pieces. 
 The improvements may be highly admirable, but, 
 even if so, he should see that no wrong impression of 
 date is given by them and that they are not permitted 
 to enhance the price unduly. "All things are not 
 what they seern; skim-milk masquerades as cream;" 
 
 [3971 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 and so fine inlays are set deceptively into otherwise 
 plain fronts, and homely board doors are replaced by 
 doors of latticed glass, and ormolu mounts give dis- 
 tinction to the undistinguished, and gorgeous handles 
 supersede wooden knobs, and cabrioles take the place 
 of straight legs upon many a chair and secretary 
 all to the confusion of the un watchful. 
 
 [396) 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 FINDS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES 
 
 MANY has been the odd bit of information 
 given by the old Austrian, he who fought 
 at Solferino, but none so strange as what 
 came one day in response to a comment that he never 
 handled silver. 
 
 He could not afford it, it would lock up too much 
 money, he said ; and then an oddly benign look came 
 into his eyes. "I will tell you where to go" ; and he 
 gave an address in the heart of the busiest section of 
 the East Side, a part of New York where an impor- 
 tant shop of that kind would not be looked for. It 
 was, he added, little known as a silver headquarters, 
 except to the trade. 
 
 The place proved to be a sort of clearing house for 
 silver for the pawnshops of New York. In a long 
 glass case were bundles upon bundles of thin old 
 spoons and rat-tailed spoons, and queer punch la- 
 
 [399] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 dies and huge foreign forks. On the wall, behind 
 glass doors, were shelves upon which larger pieces 
 were stored. And there, in a row, were four pieces 
 of early Georgian silver, with ebony handles. 
 
 They were fine and low, and plain except for a 
 band of little oval panels in relief. Every line in 
 them was a delight. They showed a row of hall- 
 marks sufficient to fascinate any collector. 
 
 We were offered them by weight Georgian silver 
 by weight! and for less than silverware of modern 
 workmanship would command on Broadway; only 
 eighty-five dollars. The hall-marks were copied for 
 the pleasure of looking them up in Cripps; but it 
 was necessary to think over the price a little, and 
 they were gone on our return. Old treasure must be 
 snapped at in such a place; not dawdled over as 
 when one buys in fine surroundings at fine prices. 
 
 The clerk seemed to share our disappointment. 
 Most of their customers, he said, were dealers. He 
 had sold the Georgian silver to a little shop off Fifth 
 Avenue. 
 
 He also added that his stock was low this in 
 spite of full cases! for eight thousand dollars' 
 worth of old silver had just been sent to New Or- 
 leans to stock up the antique shops for the Mardi 
 Gras crowds of strangers. 
 
 [400] 
 
FINDS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES 
 
 Delicious, this ! and explanatory too, for we have 
 seen "old New Orleans silver" which the owners 
 had purchased in that city and "knew to be French" 
 in spite of hall-marks which they ought to have 
 known were English. 
 
 Always is the pleasure of a find increased by the 
 fillip of unanticipation. As when we found, one 
 day, quite by accident, that in another part of the 
 East Side is located a company that makes a spe- 
 cialty of tearing down old buildings, and offers for 
 sale wreckage of every conceivable kind, including 
 what a chance for the possessor of some old house 
 which needs restoration! mantels and chimney- 
 pieces, fluted pillars, mahogany doors, and fan- 
 lights, 
 
 One day, the janitor of our apartment house, 
 mending something about the lock of an inside room, 
 remarked that we seemed to have considerable old- 
 time furniture. "Down in the basement," he went 
 on, "there is an old-fashioned looking table that my 
 wife wants me to split up and throw in the furnace. 
 It 's only in the way. I don't know anything about 
 it, but it has lion's feet and eagle's wings. I '11 sell 
 it to you for a dollar if you want it." 
 
 This was one of those chances that are not to be 
 neglected. Of course, the table might be worth 
 
 [401] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 nothing at all except for its otherwise predestined 
 fate of firewood; but almost anything in furniture 
 is worth the chance of a dollar. 
 
 "I '11 take it; just fetch it up, please." 
 And in a few minutes it was in the room; an Em- 
 pire table, with a swing-and-fold top thirty-six 
 inches by thirty-six, and with splendid claw feet and 
 wings. It is of superb San Domingo, with an up- 
 right pillar showing remarkable fire and glow. And 
 offered and bought and delivered for just one dollar ! 
 It needed somewhat of polishing but what of that ! 
 Since then, we have been offered fifty dollars for it, 
 by a dealer who held the money temptingly. But 
 we considered that, although we might have other 
 opportunities of getting fifty dollars, we might never 
 again have the chance of getting such a superb old 
 table in the very heart of New York City. 
 
 A friend had often heard her mother tell, with re- 
 gret, of old pieces of furniture which had been prac- 
 tically or literally given away, many years before, 
 and at length she began to think seriously of it all. 
 She learned into what household most of the things 
 had gone; she knew that they went not as precious 
 bits but as cast-offs; and, visiting there, she learned 
 that the people would be keenly gratified to receive 
 new pieces of modern make in place of the now bat- 
 
 [402] 
 
FINDS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES 
 
 tered antiques. An arrangement was thereupon 
 made, highly satisfactory to both ! 
 
 That was in Ohio. Now, here is an incident from 
 New York. The granddaughter of one of the early 
 vice-presidents felt a strong desire to recover some of 
 the ancient family furniture, which, before she was 
 born, had been scattered at a public sale, on the re- 
 moval of her grandfather from one city to another. 
 She made careful inquiry but could only find trace 
 of a certain set of three tables, which had been pur- 
 chased by a family whose address she learned. 
 She went there, although it involved something of a 
 journey. She found the descendant of the pur- 
 chaser using the tables. The case was explained; 
 the granddaughter said that she would dearly like to 
 possess some of the furniture which had belonged to 
 her distinguished ancestor, but that she did not wish, 
 of course, to take away anything which the present 
 possessor particularly prized. Whereupon the three 
 tables were sold to her, with ready cheerfulness, for 
 precisely the sum which, according to an old family 
 record, had been paid for them so long before. 
 
 The finding of brass or iron treasure on a farm 
 junk pile, or forgotten upon a high ledge in a barn, 
 can scarcely be classed among the unexpected, for 
 the experienced collector comes to consider such 
 
 [4031 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 places as natural nooks for forgotten door-handles, 
 cranes, and odds and ends. 
 
 But when a friend of ours, in Ohio, discovered a 
 fine bit of pewter, a platter, of English make, so lit- 
 tle thought of that it had become the dinner dish of 
 a wheezy pug, that may fairly be ranked among the 
 unexpected. 
 
 We ourselves had an interesting experience along 
 to some extent similar lines. An ancient handi- 
 craftsman, in ancient Padua, was eating his dinner, 
 in a corner of his very dark little shop, from a really 
 good pewter plate with a beaded edge. He wanted 
 but a trifle for it, and it became ours, and is one of 
 the pieces of pewter upon the long shelf above the 
 eight-foot fireplace, maintaining its claim to distinc- 
 tion as a piece of old Italian make and as coming 
 direct to our hands from the hands of an old man in 
 one of the most fascinating of all cities. 
 
 One of the strangest experiences was that of a 
 friend in a charming region of New York State. 
 
 Upon inheriting a beautiful old house, long ante- 
 dating the Revolution, he looked through it, and, 
 getting to the garret, saw that it was pretty well 
 filled with apparent rubbish which he ordered to be 
 cleaned out. He had not, at that time, acquired a 
 taste for antique shapes; he was, on the contrary, 
 
 [404] 
 
FINDS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES 
 
 well satisfied with what is colloquially known, in 
 New York City, as the style of Louis Fourteenth 
 Street. 
 
 His old servant, inherited with the estate,, and 
 holding great respect for the family and its tradi- 
 tions, respectfully hinted that there were old pieces 
 of furniture among the apparent trash. But the 
 new owner was indifferently inexorable, and the gar- 
 ret was emptied. 
 
 But mark the sequel. Years passed. The liking 
 for the antique came upon our friend. He saw a 
 great light, so to speak. He loathed what he had 
 once loved and loved that to which he had once been 
 indifferent. He determined to set about making his 
 home the visible sign of the inward grace that had 
 newly come to him. And he lamented in sackcloth 
 and ashes that the family pieces he had once had in 
 his very possession were no longer there to form the 
 nucleus of the collection that he was now bent upon 
 securing. 
 
 The faithful old servitor heard his master express- 
 ing vain regrets. His dark face glowed with happi- 
 ness. His old eyes sparkled. He led his wonder- 
 ing employer to the loft above the wood-house, and 
 there most of the treasures still were! Moth and 
 rust had not corrupted nor had thieves stolen. They 
 
 [405] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 had been kept all those years, through the dumb 
 faithfulness of the old servant. And the tale has 
 been told us in that very house, and in the midst of 
 the things thus strangely preserved. 
 
 An acquaintance owns a fine old pair of brass and- 
 irons; and she loves to tell how she became the pos- 
 sessor of them. She had, for years, longed to visit 
 her early home in the Western Reserve, and at 
 length was able to do so. She went to the old house ; 
 she roamed through the rooms which she had not 
 seen for thirty years but which were still strongly 
 fixed in her memory. At night, she sat in front of 
 where a fireplace had been where, indeed, it still 
 was, but boarded in with a heavy frame. 
 
 She told of a splendid pair of andirons, "rights 
 and lefts," of brass, which had been used in that 
 fireplace in her girlhood. They had gone, so the 
 people told her; everything of that sort had been 
 cleared away long ago. Yes ; it was too bad ; for if 
 they had known that anybody cared for that sort of 
 thing But everything had gone. And, to give ocu- 
 lar evidence of the changed aspect of the denuded 
 fireplace, the heavy frame was moved aside and 
 there, seeing the light of day for the first time in a 
 quarter of a century, were the andirons ! 
 
 A friend the same one that took the pewter plat- 
 
FINDS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES 
 
 ter from the lunching dog thought that she would 
 like to secure some old sporting prints from an aunt 
 in the country. So thitherward she went, armed 
 with a bundle of towels of fine linen on the chance 
 that a trade might be welcome. 
 
 But, alas! the prints had disappeared years ago. 
 The original frames had been preserved, but not the 
 pictures. Within the frame had been placed prize 
 oleographs from one of the popular religious week- 
 lies. 
 
 She was disappointed; but she gave the linen 
 towels, just the same, mentioning, with a laugh, to 
 her aunt, what she had had in mind to propose. The* 
 aunt was full of regrets. She was so sorry that the 
 pictures had gone. She could not even remember 
 what had been done with them. But she insisted 
 that her niece should at least take the frames ! This 
 was embarrassing, but unavoidable; and then, at 
 home, the sporting prints were found, for they had 
 never been removed and were merely covered by the 
 oleographs ! 
 
 We know of a fine old silver spoon which was dug 
 up, one day, in a garden patch! And, more unex- 
 pected than that, was the discovery by ourselves, one 
 day in a boarding house in New York, of a charming 
 Sheraton table. We were placed, on entering the 
 [407] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 dining room, at a little individual table at one side, 
 where were the only unoccupied seats. The table was 
 covered with a table-cloth which hung nearly to the 
 floor. Something about the oval shape, and the pro- 
 portions of the top, attracted us; and one of us 
 reached under and felt the leg. It was slender and 
 square and delicately grooved ! After dinner, an ex- 
 amination was made, and the table was found to be 
 a delightful example of old-fashioned Sheraton. Its 
 oval shape came from two tiny leaves. A drawer, 
 with original brasses, was at either end. The pro- 
 prietor of the house had no idea that the table was 
 anything more than ordinary, and it had been picked 
 up just to be used as a handy table for a small space. 
 
 "What do you think Mrs. W has in the storage 
 bin in the cellar!" exclaimed our across-the-hall 
 neighbor, one day, in New York. "She 's got a sil- 
 ver salver as large as a table-top !" 
 
 Having an acquaintance with Mrs. W , we 
 spoke of the tray, mentioning our interest in old- 
 fashioned things. 
 
 It was an heirloom; almost all that had been 
 saved from the dispersion of the family effects at her 
 girlhood home in Tennessee. It was a salver of 
 enormous size; a really superb piece. It was of 
 Sheffield plate, with a border of grapevine leaves, 
 
An eighteenth-century, brick-paved, wainscoted hall, showing a Windsor 
 chair with a desk arm 
 
 "Crosswise on the wagon was an ancient claw-foot sofa" 
 
FINDS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES 
 
 and stood on tiny low feet, just enough to raise it 
 from the table-top or sideboard to avoid marking the 
 woodwork if a hot dish or teapot were upon it. A 
 strange thing, and a strange history, for the cellar of 
 a New York apartment house! 
 
 In a Western city, one Sunday afternoon, passing 
 the shop of a carpenter, a glimpse was accidentally 
 caught of what seemed to be a fine old table. It 
 was small, but the corner of it that was visible 
 pointed to age and workmanship. It being Sunday, 
 no one was there; but a visit the next day showed 
 that the table was indeed old, and it now has a place 
 among our honored belongings, after being discov- 
 ered by such a mere chance in a Western carpenter 
 shop, where it would certainly not have been looked 
 for. 
 
 And this is remindful of an important hint; some- 
 thing that all good collectors ought to know. That 
 is, that the shop of the village undertaker, in many 
 an Eastern town, and especially where the under- 
 taker is a cabinet-maker as well, is a place never to 
 be neglected in a local search. 
 
 It comes about most naturally. Often, a death 
 means the breaking up of a household and the dis- 
 persion of the household belongings. And in such 
 a case, who but the undertaker has the first chance ! 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 And too, when there is but little ready money, which 
 is often the case where there has been a death in a 
 village family, the undertaker is willing to take his 
 pay in furniture. Especially, as we have noted, if 
 he be a cabinet-maker as well ! 
 
 A friend, admiring the great sofa that we obtained 
 in a Pennsylvania town, begged us to accompany 
 him on a trip there. He wanted a sofa, too. We 
 said that the person from whom we had bought ours 
 was selling nothing more, and that, anyhow, he had 
 no other large sofa. But our friend was persistent. 
 In such a town as we described, so he declared, there 
 must be another fine sofa ready to be secured ! And, 
 unwilling to cool such enthusiastic faith, we went 
 with him. 
 
 This time, we led the way to the undertaker, for 
 in other towns we had come to know the invaluable 
 secret of what a country undertaker is apt to have. 
 
 Nor did he disappoint us. He cogitated. He 
 grew grave. There had been a death, he said, in his 
 solemn voice; and if we would but wait an hour till 
 he could see ? There was certainly a sofa 
 "And the bereaved" (he mumbled, respectfully, as 
 he spoke this last word) "might possibly " And 
 shortly we had the satisfaction of seeing him set out. 
 
 Within the hour he returned. His progress up the 
 
 [412] 
 
FINDS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES 
 
 village street had all the effect of a triumph. It was 
 raining, but he heeded not. He had often driven in 
 the rain. His long and ancient coat, folded dis- 
 creetly about him but drooping from the wet, his 
 rusty, high hat, his long black wagon and his se- 
 dately stepping old black horse, all gave dignity and 
 solemnity to his progress. 
 
 And placed crosswise on the wagon, and reaching 
 far out on either side, was an ancient claw-foot sofa, 
 proudly sweeping the width of the narrow street ! 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE END OF IT ALL 
 
 f I ^HE smack of age, the relish of the saltness of 
 time; it is this which is so delightfully asso- 
 JL ciated with the old. The love for things of 
 the past has in all ages exerted its appeal ; the fasci- 
 nation of the old is perennial and imperishable. The 
 attraction of the "fine last-century face" appealed to 
 Charles Lamb, just as things of his own time appeal 
 to us. Savage old Bajazet loved, in his moments 
 of relaxation, to examine tapestry depicting ancient 
 history. Generals, statesmen, artists, the average 
 man and the average woman, all alike are suscepti- 
 ble to the allurement of bygone days. And in no 
 respect is a love for things of the past more justified 
 than in the desire to possess stately and beautiful 
 and charming furniture of the olden, long-past time. 
 
 [4H] 
 
THE END OF IT ALL 
 
 Stately and beautiful and charming in this lies 
 the important point. The furniture which one is to 
 gather should have grace or beauty or dignity, or all 
 three. Age alone is always sufficient to arouse in- 
 terest; but age alone is not enough to justify perma- 
 nent possession. Naturally, the older a piece is, the 
 less does it positively demand other attractions. 
 Henry James has somewhere remarked that the very 
 old can never look quite vulgar. Yet Methuselah 
 pieces, notable for years alone and with no other 
 justification for being, should be avoided. 
 
 Gather things which it will be a restful delight to 
 look upon. Gather, too, for use. Each article of 
 furniture should be both charming and indispens- 
 able. And, so far as possible, strive for harmony of 
 effect. Let each piece be in the fit and proper place 
 to add to the general impression. 
 
 It is upon the heedful observance of points such as 
 these; points which seem to be of self-evident im- 
 portance but which are far too often unheeded; that 
 the good appearance of a home depends. 
 
 And do not overload. If you can properly use 
 but a single sofa, do not get two, unless the second 
 one is a rarer prize and you are to discard the first. 
 For you are furnishing a home with furniture to live 
 with; you are not filling a museum, to be walked 
 
 [415] 
 
THE QUEST OF THE COLONIAL 
 
 through with perfunctory stares. The attainment 
 of sweetness, charm, propriety, proportion, ease, 
 happiness that is what old furniture is for! 
 
 We speak only as having attempted, as knowing 
 that others can easily do all and more than all that 
 we have done; but we speak out of an experi- 
 ence which tells what happiness goes with old ma- 
 hogany. 
 
 And as we sit here, in front of our great fireplace, 
 with the yellow light glowing gently through the 
 shading trees and into our windows, thoughts come 
 of our many adventures in quest of the quite Colo- 
 nial. These rooms are very pleasant to walk 
 through, very pleasant to live in ; and it is a delight 
 to see and to use the graceful, charming old-furniture 
 triumphs of the past with which we have furnished 
 them. 
 
 Old friends, old flowers, old furniture always 
 the same delight and charm. It is not that we have 
 had any unusual success as gatherers of the old; it is 
 not that our specimens would be considered first 
 prizes in the great collections. But that is precisely 
 the point! We are not telling how to form the 
 great collections. We are but telling how any one 
 may go forth and, with perseverance and enthusiasm, 
 find delightful old bits of mahogany and walnut and 
 
THE END OF IT ALL 
 
 china and brass and bear them home 'in triumph. 
 And into life there comes a new and delightful savor, 
 with this smack of age and this relish of the saltness 
 of time. 
 
 1417] 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acanthus carving, 40, 178 
 
 Adam, a style in furniture, 39 
 
 Adaptations, American, 183 
 
 Advertisement in county pa- 
 pers for furniture, 199 
 
 Andirons, brass, behind a fire- 
 board, 406; with melting 
 solder, 389; traded for a 
 hammock, 16, 20; with 
 wasps in them, 16, 308 
 iron, found in a cellar, 138; 
 with faceted knobs, 316 
 
 Antiques, fashions in, 167 ; 
 shops for, 142-147, 150, 
 152, 170, 230 
 
 Armoires, Dutch, 162 ; at an 
 auction, 109; in Georgia, 
 130 
 
 Attics of old houses, 22, 125, 
 129, 404 
 
 Auctions, in the country, 100- 
 117; on Long Island, 141 
 
 Austrian, the old, 143 
 
 Bandboxes, old flowered, 129, 
 
 361 
 
 Bandy-leg, 256. See Cabriole 
 Bandy-legged table from 
 
 Maryland, 240 
 Banister-back chairs, 129, 131, 
 
 288, 295 
 
 Banisters, broken, 77 
 Banjo clocks, 212 
 Barn, contents of a Maryland, 
 
 236 
 
 Baskets, old makers of, 211 
 Beaufaits, bo-fats, buffets, 193, 
 
 367 
 Beds, four-poster, 125, 356, 
 
 357; Heppelwhite, 125; 
 Wasl 
 
 Washington's, 125, 360, 387 
 Beehive window, 58 
 
 Belleek, 170 
 
 Bellows for ten cents, in, 117 
 
 Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 298 
 
 Blennerhassett Island, 18 
 
 "Block-front" drawers, 217 
 
 Boathouse, 172 
 
 "Bonnet-top," 23, 94, 236; on 
 
 Penn's desk, 397 
 Book-case, an Empire, 282 
 Boulle, 46, 234 
 Bowl and pitcher in blue, 361, 
 
 369 
 
 Brass, andirons. See And- 
 irons 
 
 candelabra from meeting- 
 house, 306 
 
 candlesticks, first pair, 4, 5 ; 
 fluted, from Delaware, 5, 
 200 ; in a pickle barrel, 196 
 fenders, 148, 346 
 handles, differences in, 225; 
 oval, 113; rosette, 155, 242, 
 282; willow, 217 
 kettles, 3, 81, 162 
 knobs, 76 
 knockers, 76, 80, 151, 158, 
 
 160, 164 
 
 movements in clocks, 27 
 shovel and handle, 275 
 tips on carved feet, 43 
 tongs, 158 
 
 Broken-arch, 23, 94, 236, 397 
 Buff and white paint, 65 
 Burr, Aaron, 18, 62, 366, 367 
 
 Cabinet-makers, the great, 30- 
 34; the man from Mainz, 
 263 ; old and new in Mary- 
 land, 230-244 
 
 Cabriole legs, 26, 29, 36, 69, 344 
 Candelabra from old meeting- 
 house, 306 
 
 [419] 
 
INDEX 
 
 v 
 
 Candle-brackets, makeshift, 
 
 37i 
 
 Candlesticks, first pair, 4, 5; 
 fluted from Delaware, 5, 
 200; from navy, 5, 323; 
 page of, 5; in a pickle 
 barrel, 196; of Sheffield 
 plate, 351 ; Sheffield plate, 
 mended, 272 
 
 Canework, Empire, 41 ; seven- 
 teenth century, 38, 69 
 
 Canopy on four-poster, 356 
 
 Canton china, at a sale, 106 ; in 
 old house, 157 
 
 Cement for filling holes in 
 wood, 272 
 
 Census of furniture in a vil- 
 lage, 154 
 
 Chair-backs, 29, 32-45; Dutch, 
 
 69 
 
 Chairs, banister-back, 129, 131, 
 288, 295 
 
 Chippendale, the structure or 
 design of, 26, 29, 32, 35, 344- 
 347; at a country auction, 
 1 06; in old house, 157; 
 proportions of, 344; re- 
 paired, 271 ; reproduced, 
 382 ; Anthony Wayne's, 
 344-348 
 
 Empire, 42-44 
 
 Heppelwhite, 35, 38; a fire- 
 side, 256-262 
 
 rocking, 8, 21, 330 
 
 seventeenth century, 69 
 
 Shaker, 8, 21 
 
 Sheraton, 33-36 ; "Fancy," 
 109, 124; eight from Dela- 
 ware, 199; Gothic, 349 
 
 slat-back, 97, 161, 288 
 
 Washington's, 45, 186 
 
 Windsor, 10, 129, 131, 220, 
 349; Declaration of In- 
 dependence written in a, 
 45 ; extension-back, 267, 
 330; a favorite of George 
 I, ts; in Great Britain, 
 267 ; masqueraded as 
 
 mahogany, 390; page of, 
 
 267; in Philadelphia, 169; 
 
 structure of, 349 ; thirty on 
 
 Washington's piazza, 45 
 Chaise-longue, 193 
 Chandelier, "old, 85 
 Chest-on-chest, differentiated 
 
 from high-boy, 171, 173; 
 
 one from Massachusetts, 
 
 217 
 Chests, Dutch, inlaid and 
 
 leather, 98 
 China, old, 299, 301 ; "sprigged," 
 
 . 133 
 
 Chintz, 356 
 
 Chippendale as a cabinet- 
 maker, 32 
 
 Chippendale, chairs. See Chairs. 
 A fine table, 165; a secre- 
 tary, 327; settee and 
 double-chair, 205, 338; 
 sofa, 338; a typical Chip- 
 pendale leg, 26; his ideas 
 on a valance, 127; on up- 
 holstering, 347 
 
 Cibber, Colley, 67, 68 
 
 Claw-and-ball, 26, 39, 46 
 
 Claw-foot, when used, 26, 40; 
 finding claw-foot sofas, 
 177, 180, 409, 412 
 
 Clocks, banjo, 212; Crom- 
 well's, 396; Empire, 350; 
 grandfather's, 95 ; unused 
 in a garret, 22 ; on a wood- 
 pile, 128; with wooden- 
 works, 94, 95 
 
 Collections, historical, 47. 395,397 
 
 "Colonial," the meaning of the 
 term, 14 
 
 Connecticut, furniture in, 203- 
 214; county fairs in, 214 
 
 Console, Empire, 303 
 
 Copper in Russian shops, 395 
 
 Corner-cupboards, found in 
 Boston, 223; in old house, 
 48; in Maryland, 236, 246; 
 in the South, 193 ; from 
 Bethlehem, 299 
 
 [420] 
 
INDEX 
 
 Cornice, a fine old design, 335 
 
 Couch-chairs, 193 
 
 Counterpanes made in Con- 
 necticut, 211 
 
 Coverlets, blue, 136, 157; art 
 of making, 202; used as 
 hangings, 306 
 
 Crane, hanging a, 317 
 
 "Cunners," on the Eastern 
 Shore, 247 
 
 Curtains, old way of hanging, 
 316 
 
 Dealers in antiques, the Aus- 
 trian, 143 ; on Long Island, 
 147 ; in Maryland, 230 ; 
 near the Kill van Kull, 
 150; upon the Delaware, 
 170; itinerant, 137, 151 
 
 Delaware, furniture in, 196-201 
 
 Dents, how to raise, 280 
 
 Designs in furniture, 30-46 
 
 Desks, Chippendale, 327 ; Sher- 
 aton, 113; of William 
 Penn, 396 
 
 Dials of clocks, 23 
 
 Dining-table, Sheraton, 303 ; a 
 set of, 403 
 
 Dinner-wagons, 194 
 
 Double-chair, 193, 205 
 
 Dull surface in French polish- 
 ing, 291 
 
 Dutch, as a term in furniture, 
 45, 46, 69 
 
 Dutch, armoire, 162 ; influence 
 on chair-backs, 69, 106; 
 origin of claw-and-ball 
 feet, 46 ; marquetry, 391 ; 
 old silver, 392; wardrobe, 
 159 
 
 Eagle, a national emblem, 24, 
 
 90 
 
 Eastern Shore, the, 227-250 
 Egg, the, as a design, 46 
 Egypt, its influence on furni- 
 ture, 40 ; origin of sphinx 
 and winged foot, 40 
 
 Empire, a classification in fur- 
 niture, 40 
 
 Empire, book-case, 282; chairs, 
 41, 44; clock, 350; console, 
 383; mantel mirror, 333, 
 351; mirrors, 86, 87; side- 
 boards, offered for new 
 shelves, 135 ; in Maryland, 
 230-233; with mirror, 193; 
 in village of furniture 
 census, 158, 231 ; sofa, 177, 
 179, 338, 409, 412; typical 
 winged-claw foot, 26 
 
 Fakes, how to recognize and 
 avoid, 380-398 
 
 "Fancy" chairs of Sheraton, 
 109, 124 
 
 Farmington valley, empty 
 houses in, 63 
 
 Fashions in antiques, 167 
 
 Fenders, brass, 148, 345 
 
 Firedogs, iron, 316. See And- 
 irons 
 
 Fireplace, bricking up of old, 
 75 ; of the inn, 68, 315-321 ; 
 makeshift, 371-376; six- 
 teen in one house, 61 
 
 Firescreen, old, 108, 170 
 
 Fireside chair bought as a 
 wreck, 256-262 
 
 Flute, a, and its old player, 
 165 
 
 Four-poster, adapting a, 126- 
 127, 357-36o; finding a, 
 125 ; a sawed-down, 253 ; 
 Washington's, 125, 360, 387 
 
 Franklins, 61, 74; in a bed- 
 room, 363, 365 
 
 French, as a term in furniture, 
 45, 46 
 
 French polishing, 277-297 
 
 Furniture, American, 183; cen- 
 sus in a village, 154-161 ; 
 difference in North and 
 South, 184; French, 46; 
 hand-made, 12 ; imported, 
 183-185, 347 
 
 '[421] 
 
INDEX 
 
 Garrets of old houses, 22, 125, 
 
 129, 404 
 Georgian, house, 60-62; silver 
 
 by weight, 400 
 Germantown, old furniture in, 
 
 168 
 Ghosts in the old stone house, 
 
 52 
 Gilding an old mirror frame, 
 
 352 
 
 Griffin, in carving, 40 
 Guest room, the, 354-366 
 
 Hall, of inn, 59, 62, 82-85; 
 brick-paved, eighteenth cen- 
 tury, 409 
 
 Handles, brass, differences in, 
 225; oval, 113; rosette, 
 155, 242, 282; willow, 217 
 
 Hand-made coverlets, 306 ; 
 furniture, 12; rugs, 82, 112 
 
 Harpsichord, 343 
 
 Heart-shaped chair-backs, 36, 
 38 
 
 Hearth, mending the, 72 
 
 Helmet coal-scuttle, 144 
 
 Heppelwhite as a cabinet- 
 maker, 35, 344 
 
 Heppelwhite, bed, 125; chairs, 
 36, 38; fireside chair, 256- 
 262; chair in old house, 
 165; four-poster, 125, 356, 
 357; low-boy, 260, 270; 
 sideboard, 197; in Mary- 
 land, 228; tables, 91, 196, 
 197, 393 5 typical leg, 26 
 
 Heraldry, bucolic, 24 
 
 High-boy, 173, 181 ; from Con- 
 necticut, 217; in a barn, 
 171 
 
 Houses, old, for rent, 118, 245, 
 248-250 
 
 Industries, cottage, 212-214 
 Inkstains, how to remove from 
 
 wood, 293 ; as a supposed 
 
 proof of age, 386 
 
 Inlay, 39, 46; modern, on old 
 pieces, 240-243 
 
 Inn, the old, 58-80; in Mary- 
 land, 246-247; at King's 
 Mountain, 202 
 
 Irving, Washington, 65, 92 
 
 Jacobean, as a term in furni- 
 ture, 40 
 
 Jefferson, his pictures, 91 ; wrote 
 in a Windsor chair, 45 
 
 Kentucky, driving in, 134 
 Kettle, ebony-handled, 3 ; 
 
 gipsy, 162 ; large brass, 162 
 Kettle-stand traded for a hen, 
 
 307, 393 
 
 Kitchen of inn. 68 
 Knife-boxes, 189 
 Knobs, brass, for door, 76 
 Knockers, brass, 76, 80, 151 ; in 
 
 one village, 160; eagle, on 
 
 old house door, 164; iron, 
 
 from London, 98 
 
 Ladles, silver toddy, 129 
 
 Lafayette in western New 
 York, 135 
 
 Lantern in hall, 164 
 
 Lion, in carving, 40 
 
 Long Island, clock from, 23; 
 auctions on, 143; old 
 dealer on, 144 
 
 Louis Quatorze, Quinze, and 
 Seize, styles in furniture, 
 46 
 
 Low-boy, Heppelwhite, 201, 
 260, 270; of 1750, 383 
 
 Lowestoft, in a village cup- 
 board, 159, 301 ; in a 
 Massachusetts town, 219 
 
 Lustre, copper, pitcher, 194 
 
 Lye, action of, on wood, 293 
 
 Machine-made furniture, 47 
 Mahogany, 14; kinds of, 339; 
 
 when first used, 40 ; weight 
 
 of, 165 
 
 [422] 
 
INDEX 
 
 Makeshifts, 370-379 
 
 Mantel, French idea of fur- 
 nishing a, 350 
 
 Market, a Maryland, 229 
 
 Marquetry, Dutch, 391 
 
 Maryland, old furniture in, 
 227-251 
 
 Massachusetts, old furniture 
 in, 214-224 
 
 Mirrors, Constitution, 90 ; Em- 
 pire, 86, 87 ; Empire man- 
 tel, 351 ; English and Ve- 
 netian, 85 ; frame fitted to 
 uprights, 274, 276 ; used as 
 cupboard door, 140; with 
 missing urn, 390 
 
 Misdating furniture, 387, 397 
 
 Miser of old furniture, 149 
 
 Moon, phases of the, 94 
 
 Music-stand, old, 165 
 
 Napoleon I, furniture of his 
 
 time, 40, 41. Also see 
 
 Empire 
 Negroes, old furniture now 
 
 owned by, 188 
 New Orleans, 193; silver 
 
 shipped to, 401 
 New York, old furniture in, 
 
 141-166 
 Niagara Falls on old blue bowl 
 
 and pitcher, 361 
 
 Oak, deceit in, 391 
 Ormolu, 43 
 
 Oval chair-backs, 36, 38 
 Ovens, old brick, 68 
 
 Pembroke tables, 44, 238, 244 
 Pendulums, first use of, 95, 96 ; 
 
 introduction of long^ and 
 
 short, 396 
 Pennsylvania, old furniture in, 
 
 176 
 Pewter, platter, 404; tankards, 
 
 321 
 Philadelphia, old furniture in, 
 
 167-176 
 
 Pictures, old-time, 91 ; how to 
 
 hang, 333 
 
 Pilasters, fluted, 61, 82 
 Pineapple tops in carving, 40 
 Pitcher, a lustre, 194; pitcher 
 
 and bowl in blue, 361 
 Polishing of wood, 277-297 
 Portico of inn, 58, 66; of old 
 
 house, 118 
 
 Prints, of 1812, 133 ; in hall, 92 ; 
 Napoleon, 92; behind oleo- 
 graph, 407 
 
 Quaker home, 176 
 
 Queen Anne; a design of her 
 
 period, 23 
 Quilts in patchwork at King's 
 
 Mountain, 202 
 
 "Rays of the Sun," carved, 217 
 Rector with a handsaw, 203 
 Reeding on Sheraton legs, 26, 39 
 Rocking-chairs, 8, 21, 330 
 Rope, twisted, as a design, 40 ; 
 
 on table, 237 
 
 Rugs, braided, fur, Oriental, 
 of rag, woven, 82, 212, 365 
 Rush seats, 212, 296 
 Repairing Chippendale chair, 
 271 ; claw-and-ball table, 
 269 ; Heppelwhite chair, 
 256-262 ; Heppelwhite low- 
 boy, 270; how to repair 
 and polish at home, 277-297 
 Reproductions, frequent fail- 
 ures in, 254 
 
 Salver, silver, in a cellar bin, 
 
 408 
 
 Samovars, 143 
 San Domingo mahogany, 339. 
 
 See Mahogany 
 'Secretary, slant-top, 325, 327. 
 
 See Desks 
 Sets of dining tables, 160, 303, 
 
 309, 403 
 Settees, 157, 205, 338 
 
 '[423] 
 
INDEX 
 
 Settle sawed up for memen- 
 toes, 204 
 
 Seventeenth century furniture, 
 40, 69 
 
 Shakers, the, 4; chair from 
 the, 8, 21 
 
 Sheffield plating, process of, 
 
 Shell ornamentation, 35, 205, 
 224 
 
 Sheraton as a designer and 
 cabinet-maker, 33, 36, 39 
 
 Sheraton chairs, 33, 36; "Fancy," 
 109, 124; from Delaware, 
 199; desk, 113; dining 
 table, 303; sideboard, 35, 
 189, 191 ; sofa, 149 ; small 
 oval table, 408; tea-board, 
 266, 314; typical leg, 26 
 
 Shield, as a design for chair- 
 backs, 36, 38 
 
 Shops, antique ; the old Aus- 
 trian's, 143 ; on Long 
 Island, 147 ; in Maryland, 
 230; near the Kill van 
 Kull, 150; on the Dela- 
 ware, 170; "tea and an- 
 tiques," 146, 152; "shabby 
 shops," 143, 146 
 
 Shovel, brass, 275 
 
 Sideboards, Empire, 44; in 
 Maryland, 230-233 ; with 
 mirror, 193; Heppelwhite, 
 35, 3.6, 39; in Maryland, 
 228 ; in Virginia, 197 ; mis- 
 use of Chippendale's name 
 for, 35; origin of, 35; 
 Sheraton, 35, 189, 193; 
 taste for, 43 
 
 Sign-post of inn, 49, 58 
 
 Silver, Dutch, 392; Georgian, 
 400 
 
 Slat-back chairs, 97. 288, 295 
 
 Slats and splats differentiated, 
 278 
 
 Snake-foot, 26, 44, 343, 393 
 
 Sofa, Empire, 40-44, 157; find- 
 ing claw-footed, 177-180, 
 
 338, 409, 412; a sawed- 
 down, 128; Sheraton, 149 
 
 Solder in old andirons, 389 
 
 Spanish, as a term in furniture, 
 .45, 46 
 
 Sphinx, as a design in furni- 
 ture, 40; in brass, 350 
 
 Spinning-wheels, 55 
 
 Splats and slats differentiated, 
 278 
 
 Splats in Chippendale chairs, 
 32, 35, 344, 348; in Wind- 
 sors, 267, 329; comparison 
 of, 224 
 
 "Splint-bottom school of an- 
 tiques," 134 
 
 Spoons, "rat-tail," 57 
 
 "Sprigged" china in farm- 
 house, 133 
 
 Structure of old chair, 262 
 
 Styles in furniture, 29-42 
 
 Sun-dial, 331, 332 
 
 Tables, bandy-leg, 240-243 ; 
 Chippendale, 165, 240, 242 ; 
 dressing, 360, 378; Em- 
 pire, 155, 237, 401 ; Heppel- 
 white, 91, 196, 197, 393; 
 page of little, 393; page of 
 mahogany, 242 ; Pembroke, 
 44, 238, 244; repair of 
 claw-and-ball, 269 ; Sher- 
 aton dining, 303 ; small, 
 oval, 408; in old house, 
 165 ; tilting or tipping, 
 238, 242 ; from a cabin, 
 188; tea, 343; "with claws 
 and wings" from a janitor, 
 242, 401 ; tracing ancestral, 
 403 ; work, 155, 237, 242, 393 
 
 Tap-room of inn, 61, 73 
 
 "Tea and antiques," 146, 152 
 
 Tea-boards, 311, 314; repair of, 
 266; Franklin's letter about, 
 266 ; Wedgwood's use of , 31 1 
 
 Tempera on walls, 68 
 
 Tidewater inlets, 246 
 
 Toby, a, 322 
 
 [424] 
 
INDEX 
 
 Tongs, brass, 158 
 Tortoise-shell inlay, 46 
 Trivets, 308 
 Tureen, silver, used as a lamp, 
 
 273 
 
 Twisted-rope carving, 40; on 
 work-table, 237 
 
 Undertakers as old furniture 
 dealers, 233, 412 
 
 Upholstering, on a Chippendale 
 chair, 347; on a Heppel- 
 white chair, 256-262 
 
 Upholstery, origin of, 224 
 
 Valance, Chippendale's ideas 
 on, 127 
 
 Veneer, a chip in, 237; a prej- 
 udice against, 234; polish- 
 ing, 284 ; mending, 295 ; on 
 pillars, 391 
 
 Village, a restful, 58; of furni- 
 ture census, 154; one 
 bought outright, 63 
 
 Virginia, old furniture in, 183- 
 196; ^ Heppelwhite furni- 
 ture in, 197 
 
 "Wag-at-the-wall" clocks, 96 
 Wainscoting in old houses, 40, 
 157, 245, 250 
 
 Wall-paper, on bedroom, 365; 
 
 for old houses, 76 ; making 
 
 it stick on old walls, 72 ; 
 
 on room in yellow, 336; 
 
 restoring an old, 366 
 Warp, straightening a, in wood, 
 
 265 
 Washington, at an auction, 101 ; 
 
 his bed, 125 ; in Con- 
 necticut, 209 ; his chairs at 
 
 Mt. Vernon, 186 ; his porch 
 
 chairs, 45 
 
 Washstand to hold a bowl, 361 
 Wax, bleaching, in Connecticut, 
 
 213 
 Wayne, the chair of Anthony, 
 
 344-348 
 Weaving, at Mt. Vernon, 365; 
 
 rag rugs, 112, 212 
 Web-foot, the, 26, 36, 181 
 Western Reserve, a garret in 
 
 the, 22; clock unused, 23; 
 
 high-boy in, 217 
 Whitewash, covering old, with 
 
 paper, 72 
 
 Window, beehive, 58 
 Windsor chairs. See Chairs 
 Wooden-works in clocks, 27-31 
 Worm-holes in old wood, 385 
 Wrecks, buying apparent, 252- 
 
 276 
 
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