Joseph Neall, Jonathan Ozment, and James Wrightson
Easton, Maryland, 1797-1800
Black walnut with yellow pine, white cedar,and tulip poplar
Catalog no. 110
This stylistically restrained chest of drawers with secretary is replete with structural details typical of cabinet work from Philadelphia and the Delaware River valley. These include the use of ogee bracket feet, riven white cedar planks on drawer bottoms, interior dustboards that are thinner than the adjacent drawer blades, and dovetails with unusually long saw kerfs. Only the multiple inscriptions left by the chest's makers reveal that it was actually produced in Easton, a small town in Talbot County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
Easton was linked to Philadelphia by both land and water. Ties to the Quaker City were further bolstered by the existence of a well-established community of Quakers on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Joseph Neall (1756-1800), master of the shop in which this chest was made, may well have trained with a Philadelphia cabinetmaker as did several other Quaker furniture makers from eastern Maryland. Neall passed on his Philadelphia-style cabinetmaking skills to his apprentices, two of whom worked on this chest. James Wrightson, apprenticed to Neall in 1795, inscribed his name in three places, while Jonathan Ozment, whose indenture was signed in 1797, added his name just below Neall's.