Germanic Influences
in the Chesapeake

Evidence of German details in southern furniture is mainly confined to the backcountry, where substantial numbers of German, Swiss, and other northern European immigrants resided. Small pockets of German taste also existed in the Chesapeake, however.

Desk
The “W.H.” Cabinetmaker
Roanoke River Basin,
North Carolina, 1789
Black walnut with yellow pine and oak
Catalog no. 135

Among the most distinctive furniture from the Roanoke River basin in North Carolina is a group of some thirty pieces made in the “W.H.” shop, so called because of the initials that appear on about half of the objects. The prospect door on this desk is inscribed “W.H. / August / the 5 1789.” The initials probably are those of the maker. Structural and stylistic details suggest that W.H. was a German-trained artisan. His identity is unknown, but he may have been one of the hired Hessian soldiers who deserted from the British army during the Revolution. Records confirm that several Hessian deserters with the initials W.H. settled in North Carolina.

Germanic attributes of W.H. furniture include the exposed construction details on many of the pieces. The artisan also used large, ebonized, stylized floral ornaments like that on the lid of this desk. Similar decoration appears on German-inspired objects such as fraktur and painted chests. The small inlaid flowers on either side of the desk also are related to German ornamentation.

Click on desk for detail

China Press
Attributed to the Sharrock Family
Northampton County or Bertie County, North Carolina, 1797
Catalog no. 154

Made in northeastern North Carolina, this china press is one of more than twenty case pieces attributed to the Sharrock family of cabinetmakers and carpenters. Cabinetmaker Thomas Sharrock (ca. 1741-ca. 1802) fathered eleven sons, six of whom apparently followed him into the woodworking trades and probably trained in his shop. Although Sharrock furniture features mainly British-inspired design and construction, some pieces are ornamented with retardataire baroque features such as broken-scroll pediments, paneled lower lights on glazed doors, pierced finials, and chip-carved rosettes like those seen here. Some of these Germanic elements closely parallel the work of another Roanoke basin cabinetmaker known only by the initials W.H., who made the adjacent desk and almost certainly was a German immigrant. The exposure of the Sharrocks to the work of the W.H. artisan may explain the curious combination of distinctive decorative elements and conservative British cabinetmaking traditions in the group of furniture attributed to them.