The 1836 census for the Wisconsin Territory recorded just over 11,000 settlers. By the time Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848 the population was approaching 300,000, and by 1860 it jumped to 770,000. To meet the increasing consumer demand in the region, many merchants and craftspeople in the east moved to the Western Country to take part in the rapidly expanding economy. Among the first cabinetmakers to settle in Milwaukee was John Francis Birchard, who came to Wisconsin from New York City in 1845. By 1860 he was the proprietor of the second-largest furniture factory in the city with a workforce of twenty men. Birchard’s clients included Louis Dousman of Prairie du Chien, who purchased the marble-topped center table shown here in 1871 for the Villa Louis, his elegant estate. More examples of fashionable furniture from the Villa Louis, now a historic site operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society, are documented in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database.

Like Birchard, cabinetmakers in other growing cities made stylish furniture for increasingly wealthy local customers. Levi Havemann of Madison, a German-trained woodworker, carved this center table in the popular Rococo Revival style. Click here to read about the research conducted by the Wisconsin Historical Society to trace the history of this table and its maker.

Cabinetmaker John Nancolas was born in Cornwall, England but raised in the mining boomtown of Mineral Point. He offered local residents fashionably modern parlor furniture, including this ladies’ work table, which is adorned with hand-cut fretwork and machine-sawn decorative moldings.