1. Articles written about Cogswell include: Joseph Downs, “John Cogswell, Cabinetmaker,” Antiques 61, no. 4 (April 1952): 322–24; and M. Ada Young, “Five Secretaries and the Cogswells,” Antiques 88, no. 5 (October 1965): 478–85.
2. Samuel Dexter, William Greenleaf, and Josiah Quincy, Sr., owned bombé furniture by other cabinetmakers. Joiner Abraham Knowlton made a bombé pulpit for the First Church in Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1749, and cabinetmaker John Folwell made one for Christ Church, Philadelphia, in 1769. For an illustration and description of the First Church pulpit, see Peter Benes and Philip Zimmerman, New England Meeting House and Church: 1630–1850 (Boston: Boston University and the Currier Gallery of Art for the Dublin Center for New England Folklife, 1979), pp. 39–45. For an eighteenth-century engraving showing the Christ Church pulpit with its original soundboard and dove ornament, see Julia B. Leisenring and Patricia A. S. Forbes, A Guide to Christ Church in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Pearl Pressman, Liberty Printers, 1990), pp. 4, 5.
3. Samuel K. Lothrop, A History of the Church in Brattle Street, Boston (Boston: Wm. Crosby and P. H. Nichols, 1851). Brattle Square Church Society Records, 1755–1805, “Votes and Proceedings of the Church and Congregation . . . Meeting in Brattle Street BOSTON,” p. 41, Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscript Department (hereinafter BPL, RBMD).
4. Abbé Robin, quoted in Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston (3d ed., Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1890), p. 71.
5. Lothrop, History of the Church, p. 95.
6. Frederick C. Detwiller, “Thomas Dawes’s Church in Brattle Square,” Old Time New England 59, nos. 3–4
(January–June 1979): 3. Dawes was the third generation of a relatively prosperous family of Boston tradesmen. His educational background is unknown, but early records list his occupation as “mason” and “bricklayer.” His public commissions include Harvard Hall, Faneuil Hall, the Province Hospital at Rainsford Island, the Town House (Old State House), Castle William, and the Light House. For more on Dawes and his public works, see Frederick C. Detwiller, “Thomas Dawes: Boston’s Patriot Architect,” Old-Time New England 68, nos. 1–2 (Summer–Fall 1977): 1–18.
7. Lothrop, History of the Church, p. 101. John Hancock Letter Book, Hancock Collection (hereinafter HC), Baker Library, Harvard Business School (hereinafter BL, HBS). Martha McNamara, “John Hancock’s Gifts to the Brattle Square Church,” unpublished paper, American Studies, Boston University, 1987, p. 10.
8. Folwell’s pulpit for Christ Church is closer to Langley’s design than the Brattle Square example (Leisenring and Forbes, Guide to Christ Church, p. 5). Detwiller, “Dawes’s Church,” p. 7; Helen Park, “A List of Architectural Books Available in America Before the Revolution,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 20, no. 3 (October 1961): 121; and George Francis Dow, The Arts and Crafts in New England, 1704–1775 (Topsfield, Mass.: Wayside Press, 1927), pp. 221–23. Conversation with John Harris, April 27, 1993. Boston Athenaeum, Catalogue of Donations, January 7, 1809, p. 15. Most of Dawes’s library survives in the Boston Athenaeum. The authors thank Frederick Detwiller for sharing his files on Dawes and notes on Dawes’s library compiled by Abbott L. Cummings.
9. Lothrop, History of the Church, p. 101. James M. and William F. Crafts, The Crafts Family, A Genealogical and Biographical History of the Descendants of Griffin and Alice Crafts of Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1630–1890 (Northampton, Mass.: Gazette Printing Co., 1893), p. 113. For more on Crafts’s activities, see A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Selectmen’s Minutes from 1764 Through 1768 (Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1889), p. 219; A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Boston Town Records, 1758 to 1769 (Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1886), pp. 108–9; Thwing Index, Massachusetts Historical Society (hereinafter MHS); A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Selectmen’s Minutes from 1776 through 1786 (Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1894), pp. 278–79. Crafts’s account with John Hancock, settled October 13, 1783, HC.
10. William Burbeck was born on July 22, 1716, to Edward and Martha Burbeck of Boston (A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing Births from A. D. 1700 to A. D. 1800 [Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1894], p. 111). He married twice, to Abigail Tuttle on September 3, 1737, and to Jershua Glover on October 7, 1749 (A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Boston Marriages from 1700 to 1751 [Boston: Municipal Printing Office, 1898], pp. 227, 292, 337). Burbeck’s earliest known commission was “a lion 7 foot and a half long” and “25 foot of freeze work” for the vessel Industry (William Burbeck to Captain Atkins, May 8, 1735, C. E. French Estate, MHS). Burbeck, Crafts, and Dawes played important roles in rebuilding Harvard Hall after it burned in 1764, and Hancock contributed money for the purchase of new books (John Hancock to Thomas Longman, October 28, 1765, HC). For more on Burbeck and his collaboration with Hancock, Dawes, and Crafts, see Herbert S. Allan, John Hancock, Patriot in Purple (New York: MacMillian Company, 1948), p. 92; Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Transactions, 1911–1913 (Boston: by the Society, 1913), vol. 16, p. 17; A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Selectmen’s Minutes from 1764 Through 1768 (Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1889), p. 281; A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Selectmen’s Minutes from 1776–1786 (Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1894), pp. 278–79; A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Boston Town Records, 1770–1777 (Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1893), pp. 77–79; Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, 17 vols. (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1896) 2:818; and Madelon Burbeck Baltzer, ed., The Burbeck Genealogy (Pembroke, Mass.: privately printed, 1959), pp. 1, 2, 8. Other publications have incorrectly attributed Burbeck’s work at Harvard Hall, King’s Chapel, and Faneuil Hall to his brother, Edward. William Burbeck Inventory, August 23, 1785, Suffolk County Registry of Probate (hereinafter SCRP), no. 18485, Massachusetts State Archives (hereinafter MSA), Boston. Although full titles for the Langley books are not given, they probably were the Treasury (London, 1740), The Builder’s Chest Book (London, 1727), and Gothic Architecture (London, 1742). Dawes and Burbeck are the only Boston artisans known to have architectural design books listed in their inventories. Further information regarding Burbeck’s work and library will be included in a forthcoming article by the authors.
11. E. O. Jameson, The Cogswells in America, 1635–1884 (Boston: Alfred Mudge and Sons, 1884), pp. 24–39. Cogswell may have trained with Timothy Gooding, Jr., a Boston-area cabinetmaker (Brock Jobe and Myrna Kaye, New England Furniture: The Colonial Era [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984], p. 15). A Volume of Records Pertaining to the Early History of Boston, Containing Boston Marriages from 1752 to 1809 (Boston: Municipal Printing Office, 1903), p. 46. John and Abigail had two sons, but both died in infancy. Both were named Samuel Gooding Cogswell, after Abigail’s father. For more on members of the Gooding (Goodwin, Godwin) family, see Thomas Bellows Wyman, The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown in the County of Middlesex and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1629–1818, 2 vols. (Boston: David Clapp and Son, 1879), 1:414–22. For Francis Cogswell, see Clifford K. Shipton and John L. Sibley, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, Biographical Sketches of Those Who Attended Harvard College, 17 vols. (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1942), 6:235; Peter Faneuil to Francis Cogswell, June 13, 1737, HC; Francis Cogswell to Jacob Wendell, July 30, 1740, Suffolk County Registry of Deeds (hereinafter SCRD), book 59, p. 152.
12. The New North Church was an integral part of Cogswell’s life. At least three of his four wives were members (Cogswell married Abigail Gooding on December 2, 1762; Abiel Page on March 19, 1782; Mary Caznau [Cazneau] on May 24, 1804; and Sarah Tuckerman in 1811), and his three surviving daughters married tradesmen in the congregation. Furniture making tradesmen belonging to the church included cabinetmakers James McMillian, Nathaniel Holmes, Thomas Dillaway, James Freeland, Abraham Hayward, Thomas Foot, and William Alexander; four members of the Ridgeway chairmaking family; upholsterers Samuel and Moses Grant; and carvers John Welch, Benjamin Luckis, John Skillin, William Burbeck, and Thomas Burbeck (Records of the New-North Church in North-street, Boston, Gathered Oct[ober] 20th, 1714, BPL, RBMD; International Genealogical Index [Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1982], microfiche M-0213). Francis S. Drake, Life and Correspondence of Henry Knox (Boston: Samuel G. Drake, 1873), pp. 26–27.
13. L. H. Butterfield, ed., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 4 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1961), 1:238.
14. For more on the Caucus Club, town offices, and tradesmen in Revolutionary-era Boston, see Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979).
15. Boston Town Records, 1758–1769, p. 97.
16. Boston Town Records, 1758–1769, p. 80. Selectman’s Minutes, 1764–1768, p. 33. Boston Town Records, 1778–1783, p. 75. Boston Town Records, 1770–1777, p. 11, and passim.
17. Young, “Five Secretaries and the Cogswells,” pp. 478–85; the authors were unable to document Cogswell’s purchase of property on Middle Street. Jameson, Cogswells in America, pp. 24–29.
18. “A List of the Polls and of the Estates, Real and Personal of the several Proprietors and Inhabitants of the Town of Boston,” 1771, MSA. Assessors’ Taking Books of the Town of Boston, 1780, for Ward 4, BPL, RBMD. License of John Cogswell in Boston, July 24, 1782, Suffolk County Inferior Court Records, vol. 533, no. 93885. Selectmen’s Minutes, 1776–1782, pp. 1090–91. Assessors’ Taking Books of the Town of Boston, 1782, for Ward 4, BPL, RBMD.
19. Thwing Index, MHS. The Records of the New-North Church In North-Street, Boston, p. 27. John Cogswell to Capt. John Skimmer, January 10, 1785, SCRD, book 147, p. 2. The following year Cogswell purchased a shop and land near Middle Street (Benjamin Rumley to John Cogswell, March 22, 1786, SCRD, book 156, p. 35).
20. Assessors’ Taking Books of the Town of Boston, 1788, 1791–1799, BPL, RBMD. Boston Directory (Boston: John Norman, 1789), Boston Directory (Boston: Manning and Loring for John West, 1796), Boston Directory (Boston: Rhoades and Laughton for John West, 1798), Boston Directory (Boston: John Russell for John West, 1800), Boston Directory (Boston: John West, 1803), Boston Directory (Boston: Edward Cotton, 1805–1807, 1809–1810, 1813, 1816, 1818). John Cogswell, Administrative Account, May 31, 1819, SCRP, no. 25458.
21. Serpentine bombé furniture by other Boston makers includes: a chest of drawers and desk-and-bookcase in the Rhode Island School of Design (Christopher P. Monkhouse and Thomas S. Michie, American Furniture in Pendleton House [Providence, R.I.: Rhode Island School of Design, 1986], pp. 63–65, 100, 101); a chest of drawers in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Gilbert T. Vincent, “The Bombé Furniture of Boston,” in Walter Muir Whitehill, Brock Jobe, and Jonathan Fairbanks, eds., Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century [Boston: The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1974], p. 182, pl. 128); a chest of drawers in the Winterthur Museum (Downs, American Furniture, pl. 165); a chest of drawers now in a private collection (Northeast Auctions, The Collection of John Howland Ricketson III, May 29, 1993, pl. 95); a desk and bookcase (owned originally by Thomas Dawes) in the Bayou Bend Collection (Harold Sack, “The Bombé Furniture of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts,” Antiques 135, no. 5 [May 1989]:1080). For a detailed discussion of the evolution of the bombé form, see Vincent, “Bombé Furniture,” pp. 137–96. For French-style commodes in British design books, see Thomas Chippendale, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director (London, 1754), pls. 37, 38; and Ince and Mayhew, The Universal System of Houshold Furniture (London, ca. 1762), pl. 41.
22. Allan, Patriot in Purple, pp. 357–63. Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 11: 207–9.
23. Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North America, in the Years 1780–81–82 (New York: White, Gallaher, & White, 1827), p. 324. William Burbeck Inventory.
24. John Amory to Capt. William Dawes, September 23, 1779, Amory Collection, BL, HBS. On June 15, 1785, John Amory ordered “a very elegant French piano forte with French stand, leather cover, desk, complete set of strings, tuning hammer and fork” for £49 from Gilbert and Lewis DeBlois, Amory Collection (hereinafter AC), BL, HBS. John Amory to John Dowling, July 2, 1786, AC. Marquis de Chastellux, Travels, p. 336.
25. Charles Warren, “Samuel Adams and the Sans Souci Club in 1785” (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1927), vol. 60, p. 319.
26. Warren, “Samuel Adams and the San Souci Club,” p. 322.
27. Thomas, John, and Jonathan Amory were the sons of Thomas Amory, Sr. (1682–1728), one of Boston’s most successful merchants and distillers. After inheriting a distillery, a mercantile business, and sizable fortunes, the brothers began to expand their business via a network of trade contacts in the West Indies, Holland, Belgium, France, the Azores and Nova Scotia—Thomas, singly, and John and Jonathan as “J. & J. Amory.” Their businesses included banking, mortgage lending, insurance, shipping, and manufacturing. Distilling remained a foundation of their wealth for three generations. For more on the Amorys, see Gertrude E. Meredith, The Descendants of Hugh Amory, 1605–1805 (London: Chiswick Press, 1901). The Amory desk is one of the earliest Boston case pieces with chinoiserie hardware. For a 1770–1775 block front chest-on-chest made for Ebenezer Storer with virtually identical hardware, see Jonathan L. Fairbanks et. al, Collecting American Decorative Arts and Sculpture, 1971–1991 (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1991), p. 34.
28. These include the desk-and-bookcases illustrated in figs. 24 and 25 and another in the Maryland Historical Society (Gregory R. Weidman, Furniture in Maryland, 1740–1940 [Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1984], pp. 62–63, pl. 24).
29. See Vincent, “Bombé Furniture,” pp. 150–51; and Sack, “Bombé Furniture of Boston and Salem,” p. 1080.
30. Amory placed extensive orders for hardware from Sheffield and Birmingham, England, in 1781 (Jonathan Amory to Joseph Antt & Son, February 19, 1781; Jonathan Amory to Samuel Rogers, April 13, 1781, AC, BL, HBS). Thomas Amory Inventory, February 10, 1785, SCRP, no. 18252. Thomas Coffin Amory Inventory, October 21, 1816, SCRP, no. 24068. William Amory Will, 1888, SCRP, no. 81338. Correspondence between the authors and the current owner.
31. Fairbanks, Collecting American Decorative Arts, p. 36, n. 2. The authors were unable to substantiate any published account of Derby’s ownership of the chest-on-chest. The piece also has three additional Cogswell signatures on the interior surfaces of lower backboards.
32. The design sources for the fret patterns are unknown. Thomas Dawes used a similar fret on three buildings: soffit of the portico of the Hurd house (Charlestown); entrance portico of the Mount Griddell house (Charlestown); soffit of the east entry to the balcony of the Old State House in Boston (the authors thank Frederic Detwiller for this information).
33. Gerald W. R. Ward, American Case Furniture in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1988), pp. 171–77.
34. Page Smith, John Adams (New York: Doubleday, 1962), pp. 527, 531. For additional biographical information on Derby, see Richard McKey, Jr., “Elias Hasket Derby, Merchant of Salem, Massachusetts, 1739–1799,” Ph.D. dissertation, Clark University, 1961; and Sotheby’s, Important American Furniture, Folk Art and Folk Paintings, October 25, 1992, sale no. 6350, lot 322.
35. For an early photograph of the desk-and-bookcase with incorrect finials, a Philadelphia-style ornament, and a replaced fallboard, see Wallace Nutting, Furniture Treasury, 2 vols. (Framingham, Mass.: Old America Company, 1928), 1: pl. 717. The desk-and-bookcase has long been considered a product of Cogswell’s shop (see Joseph Downs, American Furniture, Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods [New York: MacMillan Company, 1952], p. 228; and Vincent, “Bombé Furniture,” pp. 180–81).
36. The other two-part example is a desk-and-bookcase in a private collection, but it was not examined by the authors (the authors thank Alan Miller for this information).
37. Winterthur Museum object files for acc. 56.23 (Barrell) and 57.1396 (Brinley). The alterations are discussed in Michael S. Podmaniczky and Philip D. Zimmerman, “Two Massachusetts Bombé Desk-and-Bookcases,” Antiques 145, No. 5 (May 1994): 724–31.
38. For more on the desk-and-bookcase, see Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture, The Federal Period (New York: Bonanza Books, 1978), pp. 220–21. Winterthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection. Dean Fales identified the figures as Hope, Industry, and Indolence (Dean Fales, “Joseph Barrell’s Pleasant Hill,” Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts [Boston: by the Society, 1966], vol. 43, pp. 384–85). For an excellent study of the Ski Skillins, see Sylvia L. Lahvis, “The Skillin Workshop and the Emblematic Image in Federal Boston,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Delaware, 1990. For an early example of desire for sculpture to adorn furniture, see Thomas Hancock to “J.T.,” August 31, 1749, Hancock Family Papers, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts.
39. Charles Arthur Hammond, “Where the Arts and the Virtues Unite: Country Life Near Boston, 1637–1864,” Ph. D. dissertion, Boston University, 1982, pp. 85, 103–9.
40. Joseph Barrell Will, 1805, Middlesex County Registry of Probate, no. 1142. Henry F. Charles, George Barrell, and Samuel B. Barrell, Statement of Facts Relative to the Conduct of Mr. Benj. Joy, Executor of the Last Will and Testament of Joseph Barrell (Boston, 1816); and Benjamin Joy, A True Statement of Facts in Reply to a Pamphlet lately published by C., H. F., G., and S. B. Barrell (Boston, 1816). Joy stated that Pleasant Hill had cost $48,000, and that Barrell was indebted to him for $92,000 resulting from Barrell’s investment in a failed Georgia land speculation. Barrell vs. Joy, August 18, 1818, Middlesex County Registry of Probate, no. 1142.
41. Aaron Mark Stein, “French Influences in American Furniture,” Antiquarian 17, no. 3 (October 1931): 15, 18. Society of Upholsterer’s, Houshold Furniture in Genteel Taste, for the Year 1763 (London: printed for Robert Sayer, 1763). The authors thank Nancy Richards for the information on this design source.
42. Thomas Bridgman, Memorials of the Dead in Boston; Containing Exact Transcripts of Inscriptions of the Sepulchral Monuments in the King’s Chapel Burial Ground, in the City of Boston (Boston: Benjamin B. Mussey & Co., 1853), p. 226. The Brinley family’s Roxbury mansion, “Dachet House,” was one of the grandest Boston-area residences: “All the paneling and woodwork consisted of elaborate carving done abroad. . . . Two cherubs carved in wood extended their wings . . .” (Charles Martyn, The Life of Artemas Ward [New York: Artemas Ward, 1921], pp. 167–68). State of New Jersey, Middlesex County Probate, no. 13093.
43. John Cogswell to Caleb Davis, November 4, 1769, Caleb Davis Papers, MHS. For an illustration of the receipt, see Young, “Five Secretaries,” p. 484. This is the only known receipt for furniture signed by Cogswell. For a discussion of the term “bureau,” see Robert F. Trent, “Matching Inventory Terms and Period Furnishings,” in Early American Probate Inventories (Boston: Boston University for the Dublin Center for New England Folklife, 1989), pp. 20–21.
44. Documents pertaining to Storer’s business are in the Ebenezer Storer & Son Papers, BL, HBS. Brattle Square Church Society Records, pp. 35–42. Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 12:209–13.
45. Malcolm Storer, Annals of the Storer Family, Together With Notes on the Ayrault Family (Boston, 1927), p. 49. Storer was a supporter of the Non-Importation Agreement (Ebenezer Storer Papers, March 15, 1768, MHS). Ebenezer Storer Will, 1807, SCRP, no. 22829. Mary Storer, Administrative Account, February 10, 1775, SCRP, no. 15409.
46. Louise Brownell Clarke, The Greenes of Rhode Island With Historical Records of English Ancestry, 1534–1902, 2 vols. (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1903), 1:150, 258–59. Gardiner Greene Inventory, February 18, 1833, SCRP, no. 30090. Probate records of Greene’s descendants were not researched. Gardiner Greene married Elizabeth Clarke Copley (1770–1866), daughter of John Singleton Copley, in London in 1800. Martha Babcock (Greene) Amory to Charles Amory [no month/day] 1869, Library of the Boston Athaeneum.
47. The authors thank Deborah Rebuck of the Dietrich American Foundation for information from their files. This hardware is on a blockfront chest-on-chest originally owned by Ebenezer Storer in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, (acc. 1984.520), and the desk-and bookcase illustrated in fig. 24 is in the Winterthur Museum (acc. 56.23). The hardware on the chest in fig. 40 is replaced. The form of its original brasses is unknown.
48. Tradition maintains that the chest originally belonged to Richard Sprague Stearns (1803–1840), but his birthdate makes that impossible. A bombé desk-and-bookcase attributed to Boston cabinetmaker Henry Rust descended to Richard and his wife, Theresa St. Agnau, from Richard’s father or his father-in-law, Col. Joseph Sprague (1739–1808) (Charles Venable, American Furniture in the Bybee Collection [Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press in association with the Dallas Museum of Art, 1989], pp. 58–63). The bombé chest (fig. 40) supposedly descended in the same line and bears a crudely scratched “HR 1774” on a base glue block (clearly a modern addition), but the chest cannot be identified in any of the sources cited by Venable. The current owner purchased the chest at auction (Sotheby’s, Important American Furniture, Folk Art, Folk Paintings, and Chinese Export Porcelain, October 24, 1991, sale no. 5500, lot 208).
49. Sack, “Bombé Furniture,” p. 1079, pl. 2. The other chest is privately owned and has not been previously published.
50. A pair of square-back neoclassical side chairs and a spider leg table made by John Cogswell for his daughter are owned by a direct descendant. |