1. H. Hobart Holly, Braintree, Massachusetts, Its History (Braintree, Mass.: Braintree Historical Society, 1985), pp. 29–30. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston: Press of William White, 1853), vol. 1, 1628–1641, p. 119. Seventeenth-century Braintree included the present-day city of Quincy (except North Quincy) and the towns of Braintree, Holbrook, and Randolph. 2. For Samuel Allen, see Suffolk Deeds, bk.1, p. 90. For William Penn, see Suffolk Deeds, bk. 1, p. 299. Extracts from the town records are in Samuel A. Bates, ed., Records of the Town of Braintree, 1640–1793 (Randolph, Mass.: Daniel H. Huxford Printer, 1886), p. 4. 3. Waldo C. Sprague, Genealogies of the Families of Braintree, Massachusetts, 1640–1850. This microfilm collection of index cards is published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society in cooperation with the Quincy Historical Society. Bates, ed., Records of Braintree, p. 640. 4. For Savell’s origin, see Roger Thompson, Mobility and Migration: East Anglian Founders of New England (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994), p. 40. William Savell’s sister, Anne, was baptised in Saffron Walden (Extracts from the Register of Baptisms, Saffron Walden Church, copy on file at Quincy Historical Society, Quincy, Mass.). For information on Savell, his wives, and children, see New England Historical and Genealogical Register 3:247; and Bates, ed., Records of Braintree, pp. 633, 635, 637, 716. For John Tidd, see Thomas B. Wyman, The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown in the County of Middlesex and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1629–1818, 2 vols. (Boston: David Clapp & Son, 1879), 1:78. Tidd’s will, dated February 9, 1656, reads: “to my beloved wife Alice the house . . . all the land and orchard . . . then to come and remain to my 3 Grand children, Benjamin Savell Hannah Savell and my son Samuels daughter equal between them . . . I give to my two Grand Children Jno & Samuel Savel twenty shillings” (Middlesex County Probate Records, vol. 1, no. 2258, p. 78). Although the Savells are the most plausible makers of the furniture discussed in this article, our principal focus is on the objects and their construction. 5. Suffolk County Registry of Probate, no. 501, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston (hereinafter cited as SCRP). 6. James Savage, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, 4 vols. (1860–1862; reprint ed., Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1965), 4:27, 28. The Woburn reference may have to do with the will of John Savell’s grandfather, John Tidd. Tidd left John 20s (Middlesex County Probate Records, vol. 1, no. 2258, p. 78). Bates, ed., Records of Braintree, p. 664. 7. Sprague, Genealogies of the Families of Braintree. Bates, ed., Records of Braintree, p. 30. SCRP, no. 2560. 8. Joseph Allen was the brother of Samuel and Benjamin Allen, both of whom were wheelwrights. See appendix for entries concerning them. For more on the Allen family, see Sprague, Genealogies of the Families of Braintree. For Joseph Allen’s inventory, see SCRP, no. 5452. An administration bond filed with the inventory refers to him as a “Joyner.” 9. The stool has thorough planing, precisely cut joints, and the same crease molding as the group A and group B chests (see chart, p. 104). The authors thank Rob Tarule for calling this stool to their attention. The only other Braintree piece known to the authors is a square-post chair illustrated in Irving Phillips Lyon, “Square-Post Slat-Back Chairs,” in Pilgrim Century Furniture, edited by Robert F. Trent (New York: Main Street/Universe Books, 1976), p. 40, fig. 2. 10. Henry Wood Erving, Random Notes on Colonial Furniture (Hartford, Conn., 1931), pp. 22–23. John Bass’s baptism is listed in Extracts from the Register of Baptisms, Saffron Walden. For more on John and Ruth Bass and their families, see Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620–1633, 3 vols. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995), pp. 122–27; Charissa Taylor Bass and Emma Lee Walden, Descendants of Deacon Samuel & Ann Bass (Freeport, Ill.: Wagner Printing Co., 1940), p. 9; and Bates, ed., Records of Braintree, pp. 716, 640. The chest illustrated in fig. 20, and another in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum have original lids that are also chestnut. The lids are made of three and two boards, respectively. Richard H. Randall, American Furniture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston: by the Museum, 1965), pp. 6–7, no. 6, states that the lid of the Museum of Fine Art’s chest (fig. 20) is ash. 11. Conversation between the authors and the current owner. John French is in Sprague, Genealogies of the Families of Braintree. 12. Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises; or the Doctrine of Handyworks, 3d ed. (London, 1703; reprint ed., Mendham, N.J.: Astragal Press, 1994), p. 88. 13. A chest attributed to Ipswich, Massachusetts, joiner Thomas Dennis (Winterthur Museum, acc. 82.276) has barefaced tenons on the lower side rails. Barefaced tenons are common in joined chair frames. For a slightly different version of a barefaced tenon, see Robert Blair St. George, The Wrought Covenant: Source Material for the Study of Craftsmen and Community in Southeastern New England 1620–1700 (Brockton, Mass.: Brockton Art Center, 1979), p. 38. 14. George Ruggles to John Ruggles, March 13, 1661, Suffolk Deeds, 14 vols., Boston, 1880–1906, 13:183–84. For more on mill sawing, see Benno M. Forman, “Mill Sawing in Seventeenth Century Massachusetts,” Old Time New England 60, no. 220 (spring 1970): 110–30. 15. For more on riving and the construction of furniture with green wood, see John D. Alexander, Make a Chair from a Tree (Newton, Conn.: Taunton Press, 1978); Benno M. Forman, American Seating Furniture (New York: W. W. Norton, 1988); Robert F. Trent, “What Can a Chair and a Box Do for You?” Maine Antique Digest 15, no. 4 (April 1987); 10C–13C; Drew Langsner, Green Woodworking (1987; reprint ed., Asheville, N.C.: Lark Books), pp. 76–89, 157–59; and Mike Abbott, Green Woodwork: Working Wood the Natural Way (East Sussex, Eng.: Guild of Master Craftsmen Publications, 1992). Beetles and wedges are commonly listed in seventeenth-century probate inventories. Often just the beetle rings are mentioned, presumably because the wooden component was deemed to be of no value. Henry Mercer, Ancient Carpenters Tools (1929; reprint ed., Doylestown, Pa.: Bucks County Historical Society, 1975), pp. 11–14, describes the froe as a “thick-backed, rigid, dull-bladed steel knife, about fifteen inches long and three and a half inches wide, hafted at right angles to its blade.” The joiner often placed his stock in a brake—a form of workhorse. Brakes were made in an endless variety of configurations. J. G. Jenkins, Traditional Country Craftsmen (1965; revised ed., London, Boston, and Henley, Mass.: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), p. 33, fig. 6, illustrates several forms. In his discussion on hoopmaking, Jenkins stated that “the whole purpose of the cleaving brake was to hold the hazel in place at every conceivable angle while it was split” (ibid., p. 32). See also Scott Landis, The Workbench Book (Newtown, Conn.: Taunton Press, 1987), pp. 169, 170; and H. L. Edlin, Woodland Crafts in Britain (London: B. T. Batsford, 1949), chapter 15. 16. Shrinkage on the radial plane is roughly half of that on the tangential plane (R. Bruce Hoadley, Understanding Wood [Newton, Conn.: Taunton Press, 1980], chapter 4). 17. The joiner’s hatchet is held in one hand; it is also called a broad, or side, or hewing hatchet. The joiner typically placed the wood on a stump of convenient height. Holding the piece at a slight angle, the joiner chopped a series of scoring cuts to the desired depth. He then oriented the stock to a nearly vertical position and swung down along these scoring cuts, chopping away at the wood (the flat back of the hatchet faced the face of the stock). See Alexander, Make a Chair from a Tree, p. 38. 18. For more on the use of the various planes, see Moxon, Mechanick Exercises, pp. 64–74; Charles F. Hummel, With Hammer in Hand (1968, reprint ed., Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1982), pp. 105–24; and W. L. Goodman, The History of Woodworking Tools (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1964), pp. 56–84. The whole issue of how a seventeenth-century joiner held his stock for planing is one for further study. Moxon recommended: “To plane this Square, lay one of its broad Sides upon the Bench, with one of its ends shov’d pretty hard into the Teeth of the Bench-hook, that it may lie the steddier” (Moxon, Mechanick Exercises, p. 81). With its irregularly tapered cross-section, riven stock often required shimming to steady it. For an excellent illustration of a late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century English woodworking shop, see Forman, American Seating Furniture, p. 45, fig. 13. 19. See Mercer, Ancient Carpenters Tools, pp. 60, 63, fig. 60. Generally speaking, the marking gauge has one pin and scribes a single line. The mortise gauge has two pins and scribes a pair of parallel lines. We have broken the Savell shop pieces into three distinct groups; one of several determining factors is the thickness of the mortise chisel used. See chart, p. 104. 20. We have found no evidence of sawn tenon cheeks in New England furniture; however, the practice probably existed in England owing to the poor quality of the wood there. 21 . These conclusions regarding the moisture content of the various parts of joined furniture are based on independent shop work by the authors and by Rob Tarule and Ted Curtin. 22. Two chests from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, have joined fronts and board cases (Jonathan Fairbanks and Robert F. Trent, eds., New England Begins:The Seventeenth Century, 3 vols. [Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1982], 3:536, no. 492; Brock Jobe, ed., Portsmouth Furniture: Masterworks from the New Hampshire Seacoast [Boston: Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, 1993] pp. 89–91). 23. See Penny Rumble, “Some East Anglian Chests,” Regional Furniture 5 (1991): 42–50, figs. 6, 9. This hybrid structure also occurs on a mid-sixteenth-century chest illustrated in Victor Chinnery, Oak Furniture: The British Tradition (Suffolk, Eng.: Antique Collector’s Club, 1979), p. 421, fig. 4: 20. 24. For more on the importance of measuring construction dimensions, see Alexander, Make a Chair from a Tree, p. 18. For studies that analyze layout, see Robert Blair St. George, “Style and Structure in the Joinery of Dedham and Medfield, Massachusetts, 1635–1685,” in American Furniture and Its Makers, edited by Ian M. G. Quimby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press for the Winterthur Museum, 1979), pp. 1–47; and Robert Tarule, “The Joined Furniture of William Searle and Thomas Dennis: A Shop Based Inquiry into the Woodworking Technology of the Seventeenth Century,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Graduate School of the Union Institute, 1992). Studies of seventeenth-century shop traditions would benefit tremendously from a uniform and extensive approach to measuring. St. George’s article and Tarule’s dissertation come close to providing this type of detail. 25. Erving, Random Notes on Colonial Furniture, pp. 22, 23. This chest is also illustrated in Luke Vincent Lockwood, Colonial Furniture in America (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1901), p. 24, fig. 9. Two chests attributed to the Savell shop do not have drawers (figs. 21, 22). The latter reportedly belonged to Jonathan Fiske (1774–1864) of Medfield, Massachusetts, and his wife Sally Flagg (1772–1865). In 1798, Fiske bought a house, land, and tannery from Oliver Adams (1777–1848) of Medfield. Oliver’s grandmother was Jemmima Morse (1709–1785). Her father, Joshua, married Elizabeth Penniman (1675–1705) of Braintree. Joshua’s second wife and Jemmima’s mother was Mary Paine, who was also from Braintree. It is possible that the chest entered the Adams family through one of these marriages and that it was included in the sale from Oliver Adams to Jonathan Fiske (George M. Fiske, The Migration of Jonathan Fiske and Sally Flagg [Auburndale, Mass.: privately printed, 1923], n.p.; Irving P. Lyon to Cornelia B. Fiske, March 15, 1938, private collection; Andrew Adams, A Genealogical History of Henry Adams of Braintree, Massachusetts and His Descendants, 1632–1897 [Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle Company Printers, 1898], p. 21). William S. Tilden, History of the Town of Medfield, Massachusetts, 1650–1886 (Boston: George H. Ellis, 1887), pp. 392, 441. 26. The most notable exception is a group of chests from Plymouth colony (see St. George, Wrought Covenant, p. 28, fig. 1a, p. 38, fig. 20a). 27. For more on the John Taylor shop, see Robert F. Trent, “Joiners and Joinery of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, 1630–1730,” in Arts of the Anglo-American Community in the Seventeenth Century, edited by Ian M. G. Quimby (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1975), pp. 123–48. Other Taylor cupboards have a feathered pine panel nailed onto the outside of the rear frame (conversation between the authors and Robert F. Trent). 28. For more on London and continental influences, see Benno M. Forman, “The Chest of Drawers in America, 1635–1670: The Origins of the Joined Chest of Drawers,” Winterthur Portfolio 20, no. 1 (spring 1985): 1–30; and Robert F. Trent, “The Chest of Drawers in America: A Postscript,” Winterthur Portfolio 20, no. 1 (spring 1985): 31–48. 29. Edward Everett Hale, ed., Note Book kept by Thomas Lechford, Esq. Lawyer, in Boston, Massachusetts Bay, from June 27, 1638 to July 29, 1641 (Camden, Me.: Picton Press, 1988), pp. 410–11. Savell’s petition is undated but seems to fall about 1641. Josiah Quincy, The History of Harvard University, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, 1840), 1:452. This material is also discussed in Harvard College Records, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, vol. 15 (Boston: by the Society, 1925), pp. xvii–xxii. Although no new lodgings were built for Eaton, repairs were possibly made to his house, which was formerly William Peyntree’s. In a ca. 1650 letter, Dunster described conditions when he took over as president: They had finished ye Hall yet wthout skreen table form or bench. . . . No floar besides in & above ye hall layd, no inside sepating [separating?] wall; made nor any one study erected throughout the hous. Thus the work fell upon mee 3d 8ber 1641 wch by ye Lords assistance was so far furthered yt ye students dispersed in ye town & miserably distracted in their times of discourse came into commons into one house 7ber 1642. (Harvard College Records, p. 7) Records of several towns returned to Boston, New England Historic Genealogical Register, vol. 3, p. 247. 30. See Peter Kenny, Frances Gruber Safford, and Gilbert T. Vincent, American Kasten: The Dutch Style Cupboards of New York and New Jersey, 1650–1800 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991), p. 43, fig. 33, for a kast with rear framing similar to the pieces attributed to the Savell shop (see pages 10–15 for details on the construction of Dutch kasten). For information on continental woodworkers in England, see Benno M. Forman, “Continental Furniture Craftsmen in London: 1511–1625,” Furniture History 5 (1971): 94–120; S. W. Wolsley and R. W. P. Luff, Furniture in England: The Age of the Joiner (New York and London: Praeger Publishers, 1969), pp. 12, 13. Wolsley and Luff note that immigrant artisans can be linked to many architectural carvings, including those at Audley End, in Saffron Walden.