1. Luke Vincent Lockwood, Colonial Furniture in America, 1st ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1901), pp. 273–75. Luke Vincent Lockwood, Colonial Furniture in America, 2 vols., 2d ed. (1913; reprint ed., New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926) 1:120–21, 246–48. Wallace Nutting, Furniture Treasury, 3 vols. (Framingham, Mass.: Old America Company, 1928), 1: figs. 317, 321, 701.

2. L. Earle Rowe, “John Carlile, Cabinetmaker,” Antiques 6, no. 6 (December 1924): 310–11; Norman M. Isham, “John Goddard and His Work,” Bulletin of the Rhode Island School of Design 15, no. 2 (April 1927): 14–24.

3. Mabel M. Swan, “The Goddard and Townsend Joiners, Part I,” Antiques 49, no. 4 (April 1946): 228–31. Mabel M. Swan, “The Goddard and Townsend Joiners, Part II,” Antiques 49, no. 5 (May 1946): 292–95. Mabel M. Swan, “John Goddard’s Sons,” Antiques 57, no. 6 (June 1950): 448–49. Ralph E. Carpenter, Jr., The Arts and Crafts of Newport 1640–1820 (Newport: Preservation Society of Newport County, 1954). Wendell D. Garrett, “The Newport Cabinetmakers: A Corrected Check List,” Antiques 73, no. 5 (May 1958): 558–61. Wendell D. Garrett, “Providence Cabinetmakers, Chairmakers, Upholsterers, and Allied Craftsmen, 1756–1838—A Check List,” Antiques 90, no. 4 (October 1966): 514–19.

4. Joseph K. Ott, “Lesser-Known Rhode Island Cabinetmakers: The Carliles, Holmes Weaver, Judson Blake, the Rawsons, and Thomas Davenport,” Antiques 121, no. 5 (May 1982): 1157. Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), p. 303. J. Michael Flanagan, American Furniture from the Kaufman Collection (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1986), p. 76. Ralph Carpenter, “A Comparative Study of the Work of John Carlisle, Jr. of Providence and the Townsends and Goddards of Newport,” in The Walpole Society Notebook (Leeds, England: W. S. Manney & Son, Ltd. 1994), pp. 79–86. A larger group of tall clock cases with “boxed” sides and Newport-style shells is the subject of a forthcoming study. Although these cases contain works by Providence makers, such as Caleb Wheaton (1757–1827), their origin has not been firmly established. Since they all appear to be post–Revolutionary War, it is possible that Providence-style “boxed” sides were adopted by Newport makers. For more on these clocks, see Christopher P. Monkhouse, Thomas S. Michie, and John M. Carpenter, American Furniture in Pendleton House (Providence: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1986), pp. 89–90.

5. Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 68. Peter Coleman, The Transformation of Rhode Island, 1790–1860 (Providence, R.I.: Brown University Press, 1963), p. 220.

6. For more on the Brown family, see The Chad Browne Memorial, 1638–1888 (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1888). For more on the Browns’ business relationships, see James B. Hedges, The Browns of Providence Plantations, Colonial Years (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952).

7. Brown Family Business Records, box 8, folder 3, John Carter Brown Library (hereafter cited JCBL), Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Wendy A. Cooper, “The Furniture and Furnishings of John Brown, Merchant of Providence, 1736–1803,” (M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, Winterthur Program in Early American Culture, 1971), pp. 25–26. For the Nicholas Brown desk-and-bookcase, see Christie’s, The Magnificent Nicholas Brown Desk and Bookcase, New York, June 3, 1989, lot 100. For the John Brown desk-and-bookcase, see Gerald W. R. Ward, American Case Furniture in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988), pp. 339–44. For Moses Brown’s chest-on-chest, see Joseph K. Ott, “Some Rhode Island Furniture,” Antiques 107, no. 5 (May 1975): 942. For John Brown’s corner chairs, see Wendy A. Cooper, “The Purchase of Furniture and Furnishings by John Brown, Providence Merchant, Part I: 1760–1788,” Antiques 103, no. 2 (February 1973): 333–34, 338; and Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc., The Lansdell K. Christie Collection of Notable American Furniture, New York, October 12, 1972, lot 49. Inventory of Joseph Brown, March 15, 1786, Providence Probate Archives, Will Book 7, pp. 6–26.

8. For more on Joseph Brown’s architectural work in Providence, see William H. Jordy and Christopher P. Monkhouse, Buildings on Paper: Rhode Island Architectural Drawings, 1825–1945 (Providence, R.I.: Brown University, 1982), pp. 5–8.

9. Moses Brown to Thomas Wagstaff, May 17, 1783; Edmund Townsend to Moses Brown, February 29, 1776; Edmund Townsend to Moses Brown, May 11, 1789, Moses Brown Papers, Rhode Island Historical Society (hereafter cited RIHS), Providence.

10. The Chad Browne Memorial, pp. 40–41. In his will, Joseph Brown appointed his brother Moses and Jabez Bowen co-executors of his estate. Providence Probate Court Archives, Will Book 7, p. 6. Hedges, The Browns of Providence, p. 312. Jules D. Prown, John Singleton Copley, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966) 1: 209–10, figs. 322–323.

11. Carpenter, The Arts and Crafts of Newport, pp. 14–15. For the tea table ordered by Brown, see Nancy E. Richards and Nancy Goyne Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Winterthur Museum, 1997), pp. 238–40. A Newport chest-on-chest related to the one owned by Jabez and Sarah Bowen is illustrated in Sotheby Parke Bernet, Americana Week, Sale 3467, New York, January 24–27, 1973, lot 947. This chest-on-chest is now owned by the Newport Restoration Foundation and exhibited in the Whitehorne House in Newport.

12. The finials on the Jabez Bowen tall clock appear to be unique to American tall clocks, each consisting of a small, broad, turned mahogany urn-shaped finial (topped with a short twisted flame), which is sheathed with an openwork piece of metal in the form of four acanthus leaves. The mahogany finial was not originally made in two (or three) parts as many Rhode Island finials were, but rather it was sawn apart just beneath the cup of the urn sometime after fabrication, and the lower portion was drilled to receive a round pin that the upper part then slips onto. This segmentation allowed for the elaborate piece of foliate metalwork to be inserted between the upper and lower portions and then “folded” up around the urn. The acanthus leaf pattern and form of the metal structure is nearly identical to that seen on finials from English tall clocks and bracket clocks of the last quarter of the seventeenth century, though the metal content of those ornaments is not known. See Percy G. Dawson, et al., Early English Clocks (Suffolk, England: Antique Collectors Club, 1982), p. 178; and R. W. Symonds, Thomas Tompion, His Life and Work (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1951) plate 1, p. 181. An analysis of the metal using X-ray flourescence spectroscopy revealed that it is primarily lead with minor amounts of tin, copper, and iron. It thus is quite different from traditional pewter, which is an alloy of tin and copper with smaller variable amounts of lead and other trace elements. The analysis of the two surface coatings (on both the metalwork and the flame tip of the urn) reveals the presence of gold (and bronze powder) in the first coating, and only bronze powder in the later coating. It is the opinion of the authors that these may not be the first finials placed on this tall clock, and that they may represent a nineteenth-century union of parts using c. 1700 English metalwork. We are indebted for these analyses to Marsha Bischel, Assistant Scientist, and Janice Carlson, Senior Scientist, of Winterthur Museum’s Analytical Laboratory. For a full discussion of the purchase and renovation of the Seril Dodge house, see Robert P. Emlen, “A Stylish House for the Widow Avis Brown: Architectural Statement and Social Position in Providence, 1791,” in Old Time New England, forthcoming. Accounts Artisans, Almy and Brown Unbound Papers, 1789–1793, RIHS. Seril Dodge is also mentioned several times in the estate accounts of Nicholas Brown (see “Estate of Nicholas Brown, Esq., Deceased In account Current with Brown, Benson, and Ives, ” box 24, folder 6, JCBL). William Almy appears to have been related to Benjamin Almy, whose signature appears on an interior drawer of a standard Newport-type desk dated 1748 (Christie’s, Important American Furniture, Folk Art and Decorative Arts, New York, October 8, 1997, lot 57.) The Brown-Almy relationship may also represent another distant Brown-Townsend connection, since several Townsend men married Almy women in the early eighteenth century.

13. The Chad Browne Memorial, pp. 22–23 notes that Jeremiah Brown was lost at sea ca. 1740–1741, following which Waitstill married Captain George Corlis in 1745.

14. The architectural interiors of Joseph Brown’s 1774 house on South Main Street and John Brown’s 1788 mansion on Power Street had pitch-pediment chimneypieces and doorways. The William Russell house, built the same years as Nicholas Brown’s house on Main Street, was of comparable size and value as Brown’s and also had elaborate pitch-pediment interior features like the Joseph and John Brown houses. For images of these interiors, see American Architectural Building News 22 (1887), no. 610; The John Brown House Loan Exhibition of Rhode Island Furniture (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1965), pp. xx, xxiii; and Donald C. Peirce and Hope Alswang, American Interiors: New England and the South (New York: Universe Books, 1983), pp. 22–27.

15. For more on the Ives house, see Barbara Snow, “Living with Antiques,” Antiques 87, no. 5 (May 1965): 580–85.

16. Richard M. Bayles, History of Providence County, Rhode Island, 2 vols. (New York: W.W. Preston, 1891): 1:500; Burgess Genealogy: Memorial of the Family of Thomas and Dorothy Burgess who were settled at Sandwich in the Plymouth Colony, in 1637 (Boston: Press of T.R. Marvin & Son, 1865), pp. 67–68. For the Stephen Gano–Brown relationship, see The Chad Browne Memorial, pp. 52–53.

17. Moses Brown Account Book, 1763–1836, p. 25, RIHS. Inventory of the Estate of Col. Amos Atwell, October 1, 1807, Will Book no. 10, pp. 188–95, Providence Probate Court Archives. Atwell’s inventory listed anvils and other tools associated with the blacksmith trade. His brick house and land on Weybosset Street were assessed at $3,000 in 1798 (Direct Tax, October 1, 1798, RIHS).

18. Eleanore Bradford Monahon, “The Rawson Family of Cabinetmakers in Providence, Rhode Island,” Antiques 118, no. 7 (July 1980): 133–36. Mendon, which is northwest of Providence in the Blackstone River Valley, was settled in the 1660s. Grindal Rawson’s great-grandfather, Edward Rawson, came to New England in 1636, eventually settling in Boston and becoming secretary of the colony. In 1685, Edward bought a 2000-acre tract of land from the Natick Indians in the area of Mendon. Grindal’s grandfather, Rev. Grindal Rawson (1659–1715), was born in Boston, graduated from Harvard, and settled in Mendon in 1684. Like the Rawsons, other Mendon families had Providence connections: Cook, Thayer, Aldrich, and Dorr. Throughout the second half of the eighteenth century there are continuous references to Mendon in various Brown correspondences, including a 1774 letter from Edward Rawson (probably Grindal’s brother) to Nicholas Brown. For more on the settlement of Mendon and its inhabitants, see Annals of the Town of Mendon from 1659 to 1880, compiled by John G. Metcalf (Providence, R.I.: E. L. Freeman, 1880). For a complete transcription of the 1756 Providence Cabinetmaker’s Agreement, see John Brown House Loan Exhibition, pp. 174–75. The five other cabinetmakers to sign the agreement were Gershom Carpenter, Benjamin Hunt, John Power, Phillip Potter, and Joseph Sweeting.

19. The account settling the estate of Nicholas Brown is in the Brown Family Business Records, box 24, folder 6, JCBL. Grindal Rawson’s first wife was Hannah Leavens of Killingly, Connecticut; his third wife was Zeruiah Harris (d. 1765). For more on the Rawson family, see E. B. Crane, The Rawson Family (Worcester, Mass.: By the family, 1875), p. 37.

20. Ott, “Lesser-Known Rhode Island Cabinetmakers,” pp. 1156–57. For more on Carlile, see Rowe, “John Carlile, Cabinetmaker,” pp. 310–11. Moses Brown Papers, Artisans Accounts, RIHS. Brown Family Business Records, box 13, folder 9, and box 1092, JCBL.

21. Will of John Carlile, Sr., 1795, Will Book 7, p. 846, Providence Probate Court Archives. Will of William Bowen, 1832, Will Book 13, pp. 577–80, Providence Probate Court Archives. For more on Carlile, see Garrett, “Providence Cabinetmakers, Chairmakers, Upholsterers, and Allied Craftsmen,” p. 516. The Welcome Arnold papers, including business ledgers, are in the JCBL.

22. Lockwood, Colonial Furniture in America (1901 edition), pp. 273–75. Lockwood, Colonial Furniture in America (1926 edition) 1:20–21, 246–248.

23. Two exceptions are the Bowen desk-and- bookcase and the Nicholas Brown chest-on-chest, both of which have beading around the drawers. Only a few Massachusetts and Connecticut blockfront pieces have lipped drawers. These include a ca. 1775 chest-on-chest from Norwich, Connecticut (William Voss Elder III and Jayne E. Stokes, American Furniture 1680–1880 [Baltimore, Md.: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1987], no. 54), two ca. 1740 Boston-area dressing tables (Richards and Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, figs. 168–69), and a ca. 1750 Portsmouth, New Hampshire, chest of drawers (Brock Jobe and Myrna Kaye, New England Furniture: The Colonial Era [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984], no. 17). A similar chest-on-chest owned by John Brown also has lipped drawers on the upper (straight-front) section and beaded drawers on the lower (blockfront) section. Cooper, “The Furniture and Furnishings of John Brown,” pp. 70–72, fig. 40.

24. One pattern of Providence foot appears on the Bowen and Joseph Brown desk-and-bookcases (figs. 1, 12), the Carlile desk (fig. 4), and the Yale chest of drawers (fig. 45). Another pattern of foot appears on the John Brown (fig. 2), Joseph Brown (fig. 3), and Nicholas Brown (fig. 5) chest-on-chests, the Ives (fig. 14) secretary-and-bookcase, and the Burges desk-and-bookcase (fig. 15). For North Shore pieces with similar ogee feet, see Ward, American Case Furniture, nos. 79, 174; and Richards and Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, nos. 79, 174, 177, 179, 185, 201.

25. For other Rhode Island case pieces with carved rosettes, see Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport, figs. 7.17, 8.16–18, 8.20; and Cooper, “The Furniture and Furnishings of John Brown,” fig. 40. The Newport and Providence rosettes are designed and constructed differently. The Providence rosettes were carved separately and applied to the cylinders at the ends of the broken scrolls, whereas Newport examples were carved into the cylinders.

26. Six of the nine of the pieces examined in this study had drawer bottoms running front to back.

27. Variations of these molding sequences can be found in eighteenth-century design books, including Thomas Chippendale, The Gentleman & Cabinet-Maker’s Director, 3d ed. (1762; reprint ed., New York: Dover, 1966), pls. 14, 94; Thomas Sheraton, The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book (1793; reprint ed., New York: Dover 1972), p. 59; William Salmon, Palladio Londinesis (London, 1773), pls. 10, 20.

28. The Lyman Goff affidavit is privately owned. F. J. Sheldon, Catalogue of the Henry J. Steere Collection of Antique and Modern Household Furniture, April 17, 1890, Infantry Hall, Providence. The Atwell desk appears to have been the “Very Fine Mahogany block Front Desk and Secretary, claw Feet” sold as lot 121. Although this entry refers to the piece being made of mahogany, the cataloguer may have misidentified the wood. To the untrained eye, figured cherry can be confused with mahogany. The reference to claw-and-ball feet is more perplexing. The ogee feet on the Atwell desk may be replacements; the originals may have fit the catalogue description. If so, this would make the Atwell desk-and-bookcase conform even more closely to Massachusetts blockfront examples.

29. All of the known pieces attributed to Grindal Rawson are illustrated in Monahon, “The Rawson Family of Cabinetmakers.” According to Monahon, Rawson made the high chest for Silas Cook (1733–1777), who was a neighbor of the Rawson family in Mendon, Massachusetts. The chest descended in the Cook family until 1832, when Sarah Cook (1806–1876) married George Burrill Rawson (1805–1895), Grindal’s grandson. The high chest then continued its descent through subsequent generations of the Rawson family. Silas Cook married Sarah Crawford of Providence in 1756. He occasionally worked for the Brown family as a sea captain, taking furniture and other cargo to the West Indies in the early 1760s (“The Cookes of Rhode Island: Descendants of Walter Cooke of Weymouth, Massachusetts 1643–1870,” Newport Mercury, February 2, 1961, p. 18). In October 1769, Silas Cook wrote to Nicholas Brown, Sr., from Warwick, Rhode Island, to inquire if Brown had work for him (Silas Cook to Nicholas Brown, October 4, 1769, JCBL). Nicholas Brown, Jr., also had connections with Mendon. In 1774, Edward Rawson, who may have been Grindal’s brother, wrote Nicholas, Jr., about a lawsuit in which the latter may have become involved. (Edward Rawson to Nicholas Brown, May 9, 1774. JCBL). Given their connections with the Cooks, Rawsons, and the town of Mendon, it is possible that the Browns were aware of Grindal Rawson’s work. For additional illustrations of these three clocks, see Antiques 125, no. 5 (May 1984): 989; Donald F. Bowen, “A Clock Case by John Goddard,” Antiquarian Magazine 15, no. 2 (August 1930): 37, 74; Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport, fig. 8.24; and Antiques 63, no. 4 (April 1953): 304. Edward Spalding’s probate inventory lists “One Plain clock at Dodge’s with a pine case . . . £8.0.0,” as well as “one set clock makers & watch makers tools together with the Engine Anvil vises turn bench tools . . . £30.0.0.” The presence of one of Spalding’s clocks in Seril Dodge’s shop indicates a close connection between the two artisans (Edward Spalding Inventory, December 17, 1785, Will Book 7, p. 3, Providence Probate Court Archives).

30. For an early Boston desk-and-bookcase with receding, serpentine-blocked drawers and a central prospect, see Richards and Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, no. 206.

31. The Coit desk-and-bookcase is illustrated and discussed in Richards and Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, no. 205.

32. The desk attributed to Grindal or Joseph Rawson is illustrated in Monahon, “The Rawson Family of Cabinetmakers,” pl. 2. The Welcome Arnold desk-and-bookcase is illustrated in Antiques 152, no. 5 (November 1998): 3.

33. The shape of the bookcase doors on the Bowen piece is similar to that of Boston examples. See Richards and Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, no. 206. For more on the Massachusetts giant dovetail, see Margaretta Markle Lovell, “Boston Block-Front Furniture,” in Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, edited by Walter Muir Whitehill, Brock Jobe, and Jonathan Fairbanks (Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1974), pp. 71–135.

34. For a related chest of drawers, see Luke Vincent Lockwood, Colonial Furniture in America, 3d ed. (New York: Castle Books, 1951), p. 354.

35. Inventory of Joseph Brown, March 25, 1786, Will Book 7, p. 9, Providence Probate Court Archives. The Joseph Brown desk-and-bookcase descended from Eliza Ward (daughter of Joseph Brown) to her niece Eliza Rogers, to her step-niece Maria Benedict, to her niece Cornelia Vavasour Washburn. In the late 1800s, Oliver A. Washburn sold it to William Goddard of Brown and Ives. The descent of the nine-shell chest-on-chest is similar, passing from Eliza Brown Ward, to her niece Eliza Rogers, to her step-niece Maria Benedict. In the early twentieth century, the chest-on-chest was inherited by Avis Rebeckah Sibley Burnett, who was presumably the niece of Cornelia Vavasour Washburn. Prior to 1922, Mrs. John R. Gladding, presumably a Washburn relation, purchased the chest-on-chest from Mrs. Burnett, but in 1939 Mrs. Gladding bequeathed the chest-on-chest back to Mrs. Burnett, who ultimately sold it. We are indebted to Thomas Michie for helping us establish this provenance. Richards and Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, no. 193.

36. John Brown’s chest-on-chest bears the following inscription on the side of the top drawer of the lower case: “1785/ Abby Brown/1786/Sally Brown,” documenting its use by his two youthful daughters. Another chest-on-chest that belonged to John Brown has three shells in the lower case. It is typical of Newport design, with lipped drawers in the upper case, cockbeading on the lower case, and no “boxes” on the pediment. See Helen Comstock, American Furniture (New York: Bonanza Books, 1962), no. 305.

37. The drawers on the two chest-on-chests are constructed in a manner identical to those of the desk-and-bookcase; the bottom boards run front to back and are slid into a dado in the sides and nailed into a rabbet on the bottom rear edge of the drawer front. The inside surface of the drawer front follows the curve of the outside surface rather than being cut at an angle as on Newport shell drawers. The brackets of the feet are attached with glue, screws, and/or wrought nails. Some of the screws may be replacements. The dovetailing on the desk-and-bookcase and the four-shell chest-on-chest is finely executed, but the joints are less tightly spaced than similar Newport ones. The dovetailing on the nine-shell chest-on-chest (fig. 3) is most like that on Nicholas Brown, Jr.’s, pitch-pediment chest-on-chest (fig. 5).

38. The chalk or pencil marks on the drawers are usually an “x” or “xB”. The John Brown chest-on-chest and the signed John Carlile desk have score marks on the inside of the backboards and back of an interior drawer. In 1787 or 1788, John Francis ordered a set of neoclassical chairs from Philadelphia for his fiancée Abigail Brown. The Philadelphia chairs (c. 1788) that descended in the John Brown family are the exact pattern as the chalk sketch of the vase-back side chair (Wendy Cooper, “The Purchase of Furniture and Furnishings by John Brown, Providence Merchant, Part II: 1788–1803,” Antiques 103, no. 4 [April 1973]: 737). These chairs would have been in the Brown’s mansion house directly opposite Carlile’s shop on Benefit Street, thus they might have been seen by Providence cabinetmakers.

39. Ca. 1870s photograph of Nicholas Brown house, John Nicholas Brown Center, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.

40. Emlen, “A Stylish House for the Widow Avis Brown.” Other Providence houses from the same period have interior details with pitch-pediments. (Marvin D. Schwarz, American Interiors [Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1968], plate 13, p. 64). Thomas Willing Francis to John Francis, September 1, 1785, as quoted in Cooper, “The Furniture and Furnishings of John Brown, Merchant of Providence,” pp. 28–29. The letter mentions a “Cabinet” described as a “valuable piece of Furniture” that Thomas was shipping from Philadelphia to John in Providence. The Chad Browne Memorial, p. 53.

41. The shells are carved in the usual Providence manner. Like the other Providence blockfronts, the chest-on-chest has shells carved from the solid and relieved in a half-circle around the termini of the lobes. The feet are constructed in the typical Providence manner and have the distinctive Providence bracket foot shape with the torus drop. The drawer bottoms run front to back, and the drawers are constructed in the typical Providence fashion, with the bottoms nailed to rabbets in the front edges, slid into dadoes on the sides with additional runners added, and nailed to the back edges.

42. The moldings on the John Brown chest-on-chest (fig. 2) are also complex, but they differ slightly from those on the Nicholas (fig. 5) and Joseph Brown (fig. 3) chests. The base moldings on the Joseph Brown desk-and-bookcase (fig. 1) and the John Brown, Joseph Brown, and Nicholas Brown chest-on-chests have identical sequences of molding elements.

43. Providence cabinetmaker Job Danforth’s account book lists on March 9, 1799, one desk-and-bookcase made for Tristam Burges, £6.12.0. Although this price seems too low for a mahogany desk-and-bookcase, Burges’s patronage of Danforth supports the opinion that his later furniture purchases would probably also have been from Providence craftsmen.

44. Variations of this cornice sequence are found in the third edition of Chippendale’s The Gentleman & Cabinet-Maker’s Director, pls. 15, 94; Salmon’s Palladio Londinesis, pls. 19, 20; and Sheraton’s Cabinet-Maker & Upholsterer’s Drawing Book, pl. 59.

45. Margaretta M. Lovell, “‘Such Furniture As Will Be Most Profitable,’ The Business of Cabinetmaking in Eighteenth-Century Newport,” Winterthur Portfolio 26, no. 1 (spring 1991): 61.

46. In 1779, the British captured Thomas Townsend (John Goddard’s brother-in-law) in Newport harbor. According to undocumented research by furniture historian Mabel M. Swan, he obtained his release “by appealing to General Gates, [but] he was not allowed to return to Newport . . . [and] was compelled to reside in Mendon, Massachusetts” (Swan, “The Goddard and Townsend Joiners, Part I,” p. 230). If Townsend had pre-existing ties to Mendon and its small Quaker community, he may have known Grindal Rawson (for more on Mendon’s Quaker community, see Metcalf, comp., Annals of the Town of Mendon, pp. 213, 421). Townsend returned to Newport in 1780.

47. Swan, “John Goddard’s Sons,” p. 448. Garrett, “Providence Cabinetmakers,” p. 516. Brown Family Business Records, box 24, folder 1, JCBL. In 1766, a Samuel Engs of North Kingston, Rhode Island, wrote Moses and Nicholas Brown seeking employment “in [their]. . . counting house.” Moses Brown Papers, November 26, 1766, RIHS. The Engs in North Kingston may have had some relationship to the Townsends and Goddards via the Casey family of Kingston. There was also a Brown connection with the Engs since Avis Binney Brown, the second wife of Nicholas Brown, was descended (on her mother’s side) from the Engs in Boston. For more on the Engs family, see Winthrop Pickard Bell, A Genealogical Study (New Brunswick, Canada: Tribune Press, 1962), pp. 212–14. Carpenter, Arts and Crafts of Newport, p. 15.

48. Antiques 36, no. 10 (October 1939): 192.