1. William G. McLoughlin, Rhode Island (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), pp. 46, 71 (for the Berkely quote), and passim. 2. Ibid, pp. 63–65. 3. Ibid., p. 64. As quoted in Elaine Forman Crane, A Dependent People: Newport, Rhode Island in the Revolutionary Era (New York: Fordham University Press, 1985), p. 11. McLoughlin, Rhode Island, p. 58. Jeanne Vibert Sloane, “John Cahoone and the Newport Furniture Industry,” in New England Furniture: Essays in Memory of Benno Forman, edited by Brock Jobe (Boston: Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, 1987), p. 91. 4. As quoted in Leigh Keno, Joan Barzilay Freund, and Alan Miller, “The Very Pink of the Mode: Boston Georgian Chairs, Their Export and Their Influence,” in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1996), p. 298. For more on the export of Rhode Island furniture, see Sloane, “John Cahoone.” 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): 52–56. 5. Ralph E. Carpenter, Jr., The Arts and Crafts of Newport, Rhode Island, 1640–1820 (Newport, R.I.: Preservation Society of Newport County, 1954), pp. 10–13. Lovell, “‘Such Furniture as Will Be Most Profitable,’” p. 53. 6. Mabel M. Swan, “The Goddard and Townsend Joiners, Part I,” Antiques 49, no. 4 (April 1946): 228–31. In 1718, Christopher was serving on the Elizabeth when a pirate sloop robbed the ship and took two sailors. Carpenter, The Arts and Crafts of Newport, pp. 10–13. 7. Lovell, “‘Such Furniture as Will Be Most Profitable,’” pp. 53, 56. 8. Carpenter, The Arts and Crafts of Newport, pp. 11, 12. Antoinette F. Downing and Vincent J. Scully, Jr., The Architectural Heritage of Newport, Rhode Island, 1640–1915 (1952; 2d rev. ed., New York: American Legacy Press, 1967), pp. 75–76. Lovell, “‘Such Furniture as Will Be Most Profitable,’” pp. 50–52. 9. Downing and Scully, The Architectural Heritage of Newport, p. 63. 10. Ibid. 11. Abraham Redwood Letterbook, 1723–1740, as quoted in Ethel Hall Bjerkoe, The Cabinet-makers of America (New York: Doubleday, 1957), pp. 213-14. Carpenter, The Arts and Crafts of Newport, pp. 11–12. Public commissions, which required the support and involvement of prominent individuals, were important avenues of patronage for colonial tradesmen. Christopher Townsend worked as a house joiner on the Redwood Library in 1743 and may have been involved with several other public projects during the period. Like many cabinetmakers in coastal communities, he also did ship joinery (Downing and Scully, The Architectural Heritage of Newport, pp. 63, 75–76). The author thanks Michael Flanigan for information on the history of the high chest. For more on Samuel Ward’s purchases from Job Townsend, see Carpenter, The Arts and Crafts of Newport, pp. 11, 12. 12. Carpenter, The Arts and Crafts of Newport, p. 11. For more on this New York group, see Dean Failey, Long Island Is My Nation: The Decorative Arts and Craftsmen, 1640–1830, 2d rev. ed. (Cold Harbor, N.Y.: Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, 1998), pp. 9–29, 116, 117. For more on Stoddard, see ibid., pp. 9–27, 258, 287. Benjamin F. Thomas, The History of Long Island From Its Discovery and Settlement to the Present Time, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Gould, Banks Co., 1843), p. 347. 13. In 1745 Joshua Delaplaine recorded a debit entry to Christopher Townsend for “selling fitting & delivering acording to agreement desks” and credited him “By ye produce of ye mahogany desk £6.5” and “by ditto of ye maple ditto.” On the bottom of his bill to Townsend, Delaplaine wrote: “Respected frd . . . Pursuant to thy request have sold and bought ye above mentioned. Hope it may be to satisfaction. I have been offered but 30/ for ye tea table and thought it too little” (Joshua Delaplaine Account with Christopher Townsend, 1744–1745, Delaplaine Papers, New York Historical Society). For more on Delaplaine and Quaker cabinetmakers in New York, see J. Stewart Johnson, “New York Cabinetmaking Prior to the Revolution” (M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1964). On March 20, 1746, Townsend acknowledged payment of a commission administered by Delaplaine: “Rec’d of John Freebody the sum of Sixty one pounds in ful for One Case of Draws & one tea table of Mahogany Made for Mr. Thos. Moone of New York, March” (Lois Olcott Price, “Furniture Craftsmen and the Queen Anne Style in Eighteenth-Century New York” [M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1977], p. 79). In 1740, Delaplaine wrote Newport Quaker Samuel Holmes “hoping this [letter] may find thee in better health than Christopher Townsend informed us thou wast in when he left those parts.” The author thanks Joan Barzilay Freund for her research on Quakers in New York and Rhode Island. 14. The author thanks Sumpter Priddy for the information on the Virginia dressing table. Ronald L. Hurst, “Irish Influences on Cabinetmaking in Virginia’s Rappahannock River Basin,” in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University of New England Press for the Chipstone Foundation, 1997), pp. 170–96. A dressing table with Massachusetts features and Newport case and leg construction is in the files of the Decorative Arts Photographic Collection, Winterthur Museum, no. 75.875. 15. The author is grateful to Mack Headley for his opinions on both methods of case construction. Mabel Munson Swan, “The Goddard and Townsend Joiners: Part i,” Antiques 49, no. 2 (April 1946): 228–31; Mabel Munson Swan, “The Goddard and Townsend Joiners: Part ii,” Antiques 49, no. 5 (May 1946): 292–95; Mabel Munson Swan, “John Goddard’s Sons,” Antiques 57, no. 6 (June 1950): 448–49. 16. Ralph Carpenter has suggested that John worked in Christopher’s shop until 1773 (Carpenter, The Arts and Crafts of Newport, pp. 16, 17). 17. Sotheby’s, Important Americana, Furniture, and Folk Art, New York, January 16–17, 1998, lot 704, pp. 201–8. Although the history of the desk-and-bookcase was provided by Appleton descendants, it is possible that the piece entered the family through a different line. During the first half of the eighteenth century, Newport patrons purchased large quantities of Boston furniture; however, trade between the two cities almost never flowed in the opposite direction. The urban British design of the pediment and use of figured mahogany as a secondary wood suggest that the original owner may have resided in the Carribean, Surinam, or another tropical colony before moving to Newport. Case pieces from these regions often have mahogany secondary wood. Newport merchants such as Abraham Redwood occasionally traveled to the Carribean and South America. Redwood, for example, resided in Antigua from 1737 to at least 1740 (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], p. 171). 18. Ibid., p. 208. Carpenter, The Arts and Crafts of Newport, pp. 74, 206. 19. Job Townsend, Jr., occasionally worked for his brother Edward. In 1767 they collaborated on a “Large Mahogany Desk” for Nicholas Anderese. 20. A china table and a basin stand that descended in the Bullock family of Rhode Island have tops with rabbets around the perimeter of the underside. The rabbets helped “trap” the glue blocks used to attach the tops to the frame. For the china table, see Richards and Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, pp. 244–45. Baltimore antique dealer J. Michael Flanigan exhibited the basin stand at the Philadelphia Antique Show in April 1999. The attachment of the cornice molding on the signed Christopher Townsend desk-and-bookcase is very unusual. The side moldings, which are comprised of two vertically laminated pieces, are attached to the sides with a modified mortise-and-tenon joint. The tenons are cut on the sides and have a single shoulder on the inside edge. The tenons extend the full depth of the case and appear to have been cut with a rabbet plane. 21. A chest of drawers attributed to Job Townsend, Jr., had moldings beneath the top that were originally secured with glue alone (see Martha Willoughby, “The Accounts of Job Townsend, Jr.,” in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite [Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 1999], p. 110, fig. 1). The side pieces probably fell off due to cross-grain shrinkage and expansion of the case. The large drawers on the signed Christopher Townsend desk-and-bookcase match those of the high chests documented and attributed to his shop. 22. Wallace B. Gusler, “Variations in 18th-Century Casework,” Fine Woodworking, July/August 1980, no. 23, pp. 50–53. Most Boston case pieces, for example, have nailed runners and drawer blades with exposed dovetails. For more on Boston furniture exports, see Neil D. Kamil, “Hidden in Plain Sight: Disappearance and Material Life in Colonial New York,” in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 1995), pp. 192–96; Keno, Freund, and Miller, “The Very Pink of the Mode”; and Joan Barzilay Freund and Leigh Keno, “The Making and Marketing of Boston Seating Furniture in the Late Baroque Style,” in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 1998), pp. 1–40. 23. Carpenter, The Arts and Crafts of Rhode Island, pp. 10–13. Lovell, “‘Such Furniture as Will Be Most Profitable.’” 24. Parke-Bernet Galleries, Important American Furniture from the Estate of the Late Cornelius C. Moore, Newport, Rhode Island, New York, October 30, 1971, p. 58, lot 154. The author is grateful to Robert Trent for calling this piece to his attention. 25. Margaretta Lovell was the first scholar to suggest that Newport cabinetmakers endeavored to create a “predictable commodity.” (Lovell, “‘Such Furniture as Will Be Most Profitable,’” p. 33.) Robert Campbell, The London Tradesman (1747). 26. William Penn as quoted in Jack L. Lindsey, Worldly Goods: The Arts of Early Pennsylvania, 1680–1758 (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1999), p. 21. 27. Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), p. 235, fig. 5.23. 28. Lovell, “‘Such Furniture as Will Be Most Profitable,’” p. 33. 29. Sloane, “John Cahoone”, pp. 106–6.