1. Tench Coxe to Messrs. Bullock, Shields and Claypoole, September 2, 1786, Coxe Family Papers, 1638–1897, col. 2049, Historical Society of Pennsylvania (hereafter cited HSP). “Arbitration was frequently resorted to as a substitute for court proceedings in the eighteenth century,” particularly among Quakers who “had an aversion to court proceedings.” This usually involved a three-person committee formed to settle the differences in a commercial dispute. Each party selected one arbitrator, usually someone familiar with the business activity of the dispute, and both parties selected the third. Once the committee was chosen, each party submitted their grievances. The judgment of the arbitrators could be binding under a rule of court and enforced by law. The author thanks David W. Maxey, of Drinker, Biddle & Reath in Philadelphia and Bruce H. Mann, Professor of Law and History, University of Pennsylvania Law School, for information on arbitration proceedings.
2. Marriage certificate for David and Sarah Evans, November 22, 1775, Abington Monthly Meeting of Friends, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College. Obituary for David Evans, Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, January 3, 1820. Will of David Evans, September 27, 1745, file 47, bk. H, p. 80, Philadelphia County Wills, Office of the Register of Wills, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (microfilm, Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera). According to historian Gary Nash, fifty-five percent of artisans between 1681 and the late 1750s had estates valued at £51–£200 sterling, and twenty-five percent had estates valued at over £200 sterling. Nash described the latter group as having “a very comfortable standard of living.” Gary Nash, “Artisans and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia,” in The Craftsman in Early America, edited by Ian M.G. Quimby (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1984), p. 66. The Pennsylvania Gazette, June 29, 1758. The Pennsylvania Gazette, May 25, 1758. Administration Papers of Evan Evans, May 23, 1758, file 32, bk. G, p. 122, Philadelphia City Archives.
3. Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends, Membership List, 1759–1762, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College. Minutes of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, April 24, 1763, Friends Historical Library. “Gardner” was spelled “Gardiner” by Evans.
4. Evans’ apprenticeship is documented in the receipt book of Philadelphia merchant Samuel Morris: “Received 1767 July 13th of Samuel Morris Esqr. the Sum of Five Pounds Ten Shillings in full for a Tea Table Recd. For my Masters Cliffton and Gillingham [signed] David Evans.” Harrold E. Gillingham Papers, “Cliffton and Gillingham file,” HSP. The author thanks Nancy Goyne Evans for this reference. It is unknown whether David Evans’ mother arranged the apprenticeship after the early death of her husband in 1758, or if the Quaker Meeting took control of the situation, as was a common practice with fatherless children. Most apprenticeship contracts stipulated that the master teach the apprentice the “art and mystery” of the trade and provide room, board, and some schooling. Ian M.G. Quimby, Apprenticeship in Colonial Philadelphia (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985), pp. 1–25.
5. Pennsylvania Chronicle, August 6, 1770, as quoted in the Gillingham Papers, “Cliffton and Gillingham file,” HSP. When their partnership ended, Gillingham left Cliffton’s shop and opened his business on “Second-Street, a little below Dr. Bond’s.” Pennsylvania Chronicle, August 29, 1768, as quoted in the Gillingham Papers, “Cliffton and Gillingham file,” HSP; David Evans’ account with Benjamin Loxley, April 1, 1773, David Evans Daybooks, 1774–1812, 3 vols., Am 9115, HSP. Unless otherwise noted, all subsequent information on Evans and his career is taken from these daybooks. If a reference to a daybook entry in the text is accompanied by a full date, it will not be cited in the notes.
6. Evans Daybooks, December 10, 1776, January and February 1777 (back of vol. 1), HSP.
7. Jacob E. Cooke, “Introduction,” Guide to the Coxe Family Papers, HSP.
8. Ibid.
9. Tench Coxe to David Evans, January 23, 1781, Philadelphia Land Deeds, bk. D, no. 4, p. 279, Philadelphia City Archives. In 1790, Evans began work on this house, using William Garrigues as a contractor. He kept detailed records of his transactions with various subcontractors, including bricklayers. Coxe Papers, April 24, 1786, HSP.
10. Tench Coxe to Edmond Milne, July 7, 1781 and Tench Coxe to Edmond Milne, July 9, 1781, Coxe Papers, reel 38, HSP.
11. Ibid.
12. Descriptions and details of the furniture come from both Evans’ daybook entries for December 29, 1781, and the bills he sent to Tench Coxe (Coxe Papers, n.d. and May 14, 1774, HSP). Coxe had postponed the marriage until he received a valuable and profitable cargo from Europe. Coxe’s aunt and soon-to-be mother-in-law, Rebecca, wrote to him:
I was much surprised my Dear Sir at your fixing so early a day after Becky’s return home as renders it impossible to get what things are absolutely necessary on the occation unless love shou’d add wings & you can find some quicker method...[the wedding items] must come at least a week beforehand in that case you shall have my Consent to compleat an Union.... I never had a thought of delaying the affair a day longer.Coxe Papers, n.d. (probably 1781–1782), HSP.
13. Bill from David Evans to Tench Coxe, Coxe Papers, n.d., HSP.
14. Coxe Papers, n.d. (1781) (date given to document is incorrect); and June 18, 1782, HSP.
15. Evans Daybooks, February 27, 1783, HSP. David Evans to Tench Coxe, February 23, 1783, Coxe Papers, HSP; Coxe Papers, n.d. [1781], HSP. (Date given to document is incorrect.)
16. Tench Coxe as quoted in James F. Shepard, “British America and the Atlantic Economy,” The Economy of Early America: The Revolutionary Period, 1763–1790, edited by Ronald Hoffman, et al. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia for the United States Capitol Historical Society, 1988), p. 23.
17. Minutes of the Northern District of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, August 22, 1786, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College. The names of the arbitrators are known only from Tench Coxe’s letter of complaint, which was addressed to “Messers. Bullock, Shields and Claypoole.” George Claypoole and Jesse Williams to Tench Coxe, August 30, 1786, Coxe Papers, HSP.
18. David Evans to Tench Coxe, January 3, 1787, Coxe Papers, HSP. On December 26, 1786, the Minutes of the Northern District of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting reported that Evans had finally complied with the advice of Morris and Garrigues and the matter was considered closed.
19. Evans Daybooks (back of vol. 1), August 29, 1776, HSP: “Memorandum of work for Thos Powell to be done in 3 Weeks, 6 Chairs mohogany Gothic Back Price 11 a Beaurow Table 5. . 10 Card Table 3- Dining Table 4 . . 10 all Malbrough with 2 Tea Boards.”
20. Although Philadelphia currency was inflated in 1780, Evans’ earnings that year were significantly more than in 1781. Evans Daybooks, May 1781, HSP.
21. Coxe Papers, August 24, 1786, HSP.
22. Tench Coxe to Messrs. Bullock, Shields and Claypoole, September 2, 1786, Coxe Papers, HSP.
23. John and Elizabeth Cadwalader purchased elaborately carved rococo furniture for their principal rooms and conservative forms for secondary spaces. On August 27, 1770, William Savery billed them for walnut chamber tables, walnut chairs with leather and canvas bottoms, “rush bottom chairs,” and other furnishings (Nicholas B. Wainwright, Colonial Grandeur in Philadelphia: The House and Furniture of General John Cadwalader [Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1964], pp. 37–60). The walnut chairs probably resembled the example illustrated in fig. 15.
24. Burd ordered a pair of card tables; the location of the matching card table is unknown. Although the table shown in fig. 16 has been taken apart and reassembled, the quality of its construction is evident. For design book engravings of neat and plain furniture, see Thomas Chippendale, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director (1754), pls. 35, 46, 54, 60, 77, 85, 86, 96, 102. William Penn as quoted in Jack Lindsey, Worldly Goods: The Arts of Early Pennsylvania, 1680–1758 (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1999), p. 21. William MacPherson Hornor, Blue Book: Philadelphia Furniture (1931; reprint, Alexandria, Va.: Highland House, 1988), pls. 225, 257.
25. Beatrice B. Garvan, Federal Philadelphia, 1785–1825: The Athens of the Western World (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987), p. 20.
26. The London-trained artisan in Gostelowe’s shop was Thomas Jones. Deborah M. Federhen, “Politics and Style: An Analysis of the Products and Patrons of Jonathan Gostelowe and Thomas Affleck,” in Shaping a National Culture: The Philadelphia Experience, 1750–1800, edited by Catherine E. Hutchins (Winterthur, Del.: Winterthur Museum, 1994), pp. 283–311.
27. The clock case illustrated in fig. 22 descended in the Sergeant family. It is attributed to Evans based on oral tradition and its similarity to the case described in Sergeant’s March 28, 1788 entry in Evans’ daybook: “a Mohogany Clock Case, Square Head & corners” (Hornor, Blue Book, p. 129).
28. Cooke, “Guide to Coxe Family Papers,” HSP. |