Footnotes

1. Alice Winchester to Mrs. Sherman, September 11, 1940; Herbert O. Brigham (librarian of the Newport Historical Society [hereafter cited NHS]) to Alice Winchester, September 30, 1940; and Alice Winchester to Herbert O. Brigham, October 15, 1940, Baker genealogy file, NHS. The author thanks Ron Potvin for sharing this story and the pertinent references. George H. Richardson (1838—1916) records the brief entry "Benj Baker, at the Point" in his list of "Furniture Makers or Cabinet Makers" within his larger manuscript, "Occupations: Craftsmen in Newport, And other Information about the Town's Inhabitants," G.H.R. scrapbook no. 982, p. 29, NHS. Baker is mentioned as a Newport cabinetmaker in Ethel Hall Bjerkoe, The Cabinetmakers of America (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1957), p. 36. Baker was described as a "Joiner" in an October 9, 1777, account in Dr. William Hunter's Physician's Book (453), p. 25, NHS.
2. Jeanne Vibert Sloane, "John Cahoone and the Newport Furniture Industry," in New England Furniture: Essays in Memory of Benno M. Forman (Boston: Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, 1987), pp. 88—122. Martha H. 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), pp. 109—61.
3. Willoughby, "The Accounts of Job Townsend, Jr.," p. 119, table 3. The figures of furniture exported from Rhode Island as recorded in the "Imports and Exports (America) Ledger, 1768—1774" (Public Records Office, Kew, England) are calculated in Anne Rogers Haley, "Whither Bound? Exports of Rhode Island Furniture on the Eve of the American War of Independence, 1768—1772" (manuscript), p. 6. I am grateful to Anne Rogers Haley for this information.
4. Wendy A. Cooper, In Praise of America: American Decorative Arts, 1650—1830 (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1980), p. 27. Charles J. Burns, "The Newport Legacy of Miss Doris Duke: A History of the Newport Restoration Foundation and a Catalogue of Its Collection at the Samuel Whitehorne Museum" (master's thesis, Trinity College, 1995), cat. no. 33. Parke-Bernet Galleries, Important 18th Century American Furniture and Decorations, New York, May 22, 1971, lot 199. The high chest is also illustrated on the cover of this catalogue.
5. Cooper, In Praise of America, pp. 27—28. Cooper suggests that Baker may have had a hand in making the high chest; however, she questions the location of the signature. Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), p. 194. At the end of his chapter on the work of John Townsend, Moses includes detailed photographs of the high chest illustrated in fig. 1 in comparison to similar views of two other high chests, one made by John Townsend and another attributed to him. Jeanne Vibert Sloane attributes the high chest illustrated in fig. 1 to Baker ("John Cahoone," p. 92 and fig. 1). In his master's thesis on the Doris Duke collection, Charles Burns questions the traditional attribution of the high chest to John Goddard, noting the formal similarities to John Townsend's work. He stops short of attributing the object to Townsend, however, citing the presence of the Baker signature and the collaboration between the two cabinetmakers noted in the Baker account book (Burns, "The Newport Legacy of Miss Doris Duke," cat. no. 33). Similarly, Gerald W. R. Ward suggests that both Townsend and Baker may have collaborated on the chest in "‘America's Contribution to Craftsmanship': The Exaltation and Interpretation of Newport Furniture," in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 1999), p. 233, fig. 6. In addition to the high chest signed and dated by John Townsend, the following pieces have carved shells with fleur-de-lis motifs: a high chest at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; a signed and dated document chest in the collection of the Chipstone Foundation; and a three-shell bureau in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State. Willoughby, "The Accounts of Job Townsend, Jr.," p. 115.
6. Townsend's ownership of property on the Point in Newport is discussed in Moses, Master Craftsmen, pp. 65, 67.
7. Furniture maker and author Jeffrey Greene discovered the signature in 2001. Data Research Report, Preservation Society of Newport County (PSNC.1707). The author thanks John Bartosh for assisting in the examination of the dressing table at Hunter House and Rebecca Kelly for providing information from the object file.
8. The dressing table is illustrated in Ralph E. Carpenter Jr., The Arts and Crafts of Newport, Rhode Island, 1640—1820 (Newport, R.I.: The Preservation Society of Newport County, 1954), cat. no. 61. It was later purchased by the Preservation Society from its owner, Mrs. Philip G. Birckhead. She was a descendant of William Hunter, Esq., the owner of the house on Washington Street in Newport where the object is now displayed
9. Philip Zea and Robert C. Cheney, Clock Making in New England, 1725—1825: An Interpretation of the Old Sturbridge Village Collection (Sturbridge, Mass.: Old Sturbridge Village, 1992), pp. 14—15, 163. The clock descended in the family of its original owner, Abraham Brown of Tiverton, Rhode Island. The clock is also discussed in Richard Champlin, "Thomas Claggett: Silversmith, Swordsman, Clockmaker," Newport History 49, no. 163 (summer 1976): 60—62. Baker's accounts with Claggett are mentioned briefly in Richard L. Champlin, "William Claggett and His Clockmaking Family," Newport History 47, no. 155 (summer 1974): 182.
10. Sloane, "John Cahoone," p. 88.
11. Death notice for Benjamin Baker, Rhode-Island Republican (Newport), January 9, 1822. The marriage of Benjamin Baker and Martha Simpson at the Second Congregational Church in Newport on January 28, 1759, is recorded in James N. Arnold, Vital Records of Rhode Island, 1636—1850, 21 vols. (Providence, R.I.: Narragansett Historical Publishing Company, 1896), 8: 458. James Easton et al. v. Benjamin Baker, Newport County Court of Common Pleas, May term 1764, case 214, Record Book G, pp. 271, 305. The case was appealed to the Newport County Supreme Court and heard during the May term 1765, Record Book E, p. 276. The case was appealed to "the King in Council in Great Britain" and "refused by the Court, for that it doth not appear to them that the Title of the Land is in dispute but the Rent only." A deed in the Newport City Hall records the sale of lot 93, Second Division, on Easton's Point to Benjamin Baker, "Cabinet Maker" of Newport, on June 10, 1800 (Proprietors of Easton's Point to Benjamin Baker, May 10, 1800, Newport Land Evidence, vol. 12, p. 102). Baker bequeathed this lot on Elm Street to his daughter Ellenor, wife of Henry Goddard (Will of Benjamin Baker, December 5, 1821, Newport Probate Records, vol. 11, p. 117). Goddard was the executor of Baker's estate. The latter's heirs sold this land to Francis L. Tripp (Susan Howard et al. to Francis L. Tripp, April 10, 1846, Newport Land Evidence, vol. 26, pp. 283—84). The "Goddard" chair passed down in the family of Benjamin Baker's daughter Susan (m. Henry Howland). Likewise, the inventory of Baker's son William lists a large percentage of furniture that may give further insight into Baker's production: "One Mahogany Desk $20. Two Mahogany Card Tables $20. One Dining Table $4 / Eight Chairs Hair Bottoms $12. One large looking glass $10. One small ditto $5 / Two Tables and one Stand $7. Eleven Chairs $6 . . . / . . . One Table and One Chest $1.50 / One Small Writing Desk $4. Three Bedsteads and Bedding $175" (Inventory of William H. Baker, December 15, 1803, Newport Probate Records, vol. 4, p. 114).
12. Thomas Hornsby, "Newport, Past and Present," Newport Daily Advertiser, December 8, 1849, as quoted in Sloane, "John Cahoone," p. 92. This quote is repeated in George Champlin Mason, Reminiscences of Newport (Newport: Charles E. Hammett Jr., 1894), p. 49; and Carpenter, The Arts and Crafts of Newport, p. 9. Sloane, p. 104, argues that Newport cabinetmakers commonly exported red cedar desks, whereas there is little evidence for this type of desk being used locally. Baker also sold a "Redseder Desk" to William Wever in 1775. A May 18, 1785, receipt with Baker's signature and a credit for repairing a mahogany bedstead for Joseph Lopez is in the Aaron Lopez Papers, box 168, folder 6, NHS.
13. Baker's whereabouts during the Revolution are not recorded in his account book. A cryptic note in the Rhode Island State Archives records: "John Mowry bill for food and drink delivered to Benjamin Baker by order of John Northup and B Gardner," December session 1776, C#0292—General Treasurer: Accounts Allowed—Rhode Island State Archives. A letter written to His Excellency the Commander and Chief at Newport included Benjamin Baker among a list of subscribers who, "being Absent from our Familiys [sic] at the Time of the Emancipation of Newport," sought admittance to the city (Rhode Island State Archives, List of Persons Permitted to Reside in the State, December 2, 1779, Council of War—Letters and Accounts, vol. 1, p. 128). Baker's association with Newport joiner Thomas Atwood is indicated by an October 1761 account entry for one barrel of flour, £30.8, that the former gave the latter. Sampson Shearman v. Thomas Atwood, Newport County Court of Common Pleas, November term 1762, case 259. Death notice for Benjamin Baker: "died, In this town, on Sunday last, Mr. Benjamin Baker, aged 87. Funeral from his late dwelling, at the house of the widow Helme, near the North Battery, this afternoon, at 2 o'clock. Relations and friends are invited to attend without further notice." Another death notice for Baker appeared in the Newport Mercury, Saturday, January 12, 1822, vol. 61, no. 3118. The death of his wife, Martha, on December 26, 1815, at age 80, is recorded in the Rhode-Island Republican, Newport, Wednesday, January 17, 1816, vol. 7, no. 42.