1. Jared Sparks, The Writings of George Washington, 12 vols. (New York: Harper Brothers, 1848), 9: 385.
2. The Ohio Company was unable to raise the necessary money for the second installment on the purchase. They therefore retained only the land that had already been paid for, which amounted to about 750,000 acres.
3. Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, LL.D, edited by William Parker Cutler and Julia Perkins Cutler, 2 vols. (Cincinnati, Ohio: Robert Clarke and Company, 1888), 2: 396–97 (An Explanation of the Map which Delineates that Part of the Federal Lands Comprehended Between Pennsylvania West Line, the Rivers Ohio and Scioto, and Lake Erie).
4. History of Washington County, Ohio (Knightstown, Ind.: H. Z. Williams and Brothers Publishers, 1881), pp. 47–54.
5. The struggles of the Ohio Company are detailed in Andrew R. L. Cayton and Paula R. Riggs, City into Town: The City of Marietta, Ohio, 1788–1988 (Marietta, Ohio: Marietta College Dawes Memorial Library, 1991), pp. 47–79. For Williams, see S. P. Hildreth, Pioneer History: Being an Account of the First Examination of the Ohio Valley (Cincinnati, Ohio: H. W. Derby and Company, 1848), p. 354. Cayton and Riggs, City into Town, pp. 64–65.
6. For more on the growth of the settlement, see Cayton and Riggs, City into Town, pp. 58, 30. Hildreth, Pioneer History, p. 224. For Putnam, see History of Washington County, p. 54. The Records of the Original Proceedings of the Ohio Company, edited by Archer Butler Hulbert, 2 vols. (Marietta, Ohio: Marietta Historical Commission, 1917), 1: 76–77.
7. Timothy Flint, Indian Wars of the West (Cincinnati, Ohio: E. H. Flint, 1833), as quoted in History of Washington County, p. 49.
8. Fort Harmar was established at the juncture of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers (opposite the Muskingum from the site of Marietta) in 1785, in an attempt to oust squatters from the area. Kim M. Gruenwald, “Marietta’s Example of Settlement Pattern in the Ohio Country: A Reinterpretation,” Ohio History 105 (autumn 1996): 134.
9. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Decennial Census of Population, 1800–2000, by County, ONLINE, Ohio Department of Development, 2001, http://www.odod.state.oh.us/research/ files/p009110001.pdf (accessed April 2004).
10. Joseph Barker, Recollections of the First Settlement of Ohio, edited by George Jordan Blazier (Marietta, Ohio: Marietta College, 1958), p. 68. Guthrie went west with his brother, Stephen, also a woodworker, and his father, Joseph.
11. Quoted in Richard L. Bushman, The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), pp. xv–xvi, 384–87. Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio (Columbus, Ohio: Henry Howe and Son, 1888), pp. 779–80.
12. Account Book, Backus Woodbridge Collection, Ohio Historical Society (hereafter cited OHS), Columbus, Ohio.
13. History of Washington County, p. 376. Cayton and Riggs, City into Town, p. 58.
14. Kim M. Gruenwald, River of Enterprise: The Commercial Origins of Regional Identity in the Ohio Valley, 1790–1850 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), p. 43. Michael Allen, Western Rivermen, 1763–1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), p. 63.
15. Ohio Valley Furnishings, 1788–1830 (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio Historical Society, n.d.), pp. 1–2. See also Jane Sikes Hageman, Ohio Pioneer Artists: A Pictorial Review (Cincinnati, Ohio: Privately printed, 1993), pp. 24–29.
16. Barker, Recollections of the First Settlement of Ohio, p. 25. In a search of the extant newspapers of the area, only one advertisement indicated the availability of imported furniture. The advertisement was placed by Harmar chairmaker and retailer, Augustus Stone, and appeared in the American Friend and Marietta Gazette in August 1822. He reported having recently received a shipment of Windsor chairs from Pittsburgh.
17. Joshua Shipman Daybook, Dawes Memorial Library, Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio. The disorganized nature of Shipman’s daybook makes specific page or date references difficult. All future references to Shipman’s daybook refer to the single volume owned by the Dawes Memorial Library at Marietta College.
18. (Marietta) Ohio Gazette and Virginia Herald, February 6, 1809.
19. (Marietta) Ohio Gazette and Virginia Herald, November 17, 1808. American Friend and Marietta Gazette, May 16, 1827. James Backus Journal, Backus Woodbridge Collection, OHS.
20. (Marietta) Ohio Gazette and Virginia Herald, August 11, 1808. Account Book, Backus Woodbridge Collection, OHS.
21. Account Book, Backus Woodbridge Collection, OHS.
22. Probate file, William Mason, February 22, 1814, Washington County Courthouse (hereafter cited WCC), Marietta, Ohio.
23. Ten inventories were randomly selected from each of the following time periods: 1788–1795, 1796–1800, 1801–1805, 1806–1810, 1811–1815, 1816–1820, and 1821–1825.
24. Throughout his daybook, Shipman recorded prices in pounds, shillings, and pence. A few transactions in dollars and cents, including two loans in December 1797, provide a conversion rate between the two currencies: $1.00 equals six shillings. Charles Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal Period (1966; reprint, Atglen, Pa.: Schiffer Publishing, 2001), p. 179.
25. Shipman Daybook.
26. Albion Morris Dyer, First Ownership of Ohio Lands (Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1978), pp. 56–82. Deed Book, 1799, WCC: 193 deeds recorded, 122 sold locally, 40 to New Englanders and 31 to Virginians, New Yorkers, Marylanders, and Pennsylvanians. Wayne Jordan, “The People of Ohio’s First County,” Ohio History 49 (January 1940): 36–38. See also Cayton and Riggs, City into Town, and R. Douglass Hurt, The Ohio Frontier (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996). It should also be noted that southern Ohio, particularly the Virginia Military District just to the west of the Ohio Company lands, was flooded with Virginian settlers after 1800.
27. Account Book, Backus Woodbridge Collection, OHS. See also Gruenwald, River of Enterprise, p. 94.
28. (Marietta) American Friend, March 19, 1819.
29. Ray Swick, An Island Called Eden: The Story of Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett (Parkersburg, W.Va.: Blennerhassett Island Historical State Park, 2000), p. 20. The Blennerhassett Papers, edited by William H. Safford (Cincinnati, Ohio: Moore, Wilstach, Keys, and Company, 1861), p. 46.
30. Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett entertained frequently. By the end of 1800 Blennerhassett Island had become one of the social centers of the Ohio River Valley, on both sides of the river, and the Blennerhassetts themselves had become leading figures in Washington and Wood Counties. Because of their standing in the community, it is likely that the eastern furniture they imported, such as the Findlay chairs, had an impact on local fashions, but this impact would have only furthered the influences of the growing numbers of Southerners living in Washington County and the trade network. Harman Blennerhassett (Blennerhassett Island) to Dudley Woodbridge Jr. (Marietta), January 8, 1806, Backus Woodbridge Collection, OHS.
31. Inventory of Abigail Demmings, December 12, 1823, probate file, WCC. Gruenwald, River of Enterprise, pp. 103, 14.
32. See Baltimore Furniture (Baltimore, Md.: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1947), particularly nos. 41–42; Gregory R. Weidman, Furniture in Maryland, 1740–1940 (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1984); and William Voss Elder III and Lu Bartlett, John Shaw, Cabinetmaker of Annapolis (Baltimore, Md.: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1983), particularly no. 38.
33. History of Washington County, pp. 81, 587, 586.
34. Pennsylvania furniture with this type of vine-and-leaf decoration is primarily from Fayette, Washington, Westmoreland, and Greene Counties, all in the southwestern part of the state, very near the (West) Virginia and Maryland border. See Made in Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh: Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, 1982). Because of the large number of Pennsylvania settlers, as well as the close economic ties to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other parts of the state, Washington County furniture has similar details. Andrew Richmond, “The Fashionable Frontier: Thomas Ramsey, Windsor-Chairmaker in Marietta, Ohio,” Antiques 165, no. 5 (May 2004): 136–43. The discussion of the vine-and-leaf inlay here is only preliminary and is the focus of the author’s current research. See Ronald L. Hurst and Jonathan Prown, Southern Furniture, 1680–1830 (New York: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Harry N. Abrams, 1997); Kentucky Furniture (Louisville, Ky.: J. B. Speed Art Museum, 1974); Fancy Forms and Flowers: A Significant Group of Kentucky Inlaid Furniture (Lexington, Ky.: Headley-Whitney Museum, 2000); Derita Coleman Williams et al., The Art and Mystery of Tennessee Furniture and Its Makers through 1850 (Nashville: Tennessee Historical Society and Tennessee State Museum Foundation, 1988); Weidman, Furniture in Maryland; and Henry D. Green, Furniture of the Georgia Piedmont before 1830 (Atlanta, Ga.: High Museum of Art, 1976). The vine-and-leaf inlay motif does occur on furniture from the shop of Providence, Rhode Island, cabinetmaker Thomas Howard, but it is limited to a pair of crossed vines, most often on the skirts of diminutive sideboards. Howard’s work does not seem to be related to the meandering vine-and-leaf seen in figs. 21, 23–27. See cat. no. 48 in The John Brown House Loan Exhibition of Rhode Island Furniture (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1965).
35. See Lee Ellen Griffith, “Line and Berry Inlaid Furniture: A Regional Craft Tradition in Pennsylvania, 1682–1790” (master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1988).
36. Joseph Buell, “Journal,” in Samuel P. Hildreth, Pioneer History: Being an Account of the First Examinations of the Ohio Valley, and the Early Settlement of the Northwest Territory (1848; reprint, Athens, Ohio: E. M. Morrison, 1968), p. 163.
37. History of Washington County, pp. 466–68.
38. Inventory of Joseph Buell, November 5, 1812, probate file, WCC.
39. History of Washington County, pp. 466–68.
40. (Marietta) Ohio Gazette and Virginia Herald, March 20, 1809. Register, Court of Common Pleas, 1799–1801, WCC.
41. Daniel Buell to Joseph Buell, January 4, 1811, Buell Family Papers, OHS.
42. Inventory of Joseph Buell, November 5, 1812. The Windsor chairs probably included those at Buell’s tavern, the Red House.
43. Ibid. Nancy Goyne Evans, American Windsor Chairs and American Windsor Furniture: Specialized Forms (New York: Hudson Hill Press, 1996), p. 133.
44. Inventory of Joseph Buell. While the crossed vine-and-leaf on the skirt resembles that used by Thomas Howard of Providence, the similarity is almost certainly coincidental, especially when taken together with the strong Southern character of the other inlaid decoration on the desk.
?45. Information courtesy of Sumpter T. Priddy III. James Biser Whisker et al., Maryland Clockmakers (Cranbury, N.J.: Adams Brown Company, 1996), pp. 161–62, 196. The use of white pine, rather than yellow pine, along with tulip poplar as the secondary wood suggests that the inlay, but not the case, was imported from Maryland. Unfortunately, the dial and movement are missing and thus cannot provide any identifying marks. Beyond the use of indigenous woods, other evidence supports the theory Buell acquired his furniture from a local maker. There is little evidence that anyone but the exceptionally wealthy (i.e., Harman Blennerhassett) imported furniture. While Buell relied heavily on his credit locally, his lack of ready money may have made it difficult to import furniture from centers where he had few business contacts. Living and running a tavern at the Point would have put Buell in touch with people capable of importing furniture; however, it is far more likely that he purchased his furnishings from craftsmen who patronized his establishment. Among the debtors listed in Buell’s inventory were cabinetmakers Joseph Barker, Stephen Guthrie, Alexander Hill, and Joshua Shipman (Inventory of Joseph Buell). Hill, who owed Buell’s estate $74.20, advertised his use of mahogany in 1809 (Ohio Gazette, February 6, 1809). Buell clearly patronized Shipman, who sold him a dining table and two bedsteads in May 1798 (Shipman Daybook). Buell also had a close personal relationship with Shipman, as the two men planned their journey from Connecticut to Ohio together (Mary Walton Ferris, Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines: A Memorial Volume [Milwaukee, Wis.: Privately printed, 1931], p. 740).
46. This technique seems to have Scottish origins, and typically, the light wood veneer is colored. Information courtesy of Sumpter T. Priddy III.
47. Cayton and Riggs, City into Town, pp. 67–68.
48. Cayton and Riggs, City into Town, p. 20. See Gruenwald, “Marietta’s Example of Settlement Pattern,” pp. 125–44; and Timothy J. Shannon, “The Ohio Company and the Meaning of Opportunity in the American West, 1786–1795,” The New England Quarterly 64, no. 3 (September 1991): 393–413. Cutler and Cutler, eds., Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, 2: 399.
49. Cayton and Riggs, City into Town, pp. 21, 87. Andrew Cayton’s numerous works finely detail the politics of settlement in the Ohio territory, particularly The Frontier Republic: Ideology and Politics in the Ohio Country, 1780–1825 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1986).
50. Gruenwald, “Marietta’s Example of Settlement Pattern,” pp. 140–41.
51. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, “Why We Need Things,” in History from Things: Essays on Material Culture, edited by Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1993), p. 22. Philip Zea, “Rural Craftsman and Design,” in New England Furniture: The Colonial Era, edited by Brock Jobe and Myrna Kaye (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984), p. 47.
52. See Ann Smart Martin, “Makers, Buyers, and Users: Consumerism and a Material Culture Framework,” Winterthur Portfolio 28 (1993): 141–57; Bushman, The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities; and Of Consuming Interests: The Style of Life in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Cary Carson (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994). |