1. Robert Blair St. George, The Wrought Covenant: Source Material for the Study of Craftsmen and Community in Southeastern New England, 1620–1700 (Brockton, Mass.: Brockton Art Center and Fuller Memorial, 1979); Robert F. Trent, “New Insights on Early Rhode Island Furniture,” in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 1999), pp. 209–23; and Erik K. Gronning and Dennis Carr, “Rhode Island Gateleg Tables,” Antiques 165, no. 5 (May 2004): 122–27.

2. Irving Whitall Lyon, The Colonial Furniture of New England (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1891), p. 202, fig. 102; Frances Clary Morse, Furniture of the Olden Time (New York: Macmillan Co., 1901), p. 224. Albert Sack, Fine Points of Furniture: Early American (New York: Crown Publishers, 1950), pp. 238, 240. Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque discussed two tables with a history of ownership in Rhode Island in American Furniture at Chipstone (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), pp. 278–79.

3. Augustin-Charles d’Aviler, Cours d’architecture qui comprend les ordres de Vignole. 2 vols. (Paris: Chez Nicolas Langlois, 1691), 1: 319, pl. 94. This book was reissued several times during the first half of the eighteenth century. The authors thank Victor Chinnery for providing information about British antecedents for Newport turnings—particularly the staircase at Harvard House (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust)—and for sharing his knowledge of related English furniture turnings. For a staircase with similar details, see Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England): An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in London, vol. 1, Westminster Abbey (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1924), pl. 179. This stair was added to the Little Cloister of Westminster Abbey in the late seventeenth century. A similar staircase is illustrated in Walter H. Godfrey, The English Staircase: An Historical Account of Its Characteristic Types to the End of the XVIIIth Century (London: B. T. Batsford, 1911), pls. 40, 41.

4. Luke Beckerdite, “The Early Furniture of Christopher and Job Townsend,” in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 2000), pp. 7–10. Myron O. Stackiw, The Early Architecture and Landscapes of the Narragansett Basin, vol. 1, Newport (Newport, R.I.: Vernacular Architecture Forum, 2001), pp. 107–9.

5. For more on the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House, see Antoinette F. Dowling and Vincent J. Scully Jr., The Architectural Heritage of Newport Rhode Island: 1640–1915, 2nd ed. (New York: Bramhall House, 1967), pp. 435–37, pls. 29–37; Antoinette F. Dowling, Early Homes of Rhode Island (Richmond, Va.: Garrett & Massie, 1937), pp. 70–72. The date of this house is based on recent dendrochronology. The authors thank Myron Stackiw for providing this information and discussing his study of the house. Dean F. Failey, Long Island Is My Nation: The Decorative Arts and Craftsmen, 1640–1830, 2nd ed. (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, 1998), p. 28, fig. 26. St. George, Wrought Covenant, p. 44, fig. 34b. Roderick H. Blackburn et al., Dutch Colonial Homes in America (New York: Rizzoli, 2002), p. 84. Originally constructed as a draw-bar table, the Floyd table is a unique New England example. All other known draw-bar tables originate in New York, and very few are known with related turnings.

6. For the eight known tables, see Northeast Auctions, New Hampshire Auction, Portsmouth, N.H., August 1–3, 2003, lot 778; Ruth Davidson, “Living with Antiques: The Connecticut Home of Mrs. C. McGregory Well Jr.,” Antiques 81, no. 1 (January 1962): 101–3; Sotheby’s, Important Americana: The Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Henry P. Deyerle, Charlottesville, Va., May 26–27, 1995, lot 372; Christie’s, Fine American Furniture, Silver, and Decorative Arts, New York, September 19, 1981, lot 539 (Easton table); Gronning and Carr, “Rhode Island Gateleg Tables,” pp. 122–23 (Bernard & S. Dean Levy, New York); Metropolitan Museum of Art; private collection, Milwaukee; and private collection, Connecticut. Trent, “New Insights on Early Rhode Island Furniture,” pp. 220–21. The current owner of the Alden-Southworth-Cooke table provided its provenance based on a letter from Bertram Lippincott III, dated May 19, 1996. The table illustrated in figure 13 resided in the Maudsley-Garner-Watson-Pitman House in Newport during the twentieth century. The drawer pull on the table illustrated in figure 14 has moldings similar to those found on newel pendants in Trinity Church and the Colony House, both in Newport.

7. A New York table with gates pivoting at the same end is in a private collection in Milwaukee. For English examples with similar gate arrangements, see John T. Kirk, American Furniture and the British Tradition to 1830 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), p. 317.

8. The table illustrated in figure 1 is the only Rhode Island example with laminated legs known.

9. Two other tables not illustrated here are published in Morse, Furniture of the Olden Time, p. 224; and in an advertisement of Melvin Hubley, Antiques 44, no. 5 (November 1953): 408. A third table is in a private collection.

10. The two other tables are illustrated in Skinner’s, Fine Americana, Bolton, Mass., May 30, 1986, lot 132; and Olga O. Ottoson, “Living with Antiques: The Ryerson House in New Jersey,” Antiques 128, no. 4 (October 1985): 756, pl. 3.

11. For more on the table illustrated in figure 22, see Sack, Fine Points of Furniture, pp. 238, 240; Stanley Stone, “Rhode Island Furniture at Chipstone, Part I,” Antiques 91, no. 2 (February 1967): 211; Roque, American Furniture at Chipstone, pp. 278–79; and Trent, “New Insights on Early Rhode Island Furniture,” pp. 220–21.

12. With its conventional gate arrangement and top pinned to the legs, the construction of the table illustrated in figure 25 has parallels with those in group two. However, these features cannot be considered diagnostic since they occur on other colonial gateleg tables. The molding between the turned balls of a table at the Winterthur Museum is similar to the fat astragal on the necks of the balusters of the table illustrated in figure 25 (John A. H. Sweeney, Winterthur Illustrated [Winterthur, Del.: Winterthur Museum, 1963], p. 27).

13. A related stool is illustrated in Edgar G. Miller Jr., American Antique Furniture: A Book for Amateurs, 2 vols. (New York: Dover Publications, 1966), 2: 849, fig. 1695 (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Unpublished stools similar to the one shown in figure 27 are in the collections of Bernard & S. Dean Levy (formerly owned by Katherine Prentis Murphy) and the Winterthur Museum. For an object with turnings similar to those on the legs of the stool illustrated in figure 28, see Wallace Nutting, Furniture of the Pilgrim Century: 1620–1720 (New York: Bonanza Books, 1921), p. 433 (second example).

14. For other examples, see Trent, “New Insights on Early Rhode Island Furniture,” p. 220 (Winterthur); Lyon, Colonial Furniture, p. 202, fig. 102 (Metropolitan Museum of Art); Jonathan L. Fairbanks, “American Antiques in the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. Bybee, Part 1,” Antiques 92, no. 6 (December 1967): 834 (formerly owned by Henry A. Hoffman of Barrington, R.I., and subsequently destroyed in a fire); Alice Winchester, “Living with Antiques: Time Stone Farm in Marlboro, Massachusetts,” Antiques 59, no. 6 (June 1951): 462; Sotheby Parke-Bernet, Important Collection of 17th, 18th & 19th Century American Furniture & Decorations, New York, June 23, 1972, lot 21; and Nutting, Furniture of the Pilgrim Century, p. 433 (first example). A related table has a long history of use in the John Stevens stonecutting shop in Newport. That business has been in continuous operation since 1705.

15. Another tavern table associated with group three is illustrated in Nutting, Furniture of the Pilgrim Century, p. 432. The other fixed-top table is illustrated in Skinner, Fine Americana Including the Private Collection of Kenneth Hammitt of Woodbury, Conn., Boston, Mass., October 28–29, 2004, lot 114. Two gateleg tables have similar domed feet, but the transitions from the turnings to the square sections of the legs are different from the tables in group three. See Sotheby’s, Important Americana, New York, January 30, 1988, lot 1805; and Sotheby’s, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Jeffords, New York, October 28–29, 2004, lot 295.

16. The table has a drawer supported on a central runner, a conventional gate arrangement, a top pinned to the legs, and hinges attached outside the frame.

17. Currently three candlestands of this form are known. Two have circular tops and the third, illustrated here, has an octagonal top. One stand deaccessioned by the Art Institute of Chicago is currently in a private collection. See Nutting, Furniture of the Pilgrim Century, p. 467 (example on far right); and Skinner, Fine Americana, Boston, Mass., October 30–31, 1993, lot 336. Another stand in a private collection is illustrated in American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, 10 vols. (Alexandria, Va.: Highland House Publishers, 1989), 6: 1572, fig. p4673.

18. Nina Fletcher Little, Little by Little: Six Decades of Collecting American Decorative Arts (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, 1998), pp. 215, 218, fig. 286. The Little stand (fig. 39) was purchased through Roger Bacon from George Cousidine, who discovered it in a house in Providence. A nearly identical stand is at the Winterthur Museum (Sweeney, Winterthur Illustrated, p. 25).

19. David Sprague, a “turner,” worked in Scituate, a small town near Providence, in 1732 (Israel Arnold v. David Sprague, June term, 1732, Providence County Court of Common Pleas Record Book, vol. 1, p. 38). Inventory of Judah Wordin of Westerly, October 10, 1727, with an addition made March 28, 1748, Westerly Town Council and Probate Records, vol. 3 (1719–1731), p. 151. Gateleg tables were typically called “oval” tables during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Inventory of Reuben Peckham, joiner, East Greenwich, East Greenwich Probate Records, vol. 1, pp. 167–70. Sale of estate of Reuben Peckham, May 3, 1737, in William Allen, yeoman, North Kingstown, v. John Peckham, laborer, Little Compton, and Sarah Peckham, widow, Newport, Newport County Court of Common Pleas, May term 1741, decon 62. Beckerdite, “Christopher and Job Townsend,” pp. 1–30.

20. 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 for the Chipstone Foundation, 1996), p. 298.