“First Rate & Fashionable:”

Handmade Nineteenth Century Furniture

at the Tennessee State Museum

By Michael W. Bell

            The Tennessee State Museum’s collection of pre-industrial furniture enriches our lives as outstanding decorative art, and offers us an opportunity to interpret the lives of the Tennessee artisans who created it. In an age of nuclear energy and mass production, these surviving examples of regional furniture with their hand-planed surfaces enable us to imagine a time when Tennessee cabinetware was made meticulously by hand by local craftsmen.

            Nineteenth century Tennessee cabinetmakers seldom signed their work and usually let their products speak for themselves, reflecting the tastes of makers and patrons in each region of the state. The museum’s collection is significant in that ten of the thirty pieces examined in this study retain signatures or other specific information about their origins. Six of these pieces were signed by their makers. Owners and merchants also signed furniture. An 1815 inscription by the unknown owner of a Nashville sideboard reads “January 24^th 1815 Bought this Side Board of/ Capt. James Hicks, price $129.” An 1840s secretary is inscribed, “Titus Woods & Co./ Memphis,” documenting the commission merchants who sold it. And a secretary and bookcase made about 1865 has stenciled on its back: “Manufactured by J. D. Miller/ Funeral Undertaker & Manufacturer of Furniture/ Franklin/ Tenn.”

            The inscriptions on these pieces allow us to match other pieces which have identical construction with their cabinetmakers. This documented furniture, together with early nineteenth century newspaper advertisements, court records, and private papers, helps recreate the world in which these craftsmen lived.

            It is surprising how quickly cabinetmakers and their sense of style arrived on the frontier, making cabinetware to replace the bare rudiments of furnishings used by the first settlers. Their pieces, often derivative of furniture back east, probably reminded immigrants to Tennessee of their places of origin and made them feel more at home. When John Donelson reached Nashville on April 24, 1780, he “found a few log cabins which have been built on a cedar bluff above the Lick by Capt. Robertson and his company.”^[1] Yet only twenty years later, cabinetmaker Joseph McBride’s fine desk was made for Donelson’s family.

            The Great Wagon Road through the Valley of Virginia was the major thoroughfare traveled by newcomers into the Tennessee backcountry. The population of the Tennessee Territory doubled from about 32,000 in 1790 to almost 67,000 in 1796, the year that Tennessee became a state. By 1810 the number had grown to 261,727—nearly a 400 percent increase. The immigrants were mainly of English, Scot, and Scots-Irish ancestry. This flood of settlers, seeking land and a fresh start, was soon buying furniture made by local cabinetmakers. Tradesmen were drawn to the frontier looking for less competitive markets than the ones they left behind in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas. By 1850 there were over one million people living in the state.^[2]

            Household furniture was produced in rural and urban cabinet shops. Woodworkers in outlying regions often combined farming with carpentry and made less sophisticated furniture than that made in the developing towns. During the winter when their fields lay idle, these farmer-artisans could increase their incomes with bench work. As the state’s settlement moved westward, the development of large plantations in Middle and West Tennessee increased the demand for elegant pieces to furnish new dining rooms and parlors. Cabinetmakers were eager to accommodate wealthy planters with pieces like the sideboard signed by Fayetteville’s Samuel S. Holding about 1820.

            Particularly in rural areas, woodworking trades overlapped, enabling artisans to widen their markets. Wheelwrights used their woodturning skills to make wagon wheels as well as chairs with turned parts. Cabinetmakers made coffins and added the undertaking business to that of furniture making. House joiners and carpenters made cupboards, chests, and other utilitarian forms to answer the needs of their patrons. Chairmakers, who painted their Windsor and fancy chairs, supplemented their incomes by painting signs and houses. Cabinetmakers and carpenters also did repair work to keep the cash flowing. Nashville carpenters John Austin and Thomas Welch recorded several repairs in their daybook through the 1820s. Typical entries include: “to putting rockers to chair,” “to shortening bedstead,” “to putting top to table,” “cut hole in chair,” and “to mending dining table.”^[3]

            Native timber used for furniture making was sawn locally at reciprocating sawmills, fitted with straight, vertical saw blades that moved up and down. These saws were first driven by water and later powered by steam. Lumber sawn by circular saw blades began to appear in southern furniture about 1835.^[4] The favored cabinet wood in Tennessee was cherry. Its color and grain made it suitable to be used as a substitute for more expensive mahogany, which was imported. Walnut, also native to Tennessee, was the second most desired cabinet wood. A cabinetmaker could conserve his more valuable lumber by making the front of a piece with cherry or walnut and then staining its cheaper tulip poplar sides to match. Decorative mahogany, rosewood, and satinwood veneers were imported for use on more expensive furniture. Maple was used primarily for chair parts and bed posts, although some curly maple was used in case work. Red and white oak, hickory, and ash were also used for chair parts.

            The secondary or unseen wood in furniture, for instance, the wood used for drawer bottoms and the backs of case pieces, was usually native tulip poplar or yellow pine. Yellow pine grew in the higher altitudes of East Tennessee. White pine, occasionally used as a secondary wood, was listed in J. B. Killebrew’s 1874 edition of Resources of Tennessee. It was described as being less abundant than yellow pine, growing on the slopes of the eastern mountains and “found locally on the Cumberland Table Land.”^[5] Cedar and cypress also found some use as secondary woods.

            Inlay was used as a furniture decoration to the greatest extent in East Tennessee. There was less in Middle Tennessee cabinetware, and West Tennessee had the least number of inlaid pieces. Lighter-colored woods like maple and holly were inserted to contrast with the darker cherry and walnut furniture surfaces. Ornamentation included line inlay, as well as pictorial inlay with motifs such as fans, eagles, rope and tassel, gamecocks, and compass stars. The museum’s Wilson County desk features owner Samuel McAdoo’s inlaid initials on the fall board. Carving was another method of adorning furniture. The quarter-columns in the Donelson family desk have flutes (concave grooves) carved into them. A fruit basket, eagle heads, acanthus leaves, urns, and animal-paw feet are among the elaborate carvings on John E. Rose’s secretary. Other carved motifs included fans and shells. Furniture could also be enhanced with painted decoration.

            Water-based and alcohol-based stains were used to bring out the full beauty of wood grain, to disguise cheaper woods, and to color the lighter sapwood of a board to match its adjacent heartwood. The colorants could be made from local natural materials such as walnut bark and butternut hulls.

            Furniture made of mahogany, cherry, and walnut was usually finished with copal varnish to add luster to the wood grain and protect it from moisture and surface grime. This varnish is made by dissolving gum copal (a natural brittle resin extracted from tropical trees) in hot oil and then thinning it with turpentine. Shellac was also available as a furniture finish. It is made with lac (the resinous secretion of certain Asian insects) dissolved in alcohol. Beeswax could also be used, melted and mixed with turpentine, rubbed on the surface, and then polished when dry with a cloth. However, some early furniture remained unfinished. A Putnam County carpenter-made chest has painted decoration brushed onto raw cherry boards that have darkened with age. Inexpensive furniture made of poplar or pine was often entirely painted.

            Although cabinet-trade workmen made many of their own hand tools, hardware merchants supplied the bulk of them. Squares, rules, marking gauges, compasses, awls, saws, planes, chisels, gouges, mallets, hammers, screwdrivers, braces and bits, wood clamps, files, and drawknives were among the tools needed for making furniture. Hardware stores also stocked cabinet hardware, hide glue, and finishing materials. A cabinetmaker or wood turner could make the wooden components for a woodturning lathe and purchase the metal parts from a blacksmith. These machines were generally either hand-cranked, foot-treadled, or water-powered. According to oral history, some were also driven by horses.

            The cabinet and chairmaking trades were commonly handed down in families from one generation to the next. A newcomer to the business, usually a lad fourteen years old, learned the trade through the apprenticeship system. Apprenticeship indentures, assigned by the county courts, legally bound a boy to a master cabinetmaker until the age of twenty-one. As an apprentice he provided the master with cheap labor. In return, he learned the trade and received room, board, and often a set of tools. At age twenty-one an apprentice became a journeyman cabinetmaker. After setting up his own business he was considered a master.

            According to oral tradition, some plantation slaves in Tennessee were trained in the woodworking trades. Franklin chairmaker Richard Poyner learned his trade from his slave master, Robert Poyner. The Poyner family moved from Halifax County, Virginia, to Williamson County in 1816. Richard Poyner purchased his freedom in the 1850s and became recognized as one of the area’s most popular chairmakers.^[6]

            Cabinetmakers could find further instruction in drafting and design in books. London’s leading furniture designers were tremendously influential in guiding the fashion and construction of American furniture. In 1754, Thomas Chippendale published The Gentleman & Cabinetmaker’s Director, and in 1788, George Hepplewhite issued  The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide. Thomas Sheraton’s The Cabinetmaker and Upholsterer’s Drawing-Book was published in 1791. These books contained elaborate drawings for examples in the prevailing furniture styles. The February 17, 1816, estate inventory of Nashville cabinetmaker Daniel McBean included “Cabinet Maker’s Guide 2 Vols. - $22.”^[7] This was a significant sum of money as evidenced by a china press from the same sale valued at $23. The book may have been Hepplewhite’s The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide. If surviving examples of McBean’s work were located they could be compared with Hepplewhite’s drawings for similarities.  

            Tennessee furniture makers made vernacular interpretations of the Sheraton and Hepplewhite styles years after they were outdated in London. Their pieces were either high-style or plain-style depending on the skill of the maker and the status of the customer. Highly-skilled urban artisans like James McBride and James G. Hicks probably owned English design books to guide them in making sophisticated pieces for wealthy patrons. The average farmer, with conservative taste and modest means, generally sought plainer furniture from rural craftsmen. These cabinetmakers based their pieces on wooden patterns or copies of patterns and drawings used in the shops where they apprenticed, and then adapted them to the tastes of their patrons.

            The 1820 Manufacturers’ Census contains information about cabinet shops in many areas of the state. Business owners were asked to record materials used, number of employees, expense and production figures, and general remarks concerning the demand for their products. Roane County cabinetmaker William Galbraith, who made a desk now in the museum’s collection, listed raw materials of cherry, walnut, and poplar plank worth $85, with one person employed. He invested $270 and sold $600 worth of furniture annually. Galbraith did not comment on the demand for his furniture. However, David Patton, a Shelbyville cabinetmaker, recorded on his census questionnaire, “This is a tolerable good business but the sales is not fast.”^[8] The highest production in the state was listed by an unnamed Nashville cabinetmaker, probably James B. Houston, who reported $6,000.^[9]

            The 1850 U.S. population census had a Schedule of Products and Industry attached to it. The industrial census included businesses earning a minimum of $500 annually. This restriction excluded many small shops and part-time cabinetmakers. James W. McCombs and William R. Cornelius of Nashville owned the state’s largest furniture-making concern, with sixteen men working for them. According to the census, they made 360 pieces of furniture valued at $18,000.^[10] 

            Tennessee cabinetmakers made desks, secretaries, bookcases, chests, bureaus, tables, candlestands, sideboards, slabs, safes, cellarets, presses, sugar chests, cupboards, tall case clocks, bedsteads, cradles, chairs, settees and sofas. The slab was a furniture form related to the sideboard, consisting of a high table, often containing drawers. Safes, which were case pieces with pierced tins, were used for food storage and were placed in kitchens. The holes in the tins were punched in decorative patterns and provided air circulation. Cellarets, also called bottle cases, were used to store wines or liquors. Framed chairs, made by cabinetmakers, were usually varnished and had upholstered seats. These chairs had parts with squared edges that were hand-worked with saws and planes. Turned chairs, made by chairmakers, contained round elements that were shaped on woodturning lathes. They included ladderbacks, Windsors, and fancy chairs. A turned chair was made of a mixture of woods and was typically painted to give it a unified appearance. Its seat could be made of solid wood or of woven materials such as rush, cane, corn shucks, or oak or hickory splints.

            The Jackson press and the sugar chest are forms particularly associated with Tennessee. Andrew Jackson’s name became connected with the press furniture form in Tennessee after his unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1824. Unfortunately, the precise origin of honoring Jackson in this manner is unknown. The earliest known reference to the term is a Jackson press listed in the 1825 estate inventory of John Spence of Davidson County.^[11] Most Jackson presses were constructed with two drawers, flush or projecting, over two cupboard doors which were often flanked by columns. A shaped splashboard commonly adorned the top at the back. These presses functioned like sideboards and were used in dining rooms to serve food and beverages. They were also placed in kitchens for food and tableware storage.

            A sugar chest was a square or rectangular box with a lid, elevated on a frame which usually contained a drawer. Tapered or turned legs supported the piece. The chest’s interior was partitioned into two or three bins for storing large amounts of white or loaf sugar, brown sugar, and unroasted coffee beans. In the first half of the nineteenth century, sugar was a valuable commodity kept under lock and key. A sugar chest in the dining room was considered a symbol of affluence. As sugar became less expensive, the form gradually became outdated. Related forms include sugar desks, sugar bureaus, and sideboard sugar chests.

            Woodworking tools and the process of making furniture did not change much until the mid- nineteenth century. Tennessee cabinetmakers of 1800 used the same hand-cut mortise-and-tenon joints to join boards as had craftsmen in ancient Greece. However, the Industrial Revolution, with its steam-powered factories, changed the way Americans worked and lived. The new technology encouraged the development of mass-produced furniture. Made in cities like Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, by 1850 it had begun its gradual takeover of the market as bench work carried out in small cabinet shops could not compete economically.

            The surviving regional furniture of early Tennessee woodworkers testifies to their skills, creativity and adaptability in the southern backcountry. On display in the Tennessee State Museum, their pieces inspire visitors from around the world, transporting their imaginations to the time when handmade furniture was considered “First Rate & Fashionable.”^[12]

            This publication catalogs twenty-eight objects drawn from the holdings at the Tennessee State Museum, including two Tennessee Historical Society collection pieces and two objects that are long-term loans to the museum. They represent a broad spectrum of early Tennessee furniture, from simple carpenter-made chests, to the elegant secretary made by John Erhart Rose. Date, place of origin, and the name of the maker when known appear at the head of each catalog entry. A description of the construction of each piece is given at the end of each entry. Separate essays about apprenticeship and how to identify early furniture follow, as well as a glossary.