Page:Southern Antiques - Burroughs - 1931.djvu/15



VER three thousand people lived on Virginia soil as early as 1620, and were a self-supporting group. Much of the furniture antedated by many years any permanent settlement made in New England or elsewhere. In the light of it, it is amazing that no study has been made of this craft and that almost no mention of it has appeared in what students of furniture making have had to say about early American furniture. Particularly is this to be wondered at with delay serving more and more to make the path obscure when such rich fields for research and study remain of a quaint and unique civilization, portraying itself in individual order and design.

The question of the origin of early Southern furniture is one that has been far too easily disposed of by students of American furniture making. The oft repeated announcement that "Southern plantation owners were in touch with the mother country and imported their furniture from England," does not cover the case. Even indifference in the South, and, everywhere, this lack of any real understanding of what was the case has prevailed; and I have long felt that some study was badly needed in the general field. The importance of this need has been borne in upon me more and more, as in my searching, more and better types have come to my hand. The furniture, itself, as pictured in this book and the facts that I am presenting, seek to tell the story as it is.

The quest for a Hepplewhite sideboard in South Carolina, where it was known they were to be found in abundance, may be said to have served in some degree to open up this vein of interest for me; and the difficulties under which I labored in an effort to locate that particular piece so impressed me that they, too, have not been without their influence in this book. The type of sideboard which I sought had been designated for me as shown in a book on antiques, but so ill-suited was the information available on the subject there or elsewhere, that before the search was abandoned my ideas on the type of book needed for the practical use of collectors was largely defined.

With so much wealth in the South, and money and tobacco leaving the hands of the planters so freely, many questions have presented themselves to my mind. I was asking, in particular, whether apprentices of well-known English and Northern craftsmen, when leaving their masters to seek their fortune—as apprentices did when their trade was perfected—did not come into the South as settlement proceeded, to follow their vocations in the rich and growing communities rather than continue in employment as they were, or set themselves up in competition with those under whose tutorage they had worked. Abundant evidence has revealed that many craftsmen came into the Southern colonies, and produced work there of a quality comparable with the best made in America.