Page:Southern Antiques - Burroughs - 1931.djvu/33

Rh  names of the men do not appear, except in particular instances. In that section of the State settled by the Germans and Scotch-Irish, where it is known that shops were frequent along the post road, many journeymen traveled back and forth in employment of their trade. In Wachovia, the Moravian settlement, in North Carolina at Salem, now Winston-Salem, two names, Feldhausen and Ingebretsen, are outstanding.

When the purchase of ground had been arranged in London, and in 1753 the foremost of the settlers having received a blessing for the undertaking, were ready to mount their horses for Philadelphia, there to proceed South to undertake the establishment of a colony in North Carolina, where their ideals of living and the worship of God might find realization, these two men were among the number, having been selected particularly in regard to their trade. Heinrich Feldhausen, born in Holstein, listed as shoemaker, carpenter, millwright, turner, and Pennsylvania farmer, in his certification for Moravian membership, must have been something of a man. Erich Ingebretsen, just thirty-one, born in Norway, likewise millwright and carpenter, was by no means an inconspicuous person, becoming as he did later, single brothers' vorsteher, church warder, and vestryman for the Parish of Dobbs.

Down the Chesapeake to Norfolk the little company sailed, there to take horse and make their way to Edenton, and, on through Guilford County, to the point of settlement at Bethabara and Salem. Here it was that the big work of the two craftsmen began, with the brothers' houses to be built, equipment to be provided, as they took their places as pioneers in joinery, where other joiners arose to meet the need. A cabinetmaker before many years is mentioned at Salem.

In Georgia various cabinetmakers have been listed, and there were as many as thirty accredited to Savannah; but there is little evidence of any work of outstanding merit being done there by the local men, although the influences surrounding the craft around Savannah could not have been far removed from those at Charleston, with the same ships calling often at both ports. Atlanta, as well as Savannah, had cabinet shops by the end of the eighteenth century.

Advertisements appearing, mainly in the South Carolina Gazette, from 1732 on, reveal the working of an unusually active line of men carrying on a high-class trade, some businesses of long standing, men of various birth and extraction, putting out furniture of exquisite workmanship. No attempt will be made to call the long list of these worthies, though many names will appear from time to time in this book, the total number of them, so far arrived at, considerably exceeding two hundred.

Abraham Pearce, from London, carver as well as cabinetmaker, has been shown seeking to supply the Northern trade; and John Packrow, in 1764 announced that, having given over his business at Jacksonborough, "and carrying it on at the upper end of Tradd Street, he was returning thanks to his country and town customers for their Favours."

Cabinetmakers from England and the North found it profitable to set themselves up in towns throughout the South, and at