Page:Southern Antiques - Burroughs - 1931.djvu/48

24  a corner cupboard of individual execution, following in construction the English master.

South Carolina, at that time, was fully awake, it would seem, as to what was going on in furniture across the water: Thomas Lining, 1754, from London, selling all sorts of cabinet and chair work "well finished and in the most fashionable manner"; Peter Hall, also from London, holding forth on the Bay, "where Gentlemen and Ladies of taste may have made, and be supplied with Chinese Tables of all Sorts, Shelves, Trays, Chimney Pieces, Brackets, being at present the most elegant and admired in London." Solomon Legeré made chairs at the plantation on John's Island; John Biggard, 1767, from Philadelphia, had a turner's shop on the Bay at Queen Street, where Windsor and garden chairs might be supplied. How and Roulain, 1762, Joshua Eden, in 1767, making column bedposts, table frames and straw-bottom chairs, and John Fisher, the same year, were all at work.

Thomas Elfe, from whom Washington might have bought his curtains, had long since announced, through the Gazette, 1751, "a very good upholsterer from London," stating that he did "all sorts of upholsterer's work, viz., tapestry, damask, stuff, chintz or paper hangings for rooms, beds after the newest fashion, and so that they may be taken off to be washed without inconvenience or damage; all sorts of festoons and window curtains to draw up, and pull rod curtains; chairs stuff-covered, tight or loose cases for ditto; all kinds of Machine Chairs are likewise made, stuff'd and cover'd for sickly or weak people."

Business in the '60's flourished on Maryland soil; and in the early furniture of the day, the names of Moore and the Andersons must be called. Gerrard Hopkins, in Baltimore, 1767, was selling "the newest fashions in mahogany, walnut and cherry, tea chests, desks, bookcases, scrutoires, clothes presses, tables, bureaus, card, parlour and tea tables, chairs, candle stands, decanter stands, tea kettle stands, dumb waiters, tea boards, corner chairs, bedsteads, etc. etc., with or without carved work."

South Carolina colonists had not remained untouched by colonial reaction against the Stamp Act and tax importation injustices, but the English influence continued to be felt as the Revolution approached, and luxuries remained almost to the end. In 1771 Richard Magrath, fine copyist of Manigault importations, who, "having labored under a bad state of health," announced in the Gazette that he "intends to remove up the path a little way out of the Town gate," where there would be "much to sell by way of carved chairs, with Commode fronts and Pincushion Seats of the newest fashion and the first of that Construction ever made in this Province," close stools, elbow chairs likewise listed; but two years later, as the war approached, he was offering, "by Publick Sale, . . . Sophas, French Chairs, Conversation Stools and Easy Chairs of the newest fashion and neatest Construction, such as were never offered for sale in this Province before . . . the greatest Sale of neat Cabinet Work ever known in this Place."

John Dobbins, we read in 1770, "departing the Province in the Spring, was selling by public vendue . . . Chinese Tables,