The Classic Windsor Chair

 

QUESTION: We’ve had a Windsor chair in our family as far back as I can remember. I believe it belonged to my great-great grandmother. Today, I use it as a chair at my computer desk. What can you tell me about this chair?

ANSWER: You have a standard bow-back Windsor chair, the kind found in just about every upper class household in Colonial America. While most people consider them delicate antiques, they’re quite sturdy and have many uses. 

One of the most graceful and usable of all traditional chairs, the Windsor is also the most successful piece of furniture in American history. Its origins, however, are English, dating back to the turned and joined stools of 16th-Century England. The name probably derives from Windsor, where a prolific chairmaker  produced and sold the chairs in the 18th Century. He sent them down the Thames River to London where people referred to them as coming "up from Windsor."

Wheelwrights rather than cabinetmakers made Windsor chairs in England. They remained farmhouse or tavern furniture for a long time. But here in America, homeowners embraced the Windsor as a sort of all-around chair. They could be stored in a hallway and brought into any room that needed more seating when guests arrived. They could be easily carried. And they could be brought outdoors to provide seating on the lawn on hot summer days. Even the most prominent members of Colonial communities used them. George Washington seated his guests on the East portico of Mount Vernon in 30 Windsor chairs.

As a piece of furniture, the Windsor holds historical significance. Thomas Jefferson sat in a bow-back. writing-arm Windsor while composing the first draft of the Declaration of Independence in late June of 1776. And when Benjamin Franklin and other members of the Continental Congress voted to secede from the mother country on , July 1, 1776 in Independence Hall, they sat in bow-back Windsors.

There are eight different kinds of American Windsors, including the low-back, or Philadelphia Windsor, named for the city where a craftsman constructed the first Windsor in the colonies, the comb-back, fan-back, bow-back, loop-back, arch-back or New England armchair, rod-back, and arrow-back. Each had its distinct use. Windsor makers socketed all parts together except for the shaped arms of the fan-back, arrow-back, and rod-back chairs. On these, they doweled the inner ends of the arms or screwed them to the back uprights.

Windsor makers preferred pine, whitewood, and basswood for seats, hickory or ash for spindles, maple. yellow birch, or beech for turned legs. stretchers, and supports, and hickory, oak, ash, or beech for hoops. bows, or combs. And because of this, makers gave their Windsors several coats of dark green paint. In the 19th century, small factory workshops produced Windsors of pine and maple. And even to this day, craftsmen still use the same time-tested techniques for constructing reproduction Windsors. 

Most people are familiar with the low-back, barrel-shaped chairs used from the mid 19th to the early 20th century. These were actually descendants of the earliest low-back Windsor chairs made in America. However, these don’t usually appear in historical house museums from the Colonial period. Made from 1725 to1760, this Philadelphia style chair had blunt-arrow legs—turned legs with a cylindrical lower section and ball.

The comb back was the second type of Windsor chair made in the Colonies. The crest rail with its spindles resembled a wide-toothed comb, hence the name. In both England and America, the Windsor became known as the stick chair. The wide saddle seat is half round with a straight front. The deeply curved one-piece arm terminates in knuckled-curved ends and is supported at front by baluster-turned uprights. The back is formed of nine bulbous spindles that pass through the arms and extend upward into a wide comb with volute ends.

Fan-backs had tall spindles flanked by stiles and came in both armchair and side chair styles. 

Legend says that an archer’s bow influenced the design of the bow back Windsor. Realistically, it probably evolved from the comb back. Also known as the hoop-back or sack-back, this Windsor was the most commonly used in America and England from 1740 to 1800 because of its elliptical seat and seven tapered spindles that pierce a semi-circular arm rail and bowed top rail. 

During the 19th century, the Windsor chair had become more decorative, including those with arrow-shaped splats and paint-decorated 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about old-time winter objects in the 2022/2023 Winter Holiday Edition, with the theme "Winter Memories," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Sorting Through the Often Confusing World of Antiques

 

QUESTION: Every time I go into an antique mall, I become overwhelmed by all the items. Booth after booth of what seems like junk. Yet I know there must be some interesting and perhaps valuable antiques hidden there. How can I make sense of it all?

ANSWER: Perhaps your mind and senses have gone into antiques and collectibles overload. So many items—bits of furniture, pottery, piles of old jewelry, dolls, old Coca-Cola signs, and things that look like the cat dragged them in. So where’s the good stuff? 

It all seems so confusing. And the prices for some items seem ridiculous, especially if you’re a beginning collector. But don’t despair. There’s a method to all that antique madness.

Generally, antiques fall into two categories—those of the real world and those of the  rarefied one that most people can only ooh and aah at. And T,V. programs like The Antiques Roadshow, Pickers, and Pawnstars haven’t helped matters. In fact, all of them have brought the world of antiques to a world-wide audience. No longer are antiques in the realm of the rich—the realm of the “Don’t touch that.”

But antiques and collectibles can be broken down into manageable categories.

When most people think of antiques, they think of furniture. And although furniture makes up a good percentage of antiques out there, smaller items, known as “smalls” in the antiques business—ceramics, glassware, silverware, toys, and commemorative items—all play important roles in the overall history of modern culture.

All in all, there are about 15 major categories and 75 sub-categories. Within these there are other, more specialized areas, such as antique musical instruments and automobiliana, two very specialized categories.

Even though antiques can be categorized generally, dealers and serious collectors use historical periods—Jacobean, Colonial, Victorian, Civil War, Western and Retro—to sort things out. Often, these terms also indicate different styles.

For instance, in the world of furniture, you’ll probably see examples of English, French, and American styles in most antiques shops and malls, as well as at antiques shows or auctions. Most English furniture falls into historical periods such as Jacobean,  pre-Victorian, or Victorian while American furniture tends to fall into different types according to region of manufacture—New York, New England, Pennsylvania, or Southern. 

Porcelain or pottery pieces tend to fall into categories associated with the country in which they were produced—England, Germany, France, United States, China and Japan. The four you’ll see most are English, German, Japanese, and American. You’ll soon become familiar with names such as Royal Doulton, Staffordshire, and Meissen, Blue Willow, Limoge, Belleek and Sevres, especially if you frequent the better antiques shops and shows.

Glassware is the third most popular category. You’ll see all types, including Depression, Venetian, English, and Bohemian glass. Most glassware collectors specialize in a particular produce line–bowls, tumblers, decanters, etc. There’s also a refined category known as art glass in which you’ll find all those pretty vases blown in amberina, peach blow, and ruby.

Silverware is also a very popular antique. Here again, English, German and American silverware predominates. Like glass, product type defines this category. Collectors actively seek teapots, candlesticks, flatware, and bowls. Classification in this category is by make and markings generally stamped on the back of the products. Sterling and Sheffield silver are the two most recognizable types. EP is often seen as a marking and stands for silver Electro Plate. Sheffield silver is a combination of a layer of silver and copper beaten together to give a silver surface with a warm sheen.

Next up comes clocks and watches. This is a very popular general category, particularly among men, who seem to like the mechanical nature of timepieces. English, French and Austrian clocks dominate. In the "Longcase," or pendulum grandfather clocks, the English manufacturers stand out with the value of the clock being as much in the beauty of the cabinetry as in the mechanical workings. A beginner should get familiar with clockmakers names such as Thomas Field, McCabe, and Japy Freres. The same applies to watches. Names like Hamilton, Seiko, and Waltham are popular with collectors.

And finally there are collectibles, which cover everything from blue willow patterned ceramics, which are popular with women, to the war medals popular with men. Just remember what a collectible is. It is an object of limited supply, gathered or accumulated for pleasure or as a hobby. A very trendy category, collectibles nevertheless have basic product lines, such as ceramic plates, perfume bottles, pocket watches, stamps, and even figurines that continue to grow year after year.

These are just some of the main categories of antiques that you can begin to collect. While some tend to be higher priced, you’ll find plenty of small pieces of furniture, ceramics, and glassware to get you started in collecting.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about railroad antiques in "All Aboard!" in the 2021 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

NEXT WEEK: We’ll take a look at some of the specialty categories of antiques and collectibles. 

On a Wing and a Chair

 

QUESTION: Recently I purchased an old wingback chair at a local antique shop. It seems very old to me since it has ball and claw feet, plus it’s upholstery looks good but older in style, leading me to believe it had been done long ago. But I’m puzzled about the springs supporting the upper pillow. Perhaps they were also added at a later time. Can you tell me more about this type of chair and how old this one might be?

ANSWER: Unfortunately, your wing chair isn’t as old as you think. It dates from the Great Depression of the 1930s and would be considered a Colonial Revival piece. What led you to believe the chair was older were its ball and claw feet, made popular by Thomas Chippendale in the mid-18th century in England.

The Chippendale style of furniture remained popular until the end of the 18th century. Interest in it disappeared until the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. The fair inspired furniture makers to re-create the styles of the American Colonial Period until all such furniture became known as Colonial Revival or just “period” furniture. Chippendale created chair designs for comfort, unlike the still, but stylish designs of Federal ones. His wingback chair offered the ultimate in comfort.

But where did the idea for a chair with wings originate? As early as the 17th century, people living in cold weather areas of Northern Europe gathered by their fireplaces on crude wooden benches to keep warm. As the century progressed cabinetmakers added high backs with small wings to these benches. While they were functional, they were far from comfortable. 

Furniture historians believe they originally intended the wings to prevent drafts from reaching the upper body of those who sat in these chairs. The chairs also prevented the intense heat produced by a roaring fireplace fire from affecting the makeup of ladies who might be sitting too close to it. Makeup then was clay-based and tended to run when heated.

Unlike other chairs, wingbacks offered a greater level of comfort and beauty. With the onset of the 18-century, chairmakers began incorporating upholstery into their wingbacks adding comfort and luxury. French furniture makers reinvented the wingback chair in the bergere chair, designed for lounging in comfort with a deeper wider seat.

English furniture maker George Heppelwhite lowered the seat in some of his designs. 

Chippendale molded the wingback design by adding an elegant frame such as oversized wings and scrolling arms to offset the upholstery. However, most of his designs didn’t have a pillow seat. Instead, chair makers stretched the upholstery over the springs and a small amount of padding. The “knees” of the chair were also chunkier and lower to the ground than those of Sheraton and Hepplewhite.

Also called fireside chairs, wingbacks allowed a person sitting by the fireside to catch the heat while eliminating cold drafts from creeping around their back or sides, so chairmakers developed a new kind of chair known as the “Sleeping Chayre.” Not only did this chair have wings, enabling the sitter to stay warm, it’s back could also rachet to different angles for sleeping.

This led to an unusual use in the 18th century. Respiratory diseases were rampant back then, and people commonly believed that it was better for the sick person to sit up to prevent fluid from accumulating in their lungs. So wingback chairs eventually found a home by the fireplace in American Colonial bedrooms. 

During  the 19th century, chairmakers generously stuffed wingbacks with horsehair for an added dose of padding. Covered in velvet or needlework to imitate contemporary French styles, they sported bright patterns and ornate fabric embellishments.

It was often common to find two of these chairs—one for the master and one for the mistress of the house—facing a small round table by the fireplace in the master bedroom of the house. Colonial couples often took their supper, known back then as “high tea,” in the warmth and comfort of their bedroom rather than in the drafty dining room downstairs.

Known and loved for its graceful curves, fluid framework and antique, throne-like feel, the wingback chair remains a symbol of comfort and elegance in modern decor. And it makes a great place to knot off for a quick nap. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Ancients" in the 2021 Spring Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

From Boredom to Art

QUESTION: I belong to a reenactor group that specializes in Revolutionary War reenactments. Some of the men carry powder horns as part of their equipment. Most of these are plain reproductions. They serve the purpose. At several larger gatherings of reenactment groups, I’ve seen some beautifully engraved horns. What can you tell me about these engraved horns?  Might they be original or are they reproductions?

ANSWER: Powder horn collectors are a very specialized group. The horns they collect are usually engraved but not all of them are valuable. Today, there are a number of very good reproductions and contemporary powder horns being made. They’re so well done that it’s often impossible to tell the authentic ones from the reproductions.

Powder horns once provided a practical, inexpensive way to carry gun powder for use in the early flintlock and percussion firearms. They were America's first art form. Early settlers had to work so hard there was no time to make art.



The French and Indian War was the catalyst for horn art. Soldiers had a lot of time on their hands and were lonesome. So on their horns they drew images of their houses, trees, their gardens, their dogs, their girlfriends and other things that reminded them of home. But the simple powder horn of the early frontier evolved into personal works of art out of necessity. Soldiers, and perhaps groups of hunters, had to have an obvious way of identifying their horns.

Sometimes they used only their initials. If the horn owner was literate, or knew someone who could copy letters, dates, names and places, he had them engraved onto his horn. Eventually, animals, mythical creatures like mermaids or griffons, birds, snakes, various styles of flowers and vines and all sorts of geometrics decorated powder horns. To make their horns more personal, some men engraved rhymes on their horns. Next to his wife and children, a man’s powder horn was often his most cherished possession.

This high level of artistic competence among common soldiers and pioneers shows that many people in the Colonies must have had art training. Children who went to school learned penmanship and calligraphy which helped in engraving their horns as young adults.



Less artistic soldiers could pay professional hornsmiths, who traveled with the troops, set up tents, and took orders, to customize their horns. Better-paid military officers could afford to set the trend around camp for horns with similar designs. Historians believe there was a community of horn carvers who observed and borrowed from each other's work.

The earliest known American engraved horn, inscribed with the name Daniel Tuttle, dates from 1727. But older doesn't translate into more valuable. Seventeenth-century "pilgrim horns" sell moderately because they were plain and lacked artwork. Most of the classic engraved horns are 13 to 17 inches long. But horns may vary from a few inches to over two feet long. Usually, the bigger the horn is, the older it is, because men took longer forays into the forest to hunt in the 18th century.

Early on, settlers hunted for weeks at a time. As they got more settled, they would go hunting in the afternoon, so they didn't need to carry two or three pounds of powder with them. Because of this, they took smaller horns which they would carry in their bags or pockets.

Early settlers often carried two horns. One was a smaller horn which held fine-grain, faster burning gunpowder used only for priming the pan in early flintlock mechanisms. When percussion replaced flintlocks beginning in the 1830s, most men carried only a single horn in the field.



But many hunters and soldiers ceased using powder horns altogether in the 1830s with the advent of brass flasks and leather pouches.

So how can a collector tell an old horn from a new one. Old engravings often start deep when the knife first enters but then pressure is decreased and the rest of the line has uniform depth. Lines made with a knife and not a dentist's drill won’t end abruptly but will extend beyond the image's outline.

Collectors look for the "warmth and glow" emanating from an antique powder horn. The most prized horns are those with maps engraved on them. Often they show forts or towns along a river. Some originated as guidelines allowing soldiers to find their way back to forts. They became popular Ind eventually were professionally made by hornsmiths. Some map horns, though are believed to have been carved long after the war when soldiers returned tome. In some cases, horns were used as proof of military service, thus qualifying their owners to a pension.

While ordinary 18th- and 19th-century horns are common and usually sell for $10 to $40, those engraved with intricate artwork have attained the level of treasured American folk art worth thousands of dollars. Engraved horns can sell for as little as $34 and as much as $34,000. Many engraved horns came from the area around Lake George, New York, site of Fort Ticonderoga. Horns inscribed with historic names from that region are more valuable.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about Colonial America in the Spring 2018 Edition, "Early Americana," online now.

How Low Can You Go

QUESTION: I just purchased an antique coffee table and would like to know more about it. What can you tell me about my table? Is it a valuable antique?

ANSWER: I hate to burst your bubble, but your table isn’t an antique. In fact, coffee tables are a modern invention. No one knows exactly where they came from or who designed the first one.

The current definition a coffee table is a low, wide table placed in front of a couch or sofa to receive drinks, TV remotes, magazines, ashtrays, and miscellaneous other items, including feet. Yes, some people do prop their tired feet up once in a while. But a quick look back in time doesn't show many similar tables in our Western history. Old photos of late Victorian room settings show taller tables, often placed behind a sofa to receive cups and glasses when not in use. The only other table offering close to the service of a coffee table was the parlor table, often placed in the middle of the room with a gas lamp on it. Here, the lady of the house could serve coffee or tea to guests.



During the latter half of the 19th century, wealthy people became interested in the exotic furniture of Turkey. They would set up a special corner or an entire room using pillowed benches and ornately carved, low, round tables from which they drank strong Turkish coffee and tea.

Americans became especially fond of Japanese design after the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. They particularly liked the idea of sitting on pillows on the floor and eating at low tables like the Japanese do. When the Aesthetic Movement took hold in the 1880s, furniture designers blended Eastlake and Renaissance Revival styles with Turkish and Asian ones.

While some sources note the production of low tables in various Revival styles during the last decade of the 1800s, no one has ever seen any.

The coffee table appeared in the 20th century, most likely in the 1920s and 1930s. As Americans began to purchase parlor sets, consisting of perhaps a couch, two chairs, and several small tables, the coffee table idea became more popular.

In 1903, F. Stuart Foote founded the Imperial Furniture Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He had learned the furniture business from his father, E. H. Foote, who had founded the Grand Rapids Chair Company in 1872. Foote claimed to have invented the coffee table himself while helping his wife prepare for a party. He simply lowered the legs on an existing table, and a new type of furniture came into being. Unfortunately, so far this hasn’t been proven.

Prohibition may have also played a role in the development of the coffee table. From 1920 to 1933, America was legally "dry." That led to a shortage of well blended, smooth tasting liquor. “Bathtub gin" and "white lightning" to the place of traditional spirits but both had quite a kick.  To soften that kick, people began mixing fruit juices and other beverages with the hootch which eventually led to the invention of the "cocktail."



During Prohibition, people often used this low table to serve coffee to their guests. But with the repeal of the law, they could once again legally serve cocktails, so it became known as a “cocktail table.” Sales for these low tables soared even during the Depression.

To make them seem older than they were and thus more elegant, many furniture manufacturers began producing their coffee/cocktail tables using stylized designs of the past. This was a direct result of the appearance of the Colonial Revival style of the early 20th century which encouraged furniture makers to create pieces in supposedly “colonial” styles. All of a sudden coffee tables appeared in the Queen Anne, Chippendale, Federal, and even Jacobean styles. Thus, many people today are fooled into thinking that their coffee tables are really antiques.

The only way to have a truly antique coffee table is to cut down an existing antique table as F. Stuart Foote did in 1903. And while your coffee table will be a true antique, it won’t be worth very much.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 17,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac.











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Periodicals of the Times

QUESTION: I have some old almanacs dating from the late 1700s and early 1800s. Can you tell me if these have any value, and if so, where might I sell them?

ANSWER: Unfortunately, just because something is old doesn’t make it valuable. This especially applies to old books and periodicals. Of course, different people have varied reasons for purchasing old periodicals such as these. Before we talk about their possible value, let’s take a look at how this type of printed matter got started.

During the Colonial period of the United States, people got their news from small one-sheet flyers and four-page newspapers. During the 1750s and 1760s, these often appeared only once a week, but as the population grew and towns developed, the daily newspaper came into existence. Printing technology also improved, allowing small publishers to print larger numbers of their papers.  Some of these early almanacs had a political bent. Such was the case for Porcupine’s Political Sensor, a short-lived monthly periodical succeeded by the daily newspaper The Porcupline’s Gazette, both published in Philadelphia by William Cobbett.

The Porcupine’s Gazette ran for 770 issues. Cobbett, the prolific, controversial and often contradictory, and anti-authoritarian writer, wrote under the pen-name of "Peter Porcupine." In 1796, a few years after he arrived in the United States, he began a monthly periodical called the Porcupine’s Political Censor, which he used to poke fun at his political opponents, usually those supporting a pro-French or Jeffersonian- Republican sentiment. Cobbett published his Censor until March 1797, when he replaced it with the Porcupine's Gazette. The first issue appeared on March 4, 1797, the day of John Adams’ inauguration. It had a subscription base of about 1,000 readers, which more than doubled within a few months. By November 1797, Cobbett was printing 3,000 copies a day.

Cobbett used the newspaper to support the Federalist party and to strike out against the French and their American supporters during the period of increased tensions between the United States and France. His contentious articles thrived in the politically charged atmosphere, though Cobbett often found himself on the receiving end of libel suits. He filled his newspaper with articles on national and local politics, foreign policy, news from Europe, and economics. Today, issues of the Gazette provide a rich source of information on daily life in Federal Philadelphia, with each issue containing commercial ads and notices, reports of arrivals in the port of Philadelphia, local prices for goods, advertisements for schools and doctors, and much more.

Another form of printed matter was the almanac. These were smaller in size and usually had a number of pages. They were the first periodicals and usually appeared less frequently, often just once a year. They contained articles of interest to the rural society, including information about the weather and farming techniques, plus some local stories.  A good example of this type of periodical was The Burlington Almanack, published by Isaac Collins.

Collins was a printer, publisher, bookseller and merchant in Colonial New Jersey. He’s most noted for this New Jersey Gazette and New Jersey Almanack, which followed his original one, The Burlington Almanack, a periodical for west-central New Jersey that ran from 1770 to 1777.

He was a firm believer in the freedom of the press and had even refused to reveal his source of a pseudonymous article even though the New Jersey legislative council demanded it.  He stood on his grounds as a faithful guardian of the liberty of the press and would not reveal his source unless the source gave him permission. He wrote many persuasive articles on the principle of freedom of the press

The Port Folio was another political periodical, published by Joseph Dennie,  an American author and journalist who was one of the foremost men of letters of the Federalist Era. He originally wrote for various periodicals in Massachusetts but in 1800 moved to Philadelphia to found the Port Folio, along with Philadelphia bookseller Asbury Dickens. Writing under the pseudonym Oliver Oldschool, Esq., Dennie composed and published in 1803 a scathing attack on Jeffersonian democracy, for which he was brought up on charges of seditious libel.

The last of your periodicals is The American Magazine, first published in the fall of 1757 and only running for 12 issues and a supplement.

While all of these periodicals are historically important, their condition is rather poor. Even more so than with other antiques, the condition of books and other printed matter is very important. Collectors seek out those in the very best condition. But that doesn’t say that no one would be interested in your items. All of them contain a wealth of information about life and culture, as well as the political climate, of the time. Historians and writers working on historical novels and history books would find their contents invaluable.

Selling your periodicals will be challenge, however. It will take a very special person to buy them and finding that person may be difficult.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 17,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac.

An American Tradition

QUESTION: My grandmother always had several hooked rugs on the floors in her house. I grew up playing on them and grew to love them. As an adult, I’ve learned how to make them and have purchased several antique ones. But no one seems to know anything about antique hooked rugs, other than approximately when they were made. Can you tell me more about these beautiful old rugs? I’d love to know how rug hooking began and how it got to where it is today.

ANSWER: The making of hooked rugs dates from New England in the early 19th century. Poor farmers’ wives, in need of some padding on cold dirt floors, began using old fabric scraps no longer suitable for clothing which they cut into strips and pulled through old burlap sacks to create mats for their floors. And while these original rugs were somewhat crude, the women who made them got ideas for improving the process and for decorative patterns from their friends and neighbors.

For centuries the method of pulling loops of colored material through a mesh of open fabric was well known but the settlers who came to America. The technique of pulling up or hooking rag strips and woolen yarns through a woven fabric base proved to be an economical and undemanding method of making floor coverings for drafty homes. Plus the simplicity the simplicity of the hooking process allowed rug makers the freedom to express their individual creativity.

While the craft began earlier in the 19th century, it wasn’t until the 1850s, when jute burlap from the Indies, which lasted longer than earlier materials, came into common use for burlap feed sacks, that rug hooking gained popularity. Women would stretch the empty burlap feed sacks onto a wooden frame, draw a pattern with a charcoal stick, and then draw yarn or thread through the burlap. And while the result was usually artful as well as very practical, it look a long time to make a rug. To make a rug with an intricate pattern took nearly as long as it took to sew a full quilt. 

By the 1860's, the art of making hooked rugs had spread all over New England and as far away as Ohio, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

By 1867, Philena Moxley of Massachusetts had begun stamping patterns of horses, dogs and other animals onto the burlap to allow homemakers to then produce hooked rugs without first sketching a pattern. By the 1870's peddlers were traveling from house to house selling stenciled designs on burlap. It wasn’t long before general storekeepers began selling hooked rug patterns and completed rugs.

Ebenezer Ross enhanced the process of hooked rug making in 1886 with the invention of a mechanical punch-hook in Toledo, Ohio. Prior to that time, rug makers used crochet hooks made of wood, bone, or metal. Ross and his company became a major supplier of the punch-hook in both the eastern and central United States, and by 1891 the company also published a catalog of 56 color-printed patterns. Ross’ catalog stated, "every household has a supply of odds and ends, rags and ravelings which can be woven into articles beauty and utility.”

In 1895 the Montgomery Ward catalog featured patterns that included a Spaniel dog with  lake and mountains in the background.


Rugs depicting ships, landscapes, and people required far more skill than the simpler deigns. Those who were unable to purchase a commercial pattern often relied on a talented family member or friend to  draw the design. One or more family members would then hook the rug.

Because pictorial patterns took longer and required more skill, many rug makers chose, instead, to use floral or geometric patterns.

Floral patterns very often involved combinations of trees, flowers, vines, branches, and leaves. One of the most common featured a bouquet of flowers in the middle surrounded by a vine border. They were frequently produced on commercial patterns following the Civil War and into the1920's and 1930's.

Rug makers usually produced geometric patterns—featuring rectangles, squares, circles, and ovals—freehand. They were as popular as homemade patterns as they were commercial ones.

Still, commercial patterns persisted. Among the many innovators was Edward Sands Frost, a disabled veteran, who sold patterns made from metal stencils to the women of New England and built up a business which flourished into the 20th century.

By 1908, Sears, Roebuck and Company joined the many companies offering patterns with a selection that included a pretty flower design, Arabian horse, a large lion, and two kittens playing on a carpet.

During the 1920's and early 1930's, cottage industries of hooked rug making flourished in sites like Deerfield Industries in Deerfield, Massachusetts, Rosemont Industries in Marion, Virginia, Pine Burr Studio in Apison, Tennessee, and the Spinning Wheel in Asheville, North Carolina.

The popularity of hooked rugs peaked in the 1850s and again in the 1890s as part of the Arts and Crafts Movement which lasted well beyond the turn of the century, and as part of the American Colonial Revival of the latter 1920's. They were also popular for a time during the 1950s era of Early American decor.

Because hooked rugs were made in the home for personal use, they can seldom be traced back to their original maker or pinned down to an exact date. Those believed to be over 100 years old command the highest prices. 

Better to See You With My Dear

QUESTION: While recently going through some boxes in my attic, I discovered a pair of old spectacles that seem to be in rather good condition. Are these collectible?

ANSWER: While most people might just give these away or sell them at a yard sale, you should definitely hang on to these, as they’re very collectible.

Lots of people wear eyeglasses. With the advent of contact lenses, some don’t even show it. But these devices, first invented to magnify text, have become as ubiquitous as cell phones in today’s society.

Church sales and thrift shops often get plastic bags filled with old eye glasses, as people either get new ones or contact lenses. Today, eye glasses are not only a seeing aid but also a fashion accessory. And, what about the spectacles you found in an old family trunk and sold at your last yard sale? Believe it or not, just like other out-of-fashion accessories, those glasses are collectible.

Spectacles have been around since the late Middle Ages when wealthy people in Italy and China wore them. Another early form of sunglasses were goggles, first created by the Eskimos to protect their eyes from snow glare.

The use of eyeglasses grew by the 18th century as their technology improved. They became fashionable when famous Americans began wearing them. Everybody is familiar with the paintings of Benjamin Franklin wearing the bifocals that he invented. Franklin created the first bifocals in the 1760's while living in London.

Thomas Jefferson created the first oblong lenses for his reading glasses to increase his field of vision. Before that glass lenses were round or oval. Later, President Theodore Roosevelt started a fashion trend when he first wore pince-nez glasses—those held on a person’s face by a spring on the nose.


While women didn't wear glasses in public in 18th century America, one woman advertised in 1753, that she “grinds all sorts of Optic Glasses to the greatest perfection." Known in her ad only as "the widow Balthasar Sommer on Pot Baker's Hill,'' she became the earliest recorded American eye glasses maker. But it wasn’t until after the American Revolution that people recorded eye glasses as made in America.

By the early 19th century, glasses adjusted over the ears to fit the entire family. A device called a “Temple" slid back and forth. As with earlier versions, their sole purpose was to magnify.

Eye glass makers used gold and silver for early frames, mostly because they were the most common workable metals available. So a pair of glasses wasn’t cheap. If you think you have old ones, check the hallmark to learn date, country and maker.

Don't pass up examples in brass or steel. They could be 18th or 19th century. In this plastic age, look for authentic tortoise shell frames. Don't limit yourself to 19th and early  20th-century glasses. Remember, they’ve always been made in the fashion of their day.

The 1970's were a great time for unique styles. An example would be the tinted sunglasses designed by artist Peter Max, along with his Pop Art design cases. And don’t forget the outsize sunglasses in the Jackie Kennedy Onassis style. Celebrity styles with funky frame, like the ones worn by Elton John and John Lennon’s small,   round, black-rimmed ones, also debuted in the 1970's. Never mind that the frames are plastic. Like other 1970's objects, they’re also collectible.

If you wish to collect eye wear and related objects, you can build a collection of not only pairs of eyeglasses showing a variety of frames and clear and tinted lenses, but also  opticians' trade signs, related documents, and paintings of people wearing glasses. In most cases, you’ll find many eye glasses for sale for a song at flea markets, church and garage sales.

For Every Meat There is a Turn

QUESTION: I love old mechanical things. Recently while rooting through a box of old junk at a monthly flea market, I came across an unusual item. It looks like a round can from which protrudes a cylinder. On the end of the cylinder is an odd-shaped ring and in the side of the can is a hole with a place to insert a key. Can you tell me what this is and something about it, if that’s possible?

ANSWER: It looks like you’ve found an antique spitjack. However, some of its parts are missing.

Today, you can go to any supermarket and purchase a fully roasted rotisserie chicken or turkey breast. But back in the 18th century, that wasn’t possible. All meats had to be slow roasted on a long pole called a spit over the fire in a huge, walk-in kitchen fireplace. And to do that evenly, it took man or woman power. Wives, children, servants, or slaves had to stand by the fire and slowly turn the meat until it was done. This had to be one of the most boring jobs in the 18th and early 19th centuries, so no one enjoyed doing it.

Roasting meat on a spit dates as far back as the first century B.C.E. During Tudor times, someone even came up with an ingenious way to have a dog provide the power to turn the spit—the dog ran in a treadmill linked to the spit by belts and pulleys. But it wasn’t until the 18th century that things got a little easier for cooks. It was then that the weight or clock jack came into being.

Descending stone, iron, or lead weights powered most of the spit-turning mechanisms, or more commonly spitjacks, used by Colonials and their British counterparts. In England, cooks referred to them as weight jacks, but in America, they came to be known as clock jacks because they used a clockwork mechanism to wind a spring used to turn the spit.

Earlier jacks of this type had a train of two arbors or spindles. Later ones had a more efficient train with three arbors. Those made and used in England had a governor or flywheel set above the engine as opposed to being located within the frame and to one side—to the right for a two train works and to the left for one with three trains. These weight jacks also contained a flywheel within the frame, usually at the
in a bell-like arch at the highest part of the frame.

In 1792, John Bailey II, an American clockmaker, patented the first steam-driven jack. However, the Turks used a mechanism similar to Bailey’s jack back in the mid-16th century.

Another type of roasting jack, the smoke jack, appeared in the early 17th century. This jack moved by the flow of the smoke from the fire over the sails of a horizontal wheel which lay sideways. By placing the wheel in the narrowest part of the chimney where the motion of the smoke was the fastest and where the greatest amount would strike the sails, the mechanism would slowly turn the spit, thus roasting the meat. But this type of jack had its downside since the speed of the jack depended on the draught of the chimney and the quantity and strength of the fire in the fireplace.

The type of jack you purchased is called a bottle jack because of its bottle-shaped hydraulic lifting device. A brass shell contains the clockwork motor. Introduced in the late 18th century, it replaced the earlier and simpler dangle spit. When the cook set the weights, the spit turned, eliminating the need for manual labor for approximately 30 minutes, after which the cook would have had to readjust the weights. Bottle jacks continued to be made and used until the early 20th century.

If your jack had all of its parts and was in better condition, it would sell for around $400.