The Skillin Workshop - ship figures by the Skillin family

Magazine Antiques, March, 1999 by Sylvia Leistyna Lahvis

During this time Samuel Skillin moved to Philadelphia to find work, and Simeon Skillin Sr. was forced to look beyond the docks for carving commissions. Between 1762 and 1768 he carved "cornishes and headbords" for beds for Samuel Grant (1705-1784), the most prominent upholsterer in Boston.(11) His fame as a carver of figureheads having spread, Simeon Sr. was asked by the citizens of Dedham, Massachusetts, to make a bust of William Pitt for the Sons of Liberty in honor of the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766.(12) This commission is the first recorded public monument created by an American ship carver. From then until the Revolution nothing is known of Simeon Sr.'s career. In 1777, when the naval agent Caleb Davis ordered extensive carving for the brig Hazard, Simeon Sr. was already ill, and his son Simeon Jr., who had just completed his apprenticeship, signed the receipt.(13)

John Skillin became the most noted New England carver on the eastern seaboard. Little is known about his life. In 1777 he received a major commission from the wealthy and influential merchant Nathaniel Shaw (1735-1782) of New London, Connecticut, to do the carvings for the ship General Putnam. Shaw was the naval agent for Connecticut and the Continental Congress during the Revolution.(14) In 1778 he was hired to carve the figurehead and stern board for the Confederacy, built in Norwich, Connecticut.(15) Because the ship was captured by the British, a detailed drawing of the extensive carving was made for the Royal Admiralty [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. Thus John Skillin's reputation was established, and by 1780 he and Simeon had bought a property on Lees Wharf in Boston, which later came to be known as Skillings Wharf.(16) Thereafter John and Simeon Jr. had a virtual monopoly on figure carving in the Boston region. Their elder brother Samuel, who had moved back to Boston from Philadelphia during the Revolution, did not work with them, and tax records indicate that he was never very successful as a carver.(17) However, his son Simeon Skillin III was established as a carver in New York City in 1789.(18)

In 1788 John Skillin was chosen to lead the carvers of Boston in a celebration of the ratification of the Constitution and, a year later, the arrival of Washington in Boston. In 1789 he was finally able to purchase a house on Fish Street (now North Street) close to his workshop. In 1798 William Rush (17561833), Philadelphia's leading carver, recommended John Skillin to carve the figurehead and stem board of the Constitution. He was the only carver to receive such an honor. Despite his success, when John Skillin died suddenly in 1800, he was heavily in debt.(19)

John's brother Simeon Jr., although eleven years younger, took care of most of the business affairs of the workshop. He undoubtedly trained under his father and older brother and had completed his apprenticeship by 1777, when the Hazard and Confederacy were being built. In 1782 Simeon married Margaret Cazneau in New North Church in Boston, where he had been baptized and where he later bought a pew. By 1784 he already owned a house on North Bennet Street.(20) After John's death he continued to receive important commissions, since his precision and professionalism must have been attractive to the merchant class. It was Simeon who wrote most of the firm's surviving bills and receipts in an elegant script not usually found in artisans' papers of the period. One can detect the same full, rounded lines in the drawing of the stem board of the Massachusetts [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED]. Simeon was the only member of the family to join the Charitable Mechanic Association.(21) His real estate transactions suggest that he was a good businessman. When he died in 1806 the inventory of his large house indicates that he led a comfortable existence. Among his belongings were six mahogany chairs, carpets, card tables, several beds, a timepiece, looking glasses, and 104 ounces of plate.(22)