FURNITURE PATRONAGE in ANTEBELLUM NATCHEZ - Natchez, Misssissippi

Magazine Antiques, May, 2000 by Jason T. Busch

In July 1863 Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith of the Union army, then stationed in Natchez, Mississippi, wrote his wife Elizabeth:

Natchez is a beautiful little city of about 7000 or 8000 inhabitants, a place for many years past of no great business significance but rather a congregation of wealthy planters and retired merchants and professional men, who base built magnificent villas. [ldots] Wealth and taste[ldots]have enabled them to adorn these, in such a manner as almost to give the Northerner his realization of a fairy tale. [ldots] One continuously wonders that such a Paradise can be made on Earth. [1]

Smith's words reflect a community that had grown and prospered considerably since 1823, when John James Audubon painted the panorama shown in Plate IV. The intervening years were a golden age for Natchez, a city of palatial town houses and suburban villas [2] designed and furnished in the most fashionable styles (see Pls. II, III, and V).

Antebellum Natchez was dominated by an elite of planters referred to by their rivals as the nabobs. [3] Many were actually doctors, lawyers, and merchants from the Northeast lured by cotton during the 1820s and 1830s. They bought plantations in Louisiana and northern Mississippi and quickly amassed fortunes from the sale of sugar and cotton. [4] Their families intermarried and created a refined style of life that for them rivaled culture in the Northeast. [5]

Militarily unimportant and with a population bound by family and economic ties to the North, Natchez was spared from devastation during the Civil War. However, when peace came, the vast majority of residents were compelled to cut back their purchases of furnishings, Later generations preserved their ancestors' possessions, especially furniture, as tangible tokens of the paradise that had once existed (see Pl. XI).

The extant furniture of antebellum Natchez provides an excellent opportunity to observe patterns of furniture patronage and taste in the lower Mississippi River valley Coupled with surviving documents, the furniture can also define the complex distribution patterns for material goods throughout the country before the Civil War. [6]

Court records demonstrate that the bulk of furniture made in Natchez before the Civil War was the result of cooperative efforts by several woodworkers. In 1825, for example, John McCanaco sued David Collins for payment of services rendered, including carving bedposts, columns, and lion's paws. [7] Similarly, Jesse Trahern filed an action against Richard Cecil in 1828 for payment for turning bookcase legs and fancy posts. [8] The 1837 business invoices of David Perry, a cabinetmaker, reveal a web of transactions in hardware, furniture parts, and lumber with two other furniture businesses in Natchez. [9]

Despite their efforts to capture a share of the market, local makers had to compete with furniture imported into Natchez via the Mississippi River. Family connections in Philadelphia and plantation supplies sent from Cincinnati both involved shipments of furniture. Furniture made in Boston and New York City also came to Natchez and New Orleans on ships that were then loaded with cotton bound for the mills of New England and Europe. Louisiana and Mississippi relied on imported furniture as the economy and industry there were overwhelmingly linked to the production of cotton.

Auction houses were the principal retailers of furniture imported into Natchez during the 1820s and 1830s. They purchased their stock from northeastern merchants, who, in turn, bought the furniture at auctions in large cities and shipped it as venture cargo from port to port in the South until it had been sold. John Henderson and Sons of Natchez, for example, advertised great auctions of elegant household furniture, including bedsteads, sofas, and mahogany center tables (see Pl. VI), all suggesting a large furniture distribution network. The most successful auction houses, such as Jacob Soria and Company and F. H. Dolbeare and Company, targeted an elite clientele, selling furniture "suitable for a professional gentleman." [10] Advertisements listed vast amounts of furniture in popular styles, and sometimes French objects and furniture "made in Europe." [11]

Consignments from distant manufacturers formed the backbone of the Natchez furniture trade (see Pl. IX). In 1838, Jacob Soria and Company advertised that it had

just received on consignment, 1 splendid mahogany armoire 1 mahogany dressing bureau, 2 mahogany sofas, and 1 pair of mahogany pier tables with marble slabs, of the latest fashions from New York. [12]

The retailer Archibald Glaskins brought in furniture mass-produced in Cincinnati, as is revealed in a court case in 1849 showing that he owed money to Mudge and Clawson (w. together 1839-1853) and Henry Wiederecht (w. c. 1848-1870), large Cincinnati firms that shipped a great deal to the South. [13]

The dry-goods dealer N. L. Williams received bundles of chairs from the Philadelphia upholstery and decorating firm John Hancock and Company (see P1. VII). Other distinguished Philadelphia manufacturers such as Crawford Riddel (or Riddle; w. c. 1835-1849) and Anthony Quervelle (1789-1856) shipped boxes of furniture to Natchez commission merchants. Many of these merchants sold to Natchez retailers who, in turn, sold to the planters. Dr. William Newton Mercer (1792-1874) of Laurel Hill in Natchez owned the Baltimore sofa table shown in Plate XV, which was sold, and presumably shipped to Natchez, by Cook and Parkin of Philadelphia. [14] However, on the whole, Philadelphia was not as involved in the cotton trade as Boston, Cincinnati, and New York City, and therefore was not as competitive with those cities in the export of furniture. [15]