Hugh Easley, Alabama cabinetmaker

Magazine Antiques, May, 2002 by Christopher Lang

The antebellum period in northern Alabama (see P1. II) had a rich cabinetmaking tradition that has been largely overlooked. (1) The region was somewhat remote, with closer ties to Tennessee to the north than to southern Alabama. The chief port for northern Alabama was New Orleans rather than Mobile, and, before the advent of the railway, commerce was largely conducted along the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers.

During the territorial period and early statehood northern Alabama grew rapidly, with the city of Huntsville, the seat of Madison County playing an important role. Walker Allen (1785-1818) established a large cabinetmaking shop and warehouse in Huntsville in 1813 and operated it until his death in 1818. Forty-four delegates met in the shop in 1819 to write the state's constitution. (2) By the time of the United States Census of 1820, Madison was the most populated county in the state with close to twenty thousand inhabitants. The following notice in the Nashville Clarion and Tennessee State Gazette of February 17, 1818, regarding a land sale by the trustees of Cotton Port, Alabama, illustrates the accelerated pace of development in the Tennessee River valley during the period:

Trade cannot stagnate here. Industrious and ingenious mechanics must see that the inhabitants of such a country will want houses, furniture, farming utensils, leather, saddles, boots, shoes, etc. and will be able to pay good prices for them. The upper country on the Tennessee and Holston rivers and their branches will afford, at a very trifling expense for water carriage down river, abundant supplies of provisions, iron, lumber and other raw materials.

The market for furniture in northern Alabama was very competitive. By 1825 more than a dozen cabinetmakers and other woodworkers had established themselves in or near Huntsville alone. (3) With the completion of the Indian Creek Canal in 1831 Huntsville was connected to the Tennessee River, although the rapids known as Muscle Shoals in the river presented quite an obstacle to steamboats. (4) The canal was used primarily for shipping cotton to market rather than household goods. The train depot in the city was not completed until December 1860, so the local cabinetmakers enjoyed a market with relatively little competition from cheap mass-produced furniture brought in from other parts of the country. Cabinetmakers in the nearby Alabama communities of Athens, Courtland, and Decatur were also creating stylish furniture (see Pls. X, XI, XIII).

The United States Census for 1850 shows that many of the craftsmen in northern Alabama came from elsewhere. Heavy migration brought natives of Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, the Carolinas, and Georgia to northern Alabama. (5) Others both free and enslaved arrived from Europe and Africa via New Orleans and Mobile. Among several French craftsmen who brought their traditions to the region was the ornamental painter Francis H. LeCoq (b. 1784), who announced in the Huntsville Alabama Republican on May 4, 1821, that beginning at the age of twelve he had been instructed "by the best masters in France, Italy, Germany and England."

One of the young cabinetmakers immigrating to northern Alabama was Hugh Easley. Born in Georgia in 1810, he married Margaret Ann Murrell (b. 1814) on August 15, 1832, according to the marriage records of Madison County. (6) He set up shop as a cabinetmaker in Huntsville and nearly a decade later advertised in the Huntsville Democrat of December 23, 1841:

Hugh Easley Has removed from his old land, near the former Post Office, to his residence on Holmes Street a few hundred yards Northeast of the Public Square, where he will carry on the Cabinet Making Business in all its variety, and will be pleased to see his old customers and all others who may need articles in his line.

Despite upheavals in the economy and his own declaration of bankruptcy in 1842, Easley continued his cabinetmaking business through the 1850s. However, with the arrival of the railroad and the consequent increase in imported furniture, Easley diversified. The Huntsville directory for 1859-1860 lists him as an "Undertaker and Dealer in Metallic Burial Cases." After the Civil War Easley appears to have been very successful. According to the Madison County probate records he bought a hotel in 1866 for $7,000, and in 1870 he bought shops at 409 and 411 Holmes Street for $4,500. (7) During this period he also bought various lots on Jefferson and Triana Streets. (8) He died in 1873 at the age of sixty-three leaving his property to his widow and daughter.

Several pieces of furniture made by or attributed to Easley have come to light within the past few years. The major discovery is a labeled bureau (Pls. I and Ia). It provides a basis for attributing similar pieces to him, such as the bureaus shown in Plates III and VI. They have the same book-matched mahogany veneers and dovetails as the labeled bureau, and, perhaps more significantly, the turned and threaded wooden screws that support the mirrors are interchangeable among the three bureaus. Two other bureaus, an elaborate one with decorative veneers (Pl. VIII) and a simple one of solid wood (P1. lx), share similar features and have close family associations with the other Easley furniture.