Early American tables and other furniture at Stenton

Magazine Antiques, May, 2004 by Philip D. Zimmerman

The Stenton cradle bears the pencil inscription "M.D. Logan Loudoun Gtn [Germantown]," indicating its probable use at the house called Loudoun on Germantown Avenue near Stenton. The house was originally built between 1796 and 1801 by Thomas Wright Armatt (d. 1806), whose granddaughter Anna (1820-1891) married Gustavus George Logan (1815-1876), a fifth generation owner of Stenton. The marriage was an unhappy one, causing Anna and her four children, including Maria Dickinson Logan (later the donor of the cradle to Stenton), to move back to Loudoun in the late 1860s. These and other complex family relationships and circumstances underscore the difficulty of establishing exactly where and when certain possessions were used. However, reliable evidence of family ownership affirms that, if this cradle was not first used at Stenton, it was used nearby under very similar conditions.

An early nameplate on one of two Philadelphia-made bidets (Pl. VII) in Stenton states that it was the gift of Albanus Logan Smith, a name that eludes identification. Ongoing research suggests that the correct name of the donor may have been Albanus Longstreth Smith (1859-1938), a direct descendant through James Logan's daughter Hannah, who married John Smith (1722-1771). The second bidet (Pl. VIII) was one of the many gifts from Maria Dickinson Logan. Bidets have never been customary in American daily life despite their use by the French since the beginning of the eighteenth century. Among the few surviving bidets with a history of use in the United States is a French-made example with detachable legs sent to George Washington's Virginia home, Mount Vernon, in 1797. (38) In a 1928 article, it was naively if ingeniously described as "Washington's Traveling Boot Box" with a removable lid that "is transformed into an effective bootjack." (39) A 1929 letter at Stenton indicates that the Society of Colonial Dames were closer to identifying the object correctly. It notes that the "baby's bath tub--very old, mahogany stand and China tub," recently given by Mr. Smith, was "bought at the time Stenton was dismantled about 1855." (40) A month later the minutes of the Stenton Mansion Committee record that "Miss Logan [Maria Dickinson Logan] presented a baby's bath tub that had originally belonged to Stenton." (41)

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Based on stylistic analysis, the bidet in Plate VII may be the earliest known American-made example. (42) The leg turnings and Atlantic white cedar glue blocks are both typical of Philadelphia. The bidet is a rectangular box with four legs that screw into threaded sockets. The form follows the recommendations in Thomas Sheraton's Cabinet Dictionary (London, 1803). The English designer notes especially that the legs be "of such a length as to pack in the inside of the pan" for portability. (43) Although Sheraton details the physical aspects of bidets, he says almost nothing about their use. A fitted drawer, he notes, is "particularly adapted" for "a lady's convenience," (44) implying that other bidetlike objects may have been used by men on occasion. His earlier treatments of bidets in The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing-Book (London, 1793) merely illustrate the form as a drawer device integrated into a larger, gender-neutral piece of cabinetry. (45) George Hepplewhite illustrated a freestanding bidet of "common form" with no further explanation in a plate dated 1787 in his Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide. (46)