Maine cabinetmakers of the Federal period and the influence of coastal Massachusetts design

Magazine Antiques, May, 2004 by Thomas Hardiman, Jr., Thomas B. Johnson, Laura Fecych Sprague

The furniture made in Maine during the Federal period has long been overlooked or misattributed. Known as Massachusetts's District of Maine until it became a state in 1820, Maine attracted a number of skilled craftsmen, often trained in the influential design centers of Salem and Boston, Massachusetts, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Working in small coastal Maine communities from southwestern York to eastern Machias, in the western hills and mountains, and in urban towns such as Portland and Saco, they adjusted their production according to the demands of their patrons and the local economy. Their furniture mirrored, and sometimes surpassed, that made in Massachusetts proper, but it is rarely recognized as being from Maine. (1)

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Having suffered for a century and a half from colonial wars and inhospitable frontier conditions, Maine experienced sustained economic and cultural development after the close of the American Revolution. Shipbuilding, shipping, and trade boomed between about 1790 and 1820. Population tripled with an influx of settlers representing all levels of society; the number of established towns nearly doubled.

Even with the setbacks of the Embargo of 1807 and the War of 1812, growth and prosperity continued for decades. (2) The physical vestiges of the Federal style still dominate the state; and towns such as York, the Kennebunks, Saco, Portland, and the inland towns of Paris and Fryeburg--along with many others--are largely characterized by important houses and public buildings erected between 1785 and 1830. (3) It was an era of opportunity for many, not the least of whom were the craftsmen furnishing these new structures.

From 1780 to 1830, 154 men in nearly fifty Maine towns are known to have had cabinetmaking as their primary means of income. (4) With goods neat and handsome, they found success by adapting to their market and the tastes of their customers. To keep prices competitive, they frequently substituted local woods for more costly imported ones. A preference for figured woods such as maple and birch or mahogany veneers appears along with the regionally typical secondary woods of eastern white pine and basswood. Their output ranged from bold, and today better-known, painted furniture (5) to the less well-recognized classically inspired furniture that is emphasized in this article.

The training these craftsmen received in Salem, Newburyport, or Boston influenced both their own production and the training they provided to their apprentices in their new northeasterly locale. How, then, can Maine-made furniture be distinguished from that constructed just due south? The answer lies in research into the craftsmen themselves, an understanding of their patrons, and connoisseurship of their furniture. Careful examination reveals subtle but telling distinctions.

At least ten cabinet shops are documented in the southern urban center of Saco between 1790 and 1830, many of which produced furniture that compared favorably, and often surpassed, similar forms available through established trade routes with Boston and points south. (6) Colonel Thomas Cutts and his large family dominated both commerce and custom in Saco at the time. A former clerk of Sir William Pepperrell (1696-1759) of Kittery Point, Cutts inherited vast portions of the Pepperrell lands with his marriage in 1762 to Elizabeth Scamman (1744/45-1803), a grandniece of Pepperrell's business partner in Saco. By 1815 Cutts had become the wealthiest man in York County, paying two and a half times more tax than the next wealthiest man. His large Georgian style mansion was furnished with a mixture of local and imported furniture. (7) Cutts is known to have had accounts with John Armstrong, (8) a cabinetmaker who was born in Falmouth (now called Portland) of Irish parents but worked in Boston before coming to Saco in 1750. Information about Armstrong's life and work is still being assembled, but the nature of his output can be assessed from three identical desks with histories that can be traced to the late eighteenth century in the Cutts family (see Pl. II). (9) Of dense, heavy mahogany, they all conform to typical Boston construction practices, except that the secondary pine boards are extremely thick and the rear claw-and-ball feet are carved on only the two exposed sides. For a central decorative feature, Armstrong used the figuring of a knot on the lid, which might have been considered an imperfection in Boston. All three desks were made from the same templates, as the drawers of any one fit neatly into the cases of the others. This suggests repeat purchases from a single shop. A cradle with a Cutts provenance, made of the same dense mahogany with brass carrying handles identical to those on the desks, was also likely made by Armstrong in Saco. (10) It is intriguing to guess what other forms Armstrong might have produced, but without a local provenance his furniture conforms so closely to Boston and North Shore products that it is difficult to distinguish it from similar forms produced there.