ESSEX-ROOTS-L Archives

From: sfulk <>
Subject: "Emery Attributions" article
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 99 13:00:54

Quotations (my CAPS) are from "The Emery Attributions," by
Robert F. Trent. This article begins on p.210 of "Essex
Institute Historical Collections", if anyone wants to see
the whole article...

The article is discussing furniture owned first by John
STANIFORD (1648-1730) and his wife, Margaret HARRIS
STANIFORD (1657-1750) of Ipswich, MA. Based on analysis of
the furniture style, Trent is suggesting that it might be
included in "an entire group of case pieces attributed to
the extended EMERY family of joiners, turners, and
carpenters in the neighboring town of Newbury.3"

(footnote 3:
Jonathan L. Fairbanks and Robert F. Trent, eds. "New
England Begins - The Seventeenth Century" (Boston: Museum
of Fine Arts, 1982), 26-64 and 530-32.)

Trent discusses the style of the furniture at some length,
including photographs of representative pieces (pp.
221-3), including those "attributed to the EMERY shops."
In this discussion, he also mentions (p.215) the "SYMONDS
family shop tradition of Salem" and that "although the
founder of the (SYMOND) tradition emigrated from Norfolk
to Salem in the 1630s, dated SYMONDS case pieces range
only from 1676 to 1701...".

(footnotes:
Benno M. Forman, "The Seventeenth Century Case Furniture
of Essex County, Massachusetts, and its Makers" (M.A.
thesis, University of Delaward, 1968), 41-45; Robert F.
Trent, "The Symonds Joinery Shops of Salem and Their
Works," The Peabody Museum of Salem Antiques Show 1981
(Salem: The Pebody Museum, 1981), 33-36.)

Trent describes Newbury (p.216) as being "founded by a
group of well-heeled settlers from Hampshire County in
England" and supporting "a large and prosperous family of
joiners that was present from the 1630s and continued
working into the eighteenth century: the EMERY family."
...
"The EMERY shops were founded by ANTHONY EMERY (her
1635-died 1694) and his brother JOHN EMERY (1598-1683),
who emigrated to Newbury from Romsey in Hampshire in 1635.
ANTHONY EMERY did not long remain in Newbury, but moved to
Dover, New Hampshire. In 1651 he moved again to Kittery,
Maine, and in 1660 he removed once more to Portsmouth,
Rhode Island. Apparently his working career was somewhat
checkered, and he, like his brother John, had Sympathies
for Quakers that were not appreciated by the orthodox
authorities.8 JOHN EMERY seems to be the more significant
workman. He trained his sons, JOHN EMERY, JR. (1623-1693)
and JONATHAN EMERY (1652-1723), and his grandson STEPHEN
EMERY (1691-1746) was also a woodworker.9

(footnotes:
8 Jonathan M. Chu, "The Social and Political Contexts of
Heterodoxy: Quakerism in Seventeenth-Century Kittery," New
England Quarterly 54, no. 3 (September 1981): 365-84.
9 Susan Mackiewicz, "Woodworking Traditions in Newbury,
Massachusetts, 1635-1745," (M.A. thesis, University of
Delaware, 1981) 95, 99, and 104.)

(p.217)
"Undoubtedly JOHN EMERY, SR. trained many apprentices
during the course of his long working career. His probate
inventory includes "set of pumpe tooles, 2 li.," "set of
Churgens tooles, 2 li. 10s.," and "Carpenter and turners
and Joyners tooles, 4 li. 7s.," an impressive array,
though not listed in detail.10

(footnote:
10 Records and Files of the Quarterly Court of Essex
County, Massachusetts, vol. 9 (Salem: Essex Institute,
1975), 132-34)

He cites the "continuity of the EMERY shop tradition" and
the significance of the "West Country origin of the
EMERYs" in terms of their selection of wood ("watersawn
sycamore, a wood rarely seen in other New England
furniture of this period but characteristic of joinery in
Gloucestershire and Hampshire.11"). (footnote 11 deals
with an English regional study of wood styles in
furniture-making)

He also mentions as characteristic of the EMERY shops the
construction of the drawer fronts and the use of layout
marks. (pp.217-18) He relates the use of layout marks to
the use of apprentices in the EMERY shops (p.218): "While
such layout marks are not unknown in other New England
joinery school
s, the persistent yet variable use of such systems in EMERY joinery strongly suggests that the primary EMERY shops and subsidiary shops founded by apprentices regularly used these systems to insure against errors by journeymen unfamiliar with the shop traditions. … This inference is bolstered by t
he large number of EMERY-style objects that survive, more than from any other Massachusetts joinery tradition, including the Boston shops."

Trent continues:
"The sheer virtuosity of the EMERY tradition as a whole is quite impressive. There is very little in the way of repetition by rote, save perhaps in the case of the less-expensive chests with one drawer, which are quite numerous. The great two-part cupboards are extraordinary." (goes on in detailed
description) … "Other luxury furniture forms … underscore the wealth of the patrons for whom the EMERY shops were working all across northern Essex County."

This should give the basic flavor of the article. Pardon my chopping, but I have to drive for GS in 15 minutes… Enjoy!

Dori

-------------------------------------
Name: sfulk
E-mail: sfulk <>
Date: 2/3/99
Time: 1:00:54 PM

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