Eighteenth Century chairs at Stenton.

Stenton today is the finest early eighteenth-century house in Philadelphia, having been built between 1723 and 1730 as the countryseat of James Logan (1674-1751). Northwest of the city and near the roads to Germantown and New York City, Stenton was both Logan's retreat from the world and his statement to the world of who he was and what he had attained. For historians of American furniture, interior design, and domestic life, Stenton is an unparalleled resource for its time and place. For more than one hundred years, the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, who operate the site, have sought out and acquired furnishings used by Logan and his descendants. These objects, bolstered by estate inventories and other written records, provide unique testimony to the social, artistic, and cultural worlds of Logan and his heirs.

This article is the second of three about the furniture in Stenton. In the May 2002 issue of The Magazine ANTIQUES, I explored the case furniture. (1) The final article will focus on a selection of tables and other furniture in the house.

Original Stenton furnishings as well as furnishings closely associated with the Logan family (but not necessarily documented to use at Stenton) came from three major sources. One was the bequest in 1915 by Samuel L. Betton II (1842-1915), a direct descendant through his mother, Mrs. Thomas Forrest Betton (nee Sarah Elizabeth Logan; 1812-1859), of more than thirty pieces of furniture, as well as pewter that had belonged to James Logan and others, and other items. (2) Robert Restalrig Logan (1874-1956), also a direct descendant through his father, Algernon Sydney Logan (1849-1925), sold some important Stenton furnishings to the antiques dealer Joe Kindig Jr. (1891-1971), who preserved their provenance for the subsequent owners and contributed to the return of some of the objects, notably the matching 1738 maple high chest and dressing table be queathed by Mrs. Lammot du Pont Copeland (nee Pamela Cunningham; 1906-2001) in 2001, (3) and the pair of side chairs with compass seats discussed below Maria Dickinson Lo gan (1855-1 939) gave and bequeathed several objects. She was the last direct descendant to own the house before Stenton was given to the city of Philadelphia in 1909. (4) She was also the namesake of Maria (1783-1 854), the daughter of John Dickinson (1732-1808) and the wife of Albanus Charles Logan (1783-1854), a fourth generation owner of Stenton. In addition, several individuals dedicated to supporting Stenton and its efforts to collect, preserve, and interpret the house and furnishings have given specific objects, including the "close" armchair discussed below.

James Logan's substantial papers leave a written legacy of his house, furnishings, and household. They illuminate the long building campaign, starting in 1723, through various interruptions, such as when Logan's quarries ran out of stone, the change to brick and to a more substantially designed "Plantation House," and its completion in 1730. (5) The written record is not complete, however. Ledgers, journals, and cashbooks cover Logan's earlier and later years but do not survive for the years 1728 to 1739--an important time in the history of Stenton. References are spotty for the months before the house was occupied as well as for the decade following. The scattered historical references that do exist suggest that these were years of change at Stenton. For example, Logan's purchase of the maple high chest of drawers and dressing table in 1738, eight years after he moved into the completed house, suggests that he continued to acquire furniture gradually--as he had between 1710 and 1720--rather than in a few la rge purchases. Thus, the furniture in the house at any one time was a mixture of styles and decorative features.

In 1712 Logan returned to Philadelphia from London resolved to make his fortune and to make the new world his home. (6) Over the next seven years, he bought some sixty chairs and three couches. His "Household Items" accounts, which separate these purchases from business-related transactions, record sets of "walnut chairs," "caned chairs," "walnut caned chairs," and "black chairs," including some specified as "arm" or "elbow." (7) Regrettably, none of these early chairs is known to have survived. Based on manuscript evidence alone, the caned chairs ranged in value from 4s. to 14s. each and were of English manufacture. Walnut side chairs valued at 22s. 6d. each were "Brought over by J. Parker" (whose identity and role is unknown) in 1712, and "2 fine Walnut Chairs & 1 Elbow ditto," valued together at [pounds]3 3s., were cargo aboard the ship Richmond a year later. These more costly chairs were probably joined chairs of unknown design. Logan's 1752 inventory describes caned and leather-upholstered chairs, which may represent some of these or subsequent purchases that replaced them. (8) Values of the black side and armchairs suggest that they must have been similar to the caned chairs, probably turned and painted black, perhaps with rush or splint s eats. Black was a popular color, probably viewed as a cheaper alternative to japanned finishes. (9)

The earliest chairs to survive with Logan and Stenton associations are examples from three sets of side chairs with compass seats (so-called because a compass was used to scribe the curves). All have the same distinctively shaped splats incorporating splayed lobes at the bottom (see P1. I). Although Queen Anne styles in Philadelphia-made seating furniture ...