Description:
Cane made from wood from Deerfield's "Old Indian House", with an inscription on a silver band just below the rounded knop top: "Geo. N. Briggs/ From the Indian House/ Deerfield, Feb. 29th 1704." This cane was presented to George Nixon Briggs (1796-1861), Governor of Massachusetts from 1844-1851, who was the sitting governor at the time of the demolition of the Old Indian House in 1848. This demolition marked the first organized effort at historic preservation in the United States, and occured about ten years before what was a successful move to preserve George Washington's Mt. Vernon home. Many parts of the Indian House were saved; some preserved intact like the hatchet-scared door and doorway in the Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, and others were used to make presentation pieces such as this cane and another in the HD collection with a Chinese export porcelain handle (HD 59.030). Governor Briggs is probably best known for the Briggs Report of 1849, House No. 26, "Report of the Commssioners Relating to the Condition of the Indians in Massachusetts." His daughter gave this cane to the donor's (Burrage Warner) father around 1920; she had a boarding house in Pittsfield where Mr. Warner, Sr., who was unmarried until age 59, lived. The donor thought that she may have given the cane to his father since both Governor Briggs, who had originally come from Adams, and Mr. Warner Sr. were lawyers in Pittsfield, the county seat. The plain, tapered stick has a broad silver band just above the tip.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2003.53 |
