Description:
Side chair with an elaborately turned, black-painted frame with double-jointed brush front feet supporting a rush seat. The back is composed of four molded banisters set between a molded seat rail and a pierced and carved crest rail decorated with a foliate or plume motif centered between adorsed C-scolls. According to a handwritten list of family objects in the file by Elizabeth Hawks Wells (1845-1938), the wife of George Merritt Wells (1839-1883) of Deerfield, this chair may be either "30. Black-painted chair from Aunt Kate Allen's house." or "33. Straight backed chair which came to George Merritt Wells from his Aunt Clarissa Merritt. Tradtion says it was once used as a pulpit chair in one of the old Conway churches." "Aunt Kate" was Catherine Elizabeth Bardwell (1812-1889) who married Caleb Allen (1808-1862) in 1842 and lived in the Allen House on Main St., Deerfield. Pamela Merritt (1800-1854) and Clarissa Merritt (1806-1879) were the daughters of Simeon Merrtt (1762-1829) and Pamela Baker (1766-1843) of Conway, Massachusetts, along with their sister Sarah Merritt Wells (b. 1796), the mother of George Merritt Wells. This chair came from the Viola Wilby estate.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2009.18.1 |
