Description: Bedstead (see tester 2009.19.2) with turned posts topped with acorn-shaped finials drilled to accept the tester frame, and the posts of the footboard embellished with ribbed fluting, which retains its original red paint-stain. 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: "22. The bedstead - bureau & dressing table in K's room were the furnishings of my grandmother Grandmother Smead ... in the Old Brick house in Shelburne where she went as a bride in 1814. Katharine [Wells] netted the test that adorns the bedstead in 1928- or 1929." Elizabeth Hawks (1799-1858), the daughter of Zadock Hawks (1731-1821) of Deerfield, became the second wife of Elihu Smead (1765-1840) of Shelburne in 1814. The daughter of George Merritt Wells (1839-1883) and Elizabeth Hawks Wells (1845-1938) of Main St., Deerfield, Katharine Wells (1875-1958) married Richard Ingersoll Wilby (1880-1920) in 1908.
Link to share this object record: https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2009.19.1 |