Through the generosity of several collectors who have become close friends of and advisors to Mount Vernon, the Association purchased the most significant curatorial acquisition of the Bicentennial year in October 1999 at Christie's auction house in New York. A chair procured by Congress for George Washington's use in the New York executive mansion, this reminder of the first presidential residence will make its appearance in the George Washington Museum in the spring of 2000.

Mahogany Side Chair, Philadelphia, 1760-1780.

On April 14, 1789, in Mount Vernon's New Room, George Washington learned from Charles Thomson, Secretary of Congress, that he had received the Electoral College's unanimous vote as first president of the newly formed United States of America. Washington accepted this honor with a brief speech, and two days later departed his Virginia estate for New York, the new nation's capital. Accompanied by Thomson, the president-elect and his party reached New York on April 23rd, and Washington was inaugurated at Federal Hall on April 30, 1789.

In preparation for Washington's arrival in New York, Congress quickly moved to select a dwelling suitable for the first President and to furnish it appropriately. They leased 3 Cherry Street from Samuel Osgood for a sum of $845 per annum, and a joint resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives directed Mr. Osgood to "put the house and the furniture thereof in proper condition for the residence and use of the President of the United States." Substantial alterations were made, including the expansion of the drawing room in order to accommodate Presidential entertaining, and Mrs. Osgood set to work selecting suitable furnishings.

The Samuel Osgood papers in the manuscript collection of the New York Historical Society list the articles purchased for the residence as well as the merchants, vendors, and craftsmen who supplied them. With the exception of the upholsterer's charges, the greatest sum was that paid to Thomas Burling for "Mahogany Furniture," which certainly contributed to what Martha Washington called a "handsomely furnished house." Of the sixty-eight mahogany chairs Burling listed in his sale to Congress, three sets have been identified to date. The Chippendale chair purchased by Mount Vernon in October of 1999 belongs to a set produced in Philadelphia and likely shipped to New York for retail sale through a contract with Thomas Burling. (By the late eighteenth century, furniture was commonly shipped from one coastal production center to another, and Burling probably relied on these production centers to fulfill the demands occasioned by the influx of new government officials.)

In total, Congress spent eight thousand dollars preparing the executive residence for the Washington family. Mrs. Osgood's niece, Sally Robinson, described to Miss Kitty Wistar of Brandywine the effect this sum had on the dwelling, and its final appearance with "every room furnished in the most elegant manner." She recalled, "I went the morning before the General's arrival to look at it. The best of furniture in every room, and the greatest quantity of plate and china I ever saw; the whole of the first and second stories is papered and the floors covered with the richest kinds of Turkey and Wilton carpets. There is scarcely anything talked about now but General Washington and the Palace."

Despite the substantial expenditure to refurbish the house and Sally Robinson's description of it as 'the Palace,' the dwelling was likely similar to comparable elite New York households of the late eighteenth century, and contained a combination of 'plain' and 'fancy' objects. Washington's inventory of government-purchased furniture, made in 1797 at the conclusion of his presidency, notes numerous 'inlaid' pieces as well as 'plain' furnishings. Those with inlay, including a breakfast and tea table, were presumably in the fashionable neo-classical style and placed in the best rooms of the house. The objects specified as 'plain' included three of the six groupings of mahogany chairs Washington identified, and were probably either simply finished examples of Hepplewhite designs or of the more established Chippendale style.

Mount Vernon's new acquisition was presumably among the fourteen plain mahogany side chairs Washington listed with those furnishings secured for him by Congress. Crafted in Philadelphia between 1760 and 1780, the chair exhibits construction and stylistic elements typical of that city. Although not identical to plates in Chippendale's The Gentleman & Cabinet-Maker's Director, the chair bears strong resemblance to a number of the cabinetmaker's designs. The Gothic tracery of the splat provides the chair's focal point, and the dramatic free-flowing movement of its interlacing is framed by fluted stiles and dramatized by the serpentine crest rail. The unadorned seat frame and simple skirt are supported by cabriole front legs with plain knees terminating in claw-and-ball feet, and the side seat rails are tenoned through the stiles in typical Philadelphia fashion.

Detail of claw and ball foot.

Although the Osgood house was the best available residence in New York at the time of Washington's inauguration, its location proved inconvenient and its size too small for the President's household. Accordingly, when the Comte de Moustier, the French Minister to the United States, returned to France in early 1790, Washington seized the opportunity to relocate to the residence leased by the Comte on lower Broadway. In February of 1790, the executive mansion was moved from the Osgood house at 3 Cherry Street to the Macomb house at 39 Broadway. A much larger dwelling, the Macomb house provided two drawing rooms and a number of additional spaces that required furnishing. Accordingly, the furniture already procured by Congress for the Cherry Street residence was moved to the new household and was supplemented by that ordered from local cabinetmakers. Washington privately purchased for the residence a number of items from the Comte de Moustier, including a suite of French seating furniture, some examples of which are in the Mount Vernon collection. The French furniture was placed in the larger and more formal of the two drawing rooms, while the smaller drawing room contained the government-owned pieces brought from Cherry Street. Despite the larger dwelling and the addition of French furniture, one visitor to this residence confirmed that the interior appointments remained in keeping with other American elites. William Hazlitt recalled: "The drawing-room in which I sat, was lofty and spacious, but the furniture was not beyond that found in dwellings of opulent Americans in general, and might be called plain for its situation."

In 1790, the seat of government moved from New York to Philadelphia, and the Washingtons relocated again. Most of the furnishings used in New York, and all of the mahogany furniture, was transferred to the new executive residence at 190 High Street in Philadelphia. Seven years later, as Washington prepared to return home to Mount Vernon, he meticulously crafted a list of all public furniture procured for presidential use by Congress, and all private objects he had purchased through the course of his presidency. Although Washington sold several privately purchased items before setting off for Virginia, no sale of public furniture is known to have been made. One must then assume that all of the mahogany chairs listed by Washington in 1797, including Mount Vernon's newly acquired chair, remained as government property in the executive mansion for use by the Adams administration.

Unfortunately, President John Adams did not keep detailed furnishing records, but it is relatively certain that a good number of government-owned pieces deemed out of style or in disrepair were sold between 1797 and 1800. It is through this sale of furniture at the turn of the nineteenth century that Mount Vernon's new chair made its way from public ownership into private hands. An 1839 label on the slip-seat frame reads:

"THESE CHAIRS
Were in possession of
GEN. GEORGE WASHINGTON
While residing in Philadelphia as president of
The United States of America and were purchased at a sale of his effects by
PETER HINKLE
And kept by him until his decease when they became
The property of the present owner
WILLIAM GARDNER
A.D. 1839"

The label on the chair's slip-seat frame.

A resident of Philadelphia County, Peter Hinkle apparently purchased the chair when the sale of Washington administration furnishings took place. After descending to Hinkle's nephew, William Gardner, the set's whereabouts are unknown until American furniture dealers and institutions acquired examples in the twentieth century. Mount Vernon's chair was most recently in the collection of the Claneil Foundation, which purchased it from Israel Sack in 1971, and it comes to the Association with much the same provenance as the four from this set that are in the collection of the White House.

Mount Vernon is pleased to announce the purchase of this Philadelphia mahogany side chair during the 1999 Bicentennial year. It represents the Association's first acquisition of an object secured by Congress for Washington's use in the presidential residence, and this chair provides Mount Vernon with the opportunity to expand the interpretation of Washington's presidential years. Visitors to the George Washington Museum on the estate will soon have the pleasure of viewing this 'plain' mahogany Chippendale chair, where it will serve to interpret the objects that surrounded the Washingtons as the new nation sought to provide the first executive with furnishings appropriate to the country's leader.

Carol E. Borchert,
Curator
Mount Vernon Annual Report, 2000

Selected Bibliography

Decatur, Stephen. "George Washington and His Presidential Furniture." American Collector (February 1941): 8-15.

Decatur, Stephen. Private Affairs of George Washington From the Records and Accounts of Tobias Lear, Esquire, his Secretary, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1933.

Detweiler, Susan G., and Hummel, Charles F. "Two Philadelphia Mahogany Side Chairs From President Washington's Official Residence in Philadelphia," Unpublished paper prepared for the Barra Foundation, 1993, Mount Vernon Curatorial Files.

Hoffman, Henry B. "President Washington's Cherry Street Residence." The New-York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin 23 (January 1939): 90-103.

Miller, Agnes. "The Macomb House: Presidential Mansion." Michigan History 37 (December 1953): 373-384.

Wharton, Anne H. "Washington's New York Residence in 1789." Lippincott's Monthly Magazine 43 (1889): 741-745.