Making Authentic Country Furniture by John G. Shea

Author:John G. Shea
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications

A popular stencil design for Hitchcock chairs. Finely ground bronze powders in golden colors are used for this artwork. (Courtesy, The Hitchcock Chair Co.)

Black button-back, crown-top Hitchcock chair was first made between 1825 and 1832. (Courtesy, The Hitchcock Chair Co.)

Another popular early design of Hitchcock chair employed ring turning and rush seat. (Courtesy, Index of American Design)

Connecticut Hitchcock

Early in the nineteenth century, Lambert Hitchcock, an enterprising Connecticut Yankee, began manufacturing chair parts in his shop at Barkhamsted, Connecticut. He shipped these components in large quantities to Charleston, South Carolina. Soon, however, he started to make completely assembled chairs, which he advertised in the Connecticut Courant in 1822.

At the start, Hitchcock chairs were undecorated and plainly made. But young Hitchcock aspired to make something better. In fact, it was his ambition to make the best chairs in America.

Inspired by the decorative painting of early Connecticut chests and other furniture, Hitchcock decided that his chairs should be painted and elaborately decorated with stenciled designs. As an alternative to carving, inlays and mounted adornments, which made European chairs so desirable and expensive, Hitchcock chose stenciling as the most practical decorative technique within economic reach.

Thus, at his new brick factory, located at Hitchcock-ville, Connecticut (now Riverton, Connecticut), Hitchcock produced a line of decorative chairs and rockers which were shipped out and eagerly bought in cities and towns throughout America.

Indeed, popular demand for Hitchcock chairs became so great that their manufacture soon reached the impressive total of over fifteen thousand chairs per year. Even this amount of production could have been exceeded if skilled artisans were available to perform the specialized manufacturing techniques. While the roster of Hitchcock employees soon exceeded one hundred, the unique artistry of hand operations involved in decorative stenciling required the services of specially trained artists.

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