An invisible clamp presses your temples together as you go to work, and your neighborhood is chilled by a damp wind tossing about scraps of ribbon and tissue left behind by careless garbage men. Yep, the holidays are over, and you've got a severe case of the post-holidays blues.
You need to detox yourself of all those garish colors that saturated your senses for the six frenetic weeks of the Christmas shopping season. To get past your visual hangover, I recommend a hair of the colors that bit you. And from an unexpected place – colonial New England.
Color from colonial New England? Isn't that the place where grim Pilgrim families lived in equally grim homes furnished with grim wooden furniture? Well, not exactly.
New England furniture was sturdy, which is why many examples remain. But it was colorful, rather than grim. The colorful, sturdy Hadley chests, of which about 250 are known to exist, were often pieces of dower furniture that a young lady took with her to her new home when she got married. The chest - sometimes painted, sometimes stained - was usually made of pine or oak and stood on four short legs. They had one, two or three drawers at the bottom.
Usually, joiners cut, carved, and painted all the stiles, rails and panels before putting them together with mortise and tenon joints secured by wooden pins. The front of the chest had three recessed panels that were decorated with carved images of tulips and leaves. The tulip, associated with fertility and resurrection, was a popular motif in colonial American furniture, and it is also found on gravestones, pulpits, and textiles. When new, the facade of the chest sometimes resembled a patchwork quilt; others were decorated with beautiful circular designs that resembled mandalas or so-called hex signs painted on barns in Pennsylvania. According to John T. Kirk (American Furniture Understanding Styles, Construction, and Quality, Abrams, 2000), the incised floral designs on these pieces is a "link to the lingering medieval tradition of carving that ran along the rails and stiles." Among collectors of Americana, a Hadley chest is an ultimate prize, and at auctions they fetch prices between $125,000 and $350,000.
A beautiful example is this chest, made in Hatfield or Hadley, Massachusetts, about 1715-1720, which is found in Historic Deerfield, a museum complex in the village of Old Deerfield, Massachusetts. The gift of Dr. Ogden B. Carter, Jr., this chest was constructed of soft maple, chestnut, oak, white pine, and iron. Its fine carving, surviving paint, and excellent condition make it one of the best examples. Note the inverted hearts, the tree, the anchor, and the sand glass or hourglass. "HD" stood for Hepzibah Dickinson (1696-1761) of Hatfield, who married Jonathan Belding (1694-1778) of Northfield, Massachusetts in 1720. Most of these chests bear the initials of young girls approaching marriage.
According to the museum, Hadley chests are so called because an early Hartford collector, Henry Wood Erving (1851-1941), found in an old house in Hadley, Massachusetts, an example that he described as his "Hadley chest." These chests form the largest surviving group of joined furniture from early America. Some Hadley chests retain only a slight residue of their original paint. Others have had all the paint stripped off by owners. Still others have been repainted by restorers.
Last year, Historic Deerfield acquired a one-of-a-kind rope settle that is related to the Hadley chest.This settle, which still has small bits of blue paint, has a white oak frame, 75 inches long and 47 inches high, with an 18-inch -deep rope seat. The back was made from a single plank of water-sawn sweet gum. According to museum, this joined and carved settle is the only known American example with a rope seat, which was once fitted with a woven splint mat topped with two or three deep feather cushions. Its crest-rail is carved in tulip and leaf motifs, which relate it to Hadley chests.The maker of this unique object based its general design on 18th-century examples from Lancashire in northern England.
A very good tonic for post-holiday blues is visiting Historic Deerfield in Old Deerfield, Massachusetts. This museum complex, founded by Greenwich, Connecticut residents and Deerfield Academy parents Henry Needham Flynt and Helen Geier Flynt in 1952, is one of America's most beautiful and carefully preserved National Historic Landmarks. 14 historic houses ranging in date from 1720 to 1840 and the Flynt Center of Early New England Life (a decorative arts center opened in 1998) showcase one of this country's finest collections of American furniture and decorative arts. Historic Deerfield is a complex of 14 museum houses and the Flynt Center of Early New England Life. On display are more than 25,000 objects made or used in America between 1650 and 1850.
Since Hadley chests have become highly desirable collectors' items, a hunt for other Hadley settles is likely to have begun. So if you are tired of looking at your brushed-steel and charcoal-gray leather furniture, and you have $300,000 to spare, you might consider adding a splash of color and history to your home. That's a very good tonic for post-holiday blues.
A more practical way is buying an anniversary iris that was developed to celebrate Historic Deerfield's 50th Anniversary. The museum plans a variety of programs, special events and preservation initiatives throughout 2002. To underscore the institution's commitment to preserving the village's long agricultural history, the museum's staff teamed with plant growers to offer
to the public a Siberian iris – appropriately called "anniversary" – which has been grown in the village's historic South Meadows and can now be grown in gardens throughout America.
The iris is snowy white with a soft yellow center, and is $25 for three plants, plus $5.95 s/h. They will be shipped in the spring of 2002 in time for planting in your particular gardening zone. If you want to send one as a gift, they will send along a gift card.
You can visit Historic Deerfield in northwestern Massachusetts, 165 miles north of New York City and 95 miles west of Boston. For general information and tour reservations call 413-774-5581. You can get a preview of your visit by logging on to their web site, at www.historic-deerfield.org.
