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Walnut high chest, attributed to John Bradbury, Sr., York, ca. 1740

Contributed by Old York Historical Society
MMN Item 11242 Item Details
Walnut high chest, attributed to John Bradbury, Sr., York, ca. 1740
MMN Item 11242 Zoom

Description

Walnut with pine secondary bonnet-top high chest is attributed to cabinetmaker John Bradbury, Sr., (1697-1778). Bradbury was born in Salisbury, Essex County, Massachusetts and likely trained with a cabinetmaker in Essex County. His great-grandfather, Thomas Bradbury (1611-1695) had been an agent for Maine Proprietor Ferdinando Gorges, and had managed the earliest tidal sawmill in New England on Old Mill Creek, York River, in the 1630s. John Bradbury moved to York in the 1720s, where, with business partners, he invested in the mill and timber rights at Old Mill Creek.

Bradbury made the high chest for his business partner, Jeremiah Moulton, Jr., and wife Hannah Sayward Moulton around 1740.

The chest follows Boston area furniture design but is more massively constructed than Boston examples.

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