Dedham joinery, part 1

pulpit fragment, Medfield Massachusetts

Lately I’ve been re-reading an article about joined chests from Dedham, Massachusetts. Its title is “Style and Structure in the Joinery of Dedham and Medfield, Massachusetts, 1635-1685”, by Robert Blair St. George. It’s found in the journal Winterthur Portfolio, #13 “American Furniture and Its Makers, published in 1979. If you’d like to read it, you can sign up for free access to it through JSTOR at this link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1180600

It illustrates and discusses a lot of carved furniture of that period - and attributes the work to two carpenters/joiners, John Houghton and John Thurston. Over time my views on the article changed. I’ll show you some of the reasons for the shift in my outlook. 

Over the years I’ve had a chance to study many of the pieces from this group. There’s a lot of them, some I’ve never seen other than in photos. St. George starts off with two fragments that survive from the 2nd meeting house in Medfield. That building was torn down in 1706 and among the items rescued from it were 2 panels, said to be part of the pulpit from the first meeting house in Medfield. One has the date 1656 carved in its back (above) - here’s the front of that piece:

pulpit fragment, front