Label
Slat-back Armchair, c. 1830
Attributed to Benjamin W. Powers (1788-1866)
East Lyndon, Vermont
Maple, ash
Gift of Elizabeth Harris Brown, #1966.57.2
Benjamin W. Powers was the progenitor of three generations of chairmakers who worked in East Lyndon for almost a century. According to tradition, Powers began to work in the town soon after his marriage in 1814. He developed a specific style of slat-back chair with a woven ash seat, which in the mushroom turnings of the arms and placement and number of rungs resembles chairs made in the Plymouth Colony during the seventeenth century. Whether this similarity was intentional (1820 was the bicentennial of the landing in Plymouth) or simply coincidental is unknown. In either instance, the basic shape was only slightly modified over the years by his son Benjamin F. Powers (1816-1897) and his grandson Henry G. Powers (1840-1901). The two later generations usually stenciled their names on the back of the middle slat of their chairs.