Side chair, splat-back

On 14 September 1779 two men came to the Philadelphia home of Quakers Henry and Elizabeth Drinker and seized a quantity of their furniture for non-payment of the "Continental tax." Among the goods taken, as noted later in Elizabeth's Drinker's journal, were "6 handsome walnut chairs with open backs, crow feet, and a shell on ye back, and on each knee..." This chair is likely one of the six taken that day. Mrs. Drinker's reference to walnut instead of mahogany is a mistake easily made by an untrained eye.

During the American Revolution, the Militia Act of 1777 required males between the ages of eighteen and fiftythree to serve in the army. An enactment of 1778 required all inhabitants to take an oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Bearing arms and taking oaths were contrary to the Quaker faith and as a result, many Pennsylvania Quakers were fined (or "taxed"). If they failed to pay the fines, their property was seized and often sold at public auction. While no documentation survives, family lore and the presence of the chairs in the family until 1962 suggest that the chairs were purchased and returned to the Drinkers by a friend.
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