by Ronald Aylor
Three-panel joined chest in white ash with red oak panels. A running-vine pattern adorns the white ash frame, while carved tulip and sunflower motif(s) appear on the red oak panels. Pine till inside with carved lid. A “Hadley Chest” by definition is a style of chest made circa. 1700 in Massachusetts or Connecticut, having front rails and panels carved in low relief with elaborate tulip, sunflower, and leaf patterns. The name given to this style of furniture was coined by Henry Wood Erving (1851-1941), a Connecticut antique collector. Erving purchased a chest in Hadley, Massachusetts as an antique in 1883. He wrote that “in talking with friends [about his collection of chests, he]always spoke of the first as my ‘Hadley Chest,’ a description others took up.” The term “Hadley chest” became the accepted name for this type of furniture.