Thomas Elfe

Thomas Elfe
Thomas Elfe House in Charleston, South Carolina
Born	1719 London, England
Died	28 November 1775(1775-11-28) (aged 56) Charleston, South Carolina
Occupation	furniture craftsman, cabinetmaker

Thomas Elfe (1719–1775) was a colonial period furniture craftsman in Charleston, South Carolina, that was an English immigrant. His working career spanned almost thirty years from about 1746 to 1775. Between 1768 and 1775, with several employees and handicraft slaves, he hand-made over 1,500 furniture pieces including detailed cabinets. Because the citizens of Charleston considered themselves English citizens living in American, Elfe designed furniture based on English designs and thereby became a successful wealthy craftsman. He had innovative furniture designs that included stacking chests, double chests of drawers, and built-in cabinets. Many of his customers were affluent and renown in their own right. Elfe became a real estate entrepreneur and owned much property in and around the Charleston area, that included a plantation. He was a contemporary of Thomas Chippendale and had many parallel life events with him.

Biography[]

Elfe was born in 1719 in London, England. He served his apprenticeship in London under his uncle,^[1] a journeyman whose name is not known.^[2] Elfe inherited his uncle's money and tools after his training sometime in the 1740s. He then immigrated to America and first settled in Virginia and soon thereafter moved to Charleston, South Carolina. He established himself as a cabinetmaker and sold furniture in Charles Towne, as it was known then in the wealthiest of the English colonies.^[3] While in the business, he became a good friend of joiner and carver Thomas Watson and learned trade skills from him. When Watson died in 1747 he left his estate to Elfe.^[1]

Elfe immigrated from England in the 1740s and first went to Virginia.^[4] From there and in around 1746 he moved to Charleston. In 1747 he ran an advertisement in the South Carolina Gazette for a pair of gilted large carved sconces; "To be Raffled for, On Tuesday the 6th of October in the Evening, at the House of Mr. Thomas Blyth in Broad-street a pair of large Gilt Sconces, valued at 150£ Currency. The said Sconces and the Conditions of the Raffle may be seen at Mr. Thomas Elfe's Cabinet-maker, near Doctor Martini's."^[5][6] The £150 (equivalent to £24,278 in 2019) value would be several thousand dollars in the twentieth century.^[1]

In the eighteenth century Charleston (Charles Towne) was a booming city, the average person of the city being much wealthier than the average person of New York City or Philadelphia.^[3] Providing furniture to these wealthy Charlestonians was a lucrative business for the local wood craftsmen and cabinetmakers. The people of Charleston considered themselves as English citizens that were just living in the American colony of South Carolina and did everything possible to follow the footsteps of London society, like acquiring fine furniture.^[7] Wealthy Charlestonians purchased English designed furnishings handmade by local woodworkers. This booming economy made Elfe's woodworking shop successful and profitable. His shop produced over 1,500 pieces of furniture from 1748 to 1768.^[8]

Elfe formed a business partnership with cabinetmaker Thomas Hutchinson in 1756. Together they made chairs and tables for Charleston's Council Chamber and in 1758 were paid £728 (equivalent to £103,555 in 2019) for these. They made some of the balusters for the steeple of St. Michael's Church that was in construction in the 1750s. At a vestry meeting held in 1763 the Church Wardens of St. Michael's contracted with Elfe and Hutchinson for the making of a mahogany communion table. In a business transaction of August 9, 1756, they purchased from Robert Liston, another cabinetmaker, a black boy slave named Mingo for £157 (equivalent to £23,524 in 2019). It is unknown when Elfe and Hutchinson terminated their business relationship, but they remained good friends for all their lives. Hutchinson was the godfather of Thomas Elfe Jr., and Elfe made Hutchinson one of the executors of his will.^[9][10]

One of Elfe's business account books of transactions survives and is held by the Charleston Library Society. This accounting book covers several accounts between 1768 and 1775.^[11][12][13] These records show that he sold about seventeen pieces of furniture per month on average.^[3] He used handicraft slaves that were sawyers, joiners, and cabinet craftsmen to produce hundreds of pieces of furniture.^[14] He used three of these cabinet craftsmen to go to various family homes to take down, put up, or repair furniture.^[15] The account book shows he had close relations with many of the leading families of Charleston. Out of 100 names taken at random from the account pages, everyone is of sufficient importance to have been mentioned in historian Edward McCradey's book The History of South Carolina in the Revolution.^[16] Elfe's customers included Henry Laurens (president of the Continental Congress), signers of the United States Declaration of Independence such as Thomas Heyward and Arthur Middleton, and at least two sisters of other signers.^[17]

Elfe's work was influenced by Thomas Chippendale (1718–1779).^[4] Both lived during the tempestuous times leading to the American Revolution without being affected personally themselves and had furniture shops of good size and employed many workers. They died within four years of each other.^[18] Elfe, as a contemporary of Chippendale,^[19] was considered by historian Mary Preston Foster one of Charleston's best furniture craftsmen of the eighteenth century.^[20][21] At one point in his career his personal worth was over 6,200 English pounds – considered by historian Christopher Schwarz a fortune at the time.^[22] Local Charleston historian and one-time director of the Charleston Museum, E. Milby Burton (1889–1977), attributed Elfe as the craftsman of some of the finest nationally acclaimed furniture produced.^[23] Burton's research of Charleston furniture craftsmen revealed Elfe as the most successful and famous furniture craftsman in the eighteenth century in colonial America.^[11][24][25]

Thomas Elfe ad in South Carolina Gazette – January 7, 1751

Works and locations[]

Elfe's was a prolific furniture and cabinet craftsman of the American colonial period. His innovative furniture designs consisted of stacking chests, double chests of drawers, and built-in cabinets. The style types represented Georgian, English Rococo, and Gothic. His furniture also featured Chinese and French styles.^[26] Elfe's furniture pieces can be found at South Carolina Governor's Mansion in Columbia. They are also at the Charleston Museum in South Carolina, the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum in Virginia, the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library in Delaware and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.^[25] The drawing room mantle at 36 Meeting Street in Charleston is attributed Elfe.^[27]

Personal life[]

Elfe's Will of 7 July 1775

Elfe was first married to Mary Hancock, a widow, in June 1748.^[28] She died a few months later and was buried November 19.^[5] He did not get married again until the end of 1755, when he met his second wife Rachel Prideau.^[29] His marriage to Rachel produced several children; William, Elizabeth, Hannah, George, Thomas, and Benjamin.^[1][29]

Elfe was a real estate entrepreneur and was successful in buying, selling, and renting properties in the Charleston area. He owned various properties from time to time that he used as his own residence or as a vacation retreat or as a furniture shop. It can not be pinpointed exactly where his major furniture shop was as there were different location descriptions.^[30] One description for his furniture shop from the South Carolina Gazette on 28 September 1747 was "near Doct. Martin's"–a location that is not known.^[30] Another location for his furniture shop was given in 1748 as "at the corner opposite Mr. Eycott's"–another unknown location.^[31]

Elfe in 1765 acquired a plantation from Benjamin Burnham of 234 acres (95 ha) on Daniel Island in Charleston. The plantation had a house on it at the time. Refurbishing took place on it for about a year starting in 1769. Building materials like bricks and laths were purchased for improving the house. Windows were glazed and a chimney was constructed to the existing plantation house structure. In 1768 Elfe estimated the value his plantation, with its buildings and livestock at around £1500 (equivalent to £200,557 in 2019). His five working Negros and their families were valued at £1000 (equivalent to £133,705 in 2019). Elfe's assets totaled £25,370 (equivalent to £3,392,095 in 2019), so the Daniels Island plantation and slaves total value represented less than 10% of his worth. Elfe employed a property manager at the time the house remodeling took place and he was paid £100 (equivalent to £13,978 in 2019) yearly salary. The plantation house was not a permanent residence for Elfe, but more of a retreat to get away from his business of making furniture in Charleston.^[32]

Elfe owned a property at Broad and Friend (now Legare). He advertised in the South Carolina Gazette in 1766 this property to rent. The ad said the main house was three stories high and each story had three rooms. There was a separate "chair-house" on the property, which was a shop where Elfe built chairs.^[30] A well known property that Elfe designed and built in 1760 as his personal home is at 54 Queen Street in Charleston, South Carolina.^[30]

Elfe died at the age of 56 on 28 November 1775.^[5] His will designated his son Thomas, the only cabinetmaker in the family, to receive his business equipment and associated property.^[1] Three Negro cabinet-makers are listed in Elfe's will that he owned as property.^[15]

References[]

Sources[]

• Burton, E. Milby (1952). Thomas Elfe, Charleston Cabinet-maker. Charleston Museum. OCLC 886624406.

• Burton, E. Milby (1997). Charleston Furniture, 1700–1825. Univ of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-57003-147-2.

• Charleston Museum (1933). The Charleston Museum Leaflet. Charleston Museum.

• Foster, Mary Preston (2005). Charleston: A Historic Walking Tour. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-1779-7.

• Heckscher, Morrison H. (1992). American Rococo, 1750-1775. Mettopolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-0-870996-31-3.

• Humphrey, Samuel A. (1995). Thomas Elfe, Cabinetmaker. Wyrick. ISBN 978-0-941711-15-9.

• McCrady, Edward (1902). The History of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1780–1783. Macmillan. OCLC 1152964924.

• Taunton Press (1995). Fine Woodworking. Taunton Press.

• Trinkley, Michael (1985). A Rich Man's Wealth: An Archaeological Historical Investigation of Elfe plantation (PDF). Chicora Foundation, Inc.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thomas Elfe.

• A Visit to Thomas Elfe’s House

• Thomas Elfe accounts