John Widdifield (1673-1720) was an English furnituremaker who immigrated to Philadelphia in first years of the eighteenth century. He was listed in William Macpherson Hornor’s Blue Book: Philadelphia Furniture in the “…astonishing roll comprising nearly one hundred” woodworkers working in in the Delaware Valley between 1682 and 1722. Cathryn McElroy in her Master’s Thesis, Furniture of the Philadelphia Area: Forms and Craftsman Before 1730. University of Delaware, 1970 provided more information on Widdifield’s life in Philadelphia. McElroy found that Widdifield was received by the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting in 1705 where he presented a letter of removal from the Monthly Meeting at Thirsk, Yorkshire, England dated September 14, 1703. His name appeared in several account books including those of Isaac Norris and James Logan who purchased an oval table and a walnut screen from Widdifield in 1717. McElroy accessed Widdifield’s will dated 1720 where he describes himself as a “joyner” but was unable to locate his estate inventory at the time of her thesis and believed it had not survived.

No further account of Widdifield turned up in the years after McElroy’s thesis and he was destined to remain one of the shadowy tradesmen working here during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Until 2015 that is, when a manuscript notebook kept by Widdifield came to auction in rooms of Swann Auction Galleries, New York, NY. Not since the rediscovery of John Head’s (1688-1754) account book in 1999 had a manuscript of such significance produced by an early Philadelphia joiner surfaced. Unlike Head’s account book, Widdifield’s notebook does not enlighten us as to who his clients were (with a few possible exceptions). It does not reveal the types of objects he sold to them (though it can be assumed he was prepared to make the objects he describes in the notebook) nor does the notebook allow us to attribute any extant furniture to him. Widdifield does, however, speak directly to us in his writing. He is at times autobiographically, as when he tells us he made his woodworking planes and gives their dimensions. Other times he is instructional, explaining the importance of keeping edge tools “very sharp” and chronicling how that is to be achieved. Perhaps most astonishing to most who viewed the notebook prior to its sale were Widdifield’s measured drawings, including a spice box, a “Little Scruetore”, and a “Chest of Walnutt Drawers upon a frame” among others. Are these the earliest measured drawings produced by a Western furniture maker? Certainly they are the earliest surviving made in Philadelphia

The sale generated considerable interest among collectors and institutions with Winterthur Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art pooling funds in an effort to bring the notebook back to the mid-Atlantic region. Estimated by the auction house to sell for $15,000 to $25,000, the notebook ultimately sold for $75,000 to a private collector. That collector allowed the Chipstone Foundation to publish a facsimile of the notebook in American Furniture 2015 along with an accompanying article which provided details of Widdifield’s life and background. (No author credit is given for the article.) The re-emergence of the notebook prompted furniture historians to see what else might be uncovered concerning Widdifield and in short order Jay Stiefel located Widdifield’s will, and more importantly, his inventory taken on February 2, 1720, that McElroy had been unable to locate. A transcription of the inventory is included in the article.

The Chipstone Foundation announced that a “keyword searchable transcription would be available on the both the foundation’s website, www.chipstone.org, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was also reported that “Widdifield’s notebook will also be designated as an ongoing research project on Chipstone’s website, thus allowing scholars, students, and others to publish work related to that manuscript. This introduction to the book is intended to begin that dialogue.” 

I have not been able to locate the keyword searchable transcription on either the Chipstone or University of Wisconsin-Madison websites. The entire notebook manuscript was scanned by the University and is now available to the public. It can be found here. I’ve not located a research project devoted to Widdifield on Chipstone’s website and do not know where the process of creating, what could be an interesting and instructive project, stands. Perhaps we can forge an alternative place to discuss the manuscript here that might be incorporated into Chipstone’s drop-down “Research” tab on their website in the future if that is still an interest of theirs.

For this initial entry about Widdifield, I want to add to the article’s discussion of page 21 of his notebook which has drawings of a spice box and a “Little Scruetore for Tho: Lyfords.” The article’s description, “A page with the heading “spice boxes” has a sketch with the notation, “A little Scruetore for Thomas Lyfords” is slightly misleading. There is no heading that reads “spice boxes.” At the top of the page Widdifield writes “A spice box,” draws a picture of a nearly square spice box with measurements for the heights of the drawers. To the left of the drawing are measurements for the “Breadth before” (width), “height,” and “backward and forward (depth) of the spice box. Underneath this, separated by a dashed line, is a measured drawing of “A Little Scrutore for Tho: Lyfords” which resembles a spice box on stand. The article speculates that “it was a tabletop form—possibly having a fall front—patterned after a spice box.” But there is no need to speculate, Widdifield’s drawing clearly shows that it is designed for a fall front. The arrangement and measurements of the drawers would be obscured if he represented a fall in the closed position. 

Although Widdifield writes that the Little Scruetore was for Thomas Lyford we do not know if the scruetore was ever made and no table top writing desk of this sort made in Philadelphia in the first quarter of the eighteenth century survives. But what an interesting and challenging project this could be today. After all, John Widdifield left us a complete blueprint allowing us to re-create or maybe create for the first time, this object that would have been lost to history had not Widdifield put it down in his notebook. It would also give us a chance to understand how the little desk would have been used and just how practical an object it was.