51st Annual Delaware Show

Seth Pancoast, high chest of drawers, figured maple, 1766. Winterthur Museum, promised gift of John J. Snyder, Jr. L2010.1042.1 This article is generously sponsored by Buckley’s Tavern, Centreville, Delaware Burlington or in Chester County, Pennsylvania, with his eldest brother, William, who had married Mary Copeland in 1730 under the oversight of the Chester Friends Meeting. Seth no doubt was successful in the Marple Township area (now Delaware County), where he settled after marrying Esther Coppock in Chester County in 1741. His refined pieces certainly are the work of a practiced hand. The definitive reasons for the movements of these Delaware River Valley artisans are not known, but it is probable that economic promise drove them while their social and religious networks made their relocation possible. Their accomplished work helps illustrate the skill of craftsmen practicing their trade outside the urban center of Philadelphia and reminds us that hundreds more did so successfully—their furniture and stories still waiting to be discovered. Jackie Killian, a 2014 graduate of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, is the Sewell C. Biggs Curatorial Fellow at Winterthur. — 29 —