Turned Armchair

Turned armchair, probably Eastern Massachusetts, 1720-1750.

On the second floor landing sits this large turned chair that pre-dates the house by about a century. It’s hard to imagine a piece of furniture that could be more out of place either at Roseland Cottage or at one the Bowens’ homes in Brooklyn, and it’s tempting to assume that the chair is the one cherished survivor from earlier generations. But the documentation simply doesn’t survive. All we know for certain is that the Bowen family owned it in the twentieth century. Since there are virtually no other furniture pieces that were added after the nineteenth century it’s likely the chair was in the house when Henry, Lucy, and their children lived there.