Buyers & Users: The Consumption of Mahogany

Initially rare and exotic, Mahogany was considered a luxury in the early 1700s. It was purchased by prosperous merchants, ship captains, planters, and minor gentry. As it became more available, average people could afford it. Eager for a touch of refinement, they bought mahogany tea boxes, chairs, tables, and other items. Many Rhode Islanders developed a strong preference for imported mahogany, and merchants, ship captains, and cabinetmakers were happy to profit by this demand. An entire sector of Rhode Island’s colonial economy developed around sourcing, shipping, selling, and fabricating this desirable wood.

In 1760, James Card married Sarah Rouse (the daughter of a successful English merchant) and established a modest household in Newport, assisted by a number of enslaved Africans. According to the family accounts, the women performed household labor (cooking, baking, cleaning, laundering, sewing, and gardening), while the men worked as stevedores, ship builders, carters, and sailors. With growing prosperity, James ordered new furniture from Thomas Townsend, a leading Rhode Island cabinetmaker, and likely supplied the mahogany himself from the Bay of Honduras.

RIHS James Card Family Papers (RIHS MSS 1140, Folder 4)

Cabinetmaker Thomas Townsend’s bill to Captain James Card, September 8, 1767 – October 25, 1768.

  • Mahogany square table
  • Mahogany tea table
  • Coffin for a Negro girl
  • Maple table
  • Mahogany square table
  • Mahogany tea table
RIHS James Card Family Papers (RIHS MSS 1140, Folder 8)

James Card’s estate inventory (1774), listing (among other things):

  • 1 square table of mahogany
  • 1 round table of mahogany
  • 1 tea chest
  • 1 old tea table
Mr. James Fenner
Artist: Francis Alexander (1800–1880)
Date: ca. 1824
Oil on canvas, RIHS Collections 1973.38.1
Mrs. James (Sarah) Fenner and Granddaughter
Date: ca. 1824
Artist: Francis Alexander (1800–1880)
Oil on canvas, RIHS Collections 1973.38.2

In these portraits—of James Fenner and his wife Sarah Jenckes (sitting with her granddaughter Sarah), Mrs. Richard (Dorothy Wendell) Skinner, and Mrs. Robert (Eleanor Cozzens) Feke—one can see the inclusion of their mahogany furnishings. Fenner (1771–1846) was a former US Senator and two-time governor of Rhode Island.

Mrs. Richard (Dorothy Wendell) Skinner
Artist: John Singleton Copley (1738–1815)
Date: 1772
Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (06.2428)
Mrs. Robert (Eleanor Cozzens) Feke
Artist: Robert Feke (1705–1751)
Date: ca. 1750-51
RIHS Collections 1947.4.2
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