John Elderkin's Chair
"...Since John Waldo was Nathan’s great-grandfather, it is conceivable that the chair descended through the male line; however, under New England partible inheritance laws, males typically inherited real estate, whereas females inherited “moveables,” including household furniture. It is much more likely that Nathan inherited the chair from his mother, Abigail Elderkin Waldo (b. 1715), great-granddaughter of John Elderkin.
Elderkin arrived in New England about 1637. His daughter, Abigail, was born in Dedham, Massachusetts, on September 13, 1641. Elderkin and his family moved frequently. They resided in Lynn, Massachusetts, during the mid-1640s, in New London, Connecticut, during the 1650s, and in Norwich during the early 1660s. Elderkin’s career included contracts for meetinghouses, mills, and wharves. The earliest record concerning his work is an October 17, 1650, receipt for building a mill for the town of New London. Carpenters and millwrights often had to travel significant distances to ply their trade. Elderkin also worked in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1650.20
One of Elderkin’s most important commissions involved work on the first meetinghouse in New London. On August 29, 1651, the town records noted that, “Goodman Elderkin doth undertake to build a meeting-house about the same demention of Mr Parke’s . . . barne and clapboard it for the sum of eight pounds, provided the town cary the tymber to the place and find nayles. And for his pay he requires a cow and 50s. in peage.” At the time, the community was holding services in Robert Parke’s barn. Elderkin’s proposal was rejected, and a site for the meetinghouse was not selected until December 1652, when he, joiner Samuel Lothrop, and Samuel Smith were contracted
| to buield a substantiall house Thirty foot square the wall to be Twelve foot betweene Joyntes the wall to be broake, to have sixe windowes convenient for the house fited for glasse with two doers eich of them to be double doers to lay one floore upon the grownd of joyce and plancke to Cover the walles with good seasoned board to be rebetted one over another to make in the roofe fowre gables with a turret in the roofe floored in the bottome to Cover the roofe with sawne board close Laide and to shingle the roofe upon the boarde with short shingles not above twenty Inches to finde all stuffe Cart all timber find all nailes and to finish this worke at or before the last of October (1653).21 |
Elderkin’s services were apparently in great demand during the summer of 1651. On August 31, William Wells of Southold, Long Island, requested John Winthrop, Jr.’s, assistance in “grantinge and perswadeing your Millwright John Elderkin to come a long . . . to view the ruins of our old water mill; and build us a new.” Shortly thereafter, Thomas Mayhew, a patentee of Martha’s Vineyard, wrote Winthrop, “wee have greate want of a mill and there is one with you that I here is a verry Ingenuous man about such work that is goodman Elderkin, but wee here you have some Ingadement uppon him. Now these are to intreate you if possible you can disspense a while with him.” Evidently, Elderkin accepted the Southold offer. In March 1652, “John Elderkin of Pequot [New London]” contracted with John Winthrop, Jr., for “one whole yeere beginning the first of April next to worke with him in any Carpentry worke that I can doe and to bueild him a Saw mill and keepe the Corn mill . . . And what time I shall be absent at South hold or upon my own occasions I shall make good.”22
In 1659/60, the town of Moheagan (Norwich) hired Elderkin “to erect a corn-mill . . . to be completed before November 1, 1661.” As part of this agreement, the mill received forty acres from the town, the land to be improved by “John Elderkin, the Miller.” Thirteen years later, the town commissioned Elderkin to build a new meetinghouse. During the course of his work, he requested an increase in pay:
| Your humble petitioner pleadeth your charitie for the reasons hereafter expressed . . . it is very well known that I have been undertaker for building of the meeting hous and it being a work very difficult to understand the whole worth and value off, yet notwithstanding I have presumed to do the work for a sertain sum of money . . . 428 pound, not having any designe thereby to make myself rich, but that the town might have their meeting house dun for a reasonable consideration. But upon my experieince, I doe find by my bill of cost, I have done the said work very much to my damage, as I shall now make appear. Gentlemen I shall not say much unto you, but onley if you may be sensible of my loss in said undertaking, I pray for your generous and charitable conclusion toward me whether it be much or little, I hope will be well excepted from your poor and humble petitioner. John Elderkin.23 |
In 1677/8, the town of New London hired him to build yet another meetinghouse. The original building contract no longer survives but was summarized in Frances Manwaring Caulkins’s The History of New London, Connecticut (1895):
| The contract for building the meeting-house was made with John Elderkin and Samuel Lothrop. It was to be forty feet square, the studs twenty feet high with a turret answerable, two galleries, fourteen windows, three doors, and to set up on all the four gables of the house, pyramids comely and fit for the work, and as many lights in each window as direction should be given: a year and a half given for its completion: £240 to be paid in provision; viz, in wheat, pease, pork and beef, in quantity proportional: the town to find nails, glass, iron-work, and ropes for the rearing. Also to boat and cart the timber to the place and provide sufficient help to rear the work.24 |
The complexity of Elderkin’s architectural commissions suggests that he would have been capable of constructing the Waldo chair. An October 20, 1654, letter from John Pyncheon, Jr., to John Winthrop, Jr. (who was in Saybrook, Connecticut, at the time), alludes to Elderkin’s involvement with interior finish carpentry and joinery: “Sir, I am bold to request that the room in which my wife will be in this winter may speedily be made warm. I pray let Goodman Elderkin be called on to do it out of hand in regard my wife is but tender and cold will set in quickly.” Presumably, the room was to be made warm by “ceiling” it—enclosing it with frame-and-panel wainscot.25
Elderkin’s work may also have included shipbuilding. Tradition credits him with the construction of the “New London Tryall” in 1661, the first merchant vessel built in New London. The ability to frame complex structures such as ships, mills, and meetinghouses is the essential concept differentiating the maker of the Waldo chair from joiners who produced wainscot examples. Not only was Elderkin an artisan of consummate skill, but his English background may explain the variety of turned and joined chair styles that appear to have influenced the design of the Waldo chair. These facts, coupled with his familial relationship to Nathan Waldo, strongly suggest that Elderkin made this remarkable chair."