flagg chair?

Mark Arnold

Mark Arnold

Well-known member
I've run across the term flagg chair in several estate inventories from the 18th C. like the one found here: http://www.easternshoreheritage.com/estates/inventory_of_william_baker.htm.

Does anyone know what this is?
 
Flag is the plant that rush comes from.  It's like a cattail. It's fairly typical in period inventories to see chairs identified by their seating material.  "Turkey work'd" is one I see frequently and throughout a wider range of dates than one might think.  I see it from 1650 to 1750 at least. 

Turkey work is a sort of knotted embroidery.  The resulting fabric has these sorts of poofs which look very 3-dimensional  I've never seen turkey work that I liked or a chair so dressed that i thought handsome. 

That said, we typically only ever see it on (what i think are ugly) 17th century chairs.  But it may have adorned Georgian style chairs as well.

Adam
 
Could the answer be a Windsor chair with an extended armrest? Josiah Flagg born 1763, Boston is credited with making in 1790 the first true dental chair, adding a headrest and an extended armrest to a Windsor chair.
 
I wouldn't think so.  I've seen many referenced to flag, flagg, flaggd chairs.  Also Rush, Rush'd, Rush't bottomd chaires etc etc. 

Adam
 
Tom,

The dates do not agree for Josia to have been the namesake. The inventory in my post is dated 1701.

Adam, thanks for the quick reply. I'm familiar with rush bottomed chairs.  I don't think I've ever seen turkey work, or if I have, it was not described as such.
 
I am certainly not a botanist, but I believe bull rush, cat tails and flag are all terms that refer to the same plant. Flag is sometimes used to refer to the iris but I'm not sure the iris leaves are long enough to weave a chair seat. As to turkey work it was a kind of hooked embroidery used to copy Turkish rugs and also used for upholstery. It was very popular in England  and became a cottage industry there in the 17th century. I like it.
 
for great details about flag chairs (& others of that period in question) see Benno Forman's American Seating Furniture 1630-1730 (NY; W. W. Norton & Co., 1988) - not just a catalog of Winterthur's chairs of that time, but also some excellent descriptive chapters on makers & tools & more...

Follansbee
 
I'll second that. That is a great book. Scholarly and really interesting. A good companion book to Abbott Cumming's " Early Framed Houses of Mass. Bay" if you really want to get in the mood to rive and pin.-Al
 
Flag is indeed a variety of bulrush (Scirpus lacustris). There is a variety in America that's actually called 'Chairmaker's Bulrush' (Scirpus americanus).
 
My mother remembers men going out and cutting flaggs(cat tails) during the Depression and selling the bundles to a company that used them to line the inside of barrels- packing material?

Also, if my memory serves me, somewhere I have a book (title escapes me) with photos at Plimoth Plantation, one showing men at work cutting flaggs.
 
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