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Show Fig. 60 Washstand. Salt Lake City. William Bell. Softwood, grained to simulate marble and walnut. Ca. 1863. H: 89.375 cm. W: 78.125 cm. D: 46.25 cm. Collection of LDS Historical Department Brigham Young's accounts for the year 1863 include an invoice from William Bell for "Two Cupboard Wash Stands with Doors, Columns and Drawer" at $18 each. These cupboards were made for Emmeline F. Young and were followed in the invoice by four identical washstands made for four of Brigham's other wives who were not to be outdone (Brigham Young Invoice Book no. 2, William Bell no. 433, Archives, LDS Historical Department). September 1850 and decided to spend the winter there. According to his own account, Looking around upon the needs of the people, and wondering how best I could be useful to them and supply that need, I saw the great need for household furniture, that all the immigrants and new-comers must have furniture, such as tables, chairs, bedsteads, etc. .. . Accordingly I set to work.4 After supplying his neighbors, Dalton accumulated a surplus of furniture which he took to Salt Lake City. With a hayrack loaded with chairs, tables, and bedsteads, he called upon Brigham Young. Delighted by the initiative and industry of the furniture maker, Brigham praised him warmly and, besides purchasing some furniture himself, introduced Dalton to Heber C. Kimball, Jedediah M. Grant, and Willard Richards. They also bought furniture, and by the end of the day his hayrack was empty. For pay he took mostly wheat, and by his industry that first winter he earned $430 in kind.5 Some of the men who made furniture in early Utah were seasoned frontiersmen, well acquainted with the techniques of survival and equipped with many useful skills. New York-born Nelson Wheeler Whipple, for example, went to work with his father in a sawmill at the age of seven and later reflected, / have worked at ten different trades, viz. chairmaking, loom and spinning wheels, black-smithing, wagonmaking, millwrighting, mason work and plastering, painting, coopering, turning and general carpentering, besides acquiring a knowledge of running both upright and circular saws. . . . I have built three sawmills of my own in Utah and two shingle mills.6 Many other furniture makers who came to Utah in the period from 1850 to 1870, such as Englishmen Ralph Ramsey, Henry Dinwoodey, and Thomas Durham, had served traditional apprenticeships to cabinetmakers, carpenters, carvers, and turners (Figs. 58 and 59). Some, such as William Bell, John Powell, and John and Thomas Cottam, had learned their trades from their fathers, competent craftsmen who had in some cases been trained by their fathers. Still, regardless of their training and previous experience, the immigrant furniture makers had to adapt to the unfamiliar conditions of the frontier. Cabinetmakers who were accustomed to working with mahogany, walnut, maple, fruitwoods, and other hardwoods found in arid Utah only pine, box elder, cedar, quaking aspen, and cotton-wood. According to the Census of Industry, William Bell (Fig. 60) used 10,000 feet of white pine lumber, 100 feet of box elder, and 50 feet of walnut in his shop during 65 |