The Greeley tribune., 1908-09-16
A COLONIAL ANTIQUITY
A Solid Oak Chair In Greeley over
200 Years Old


There is slim chair In Greeley
an almost attenuated chair with
skinny rungs. slender legs and an IN
sufficient back-but n weighty ehair
for all that, for it is of good solid
oak-that is no less than 200 years
old. 1t is the property of MI ana
Mrs. ]. H. woodbridge of 319 Eighth
avenue.
Now a man who could make COM
mon piece OF household furniture
capable of lasting 200 years must
have been parsonage worth the
knowing. Surely he was Celt-tor
the tradition is that the chair came
from Ireland-with the love OF han
dicraft in his heart. an eye for me
bit of timber and considerable Skin
with the jack-knife, or whatever IL
was that he fashioned the chair WITH
which is no machine made piece o'
furniture. And he would probably be
the most surprised Irishman now
sleeping in green grave to learn
that his old oak chair 10 reposins
comfortably in modern home IN
what was once the heart OF the SIOUX
country. Not that he had ever heard
of such things as Sioux being con-
tent to lump all aborigtnes under
the head of ''savages" and having
plenty of troubles of his own with
the English rowing with King James
and every loyal son Of Erin in duty
bound to take the other side from
the Angles and the Saxons. But tins
is where his old chair 10 today. never
theless. an heirloom of unusual anti
auity and naturally enough cher
ished possession.
Mrs. w. P. Woolredge of Pitts
burg, Pa, the mother Of j. H.
is now visiting In Gree
lev and the chair for many years
was hers. She received 1t from her
Sarah Hughes, des-
cendant of the famous Captain John |
Hughes. The chair of course saw |
many phases of colonial history and
the early history of the United States
It is certain that it has seen every
election from George
down to the present
time and bids fair to see many more.
Along about 1912, the haze of
oral tradition clears away a little
and the chair was at that date wait
ing to be moved into the new
house" The new house." nov the
old family home, was in the process
of building, but the men who were
working on 1t stopped to "go to the
war" A notable coincidence is that
in 81 it was decided to remodel the
house and once more the proceedings
we're stopped so that the children
and grandchildren of those who sail
ed into the British so years before
might go down south and sail into
their kindred below the Mason and
Dixon line.
The chair was subjected to the
doing over" process not long ago
and is now brave in . mahogany
coat, but the heart of oak underneath
il the same that it was when the Irish
builder whitfield away at bis good |
oaken boards. He may .h3e heen
one of the very same 1rishhneA who
stood by poor James when the
English would have no more Of him
and he may even have fought at
the battle of the Boyne. The chro-
nology would stand for it,
1t is not pretty chair The ut
most stretch of imagination can not
make it out anything compared to
the splendid oak CONNECTIONS that a
half a hundred dollars will buy at a
good shop nowadays or that the
public, which has no half hundred
may enjoy by the simple process of
rubbering in the windows while they
are cooling their toes on the pave
ment. But 1t is invested with all
the quaint charm that the stiff little
rose pots have in Ben Greets presen-
tation of Everyman, the symbols OF a
finished and right age. although it
lacks the virility western world has
learned to expect.
1t will be passed on to the little
heir of the Wooldredges and with
considerate treatment will be good
for another couple of hundred years.
NRyNuy AyruyVy