House History
I’ve been doing a lot of research (on and off) on the history of our house. Most recently I went to the library to look up the original occupants of the house in the directories and on the census. The first owner of the house’s occupation is listed in the directory first as a carver,…
I’ve been doing a lot of research (on and off) on the history of our house. Most recently I went to the library to look up the original occupants of the house in the directories and on the census. The first owner of the house’s occupation is listed in the directory first as a carver, then later as a designer (1899-1910). On the 1905 state census his occupation is listed as “shell carver”. I think this must have been to do with woodworking, especially since his sons were carpenters, but does anyone know exactly what this means? I wondered if it might be to do with inlays in furniture? If anyone has any insight I’d be very interested in hearing it!
I found some war draft forms for the original occupants of my house via Ancestry.com. They also list profession and in this case were more legible. Maybe there’s one for WWI for your guy?
BTW, my carver’s name was Hermann Klingenburg, just in case anyone happens to come across his work anywhere!
hmmmm…. thanks everyone! I wondered the same thing about the very specific nature of his title, but maybe it might be worth checking with the Antique Room to see if they know anything. I’m getting a bit obsessive about this house history thing – but am developing a really interesting picture of the neighbourhood, which makes it quite fun to walk around and imagine how it all used to be.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059523/1896-12-26/ed-1/seq-8/;words=she%27ll+Tortoise+Carver+Shell+shell+occupation
http://www.goantiques.com/detail,antique-carved-tortoise,800458.html
http://www.kovels.com/priceguide/kovels_tortoiseshell/
I doubt if a woodcarver would be specific enough to be listed as a “shellcarver”. Usually woodworkers who carve will have shells as part of their reperatoire, but they will also do finials, linen folds, acanthus leaves, etc. If I had to guess, I’d go with cameo carver, although the tortoise shell option sounds plausible as well.
Since the family seems to be predominantly woodworkers, I’d say that he does carve shell patterns on case good furniture. I collect antique furniture and once attended a three day workshop at Christies on early American furniture. One of the things they did was bring in a furniture maker who carved a shell for us.
The shell is a predominant distinguishing feature first found among the Newport, RI furniture makers, the most important onse being Goddard & Townsend.
Here’s a link to a nice piece with shell carving made by Townsend at the Metropolitan Museum of Art….
http://tinyurl.com/yatagrv
Sadly, furniture from the Victorian periods does not command very high prices. If you know the carver’s name, you might want to check with the guys at the high end furniture shop on Atlantic Ave. they know everything about Victorian pieces. It’s called the Antique Room
http://www.antiqueroom.com
I am wondering if it would be like tortise shell. Prior to the advent of plastics, tortise shell was used for combs, handles, knobs, and for parts of musical instruments. In doing research into my 19th century Brooklyn ancestors, I found one of them worked with tortise shell.
Steve
http://www.shellcarver.com/sc/
One interesting thing I learned recently is that a large amount of homes are listed as being constructed in 1899, but that is because there was a fire which destroyed many of the home records and most of these homes were simply re-filed as having a construction year of 1899, though may in fact be quite a bit older. Just wanted to share… sorry for the tangent.