Love Chest

October 24, 2013

The full-scale version of this Hadley Chest belonged to Hepzibah Dickinson. Carved with her initials in the inner panel, she received it as a wedding gift when she married Jonathan Belding of Northfield, Massachusetts in 1720. A traditional gift for the time, it would have been on every bride’s Target Wedding Registry (kidding!). Hadley chests are heavy, wide-board, mortise-and-tenoned chests painted and elaborately carved with leaves and flat flowers (tulips were the most popular). The chest’s name derives from its place and time period of origin: western Massachusetts between 1680 and 1740.

We doubt our version would store all of Hepzibah’s clothes and linens! The 1/12-inch scale chest by Linda LaRoche and James Hastrich is a replica of the full-scale version in the furniture collection of Historic Deerfield. The miniature Hadley chest was also the result of a happy union: it is the first collaborative piece of the artists. In 2011, LaRoche and Hastrich visited T/m to talk about their labor of love.