Object Story: Carver Chair

A Mythic Pilgrim Chair

The Fielding Collection contains a “Carver” chair made in about 1690. This kind of chair, and three other types, were named after Pilgrims who came to America on the Mayflower. The original Carver chair, currently on view at the Pilgrim Hall Museum, was said to belong to John Carver who supposedly carried the chair to Plymouth on the Mayflower ship in 1620, but this story has since been disproven. It is highly unlikely, given the risky trip and limited space, that any traveler would bother to carry a chair aboard the ship. In addition, after an analysis of the wood from this first chair, it was shown to be made of wood only found in America. Moreover, John Carver died in 1621 and it is unlikely that a craftsman would have had time to build this chair before he died.

There are many other very interesting ways for us to study this chair as an artifact of our past. Since we know it was of a similar design to the original, we might think about why someone decided to make one like it. We can also think about when the idea that it was connected to the Pilgrims became important. John Carver was one of the primary organizers of the Mayflower voyage and is credited with writing the Mayflower Compact and served as the first governor of Plymouth Colony. This particular chair was thought to be made around 1690 and had been kept in the same family until the late 1980s.

This story is not unlike the myth of the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock. Both have falsely linked a few of America’s first English colonists, the Pilgrims, to physical objects. There is something attractive about being able to touch the history of our nation: to have tangible objects that create links from past to present. From this perspective, maybe it’s not so hard to understand how a chair like this, which is very old but not connected directly to John Carver, would create a sense of importance about the past.

Another very old chair in the Fielding Collection is this one. While it doesn’t have a connection to a particular person, it was made around the same time period. It has similar characteristics, a wide seat and turned arms, but experts know that the style comes from a very different location, probably somewhere near Connecticut.

Why Do Pilgrim Stories Persevere?

A nation’s origin stories are powerful because they set the tone for the perceived character and values of a society. Historian John Seelye said it best, “Our national memory has created our past, not the other way around.” This means that even though facts do not change, historical stories take on different meanings depending on the era in which the stories are being told. Sometimes the stories take on meanings that make them mythical or false. 

Many false stories associated with the Pilgrims seem to stick around indefinitely. More than one million visitors go to view Plymouth Rock each year, despite the fact that there is no real evidence that links the Pilgrims to this particular boulder.  For many, the Mayflower’s arrival is the rightful beginning to the story of the United States. But did you know that St. Augustine, Florida, was the first Spanish colony in 1565 and is the oldest continuously settled city in the United States? Jamestown, Virginia, was the first permanent English settlement in America. Why don’t we learn about St. Augustine? Why are none of these settlers put on pedestals like the Pilgrims? There are no chairs named after these settlers. There is no celebrated mythical rock where they landed. Usually being first counts for something. But in this case, our collective memory celebrates the accomplishments of the passengers of the Mayflower. Why? 

Questions for Discussion

• Is an object connected to a significant person or event more important than one that is not? Why or why not?
• Why might the age of an object from early America be important on its own?
• How might these chairs and their connections to early America be used to establish a set of ideals or reflect a group identity? What about this story do you think Americans could identify with? Do you identify with the story? Does it inform or change your ideas about your America?
• What are other possible stories that could reframe how we see the founding of this country?
• Most of our early stories of America are based on settlements on the East Coast. What are some of the histories of the West Coast that might change our thinking about what it means to be America?
• Consider multiple stories of early settlements in the United States such as Jamestown or St. Augustine and why they may or may not be remembered like the Pilgrim story. Why do you think that American children get taught about the Plymouth colonizers in school, but not about other colonizers? What can this choice tell you about American history? 
• What could the Pilgrim story or stories mean today, given our current circumstances and current events? Think about what you have been told about colonial encounters between colonizers and Indigenous people in America. Whose point of view are those stories told from? Whose eyes are you looking through and whose experience are you learning about? Why?