Folders

2022.28.001

Chase Richardson was born on August 22, 1810, in Lebanon, New Hampshire, to Jacob Chase Richardson and Eunice Fox. Jacob was the second of three children. His mother died when he was six years old, and his father married Lucy Tilden the following year. They had at least six children together and the family had moved to Vermont by 1826 as this is where their youngest son Frank was born. Based on the cabinetmaker’s notebook and a letter written by Chase Richardson in 1835, we know that he apprenticed or worked as a cabinetmaker in Montpelier, Vermont. Writing to fellow cabinetmaker Charles R. Wood he states, “How does all the folks do at home (at Montpellier [illegible]) it has always seemed like a home to me. How does the old shop go and & Zenas how does he do & all old friends.” The inscription in Chase’s notebook places him in Sandy Hill, New York, in 1832, which is just to the southwest of Montpelier, and to the north of Albany which had become a furniture making hub in the northeast. By 1835 he had settled in Holley, New York, which is to the west of Rochester, New York. The rest of his family moved to Marathon, New York, some time before 1841. On May 7, 1835, Chase married Phebe Cushman of Brockport, New York, and they settled in Holley. In November of 1835, he mentions in the letter he penned to Charles Wood that he had been gravely ill for “60 days” with “billious fevers” which was a term used for many maladies from malaria to typhoid. Whatever its cause, he became ill and had relapses for more than two months. He writes, “If you had seen me one week since you would knot have known me. I was nothing but a skeleton to appearance…” He then goes on to say he is feeling better and slowly getting back to work. It is around this time that he printed a broadside announcing to “the people of Holley, and the vicinity, that he still continues the Cabinet making business.” The GCV&M has this broadside in their collection as well. Chase and Phebe had a daughter, Ellen Maria Richardson, in 1838, and Chase passed away the following year on January 19, 1839, at the age of 28. His notebook and broadside were passed down through several generations of his family. The care they took in preserving them allows us, one hundred and eighty-eight years later, to remember his life and appreciate this truly one of a kind piece of Western New York history.

Genesee Country Village and Museum