On the eve of the American Revolution, Norfolk was the largest city in Virginia, and the eighth largest in colonial America. It possessed one of the finest natural harbors in the world and served as the seat of commerce for the larger Chesapeake Bay region. The colony’s extensive export of tobacco combined with a tremendous trade in naval stores, pork and timber, propelled society along the lower James River to a vaunted position as the wealthiest in English speaking North America as late as 1750.

Fatefully, on New Year’s Day in 1776, on the very eve of the American Revolution, Lord Dunmore, the British governor of colonial Virginia, ordered the British Navy to bombard Norfolk’s waterfront, setting fire to, perhaps, as much as one-third of the city. Shortly afterwards, with permission from the House of Burgesses, colonial Virginians torched the remainder of that great city to prevent its strategic port and the warehouses, filled with vast supplies, from falling into enemy hands. The final tally of losses was 1,333 homes and other structures burned completely to the ground, with only a mere “12 buildings left standing on the north side of town.” The loss comprised the most thorough destruction of any city in English speaking North America.

Despite the popular myth that little survives from colonial Norfolk, evidence makes it possible to reconstruct a coherent view of the city’s highly developed cabinet trade. One of the Forum’s most popular and highly respected speakers, Sumpter T. Priddy, will take this opportunity to share with us decades of observation and research which illuminate how Norfolk’s distinct populace and extensive international commerce impacted furniture styles in the city and the surrounding countryside.

Despite the horrific fires and destruction during the American Revolution, Norfolk’s cabinetmaking trade witnessed a measured revival during the mid 1780s; by the 1790s cabinetmaking began, once again, to bloom. Locally born cabinetmakers, who had practiced the trade prior to the Revolution, were now joined by émigré artisans from Britain and together they spurred development of a full-blown Neoclassical aesthetic that competed with the finest examples from New York and Philadelphia.

Yet Norfolk’s flourishing trade soon fell prey to another invader, this time an outbreak of malaria that devastated the ranks of those who remained and sadly left behind only a shadow of the former trade. Nevertheless, this paved the way for a brilliant young cabinetmaker from the nearby town of Suffolk to quickly move to the forefront among Norfolk’s remaining artisans. Born to a prosperous family of seafarers and merchants, James Woodward was likely “seasoned” to malaria by living his childhood near swamps, which rendered him immune to the disease as an adult. He was likewise blessed with an accomplished family, financial security, a brilliant sense of design, and a long, healthy life. All of these helped him build a thriving business supporting eight workstations for apprentices and journeyman cabinetmakers. He dominated the lower Chesapeake trade through the 1830s and produced some of the most brilliantly veneered and highly carved furniture of the regional school.

As a product of a mercantile family, Woodward, like many of his forebears, invested in shipping; he owned a streamlined sloop that carried his goods up the James River to the new capital city of Richmond, across the Chesapeake to Maryland, and along the Atlantic coastline to the Carolinas. Of Virginia’s Neoclassical cabinetmakers, none dominated the market longer, nor produced a larger group of beautifully carved and veneered furniture, than James Woodward, during his long 45-year career.