Antique Furniture: Secret Hiding Places

( Orginally published 1950 )

In many New England homes the grandfather clock in the hall was frequently used as a hiding place for money or small valuables. Doubtless some clocks are still put to this use. In all tall clocks there is unutilized space at the bottom of the case which is admirably suited to this purpose. By opening the clock door, one can reach down inside quite handily to deposit or remove whatever may be kept there. If the weights happen to interfere because they have run down into the lower part of the case, it is a simple matter to get them out of the way by winding them up or pulling them up to the top.

My grandmother used her tall clock on the stairs to keep a charming little chestlike japanned box, containing a miscellaneous collection of treasured belongings, in-several old-fashioned lockets, a number of brooches, a few rings, two or three bracelets, a handful of chains and strings of beads, and similar small trinkets and souvenirs. They were of little intrinsic value, but she cherished them for their associations. I think she kept them in the clock not so much because she was afraid someone might take them, but so she would always know where they were.

A curious accident, however, discouraged her from using the clock for a hiding place. One night the household was aroused by a terrific crash which, though promptly investigated, remained a mystery until morning. It was then discovered that one of the clock cords, which from age had become as weak as a tired old cobweb, had parted and the seventeen-pound iron weight had plunged to the bottom, ruining my grandmother's treasure box.

Old cupboards which have been sealed up and covered with wallpaper have frequently been lost sight of for generations and then only accidentally been brought to light when the walls were scraped for repapering. Objects have sometimes been discovered on the shelves which were overlooked when these places were closed. One such find presented a mystery. The hidden cupboard was found to be full of old china. The house had been in the same family for two centuries, but no one could tell who it was who had sealed off the cupboard, or why the china had been left in it.

Fireplaces which have been closed for years and presumed to be empty have been found to contain handsome pairs of andirons with matching shovels and tongs, brass or copper teakettles, iron trivets, and similar articles. But it is easy to see how this could happen. The fireplace was probably shut off in cold weather and a stove, perhaps a Franklin with brass ornamentation, placed before it. The arrangement was looked upon as merely temporary. But the stove was suffered to remain,, and in the course of time everybody forgot about the things left inside.

Many old New England houses have secret hiding places dating from the days when there were few, if any, banks where valuables could be deposited. Some of these concealed cubbyholes were so ingeniously built as to defy detection without the most careful search.. There is reason to believe that in some cases they have been forgotten and the present occupants of the houses. are unaware of their existence.

There was a cleverly concealed hiding place in the. old Charles Noel Flagg house, which stood until a few years ago on Washington Street in Hartford, Connecticut. On the attic stairs, a few steps up from the bottom, was a landing, the tread of which was a sliding trap door that could be pulled out, giving access to the space under the stairs. There was room enough in this secret closet for a number of persons to hide, but it was used in the old days for the storage of valuables when the family was away. This old house predated any bank in Hartford.

The custom of paneling certain parts of the interiors: of old houses gave an excellent opportunity for the construction of secret recesses. The pine panelwork around the fireplaces was often the best in the house, and it was. also a favorite location for hidden nooks. In one eighteenth-century house I know there is a pair of small unconcealed cupboards over the fireplace, one at each end of the mantel. They look innocent enough, but both have false backs, which, if you take everything out of the front part, can be opened, disclosing behind each a spacious inner cupboard no one would dream existed.

Incidentally, in the early days of Lynn, Massachusetts, when haste and necessity prevented the construction of anything but the simplest habitations and people who had wealth were advised to abstain from all superfluous expense, no less a person than the Deputy Governor, Mr. Dudley, was censured for wainscoting his house.

No secret was made in former times of the fact that the Communion vessels of many Churches were kept in a closet under the pulpit. Since these vessels were frequently of wood or pewter, perhaps less care was taken for their safety than later for the silver Communion services, though people prized their pewter highly and often willed pieces to the Church.

Sometimes even the Church silver was stored in the meeting house. In 1805, when the church in Danvers, Massachusetts, was burned, the silver Communion vessels were lost, though the pewter ones were saved. In this instance the suspicion intruded that the silver was stolen rather than destroyed.

The deacons of the New England Churches had charge of the Communion vessels and the silver ones were usually kept by one of them in his home. Presence of mind on the part of the wife of a deacon saved the Communion silver of the Congregational Church of Fairfield, Connecticut, during the Revolution. The collection included two beautiful bell-topped tankards, two chalices, three beakers, and a cup with a handle, all still in the possession of the Church, I believe. These silver vessels were in the custody of General Silliman, one of the deacons of the Church, when on Saturday night, May 1, 1779, a British raiding party landed secretly near Fairfield and, proceeding to the general's house, carried him off a prisoner. Awakened by the noise of the soldiers breaking in, Mrs. Silliman hurriedly threw some bedclothes over the silver, which happened to be in a corner of the bedroom, where it was overlooked by the raiders when they ransacked the house.

In the New Haven Journal and Courier for July 15, 1853, the Reverend Leonard Bacon-his sister Delia launched the Baconian theory of the authorship of Shakespeare's plays and then went mad-told an interesting story concerning the silver baptismal basin belonging to the Center Congregational Church of New Haven. This large basin, the work of Kneeland, the Boston silversmith, was presented to the Church in 17 3 5 by the will of Jeremiah Atwater, a wealthy local merchant.

Some years earlier Atwater had purchased a cargo of nails in Boston. Concealed in one of the kegs, under a layer of nails, he discovered a quantity of silver coins, amounting in value to the then considerable sum of fifty pounds. He wrote immediately to the Boston merchant from whom he had bought the nails, telling him of his find and inquiring as to the rightful owner, to whom he wished to restore the money. The Boston merchant replied that he did not know who the owner was, nor was it possible to trace him, as the keg had passed through many hands. He added that, since the keg was sold as nails and bought as nails, it was for Mr. Atwater to say what should be done with the money.

According to family tradition, Mr. Atwater, after thinking the matter over, decided to give the keg to the Church in the form of a silver baptismal basin, which he had made in Boston. The evidence, however, points to his simply having left the money to the Church and the basin having been made after his death in 1732. For in his will which was made that same year he provided as follows: "I give and bequeath unto the First Church of Christ in New Haven the sum of fifty pounds to be improved for plate or otherwise, as the pastor and deacons shall direct."

An interesting sequel to this tale of the cash hidden in the keg occurred many years later. When the British attacked New Haven, July 5, 1779, and entered the town, the baptismal basin and the rest of the Church silver was in the charge of Deacon Stephen Ball, who hid it in the chimney of his house at the corner of Chapel and High Streets, where it remained undiscovered by the invaders.

The vessels for the sacrament belonging to the South Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut, were put away for safekeeping and lost sight of and forgotten for many years. In 1839 a committee was appointed to procure six silver cups and three silver platters. The following year they reported that the new vessels had been purchased, agreeable to the pattern approved by the Church, for the sum of one hundred and ninety-one dollars, half of the money having been raised by subscription, the balance by selling old silver belonging to the Church. The new silver was inscribed Second Church o f Christ, Hartford, Ct., Jan. 1840, and the in scriptions on the antique vessels sold were carefully copied. These showed the gift of a tankard by John Ellery in 1746, two cups engraved The Dying Gift o f Mr. Richard Lord to the Second Church of Christ in Hartford, and two other pairs of cups marked only with the initials of the donors.

About 1861 certain Church officials unfeelingly converted more of the old silver into a bright and shiny silver-plated Communion service to replace the one purchased in 1840- Some twenty years after the plated service was acquired, the pastor of the church, Dr. Edwin Pond Parker, on looking over the old records, became interested in the fate of the vessels purchased in 1840. Had they been exchanged or were they still in existence?

"Talking one day with the late Deacon Charles Gillette, then president of the First National Bank," said Dr. Parker, "I was told by him that in the vault of the bank was an old and curious wooden box, which had been there for many years, but of the ownership or contents of which nothing was known by the officers of the bank. It was decided to overhaul and examine the box, and when the screws had been drawn and the lid removed, lo! snugly and securely packed therein were the cups and plates described in the report of 1840."

The Church now has nothing older than this 1840 silver, with the exception of a beautiful tankard given by William Stanley in 1787, which in some way escaped being thrown into the melting pot.

People in bygone days had the habit of converting their savings into silverware. Silver in any form, whether minted into coins or hammered into spoons, teapots, candlesticks, porringers, or trays, had a certain definite value. Paper money was not worth a continental, and banks being either nonexistent or scarce, and there not being the confidence in such institutions that there is today, a person having Spanish dollars or other coinage was quite apt to take the money to the local silversmith to be made into useful articles, which, when the need arose, could be easily turned into cash or bartered at a more or less established rate of exchange. Meanwhile, some safe place to keep the silver had to be provided, particularly when no one was around to protect it, and hence the necessity for secret recesses.

For keeping money, papers, and small articles of value, desks, writing tables, cabinets, and other pieces of furniture were frequently fitted with secret drawers or compartments, which were so cleverly contrived that their existence has often been discovered only by accident. One day, a collector who had owned an old cabinet for years saw a piece of tape seemingly caught between two sections. When he pulled it a drawer came out which he had known nothing about.

A large antique walnut desk belonging to the writer has two secret drawers. The main feature of the interior is a small center cupboard flanked by pigeonholes and little drawers. On each side of the cupboard door is a fluted upright, like a diminutive pilaster, an inch and a half wide. These decorative pieces are the fronts of two narrow drawers which pull out, affording a place to keep papers. The small pilasters are so neatly fitted into the desk and seem so inevitably a part of the design as to deceive anyone.

Inside what is called a well desk there is a rectangular recess several inches deep under the flat surface in front of the pigeonholes. Occupying a portion of the space usually taken up by the top drawer of the lower part, this well, which is a convenient place to keep stationery and correspondence, is revealed when a section of the flat surface is opened, as one would raise or remove the lid of a box. Although as a rule no secret was made of the existence of this compartment, I have seen a desk in which it was concealed.

Even writing boxes or table desks had secret hiding places for papers. One I recall had a false bottom. A section of one end slid out disclosing the private compartment. A cabinetmaker's apprentice, to show what he could do, often made a desk with ingenious secret contrivances of his own devising.

Chests, too, sometimes had secret sections. An important find of public documents was made in one that was being used as a grain bin in a Bay State barn. The father of the finder had been first selectman of the town and had kept the records in a hidden compartment at one end of the chest, but had died without disclosing their whereabouts. The discovery by the son defeated a lawsuit that was pending against the town for the recovery of money which the records showed had been paid.

The secret contents of many a piece of furniture has proved far more valuable than the piece itself. Finds have been made in the upholstery of chairs and sofas and the hollow legs of tables. Rare prints have been discovered in frames behind prints of no value, the real work of art having been concealed through ignorance.

Books have often been used to hide money. I knew a person who always kept fifteen or twenty dollars on hand in a copy of Vanity Fair. A famous instance of this kind is that of the man who died leaving a slip of paper with the message f r o0o in till. Nobody knew of his ever having a cash register and it was not until after his collection of books had been sold that the executor recalled that among them was a folio edition of Tillotson's Sermons. Thinking this might be the till referred to on the piece of paper, the executor went to the bookseller who had bought the library, and finding the volume of sermons had not been sold, purchased the book. Dispersed between the leaves was the money. Oddly enough, the bookseller had sent the book out on approval, but the prospective customer did not like the binding, and had returned it.

Boxes made to resemble books have been used as receptacles for valuables. Real books have also been made into containers of this kind by hollowing out the insides. This is done by pasting the margins of the leaves together throughout the book and then cutting out the printed part of the pages. Colonel Samuel Colt, the Yankee arms manufacturer, once had a book box made resembling a Bible, with the title CoLT's BIBLE stamped on it in gold. Inside was one of his revolvers.

Book bottles, which were made to look like books but were actually metal containers, were a popular novelty in the last century and were in demand during prohibition. They usually had facetious titles such as Our Mutual Friend, Paradise Regained, Ten Nights in a Barroom, etc. Though properly classifiable as "books which are no books," bibliophiles have not scorned them.

Books have also been used to conceal doors. Sometimes this is done by covering a door with fake book backs, but a more effective way is to have the door a real bookcase filled with books. I recall a private library where a section of shelves in the book-lined room swung out to reveal a narrow stairway leading to the master bedroom above. Despite the weight of the books, the door opened easily. It was provided as a means of escape for the owner when someone came to call he did not wish to see. The house, which is still standing, is an old one, but the library with the secret door and stairway is in a wing added less than half a century ago.

In the parlor of the house occupied by the Fall River Historical Society a false bookcase formerly hid the entrance to a wine cellar where runaway slaves were concealed. This and other New England houses which were stations on the Underground Railroad to Canada before the Civil War usually had some sort of hiding place for fugitives, generally in the cellar, and occasionally with a subterranean passage leading outward.

Some New England houses had secret chambers. Perhaps the most famous was the hiding place in the minister's house at Hadley, Massachusetts, where the judges of Charles I were concealed for many years. Soon after the restoration of the monarchy many of the judges who condemned the king to death were apprehended and executed as traitors. Among those who made their escape were Goffe and Whalley, both generals in Cromwell's army. Shortly after they reached Boston in r 660, an order for their arrest came from Charles II, and the king's commissioners, eager to execute the order, compelled the judges to take refuge in woods, caves, and other places of concealment. Had the fugitives not been secretly aided by the colonists they would undoubtedly have been captured. For three and a half years they hid in New Haven and vicinity, sometimes in a cave, at other times in the cellars of the houses of their friends. Once while hiding under a bridge they heard their pursuers cross it on horseback.

In October, 1664, they set out for Hadley, traveling only at night, and at length arrived safely at the home of the Reverend John Russell, the minister of Hadley.

The house of this friendly clergyman [reads an old account], situated on the east side of the main street, near the center of the village, was of two stories witl, a kitchen attached, and ingeniously fitted up for the reception of the judges. The east chamber was assigned for their residence, from which a door opened into a closet, back of the chimney, and a secret trap door communicated with an under closet, from which there was a private passage to the cellar, into which it was easy to descend in case of a search. Here, unknown to the people of Hadley, excepting a few confidants and the family of Mr. Russell, the judges remained fifteen or sixteen years.

The story of the sudden appearance of General Goffe when Hadley was attacked by the Indians during King Philip's War is a well-known episode of New England history. The assault took place June 12, 1676.

When the people were in great consternation [says Hoyt, the historian of the Indian wars] and rallying to oppose the Indians, a man of venerable aspect, differing from the inhabitants in his apparel, appeared, and assuming command, arrayed them in the best manner for defence, evincing much knowledge of military tactics, and by his advice and example continued to animate the men throughout the attack. When the Indians drew off, the stranger disappeared, and nothing further was heard of him. Who the deliverer was, none could inform or conjecture, but by supposing, as was common at that day, that Hadley had been saved by its guardian angel. It will be recollected that at this time the two judges, Whalley and Goffe, were secreted in the village, at the house of the Rev. Mr. Russell. The supposed angel, then, was no other than Gen. Goffe, who, seeing the village in imminent danger, put all at risk, left his concealment, mixed with the inhabitants, and animated them to a vigorous defence. Whalley, being then superannuated, probably remained in his secluded chamber.

The Russell house with its secret arrangements was standing as late as 1794.

In the Thomas Thaxter house in Hingham, Massachusetts, built in r652, there was a blind passage with a secret door, which Tories used as a hiding place from the Committee of Safety, pending their escape to Boston. The house was demolished in 1864.

There are numerous legends of buried pirate treasure along the seacoast of New England and in many places at different times there has been a good deal of prospecting with pick and shovel for this hidden wealth. Some accidental recoveries have been made from the earth, but nothing of a value to suggest that it was the treasure of some old sea rover. No great hoards of gold and silver ingots, doubloons, moidores, and pieces of eight, Church candlesticks and chalices, or heaps of glittering jewels have been unearthed. There are plenty of stories of such discoveries, tales of men who have become suddenly and mysteriously rich, but in no verifiable instance has the finding amounted to more than a few hundred dollars and a few trinkets. It is true that small crockfuls of old coins, some dating back to pirate times, have been recovered, but it seems certain that these modest caches were those of early settlers.

Throughout New England wells were formerly favorite hiding places for personal property. Hanging small articles down a well was a quick and simple method of concealment, and it was easy to fish them out again. It is said that President Timothy Dwight of Yale College, who took his politics as seriously as he did his religion, was so fierce in his denunciation of the "infidel Whigs" that a New Haven woman, a parishioner of his Church, hung her Bible down the well for fear the infidels would get it.

Trees have also been used for hiding places. The town of Winterport on the Penobscot River in Maine had a famous tree called "The Bacon Tree," a giant pine amid whose branches the inhabitants hid their provisions and valuables when the British raided the river settlements during the War of 1812. Flitches of bacon, hams, and sacks and baskets filled with the people's most precious personal possessions were suspended from the limbs of the ancient pine. Discovery of this communal hiding place would have given the raiders a rich haul, but they failed to notice the strange fruit hanging from the boughs of the Bacon Tree.

Hollow trees have likewise been used to secrete things. A notable instance was the hiding of the charter of the Colony of Connecticut in the historic oak tree in Hartford. When Sir Edmund Andros demanded the surrender of the charter, which the people had no intention of yielding, and was about to seize it as it lay on the table in the Council Chamber, the candles were suddenly put out and when light was restored the charter was missing. Captain Wadsworth had taken it and hidden it in the hollow trunk of the old oak tree. By this act the rights and privileges of the colony were preserved.

Among the antiques in the possession of the Historical Society of Nashua, New Hampshire, is a gun with an interesting history. On September 4, 1724, two Nashua men, Nathan Cross and Thomas Blanchard, crossed the Merrimack River to gather turpentine from pine trees. As it was a rainy day, they hid their guns in a hollow log to protect them from the weather. While busy in the woods they were surprised and captured by a band of Indians. Alarmed by the absence of the two men, the settlers organized a searching party to look for them. The rescuers picked up the Indian trail and followed it up the river. The Indians lay in wait for them and killed eight of the nine men in the party. Blanchard and Cross were led captive to Canada, where they were forced to remain several years, until at length they were able to purchase their freedom. When they returned to Nashua they looked for their guns and found them in the hollow log where they had hidden them years before. Cross's gun is the one now in the collection of the Nashua Historical Society.