Vermont Furniture at Shelburne Museum
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by Katie Wood Kirchhoff
When Shelburne Museum opened to the public in 1952, American furniture was part and parcel to the stories museum founder Electra Havemeyer Webb wanted to share with visitors to its expansive campus in Vermont’s Champlain Valley. The Trust members who participated in the July 2025 Sojourn saw highlights of this collection, including an iconic carved Hadley chest and a rare japanned high chest from Boston. Members were also treated to a significant collection of furniture made by Vermont craftsmen for Vermont consumers—objects that were absent from Mrs. Webb’s early installations at the museum. Now, thanks to gifts from collectors J. Brooks Buxton and Gene Garthwaite, Shelburne Museum is positioned to become a center for the study of historic cabinetmaking in the Green Mountain State.
Buxton, a seventh-generation Vermonter, collected with an eye toward delicately rendered features like turned and reeded legs, intricate inlays, and highly figured veneers. During Buxton’s lifetime, he generously donated a range of items including metalwork, ceramics, glassware, textiles, and furniture. With his passing in 2018, the museum received a significant bequest that included a sofa (figure 1) made by Nahum Parker of Middlebury, a carved and veneered bureau (figure 2) attributed to Otis Warren of Pomfret, and stands attributed to cabinetmaker Lemuel Bishop of Charlotte. When added to the museum’s holdings, these selections refute the notion that Vermonters living in the 19th century made do with plain, workaday items for their homes.
In 2023, the museum was offered another generous gift: the entirety of Gene Garthwaite’s expansive collection of Vermontiana. When asked how his interests in this area were sparked, Garthwaite recalled, “When we bought the [Vermont] house in 1973 there was no intent to begin collecting… Gradually, we began to buy ‘old’ items from local dealers… After buying two local pieces of furniture in 1993… I decided not to buy any item that could not be documented or have strong provenance to Vermont.”
Although the majority of Garthwaite’s collection comprises decorative and fine arts made in Vermont, the larger Connecticut River Valley is included, too. This range of materials highlights migration patterns that illuminate the development of the region by European settlers during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Many of Garthwaite’s pieces were inscribed or are affixed with paper labels referencing an object’s provenance or the histories of its makers or owners. To date, the Garthwaite collection comprises the largest, most extensively documented collection of Vermont furniture and related Vermontiana. Like Buxton’s collection, Garthwaite’s selections refute notions that Vermonters were only interested in plain, utilitarian furnishings. These items broaden our understandings of domestic and international networks that contributed to the development of distinctive styles in northern New England. Moreover, they display an impressive range of captivating decorative treatments that further complicate narratives about the fashions desired by increasingly sophisticated consumers in the region.
In early 2024, the first portion of the Garthwaite Family Collection arrived at Shelburne. These items were installed in 2024 with the reopening of the furniture galleries in the Vermont House. They are displayed alongside highlights from the 2018 Buxton bequest and selections from the permanent collection. An early signed and dated tambour desk by St. Albans cabinetmaker Horace Livingston offers additional proof that Vermonters had a taste for fancy domestic furnishings. A suite of household goods from the Swan family house in Woodstock (including a sofa, two stands, and the only documented Vermont-made lolling chair known in a public collection) are also featured. Additional context for how these items circulated in the Swan household comes from a priceless room-by-room inventory of the southern Vermont residence, now in the museum’s archives.
The remainder of Garthwaite’s collection is currently on its way to Shelburne. With this gift to the museum, Garthwaite parted with his first Vermont furniture purchase—a c. 1815 chest of drawers from western Vermont—and two of his favorite pieces, a c. 1825 worktable (figure 3) by James Richardson of Poultney, and a c. 1815 mahogany lady’s dressing table, probably from Windsor, inscribed in black paint under the tabletop, “Mrs. A. Cleveland, Hartland, VT.”
While his collection of Vermont furniture is staggering on its own, Garthwaite is also passionate about Vermont needlework. In May 2026, the museum will open On Point: Needlework from the Garthwaite Family Collection, an exhibition featuring samplers, silk embroideries, memorials, theorems, and other related “schoolgirl” artworks collected by Garthwaite.
Together, these transformative gifts of documented Vermont material culture comprise an outstanding collection, presenting opportunities for Shelburne Museum visitors to engage with themes and questions central to the histories of people living and working in the Green Mountain State.
- Email correspondence, 19 September 2025.
Katie Wood Kirchhoff, PhD, is the Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen Curator of American Decorative Arts at Shelburne Museum.
A print version of this article was published in The Magazine of the Decorative Arts Trust, one of our most popular member benefits. Join today!