Curators Take a Fresh Look at History, by Laura Moyer
The Scotsmen were smart, skilled and versed in the most fashionable styles of their time.
But William Walker and his younger brother, Robert, had something else going for them - timing and connections.
The brothers came to the Fredericksburg area in a time of prosperity and development, William by 1730 and Robert by 1743. They quickly formed acquaintences with members of the gentry.
All those circumstances poised William, an architect and builder who settled in Stafford County, to work on homes for some of the area's leading governing families. For example, documents place him on site as the Lee family built Stratford Hall in Westmoreland County.
And Robert, a cabinetmaker who worked in King George County, was soon furnishing the new homes of gentlemen with elegant side chairs, armchairs and case furniture.
The Walker brothers' story was one tale of Colonial Fredericksburg-area craftsmanship shared last night by a pair of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation curators, Robert Leath and Tara Gleason Chicirda revealed the results of two years' detective work into the subject during a talk last night at the Central Rappahannock Regional Library head-quarters in Fredericksburg.
Their presentation, which packed the library auditorium, was sponsored by the Fredericksburg Area Museum.
The curators' work disproved one long-held school of thought, that Williamsburg cabinetmaker Peter Scott was responsible for much of the fine furniture that ended up in the elegant Fredericksburg-area and Northern Neck homes at the time.
In fact, Leath said, much of what has been attributed to Scott actually produced in the workshop of Robert Walker. Scott made desks, cabinets and tables, Leath said, "but what we discovered is that in all liklihood he never made a chair in his life."
By contrast, chairs seem to have been Robert Walker's forte.
Leath has identified Walker as the maker of a set of 12 chairs made for the home of John Spotswood, as documented in 1756 Caroline County court cases.
In one case, Walker claimed Spotswood still owed him for the dozen chairs delivered in 1746. Those records show that Walker charged 2 pounds per chair, a price far out of reach for all but the well-to-do.
Examples of Walker's work made their way to grand homes passed down through the generations, usually mother-to-daughter.
Robert Walker influenced the style - though not the construction techniques - of furniture made by his nephew, William Walker of Falmouth. William Walker, in turn, influenced a journeyman who trained under him and later moved west to Orange County, where he sold chairs to the parents of James Madison.
Through detective work involving old records, Leath put a name to that man, Robert Cockburn. Cockburn worked for William Walker before establishing his own cabinetmaking business. His chairs, far less expensive than those of the Walkers, share some stylistic elements that distinguish the Walkers' work. [remainder omitted].
