Indian Cabinetmakers in Piedmont North Carolina
by Patricia Phillips Marshall*
William Bill Jeffries carried on his family's furni¬
ture-making tradition in the twentieth century.
linage courtesy of Patricia !’hillii>f Marshall
Many students of history know about the
career of Thomas Day, a free African
American who, by 1850, had built North
Carolina's largest cabinetmaking shop in Milton,
Caswell County. Day designed and handcrafted furni¬
ture and architectural elements for the white elite of
the Dan River region. Cabinetmakers rarely work
alone, and Day operated a shop unlike any other in the
state. He employed
white, black, and
mixed-race woodwork¬
ers of all ages. What
many people do not
Jr realize is that some of
1 S£.~r: the men that he
worked and socialized
аЩ
^ | with came from the
American Indian com¬
munity.
Before the Civil War
in the 1860s, white
society viewed
American Indians as
"people of color."
Many — those who had
intermarried with African Americans and whites — are
listed in official records as "mulatto," meaning that
they were of "mixed race." For many years, Indians
enjoyed the same legal rights as free blacks. In 1835 the
new state constitution took away voting rights from
people of color, including Indians, regardless of
whether they had intermarried with other races. Free
people of color had to follow many of the same restric¬
tions placed upon slaves. However, they could buy
and sell property.
Day — who was born in 1801 in Greensville County,
Virginia, to mixed-race parents, John and Mourning
Day — moved with his family to Warren County, North
Carolina, in 1817. When he moved to Hillsborough in
the early 1820s, it appears that he became friends with
members of the Jeffreys family who, although listed as
"mulattos" in official records, were actually of Indian
origin. The Jeffreys were part of a larger group of
Occaneechi people from Virginia who had settled in
the northwest section of Orange County, which became
Alamance County in 1849. As with the Day family, the
Jeffreys family had originated in Greensville County,
Virginia. In 1830 Uriah Jeffreys served as a bondsman
for Thomas Day when he married Aquilla Wilson. A
bondsman was usually a dose family member (such as
a father, brother, or uncle) who assured the court that
the couple should be married, and that the groom
would not change his mind and leave the bride at the
altar. Uriah Jeffreys must have been a close friend of
Thomas to agree to be his bondsman. Historic records
make it clear that both men were cabinetmakers, and it
is possible that Uriah and his brother Nathan worked
with Day for a short time. In 1828 Uriah decided to
move. He advertised in the Hillsborough Recorder that he
had a variety of furniture from his cabinetmaking busi¬
ness for sale, including "Bureaus, Bedsteads, Tables."
Uriah moved to Ohio with two of his brothers,
Parker and Augustus. Unfortunately, they experienced
the same type of prejudice in the North that they had
tried to leave behind. The law required free blacks
entering Ohio to pay a bond of $500 to county officials.
Whites thought this would guarantee that only free
blacks of "good character" would settle and be able to
support themselves. Parker Jeffreys refused to pay,
insisting that his blood was a mixture of Indian and
white, and not black. The case went to the county
court, where he lost. Jeffreys persevered, and the Ohio
Supreme Court heard his case in 1842. In Parker Jeffreys
v.
Анкет/
et al., the supreme court justices ruled that he
was an Indian with no African ancestry and did not
have to pay the bond. Members of the Jeffreys family
continued to make furniture near Xenia, Ohio, well
into the twentieth century.
Nathan Jeffreys lived the rest of his life in North
Carolina. It seems that he continued to work as a jour¬
neyman cabinetmaker, because in 1834 he is listed as
such in a court document. However, in the 1850 and
1860 censuses, he is listed as a farmer owning $500 in
property. Many cabinetmakers supplemented their
incomes by farming. Day clearly considered Nathan a
close family friend, because in 1851 in a letter to his
own daughter, Mary Ann, he mentions the death of
Nathan's daughter, Safroney.
Fine furniture made by Nathan Jeffreys between
1845 and 1855 is known to exist in a private collection.
The construction techniques that he used are similar to
those found on the bureaus made in Day's Milton
shop, indicating that the two men probably worked
together at one time. Jeffreys and other members of the
Indian community passed on their woodworking
skills. His great-great-grandson, William Bill Jeffries,
learned woodworking from his father. He built houses
as well as chairs during most of the twentieth century.'
'I’atriaa Wii/li/i
.«
Marshall is the curator of furnishings and decora live arts al the <V.C. A Inseuni of I list on/ and the coauthor
»/
(? soon-to-hc-inihlishcd hook on Thomas Paw. She notes that ament descendants of the /ef/Tci/s faiiiih/ s
/><•//
their names as
' Icffncs, " hnl she uses "letfnys " heenuse that is how the name a/ifreoris in the historical record. She thanks forest I lazel for
shilling his research on the fainihi
32
Tlllll, I . ill 2005
