East Windsor side chair

This chair boasts some distinctive decoration. The vase-shaped splat, or center back section, has a cutout heart. The undulating top rail features a “pagoda” design at the center and carved “ears” on each side. The flat-bottomed, carved pad feet and curving back rail are the details of an ambitious craftsman, a third-generation joiner from the Connecticut River valley near Hartford. The chair’s original owner was David Ellsworth (1709–82), a selectman of his New England town. In 1745 he commanded a company on behalf of Britain at the siege of Louisbourg, on the French-held Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, in what is now Canada. This was a decisive British victory in what was known in the North American colonies as King George’s War, part of the War of the Austrian Secession, which raged nearly worldwide from 1740 to 1748.