Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1896 — Discovery of Mahogany. [ARTICLE]

Discovery of Mahogany.

In the researches he made while gathering statistics for his book on colonial furniture the late Dr. Lyon came across a curious legend about the introduction of mahogany into England. It seems that a Dr. Gibbon, who was ft London physician early in the seventeenth century, had some mahogany planks imported from the West Indl(‘s, with., the Idea of grinding them up for use hs a substitute for Peruvian bark, which was Just gaining vogue ns a medicine. Finding the wood unserviceable as medicine, he had a cnblnetinaker construct a box of one of the planks, and the beautiful grain of the wood pleased him so that lie had A bureau made ofthe same material. All London flocked to see it, nnd the wood came Into immediate use among furniture makers.