Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1905 — MAHOGANY WOOD. [ARTICLE]

MAHOGANY WOOD.

Vh« Way It Came to Be Used la tba .Malting of Furniture. Chippendale owes his reputation to the fact that he published a book of designs with over 200 copperplate engravings, so that today any one who wishes may get them and reproduce them exactly or with such changes and improvements as suit his That they are capable of improvement Chippendale himself was the first to declare. Chippendale was one of the first makers of mahogany furniture. Before his time this precious wood was valued only for the medicinal qualities It was supposed to possess. The idea of making furniture of mahogany wood appears to have been the result of chance.. A certain physician in London had a great many mahogany planks, and, wanting a candle box, he sent for a cabinetmaker and instructed him to use the mahogany for the required article of furniture. The man objected that the wood was too hard for his tools, and the doctor told him to get harder tools. . The man did so, and when the doctor saw the box he was amazed at Its beauty. Patients and friends talked about it, and at last the Duchess of Buckingham came to see it. She was enraptured and persuaded the doctor to give her wood for a similar box. As a result mahogany got to be the fashion.