Booden, Thomas snr and jnr (1713-1763)

Last updated on 8 December 2024

Booden, Thomas snr and jnr

London England then Charleston South Carolina USA; upholder, upholsterer, paper hanger, importer (1713–1763)

Thomas snr was trading at Fenchurch Street in 1727 and Seething Lane in 1750. The son of John Booden, a clothworker of London, he was apprenticed to Edward Wood on 4 July 1713 and admitted a freeman of the Upholder's Company by servitude on 6 July 1720. He served as a member of the Upholders' Company livery in 1750.

His son, Thomas Booden, was admitted a freeman by patrimony on 5 April 1750. Several years later he left London for Charleston, South Carolina, his arrival announced in late October, 1756.

Boden The South-Carolina Gazette 1756.
Lately imported from London, several sets of fine figured hangings for rooms, cielings [sic] and screens, some India pictures, mash [sic] work fit for ornamenting walls &c. Likewise all sorts of upholsterers work done, chairs stuffed, and rooms hung in as neat and good a manner as can be done in England, and also at the lowest price. Any person directing to me, at the sign of the Royal Tent in Elliot Street may depend on being punctually waited on by Thomas Booden, Upholsterer from London. The South Carolina Gazette,28 October 1756.

His son Samuel was christened on 5th April 1760. In the autumn of that year he apparently ran into financial difficulties because on 14 October 1760, his household and workshop goods were mortgaged, 'in consideration of a bond in the sum of £202 current money of the Province. If Thomas Booden pays the sum of £101 plus interest on 1 February 1762, this mortgage will be voided' [S.C. Mortgages, 22 October 1760]. Clearly unable to pay his debts Booden by 1763 he resorted to passing illegal tender:

Booden Charleston 1763
The Subscribers suspecting that Tjomas Booden, will attempt to pass two notes of theirs, for Twenty-one pounds each which are not just debts; they give this public caution to every body, against receiving them in payment, or otherwise, being determined no to be answerable for the same. The South Carolina Gazette, 4 June 1763

What became of Thomas Booden thereafter is unknown.

Source: DEFM; MESDA ID 3221; TLA, Freedom of the City Admission Papers, Free by patrimony, April 1750; Huger-Smith and Salley, Register of St. Philip's Parish, Charles Town, or Charleston, S.C, 1754-1810 (University of South Carolina Press, 1971), p. 44; Charleston County, S.C., South Carolina Mortgages, No. Y. Y. 1759-61, p. 266. 

The original entry from Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, 1660-1840 can be found at British History Online.

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