Carwithen, William (1721-1770)
Carwithen, William
Exeter, Devon then Charleston, South Carolina, USA; cabinet maker, slave owner and trader (fl.1721-1770)
William Carwithen was born on 3 October 1704, the son of Thomas, a clerk of Exeter. On 28 March 1721 he was apprenticed to Thomas Kent, a cabinet maker and joiner of Exeter. In 1729, aged twenty-nine, he set off for Charleston and soon thereafter was married to Mary Bisset in St Philip’s Parish, on 14 January 1730.
The couple were soon gifted property in Charleston: On 23 August 1732, Mary's mother, Jane Bisset, gave them a lot valued at £500, comprising 'part of a town lot in Charles Town'. In a subsequent deed of sale Jane released the adjoining property. Presumably this was on the south side of Middle Street near New Church Street in Saint Philip Parish.
Carwithen was soon established in Charleston and apparently met with some resistance: 'Whereas I have been informed by People thro' several Parts of the Country that there has been a Malicious Report, persuading my Customers that I have left off Trade: These are to Satisfy all People as shall want Desk and Book-Cases, Chests of drawers, Clock Cases, Tables of all Sorts, Peer-Glass [sic] Frames, Swinging Frames, and all other sorts of Cabinet Ware, made as Neat as ever, and Cheaper'.
A rare survival made around the time of the 'malicious report', is the fall-front desk seen below, c. 1730-40, bearing Carwithen's stamp 'W/CARWITHEN'. It is considered to be 'the earliest signed piece of Charleston furniture' [MESDA and the Study of Early Southern Decorative Arts].
On 1 April 1737, the Carwithens acquired a substantial piece of property when signing a lease for 450 acres on the Edisto River for £450 'Saving with and Reserving Nevertheless to his heirs and Successors all white pine trees if any there should be found growing thereon'.
In 1740 Carwithen suffered a fire at a loss of £1362 10s (current money).
On 20 November 1756, Governor William Henry Lyttleton, appointed Carwithen as a messenger of the Commons House of Assembly. In 1759 he was appointed librarian of the Charleston Library Society, a position he held throughout the remainder of his life. He also served as a juror in 1766.
William Cartwithen died on 4 September 1770. The appraisal of his estate totaled £1261.
His list of furnishings included an old mahogany desk and two mahogany bedsteads, plus seven walnut chairs, an old walnut couch, a walnut table, and a walnut chest of drawers. His personal effects included a 'parcel of Old joiners Tools, grindstone and chest,' in all worth £5:10. The inventory also included three slaves valued at £1050 and household goods.
Sources: DEFM; MESDA ID 5779; The National Archive, London, Board of Stamps: Apprenticeship Books, Series IR 1; Bjerkoe, Ethel, The Cabinetmakers of America (Exton, PA, 1978); UK Register of Duties Paid for Apprentice Indentures, 1710-1811; South Carolina Marriages, 14 January 1729/30; Rauschenberg & Bivins, The Furniture of Charleston 1680-1820 (2003), III, pp. 939-943; American Craftspeople, 1600-1995. The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum; Hurst, Ronal L., 'Southern Furniture Studies: Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going', Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts; Charleston County, S.C., Land Records, MSS Pt. 14, Books G-K, 1726-33 and Pt 18, Book S, 1737-39; 'MESDA and the Study of Early Southern Decorative Arts', The Magazine Antiques, 16 Aug, 2012; Correspondence Board of Trade, 'A List of Sufferers in the Charleston, S.C. fire of 1740', pp. 153-55; Charleston County, S.C., Wills, etc., vol. 83B, 1754-58, p. 632, 20 Nov. 1756; Charleston, S.C. , Inventories Y 1769-71, p. 341, 26 October 1770.