SPECIAL TABLE JOINS COLLECTION
Poplar Forest Newsletter, Fall 2001

Poplar Forest has acquired an intriguing table that appears to have been part of the furnishings of Jefferson’s retreat.

Ethel P. Ogden of Roanoke, Virginia, donated the drop-leaf table whose story and construction make highly probable its connection to Jefferson’s retreat.

What first intrigued Poplar Forest’s staff was the way that data in a 1926 document in Mrs. Ogden’s family papers resembled what staff members have pieced together so far in their efforts to research the trail of what happened to some of Poplar Forest’s furnishings. The family document takes the table’s story back as far as an estate auction in the 1850s on a nearby farm.

Further evidence in the construction of this table significantly increased the probability of its Jefferson association by indicating that the table may have been crafted in the Monticello joinery. Its legs match the legs of tables made there, and its unusual tenons match those in furniture known to have been made at the joinery.

In addition, the table’s visible parts are made of high-quality mahogany. It is believed that Jefferson was the only person in the area who used expensive, exceptionally fine mahogany to produce furniture of a simple, rural design.

While certainty is frequently difficult to achieve, the unusually strong circumstantial evidence made a compelling case for preserving this table here, in light of clear documentation that Jefferson had at Poplar Forest four tables of the precise design and materials of this table.

Records prove that in the fall of 1807, Jefferson ordered mahogany for four pembroke tables being made in the joinery, and that the following year he sent four tables here. Tax records from 1815 show that Jefferson had at Poplar Forest four small mahogany tables with drop leaves, identified by Jefferson as pembroke or tea tables.

While complete furnishing of the historic buildings at Poplar Forest is not currently planned, this table joins a few select pieces of furniture being collected to display, either as a special exhibit in the historic buildings or in a permanent exhibit building.