In the early days of the colonies, chairs were scarce appurtenances, and the few used, generally not more than three in number in each home, and known as forms, were very rudely constructed, being in reality stools or benches, fashioned after the English designs then in vogue. Later, these developed into the high-backed settles, which are so much used in a modified form to-day. [Illustration: PLATE XXIV.--Queen Anne, Fiddle Back; Queen Anne, stuffed chair; Dutch Chair, carved; Empire Lyre-backed Roundabout on Chippendale lines, 1825.] By the middle of the seventeenth century, chairs had come into more common usage, the type then in favor being strong and solid of frame, with seat and back covered with durable leather or Turkey work. Generally, the legs and stretches were plain, though sometimes the legs and back posts were turned. Specimens of the turned variety, which are the first seats that really could be termed chairs, are very scarce to-day, the best examples being found at Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth, in the home of Hon. John D. Long at Hingham, Massachusetts, in the Heard house at Ipswich, Massachusetts, and in the Waters collection at Salem, where one specimen shows a covering which is a reproduction, having been fashioned to exactly match in design and texture the original one it replaced when that one wore out. The year 1700 marked the introduction of the slat-back chair, which enjoyed a long period of popularity. The number of slats at the back, characteristic of this type, varied with the time of making, the first specimens showing but two, while later types showed five. These chairs were solid and strong of frame, and in Pennsylvania were made curved to fit the back, affording a comfortable support. They included, in addition to ordinary chairs, armchairs, and it was to an armchair of this make that Benjamin Franklin affixed rockers, thus inventing the first American rocking-chair and inaugurating a fashion that has never waned in popularity. This first rocking-chair and its contemporaries, which did not antedate the Revolutionary War by any great number of years, had rockers that projected as far in the front as they did at the back,--a peculiarity that makes them easily recognizable to-day. Later, this objection was remedied, and the present type of rocking-chair came into fashion. [Illustration: PLATE XXV.--Chippendale, Lord Timothy Dexter's Collection, H. P. Benson; French Chair, showing Empire influence; Flemish Chair; Banister-back Chair.]