"A fine yellow Camblet bed lined with silk and trimmed with fine lace, which came from London. One fine field bedstead and curtains. Some blue cloth lately come from London for liveries and some broad gold lace. A very fine medecine chest with a great variety of valuable medecines. A parcel of sweetmeats and jelly glasses. A case of 12 knives and 12 forks with silver handles. A large iron fireplace and iron bars all to be seen at the Fort. It seemed as if the field bed had been made here, as it is specified that several of the other articles came from London. "The Journeyman's Cabinet & Chair-makers Philadelphia Book of Prices" gives in 1795 the price of a mahogany field bed, with sloped roof, at £1 7_s._, while one of poplar, with the roof sloped each way, cost but one pound. The carving of the posts was of course extra and was to be paid for according to time. Each inch that the bed was longer than six feet and wider than four feet was to be charged for at the rate of two pence per inch. This may be the reason why many of the beds were so narrow. It is often stated that the field bed was in use for a few years only, about the middle of the 18th Century, while in fact it was here, imported and of domestic make for fully one hundred years, and I am by no means sure that Governor Cornbury's was among the earliest. [Illustration: Figure 64. HIGHBOY.] Great attention was paid to the draping and arranging of the curtains, valances, and testers of the high four-posters. Heavy materials of silk and woollen were used, as well as cotton stuffs. Men paid great attention to the colourings of their bed furniture, as we have seen in several inventories, and Horace Walpole chose for his own bed at Strawberry Hill purple cloth lined with white satin, and bunches of feathers on the tester. Hepplewhite spent much pains on the details of his beds, and recommended that the valance be made very full, in which case it was called the "petticoat valance." There were also elaborate details for tying back the curtains and trimming them with gimp and fringe. The bed-drapings, even in early days, were often very valuable. Col. Francis Epes, of Henrico Co., Va., has in his inventory dated October 1, 1678: "One large new feather bed with camlett curtains and double vallins lind with yellow silke, bolster, pillow, counterpane, Rodds and hooks tops and stands, 1 curtaine and some Fringe damnified £24 5_s._ 0_d_."