Previous to 1776 we must expect American native furniture to run parallel in style (with natural lagging tendencies, of course) to the English periods with which they were contemporary. In earliest colonial times, times when voyages were few and far between, large shipments of furniture were not to be considered. As the wealth of the individual colonists increased, luxuries came to hold a place in trade which they could not have held at an earlier day in the New World. With the advent, too, of colonial officials, fat of purse, sent over by the mother country, came articles to enhance as well as to continue their comfort. One could be more contented with an easy-chair than without, and little by little the rude bench furniture of the Pilgrims was locally developed (reverting to English patterns) into a more attractive and acceptable sort of furniture, or was augmented by importations. At the same time this increased demand for cabinet-making invited English craftsmen to seek their fortunes in the New World, and before long a very respectable home industry, both in the North and in the South, was making its influence felt. Fortunately New England thrift (or perhaps it was conservatism) has preserved to us many pieces of this early American furniture, some of it dating back to the time of King James II. These New England Jacobean pieces follow simple lines in general, with here and there a piece of ornate type. In the reign of William and Mary and that of Anne a rapidly increasing number of English craftsmen migrated to the American Colonies, where they helped to perpetuate the styles of this period. It is not at all uncommon to meet with very fine examples of the Queen Anne period which were contemporaneously produced by American craftsmen; in fact, some of the New England cabinet-makers became so proficient that the products of their shops rivaled the output of British makers both in staunchness of construction and accuracy of contour. The well-proportioned cabriole legs of many pieces of this description extant--the generic term for furniture with a “knee,” derived from the French _cabriole_ (goat-leap)--are as well designed as any of the examples then being produced in the mother country by the skilled English cabinet-makers. Naturally, the local colonial production of Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton styles was supported by the affluence to which the colonies attained. During the troubles of the Revolution the importation of mahogany by the colonies was diverted by Great Britain. Substitutes, for the time--and this began to mark a decline, with fluctuations in the materials used--had to be found, such as that of the sweetgum tree, _Liquidambar Styraciflua_, which in appearance and general character is very similar to mahogany, its distinguishing features being a slightly lighter color and grain.