page 10 This c. 1819 mahogany secrétaire à abattant, attributed to Boston cabinetmakers Vose & Coates, is part of Historic New England’s collection, the gift of David Hinckley Bangs Jr. in 2015. left Even with the front closed, the desk is recognizable as the same one in this detail of the Southworth and Hawes daguerreotype of Samuel Appleton, made c. 1850 in Boston. (Image courtesy of Sotheby’s) below Similar architectural features are seen in both the daguerreotype and the earlier Auguste Edouart silhouette of the Appleton parlor.
issue of this magazine, researching Samuel Appleton further was not a high priority. But after I retired, I was determined to see if I could learn what happened to his house and its furnishings. Both Samuel and his brother Nathan had built elegant houses on Beacon Street, which they furnished in equally elegant style. Nathan’s house at 39 Beacon Street survives but Samuel’s, located at 37 Beacon, was torn down in 1857. Mary Appleton sold the house a year after her husband's death and moved to a house she had inherited farther down Beacon Street. Several pieces of furniture that belonged to Nathan Appleton are displayed in Otis House in Boston, but I had not come across anything that had belonged to Samuel in my years of studying Boston interiors. Many of the paths I followed led to dead ends, but a breakthrough in my search came a few years
ago when a series of coincidences led to an exciting discovery. And as so often happens, I was looking for something else. One of the most remarkable interiors in early nineteenth-century Boston was recorded in the probate inventory of David Hinckley, a Boston merchant who had lived near the Appletons
on Beacon Street. The inventory, which my wife, Jane, transcribed in the 1970s, lists the furnishings in Hinckley’s opulently appointed residence, which featured marble statues, matching silk draperies and upholstery, and expensive chandeliers. As was the case with Appleton, we never located any of these furnishings, nor Hinckley’s portrait by Gilbert Stuart that is illustrated in Lawrence Park’s 1926 four-volume work, Gilbert Stuart: An Illustrated Descriptive List of His Works. One day I decided to do a little Internet investigating and searched for “David Hinckley Bangs,” Bangs being the surname of the Hinckley portrait owner listed in Park’s book. Quite to my surprise, an individual with that exact name appeared on the computer
HistoricNewEngland.org
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