Sideboard

Place Made
Oglethorpe County Georgia United States of America
Date Made
1845-1855
Medium
birch –walnut –yellow pine
Dimensions
Overall HOA 53-3/4″; Serving HOA 42-1/4″; WOA 56-1/2″; DOA 20-1/4″
Accession Number
5651
Description
DESCRIPTION: A cabinet style sideboard with splashboard, having end plinths with nailed molded cornices connected by a top beveled board which is tenoned and nailed into the plinths. The splashboard is joined to the top of the sideboard by large dowels which pass through the top. The top is pegged to the case. Front and back stiles, turned at the bottom to form feet, hold the paneled sides. There are two upper drawers, below which are two paneled-door cupboard sections with three tiers of drawers in the center. The drawers are joined by half-dovetails top and bottom with smaller dovetails between. The drawer bottoms are beveled, slipped into grooves in the drawer sides, and nailed across the back. A wide center drawer runner serves both upper drawers. Solid board dividers, separating the center drawers from the cupboard sections, tenon through the bottom of the case. The door rails tenon all the way through the door stiles. The case bottom is nailed flush with the sides, front and back. The horizontal backboards slip into grooves cut in the back stiles and are nailed to the vertical drawer and cupboard dividers. The brass hinges, some of the iron locks, and the escutcheons, one of which is upside down, are original. The walnut knobs also appear to be original.

This sideboard, along with a corner cupboard (acc. 5422), was part of the original furnishings of White Oak Plantation, built c. 1840 for the planter Augustus Dozier (1807-1902). Dozier’s grandfather migrated to Georgia from Virginia along the Great Wagon Road in the eighteenth century. Augustus was born in Columbia County, Georgia, but married and settled in nearby Oglethorpe County. Primarily a farmer, he was also a surveyor. By the Civil War Dozier owned 750 acres of land and eighteen slaves, placing him well within Georgia’s upper middling class.

History
The sideboard was part of the early furnishings of White Oak Plantation built by Augustus Dozier, circa 1840, in Oglethorpe County, Georgia. It remained in the same house and family until 1979, when it was sold at Sam’s Antiques & Auction, Route 6, Calhoun, Georgia. It was described as Curly Maple in that sale, but after wood analysis, it was determined to be Birch. It was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Chesnut in 1981. It has been on loan two times for exhibition at Neat Pieces in Atlanta and Neat Pieces Revisited at the Madison-Morgan Cultural Center, Madison, Georgia.

Credit Line
Gift of Linda and David Chesnut.