The most extensive Federal-era tea service Paul Revere’s shop ever produced is included in the exhibition, Beyond Midnight: Paul Revere and His Ride, at the Concord Museum. Made for John and Mehitable Templeman in 1792, the set includes a teapot, tea caddy, sugar bowl, and cream pot that are fluted in emulation of the fluted columns of classical antiquity. If the style of this tea set summons the ancient past, its manufacture conjures the industrial future.
A simple green desk made in Concord, Massachusetts, in about 1838 by a cabinet-maker who charged perhaps one dollar for it, had a career in America’s intellectual history entirely out of proportion to its humble origin, because it was Henry Thoreau’s desk. Since it entered the Concord Museum collection, the desk has become a cornerstone of the Museum and a treasured American icon.
