ial a
man as Thomas Dudley did not disdain to leave by specification to his
daughter Pacy a "ffeather beed & boulster." In 1666 Nicholas Upsall, of
Boston, left a "Bedstead fitted with a Rope Matt & Curtains to it." In
March, 1687, Sewall wrote to London for "White Fustian Drawn enough for
curtains, vallen counterpaine for a bed & half a duz chaires with four
threeded green worsted to work it." In 1691 we find him writing for
"Fringe for the Fustian bed & half a duz Chairs. Six yards and a half
for the vallons, fifteen yards for 6 chairs two Inches deep; 12 yards
half inch deep." This wrought fustian bed was certainly handsome.

By revolutionary times we read such items as these: "Neet sette bed,"
"Very genteel red and white copperplate Cottonbed with Squab and Window
Curtains Fring'd and made in the Newest Taste," "Sacken' & Corded Beds
and a Pallat Bed," "Very Handsome Flower'd Crimson worsted damask carv'd
and rais'd Teaster Bed & Curtains compleat," "A Four Post Bedstead of
Mahogany on Casters with Carved Foot Posts, Callico Curtains to Ditto &
Window Curtains to Match, and a Green Harrateen Cornish Bed." Harrateen,
a strong, stiff woollen material, formed the most universal bed hanging.
Trundle-beds or truckle-beds were used from the earliest days. So there
was variety in plenty.

A form of bedstead called a slawbank was common enough in New York, New
Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania until this century. They were more
rarely found in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and as I do not know what
they were called in New England, we will give them the Dutch name
slawbank, from _sloap-bancke_, a sleeping-bench. A slawbank was the
prototype of our modern folding-bed. It was an oblong frame with a
network of rope. This frame was fastened at one end to the wall with
heavy hinges, and at night it was lowered to a horizontal position, and
the unhinged end was supported on heavy wooden turned legs which fitted
into sockets in the frame. When not in use the bed was hooked up against
the wall, and doors like closet doors were closed over it, or curtains
were drawn over it to conceal it. It was usually placed in the kitchen,
and upon it slept goodman and goodwife. I know of several slawbanks
still in old Narragansett, and one in a colonial house in Shrewsbury,
Mass. A similar one may be seen at Deerfield Memorial Hall. It is hung
around with blue serge curtains. I have seen no advertisements of
slawbanks under any name in New Eng