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Lot Essay
A handwritten label attached to the rear rail reads:
This Chippendale card table was the property of Stephen Mix Mitchell who was U.S. Senator from Connecticut 1793-1795. It passed to his daughter Harriet Mitchell who was unmarried then to Stephen Mix Mitchell, a grandson of the U.S. Senator. This second Stephen Mix Mitchell was Treasurer of the N. York. N.H. and Hartford R.R. Co. It passed from him to his daughter Harriet Mitchell Slate and from her to her daughter Alice Slate Norton.
Stephen Mix Mitchell (1743-1835; fig. 1) was the son of James Mitchell, who emigrated from Scotland to Wethersfield and his second wife, Rebecca Mix. He graduated from Yale in 1763 and six years later married Harriet Grant (fig. 2), the daughter of a Newtown, Connecticut merchant, Donald Grant. During the Revolutionary War, he served on the Wethersfield Committees of Correspondence and sat in the state house of representatives. Trained as a lawyer, he was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1783, 1785 and 1787 and from 1793 to 1795 served in the US Senate, filling the seat vacated by the death of Robert Sherman. With both governing bodies based in Philadelphia, it is likely that he acquired the table, either new or second-hand, during these years. He was later Chief Justice of the Connecticut Superior Court. See Edward E. and Evelyn M. Salisbury, Family histories and genealogies (1892), pp. 176-179; https://www.famousamericans.net/stephenmixmitchell/.
As shown in a December, 1932 photograph, the table was displayed in "Mrs. Blair's bedroom" at Blairhame and, with its top leaf raised, appears to have been used as a bed-side table (see Introduction, fig. 14).
This Chippendale card table was the property of Stephen Mix Mitchell who was U.S. Senator from Connecticut 1793-1795. It passed to his daughter Harriet Mitchell who was unmarried then to Stephen Mix Mitchell, a grandson of the U.S. Senator. This second Stephen Mix Mitchell was Treasurer of the N. York. N.H. and Hartford R.R. Co. It passed from him to his daughter Harriet Mitchell Slate and from her to her daughter Alice Slate Norton.
Stephen Mix Mitchell (1743-1835; fig. 1) was the son of James Mitchell, who emigrated from Scotland to Wethersfield and his second wife, Rebecca Mix. He graduated from Yale in 1763 and six years later married Harriet Grant (fig. 2), the daughter of a Newtown, Connecticut merchant, Donald Grant. During the Revolutionary War, he served on the Wethersfield Committees of Correspondence and sat in the state house of representatives. Trained as a lawyer, he was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1783, 1785 and 1787 and from 1793 to 1795 served in the US Senate, filling the seat vacated by the death of Robert Sherman. With both governing bodies based in Philadelphia, it is likely that he acquired the table, either new or second-hand, during these years. He was later Chief Justice of the Connecticut Superior Court. See Edward E. and Evelyn M. Salisbury, Family histories and genealogies (1892), pp. 176-179; https://www.famousamericans.net/stephenmixmitchell/.
As shown in a December, 1932 photograph, the table was displayed in "Mrs. Blair's bedroom" at Blairhame and, with its top leaf raised, appears to have been used as a bed-side table (see Introduction, fig. 14).