John Goddard

…a house carpenter in Massachusetts, John Goddard (1723/ 24–85) moved with his family in the 1740s to Newport, where he and his younger brother James worked for Job Townsend. Shortly after they married Townsend’s daughters, John established his own workshop, and by the 1760s he had become Newport’s leading cabinetmaker,…

…Island, the genius of the Goddard and Townsend cabinetmaking families evolved an equally distinctive style by developing a block front decorated by the patterns of the wood grains instead of carving, as used by their contemporaries in Philadelphia. In spite of the Philadelphians’ evident desire to match the works of…