A. H. Davenport and Company

A. H. Davenport and Company was a late-19th-century–early-20th-century American furniture manufacturer, cabinetmaker, and interior decoration firm. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it sold luxury items at its showrooms in Boston and New York City, and produced furniture and interiors for many notable buildings, including The White House. The word "davenport," meaning a boxy sofa or sleeper-sofa, comes from the company.

It was founded by Albert H. Davenport (1845-1905), who began as a bookkeeper at the Boston Furniture Company in 1866, and bought the business about 1880 following the death of its owner. He changed the company's name, and expanded it, opening a showroom in New York City. It produced high-end and custom-made furniture, which it retailed alongside fabrics, wallpaper, hardware, decorative items, and quality goods from a variety of makers. One of Davenport's first big commissions was for 225 pieces of furniture and decorative items for the Iolani Palace in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The company formed a close relationship with architect H. H. Richardson. Boston Furniture Company–Davenport & Co. likely executed the furniture for his Winn Memorial Library (1879) in Woburn, Massachusetts. Davenport & Co. executed the furniture and interiors for his Thomas Crane Public Library (1881) in Quincy, Massachusetts; his Billings Library (1883) in Burlington, Vermont; and his Converse Memorial Library (1885) in Malden, Massachusetts.

Richardson designed the New York Court of Appeals Room (1883–84), on the third floor of the New York State Capitol in Albany. Davenport & Co. executed its highly carved, Byzantine-Romanesque-style cabinetwork and furniture.Lord Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, described it as "the finest courtroom in the world." In 1916, Richardson's courtroom was disassembled and relocated to the New York Court of Appeals Building.

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