Thomas Affleck

Thomas Affleck (1740–1795) was an 18th-century American cabinetmaker, who specialized in furniture in the Philadelphia Chippendale style.

He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland to a devout Quaker family. There is no documentation of where he learned his trade, but, based on stylistic similarities to his later work, it is conjectured that he apprenticed under Edinburgh cabinetmaker Alexander Peter. He moved to London in 1760, and immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1763. That same year, John Penn, a grandson of Pennsylvania's founder William Penn, arrived in Philadelphia and was sworn in as governor of the Colony. One of Affleck's first major commissions came in 1766 for a substantial set of furniture for Governor John Penn and his bride, Anne Allen, daughter of William Allen, the Colony's richest resident.

Affleck's first shop was on Union (now Delancey) Street. By 1768 he had moved to Second Street, south of Dock Creek. In 1771 he married Isabella Gordon, and was censured by his fellow Quakers for marrying "out of Meeting." The couple had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Isabella died in 1782, and he never remarried.

Another major commission was for furnishing the Second Street city house of John and Elizabeth Cadwalader. For this Affleck was joined by fellow cabinetmaker Benjamin Randolph, and carvers Hercules Courtenay, John Pollard, Nicholas Bernard, and Martin Jugiez. Cadwalader's receipts for the work survive at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, although determining which cabinetmaker made which piece (and which carver carved which) sometimes must be based on attribution.

He participated in 1776 protests against war with Great Britain, but it is unclear whether he was a Loyalist, a pacifist, or both. He was deemed a "dangerous person"—along with a number of his fellow Quakers—in August 1777, and banished to Virginia in October. Seven months later he was allowed to return to Philadelphia. He did not fight in the American Revolutionary War on either side.

...
Wikipedia