The John Pierpont Study Table

A while ago I subscribed to the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS). They have a quarterly magazine titled, “American Ancestors”. There are some articles of interest and others that are of less interest to me because they relate to individuals with whom I have no connection. But when I opened the most recent issue and began paging through it, I was quite surprised to discover an article entitled, “The Reverend John Pierpont’s Study Table: A Look at the First Furniture of the New England Historic Genealogical Society”.

The preface to this article notes that the essay is reprinted from American History, Art and Culture: Writings in Honor of Jonathan Lee Fairbanks, a book published in 2018. It was written by the President and CEO of NEHGS and is about the first piece of furniture acquired by the NEHGS and which formerly belonged to the Reverend John Pierpont (1785-1866) of the Hollis Street Church. Since the Reverend is my 2^nd cousin (6 times removed), this article was of interest to me both personally and because I am currently the co-historian of the Pierpont Family Association.

The below are excerpts from this article.

The first piece of furniture acquired by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, established in Boston in 1845 as the nation’s founding genealogical institution, is a round mahogany tripod study table that formerly belonged to the Reverend John Pierpont (1785-1866), of the Hollis Street Church, a multi-faceted man whose occupations included minister, lawyer, merchant, and poet, and who was also an abolitionist and temperance reformer. An object overlaid with historic associations and family traditions, it was a fitting choice as part of the initial furnishings of the country’s first genealogical society – and one also that can be placed in a genealogical continuum that ranged from the family’s interest in an English peerage it saw as slipping from its hands – to the varied occupations of its owner (and to some, its alleged maker) – to the elevation of descendants of the family through a fortune built by the owner’s grandson and namesake, banker and financier J.P. Morgan, Sr., and his son, banker and philanthropist, J.P. Morgan, Jr. Each of these themes are echoed in a March 5, 1919, Boston newspaper clipping, “J.P. Morgan’s Great-Grandfather’s Study Table,” just as the history of the study table itself sheds light on the founders’ efforts to furnish the fledgling genealogical society.

The 1919 press coverage of the study table not only identified its “genealogical” association to the owner’s great-grandson, J.P. Morgan, Jr., but also alluded to grand ancestral connections of the Pierponts in England. Three centuries ago, Pierpont’s great-grandfather – the Reverend James Pierpont of New Haven, Connecticut, a founder of Yale College – became curious about his family’s connections to the aristocratic English Pierreponts (e.g., the family of the Marquess of Dorchester, later the 1^st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull) and engaged an agent in England to investigate what he believed to be a close relationship. This curiosity led to generations of the American Pierpont family seeking information on whether they might be successors, in title or fortune, to their English kinsmen, real or perceived, with whom they attempted interaction. These ducal aspirations were so convincing to members of the American family that some came to believe they might actually “draw a coronet across the seas to grace a Yankee brow.” Reverend John Pierpont’s thoughts on his family ascending to a peerage have been lost to history, though he is remembered for an accomplished life and his son, James Lord Pierpont, was a noted arranger and composer best known for “Jingle Bells.”

Described in a 1989 valuation as a “splendid” Sheraton table “of impressive proportions,” the Pierpont study table measures 64-1/2 in. in diameter by 31 in. high, with the notable feature of a rotating circular top and eight bow front drawers.

Its association with the New England Historic Genealogical Society can be traced to January 23, 1846, when it was purchased at auction by Boston antiquarian Samuel Gardner Drake, one of the five founders of the Society and an editor of its journal, which commenced publication in 1847. This acquisition began the process of assembling appropriate library furnishings for a reading room at the genealogical society’s first quarters.

A centerpiece of the collections of the NEHGS, the Pierpont study table is today located outside of the Society’s third floor board room in a place of honor. Its history as the first piece of furniture owned by the flagship institution of genealogical studies in America and its association with a family of varied accomplishments – indeed one occupied across the centuries with its legacies – makes the Pierpont study table a treasured object in the decorative arts.