A Chippendale carved and figured mahogany chest-on-chest, possibly attributed to Abraham Watson, Boston or Salem, Massachusetts

This chest-on-chest stood for many years in the Babson House at 245 Washington Street in Gloucester, Massachusetts;
Recent family history notes it was owned by Elizabeth L. Alling, who left it at her death in 1982 to her niece, Susan Alling Lynch;
To her daughter, the present owner

Chest-on-chests with architectonic pitched or scroll-top pediments, fluted pilasters in the upper case, lower cases with a serpentine, blockfront, or bombé façade, and bracket or claw-and-ball feet were produced by many cabinet shops in Boston, Salem, Charlestown, Marblehead, and other parts of Essex County during the late eighteenth century. Several examples bear the signature of their makers, such as one at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston by Nathaniel Bowen and Ebenezer Martin of Marblehead, one in a private collection by Benjamin Frothingham of Charlestown, and one at Yale University stamped by Nathaniel Treadwell of Beverly (see Walter Whitehill, ed., Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, 1974, figs. 1, 74, and 95 pp. Vi, 106 and 139). 

This chest-on-chest has a history in the Babson / Alling and Lynch families and stood for many years, until 1982, in the Babson House at 245 Washington Street in Gloucester, Massachusetts (see fig. 1). Built in 1740 by Col. William Allen, the house was sold to Isaac Smith in 1765 and subsequently to John Low, Jr. on December 18, 1779. The house descended directly to Mrs. Nathaniel Babson and her son, Gustabus Babson, who bought it from other heirs in 1863. At Gustabus' death in 1903, his daughter Annie occupied the house with her husband Charles Alling of Duchess Co., New York; after he died, Annie lived in the house with her sister Susan and daughter Elizabeth, who remained in the house after Annie's death in 1946. At Elizabeth's death in 1982, this chest was given to her niece, Susan Alling Lynch, whose children own it today.

The chest appears to stem from the same shop as a desk-and-bookcase attributed to Abraham Watson of Salem included in the 1965 exhibition Essex County Furniture: Documented Treasures from Local Collections, 1660-1860, held at the Essex Institute and illustrated as no. 44 in the accompanying catalogue by Dean Fales, Jr.  The desk descended in the family of Abraham Watson and according to tradition was made by him as one of three pieces of furniture for his new house at the corner of Essex and Union Streets in Salem, built in 1770. Made of highly-figured mahogany with white pine secondary woods, the desk and the present chest display the same brass hardware and broad proportions as well as nearly identical pilasters, serpentine lower cases with a three-dimensional, realistic scallop shell pendant, base moldings, returns, and claw feet with retracted side talons and bulbous rear talons. The chest-on-chest retains the central portion of its original urn-and-flame finial, a common Massachusetts feature, with the additional enhancement of a carved border on the underside of the urn. The chalk inscription "Pittman" on one of the lower case drawers may refer to an original owner, for a numer of individuals with that last name are listed in Salem vital records of the eighteenth century.  

In the catalogue entry for the documented desk mentioned above, Dean Fales Jr. writes that Abraham Watson (1712-1790) was born in Cambridge in 1712 and had moved to Salem by 1736, when he married Elizabeth Pickering. He joined the East Church of Salem in 1737 and was referred to by the diarist William Bentley as a “carpenter” in 1785. Watson died on July 6, 1790, at which time Bentley described him as “of very sober manners, & very useful.” The two other pieces believed to have been made for his Salem house include a blockfront chest-on-chest with a history in his family illustrated in Whitehill, no. 76, p. 110 and a desk destroyed in the Salem fire of 1914. 

A related desk-and-bookcase with a pediment crest with dentil moldings, fluted pilasters, a serpentine lower case with a drop pendant and claw feet is illustrated in Israel Sack Inc., American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, Volume VI, P49, pp. 1542-3.