MS01.01.03.B02.F10.010

-8-

along the Eastern Seaboard during the turn of the 18th century was a man by the
name of Thomas Day. He was born in the late 18th century, educated in Boston
and Washington and was recognized as an important cabinetmaker as early as the
year 1818. In 1823 he moved to Milton, North Carolina where he purchased a
building then referred to as the Old Yellow Brick Tavern and set up a very
prosperous business manufacturing fine furniture of mahogany, walnut, rosewood
and cherry [crossed out: and] teaching his craft to a select number of Blacks and whites in
the area. He became a very wealthy man, by the standards of his day, becoming
one of the three original stockholders in the Milton Branch of the North
Carolina State bank.7 Day's work was collected by wealthy patrons throughout
the Eastern and Southern regions of the United States. The finest examples of
his work that remain are presently at the governor's home in Raleigh. The
earliest dated piece reads "1820". One writer summarizes the excellence of his
work and the ability he exhibited to complete as a craftsman in the following
passage:

"... that Tom Day - an issue free Negro and owner of Negro
slaves, at a time and in a country where Anglo-saxon supremacy
precluded recognition of the Negro race save as laborers-yet
mastered the difficulties of life and used the wonderful
talent that was given him to design and build."8

It is of equal importance to note that Day, like many white Americans living
in his own time, was a slave owner. Though one is at a loss to explain the
rationale behind a black man being a party to such human degradation among his
own kind, it becomes apparent that day used the cheapest form of labor available,
that which he was able to obtain by using
[line]
7 Jones, Stephen, Afro-American Architecture: The Spirit of Thomas day,
Howard University, (unpublished manuscript, 1973) p.47.

8 Gunter, Caroline Pell., The Antiquarian, September,1929