Thomas Elfe Thomas Elfe Elfe was born in 1719 in London, England. He was an accomplished and prolific furniture and cabinet craftsman of the American colonial period. Elfe, a contemporary of Thomas Chippendale, was considered Charleston's best furniture craftsman of the eighteenth century. His working career spanned almost thirty years from about 1746 to 1775. At one point in his career his personal worth was a fortune of over 6,200 English pounds. Local Charleston historian and one time director of the Charleston Museum, E. Milby Burton (1889–1977), attributed Elfe as the craftsman of some of the finest nationally acclaimed furniture produced. Burton's
Robert Erickson (furniture designer) Robert Erickson (furniture designer) Robert Erickson (born Lincoln, Nebraska 1947) is an American furniture designer and woodworker in Nevada City, California. He is a studio maker, who custom designs chairs and other furniture. His work is in several U.S. national collections. After leaving University of Nebraska with an English degree in 1969, Erickson traveled to Druid Heights in Marin County, California to study with furniture makers Ed Stiles and Roger Somers. In the summer of 1970, Erickson was employed by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder, said to be inspiration for Jack Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums". His role was to help