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CHAPTER VI. 
TABLES. 
IN lists of the household furniture that belonged 
to our early settlers we occasionally find table-boards 
mentioned. The items, " In ye hall, One great 
table bord & forme, 14 s.; One short Table bord, 
2 S.," occur in the inventory of Alice Jones, of Bos- 
ton, made in 1642. Table-boards are also found in 
the inventories of Salem, Mass., and in those of 
Hartford, Conn.  They were not numerous. We 
have notes of them as late as 1738. 
"One table bord" is mentioned in the will of 
John Bynley, Minor Canon of Durham, made in 
1564, and published by the Surtees Society. They 
are not often found in the English inventories that 
have been published. We are informed by Wright, 
in his "Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial Eng- 
lish," that the expression table-board is of Cornish 
origin. 
Now the Anglo-Saxon name for the dining-table 
was board, derived literally from the upper part of 
the table which, in these early days, was a movable 
board, made up of sufficient length and breadth to