The patroons, and indeed all the landed proprietors, gloried in the solid magnificence of their household appurtenances. Mrs. Van Cortlandt has written of these stately houses so graphically that pictures of them may be recreated in the mind's eye from her description : " The furniture of well-to-do people was massive and costly and that of the plainer classes good and made to last. Large sideboards were loaded with silver beakers, tankards, candlesticks and mugs. The latter were used at funerals to hold mulled wine. In Albany it was the custom to borrow these mugs of all the relatives and return them after the funeral filled with the fragrant compound, and doubtless this was also done in Westchester. The sideboards also held inlaid mahogany boxes, which contained the spoons and forks. A cellaret of mahogany bound in brass and lined with metal was the receptacle of the wine bottles. Heavy old mahogany chairs, with leather bottoms, and massive tables, whose leaves let down, completed the furniture of the dining-room. The cupboards set in the walls held china, which was often very beautiful, especially that of the favorite Lowestoffe and Chinese makes. The glassware was finely cut, and some of the goblets had stems adorned with spiral threads of opaque glass. Pewter platters, plates, dishes and mugs were in daily use. '

"The bed-room furniture embraced an enormous four-post bedstead, the posts handsomely carved and supporting a canopy or tester hung with dimity or fringed chintz curtains and a fringed valance to match.* A sacking bottom was pierced at intervals