William Walker's untimely death came at the point when George Mason (1725-1792) was looking for craftsmen for the construction of his new house, Gunston Hall. In 1755 he turned to Europe for indentured servants, and with the help of his brother living in London, he procured a young architect and master builder named William Buckland and a carver named William Bernard Sears. Sears, identified in London records as "Barnard Sears, carver," left England as a felon sentenced to seven years of indentured servitude in the North American colonics for stealing "one cloth waistcoat, one cloth coat, one pair of cloath breeches, four linnen shifts, two linnen shirts, twelve linnen aprons, and one guinea." (13) Buckland and Sears completed Gunston Hall, gained their freedom, and set out on their own, finding employment with John Tayloe (1721-1779) to build and furnish his new house, Mount Airy plantation, on the south bank of the Rappahannock River in Richmond County. There, they collaborated on two magnificently carved, marble-topped sideboard tables, including the one illustrated in Figure 7. (14) A straightforward adaptation of Plate 38 in Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-marker's Director (London, 1754), this table again illustrates the role played by indentured servants, even those who arrived as convicts, in delivering the latest British style to their patrons.

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