A woman wrote in to us with images of a dry sink she had in her possession, wanting to know more about the man who made it.

A lot of what we know about Oramel Partridge is from public records. He was born in 1799 and died in 1868. He had a wife, Lucy and several children at least one of whom grew into adulthood. He made cabinets and sleighs as you can see from the label. Here’s a link to his FindAGrave page

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/196282745/oramel-partridge

He was, as near as I can tell, a descendant of people who were early colonists of the US. You can see more at this link on FamilySearch with a (free) login.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/KT4L-Z5K

He and his wife passed within a few weeks of each other, you can read an obit for the two of them here in the Vermont Journal.

https://www.newspapers.com/article/vermont-journal-oramel-partridge-lucy-c/184316704

Very few of his creations survive, possibly only one or two. Here is a short quote from an article I read which noted him in Antiquities and Fine Art Magazine in 2015.

“Oramel Partridge, born in Norwich, Vermont, learned his trade from Isaac Reed in Randolph, where he opened a cabinetmaking shop in 1822 and where he remained his entire life. This sideboard/bookcase represents his only known surviving work. It was commissioned by Aaron Storrs, who was a charter member of the town of Randolph, Vermont, in 1781, and silently proclaims his status in the community.”

I’m attaching a photograph of the item from that article.

From Wes Herwig’s book Early Photographs of Randolph, Vermont, we have an image of his home. The caption reads, in part: “Oramel Partridge built this brick house in 1828, and operated a cabinet shop and sleigh works next door. Some time after his death in 1868, the shop was moved across the street.”