With lid closed
Detail of interior
Removable module with secret compartment
Secretary Desk
John Doan was a cabinetmaker and master builder. He was part of a group from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who settled in 1807 in the northern York Region, where they had been promised religious freedom and land. This desk, which was passed down in his family, includes design elements from Pennsylvania Chippendale furnishings of the mid- to late 1700s, such as the bracket feet, quarter columns and lapped drawers. Doan's sense of design and balance is evidenced by the beautiful interior, with its arcaded compartments, reeded columns and central door that conceals additional secret drawers.