Featured 17th Century Maryland Trundle Bed

Not a clue. Early American furniture tends to be quirky at times so no telling.

 

Another thing I notice, the rails appear only an inch or two above the bottom board, pretty thin for a mattress and zero headboard to keep a pillow from falling off.
A child's bed perhaps?

 

Speaking of the Chesapeake Bay region, BLUE CRABS! It's about the only thing I really miss about DC, the food!
And the best seafood restaurant in the world! Chrisfield! in Silver Spring on Ga Ave just over the DC line.
The STAR of the Chrisfield experience! Jimmy, the blue crab

 

It is about 58" long so I was thinking it may be for a child, the lip at the rails is about an inch also. I wondered about the lack of a headboard, but I think that may just be another one of the quirks of the piece.
I of course second the crabbing here, actually going out today to pull the pots for our weekly crab feast. Last week pulled almost a bushel, though I wish they were as large as the one you just posted.
I do not know if this is the place to ask, but I am sort of stuck... one of the scholars I have shown the bed to would like it for their collection (just received an email this morning), and I think I will sell it directly to them as I'm honored they would want anything I have found, I just haven't a clue on pricing it. If it was a chair, or a table or a cabinet, there are semi-comparable pieces I could guess from, but it is still just a bed, one of 15~ Chesapeake/ Maryland early settlement pieces, but still a bed. Do you, or does anyone have an idea about it?
Jeremy

 

As much as the traffic will bear!

 

It is early but that doesn't mean valuable, the form is odd and not likely to do well at an auction for example because the function just isn't there in today's world.

 

There are a blue million things this could be, first thing that crossed my mind was, bucket bench or similar utilitarian form.
OTOH if you could market it as a bucket bench, it COULD be worth some money as pottery people are known to pay good money for them to display their jugs.

 

Back in the day before indoor plumbing, bucket benches were a BIG DEAL! (not to be confused with water benches). Everything liquid particularly water was conveyed in buckets, cooking water, bathing water, drinking water meant BUCKETS! It only made sense to organize them on benches, most were 2 or 3 tiers of shelves but not all.
Here are a couple of single shelf 19th-century bucket benches.

 

Most people confuse water benches with bucket benches, similar form but they served a much different function.
Water benches were communal washstands that usually had cupboard doors and drawers that could hold towels & soaps so a family could wash up before their meals.
Naturally, these "water benches" (now misnamed bucket benches) had to have a bucket of water handy as well!

Water Bench, 19th century

 

No matter what you call them, pottery people are on these utility benches like a bad habit, I have seen them sell for thousands at auction for outstanding examples.

 

And if you own one, you pray they show up and bid?

 

LOL, YES!
I do not understand this utility bench thing at all, some of those better example water benches were built from walnut and are attractive but, what on earth would I do with it?
I totally get it with "Huntboards" (southern, mostly utility type sideboard), they are small, very plain & straightforward in appearance with little to zero decoration but, they fit very well in eat-in kitchens.
They're hot & they command big bucks but a bucket/water bench?
Guesses pot/jug folks are a different type of collector, plus, guesses they need someplace to display those jugs so, Bucket Bench it is!

 

Quicky search on LiveAuctioneers reveals the crazy.

This very attractive walnut bucket bench was sold at Pook for $2600.
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/6950585_619-pennsylvania-walnut-bucket-bench-early-19th-c



This FAIR! condition bucket/water bench sold at Cowans for $7500.
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/25521041_early-cupboard-with-bucket-bench

 

I rest my case.
Pottery people are obviously NUTS!

 

Hey I resemble that remark!

 

I don't do pottery, but have been called less polite forms of potty more than a few times. By my own mother, so I guess she'd know.

 

While this @AveCo thread was going on, this piece popped up on my radar screen, an 18th-century corner cupboard from eastern shore Virginia. I was going to post it then but, after smoking it over, self-control got the better of me and I decided to WAIT! as there was a slim chance I might steal it. I didn't bag a theft but did manage to bag this eastern shore va. cupboard.
Odd how these 2 eastern shore pieces came up at virtually the same time as one doesn't see early furniture forms from this area very often.

Wonders what you did about your joined "trundle bed", sell it, keep it, what happened?

 

It truly looks like a great find! Thank you for sharing.

 

Amazing! Loving it!!