Lambert Hitchcock, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetLambert Hitchcock
American businessman
Date of Birth: 28-May-1795
Date of Death: 01-Jan-1852
Profession: businessperson
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Gemini 
About Lambert Hitchcock
- Lambert Hitchcock (May 28, 1795, Cheshire, Connecticut – 1852) was an American furniture manufacturer, famous for designing and mass-producing the Hitchcock chair. Hitchcock was the son of John Lee Hitchcock, an American Revolutionary War veteran who was lost at sea in 1811.
- He attended the Episcopal Academy of Cheshire, now known as Cheshire Academy, and was an apprentice to woodworker Silas Cheney.
- In 1818, he opened a furniture factory in Riverton, Connecticut, then called Hitchcocksville.
- The factory at first made chair parts.
- Soon Hitchcock, influenced by Connecticut clockmaker Eli Terry, began mass-producing simple, affordable chairs.
- Instead of painting designs on the backs, he used the relatively new and easier technique of stenciling.
- By the late 1820s, the Hitchcock Chair Company was producing over 15,000 chairs a year. Although an innovative manufacturer, Hitchcock was an unsuccessful businessman.
- His company went through receivership in 1832, with his brothers-in-law joining the business under the name Hitchcock, Alford & Co.
- In 1843, he sold his interest in the company and started a new company in Unionville, Connecticut, which also failed.
- He died in 1852 with little money to his name. In 1946, John Tarrant Kenney came upon the abandoned Hitchcock Chair factory while fishing on the Farmington River.
- He wrote a biography, The Hitchcock Chair, and started a new Hitchcock Chair Company in the same location.
- That business lasted until 2006, when it was forced to close due to competition from low-cost overseas furniture manufacturers.
- In the spring of 2010, Rick Swenson and his business partner, Gary Hath, purchased the Hitchcock name, plans, and artwork, and began producing chairs.
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