Tappan Chairs is moving forward with new ownership. We will continue to make the original Tappan Chairs as they have always been, in Sandwich NH, by local skilled craftsman. Please email us with questions.
We look forward to working with you in the new year!

Historic New England chairs, handcrafted in Sandwich, NH for 197 years!

It’s common to hear a ladder-backed chair called a “Shaker Chair”— in the 19th century, the Shaker communities built beautiful chairs and sold many throughout the United States; so much so, that their name became synonymous with a style of chair that had been in common use for centuries before. Yet at the same time as the Shakers were marketing their chairs, a host of contemporaries also existed across our country, and as one of them the Tappan family was quietly cornering the local market with durable and appealing chairs. Simple and elegant, Tappan Chairs are similar in appearance to Shaker furniture, yet they developed independently and concurrently to that movement as a secular statement of handmade, homespun craftsmanship.

In contrast, however, to the many other manufacturers who have come and gone from the venerable trade of chair making, Tappan Chairs has endured in nearly constant production, including continuing to use vintage equipment from the earliest days as the business has passed from one maker to the next over generations both in, and now beyond, the original family.

Quietly building history since 1819 in Sandwich, New Hampshire, Tappan Chairs are not reproductions--they are the real thing. Having two hundred years of this tradition, in your home? That's what makes the difference between any chair, and a Tappan Chair. 

---