The 1815 inventory of Portsmouth merchant John Pierce listed '3 Mahogany Card Tables $20.00' in his North West Room. Situated on the first floor in the front of his Jaffrey Street mansion and additionally furnished with three horsehair sofas, ten mahogany chairs, a firescreen, a pair of gilt looking glasses (under which two of the card tables were probably placed), copperplate curtains and a Brussels carpet, this was the most elaborate room in the house and was evidently where the Pierce's entertained their guests. Rarely recorded in eighteenth century inventories, the presence of card tables, particularly three of them, along with ample seating furniture suggests the extent to which card playing had infused Federal Portsmouth and the nation (John Pierce inventory, docket 8909, Rockingham County Court House; Jobe, ed., Portsmouth Furniture (SPNEA, 1993), fig. 60).

Embellished with highly figured native New England flame-birch veneer, mahogany veneer and oval and square geometric patterns, this card table is a vibrant decorative statement. Ties to Massachusetts influenced Federal Portsmouth furniture forms as is evident in the overall scheme of this table. The craftsman who made this card table, however, executed the design with more gusto than examples from neighboring coastal communities (see Randall, American Furniture (Boston, 1965), fig. 97; Fales, The Furniture of Historic Deerfield (Deerfield, 1981), fig. 289); Hewitt, The Work of Many Hands (Yale, 1982), no. 19).

Related Portsmouth tables include a card table originally owned by Alexander and Maria (Tufton Haven) Ladd now in the collection of the Moffatt-Ladd House, Portsmouth (Jobe, fig. 62). A table of nearly identical form but with turned legs is branded 'S.Sawyer' for a yet unidentified individual, likely an owner (Winterthur Museum Decorative Arts Photographic Collection, accession number 83.56).