Green Silk Brocade Gown          

This green brocade gown was owned by Deborah Henchman (b. 1753, d. 1833), the wife of Reverend Jeremiah Barnard. Judging by the colors and materials of the garment, it was likely purchased from an English business and imported to the United States prior to the boycott on British goods that swept the Massachusetts colony in August of 1768. The complexity and expensive nature of the dress suggests that Deborah Henchman likely lived in Boston or Cambridge, as the imported fabrics and dyes needed for this gown would have been more accessible to a wealthy merchant, or, in this case, a clergyman.