Actually, Williamsburg was able to buy a prize piece of Americana, a colorfully painted dower chest, when it was auctioned by Sotheby's from a Virginia collection in May.

Then, unsettled to note how the shimmery, pastel silk heightened her thin-skinned, fair coloring, she locked the bolt away in her dower chest.

Indeed Sorka could not recall her parents' bedroom without the dower chest under the window.

"There were Windsor chairs, painted dower chests, tall clocks and Vermont sideboards, most of them made in or near Bennington," he said.

I put my share into the hidden strongbox to go with the dower chest, and Bostric bought himself a pair of boots, barely used, but an improvement over his muckers.

That afternoon, I paid Wryson two coppers for the loan of his wagon and followed it, and the red-oak dower chest, out to Brettel's house.

The furniture display boasts some glorious Welsh dressers and a colossal 17th-century dower chest.

There are several painted chests, including a 1780 dower chest with a horse and rider motif for $110,000.

Unless there's someone hiding in that dower chest.

There's quite a romantic story attached to this dower chest, Rosalinda.