These chairs were owned first by Commodore John Rodgers, a naval hero during the War of 1812, and then by his son-in-law, General Montgomery C. Meigs, best known as the Quartermaster General when he served in the Civil War. Meigs also was instrumental in the development of Washington, D.C., and he designed the Pension Building (now the National Building Museum) and supervised the construction of the Washington Aqueduct, the enlargement of the US Capitol dome, and the development of Arlington National Cemetery. The chairs sat in his home office on Vermont Avenue and descended through his direct family line until they were recently donated to the National Building Museum.