PEWTER IN THE EARLY DAYS
In the spring of 1629, when the Secretary of the Company of the
Massachusetts Bay in New England was preparing a memorandum of
materials to be obtained "to send for Newe England" in the ships
that sailed on April 25th of that year, among the fabrics and food
stuffs, the seed grain, potatoes, tame turkeys, and copper kettles
of French making without bars of iron about them, were listed
brass ladles and spoons and "pewter botles of pyntes & qrts." The
little fleet reached Naumkeck (now Salem) on June 30th, and on its
return voyage, a month later, Master Thomas Graves, the "Engynere,"
expert in mines, fortifications, and surveys, who had come over
with Governor Endecott the previous year, sent home a report to
the Company in which he listed "such needefull things as every
Planter doth or ought to provide to go to New-England," including
victuals for a whole year, apparel, arms, tools, spices, and various
household implements, among which appear "wooden platters, dishes,
spoons and trenchers," with no mention of pewter. The records of the
Company make mention of carpenters, shoemakers, plasterers, vine
planters, and men skillful in making pitch, salt, etc., but nowhere
does the trade of the pewterer appear.
Pewter did not come into general use among the more prosperous
farmers in England until about the middle of the sixteenth century
and then only as a salt--a dish of honor, or three or four pieces
for use on more formal occasions. It was the wooden trencher that
was commonest in use in all middle-class families until well
after the year 1700, and this was true both in New England and
Old England. In homes where the shilling was made to go as far as
possible, the wooden trencher, like the homespun coat, lingered
in use for a century later. At least one family in Essex County,
Massachusetts, was still using its wooden plates of an earlier
period as late as 1876, when the menfolk left home to work for two
or three days in the early fall on the thatch banks beside Plum
Island river. And this happened in a comfortably situated, but
thrifty, family. The rough usage given the common tableware in the
crude camp by the marshes had taught the housewife the desirability
of bringing down from the chest in the attic, at least once a year,
the discarded wooden plates used in her childhood.
Pewter appears early in the Massachusetts Colony in connection
with the settlement of estates of deceased persons. By means of
the detailed inventories taken at such times, it is possible to
reconstruct with unquestioned accuracy the manner in which the homes
of the early settlers were furnished, and by means of this evidence
it is possible to show that the hardships and crudities of the first
years were soon replaced by the usual comforts of the English home
of similar station at the same time. The ships were crossing the
Atlantic frequently and bringing from London, Plymouth or Bristol,
to the new settlements, all manner of goods required for sale in the
shops that had been set up in Boston, Salem and elsewhere.
In 1635 the widow Sarah Dillingham died at Ipswich, leaving a
considerable estate. Among the bequests were a silver bowl and a
silver porringer, and the inventory shows 40-1/2 pounds of pewter
valued at £2.14.0.
In 1640, Bethia Cartwright of Salem bequeathed to her sister, Mary
Norton, three pewter platters and a double saltcellar and to a
nephew she gave six spoons and a porringer.
In 1643, Joseph, the eldest son of Robert Massey of Ipswich, was
bequeathed by his father, four pewter platters and one silver spoon.
Benjamin, another son, was to receive four pewter platters and two
silver spoons, and Mary, a daughter, received the same number as did
Joseph.
In 1645, Lionell Chute died in Ipswich. His silver spoon he
bequeathed to his son James. It was the only piece of silver in
the house. Of pewter, he had possessed fourteen dishes, "small and
great," eleven pewter salts, saucers and porringers, two pewter
candlesticks and a pewter bottle.
The widow, Mary Hersome of Wenham, possessed in 1646 one pewter
platter and two spoons. The same year Michael Carthrick of Ipswich
possessed ten pewter dishes, two quart pots, one pint pot, one
beaker, a little pewter cup, one chamber pot and a salt. In 1647,
William Clarke, a prosperous Salem merchant, died possessed of an
interesting list of furniture; six silver spoons and two small
pieces of plate; and the following pewter which was kept in the
kitchen--twenty platters, two great plates and ten little ones, one
great pewter pot, one flagon, one pottle, one quart, three pints,
four ale quarts, one pint, six beer cups, four wine cups, four
candlesticks, five chamber pots, two lamps, one tunnel, six saucers
and miscellaneous old pewter, the whole valued at £7. The household
also was supplied with "China dishes" valued at twelve shillings.
John Lowell of Newbury, in 1647, possessed three pewter butter
dishes. John Fairfield of Wenham, the same year, had two pewter
fruit dishes and two saucers; also four porringers, a double salt,
one candlestick and six spoons, all of pewter. His fellow-townsman,
Christopher Yongs, a weaver, who died the same year, possessed one
bason, a drinking pot, three platters, three old saucers, a salt and
an old porringer, all of pewter and valued at only ten shillings.
There were also alchemy spoons, trenchers and dishes and a pipkin
valued at one shilling and sixpence.
When Giles Badger of Newbury died in 1647 he left to his young
widow a glass bowl, beaker and jug, valued at three shillings;
three silver spoons valued at £1, and a good assortment of pewter,
including "a salt seller, a tunnell, a great dowruff" and valued
at one shilling. The household was also furnished with six wooden
dishes and two wooden platters. The inventory of the estate
of Matthew Whipple of Ipswich totalled £287.2.1, and included
eighty-five pieces of pewter, weighing 147 pounds and valued at
£16.9.16. In addition, there were four pewter candlesticks valued
at ten shillings; two pewter salts, five shillings; two pewter
potts, one cup and a bottle, four shillings and sixpence; one pewter
flagon, seven shillings; twenty-one "brass alchimic spoones" at four
shillings and four pence each; and nine pewter spoons at eighteen
pence per dozen. The inventory also discloses one silver bowl and
two silver spoons valued at £3.3.0; six dozen wooden trenchers,
valued at three shillings; also trays, a platter, two bowles, four
dishes, and "one earthen salt."
The widow Rebecca Bacon died in Salem in 1655, leaving an estate of
£195.8.6 and a well-furnished house. She had brass pots, skillets,
candlesticks, skimmers, a little brass pan, and an excellent supply
of pewter, including "3 large pewter platters, 3 a size lesse, 3
more a size lesse, 3 more a size lesse, £1.16; 1 pewter bason,
5s; 6 large pewter plates & 6 lesser, 9s; 19 Pewter saucers & 2
fruite dishes, 11s, 6d; 1 old Pewter bason & great plate, 3s; 2
pewter candlesticks, 4s; 1 large pewter salt & a smal one; 2 pewter
porringers, 3s.6d; 1 great pewter flagon; 1 lesser, 1 quart, 2 pints
& a halfe pint, 13s; 2 old chamber pots & an old porringer, 3s." She
also died possessed of "1 duble salt silver, 6 silver spones, 1 wine
cup & a dram cup of silver, both £6."
The Rev. James Noyes of Newbury, when he died in 1656, was possessed
of an unusually well-equipped kitchen, supplied with much brass
and ironware and the following pewter, viz.: "on one shelfe, one
charger, 5 pewter platters and a bason and a salt seller, £1.10.0;
on another shelfe, 9 pewter platters, small & great, 13 shillings;
one old flagon and 4 pewter drinking pots, 10 shillings." No pewter
plates or wooden trenchers are listed.
In other estates appear some unusual items, such as: a pewter brim
basin, pewter cullenders, pewter beer cups, pewter pans, pewter bed
pans, and a mustard pot.
The trade of the pewterer does not seem to have been followed by
many men in New England during the seventeenth century. The vessels
were bringing shipments from London and moreover, the bronze moulds
used in making the ware were costly. Pewter melted easily and
frequently required repairing, and it was here that the itinerant
tinker or second-rate pewterer found employment. The handles of
pewter spoons broke easily, and a spoon mould was a part of the
equipment of every tinker. The earliest mention we have noted of
the pewterer practising his trade in New England is one Richard
Graves of Salem. He was presented at a Quarterly Court on February
28, 1642-43 for "opression in his trade of pewtering" and acquitted
of the charge. Then he was accused of neglecting to tend the ferry
carefully, so it would seem that pewtering occupied only part of
his time. This he acknowledged, but said that he had not been put
to it by the Court and also that it was necessary to leave the
ferry when he went to mill, a quite apparent fact. He seems to have
been a somewhat reckless fellow in his dealings with neighbors, for
he was accused of taking fence rails from Christopher Young's lot
and admonished by the Court. At the same session he was fined for
stealing wood from Thomas Edwards and for evil speeches to him,
calling him "a base fellow, & yt one might Runn a half pike in his
bellie & never touch his hart."
Graves came to Massachusetts in the "Abigail," arriving in July,
1635. He settled at Salem and was a proprietor there in 1637.
Sometimes he is styled "husbandman." He got into trouble with the
authorities very soon, and in December, 1638, was sentenced to sit
in the stocks for beating Peter Busgutt in his own house. Peter made
sport of the Court at the time of the trial, and in consequence was
ordered to be whipped, this time by the constable. In 1641 Graves
was brought into court again and William Allen testified that "he
herd Rich Graves kissed Goody Gent twice." Richard confessed that it
was true, and for this unseemly conduct he was sentenced to be fined
or whipped. The records do not disclose his individual preference
as to the penalty eventually inflicted. In 1645 he was in Boston
in connection with some brazen moulds that were in dispute. A Mr.
Hill and Mr. Knott were concerned in the affair, and very likely
the moulds were for pewterers' use. On another occasion a few years
later, when Graves went to Boston, he got drunk at Charlestown, and
in consequence was mulct by the Quarterly court. Only a month later
he was complained of for playing at shuffleboard, a wicked game of
chance, at the tavern kept by Mr. Gedney in Salem, but this time he
escaped the vengeance of the law, for the case against him was not
proved. He was still pursuing his trade of pewterer in 1655 when
he so styled himself in a deed to John Putnam, and sometime between
that date and 1669 he passed out of reach of the courts to that
bourne from which no pewterers ever return.
Mention has been made of the fact that London-made pewter was
brought into New England at frequent intervals to supply the natural
demand. An invoice of pewter shipped from London in 1693 has
recently come to light in the Massachusetts Archives, and is here
printed as being of interest not only as showing the market prices
for pewter, but also the kind of utensils in demand at that time.
This particular shipment of pewter was a part of a consignment made
by John Caxy of London to Joseph Mallenson, his agent in Boston.
It consisted of a great variety of clothing, fabrics, hardware,
implements, kitchen utensils and pewter. The part of the invoice
that comprised the shipment of pewter follows, viz.:
One Drume Fatt No. 2 Containing
12 Pottle Tankards at 3s 10d ps £2. 6.0
12 Quart ditto at 3s 1.16.0
24 Midle ditto at 2/6 3. 0.0
24 Small ditto at 2/ 2. 8.0
12 doz: Large Poringers at 9s 6d p doz 5.14.0
12 doz: Small ditto at 8/ 4.16.0
3 pr New-fashon'd Candlesticks at 4s 12.0
3 pr ditto at 3s 9.0
2 pr Round ditto at 2s 10d 5.8
a Fatt Cost 7.0
One Drume Fatt No. 3 quantity
18 Large Chamber Potts at 2/10s ps 2.11.0
30 Middle ditto at 2s 8d 3.10.0
40 small ditto at 2s 3.10.0
12 doz Alcamy Spoons at 2/9 4. 0.0
24 doz Powder ditto at 2/3d p doz 2.14.0
12 Large Salts at 2s 2 ps 1. 6.0
24 Middle ditto at 20d ps 2. 0.0
48 Small ditto at 12d ps 2. 8.0
18 Basons qt 32 at 12d 1.12.6
2 doz: Sawcers at 9s p doz 18.0
4 doz Small ditto at 7s p doz 1. 8.0
2 Pottle Wine Measure Potts at 5/6 11.0
6 Quart ditto Potts at 2/8 16.0
6 Pint ditto Potts at 22d ps 11.0
6 halfe Pint ditto at 14d 7.0
6 Quartern ditto Potts at 9d p ps 4.6
a Fatt Cost 7s 7.0
One halfe Barell Fatt No 4 cont more pewter
78 dishes qt 265 at 9d-1/2 10. 9.91/2
A Fatt Cost 3s 6 3. 6
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£76. 2.5-1/2