Description:
Pewter circular dish with a curved, slightly beaded rim with deep, incised line; deep bouge; and an incised line around the flat well, which was made by Samuel Pierce (1767-1840) and is stamped twice on back of dish, “SAMUEL / PIERCE” with an eagle; and has two modern labels, "Collection of / Ledlie Irwin Laughlin" and a dealer's label, "T.D. & C.R. Williams / Litchfield, Conn. / Lot 82/ 11 1/8" Samuel / Pierce / Greenfield, Mass./ ROE xx / LH 405." Born in Middletown, Connecticut, Samuel Pierce was apprenticed to the Danforths, a well-known family of pewterers in Middletown, probably mostly with Joseph Danforth (1758-1788). Pierce completed his training about 1789 and married Anne Joyce (1769-1843) in 1790. Llured by the prospect of economic opportunity at the head of commerce on the Connecticut River, Pierce moved his family to Greenfield in 1792 or early 1793, where he had began to work for Col. William Moore (b.1762), a successful Greenfield businessman, in his mill, and made pewter and other white metal products on his own account. By 1799, Pierce was in partnership with blacksmith Ambrose Ames shipping commodities on the river; however, after an outbreak of dysentary in Greefield in 1802 killed three of their five children, the Pierces moved to Colrain, Massachusetts, where he titled himself as a cooper in a deed of 1804 and mainly farmed until returning to Greenfield about 1807. He then went into partnership with merchant Hart Leavitt (1765-1836) as Pierce & Leavitt, and by 1810, was the 6th most prominent men in Greenfield. After President Thomas Jefferson's Trade Embargo in 1807 and the War of 1812 destroyed New England's commerce, Pierce went back to the forge and again he was succesful as a whitesmith, selling a wide range of pewter, tin and lead products. In 1821, Samuel turned the business over to his son John Joyce Pierce (1793-1878) although Samuel's accounts show that he continued to work in metals into the ealy 1830s. According to Philip Zea (2/3/2010), probably most of Pierce's own commerical pewter production found in HD's collection can be dated between 1795-1810. In the 1920s, a painted seaman’s chest containing over 75 tools belonging to Pierce was found in Greenfield. Pewter scholar Ledlie Laughlin eventually sold this collection of tools (now on display in the Museum’s Attic) to Historic Deerfield, which represents the most significant set of American pewtering tools known. The account books for Samuel Pierce also survive and are located in the Memorial Libraries, Deerfield.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2006.17 |
