Description:
Silver, pear-shaped cann with a molded rim; double scroll handle with a molded thumb grip terminating in a forked scrolled terminal and joined to cann at base with an applied strut and disc (see the work of Daniel Parker of Boston); and an applied raised and molded foot ring. The cann is marked "S.E" in shaped shield crowned on the base for Samuel Edwards (1705-1762), who worked in Boston from 1729-1762 with his father, John Edwards (1671-1746), and brother, Thomas Edwards (1701-1755). The cann is engraved with Ebenezer Hinsdale's version of the Hinsdale arms (gules, a stag trippant) in a diapered scroll and acanthus cartouche with a basket of fruit in the center top, over the inscription, "This Cann is Presented to Mrs. Anna Williams / By her Uncle and Aunt Hinsdale -/-1754-" (documents the word "cann" in describing this form in American silver). The cann was commissioned by the Colonel and Reverend Ebenezer Hinsdale (1707-1763) and his wife, Abigail Williams (1708-1787) of Deerfield and Hinsdale, as a gift to their niece, Anna Williams (1732-1815). Anna was the daughter of Abigail Williams Hinsdale's older half-brother, the Rev. Warham Williams (1699-1751), both children of the Rev. John Williams (1664-1729) of Deerfield, who was taken captive in the 1704 Deerfield raid and later redeemed. His sister, Eunice, taken in the same raid, and stayed and married Amrusus, a Caghnawaga Indian. Rev. Warham Williams settled in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1723 On Nov. 8, 1753, Anna married her father's successor, Rev. Jacob Cushing. The Hinsdales also gave a silver cann with a similar inscription to Anna's sister Abigail (b. 1730) in 1752 (she married Rev. Samuel Woodard of Weston on Jan. 11, 1753), but its wherabouts is unknown. A silver cann was listed in the probate inventories of the Reverend Jacob Cushing in 1809 and of Anna Williams Cushing in 1815, Middlesex Country Probate Registry: "Furniture in East Room ... one silver tankard $40.00, one cann $20.00, silver server, porringer, cream pitcher, sugar tongs, 2 salt spoons $34.00, one pair of plated candlesticks $3.00. The cann was bought in the late 1950s-early 1960s by Mark Bortman, a Boston silver collector, whose collection was placed on loan at the State Department after his death until it was recalled from loan and sold to HD in 1983. Samuel Edwards also made a silver tankard (HD 97.060.1) for the estate of Ebenezer Wells (1691-1758) of Deerfield, which was a bequest to "the Church of Christ in Deerfield."
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+83.043 |
