Description:
Silver tankard with a hinged, domed, molded lid surmounted by a bell-shaped finial; plain lip; tapered body with a ring-molded waist and step-molded footrim; and a "S"-scroll handle with a flaring, scroll-molded thumbpiece and human mask-ornamented terminal. The tankard is marked "JOHN BALL" on the bottom and "J.BALL" in a rectangle to the left of the handle and on the lid for John Ball (1723/24-c.1781), and engraved on the handle with the initials "M / W*M" probably for for Captain William Miller (d.1772/3) and Mary Nickels of Bristol, Maine. Mary Nickels was one of eleven children of Alexander Nickels (1691-1758) and Hannah Nickels (1700-1767) who emigrated from Londonberry, Ireland, to Boston in 1721, and later moved to the Bristol, Maine, area. After Mary's death (sometime after the death of her father in 1758), William Miller married Mary's sister, Hannah Nickels (c.1733-1779) about 1760. After William Miller's death, Hannah Nickels Miller married James McCobb (c.1710-1788) and had three children and passed the tankard to their daughter, Mary or Molly McCobb (1775-1817); to her daughter Evelina Hill (1804-1878) who married Hartly Gove; to her daughters Almira Gove Field and Maria Gove Berry who married Dr. John Berry; to her daughter Helen Berry (b.1932) who married John B. Holton; and to her daughter who gave the tankard to HD After possibly apprenticing with Jacob Hurd from 1737-1745, Ball worked originally in Boston, and moved to Concord by 1752. According to Kane, only about two dozen pieces of silver by Ball have been identified
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+86.105 |
