Description:
Silver tablespoon with an egg-shaped bowl and a wide rounded drop; straight hemispherical shaft tapered to downturned rounded-end handle; short midrib on the back of the handle, which is marked "I.P" in a rectangle on the back of the handle possibly for either Isaac Parker (1749-1805) or Jacob Perkins (1766-1849) of Newburyport, Massachusetts, and engraved with the initials "TB" in script on the front of the handle. Isaac Parker was the son of John Parker (1725-1765), a potter of Charlestown, Massachusetts, and Abigail Goodwin Center (1725-1789), and nephew of Boston goldsmith Daniel Parker (1726-1785). Isaac Parker probably apprenticed with his uncle by marriage, Boston jeweller John Welsh (1730-1812), from 1763-1770. In 1776, he married Deborah Williams (1753-1838), the daughter of Samuel Williams (1711-1786), a yeoman and Abigail May (c.1721-1793) of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and served twice during the Revolutionary War, once under Colonel Williams and once under Col. Elisha Porter. According to George Sheldon, Isaac first came to Deerfield in 1774, but this has not yet been confirmed; however, Isaac and his family were in Deerfield by 1778 when his eldest son Isaac was born. Records of his work appear in the account books of his Deerfield neighbor, the hatter Justin Htichcock (1752-1822); between 1778-1785, the two sold each other a number of goods ranging from silver and silver repaits to Parker's sale to Hitchcock of West Indies rum. Between 1783-1789, Parker conducted seven land transactions in Deerfield, and in all but one, Parker was listed as a jeweler. By 1789, Parker and his family returned to Boston where a deed of that year identified him as a Boston trader; he was listed in the Boston directories from 1798-1805 as a merchant. His probate record of 1805 listed no silversmithing or jewlery tools from his earlier carrer. Little evidence of Parker's silversmithing survive. Yale University Art Gallery has a silver teaspoon with a touchmark with his first initial and surname, "I*PARKER" in a rectangle; PVMA has a spoon with a second touchmark with the initials, "I*P" in a rectangle, which came from the Caitlin family of Deerfield and Shelburne, Massachusetts and which Kane tentatively attributes to Parker. There were several other contemporary silversmiths using an "IP" touchmark.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+1998.7.27 |
