Description:
One of two tablespoons with a downturned pointed-end handle and pointed oval bowl with an incised arched drop, which is marked "EC" in a square for Ebenezer Chittenden (1726-1812) and "AB" in serrated square for Abel Buel (1742-1822) and with a device, and engraved with the initials "WER" in script on the front of the handle. Buel learned silversmithing from his brother-in-law, Ebenezer Chittenden, who was the brother of his first wife, Mary Parker Chittenden (1742-1770). Abel Buel gained notoriety at an early age as a counterfeiter by altering five-pound note engraving plates into larger denominations, and then printing the notes on a homemade printing press. Although counterfeiting was a serious crime in colonial New England, Buel's youth, demeanor and previously unblemished record earned him a relatively light sentence -- his hair was cropped and he was branded with an "F" (for "forger"). He was also sentenced to time in a Norwich prison, but influential friends got the prison sentence commuted to "town arrest." In 1765, Buel received a patent for a lapidary machine, making him the first Connecticut resident to receive a patent. After creating a ring on that machine, and presenting it to the prosecuting attorney, Buel's counterfeiting sentence was pardoned. In 1784, Buel engraved and published "A New and Correct Map of the United States of North America Layd down from the Latest Observations and Best Authorities agreeable to the Peace of 1783," the first map of the new United States created by an American.
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