Description:
Small gold ring with a central decorative motif of hair behind glass. The ring features a split shoulder with rectangular splat, under which is a reserve with coiled hair. Rings like this were common, affordable typesof mourning jewelry available to American women in the second quarter of the 18th century. The purchaser could have customized a purchase like this with an inscription (although no such inscription exists). In its present condition, the ring is broken, having alrady been repaired once in its history. The ring is one of a number of items contained inside a small cardboard trinket box of mourning jewlery given by the donor. The contents of the box also includes: glass inside cover with traces of mica and paper; a hair brooch (64.174.1); two gold cuff links (64.174.3/.4); two pairs of gold earrings (one decorated with faceted jet around a small glass center that encases locks of hair - 64.174.5/.6 - , the other pair open with faceted jet beads - 64.174.7/.8), two single (mismatched) earrings (with faceted jet beads, 64.174.9/.10), and a faceted jet-decorated gold pin in the shape of a cross with attached chain and pin (64.174.11). . The box and its contents came from the descendants of Dr. Stephen West Williams (1790-1855) of Deerfield, who married Harriet Taylor Goodhue (1799-1874) in 1818. Harriet was the daughter of Dr. Joseph Goodhue (1762-1849) who was a doctor at Fort Constitution, N.H., and moved to Deerfield by 1822. Stephen and Harriet had four children, one of whom, Dr. Edward Jenner Williams (1823-1881), studied medicine with his father and and then moved to Laona, Illinois, where he married Orilla Nancy Webster in 1856. Two of their three sons and their daughter lived to adulthood - Dr. Henry Smith Williams (1863-1943), Dr. Edward Huntington Williams (1868-1944), and Harriet Goodhue Williams Myers (1867-1949) who wrote a privately printed book (1945), "We Three, Henry, Eddie and Me: Henry Smith Williams, Edward Huntington Williams, Harriet Williams Myers." The donor, Dorothy Williams Hartigan, was the daugher of Henry Smith Williams and Florence Whitney Williams, and first cousin of Helen Myers Curtis and her sister, Neva Myers Brown, who were the daughters of Harriet Williams Myers and Raymond Myers. Both Mrs. Hartigan and Mrs. Curtis gave Historic Deerfield a number of Williams/Goodhue family pieces. NOTE: Although the box came from a Williams family descendent, there is no indication it or the contents is a family piece. The initials HMH have yet to be determined.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+64.174.2 |
