Description:
Chinese export wooden tea box with a lock plate on the front and two bail handles on the sides, which was used to hold tea for shipping from Canton to America. Most tea boxes were plain and utilitarian, but some were undoubtedly kept for their beauty and exoticism. The base of this box is stamped: O / W N / FINEST / OOLONG / NO 5." Oolong, a semi-fermented tea, is processed longer than green teas, but less than black teas. The tea box 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, Helen Myers Curtis (and her sister, Neva Myers Brown), were the daughters of Harriet Williams Myers (see spectacle case, HD 64.168) and William Raymond Myers, and first cousins of Dorothy Williams Hartigan, the daugher of Henry Smith Williams and Florence Whitney Williams. Mrs. Curtis gave Historic Deerfield the following Williams/Goodhue family objects: copybook (HD 59.152), trunk (HD 59.274.1), decanter (HD 59.189), candle mold (HD 59.192), botanical charts (HD 59.194.1-.4), tea box (HD 59.300), work basket (HD 59.366), and linen rectangle (HD F.559). Mrs. Hartigan gave Historic Deerfield the following Williams/Goodhue family objects: Jeremiah Dummer silver tankard (HD 59.088), tooth extractor (HD 64.167), spectacle case (HD 64.168), silhouette of John Williams of Deerfield (HD 64.169), miniature portrait of a woman (HD 64.170), ivory box (HD 64.171), and two cardboard boxes (HD 64.172, 64.174). The exterior hinged lid and four sides of the tea box are decorated with Chinese motifs in black paint; the front side has a scene with three figures in a pavillion. The interior of the lid is covered with a sheet of brown paper decorated in watercolors with a butterfly and flowers.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+59.300 |
