Description:
Family register engraved with hand-applied brown ink on hand made laid paper signed "Brunton, Scri" in the lower left corner for Richard Brunton (1750-1832). Known to have created an engraving of George Washington in 1781, Richard Brunton is believed to have been a deserter from the British army during the Revolution. Brunton was a portrait artist, and is also known as an engraver of silver, bookplates and textile printing. He was arrested and served jail time several times for counterfeiting, and died in the Groton Poor House on September 8, 1832. In the 1790, Brunton made the earliest American broadside registers on which family information is infilled by hand. From about 1810-1832, other printers made broadside-like certificates available in Massachusetts. According to Deborah Childs' book on Brunton, the eagle at the apex of this register compares very well to one featured on a Massachusetts copy book, c. 1808, for Susannah Homer of Boston. That would mean this plate would have been engraved while Brunton was still an inmate at the Massachusetts State Prison. A second impression of this register is at the Connecticut Historical Society. The register has an large eagle with outspread wings in the top center; allegorical females figures of Faith holding a cross and bible, Hope with an anchor, Charity with a baby, and Peace with a dove perched on right hand sitting under a tree in the four corners; and an urn with flowers, beehive with bees, bird feeding nestlings, cornucopia with flowers, and two billing doves perched a branch along the sides. The center has "Register OF Mr Joseph Halls FAMILY He was Born / March 9th 1786 MARRIED May 16th 1811/ She was born August 11th 1792[?] and by Her / hath the following Children" in an oval over three columns headed "NAMES" with a name "Mary Buck," and " BORN" with the date "October 15th 1813," and "DIED" over a small flower basket in the bottom center. Joseph Hall of Chester or Belmont?, NH, married Lydia Dustin of Candia, NH, on May 16, 1811, they had several children including Mary Buck, Emily, Edgar, and Philander.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+1999.19.2 |
