The Silversmith in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg / An Account of His Life & Times, & of His Craft

An Account of his Life & Times, & of his Craft
Williamsburg Craft Series
WILLIAMSBURG Published by Colonial Williamsburg MCMLXXX
Through many years before the Revolution and for a time early in the war, James Craig and James Geddy the younger were probably Williamsburg’s foremost craftsmen in the jewelry, watch repairing, and silversmithing way. Geddy’s shop stood on Duke of Gloucester Street “next door below the Church,” Craig’s Golden Ball still farther down.
At one time Craig advertised in the Virginia Gazette that he had “Just imported from London—A choice Assortment of Jewellery, Plate, Toys and fine Cuttlery. There are some fine visual Spectacles fit for all ages.” Not long afterward in the same paper Geddy listed in some detail “A NEAT Assortment of PLATE, WATCHES, AND JEWELLERY,” and emphasized that “the Reasonableness of the above Goods, he hopes, will remove that Objection of his Shop’s being too high up Town ... and the Walk may be thought rather an Amusement than a Fatigue.” A much more typical notice was that of Patrick Beech reproduced on the following page. It bears little resemblance to a modern newspaper advertisement, but it is so characteristic of its own time that any one of Williamsburg’s several pre-Revolutionary silversmiths might have penned it.
Fifteen men, possibly sixteen, followed the silversmith’s craft in Williamsburg between 1699 and 1780, while this small city was the capital of the Virginia colony. Through the years, most of them took advantage of the newspapers to announce the location of their shops, the arrival of shipments of goods from London, and the kinds of articles and services they had to offer.
All of them combined with silversmithing some other craft, most often that of jeweler or watch repairer. Time and again they assured prospective purchasers that their wares, whether country made or imported, were in the very latest fashion. Each one without exception offered the “highest” price for old gold and silver, including gold lace, either in cash or to be credited against new work. And very often they felt it necessary to specify that sales would be “for ready money only.”