CHAPTER VI
Pewter in the Early Days
In the spring of 1629, when the Secretary of the Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England was preparing a memorandum of materials to be obtained "to send for Newe England" in the ships that sailed on April 25th of that year, among the fabrics and food stuffs, the seed grain, potatoes, tame turkeys, and copper kettles of French making without bars of iron about them, were listed brass ladles and spoons and "pewter botles of pyntes & qrts." The little fleet reached Naumkeck (now Salem) on June 30th, and on its return voyage, a month later, Master Thomas Graves, the "Engynere," expert in mines, fortifications, and surveys, who had come over with Governor Endecott the previous year, sent home a report to the Company in which he listed "such needefull things as every Planter doth or ought to provide to go to New-England," including victuals for a whole year, apparel, arms, tools, spices, and various household implements, among which appear "wooden platters, dishes, spoons and trenchers," with no mention of pewter. The records of the Company make mention of carpenters, shoemakers, plasterers, vine planters, and men skillful in making pitch, salt, etc., but nowhere does the trade of the pewterer appear.
Pewter did not come into general use among the more prosperous farmers in England until about the middle of the sixteenth century and then only as a salt—a dish of honor, or three or four pieces for use on more formal occasions. It was the wooden trencher that was commonest in use in all middle-class families until well after the year 1700, and this was true both in New England and Old England. In homes where the shilling was made to go as far as possible, the wooden trencher, like the homespun coat, lingered in use for a century later. At least one family in Essex County, Massachusetts, was still using its wooden plates of an earlier period as late as 1876, when the menfolk left home to work for two or three days in the early fall on the thatch banks beside Plum Island river. And this happened in a comfortably situated, but thrifty, family. The rough usage given the common tableware in the crude camp by the marshes had taught the housewife the desirability of bringing down from the chest in the attic, at least once a year, the discarded wooden plates used in her childhood.
Pewter appears early in the Massachusetts Colony in connection with the settlement of estates of deceased persons. By means of the detailed inventories taken at such times, it is possible to reconstruct with unquestioned accuracy the manner in which the homes of the early settlers were furnished, and by means of this evidence it is possible to show that the hardships and crudities of the first years were soon replaced by the usual comforts of the English home of similar station at the same time. The ships were crossing the Atlantic frequently and bringing from London, Plymouth or Bristol, to the new settlements, all manner of goods required for sale in the shops that had been set up in Boston, Salem and elsewhere.
In 1635 the widow Sarah Dillingham died at Ipswich, leaving a considerable estate. Among the bequests were a silver bowl and a silver porringer, and the inventory shows 40½ pounds of pewter valued at £2.14.0.
In 1640, Bethia Cartwright of Salem bequeathed to her sister, Mary Norton, three pewter platters and a double saltcellar and to a nephew she gave six spoons and a porringer.
In 1643, Joseph, the eldest son of Robert Massey of Ipswich, was bequeathed by his father, four pewter platters and one silver spoon. Benjamin, another son, was to receive four pewter platters and two silver spoons, and Mary, a daughter, received the same number as did Joseph.