Editorial

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JANUS, THE TRADITIONAL God of the ancients for the first month of the new year, was endowed with two heads, which enabled him to look back to the past as well as to the future. We of the modern world are not so fortunate as Janus, as the inclination is to recapture the past — if we are old — or to regard only the present — if we are young. To review what has happened and ponder on what is to come, perhaps, requires more than two heads in our own times. But we must do so if, for no other reason, we gain a measure of perspective.

The Nantucket Historical Association was created so that the preservation of the past may help us along the present road and enable us to plan, in a broad sense, the future. Nantucket, as a community, has been fortunate in having been able to keep the Town protected. Many of its citizens have acquired, either by birth or association, a sense of history, an awareness of the historical importance of Nantucket. This needs constant vigilance — a reassessment of how our community was established and why it is important to maintain its traditions in a rapidly changing world.

Only through the logbook of history may we find the true story of what Nantucket has meant to the nation. The evolution of this whaling Town includes its cultural as well as economic identity; its transition from a maritime place to an outstanding resort; its reputation as a place where the atmosphere of the old lingers in the modern setting. And the dangers which threaten both present and future become stronger and more visible as we review the scene.

Through its preservation of historic houses and places; with its exhibits of the relics of an exciting past, the Nantucket Historical Association brings out the essence of the Nantucket story. With the opening of its first displays at the Quaker Meeting House on Fair Street in 1895, the Association has kept constantly before the people the fact that the physical evidences of the past are in themselves the true milestones of what we once represented, how we have developed, and what are the qualities we hope to preserve as the true Nantucket traditions. The most recent of our major historical acquisitions — the Nantucket Lightship — is in itself a symbol of respect for the past and * faith in the future.

To call for support of the Nantucket Historical Association in its endeavors is, by the same token, to call for the continued maintenance of an Island institution whose life is so closely woven into the life of our

community. —Edouard A. Stackpole

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The Silver of John Jackson, Ca. 1705-1772

N a n t u ck et's F ir s t S il v e rsmith

BY KATHRYN C. BUHLER

[Mrs. Buhler is a noted authority on American silver and has been associated with The Museum of Fine Arts for many years.]

JEAN R. MERRIMAN'S definitive research, summarized in "The Mystery of John Jackson 18th Century Silversmith," culminated in assembling all the then known work of the craftsman at The Fair Street Museum in the summer of 1976. It is not surprising that another eighteenth century spoon has come to light, comparable in workmanship to the carefully studied pieces which answered the riddle of the sub-title "One Man or Two?" For biographical and genealogical comments, the writer is indebted to the book published at the Poet's Corner Press, Nantucket, 1976.

Jackson was "goldsmith of Boston" in a deed recorded in Nantucket in 1753, the year in which he married Abigail, the illegitimate daughter of Jerusha Coffin (who had preferred to marry John Mathews) and Peter Fitch. Abigail Fitch was probably twenty-three at the time, the goldsmith considerably older. The accounts of earlier chroniclers of Nantucket were at considerable variance; one writer gave his age then as 41Vi, another gave his death at that age; this writer inclines to doubt both ages.

There are numerous possibilities in New York and New England for Jackson and/or his forebears originating in either place. His name appears on a list, published in 1885 by the New York Historical Society, of Freemen in that city when in 1731 eight goldsmiths and one silversmith were granted their freedom. Jackson was in the first group of three on April 6; one each followed on April 13, May 4 (the silversmith), May 18 and three on May 25. It is a coincidence that in each group of three there is one name not connected with any work for a New York family. Thomas Edwards appears in the May 25 list, yet there was a goldsmith of that name born and practising in Boston before that. He had been trained by his father, and his beaker for the First Congregational Parish in Milton is dated 1728. He presumably did considerable wandering for he bought land in Cambridge, Plymouth and Plympton, Massachusetts, and in

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Exeter, New Hampshire. Here, of course, a question remains: is it safe to assume that two Boston men ventured to New York for a freedom of which they did not avail themselves?

Jackson had already made, presumably in 1730, a pepper box, still in the hands of descendants, for Abigail Coffin (1708-96) whose maiden initials it bears and who married Grafton Gardner on September 22, 1730. Another early work, a rat-tail spoon engraved "Deborah Macy born 17th 4 mo 1726," seems to the writer probably to have been a christening gift in that year. Had Jackson been born c.1705, as this would permit, his span of craftsmanship was comparable to that of other Boston goldsmiths as Edward Winslow (1669-1753) who is known to have been working in 1734, and John Edwards (1671-1746) who fashioned a beaker ". . .for the Church of Christ in Summer Street. . ." in 1744.

The first book on silver to show Jackson's mark was that by Hollis French, in 1917, who doubtless took the surname mark from his spoon, subsequently given to the Cleveland Museum of Art. He considered it "crude capitals in rectangle" and we pondered it at length with all twenty pieces before us. There seemed to be two punches used indiscriminately: one has almost minute stalactites across the top line, the other is crisp and clear. Herbert Gebelein, since consulted, believes the lettering — Jackson's serifs are notably strong — to be so exact that one punch was used throughout, perhaps at varying angles. Nonetheless, careful notations on them are included.

Mr. French's source for the attribution would have been the New York Historical Society list, or as it was copied by John H. Buck; the localization was reasonable, for by this time New York and New England spoons were fashioned along the same lines. It is interesting that Mr. French's spoon, engraved D M with added joint owner's initials, was stamped with the mark used on Yale's D M spoon and that both, with long midrib and rat-tail, might have belonged to Deborah (Coffin) Macy, mother of the namesake born in 1726. To be sure, there is a slight discrepancy in their lengths (Cleveland 7 314 in., Yale 7 7|8 in.) but so is there in the stem lengths of the two spoons whose bowls nest perfectly, made for Thomas and Rachel (Allen or Allin) Starbuck who were married in 1726. These spoons descended in the families for which they were engraved and the casualness of our goldsmith is seen in his having used slanted lines between the uprights of the T and R on the shorter stem, whereas the other uprights are four closely parallel lines. The curve of an S is somewhat uncertain on all Jackson's work. The punch of these has the clear top line as we also found on the similar spoon for John and Experience Swain, made presumably prior to his death in 1738.

8 HISTORIC NANTUCKET

Parenthetically here, one might quote the disconcerting clause of Daniel Gookin's will of 1685 when he left his wife Hannah "a piece of plate either a Cupp or Tankard to be made new for her mark'd D G H." Jackson's seventh rat-tail spoon bears the initials of Abigail Folger, who had married Daniel Folger in 1721, and probably in a third though not collateral generation those of Margaret Coffin Wyer.

Six spoons in the exhibit have double drops on their bowls and only a slight midrib on the stem. One engraved L M and, by another hand, S G suggests Nantucket ownership by Lydia Macy who married Abishai Gardner in 1751. They had no issue and his niece Susanna Gardner is a logical recipient. A privately owned spoon appears to have been engraved by the maker with M M; there were two Mary Macy's of appropriate age to own them; both of these spoons have the untidy top line mark. Two similarly stamped spoons are dated and appear to be in Jackson's engraving. One was probably a baptismal gift to "David Hussey Bo 22 mo 1757" whose parents were Nathaniel and Judith (Coffin) Hussey. The other for "Sarah Fish 1767" gives a date of unknown significance for her. The year saw the death of Peleg Coggeshall's first wife. Sarah became his second wife to have their first child in 1770. Peleg had bought the silversmith's house in 1763 and Jackson began his new one in 1766 to which we owe the interest he has aroused.

Two spoons engraved M B differ in bowls and drops, their marks the clear one. It is thought they may have belonged to Mary Bunker, wife and widow of William and mother of the local goldsmith, Benjamin, who is suggested to have trained with Jackson. The recently submitted seventh spoon with double drop has the clear mark and two sets of initials: I P M over F C, all with slanting lines in the uprights as Jackson sometimes fancied; the small devices separating the initials are not alike. Considered to be a marrow spoon, but strange in its proportions, with a broad drop on a narrow bowl, is a normal spoon handle engraved S B/ to/E R. Only here an attributed ownership seems subject to doubt, unless the engraving not be Jackson's while the S suggests it is. Silas Bunker, whose first wife died in 1785, took as his second wife Elizabeth Reynolds too late for Jackson to have engraved it. Two spoons with broad drops are engraved D G and D C, thought to be for Deborah Gardner (1731-1812) and one of two second cousins, Deborah Coffin born in 1743 or 1746. The only unengraved spoon is the most unusual in its use of an elaborate and seemingly unique bowl swage. Its mark, like that of his largest piece, has the untidy top line.

Of Jackson's hollow-ware only three pieces are known and they are characteristically New England. The author who illustrated an ungainly

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teapot captioned as his no longer owns it, or knows its location. Certainly, however, its appearance indicates it could not have been made in "our" Jackson's era.

His porringer, for Richard (1694-1768) and Ruth (Bunker) (16961778) Coffin, has the so-called "keyhole" handle which came into use in the 1720's. Its mark is on the back of the handle near which it has been broken on rim and body; had he perhaps drawn it a little too thin? It is patched with a riveted strip of silver inside, a very clumsy clobber of solder outside, but it is happily preserved.

The two other pieces are very similar pepper boxes, one first brought to public attention by Gregor Norman-Wilcox in the magazine Antiques in 1954. He may have learned of it as a consequence of his two-part article in the same magazine in 1944 on "American Silver Spice Dredgers." There his check list showed geographical spread for these pieces: two or possibly three from Connecticut, forty-five from Massachusetts, five from Rhode Island and seven from New York. Of the last, one was from Schenectady and three were by Elias Pelletreau of Long Island. It seems to emphasize again John Jackson's New England origins. The citing of two Nantucket inventories with a pepper box shows their contemporary term.

The box of known early ownership engraved A C has been mentioned for the date prior to which it must have been fashioned. The initials R F (Rebecca Barrett Fitch) for Abigail Coffin's granddaughter are scarcely more than scratched; "Maria Weeks" is in deeply cut script for her great-granddaughter; all identification is on the bottom. The second pepper box is also engraved on the bottom; both are seamed under the handle and have pierced domed covers with tiny finials. Their handles may once have been identical, the lower scroll of Abigail's is now tightly curled. The second box, now owned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, has small shaped plaques under the handle joinings with no sign inside of their being for repair. Perhaps the addition was a refinement on his second such box. Its engraving is definitely not in Jackson's burin, although done within his lifetime. "John Way/To/ Anna Joy 1761 has been identified: the donor's daughter Anna married Reuben Joy in 1757.

The fold-out genealogies of Nantucket families are a delight: "The Coffin-Jackson Kinship," "The Macy-Coffin Kinship," "The Bunker Connection," and "The Gardner Connection" all involve other names along the way. The book ends with Jackson's will and its probate, by Judge Grafton Gardner (1701-89), husband of the above Abigail Coffin, followed by excerpts from Land Transactions in Nantucket County Registry of Deeds, with a Bibliography which reiterates the completeness of the research.