Images(6)

Tankard

Dateca. 1740

Maker Rufus Greene (1707 - 1777)

OriginAmerica, Massachusetts, Boston

MediumSilver

DimensionsOH: 9 1/2"; Diameter: 5 7/8"; Weight: 1283 grams

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, Courtney Bowdoin Elliott in memory of her father, John Page Elliott, and The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund

Object number2008-88

DescriptionCircular stepped, reeded, and applied base supports a squat cylindrical body with simple applied half-round mid-band; applied, hollow S-scroll handle with plain domed-disc bottom terminal and an applied pendant drop motif extending from the integral five-knuckle hinge; stepped, domed, circular lid with double-scroll thumb piece and an applied baluster finial.
Label TextDespite its Boston origin, this tankard was originally owned in colonial Virginia. Its handle bears the engraved initials B / P * S for Peter and Susannah Bowdoin. Married in 1733, the Bowdoins were planters in Northampton County on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Peter's father, John Bowdoin, immigrated from Boston to Virginia in the early 18th century, and the southern branch of the family maintained ties with its Boston kin for decades afterward. In fact, when Peter Bowdoin died in 1745, he took the unusual step of apprenticing one of his two sons to a merchant in faraway Massachusetts. The Bowdoin family's long-distance connections explain the presence of Boston silver in early Virginia, where most of the gentry instead chose to own imported English metalwork.

The tankard descended through seven generations of the Bowdoin family before coming to Colonial Williamsburg. Over the course of some 250 years it was owned or used at some of Virginia's most historic estates, including Four Mile Tree and Mount Pleasant plantations in Surry County and Bremo plantation in Fluvanna County.

Despite its Boston origin, this tankard was originally owned in Virginia. Its handle bears the engraved initials of Peter and Susannah Bowdoin, planters in Northampton County on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Peter's father had immigrated from Boston to Virginia in the early 18th century and the southern branch of the family maintained ties with its Boston kin for decades afterward. The Bowdoins’ long-distance connections explain the presence of Boston silver in early Virginia, where most of the gentry instead chose to own imported English metalwork.
Inscribed"B / P * S" engraved in period serif block capitals on the handle; "45oz" scratched on bottom.
MarkingsStamped "R GREENE" in relief within a shaped recatangle on the base and on the lid.
ProvenanceThe tankard was probably originally owned by Peter Bowdoin (d. 1745) and his second wife (m. 1733), Susannah Preeson of Northampton County on the Eastern Shore of Virginia; it came directly or indirectly to their son, Preeson Bowdoin and his second wife (m. 1778), Courtney Tucker of Norfolk; to their son, John Tucker Bowdoin (d. 1821) and his wife (m. 1813) Sally Edwards Browne (1794-1815) of Surry County; to their daughter and only child, Sally Elizabeth Courtney Bowdoin (1815-1872) and her husband (m. 1834) Philip St. George Cocke (d. 1861) of Surry County and Bremo Plantation, Fluvanna County; to their son, John Bowdoin Cocke (1836-1889) and his wife, Bettie Burwell Page (1841-1900); to their daughter, Lucy Hamilton Cocke (187?-1969) and her husband, Milton Courtright Elliott; to their son, John Page Elliott (1913-1992) and his wife, Lois Gene Dunfee (b. 1927); to their daughter, Courtney Bowdoin Elliott (b. 1961).

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