D2013-CMD. Creamer and sugar: 2012-177,1-2

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Sugar Dish and Cream Pot

Date1835-1845

Maker Bailey & Co.

OriginAmerica, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

MediumSilver

DimensionsSugar dish (with lid): OH: 8 1/4"; OW (including handles): 8" Cream Pot: OH: 7 1/4"; OW (including spout and handle): 4 1/4"

Credit LineGift of Barnett Shephard in memory of Leila Lee Roberts

Object number2012-177,1&2

DescriptionSilver sugar dish and cream pot: For each piece a circular stepped foot with beaded band and incurving neck supports an urn shaped body with band of greek key ornament beneath beaded band at shoulder. Sugar dish has two scrolled handles with foliate juntures and a domed lid with an urn shaped finial. Cream pot has a tall incurving neck with wide everted pouring lip with beaded border and a single scrolled handle with foliate junctures.
Label TextLouisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama all achieved statehood in the 1810s, prompting thousands of southerners to migrate west and southwest. Many took their prized possessions with them. This silver cream pot and sugar dish are examples of that pattern.

While serving an Episcopal parish in New Jersey, the Reverend Francis Prioleau Lee married a local woman, Sarah Ann Cooper. Over the next dozen years Lee was assigned to churches in Tallahassee, Florida, his native Camden, South Carolina, and finally Mobile, Alabama. This Philadelphia-made silver, produced a few years after the Lees’ wedding, may have been a gift from Mrs. Lee’s family, who lived about ten miles from the silversmith. The pieces likely traveled to Gulf Coast with the couple, and then back to South Carolina after the Rev. Lee’s death in Mobile at the age of 37.

InscribedBoth pieces engraved in script "S.C. Lee" on side of body
MarkingsMarked on base in relief "BAILEY & CO." and "PHILAD" in rectangles
ProvenanceBarnett Shepherd

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