COPYRIGHT, I92O, BY

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART DESCENDANTS

A TERCENTENARY STORY

BY WINIFRED E. HOWE

CAN not vouch for the truth of the following story but I tell 1 it to you as it was told to me by a tall Grandfather's clock in the corridor that heard it all, and every time I pass the clock it ticks, "Truth tell, truth tell!" On the evening of November n, 1920, there occurred a strange and interesting meeting in a basement room in the Museum. You see, much of the early American furniture is placed in this basement1 and many boys and girls have visited this room in connection with their study of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. So the chests and the chairs heard of the celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of the coming of the Mayflower to . They became very much excited over the Tercentenary, for they really know a great deal about those early days and could tell you and me much we should like to know if they could talk to us. After long discussion in the dead of night, they decided to form a Society of Mayflower Descend­ ants on November II. The intervening days were spent by each object in bringing together proof of its right to belong to such a society. The day came and promptly at five o'clock, as soon as the big gong for closing the Museum sounded, there might have been heard a hurrying and scurrying of many objects into the basement—the heavy tread of a big oak chest rumbling over the stone floor above, the rattle and the clatter of tinder box and footstove and candle- stand in the storerooms, the rolling of many pewter plates and

LIn the basement of Wing H. 35 THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART porringers down the broad stairway, the tinkling approach of sil­ ver mug and porringer and chocolate-pot. "The meeting will please come to order," called a chair-table that by common consent was the presiding officer. "Allow me to give you my pedigree, that you may be sure I am worthy to be your leader. My connection with the Mayflower, as many of you know, is through my first owner, , who was born upon that famous ship as it lay in the harbor of Provincetown. So he be­ came the born in America. One of the early gover­ nors of Plymouth, , the stepfather of Peregrine White, often sat heavily upon me while he pondered over the prob­ lems and perils of the little band of Pilgrims. I was set by the ample fireplace in one of the first houses built by the colonists. This was made of planks and roofed over with thatch, grass and sticks woven together into a thick pad through which the rain could not soak. The few windows were covered with oiled paper to let in the light, for no glass was then used. Those were simple, primitive days. In my own frame I am a worthy descendant of the Mayflower, combining as I do two New England woods, the sturdy oak and the evergreen pine. My straight lines, lack of decoration, and usefulness are typically Puritan. I serve two purposes equally, that of a high-backed chair and that of a stout table. I even have a drawer beneath the seat which was often convenient for my owners. I do not know the name of my maker, but he did his work well, as did all the workmen of that day. Have I said enough to prove myself worthy of presiding?" "Yours is the closest connection with the stout-hearted Pil­ grims," answered a smaller chair with a spindle back. "Aye, aye!" came the assent from all sides of the room. The warming pans clapped their covers, and the chests creaked in a deep bass. "What have you to say for yourself, Mr. Spindle-back?" asked the presiding officer. "I believe, Mr. Chairman, that I too and the other members of my family here present have every reason to consider ourselves eligible to membership, or even to office, should this honorable 36 CHAIR-TABLE, CHEST, CRADLE, AND SPINDLE-BACK CHAIR MADE IN NEW ENGLAND IN THE DAYS OF THE PILGRIMS AND THE PURITANS THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART company so decide. We belong to the Carver family; for the first of a long succession of governors of , Governor Carver, brought over with him in the Mayflower a chair from which I and all my family claim lineal descent. That renowned Carver chair is still living in great honor in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth. With my roomy proportions, my easy rush seat, and my high arms and back with upright spindles, I am considered very comfortable and typically American. I also combine two native woods, ash and hickory." "If you are considering age and honor, gentlemen," interrupted a newcomer, a trestle table so long that it could barely get through the door, "if you are considering age, I repeat, I have something to say. I am the oldest American table known. Indeed, I am so old that no other of my family is alive, so far as I can learn. Look well upon me. You may never see my equal again. I can not claim a relative on the Mayflower, for that ship was not large enough for my kind; but I am like my grandfather who served the Pilgrims' grandfathers in English halls. In the first plank buildings in America we were always found, I am sure, as soon as tables were made. The Pilgrim Fathers had such a host of things to do to clear the forests, build their houses, plant corn, hunt and fish, that they could find time to make only the simplest and rudest sort of furniture. They used to cut down the pines and the oaks, lop off their branches, and saw the logs into boards with a hand-saw worked by two men in a saw-pit. Smoothing a board, whittling out the upright supports or trestles to raise the board from the floor, and fastening them firmly with wooden pegs and a central brace, and such a table as I am was made; for I am only a table board resting on three trestles, simple and sturdy and strong like the Pilgrims themselves. On me were placed wooden trenchers filled with steaming hasty pudding, perhaps, the entire meal many times in those days. I could be set up by the side of the room when not in use. It was all so easy." "I may not be so old as the last speaker," creaked a voice near the floor, coming from a very plain oak cradle that had rocked its 38 THE CHILDREN'S BULLETIN way to the meeting from a distant storeroom, "but I feel certain that none of you can contest my intimate relation to the Puritan households. Many a time did the Puritan mother rock her little Patience or Desire or Humility in me while she spun the linen

GATE-LEGGED TABLE, AMERICAN, \6j$~lJOQ USED BY THE CHILDREN AND THE GRANDCHILDREN OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS thread on her spinning wheel and sang a hymn to its whirring ac­ companiment. I am surely the first piece of furniture in the life of each small colonist. May I join your society?" The company voted in the affirmative and the presiding officer 39 THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART added, "We are honored in your membership. One of your family, the cradle of Peregrine White, was upon the Mayflower and is now in Pilgrim Hall." "The cradle may rock the Puritan baby; we hold the Puritan possessions," shouted three oak chests1 in unison, becoming anxious for a chance to present their claims. "Our ancestry goes back many centuries in Europe both in the homes and in the churches. We served as trunks and as seats when chairs were unknown in ordinary homes. Within each of us is a shelf or box for the owner's valuables or for the tallow candle that protected his possessions from moths. It has been said that a member of our family came on the Mayflower with each household group. Indeed we can to­ day point with pride to our cousin who was a companion of Edward Winslow on that long voyage in 1620. "We ourselves are well worth your careful attention. We were made in this country, but each of us was copied out of the American oak and pine upon the model of what the colonists had used in England. See how strongly we are put together with wooden pegs instead of nails. Examine our carving—plants and scrolls and leaves and flowers—done so carefully by some colonist, perhaps by the side of a huge fireplace by the light of a pine-knot burning on the hearth. It may be that some young man was preparing with eager fingers the few pieces of furniture for his new home, while the Puritan maiden was spinning and weaving the household linen to fill the chest. Even so , who was the first person to step on , it is said, and John Winslow, who followed in 1621 in the Fortune, set up their home in Plymouth." "Will this company kindly decide whether I may join a Society of Mayflower Descendants?" asked a beautiful silver chocolate-pot2

'One of these stout oak chests is placed in Gallery F 19 on the second floor of the Pier- pont Morgan Wing. Many others are in the basement of Wing H. 2This chocolate-pot and other silver by Edward Winslow, the Cony teapot shown on page 43, and many other beautiful examples of the work of early American silversmiths are in­ cluded in the Clearwater Collection, lent to the Museum by Judge A. T. Clearwater and shown on the second floor in Gallery 22. The Revolutionary patriot, Paul Revere, also a silversmith, is well represented in this collection. 40 THE CHILDREN'S BULLETIN quietly and with dignity. "I did not come over in the Mayflower, nor did any of my family. Pewter dishes there were, but hardly silver, I think. The silver porringers by my side were patterned after the pewter ones and so might be included in your organiza­ tion, but I cannot make that claim. Chocolate was not drunk so

PRESS CUPBOARD, AMERICAN, XVII CENTURY WHEN THE COLONISTS' POSSESSIONS GREW AND MORE ROOM FOR CUPS AND PLATES AND SUCH THINGS WAS NEEDED, THE PRESS CUPBOARD, WHICH HAD BEEN USED IN ENG­ LAND FROM THE DAYS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, WAS MADE IN AMERICA OF THE NATIVE OAKS AND PINES AND CARVED early. My right to membership, if right you consider it to be, comes from an entirely different reason. It is this. I was made by Edward Winslow, a grandson of the John Winslow and Mary Chilton of whom you have just heard. She had silver later, for when she died, she left in her will a 'great silver tankard,' a 'silver 4-1 THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART beare bowl,' 'a silver cup with a handle,' and many silver spoons. Her grandson, Edward Winslow the silversmith, lived in Boston near the Old South Church in a fine Colonial house with a garden and an orchard. His grandfather, John Winslow, had been a ship­ owner and a ship-master, and his father a mariner, and so his home had many furnishings from overseas. He himself had visited Eng­ land, learning there, in part at least, the craft of a silversmith. He was a true American, however, holding many important city offices during his lifetime. "May I tell you how I was made? Then perhaps you can judge my case. A friend of Mr. Winslow's, Thomas Hutchinson, brought to him a bag full of silver coins of different sorts that he had obtained in trade with England, the Spanish West Indies, and South America. Of these he asked Mr. Winslow to make the most beautiful chocolate-pot he could, and to engrave upon it the coat of arms of the Hutchinson family. This CHOCOLATE-POT was not an unusual way to invest one's BY EDWARD WINSLOW money in days when there were no banks. Many a man's wealth was largely in silver plate, which he bequeathed to his heirs, as did Mary Chilton. Mr. Winslow melted these coins and refined the silver, trying a little of it upon a black stone called a touchstone, to see by the mark it made whether it was just the right quality. When it met the test, he poured out the molten silver into a pan to cool. Thus it became a solid, thick sheet of silver. This he had to hammer out to a thinner sheet from which he could cut the pieces he needed. First, he cut a round piece, and placed it upon a sinking-block, a piece of wood with several hollows in it. Hammering the silver again and again over one of these hollows, he slowly made it saucer-shaped, then cup-shaped, or even taller yet. Every now and then as he worked 42 THE CHILDREN'S BULLETIN he had to stop and heat the silver red hot to soften it, for it was becoming too brittle under his repeated blows. When it had reached the shape he wished for the body of a chocolate-pot, he took a smaller disk out of which to make the lid in the same way. The fluting that you see around the lower part of my body and lid was made by hammering again, but this time working from the outside after filling the bowl-shaped pieces of silver with pitch to prevent breaking the metal by his blows. My spout and handle and the little acorn on top he fashioned separately and sol­ dered them on. Beading he added around my base to finish it and the little pieces of silver cut out to decorate the spout and the hd. So many processes must Mr. Winslow employ be­ fore I was ready for the engrav­ ing and, last of all, for his own mark, E. W. and a fleur-de-lis within a shield, punched in TEAPOT BY JOHN CONY OF BOSTON twice upon my Side. Can any THIS IS ONE OF THE EARLIEST AMERICAN TEAPOTS I , T , , r OF WHICH WE KNOW one doubt I am the work or Edward Winslow? From start to finish, from a bagful of coins to a finished chocolate-pot, well-planned, patiently and skilfully made, simply and suitably decorated, I am the work of a descendant of Mary Chilton. I leave it to you, gentlemen, whether I have not a just claim to membership in your society." The company burst into loud applause, and Edward Winslow's chocolate-pot was admitted. The pewter porringers1 rapped on the floor, the andirons clapped together, and the tinder box knocked flint against steel so vigorously that it almost struck a spark. Just then a first ray of sunlight warned the Society of Mayflower De­ scendants of the approaching day, and without further words they xThe Museum collection of pewter is placed in Gallery 23 on the second floor, where many porringers may be seen. 43 THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART one and all, like good Museum objects, returned to their posts for you and me to see, and tried hard to look as if they had never moved, though, had you examined, you would have seen more than one label crooked or even upside down on that eventful day. As each passed the tall Grandfather's clock it ticked loudly, "I know, I know!"

SILVER PLATE BY EDWARD WINSLOW

THE CHILDREN'S BULLETIN Published quarterly by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue and Eighty-second Street, New York, N. Y., under the direction of the Secretary. Subscription price, eighty cents a year, single copies, twenty cents; copies for sale may be had at the Fifth Avenue Entrance to the Museum. 44 COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

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