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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. WILLIAM C. HUNNEMAN (1769-1856):

BOSTON COPPERSMITH, BRASS FOUNDER, AND ENTREPRENEUR

Lindsley Elisa Hand

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Early American Culture

Spring 1998

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 1389579

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. WILLIAM C. HUNNEMAN (1769-1856):

BOSTON COPPERSMITH, BRASS FOUNDER, AND ENTREPRENEUR

Lindsley Elisa Hand

Approved: Charles F. Hummel, M.A .1 / Professor in charge of thesis on behalf of me Advisory Committee

Approved: es C. Curtis, Ph.D. r of the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture

Approved: . Cavanaugh, Ph.D. rovost for Academic Progra and Planning

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Frontispiece. Miniature Portrait of William Cooper Hunneman (1769-1856). Watercolor on ivory. H: 2 3/4", W: 2 1/4" (Courtesy, J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine)

iii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have been fortunate in receiving the help of many people in researching

and writing this thesis. I am happy to have the chance to thank publicly my advisor,

Charles Hummel, for his generous advice, criticism, patience, and encouragement. To

Donald L. Fennimore I am very grateful for the original suggestion of William C.

Hunneman as a fruitful topic of research and for sharing his knowledge of and

enthusiasm for early American metals in and out of class.

The curatorial staff at the USS Constitution Museum and the staff of the

Massachusetts Historical Society together made it possible for me to spend many

hours examining the extant Hunneman day books, as well as providing supporting

documents and information. Special thanks are also due to Mr. John Richard

Hunneman, Jr. of Sedgewick, Maine, for his boundless enthusiasm and generosity

with both family information and photographs of many surviving Hunneman products.

Thanks to Donna-Bell Garvin, Curator, and Hilary Anderson, Assistant

Curator at New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, New Hampshire; Lana Lewis,

Assistant Curator at Gore Place, Waltham, Massachusetts; Nancy S. Powell, Registrar

and Fine Arts Specialist at CIGNA Museum and Art Collection, Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania; Frank White, Curator of Mechanical Arts at Old Sturbridge Village,

Sturbridge, Massachusetts; Philip Zea, Deputy Director and Curator, and Amanda E.

Lange, Assistant Curator at Historic Deerfield, Massachusetts; Mark and Marjorie

Allen; Dr. Melvyn Wolf; and everyone else who sent photographs or allowed me to

study and photograph their collections of Hunneman objects.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I am grateful to David Wood, Curator at Concord Museum, Concord,

Massachusetts, for his very helpful insights and suggestions regarding the Hunneman

account books and the creation of a database. Thanks also to John Hamilton, Curator

of Collections at Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, Massachusetts; John

Carl Thomas; Loma Condon, Archivist at the Society for the Preservation of New

England Antiquities; and Lynne Joshi, Reference Librarian, Imprints Department at

Hagley Museum and Library for their help with research.

Without the generosity of Mrs. Lois F. McNeil I would not have begun

this project, nor had the opportunity to study at the H. F. du Pont Winterthur Museum.

The excellent teachers, curators, and librarians at the museum receive my sincere

gratitude for all their help and inspiration.

Finally, thank you to all my family, and especially my parents, for their

support, encouragement, and patience.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT...... vii

Chapter

1 INTRODUCTION: WILLIAM C. HUNNEMAN AND HIS COMPANY...... I NOTES: CHAPTER 1 ...... 12

2 ANALYSIS OF HUNNEMAN ACCOUNT BOOKS...... 16 NOTES: CHAPTER 2 ...... 32

3 HUNNEMAN’S BUSINESS OPERATION...... 35 NOTES: CHAPTER 3 ...... 57

4 ANALYSIS OF SURVIVING PRODUCTS...... 63 NOTES: CHAPTER 4 ...... 86

5 CONCLUSION ...... 89 NOTES: CHAPTER 5 ...... 94

Appendix: FIGURES...... 96

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 132

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT

This study of William C. Hunneman, a Boston coppersmith, brass

founder, and entrepreneur working from c. 1793 to 1846, helps to fill a gap in the

history of the early American craftsman. There have been few, if any, in-depth studies

of the craftsmen who produced goods from copper and its alloys during this period.

These products played an important role in the households, businesses, and

manufactories of America, as well as being vital to the operation of the new United

States Navy. Hunneman was involved in extensive business and social networks

connecting his local communities with far flung cities and towns. As a producer of

early patented fire engines, Hunneman also illuminates the business side of innovative

technology.

This thesis relies on evidence from two extant day books, one brief ledger,

and a large number of surviving Hunneman products, in addition to other primary and

secondary sources. The day books were entered into a database which enabled sorting

and quantification of information by customer; date; credits and debits; form, quantity,

description, and price. It also recorded all other information including weights,

method of payment, and Hunneman’s miscellaneous notes.

As many surviving objects as possible were located and examined in

person. Almost as many more were identified and studied through published and

unpublished photographs. These Hunneman products were compared to objects and

photographs of objects in the Winterthur Museum, the Decorative Arts Photographic

Collection at Winterthur, and many publications. Such comparisons reveal regional

vii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. characteristics and strengthen our understanding of business ties among craftsmen

producing similar goods.

William C. Hunneman was a skilled craftsman and a successful

businessman. He produced and sold large numbers of household items such as

andirons, wholesale items such as sleigh bells, industrial kettles, ship fittings and

supplies, fire engines, and unfinished goods such as clock parts. In addition,

Hunneman served as a wholesale supplier of raw materials for other metal workers.

Hunneman’s ability to expand his market from traditional manufactures to serve this

wide range of public and private customers illustrates the business acumen and

artisanal versatility necessary for success during this period of early industrial

expansion in America.

viii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION: WILLIAM C. HUNNEMAN AND HIS COMPANY

William Cooper Hunneman (1769-1856) was bom on July 10, the son of

Nicholas and Elizabeth Cooper Hunneman.1 His siblings included James, Nicholas,

Sarah, and John, though little is known about any of them. Hunneman married

Hannah Hewes (1777-1849) on Sept. 17, 1797, and they had eleven children.

Hunneman died a widower on May 10, 1856 at his house on Washington Street in

Roxbury, Massachusetts. The Roxbury City register of deaths indicates that he was a

coppersmith by occupation.2 As this thesis will indicate, by the time that Hunneman

died, his coppersmithing and brass foundry business had played a part in the

operations of the Navy Yard at Charlestown, the clock-making shops of Roxbury, and

local cotton manufacturers. It had also included the manufacture of a large number of

America’s early hand pump fire engines as well as enormous numbers of sleigh bells

and many more traditional copper and brass household items.

The details of Hunneman’s early life are largely lost in the past, but

certainly he must have performed some kind of apprenticeship, formal or informal, in

his trade. According to Hunneman family tradition this apprenticeship was done in

Paul Revere’s foundry.3 Unfortunately, no primary evidence appears to have survived

to confirm this claim. Revere, best known today as a patriot and silversmith,

established a foundry in 1787 in Boston’s North End which was producing goods by

late 1788.4 Initially, Revere manufactured cast iron goods, switching to ordnance

production in 1794.5 By 1795, Revere was experimenting with ship fastenings of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. drawn copper.6 In her masters thesis on the Revere furnace, Renee Lynn Emay

compiled the names of all the known workers at the furnace from 1787 to 1800, and

Hunneman is not among them.7

Hunneman was a full partner in business by 1793. If he served a seven

year apprenticeship, which was the official norm but was not widely enforced in late-

eighteenth-century America, he would have begun by 1786 at the latest.8 It is

unlikely, however, that Hunneman had proceeded directly from an apprenticeship to a

full partnership in business. If, then, the beginning date of his apprenticeship is

calculated to allow for its completion at the age of 21, which was more typical and

allows for three years of journeyman status, Hunneman would have begun his

apprenticeship in 1783 and completed it in 1790. While these dates do not preclude

his having learned under Paul Revere, they do raise questions. Hunneman would then

have served the first four years of his apprenticeship before Revere even began

building his furnace. During the last two years, Hunneman would have worked at the

furnace while it was just getting underway, and predominantly manufacturing cast

iron, not copper and brass. The furnace began casting bells in 1792 and was producing

ordinance by 1794.9 Unless further documentation is discovered, it will remain

difficult to know exacdy where Hunneman acquired his skills as a brass founder and

coppersmith.

There is no doubt, however, that the working worlds of Hunneman and

Revere overlapped in many other ways. Joseph Warren Revere has frequent entries in

Hunneman’s account books, primarily as a provider of sheet copper and other raw

materials from Paul Revere’s copper rolling mills at Canton, Massachusetts. In

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. addition, the names of at least seven individuals who at one time worked for Paul

Revere also show up in Hunneman’s account books.10

In contrast to the uncertainty about Hunneman’s apprenticeship, his early

affiliation with Martin Gay is well documented. In fact, an advertisement in the

Columbian Centinel on March 2, 1793 announced the .beginning of their partnership:

[Martin Gay] respectfully informs the public in general, and his old customers in particular, that he has re-assumed the coppersmith and brazier’s business, which in future will be carried on in all their various branches by GAY and HUNNEMAN at those noted works No. 19 Union Street, lately improved by Messrs. Cordwell and Wells.11

The first city directory to include the company is for 1796, listing “Gay & Hunneman,

coppersmiths, Union street,” and a separate entry for Gay only, also on Union Street.12

Several posnets which bear both of their names and the date 1794 testify that the

partnership was producing goods by that year or earlier.13 The two were listed in the

city directory together again in 1798, but in 1800 Gay was at 19 Union Street while

Hunneman was recorded separately as a coppersmith on nearby Ann Street.14

Hunneman’s residence was given as number four Richmond Street. The two men had

individual entries until 1809 when Gay disappears from the directory altogether.

Martin Gay’s will was entered into the Suffolk County probate records in February,

1809, shortly after he died. From this evidence, the Gay & Hunneman partnership

began in 1793 and extended at least into 1798.

Hunneman’s surviving account books, however, include entries recording

transactions between Hunneman and Gay from 1793 to 1803. At the beginning of one

of Hunneman’s day books, there are forty-three pages of shop accounts of cash which

differ in format from the rest of the entries in the book.15 The cash accounts record

cash flow in and out of “the shop,” with occasional references to individuals. These

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. entries date from March 1793 to May 1801, the period of Gay and Hunneman’s

partnership. A receipt of United States Naval Agent Henry Jackson and signed by Gay

& Hunneman corresponds exactly to one of the entries, confirming that these forty-

three pages are the shop accounts of Gay & Hunneman. The receipt reads,

No. 1, BOSTON, Commonwealth o/Massachusetts, Sept.r 30th 1798 RECEIVED of HENRY JACKSON, Naval Agent for the United States, at Boston, Two hundred and Ninety Seven Dollars and Sixty four Cents in full for a Large Copper Cabin Stove; Copper for Blockmaker as per Account Settd this day for which I have signed triplicate Receipts of the same tenor and date. Gay & Hunneman.16

The day book entry, also for September 30, 1798, records the payment of $297.64 in

cash from the “Ship Constitution.”17

These accounts do not represent- the full extent of Gay & Hunneman’s

business dealings during their partnership. Notes such as “from our 2’d Day book viz”

indicate that this book was one of several used for keeping business accounts. The

extant accounts do, however, include all the years of the partnership. The previously

provable dates of this partnership were from 1793, when it was announced in a

newspaper advertisement, to 1798, when Gay & Hunneman were last listed jointly in

the Boston city directory. Since the directory was not published in 1799, one might

speculate that the partnership extended into that year. In 1800, Gay and Hunneman

were listed separately at Union and Ann Streets respectively, indicating the dissolution

of their partnership by the ume of the directory’s publication.

The discovery of the accounts of Gay & Hunneman at the beginning of

one of Hunneman’s day books, however, makes it possible to assert that Gay &

Hunneman continued to work together through August, 1801. It seems probable that

Hunneman began to do business on his own early in 1800, while the partnership with

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Martin Gay continued unofficially into 1801 with the two craftsmen sharing resources.

Martin Gay continued to work on his own from 1801 to 1809 when he died.

Hunneman’s own day book entries also record transactions with Gay

entered after 1801. One entry in particular is of note, since it shows that Hunneman

was residing with Gay throughout most of their partnership. It is a credit on March 21,

1803 to Martin Gay from Hunneman as payment for Hunneman’s, “Boarding &

lodging from 15 April 1793 to Sepr 15 1797 is 230 weeks deduct 3 weeks absence //

227 weeks 2 days @ $3.”18 September 1797, then, marks the beginning of the end of

Gay and Hunneman’s close partnership, as Hunneman moved out of Gay’s living

quarters and perhaps began in some measure to work on his own.

Hunneman devoted a whole page of one day book to record transactions

with Martin Gay between 1799 and 1802. These include “profit on Copper hoops”

which may have been produced jointly so that Hunneman was claiming the profit of

£3.0.0, as well as bills and corrections in amounts due on accounts with joint

customers, all totaling $431.04 owed Hunneman.19 In addition to this page, there are

many individual entries from 1801 to 1803 for Martin Gay, and three related entries

under other names.

The entries for Gay himself indicate that he and Hunneman exchanged a

small amount of goods during this time. They were primarily tea kettles, nails, and

bolts, but Gay also received cash and raw materials from his former partner. Gay is

only credited twice in the book. One credit is for the boarding expenses quoted above

and the other for a balance of $281.66 “brought from old book.”20 The other notations

of interest regarding the partnership are for money due Hunneman for his share of a

balance on Gay & Hunneman accounts, and an entry “for my half of wooden patterns

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. [sic] at Mr. Gays shop” all entered in 1801.21 Hunneman continued to benefit from his

association with Martin Gay. As will be discussed in Chapter Four, many of their

joint customers continued to do business with Hunneman when he was working on his

own.

The customer base and business network of a craftsman in Boston or any

other early American community was drawn primarily from family, church, and social

ties. Customers from outside these immediate connections were generally drawn in by

word of mouth, or perhaps advertising. In a city the size of Boston, which supported a

number of artisans of each trade, satisfaction with the quality of goods was important

to gaining new customers and keeping old ones. In addition, the accounting system of

the time, which often carried long-term outstanding balances may have helped to

secure a customer’s continued patronage. Business connections among craftsmen

were also strengthened by organizations such as the Masons, and the Massachusetts

Charitable Mechanics Association which, at its founding, included bakers,

hairdressers, book-sellers, paint-sellers, tailors, blacksmiths, coppersmiths, and at least

one shipbuilder, engine-builder, pump and block maker, and painter; artisans from all

levels of the economic and social scale.22

Hunneman held pews in two churches. These churches provided

Hunneman with a community or network from which to draw business contacts on all

levels—customers, suppliers, employees, collaborators, and competitors. When he

died, Hunneman owned pews in Dr. Lowell’s Church, Boston, and pew number 41 in

the Mount Pleasant Church, Roxbury. Dr. Lowell was the minister at the West Church

in Boston, where Martin Gay was a deacon.23 According to the pew list for the First

Church, Roxbury, Hunneman, too, was a deacon of the West Church, Boston.24

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hunneman’s Day Book includes three entries for the “hire of three quarters of my pew

in West Boston Meeting house for 6 months,” in 1816, 1818, and 1821.25 Hunneman

probably took up his membership in the Mount Pleasant, or First Church, when he

moved to Roxbury in 1816.26

Another source of important business connections for Hunneman was his

family. William and Hannah had eleven children, of whom four daughters and four

sons lived beyond their twenty-first year. Two sons were named after their father—

one who died at age three, and one who died at forty-four after almost twenty years of

involvement in his father’s business. The youngest child, John James Hunneman

never worked for his father, but the other two, Samuel and Joseph, were both

instrumental in carrying on Hunneman’s business into the second generation.27

Samuel Hewes Hunneman (1800-1869) was the oldest son and the first to join his

father in business. He is listed in the Boston city directory for 1825 and 1826 as his

father’s partner in William C. Hunneman & Son, coppersmiths and engine builders, at

20 Union Street in Boston.28 In 1827 and 1828, Hunneman is not listed in the

directory, while his two sons, Samuel and William C., Jr. (1801-1846) are—as

coppersmiths at 20 Union Street.29 In 1831, the sons are listed the same way, but their

father has a separate entry as a fire engine builder at 37 Union Street.30 This

arrangement appears to have continued until 1838, when the third son, Joseph Hewes

Hunneman (1812-1831), became involved. In this year ail four Hunnemans were

listed as William C. Hunneman & Co., coppersmiths, at 20 Union Street.31 In 1840,

Joseph had left the company, not to return until after his brother William, Jr.’s death

and their father’s retirement in 1846. Hunneman, Samuel, and William, Jr. continued

on at 20 Union street from 1840-46. In 1846 the entry for William C. Hunneman &

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Co., now “fire engine builders”, included only Joseph but it is probable that in fact

Samuel continued on, as he is listed with the company the following year and up until

his death.32

The year 1846 appears to have been one of important changes in the

business. From this point on, while the company continued to be listed under

coppersmithing in business directories, its primary identification was “fire engine

builders.” Additionally, Joseph Hunneman had joined to stay, and the company’s

founder was no longer listed in the directory, nor did the company continue to bear his

full name. After 1846 the city directory did not include Hunneman himself, but only,

“Hunneman & Co.,” comprising Samuel and Joseph, as fire engine manufacturers.

Hunneman retired for the last ten years of his life.33 His will, written in 1851, is full

of legacies to his six living children, one daughter-in-law, and six grandchildren,

giving insight into his family life, but contains no mention of his business as

coppersmith, brass founder, and engine builder.34

The will includes only monetary and household and estate bequests, and

gives the token sum of five dollars each to Samuel and Joseph Hunneman, while

William’s other living children received significantly more.35 Furthermore, no

inventory of the shop survives with Hunneman’s probate documents. Hunneman had

already formally transferred possession of the business to his sons by the time he

wrote his will. According to Hunneman’s grandson, John Champney Hunneman, “the

firm William C. Hunneman & Co. was dissolved” on April 17, 1846. “Hunneman &

Co.” was formed in May of that same year.36 In 1855, the company’s address changed

to 48 Union Street. Samuel and Joseph were joined by Samuel’s son, Samuel Jr. who

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. worked as a clerk, and on May 10 of the following year, Hunneman died of old age.

In 1857 the address changed to 59 Comhill, and in 1861, back to 26 Union Street.

Hunneman’s long career in the copper and brass business encompassed

important changes in the industry. The end of the eighteenth century saw the first

copper mills in America, and the first half of the nineteenth century was a period of

mechanization and industrialization. Throughout the first half of his career, imported

goods from England and the European continent proved to be tough competition for

local manufacturers, and among their highest concerns. Before the American

Revolution, all raw materials were supposed to be sent to England for processing and

manufacture into goods. After the Revolution, the appeal of refined goods in the latest

styles continued to swell the numbers of imports from England, still the cultural

“home” of most Americans. In 1783, John Baker Halroyd in his Observations on the

Commerce of the American States with Europe and the West Indies,wrote, “the

American market is already glutted with European manufactures. British goods of

several kinds were cheaper last year in New York than in London, and the last Letters

From Philadelphia mention several articles 25 per cent cheaper.”37 Twelve years later,

the Public Record Office in England would record that 312 tons of brass and 595 tons

of copper had been exported to America. These numbers included finished articles

and refined raw materials—mostly in the form of copper and brass sheet.38 In spite of

all these imports, American craftsmen continued to ply their trades and to seek out

advancements in methods of production. Boston’s coppersmiths and brass founders,

including John Clark, James Davis, Nathaniel Johnson, John Molineux, John Stickney,

Samuel Austin, Robert Crocker, John Wells, Samuel Drew, and many others who

appear in Hunneman’s account books, produced goods in imitation of imported

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. manufactures. They often advertised their products in comparison with English or

European equivalents, as did their counterparts in other American cities and towns.39

In the early years of the Republic, Boston and neighboring ports were

caught up in the high-stakes gambles of the China trade, and soon thereafter in war

and quasi-war with the French, the English, and the Barbary Pirates. The War of 1812

and the preceding years of battles over the “neutral shipping” rights of the United

States brought regular shipping to a halt, allowing for an increase in sales of American

made products at home. As long as enough copper was being imported from the West

Indies (primarily in the form of used sugar refining equipment) and South America via

“broken voyages” used to feign neutral shipping and undercut Jefferson’s embargo,

American copper and brass workers did well.40 One New York brass founder noted

that, “during the late war with Great Britain, I sold nearly 3 times the amount... &

could have sold more if I had the means of manufacturing it, but the enormous

influence of foreign goods since has diminished the demand and reduced the price of

these articles very much.”41 Money being made in the little-affected China trade

helped to support these local manufactures, and added to a general spirit of

entrepreneurship and expansion.42

Both the war and the China trade caused an increase of shipbuilding for

Boston and its neighboring ports. Many copper and brass workers in Boston saw this

need and concerned themselves in large degree with fittings and equipment used on

board ships. In 1795 six frigates were commissioned, giving birth to the United States

Navy and to a steady demand for ship work as private shipyards made room for the

Navy Yard at Charlestown. Paul Revere, who made many fittings and fastenings for

the Boston built USS Constitution, also knew the need for sheet copper sheathing for

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ship bottoms, and recognized the supply demands of local coppersmiths. In 1801

Revere established his copper rolling mill to fill this gap in the economy of

metalworking in America. Prior to this time, distributors such as Thomas K. Jones

had been providing imported English copper and scrap copper to Boston artisans.43

Hunneman’s ledgers illustrate several sources of copper, with entries for new,

imported sheet copper bought at auction, old copper purchased from many customers,

and copper processed in America at Paul Revere’s rolling mills.44

In the decades after the War of 1812, artisans suffering from renewed

trade with England often rallied around a call for protective tariffs and help in securing

raw materials. For example, Hannon Hendricks, the New York copper merchant,

wrote in 1820 to particularly protest the exemption of sheet copper from import duties

because of its use by the US Navy for sheathing:

Your [petitioners] further represent that they are competent in conjunction with the other manufactories of copper in the United States to Supply the consumption of [the] United States; that they have manufactured many tons for the use of the Navy of the United States and that the aforesaid calls, for the use of the navy have been the means of keeping their workmen together, and their establishment from being shut up: but now that the Navy of the United States is supplied with the copper for the increase of the Navy, they will have to look for the other means of employment, and for protecting duties at the hand of Government against foreign importation of copper.45

While naval building began to decline into the 1830s and 40s, canals and railroads

were expanding and steam was being used for transportation and manufacturing.

Mechanization was replacing craft production and national markets were opening up.

Hunneman’s own entrepreneurial endeavors in the fields of fire engines will illustrate

some of these trends on a more human scale.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTES: CHAPTER 1

1 Register o f Deaths, City o f Roxbury, Massachusetts Vital Records Series, Vol. 103: 169.

2 Register o f Deaths, City o f Roxbury, Vol. 103: 169.

3 John Champney Hunneman, Manuscript Notes, c. 1906, Typescript provided by J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine: 1.

4 Renee Lynn Emay, “The Revere Furnace, 1787-1800,” (master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1989): 1,5.

5 Emay, “Revere Furnace”: 10-11.

6 Emay, “Revere Furnace”: 41.

7 Emay, “Revere Furnace”: 15-16,48-50.

8 Richard B. Morris, Government and Labor in Early America (New York: Harper & Row, 1965): 200, 370-76.

9 Emay, “Revere Furnace”: 10-12.

10 Emay, “Revere Furnace,” and Deborah Anne Federhen, “Paul Revere, Silversmith: A Study of His Shop Operation and His Objects,” (master’s thesis. University of Delaware, 1988).

11 Quoted in Donald L. Fennimore, Metalwork in Early America: Copper and Its Alloys from the Winterthur Collection (Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1996): 73.

12 The Boston Directory (Boston: Manning & Loring, 1796): 47.

13 See discussion of posnets in Chapter Four.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14 The Boston Directory (Boston: Rhoades & Laughton for John West, 1798): 52, and The Boston Directory (Boston: John Russell for John West, 1800): 48, 62.

15 William Cooper Hunneman, Manuscript Day Book (831.1) 1793-1821, The USS Constitution Museum, Boston. This day book is unpaginated. My citations, therefore, will refer to the date of the entry, abbreviated numerically by month/day/year.

16 Public Auction Sale, Americana: Colonial and Federal Coins, Medals, and Currency (Stacks Numismatists, New York, January 14, 15, 1998): 68. Photostat copy of original receipt supplied by Robert Entlich of Stacks, January 8, 1998.

17 Hunneman, Day Book, 1793-1821: 9/30/1798.

18 William Cooper Hunneman, Manuscript Day Book (831.2) 1799-1819, The USS Constitution Museum, Boston.: 70.

19 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 57.

20 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 70,2.

21 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 1, 3, 27.

22 Esther Forbes, Paul Revere and the World He Lived (Boston: In Houghton Mifflin Co., 1942): 397.

23 Martin Gay, “Martin Gay. Three Letters Written by an American Loyalist and His Wife, 1775-1788, with Notes by Howard Wheelwright,”Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts 3 (1897): 49.

24 Walter Elliot Thwing, History of the First Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1630-1904 (Boston: W. A. Butterfield, 1908): 292.

25 Hunneman, Day Book, 1793-1821: 7/17/16, 7/8/18, 7/19/21.

26 In May, 1816 the place name at the top of each page of Book 1 changes from “Boston” to “Roxbury” although Hunneman’s business continues to be listed in Boston in city directories. This same change takes place in May, 1810 of Book 2.

27 John Richard Hunneman, Manuscript Genealogical Table of the Descendants of William C. Hunneman 1937, updated by J. R. Hunneman, Jr. in August, 1997. A copy of this family tree was given to me by Mr. J. R. Hunneman, Jr.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28The Boston Directory (Boston: John H. A. Frost and Charles Stimpson, Jr., 1825): 151, and The Boston Directory (Boston: John H. A. Frost and Charles Stimpson, Jr., 1826): 158.

29 The Boston Directory (Boston: Hunt and Stimpson and John H. A. Frost, 1827): 147, and The Boston Directory (Boston: Hunt and Stimpson, 1828): 154.

30 Stimpson’s Boston Directory (Boston: Stimpson and Clapp, 1831): 195.

31 Stimpson’s Boston Directory (Boston: Charles Stimpson, Jr., 1838): 221, and Stimpson’s Boston Directory (Boston: Charles Stimpson, Jr., 1839): 234.

32 Listings for “Samuel H.” after 1869 probably actually refer to his son, Samuel, Jr. (1826-1903).

33 J. C. Hunneman, Manuscript Notes: 10.

34 An interesting note regarding Hunneman’s will is the inclusion of a bequest of $100 “To Jonas Filebrown. [sic] who has been in my service for several years, and faithfully discharged his duties, during the whole period of his service.” (Suffolk County Probate Records, William C. Hunneman, Will, June 9, 1856, Docket 40439, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston.: 7) Fillebrown is mentioned in the Manuscript Notes of John Champney Hunneman (pages 2-3) as having “learned the trade of Brass Founder and Finisher” along with Samuel and William Hunneman, Jr. from William C. Hunneman. Fillebrown has only one entry in Hunneman’s day books, charging him for casting codlead. (Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 121.)

35 Suffolk County Probate Records. William C. Hunneman, Will, June 9, 1856, Docket 40439, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston.

36 J. C. Hunneman, Manuscript Notes: 10-11.

37 Quoted in Fennimore, Metalwork: 31.

38 Fennimore,Metalwork: 33-4.

39 Fennimore, Metalwork: 37.

40 Maxwell Whiteman, Copper for America: The Hendricks Family and a National Industry, 1755-1939 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1971): 181.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 Federal Census of Manufacturers, New York City, 1820, Quoted in Fennimore, Metalwork: 38.

42 Forbes, Paul Revere: 379-82.

43 Whiteman, Copper for America: 62.

44 Fennimore, Metalwork: 87, and Mabel. M. Swan, “The Man Who Made Brass Works for Willard Clocks,” Antiques 18, no. 6 (June 1930): 525.

45 Whiteman, Copper for America: 136.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 2

ANALYSIS OF HUNNEMAN ACCOUNT BOOKS

Account books are often the only surviving evidence relating to craftsmen

and entrepreneurs of the past. These books provide clues to the business practices of

the men or women who kept them. From these business records the historian can

discern patterns of manufacture, sales, customer base, and so forth. Most craftsmen in

the early Republic employed an accounting system called double-entry bookkeeping.

This consisted of a day or waste book containing daily entries of business transactions

which were later transcribed into a ledger. The ledger had a page or section for each

customer, divided into debits and credits. Often a reference to the ledger page number

for each customer appears beside each entry in the day book.46

Each page of a ledger illustrates the business relationship between two

people over time. What did the customer buy each month or each year? What did the

craftsman receive in return? A day book can do the same thing, but is more obviously

the daily record of one business over time. What was sold each day? How were raw

materials obtained for the shop? What money or goods went out of the shop from one

day, or month, or year, to the next?

Many other things can be inferred from account books, such as patterns of

production and demand, or networks of craftsmen and customers. When combined

with other documents such as advertisements, directories, census records, and church

records, entries in day or account books reveal social or political ties, and evidence of

marketing strategies. What is not directly recorded in account books often includes

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. manufacturing techniques, charitable work or donations, and time lost from work by

the owner of a craft business.

These omissions reflect not sloppy bookkeeping but the particular public

and private purposes of early American account books. Some craftsmen used their

accounting system to track the popularity or economic viability of different goods

produced; some included daily tallies of production or the hours worked by each

employee. Account books also, “had a public domain and were shaped by communal

expectations. In fact, they represented trading agreements enforceable by law.”47

Credits could be called in or debits paid by executors of an estate, as in Hunneman’s

account books, which include entries for the “Estate of Herman Brimmer,

dec[ease]d.”48 Delinquent debtors could be forced to pay their debts, or go to debtor’s

prison.

William Hunneman’s extant account books hold a wealth of information.

They also present difficulties because they overlap in time, but are not a true day book

and ledger pair. Each of the two books takes the form of a day or waste book, with

individual notations entered by date. The nomenclature for these books is also

confusing: one has a hand-written title on the first page, “William C. Hunneman’s/

Shop Act of Cash- Dr and Cr from/ March thl. 1793 to. May 1th 1801,” [Book One]

and the other is embossed with the words ‘Waste Book’ on the spine. [Book Two]

This embossed title was part of the book when it was purchased at the stationer and

does not reflect the contents. It is a day book, filled with entries noting credits and

debits to various customers, arranged chronologically, with a narrow left-hand column

containing customer numbers and a narrow right-hand column of dollars and cents.

The shop account of cash in Book One ends on the forty-third page and is followed by

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. over one hundred pages of daily entries from 1812 to 1821. Both books include a

heading at the top of each page with the place (Boston or Roxbury, depending on the

year) and the full date written out, for example, “Boston, January 1, 1801.”

Subsequent entries on the same page are referenced, if at all, by date only. Those

entries without separate dates indicate further transactions on the same day as the last

noted date.49

The pages in Book Two were numbered by hand, with some errors in

numbering. These page numbers are sometimes referred to in Book One during the

period when the two books overlap. Such references usually take the form of a note in

the left-hand column of Book One. This same column was also used to note when a

credit or debit was paid or settled; to give a customer number reference—sometimes

including the words “Ledger page”; or to indicate some other note such as “Day Book/

page 187.” In this particular case, a corresponding entry for the identical transaction is

entered in Book Two. Sometimes, however, a note such as “Ent’d day Book” appears

in Book One but a corresponding entry in Book Two cannot be found. Another set of

notes revealing the complexity of Hunneman’s accounting system includes, “enter’d in

memorandum book,” and similar references to a memorandum book. There does not

appear to be a correspondence between any of these books and the dates covered

within them, indicating that not all of Hunneman’s business records have survived.

The majority of entries in both extant books are customer debits, while

relatively few (approximately sixteen percent) are customer credits. In many cases,

Hunneman’s debits (his customers’ credits) were probably recorded only in the

account book of the individuals whom Hunneman owed, while Hunneman likewise

recorded predominantly what was owed to him. In addition, transactions which were

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. paid for in cash at the time of purchase might not be recorded at all. Since the account

book served as a legal and bookkeeping record of outstanding debits, or sometimes

credits, items which were purchased with cash did not require entry. If items were

purchased on credit and later paid for with cash, they were entered into the account

book as debits, and later noted as “paid.” Possibly an entry of cash paid was made

elsewhere in Hunneman’s business records which no longer survive. Over thirteen

hundred entries were marked as “paid” in the extant Hunneman accounts.

Goods obtained by barter might not be noted if the values of goods traded

came out even, while an uneven trade might require both a credit and a debit entry in

the account book. No such pairs of entries exist in Hunneman’s accounts, so it is

likely that bartering most often took the form of “bookkeeping barter” which consisted

mainly of running tabs kept by both parties and settled at increments. A great deal of

evidence of this type of transaction occurs in Hunneman’s account books, both in the

form of entries for “Account settled this day,” and in over twenty-seven hundred

entries marked as “settled” in the left-hand column in both books. Bills called in by

Hunneman (e.g. “due bill to ballance [sic] Accounts”) or by his customers (e.g. “bill of

copper”) also appear in the day books as do at least one example of straight barter:

“Fred[eric]k Housen (Baker). . . the Amo[un]t Paid in Bread”50 Several items,

including barrels of flour, hats, clocks, cheese, oats, a cow, isinglass, sheepskin, and

crackers, which Hunneman sold on various occasions probably represent barter

payments made to him by his customers. Finally, the day books show the use of

bookkeeping barter in extending credit beyond the original relationship of two

individuals. In several instances, people bought goods from Hunneman on someone

else’s account.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In spite of the frequent use of cash noted in his accounts, Hunneman

nevertheless had quite a lot of his business on credit at any given time. In fact, many

entries in the day books are customer debits for cash loaned by Hunneman. Such a

system required a certain amount of trust as well as a fairly clear sense of just how

much credit one was extending at any particular moment. The names of many of

Hunneman’s customers appear over and over again, and the majority of them at least

warranted a page in the now-missing ledger. Several customers have town or street

names next to their own in the day books. The street names are all within Boston or

its very nearby neighbors, and some are accompanied by notes to the effect of

“Deliv[ere]d Octr 21th”51 This indicates that the street names may have been noted in

order that the goods be delivered to the proper place. Town or city names, however,

were not only useful for purposes of delivery but perhaps more importantly, they noted

the residence of customers who were not local, and therefore not as well known to

Hunneman or the community. Not only would this provide a record of contacts in

outlying areas, but also would enable these “strangers” to be tracked down for

collection of payment. Furthermore, these individuals were part of an increasingly

broader geographical outlook for Hunneman and many of his fellow craftsmen in

Boston during this period of national expansion—both physical and economic.

Hunneman occasionally noted the occupation of an individual customer,

usually in parentheses beside the name. The crafts listed include baker, blacksmith,

block-maker, carpenter, chairmaker, clothier, coppersmith, distiller, engraver, founder,

gunsmith, hardware man, hatter, masons, merchants, printer, restorator, shipwright,

stage player, and turner, as well as several cotton and other manufactories, doctors and

ministers, and the various representatives of the navy and other vessel captains and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. owners. Some of these crafts are ones which were intimately connected with

Hunneman’s own. Ties with blacksmiths, for example, would be helpful for the

acquisition of billet-bars and rod-uprights for andirons, or iron bale handles for kettles.

Of the six different blacksmiths noted by Hunneman, however, he only recorded

credits to two of them for a total of nineteen pair of andiron horses, and a credit to one

other for “due bill for ballance [sic] of Account settd [sic] this day.”52 By contrast,

$232.36 worth of debits owed by these blacksmiths for brass andirons, tea ketdes, and

other goods were recorded. Again, Hunneman’s purchases from these craftsmen may

have been recorded in their day books, especially that of the blacksmith called

Butterfield with whom Hunneman setded accounts in May 1821.

Other craftsmen—the coppersmith and founders—were also intimately

ded to the production end of Hunneman’s business, while the hardware man and

merchants were helpful connections for marketing of wares. The engraver was

connected with Hunneman through a common need for raw materials, and might have

ornamented Hunneman’s wares or made name plates for his fire engines, though no

record of such activities survives. Several others, such as those in various maritime

occupations as well as the manufactories, distillers, hatters, and clothier were

consumers of Hunneman’s goods. Many of these craftsmen were also simply integral

members of Boston’s population—the baker, masons, carpenters, chairmakers, turners,

and even the stage player, although he may also have been a nomadic individual, his

occupation noted as an aid to identification if needed.

In spite of the relative completeness of these day books, it remains

difficult to calculate Hunneman’s financial success accurately. The two books contain

a total of 1,207 creditor entries totaling $85,110.29 and 7,519 debtor entries totaling

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. $159,352.47 (plus 76 entries which fall into neither category and 851 entries with no

prices given).53 Hunneman indicated that over thirty-three thousand dollars worth of

entries were “paid,” and more than eighty-two thousand dollars worth “settled.”

The account books also include over 450 different types of goods bought

or sold by Hunneman. Among these, several types of goods stand out as particularly

important to his business. These include the bells which were a staple item sold every

fall and winter. They appear in the pages of the day books each October and were sold

by the thousands through the following March or April. Hunneman sold over 9,630

bells in 1816, the top sales year for bells. In 1803, he sold none, but between 1801 and

1821, bell sales totaled over 61,905. These bells were sold singly, by the dozen, or the

gross (twelve dozen). The bells were sold by size, though prices do not seem to have

varied depending upon bulk. While many of the bells were entered into the day books

simply as “bells” many more received qualifications, such as ‘sleigh’, or ‘house’ bells,

as well as an indication of size—small, medium, large, or extra large.

A high proportion of the bells were classified by number, from one to six,

which seems to have corresponded to size and weight. It appears that with the

introduction in 1817 of size number six the price scale was adjusted. The numbered

bells are often also described as sleigh bells and while no known Hunneman bells

survive, existing sleigh bells do sometimes have numbers cast into their surfaces.

Most sales consisted of bells sold by the dozen or the gross, and the vast

majority of the bells were sold to the same few customers, who were probably

merchants, including Henry Rice, John Odin, William P. & Rufus Rice, Messrs.

Sewall & Salisbury, Green & Vose, and James Foster. Hunneman grossed over

$8,712.76 in bells. This accounts for all 61,905 bells noted above. In addition,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. S 126.00 of income is recorded for an unknown number of bells, plus (by arriving at

average prices for different types of bells) an estimate of $303.10 for the remaining

bells listed without prices, for total gross receipts of $9,141.86 for bells between 1801

and 1821.54

While no extant Hunneman bells are known, andirons marked by him or

his sons survive in large numbers. His day books indicate that these were indeed a

successful item of his business. As with the bells, Hunneman sold the most andirons in

1816: seventy pair or “setts” as he alternately called them, for over $1447.50. In 1803

and 1804, sales of andirons were very low at two and one pairs respectively. The total

gross revenue listed from andirons (including eleven pair sold along with shovel and

tongs) amounts to $8,494. The prices for these andirons vary considerably, from

$2.25 for a pair of “small iron” andirons, and $6.00 for the least expensive brass

andirons, to $55.00 for one “large” pair sold to Captain Davis Aaron in 1810. The

majority of the andirons were sold for between seven and twenty dollars per pair.

Most of the andirons were described as simply brass andirons or “handirons” but some

were described further. The different types included: circular, “new fashion circular”,

“round circular”, fluted, square, egg top, octagon, urn, straight bar, and S top (which

may stand for steeple top). In addition to the typical brass, some were described as

iron or iron with brass tops, and even “princes mettle,” an alloy of approximately three

parts copper and one part zinc. Some andirons were further described as small or large

versions of these types.

Two hundred and twenty-four andirons appear as credits to customers.

Most of these, 208 in 1821 and 10 in 1820, were credited to Job King (and Job King,

Junior who may or may not be the same person and is noted as living in Taunton). All

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 218 andirons were iron, and those from 1821 were given numbers from one to six

similar to those used to describe the bells. Unfortunately no prices were given for

them. In addition to andirons, Hunneman’s day books include several entries for

andiron “horses.” These are mostly credits to suppliers, and are probably the iron

billet-bars and up-right rods to which Hunneman added the brass components to make

complete andirons. It is possible that the iron “andirons” credited to Job King were

also these iron components and not finished andirons. Slightly more than sixty-four

pairs of andiron “horses” for over $165.20 were credited to suppliers, and sixteen pairs

for $70.29 sold to customers. Several of the “horses” were credited to individuals

identified as blacksmiths, including Bailey and Easterbrooks, and another creditor,

Phineas Bronsden, who appears from the nature of his transactions with Hunneman

also to be a blacksmith.55

Hunneman also made much of his income from kettles of many

descriptions. Totaling over $13,847.46, his sales of over 860 kettles included some

specified by type such as clothier’s, fish, glue, hatters, planking, square, steam, tea,

oval tea, and washing. The majority of them were copper, some were brass, and a few

were of iron - some specified as sheet iron. The kettles were made in all sizes and

were sold by weight or volume. Tea kettles made up more than two hundred of the

total number of kettles sold. Typically, tea kettles were sold at one dollar per quart,

while most other types of kettles were sold by weight. Credits to suppliers were

mainly for “old” kettles of various types, totaling just over eighty-eight valued at

$576.14. These were most likely recycled for their metal. Hunneman’s top year in

sales of kettles was in 1817 with 117 kettles sold for over $1,555.40. In 1800, and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. again in 1804, only one kettle sale is recorded. Hunneman also sold over 125 coffee

pots between 1801 and 1821.

Bells, andirons, and kettles account for approximately twenty-six and one

half percent of the sales recorded in Hunneman’s day books. Another large source of

income for Hunneman, as for most craftsmen, was in repairs, mending, alterations, and

new parts. Such repairs brought Hunneman over $2,262.94 over the twenty years

covered in the day books. While this is much less than the three types of goods

discussed so far, it represents a steady stream of work, since the majority of repairs

brought in only small amounts. In 1804 only fifty cents worth of repairs are recorded,

but $459.33 worth was done in 1820. The largest income for individual repairs came

from new parts or repairs to stills, fire engines, and pumps, which were also the most

expensive items to purchase. Stills brought in a total of almost twelve thousand

dollars in just nine years: 1804, 1806, 1810-13, and 1817-19. New worms for stills

brought in an additional $7,759.93 from 1800-1821.

Fire engines also became a very important part of Hunneman’s business.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to know exactly how much it cost Hunneman in

materials and labor to produce each engine. Without this information it can not be

known whether or not the profit on fire engines was proportionally high. Hunneman’s

surviving day books include the sales of 48 fire engines. A printed version of an

original shipping list in the possession of a Hunneman descendant indicates that

seventy-one fire engines were sold during the period from 1800 to 1821 covered by

the day books, and over four hundred by William C. Hunneman’s death in 1856.56

The fire engines entered into the day books sold for a total of $23,270.00, averaging

$484.79 each. Most of the engines are priced at four or five hundred dollars. The

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. least expensive was $250 sold in 1814 to USS Wasp along with fifty feet of hose, and

the most expensive one was sold for seven hundred dollars to the Charlestown Navy

Yard in 1816. The last year in the day books, 1821, brought in the most money from

fire engines, when Hunneman sold six for $2,680. He did not sell any fire engines in

1809 and 1810, and sold only one each in 1802, 1803, 1811, and 1813.

In addition to the fire engines, Hunneman sold other firefighting

equipment which was needed, including axes, buckets, drag ropes, engine bars,

various hoses, and fire warden’s staff heads. Furthermore, he sold fire engine parts,

including engine caps, engine chambers, engine screws, engine tubs, air vessels, and

engine pipes. This equipment and sale of related parts earned Hunneman another

$2156.43. Without including repairs, engine sales account for another twenty percent

of the income reported in the day books.

While Hunneman’s day books include a large variety of goods, it is clear

that several types played key roles in his success. Among these are the andirons and

kettles long associated with Hunneman due to their survival. More surprisingly,

however, the sale of bells posted in the day books were an equally vital, if seasonal,

part of his business. Typical of early American craftsmen, Hunneman did a fair

amount of business in repairs, but as an urban artisan, he did not need to depend on

this source of income as heavily as did many rural farmer-craftsmen. Furthermore,

Hunneman was able to successfully venture into the entrepreneurial manufacture of

fire engines and equipment. The day books show a peak in the sale of andirons, bells,

and kettles, in 1816-1817, possibly reflecting the end of the War of 1812 the previous

year, while income from fire engines continued to climb to the last entries in the day

books in 1821.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hunneman's day books indicate several sources for the raw materials

which he used in production. Twenty-nine credits for "old brass” are recorded—the

only source of brass mentioned in the accounts. This brass, valued at over seventy

dollars, came from individuals including Abraham Bazin, Benjamin Champney,

Robert Crocker, Aaron and Charles Davis, Gorham Parsons, Allan Pollock, and Aaron

and Simon Willard among others. Another person who sold Hunneman brass was

Commodore Bainbridge of the United States Navy. Several of these individuals also

purchased brass from Hunneman. Benjamin Champney and Allan Pollock in

particular bought large quantities, but Robert Crocker and others were also among the

many names in the over eighty debits to brass recorded. Hunneman supplied brass in

several different forms: cast pieces, coarse brass, sheet brass, square pieces, and old

brass. Most of the brass was not described at all, but among that which was, coarse

brass brought Hunneman the most gross income, nearing sixty dollars. Old brass and

cast pieces together yielded approximately this same amount. Interestingly, the brass

founder Robert Crocker bought mostly coarse brass, while clockmaker Simon Willard

was practically the sole buyer for sheet brass.57

Some of these same customers also purchased copper from Hunneman.

Copper makes up the largest percentage of all the raw materials which Hunneman

recorded in his day books, for both debits and credits. As with the brass, Hunneman

provided copper in several forms to his customers, including copper sheathing, pig

copper, thick copper, Spanish copper, bars, squares, and bolt copper. Robert Crocker,

Hunneman's biggest customer in this area, bought possibly over eight hundred dollars

worth of old copper in addition to forty-four square pieces, three other pieces, two

pigs, and several hundred dollars worth of undescribed copper between 1801 and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1806. Hunneman recorded more entries for old copper and sheet copper than any

other kind. Aside from Robert Crocker, the largest amount of old copper was sold to

Messrs. Billings & Danforth. The coppersmith William Cordwell purchased 121

sheets of copper and the "United States of America" bought 85 sheets for naval

vessels.

The copper which Hunneman bought reflects a similar ratio of primarily

sheet and old copper. Hunneman’s biggest suppliers were Amos Binney, Ebenezer and

John Breed, George W. Brimmer, Herman Brimmer, Martin Brimmer, Thomas K.

Jones, and Joseph Warren Revere. The hardware merchants Ebenezer and John Breed

sold Hunneman $592.76 of copper on one day in 1811.58 Perhaps the best known of

those who sold copper to Hunneman is Joseph Warren Revere, a full partner in his

father’s copper rolling mill.59 Revere sold Hunneman approximately two hundred

dollars worth of copper sheets.

Amos Binney, a wealthy Bostonian merchant and Naval Agent at

Charlestown, also had a deep interest in copper. He was the biggest financial backer

of the South Strafford, Vermont copperas mine which in the first few decades of the

1800s began showing some promise in copper ore as well.60 His retail sales of

$2,353.60 in "old copper" to Hunneman in October, 1814 probably did not come from

this mine, but indicates that Binney was connected to other copper sources in America.

Another of Hunneman's suppliers with known connections was Thomas K. Jones.

Hunneman only recorded two purchases from Jones, but one was Hunneman’s largest

single purchase of sheet copper. On August 21, 1801, Hunneman credited Jones for

one hundred sheets of copper "bought at auction" for $285.85, "payable in 60 days

from the 13 Inst."61 Jones was a Boston area distributor of imported English copper,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. especially in sheet form, before Revere began his mill in 1801.62 As American

technology advanced, Jones and his major importer, Hannon Hendricks, dealt in

locally processed copper as well.63 Jones also sold $108 of spelter to Hunneman in

1820.64

The Brimmer family of merchants also supplied sheet copper to

Hunneman, and it was most likely imported from England. George W. Brimmer sold

Hunneman fifty-eight sheets of copper costing approximately $773.98, as well as

undescribed copper priced at $840.67. Martin Brimmer sold Hunneman an additional

forty-five sheets of copper, and an entry for the estate of Herman Brimmer reads, "by

his Acct for Copper rec[eive]d at sundry times, $704.12."65

A separate category of sheet copper bought and sold by Hunneman is

"bottoms." These were in effect, just sheet copper cut into circles instead of

rectangles, to be ready for use as bottoms for kettles and other vessels. Standard sheet

sizes ranged from twenty by forty-eight inches to thirty by sixty inches. Bottoms

usually measured from six to forty inches in diameter.66 Hunneman did not indicate

the sizes of the bottoms which he sold, except occasionally to note that one was large.

He bought most of the bottoms recorded from George W. and Martin Brimmer, who

supplied him with most of his sheet copper.

In addition to these most vital materials, Hunneman's accounts also

include the purchase and sale of iron, lead, pewter, tin, and other "mettle," as well as

spelter and wire. Twelve different entries credit individuals for iron valued at

$102.48. The sales recorded were much greater, totaling $952.99. Sheet iron, of

which Hunneman sold 63 sheets, was his best selling type of iron. He also sold rod

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iron, strips of sheet, and other miscellaneous items. Two entries indicate that he sold

iron which he had received from the Boston Iron & Nail Factory.67

Hunneman also bought and sold iron work for kettles, usually noted as

"iron for kettles," or "iron work for brass kettles." This probably included the iron

bale handles for brass kettles and possibly iron tripod stands or iron ring

reinforcements for copper kettles. Hunneman credited Samuel Bradley, who worked

in hardware, for ironwork for kettles.68 Both he and Thomas Holt, also in hardware,

bought iron for kettles from Hunneman, along with a few other customers.

Hunneman recorded a very little trade in tin, which coppersmiths used to

coat the insides of vessels used in food preparation as a poison preventative. The day

books show three purchases of tin amounting to $87.35. Two of these were for block

tin and were bought from John Odin, a hardware merchant69 The third purchase was

made from Noyes & Cummings.70 Typically, Hunneman recorded more debits than

credits for tin. Fourteen of the twenty-three debits are also for block tin. Robert

Crocker and George Holbrook purchased the majority of this. The remaining entries,

with one exception, do not describe the type of tin sold. The exception is an entry for

two boxes of sheet tin sold by Hunneman to the "United States Bomb Ketch Mount

Vecuvius [sic]. . . for Lieutenant Leonard" at fifty dollars.71

The same vessel also purchased sheet lead from Hunneman to the amount

of S47.85.72 Hunneman sold more than four hundred dollars worth of sheet lead to

various customers, and received a small amount of old and new lead, in sheets and

bars, from a number of individuals. He also bought and sold old pewter in small

quantities. Robert Crocker bought the most pewter, worth just over forty dollars total.

More interesting among the raw materials sales recorded in the day books are those for

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "mettle." Five entries show such purchases by Hunneman from the coppersmith

William Cordwell and the brass founder Samuel Drew. Robert Crocker, who appears

to have been a steady customer for almost all kinds of raw materials mentioned, was

indebted to Hunneman for about one third of all the "mettle" sold. All of Crocker’s

purchases are described as coarse "mettle," which averaged about three-fifths of the

price of "cast mettle" by weight. Perhaps this coarse metal indicates unfinished

castings while cast metal was finished, but this seems to place an unusually large

emphasis on labor in the price. Another explanation is that coarse metal describes a

lower grade of alloy. James Davis, another brass founder, purchased both andiron

metal and coarse metal.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTES: CHAPTER 2

46 See Robert J. Wilson HI, “Early American Account Books: Interpretation, Cataloguing and Use,” American Association for State and Local History Technical Leaflet 140, History News 36, no. 9 (September 1981), unpaginated.

47 Douglas F. Hawes, “Earthenware Production in the Rural North, 1830-1860: An Account Book Study,” (master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1995): 35.

48 William Cooper Hunneman, Manuscript Day Book (831.2) 1799-1819, The USS Constitution Museum, Boston: 1, 85.

49 Both day books are written in the handwriting of William C. Hunneman, as compared to his signature and will. One exception is the entries from September 17 to October 6, 1817 and October 10 to December 24, 1817 in Book One. These appear to be in another hand. Interestingly, this period coincides with the beginning of the apprenticeships of Samuel and William Hunneman, Jr. and Jonas Fillebrown. (John Champney Hunneman, Manuscript Notes, c. 1906, Typescript provided by J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine).

50 William Cooper Hunneman, Manuscript Day Book (831.1) 1793-1821, The USS Constitution Museum, Boston: 1/20/1816. This day book is unpaginated. My citations, therefore, will refer to the date of the entry, abbreviated numerically by month/day/year.

51 Hunneman, Day Book, 1793-1821: 10/25/1815.

52 Hunneman, Day Book, 1793-1821: 5/12/1821.

53 The term “entries,” when counted, refers to an item or number of items entered in a single line, usually with a price given. It does not refer to a group of different items which appear in the day books together under a single customer name and date. For example, if on a single day Hunneman sold two tea kettles and one pair of andirons, this would be counted as two entries, one for tea kettles and one for andirons. If the number of items are being counted, however, this would count, as expected, for two

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. tea kettles and one pair of andirons. See the Abstract for a fuller explanation of the database used to analyze the day books.

54 Estimated income from the sale of bells was arrived at by using averages for the prices of different types of bells.

55 The blacksmith “Bailey” may be Harvey Bailey, listed inThe Boston Directory (Boston: Edward Cotton, 1818): 33.

56 Edward R. Tufts, Hunneman’s Amazing Fire Engines: Paul Revere's Apprentice Changed Firefighting in Colonial America (New Albany, Ind.: Fire Buff House Publishing, 1995): 73-119. The original shipping list is owned by J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine.

57 The Boston Directory (Boston: Edward Cotton, 1805): 37.

58 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 163.

59 S. T. Snow, "Fifty Years with the Revere Copper Co.: A Paper Read at the Stockholders’ Meeting Held on Monday 24 March 1890 by Its Treasurer, S. T. Snow," (Boston: Revere Copper Co., 1891): 7.

60 Collamer M. Abbott, "Vermont's Pioneer Copper Plant," The New England Galaxy 6, no. 2 (FaH 1964): 33.

61 William Cooper Hunneman, Manuscript Day Book (831.2) 1799-1819, The USS Constitution Museum, Boston: 22.

62 Maxwell Whiteman, Copper for America: The Hendricks Family and a National Industry, 1755-1939 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1971): 156.

63 Whiteman, Copper for America: 156.

64 Hunneman Day Book, 1793-1821: 12/25/1820.

65 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 1.

66 Donald L. Fennimore, "Copper in Early America," Antiques 147, no. 2 (February 1995): 292.

67 Hunneman Day Book, 1793-1821: 2/4/1819, and Hunneman Day Book, 1799-1819: [237].

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 The Boston Directory (Boston: Edward Cotton, 1809): 28.

69 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 194, andThe Boston Directory (Boston: Edward Cotton, 1813): 195.

70 Hunneman, Day Book, 1793-1821: 8/17/1820.

71 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 127.

72 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 127.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 3

HUNNEMAN’S BUSINESS OPERATION

William C. Hunneman was in business for over fifty years, and his

company continued on after his retirement and death. His success was due in part to

his versatility in producing everything from household goods and hardware to

industrial necessities and patent pumps. No matter how able a craftsman he was,

Hunneman could not have succeeded without good business skills as well.

One means of gaining more customers was through advertising.

Hunneman was regularly listed in Boston city directories as noted in the introduction.

Furthermore, he had advertised at least once during his partnership with Martin Gay.

Hunneman recorded £0.7.6 “Cash p[ai]d for Advertising” on October 20, 1800 as part

of a long list of debits of Martin Gay.73 Donald Fennimore quotes an advertisement

from The Democrat stating that Hunneman had “a Large assortment of Copper Tea

Kettles” available.74 An advertisement in the Independent Chronicle on January 6,

1812, stated that Hunneman kept “on hand a general assortment of Copper and Brass

articles, commonly wanted for house, ship or mechanical uses.”75

The Hunneman trade cards that survive all refer to the production of fire

engines. In the Charlestown Independent Chronicle for May 12, 1802, "William C.

Hunneman, Begs leave to inform the public, that he has purchased the Right of making

and vending the new-invented PATENT FIRE-ENGINE; which ... claims the first

place in point of utility, in extinguishing Fires."76 W. C. Hunneman & Co. and

Hunneman & Co. both had trade cards mentioning only that they were "Manufacturers

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of Fire Engines and Apparatus," though in 1842 W. C. Hunneman & Co. retained bills

which identified them as "Manufacturers in copper, brass and iron.”77

Hunneman’s account books attest to the fact that he took advantage of

many different types of networks among customers and fellow craftsmen in order to

expand and maintain the breadth of his business. The entries in the surviving shop

accounts of Gay & Hunneman amount to $14,799.30 in cash paid to the shop, and

$9,327.13 in cash paid by the shop. They include the names of 129 customers, 4

ships, and 1 brig. In addition, there is one entry for the purchase of a pattern for cogs,

an ambiguous entry for “theatre,” and one entry each for wire, taxes, and a bill, plus

two items for “2 boys 1/2 day,” which probably refers to shop apprentices. Of the

individuals and vessels listed in the accounts, approximately forty also appear in

Hunneman’s own day book entries after 1801. These include the naval vessels USS

Boston, USS Congress, USS Constitution; the United States government and the Town

of Boston; as well as individuals such as Abraham Bazin, William Callendar, Richard

B. Hewes, Samuel Hewes, John Odin, Ebenezer Parsons, Gorham Parsons, and

William Parsons. All of those customers carried on significant business with

Hunneman after the dissolution of Gay & Hunneman. Interestingly, J. Waterman, the

individual with the most entries in the Gay & Hunneman accounts (he is listed 117

times while most names occur one to three times) does not appear at all in

Hunneman’s own records.

One name which appears in Hunneman’s accounts but surprisingly not in

these Gay & Hunneman shop accounts is that of James Davis, Sr. According to a

history published by the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Davis rented a shop on

Union Street in Boston in 1800. That same history states that in 1792 when Gay

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. returned to Boston, he began to do business “either as employer or associate, with

young Mr. Davis.”78 Later, Davis bought Gay’s business.79 Davis’s son, James

Davis, Jr., joined the business and in 1828 they incorporated into the Revere Copper

Company, along with fellow charter members Joseph Warren Revere, and Frederick

Walker Lincoln.

Two customers of Gay & Hunneman, Benjamin Haggar and Robert B.

Hewes, continued to do business with Hunneman until early in 1802 and 1803,

respectively. Whether they also continued their patronage of Martin Gay is unknown.

Furthermore, Gay’s son Ebenezer, and son-in-law Isaac Winslow both appear in

Hunneman’s business records.80 John Richardson, Nathaniel Alley, Jr., and James

Davis, mentioned above, who were all witnesses to Martin Gay’s will and/or post

mortem inventory also appear in Hunneman’s accounts.81 Gay’s nephew by marriage,

Christopher Gore, also appears in Hunneman’s day books.

Hunneman’s account books contain evidence of several individuals who

did production work for him. Some of these people were paid by the day, others were

paid for the goods they produced. In most cases it is difficult to discern whether any

were considered “employees,” apprentices, or journeymen. Individuals such as John

Bickford and Samuel Drew, who are listed in contemporary city directories as brass

founders, exchanged work and products with Hunneman to supplement their own

businesses, or as part of a reciprocal arrangement to deal with large orders in periods

of heavy demand. From January 1805 to May 1807, John Bickford was credited in

sixty-eight entries for 101 days of work in addition to “casting mettle,” and other

“jobs.” The work is reckoned in days, usually five at a time. He earned approximately

$1.50 per day. The dollar value of Bickford’s work is often not recorded, though the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. number of days is always noted. The casting work is usually entered as “casting

mettle” along with the weight of the metalwork done, and sometimes the price. That

Bickford was being paid for cast products and not simply raw metal is indicated by

several entries such as “cast[in]g . . . ship work,” “casting . . . bells,” and “cast[in]g

work this week.”82 During this same period, debit entries for Bickford were primarily

for “cash.” Some of these entries include indications that the money was paid by

Hunneman to a third party on behalf of Bickford, such as “[cash] p[ai]d John

Ingalls.”83 Most, however, are simple cash entries with no other information. All the

entries, both credits and debits, for Bickford, are marked as settled, not paid.

Therefore, it seems likely that most of these cash entries indicate the payment for

Bickford’s casting work recorded by the credits in work and casting.

Samuel Drew’s dealings with Hunneman indicate a different type of

working relationship. Most of Drew’s entries in Hunneman’s account books are

debits, between 1801 and 1806, for finished or partially finished goods such as andiron

horses, candlesticks, black lead pots, shovel parts, tea kettles, tongs and shovels.

Andiron work and raw materials including borax, copper, solder, spelter, and wire,

were also noted. Drew’s credit entries are few, and include a small amount of old

copper and other metal, “sundrys,” and account balances and bills. It appears that

Drew primarily looked to Hunneman for raw materials and occasionally the parts or

finished items demanded most often in their trade. The eight entries indicating that

Hunneman did andiron work for Drew do not seem to indicate that Hunneman was in

nearly the same type of “employee” position with Drew as Bickford was with

Hunneman.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. James Webber did eighty-eight and one half days of work for Hunneman

in 1805. Thomas Killick was credited with eighty-four and one half days of work in

1819 and 1820. Several other individuals were also credited with a few days of work

for Hunneman. Hunneman in turn recorded work and casting done for others. Samuel

Bradley was indebted to Hunneman for quite a lot of iron work and finishing work for

brass kettles between 1801 and 1810. Bradley’s occupation is listed in the Boston city

directory as hardware.84 It appears from his dealings with Hunneman that he was a

brass founder, perhaps specializing in hardware and enlisting Hunneman’s aid in

finishing larger pieces such as kettles.

Foremost among those for whom Hunneman regularly did casting work

were Roxbury clock makers William Cummens, Jr., Simon Willard, Aaron Willard,

and Aaron Willard, Jr. Hunneman recorded debits in the name of “Wm Cummings” or

“Cummins” between November 1817 and March 1821. These entries are for brass,

brasswork, circles and side ornaments, clockwork, lead, timepiece work, wheels, and

wire. The circles and side ornaments probably refer to the brass circles around the

faces and brass scrolls ornamenting the sides of banjo clocks, popular at this time.

The wheels are most likely clock gear wheels, while clock and timepiece work may

refer to the actual works of these instruments, or to work done on other parts of them.

Hunneman contributed more than $255.55 worth of castings and work (or works) to

Cummens’ clocks and timepieces during this period.

Hunneman’s work for the Willards was even more extensive. Between

September 1815 and November 1821, Hunneman debited Aaron Willard and Aaron

Willard, Jr. for brass, cast brasswork, clockwork, and timepiece work, as well as old

and new copper, a glue pot, and some iron. The clock and timepiece work alone

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. amounted to over $179.28. Meanwhile, Simon Willard, Jr. was recorded as debtor,

between May 1816 and November 1821 for sheet copper and brass, brasswork, cast

brasswork, circles and side ornaments, clock plates, clockwork, two sets of large brass

clockworks, copper, iron, sand, timepiece work, and wheels amounting to over

$245.31. Unfortunately, this number is a less accurate indication of the amount of

work Hunneman did, since many more of the entries lack dollar amounts. Between

1817 and 1819, Hunneman also did some clockwork for Elnathan Taber, who

apprenticed with Simon Willard.85 Furthermore, William Fisk, a cabinetmaker who

made clock cases for the Willards, appears as a customer of Hunneman between 1815

and 1821.

The connections among these craftsmen, and their business relationship

with Hunneman is significant. Such networks of craftsmen were vital to the

continuation of a prosperous business. Relationships among fellow brass founders and

coppersmiths helped to address the difficulties of procuring raw materials in early

America, as well as helping to meet demands of busy periods of production. Long

standing business between a brass founder such as Hunneman and specialized

craftsmen such as the Roxbury clock makers gave Hunneman a still broader base in

the market for brass goods. An association with such a successful family of craftsmen

as the Willards would have provided Hunneman with a steady source of work.

Hunneman’s connection with the Willards was not happenstance.

Hunneman, the Willards, and even Cummens, Fisk, and Taber all attended the same

church, the First Church in Roxbury.86 Of the 835 different individuals or

partnerships included in Hunneman’s account books, over 130 were also connected

with the First Church in Roxbury. Included in this number are some of Hunneman's

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. more important customers including Aaron Davis, Charles Davis, James Davis, Eleb

Faxon, John H. Green and Elijah Vose, Jr., and Joseph T. Wood.87

Aaron and Charles Davis are not listed in Boston city directories probably

because they lived in Roxbury. Judging from their extensive and somewhat eclectic

business with Hunneman, they probably operated a distillery between 1809 and 1821.

Charles Davis and Hunneman were both owners of horse sheds at the First Church of

Roxbury built for parishioners living "at a distance".88

James Davis, mentioned earlier as an associate of Martin Gay, was a brass

founder in Boston and appears frequently in Hunneman’s account books from 1801 to

1812. He is credited for andirons as mentioned above, as well as cogs, copper, rivets,

screws, and sundries. Hunneman sold him a house bell, as well as many items vital to

the brass founding business. As will be noted in Chapter Four, Davis purchased some

patterns from Hunneman in 1801. He also received coarse brass, old brass and copper,

andiron metal, coarse metal, copper nails, black lead pots, solder, and spelter from

Hunneman over the following years.

Eleb Faxon, an edge-tool maker, while not as frequent a customer as the

Davises, also received raw materials from Hunneman, including borax and several

pigs of copper.89 He supplied Hunneman with some old copper and each sold to the

other copper bolts and spikes.

John H. Green and Elijah Vose, Jr. were in partnership together in the

hardware business and were steady customers of Hunneman from 1803 to 1816.90

They purchased eleven pairs of andirons, 3,100 bells, two glue kettles, and two copper

kettles from Hunneman during this time. Hunneman and Vose both contributed to a

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. subscription to purchase an organ for the First Church in Roxbury, along with ninety-

three others, almost thirty of whom also appear in Hunneman's account books.91

Joseph T. Wood appears in Hunneman's account books from December

1805 to December 1814. He is credited for bolts, spikes, and cash, while purchasing a

copper boiler, over seven hundred composition bolts, a cabin stove, over six hundred

cogs, thirty-four sheets of copper, pintles and braces, composition and copper spikes,

windlass boxes, and other items, in addition to cash Hunneman paid for having

patterns made. From these examples and the sheer number of his customers associated

with the First Church of Roxbury, it is clear that this association was vital to

Hunneman's business success.92 Hunneman purchased his brother-in-law Samuel's

pew at the church in 1821, twenty-four years after his marriage to Hannah Hewes.93

Hannah's brother Samuel Hewes moved to Roxbury in 1816, the same

year as Hunneman moved there from Boston.94 He appears in Hunneman's account

books from that time until 1821. Hewes had been captain of the Boston Fusileers, and

became fireward, selectman, and eventually deputy to the General Court while in

Roxbury. By profession he was a dry goods merchant.95 Hewes purchased a set of

large brass andirons for thirty-five dollars, two pair of brass candlesticks, carpet rods,

copper for his gutter pipes, flour, funnels, glue, gutter pipes, joists, a new copper

kettle, sheet lead, nails, paint, copper pipes, a thermometer, iron and brass wire, and

other items totaling over four hundred dollars. He also borrowed $450 in 1821, and

several entries indicate that Hunneman may have bought items for Hewes from

Hunneman's other customers, including William P. & Rufus Rice, Peter B. Bazin,

George Dommett, and Ebenezer Fox 96

with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Other members of the Hewes family also did business with Hunneman.

Among them were Daniel Hewes, a merchant and cousin of Hannah Hewes, who

bought an eight dollar brass kettle from Hunneman in 1806.97 Hannah's brother

Richard Brooke Hewes was in the hardware business. He became a Custom House

official and later secretary to the Governor of Massachusetts.98 In 1801 he bought two

pairs of andirons, a brass kettle, and a tea kettle from Hunneman. He also had

Hunneman finish four small kettles, in the same year.

While these Hewes family members do not seem to have been important

customers of Hunneman, Hannah's younger brother Robert Hewes proved a good

connection. Robert had been a customer of Gay & Hunneman even before

Hunneman's surviving account books begin. In October 1801 a debit was entered "for

my half of Ballance of Gay & Hunneman’s Act— [sic] Sett'd May 1, 1800."99 Robert

was a hardware merchant like his brother, but did a considerable amount of business

with Hunneman. This included sixty-one pairs of andirons, three copper basins, one

gross of sleigh bells, a copper boiler, cod-lead, thirty-one pairs of chimney hooks, a

coal scoop, a coffee pot, thirty-three copper kettles, six tea kettles, several tongs and

shovels, and twelve copper wash basins. Hunneman also billed him for mending and

finishing work. Robert Hewes’ debts to Hunneman totaled over $1,670, a very

significant amount of business. Unfortunately for Hunneman, Hewes moved in 1812

or 1813 to Piqua, Ohio.100 Though Hunneman did business in Ohio, it does not appear

that Hewes was either a customer or an agent for any of it. Nonetheless, Hunneman’s

business with Robert and Samuel Hewes illustrate the benefits of family connections

to the craftsman.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hunneman's market was not confined to customers with whom he had

immediate contact. While the majority of his customers lived in Boston or the

surrounding towns, Hunneman’s account books evidence the fact that geographically,

his market was quite broad. Within the state of Massachusetts, Hunneman’s customers

lived everywhere from Newbury on the New Hampshire border, Marblehead on the

North Shore, Hingham on the South Shore, as far east as Brewster and Nantucket, and

west to Northampton.

The farther reaches of his market were primarily attained through his

business in fire engines. Hunneman's shipping list and day books include fire engines

and engine equipment sent to Brunswick, Topsham, Eastport, Portland, and Gardiner,

Maine; Montpelier and Windsor, Vermont; Amherst, Concord, and Portsmouth, New

Hampshire; Seakonnet and Pawtucket, Rhode Island; West Point Military Academy in

New York; Washington D.C.; Petersburg, Virginia; Wilmington, North Carolina;

Augusta and Savannah, Georgia; and Natchez, Mississippi.101

A total of 26 Hunneman fire engines were sold to Ohio companies and

communities according to the original packing list, though only one of these was

purchased early enough to be listed in Hunneman's surviving account books.102 John

S. Gano of Cincinnati, Ohio was charged on August 6, 1816 for one large sized patent

fire engine, fifty feet of leather hose, two pair brass screws, three pair fire buckets,

painting, lettering, and numbering the fire buckets, two axes and fixing them to the

engine, drag rope handles and the attaching of these to the engine, two wrenches, plus

packing and a box.103 According to Hunneman’s shipping list, this was his forty-third

engine, delivered on July 12, 1816. It was paid for, “by a draft on W[illia]m W. Todd

of the Citty of new York” and cash received of Thomas Basson.104

with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission Hunneman’s involvement in fire engine manufacture was clearly an

important part of his success as a businessman. A surviving “Ledger” of William

Hunneman deals almost entirely with fire engine manufacture and sales from June

1794 through December 1807.105 The earliest date may refer to the beginnings of

Hunneman’s fire engine production or his first dealings with Perkins and Pollock.

Individual entries, however, begin only in 1805. The first page is dedicated to an

explanation of the fire engine business up to that point, and specifies that the “Ledger”

is actually an “Account of Cash Receiv’d & Paid on Account of Engines beginning at

No 6 all the former ones are sold & Settd for in the following manner.”106

The remainder of the “Ledger” appears to be entirely devoted to the

business of making and selling fire engines. It also includes important evidence of

some of Hunneman’s suppliers and workers for his fire engine manufactory, including

E. Leavett and Mr. Gardner who each supplied wheels, Mr. Jenks, E. Faxon, Mr.

Childs, James Stephenson who did iron work, the journeyman Stephen Patey [or

Pattee], Mr. Breed who supplied wood planks, Mr. Underwood who did painting, Mr.

Howard who supplied oak timber, Mr. Hall, Mr. Gill who provided hose, and Mr.

Edward Gray. Some of the men whose business with Hunneman is not identified may

have been responsible for producing the many air vessels, pipes, strainers, forcers,

leather and straps, and valve chests which are recorded as debits to Hunneman’s

shop.107

According to the “Ledger” the first fire engine, “Call.d the Experiment

[was] made by Mess.rs Perkins & Pollock [and] sold to the Town of Bath.” The next

four engines, built by Hunneman, were sold to Bath, Nantucket, and Newbury. The

shipping list of Hunneman engines does not include dates for the first five engines,

permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. though Tufts indicates that “Experiment” was made in 1792, the next two in 1802, and

the remaining two engines in 1803, and 1804.108 The dates for the second and third

engines on the list are verified by matching debits for fire engine sales in Hunneman’s

account books. The second engine, indicated in the shipping list only as sold to

Boston, Massachusetts, was the “patent engine . . . No. 13” sold to the Town of Boston

for five hundred dollars on October 16, 1802.109 The third engine on the shipping list,

sold to Nantucket, Massachusetts, was the “patent fire engine ... Call’d the Northern

Friend” which was sold to the Town of Nantucket for five hundred dollars on March

26, 1803.110

A starting date of 1802 for Hunneman’s Ere engine production

corresponds with Jacob Perkins’ first patent for pumps in July 1801.111 The 1801

patent was for an improvement which enclosed the pump’s working barrel in the air

vessel. This required less room and a single, rather than double, pump which forced

out an equal or greater amount of water as the double pump in other contemporary fire

engines.112 A biography of Jacob Perkins states that “these pumps did not come into

use readily ... because of their more complex construction which involved machine

work beyond the average skill of those days.”113 Assuming that this was the type of

pump which Hunneman was producing from 1802 to 1812, his machine skills were

clearly superior to his contemporaries since he evidently produced between twenty-

four and twenty-five single pump engines during that time.114

In fact, Hunneman had already gained considerable experience with pump

production by making various other kinds of pumps by 1801, even before July when

Perkins received his patent.115 He sold seven copper hand pumps in 1801. The

following year four pumps were sold to USS Constitution in June and July.116 A total

with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of forty-nine hand pumps worth $349 are listed in Hunneman’s day books. There are

also entries for sixteen other pumps ranging in price from $6.00 to $191.25, and for

sixty pump chambers sold between 1801 and 1815. The earliest of these pump

chambers, which may have been used for fire engines or other types of pumps, was

sold in August 1801.117

Hunneman’s day books indicate that he also began selling fire engine parts

and equipment in 1802. The earliest such items were an engine mb entered as a debit

on February 13, 1802, and “engine channells” sold two days later to the Town of

Roxbury, just over a month before the first recorded sale of a full fire engine.118

In January 1805, Hunneman paid Allan Pollock one hundred dollars

“profit” and seventy-five dollars “as part of the purchase money for one half the

patent” for each of these first four engines.119 Later in January, Hunneman recorded a

payment of $450 to Allan Pollock, “being in part payment by Agreement for the whole

Patent.”120 Other payments to Pollock, without accompanying explanation, appear in

late January for forty-five dollars and in February for one-hundred and fifty dollars.121

In April 1807 there is a last entry “To Cash in full paid allan Pollock $824.52.”122

Altogether, these payments total $2,134.52. It is possible that the last three entries

were not payments for the fire engine patent, since an exact purpose is not stated.

Hunneman’s day books record only one patent payment to Pollock. On April 17, 1807

Pollock received three hundred dollars, “being in full all his right & Title to the patent

Fire Engines.”123

By 1807, Hunneman had apparently purchased all of Pollock’s portion of

the fire engine patent. Perhaps the most interesting observation gained from the

records is that Pollock was involved at all at this early date. Previous histories of both

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hunneman and Perkins have mentioned Pollock’s partnership with Perkins only in the

context of the 1812 fire engine patent. It is clear from Hunneman's extant accounts,

however, that Pollock was involved by the 1790s, and probably provided venture

capital for the building of the “Experiment” and possibly for the development of the

1801 patented pump. As for Perkins’ portion of Hunneman’s fire engine sales, no

records of this survive among Hunneman’s accounts. In 1802, however, Hunneman

charged Perkins $2.25 for “publishing Pumps in 2 Papers 1 Month ea[ch].”124

On March 6, 1812 Hunneman charged Perkins for thirty dollars “p[ai]d

into the Secretary of States office for Engine Patent.”125 In August of that year,

Perkins and Pollock were awarded their joint patent for the improvement of fire

engines (Figure 1). The improvements spelled out in the patent are very similar to

those claimed in an advertisement run in the Charlestown Independent Chronicle on

August 20, 1810 in which Hunneman “Informs the public, that he is the only

proprietor of the new invented PATENT FIRE ENGINE, invented by Mr Jacob

Perkins, and Mr Allan Pollock.”126 This advertisement may refer to a patent which

has been lost, but more likely stakes its claims on the patent granted in 1812.

Possibly Perkins and Pollock had already filed a request for the patent and were

waiting for its official receipt. In any case, after either 1810 or 1812, Hunneman

produced his fire engines according to this new patent. In 1813, Perkins acquired

several other patents, including one for pumps and the construction of valves and one

for fire engines.127 Hunneman undoubtedly applied these new inventions and

improvements to the pumps and fire engines produced in his shop.

Judging from the recollections of Hunneman’s grandson, John Champney

Hunneman (1829-1907), the manufacture of fire engines by this time took place in a

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. complex of shops in Roxbury. Hunneman moved his family to Roxbury around 1808,

though he kept his retail shop on Union Street in Boston.128 Early on, the complex

consisted of the main shop plus blacksmith’s and carpenter’s shops.129 The complex

expanded many times and various shops took on different uses when the sons of

William C. Hunneman entered the business of coppersmithing, brass founding, and

eventually fire engine manufacture as described in Chapter One.130 By 1854, just two

years before Hunneman’s death and eight years after his retirement, the complex

included an office, molding shop, carpenter’s shop, blacksmith’s shop with six forges,

brasswork shop, paint shop, and machine shop.131 While Hunneman passed on all the

skills of his trade to his sons, the manufacture of fire engines had become the single

most important for the family business.

The exact beginnings of the business relationship between William

Hunneman and Allan Pollock are as yet uncertain, but there are particular connections

between them which require examination. As mentioned above, Pollock was the joint

assignee of the 1812 patent for fire engines taken out by Jacob Perkins. Pollock is

listed in city directories as the owner of a muslin warehouse.132 His interest in natural

philosophy, which included the study and application of the natural sciences, is

indicated by his founding subscription to the Society for the Study of Natural

Philosophy in Boston on March 28, 1806.133 Apparently, however, Pollock’s primary

role in his partnership with Perkins was to help bankroll the inventor in return for a

portion of the patent and its subsequent sale or royalties. In any case, Jacob Perkins’

entries in Hunneman’s day books indicate purchases related to their joint venture in

fire engine production along with a very few items which might be considered

personal purchases. Allan Pollock’s purchases, on the other hand, demonstrate that his

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. dealings with Hunneman were quite different. Unfinished brass and copper, dry and

liquid measures, and scales and weights account for the largest number of Pollock’s

purchases. He probably had expanded his mercantile activities from muslins to

include items such as these. The lack of any purchases relating to fire engines or their

equipment supports the notion that Pollock’s interest in the fire engine business was

primarily a financial one.

Pollock had other business involvement, however, which related to

Hunneman’s work. In 1822, Pollock was an Agent for the Boston Manufacturing

Company134 which began in Waltham, Massachusetts.135 How long before this date

Pollock had been associated with the mills is unfortunately not known.136 He may

have become involved when Jacob Perkins sold a pump patent to the company’s

founder, Francis C. Lowell, in 1815.137 Perhaps the connection was made first

through Pollock’s business in the textile trade. In any case, Pollock, Perkins, and

Hunneman were all connected with the cotton mills of Massachusetts, perhaps through

their business with one another. Hunneman did a fair amount of business, especially

in the sale of fire engines, with New England cotton and woolen mills. His earliest

recorded sale to a mill or manufactory was to the Boston Manufacturing Company in

February 1810, the year of its founding. It is also possible, therefore, that Hunneman

originated the contact with the mills. Regardless, it seems likely that the connections

which each of the three men had with the mills strengthened and encouraged the

business of all three.

Hunneman’s day books record the sale of brass work, cylinders, steam

cylinders, copper circles, clappers, engine pipes, pipe flanges, kettles, pans, pipes, and

brass wheels to five Massachusetts manufacturing companies between 1810 and 1821.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In addition to the one “new patent fire engine with 20 feet Suction Hose” sold along

with thirty-one feet of engine hose and one pair of engine screws to the Lancaster

Manufacturing Company in 1821, Hunneman’s shipping list of fire engines indicates

that at least twenty-five other fire engines were sold to textile mills (and possibly two

or three other manufactories) between 1814 and 1840. After 1840, Hunneman appears

to have ceased selling fire engines to mills.138

Of these twenty-five engines, Hunneman sold one in 1814, one in 1816,

four in 1821, five in 1822, three in 1823, six in 1824, and one each in 1825, 1826,

1827, 1820, 1836, and 1840, to mills in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and

Rhode Island. Thus the peak of these fire engine sales to mills was from 1821-24,

coinciding with the time when Pollock is known to have been employed by the Boston

Manufacturing Company.

The Boston Manufacturing Company is not, however, listed as the owner

of a Hunneman engine in the shipping list. It may nevertheless have had one, as sales

of engines were recorded to “Waltham, Massachusetts Cotton Mill” in November,

1816. Excluding fire engines, Hunneman’s day books show that the Boston

Manufacturing Company bought more than other textile mills—more than half the

total number of items amounting to approximately sixty-seven percent of the gross

income of about $1,395.46.

It is clear that Hunneman's expansion from traditional copper and brass

production into fire engine manufacture significantly expanded his market

geographically. In part this reflects the low demand for fire engines, generally one or

two per community. This necessitated a widespread search for customers. In

successful cases, this geographical reach extended to the sale of more traditional

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. manufactures as well. Hunneman’s customers for those products extended from

southern New Hampshire to Rhode Island.

There is other evidence of the wide extent of Hunneman’s business

operation. For example, Isaiah Crocker of Bath, Maine bought bells and andirons

from Hunneman139 and Hunneman sent "an Adventure" to Charleston, South Carolina

with S. Dexter in 1817.140 This consignment consisted of four sets of brass andirons,

a copper coffee pot, a copper hand pump, a three gallon measure, two sets of

measures, a copper tea boiler, three copper tea kettles, and two copper wash basins,

totaling $156.50.141

Hunneman's account books include an important entry on August 10, 1818

for "James Shute & Co (of Cincinnati Ohio)", debtor for a large order of fourteen sets

brass andirons, twelve pair brass candlesticks, one set copper measures, six copper tea

kettles, and a box for packing. Confusingly, a note appears at the end of this entry that

the goods were ”Consign[e]d to George & John Rich at Baltimore."142

Hunneman did work for the ships which were built and provisioned in

Boston and neighboring Charlestown. His surviving day books record purchases by

twenty-five individuals or groups of individuals for thirty-four different vessels, as

well as purchases charged directly to seventeen vessels of the United States Navy. In

addition, entries for the United States Military Department, the United States Navy

Department, the United States Navy at Charlestown, and the United States of America

(almost all noted as “for Lieutenant Haradan), also record purchases made for naval

vessels or the naval shipyard itself. The work which Hunneman did for the navy and

its fleet was considerable, amounting to over $20,819.00 in Navy debits and

$12,023.54 credits recorded. In comparison, Hunneman recorded only approximately

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. seven hundred dollars in debits and thirty-five dollars in credits to vessels not

identified as belonging to the Navy. For these vessels Hunneman provided a cabin

stove, cogs, funnels, a hand pump, nails, pintles and braces, pump chambers, screws

and nuts, stove funnels, and windlass boxes. He also supplied materials such as

copper, composition metal, iron, and lead. Among the many goods and materials sold

to naval vessels, those which provided the greatest amount in sales were fire engines,

nails, spikes, copper hoops, and lightning protection.

As with Hunneman’s non-naval sales, fire engines were an important part

of his business with the navy. In fact, they were his highest grossing single item, and

probably one of the reasons for his strong business ties with the navy. The eight fire

engines sold to ships and the navy yard cost $4,325. Five of these included hoses,

three included wrenches, and one was sold with a drag rope. All of the additional

equipment required to operate and maintain the fire engines increased Hunneman’s

sales enormously. Hunneman sold $10.00 worth of axes and wrenches, $717.67 worth

of hoses and screws, $6.00 worth of copper leading pipes, not to mention repairs and

mending to fire engines and other pumps. Other pumps, presumably bilge pumps in

the context of shipboard use, also accounted for a significant proportion of

Hunneman’s sales. These included twenty-one copper hand pumps for $166.00, two

new copper pumps, one of which was sold for $170.33, two metallic pumps for

$40.00, plus the hire of a copper pump for $25.00, and over $900.00 worth of pump

parts and pump repairs.

Spikes and nails proved high-selling items, in both number and gross

income, as well. The day books record one “bbl” [barrel?] composition sheathing

nails;143 over 111,124 copper nails sold for more than $676.56; over 21,975 large

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. copper nails for more than $ 177.57; over 24, (XX) smaller copper nails at $ 123.34; and

other nails amounting to $570.11. Hunneman also sold more than nine thousand

spikes for $1,386.38. A large number of copper hoops were sold to the navy. These

were most likely used by coopers both on shore and aboard ship.

Marine demands for metal fittings and sheathing were a vital part of

Boston’s base metals trade. For example, Paul Revere’s furnace and rolling mills at

Canton, Massachusetts were established in large part to meet the need for sheet copper

to sheath wooden vessels being built in America. He also produced other ship fittings.

A trade card from the turn of the nineteenth century advertised, “Cast Bells and Brass

Cannon of all Sizes, and all kinds of Composition Work. Manufacture Sheets, Bolts,

Spikes, Nails, &c. from Malleable Copper and Cold Rolled .. .”144 Revere actually

invented a “method of melting Copper, making it Malable, and drawing it into Bolts,

Spikes &c for Ship building”145 which he claimed were stronger for shipbuilding than

more brittle cast spikes and bolts.146 Hunneman does not indicate the method of

manufacture for his nails or spikes. The nails are primarily copper with some

composition ones, while the spikes are almost all composition with some copper ones.

With the exception of ordinance, for which Hunneman supplied hardware and other

secondary items but which he did not manufacture himself, Revere’s products—brass

cogs, copper staples, cast brass pintles and braces, cast brass sheaves and boxes, bells,

cast copper rudder chains, brass pump chambers, etc.—were very similar to those sold

by Hunneman to the navy.147

Perhaps most interesting, however, is that he sold over one thousand

dollars worth of lightning rods, conductor chains, and spires to the navy. This

apparatus was probably attached to the masts of ships to protect them from lightning

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. strikes. Hunneman records such equipment in several combinations. The most

detailed description is of an iron lightning spire tipped with silver, copper pan & hook

and brass conductor 150 feet long, wt 28 tt [probably pounds].148 Most of the entries

only included a lightning conductor of either iron or brass, without the other

equipment.

The list of goods which Hunneman supplied to naval and merchant vessels

is very long. In addition to the six [including non-fire pumps] products which each

grossed over one thousand dollars in sales to the navy, Hunneman sold hundreds of

dollars worth of pillars, rails and stanchions; copper sheaves; gun ladles; cabin stoves;

rudder joints; gun caps; clasps; rudder chains; and screws; plus over $550 worth of

copper sheets. Other goods ranged from powder measures and hawsers to teaspoons

and a stewpan.

This trade connection between Hunneman and the navy, which began as

early as Gay & Hunneman’s work for the building of USS Constitution in 1793,

proved an important one for Hunneman. Whether or not it was also profitable is

impossible to tell. Paul Revere, for example, documented his love-hate relationship

with the United States government over the years. They were often his best or only

customers, and yet he found it difficult to collect payment or receive delivery of raw

materials.149 Nevertheless, the decision to build and arm a navy supplied Revere and

Hunneman with steady business throughout the late 1700s and early 1800s.150

Interestingly, Emay writes that “Most of the [more than twelve] merchants who

purchased goods in 1799 only settled their accounts by cash while those merchants,

ship captains, and naval agents with running accounts offered returned bolts or old

copper.”151 In fact, the reason it is difficult to know if Hunneman received timely

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. payment for his naval work is that almost all of these entries include a note of the

ledger number for the account, but not an indication of payment or settlement as is

more common among the rest of Hunneman’s customers. The few documented

payments, however, seem to be fairly prompt.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTES: CHAPTER 3

73 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 57. Unfortunately, Hunneman did not state the publications in which his advertisement appeared.

74 Donald L. Fennimore, Metalwork in Early America: Copper and Its Alloys from the Winterthur Collection (Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1996): 86.

75 Wood, David L., Review of Metalwork in Early America: Copper and Its Alloys from the Winterthur Collection by Donald L. Fennimore,American Furniture 1997, Luke Beckerdite, ed. ([Milwaukee, Wis.]: Chipstone Foundation; Hanover and London: Distributed by University Press of New England, 1997): 374.

76 Edward R. Tufts, Hunneman’s Amazing Fire Engines: Paul Revere's Apprentice Changed Firefighting in Colonial America (New Albany, Ind.: Fire Buff House Publishing, 1995): 13.

77 Tufts: 11; Hunneman & Co. Trade Card, Collection 9, Acc. no. 80x124.25, Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum and Library, Winterthur, Del.; and W. C. Hunneman & Co. Printed Bill, Collection 71, Acc. no. 66x101.5, Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, Henry Francis du Pont Wintherthur Museum and Library. Winterthur, Del.

78 Martin Gay, “Martin Gay. Three Letters Written by an American Loyalist and His Wife, 1775-1788, with Notes by Howard Wheelwright,”Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts 3 (1897): 398.

79 S. T. Snow, “Fifty Years with the Revere Copper Co.: A Paper Read at the Stockholders’ Meeting Held on Monday 24 March 1890 by Its Treasurer, S. T. Snow” (Boston: Revere Copper Co., 1891): 21.

80 William Cooper Hunneman, Manuscript Day Book (831.1) 1793-1821, The USS Constitution Museum, Boston. This day book is unpaginated. My citations, therefore, will refer to the date of the entry, abbreviated by month/day/year.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 Hunneman, Day Book, 1793-1821, and William Cooper Hunneman, Manuscript Day Book (831.2) 1799-1819, The USS Constitution Museum, Boston [James Davis only].

82 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 132, 137, 125.

83 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 142.

84The Boston Directory (Boston: Edward Cotton, 1809): 28.

85 John Ware Willard, A History o f Simon Willard, Inventor and Clockmaker (Boston: Printed by E. O. Cockayne, 1911): 106.

86 Walter Elliot Thwing, History o f the First Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1630-1904 (Boston: W. A. Butterfield, 1908): 202, 219-20, 229, 278, 285.

87 Thwing, History of the First Church.

88 Thwing,History o f the First Church: 358.

89The Boston Directory (Boston: Edward Cotton, 1816): 105.

90 The Boston Directory (Boston: Edward Cotton, 1818): 119.

91 Thwing, History o f the First Church: 343-4.

92 While it is likely that Hunneman’s association with the West Church, Boston, was also profitable to his business. I have not been able to find comparable records for this church in order to perform the same analysis of Hunneman's customers.

93 Thwing, History o f the First Church: 292.

94 Eben Putnam, ed. and chief comp.. Lieutenant Joshua Hewes: A New England Pioneer and Some of His Descendants, with Materials for a Genealogical History of Other Families o f the Name, and a Sketch o f Joseph Hewes the Signer([New York]: Privately printed [J. F. Tapley co.], 1913): 330.

95 Putnam, Lieutenant Joshua Hewes: 330.

96 Hunneman, Day Book, 1793-1821:11/5/1818, and Hunneman, Day Book, 1799- 1819: [232], 227.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 Putnam, Lieutenant Joshua Hewes: 353, and Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 117.

98 Putnam,Lieutenant Joshua Hewes: 351.

99 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 27.

100 Putnam, Lieutenant Joshua Hewes: 352.

101 Tufts, Hunneman’s Amazing Fire Engines: 75-9.

102 Tufts, Hunneman’s Amazing Fire Engines: 62.

103 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 224.

104 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 226, [236].

,05 William Cooper Hunneman, Manuscript Ledger, 1794-1807, Photostat copy of original provided by J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine: [1]. A handwritten title reads, “William Cooper Hunneman’s Ledger June 7th 1794.”

106 Hunneman, Ledger: [2].

107 The stated occupations of these men are extrapolated from the goods and services for which Hunneman credited them.

108 Tufts, Hunneman’s Amazing Fire Engines: 75.

109 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 62. The number 13 here refers to the engine’s number at the Boston fire company, and not Hunneman’s serial number.

110 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 70.

111 Greville Bathe and Dorothy Bathe, Jacob Perkins: His Inventions, His Times, and His Contemporaries (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1943): 200.

112 Donald J. Cannon, gen. ed.. Heritage o f Flames: The Illustrated History of Early American Firefighting (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1977): 229, and Bathe, Jacob Perkins: 26.

113 Bathe, Jacob Perkins: 26.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 114 These numbers are based on a combination and cross-checking of the shipping list and entries in Hunneman’s account books.

115 Bathe, Jacob Perkins'. 200.

116 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 50, 52, 54.

117 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 20.

118 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 37.

119 Hunneman, Ledger: [2-3].

120 Hunneman, Ledger: [3].

121 Hunneman, Ledger: [3].

122 Hunneman, Ledger: [11].

123 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 141.

124 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 47.

125 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 171.

126 Tufts, Hunneman’s Amazing Fire Engines: 13.

127 Bathe, Jacob Perkins: 200.

128 John Champney Hunneman, Manuscript Notes, c. 1906, Typescript provided by J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine: 2.

129 J. C. Hunneman, Manuscript Notes: 2.

130 J. C. Hunneman, Manuscript Notes:: 4, 5, 9.

131 Tufts, Hunneman’s Amazing Fire Engines: 18.

132 The Boston Directory (Boston: John West, 1803)1803: 100, and Bathe,Jacob Perkins: 36.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 133 Society for the Study of Natural Philosophy, Rules of the Society for the Study of Natural Philosophy in Boston, December 4, 1801, MS.L. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.

134 Autographed Document Signed Henry Smith and Allan Pollock, March 21, 1822, Acc. no. 45, Lowell National Historic Park, Lowell, Mass.

135 Gilchrist, David T., ed., The Growth o f the Seaport Cities, 1790-1825: Proceedings of a Conference Sponsored by the Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation, March 17- 19, 1966 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967): 98.

136 The business records of the Boston Manufacturing Company are held by Historical Collections, Baker Library, Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration, Boston, Massachusetts. A finding guide to the collection did not include Pollock’s name or any obvious reference to his work for the Company. I was not able to examine the business records themselves during the course of this thesis.

137 Bathe, Jacob Perkins: 54.

138 Tufts, Hunneman's Amazing Fire Engines: 75-131.

139 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 110.

140 Hunneman, Day Book, 1793-1821: 12/24/1817.

141 Hunneman, Day Book, 1793-1821: 12/24/1817.

142 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: [248].

143 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 12.

144 Quoted in Renee Lynn Emay, “The Revere Furnace, 1787-1800,” (master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1989): 1.

145 Quoted in Emay, “The Revere Furnace”: 40-41.

146 Emay, “The Revere Furnace”: 41.

147 Emay, “The Revere Furnace”: 43.

148 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 191.

149 Emay, ‘The Revere Furnace”: 29-35.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 150 Emay, “The Revere Furnace”: 53.

151 Emay, “The Revere Furnace”: 46.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 4

ANALYSIS OF SURVIVING PRODUCTS

The earliest known form made by Hunneman is a posnet cast of bell

metal, a product of his partnership with Martin Gay (Figure 2). Several of these

posnets still exist, all from the same mold. The top of the handle bears in raised letters

the mark, “GAY & HUNNEMAN” in a cartouche and, in recessed letters, “ 1794,”

surrounded by a vine-like recessed pattern of scrolls and dots (Figure 3). The posnet

itself is a very traditional form which was entirely out-moded by the mid-1800s.152

The half-round legs are a feature found on other Boston posnets at the turn of the

century, as is the shape of handle where it meets the body. This posnet also shows an

advancement in the technology of casting in the form of the bladed sprue (Figure 4).

Prior to the mid-1700s the sprue, or gate, through which the molten metal was poured

into the mold, was cylindrical. The new narrow gate was easier to break or file off

without damaging the cast object. Gay and Hunneman’s posnet also has the added

feature of a molded rim.

Three of Gay & Hunneman’s posnets are in existence, but one has been

altered by the removal of its legs. This was probably done to make the vessel

serviceable on a stovetop, but the posnet was originally of secondary quality. The

mark on the handle was a double impression in the mold, the names of Gay and

Hunneman off-set. The body itself is heavily pitted and the stump of the bladed sprue

is very irregular, all indicating a poor casting in addition to its hard and long use. It is

surprising that it has survived and not been melted down for the metal.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Posnets do not appear, at least by that name, in Hunneman’s day books.

Sales of seven skillets, an interchangeable term for the posnet form, are recorded.153

Five are noted to be bell metal, one brass with an iron frame, and one is not described.

Four of the skillets were made between 1801 and 1803 and might possibly have come

from the Gay & Hunneman mold, considering the continued interaction of the two

men during this period and the price of a new mold. The remaining three skillets were

made much later—in 1815, 1817, and 1821. Less surprising is the “old skillett” which

one Mrs. Smith sold to Hunneman for seventy-six cents in 1816, presumably as scrap

metal.154

A legless cooking pan form, the saucepan, was also produced by

Hunneman. While the term saucepan was sometimes used as a synonym for posnet or

skillet, Hunneman’s saucepans were all made of copper, not brass or bell metal. This

term as used in the day books, then, probably describes a fairly shallow, flat bottomed,

vertical sided pan with long handle. Three such pans survive marked on the bottoms,

“Hunneman & Co.” Two also bear the name “Boston” underneath the company name

(Figure 5). These survivals, as indicated by their marks, were probably made after

William C. Hunneman’s retirement in 1846 (Figure 6). Nevertheless the same form

was probably made under Hunneman’s tenure and recorded as “saucepans” in his

accounts. The three saucepans which survive are five and one half, seven, and nine

inches in diameter. All are constructed of sheet copper, with bottoms dovetailed in,

and wired rims. Each has a long handle with a hole at one end for hanging the pan,

and a club or heart-shaped end riveted three times to the side of the pan. The largest

and smallest of the three each has a spout formed into the rim ninety degrees from the

handle.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In contrast with saucepans. Copper kettles made up a large part of

Hunneman’s business. Over 200 tea kettles alone were entered into Hunneman’s day

books. Larger kettles, stills, and similar objects were even more important to his

business, but only one has survived (Figure 7).155 That kettle, which stands twenty-

two inches tall and is thirty and five-eighths inches in diameter, is copper with an iron

ring under the ram It was probably made to sit in a frame or other device, since the

bottom is rounded. It is constructed in the traditional manner for large objects, using

several sheets of copper for the sides and one for the bottom. These individual sheets

are riveted together. The rim of the kettle is flared out and bears a mark made up of

individual letter dies reading, “W. C. HUNNEMAN. & SON” (Figure 8). This mark

indicates that the kettle was probably made circa 1825-26 when William C. Hunneman

and his son Samuel Hewes Hunneman are listed under this name in the Boston city

directory.156 Unfortunately the day books do not extend far enough to suggest

possible owners or prices for the kettle. It is difficult without any such information to

venture a reason for the unique (at least among extant objects) mark on this kettle.

Possibly all large objects were marked in this larger fashion. Perhaps, as with the

measure, there were more specific reasons for choosing this mark. Maybe Hunneman

or his son wanted to acknowledge their new partnership with a mark including them

both, and either this is the only survivor of that period, or they soon reverted to the

faster, smaller “HUNNEMAN/ BOSTON” mark. A third possibility is that no single

strike die was cast for Hunneman & Son because they were soon joined by William

C., Jr. in 1827.

In contrast to the sole survival of an industrial kettle, at least seven tea

kettles marked by Hunneman still survive. This difference in survival rates is probably

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. due to several factors, including the value of the quantities of metal tied up in large

objects, the heavy use which industrial kettles suffered, and the continued use of

copper kettles long after industrial kettles and similar goods were replaced by stainless

steel and even plastic. Furthermore, tea kettles have both a sentimental value and a

practical value to many collectors not possessed by larger items.

With one exception, the tea kettles which do survive are all of the same

traditional form (Figure 9). They have steep, almost vertical sides, sharp shoulders

and fairly flat, domed lids. Six out of seven have small, brass, mushroom-shaped

finials. The tea kettle at Winterthur has a more ornate, urn finial, which may be a later

replacement. The edge of the opening for the lid is a wired rim. The bodies are made

of a single piece of sheet copper joined with a vertical dovetail joint, usually up the

side opposite the spout (Figure 10). The bottoms of the kettles are also single pieces

dovetailed to the side. The spouts have straight seams running along the top, and are

attached through the body to the inside by splaying out the edge and soldering it to the

body. The spouts are gooseneck form, with notched pouring ends. The kettles all

have bail handles in an elliptical form with vertical ends attached to brackets on the

shoulder. The brackets have squared-off comers at the bottom where they are riveted

to the kettle body and a rounded extension to which the handle is riveted (Figure 10).

The kettles vary in size from six and a half inches to twelve and a half inches tall. The

kettles are marked on the tops of their handles. The mark is made up of two strikes,

one which reads “HUNNEMAN” in a semi-circle, and one which reads “BOSTON”

straight across, below Hunneman’s name (Figure ll).157 Three of the kettles bear a

number struck in the middle of Hunneman’s mark as with his andirons. These

numbers, three, four, and seven, represent the volume of the kettles in quarts.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The one kettle which represents an earlier, late-eighteenth-century style is

constructed in the same manner, but is shaped differently (Figure 12). It has a smaller

bottom, rounded sides and a more domed lid. The mark is also different, being made

up of the curved “HUNNEMAN” strike without the accompanying “BOSTON”

underneath. This kettle is, however, also marked with its capacity in quarts; an Arabic

numeral five was struck just beneath the mark.

One example exists of a copper “tea boiler,” a form of which Hunneman

sold thirty between 1809 and 1821 (Figures 13 and 14)-158 Six of these were made of

sheet iron, eleven of copper, and the others are not described in the day books. In two

instances the capacity of the tea boilers are indicated. One, which was also the

cheapest, held two gallons, and the other, which was also the most expensive sold,

held six and one half gallons. Like the tea kettles, the tea boiler’s sides are only very

slightly flared. It has slightly more round shoulders, and a low domed lid. The lid has

a rectangular bracket handle, and the ketde itself has a wrought iron bail handle with a

swivel-mounted loop of iron just off center at its top. The bail handle is attached to

the body just below the shoulders with iron “ears”. The bottom of the tea boiler is

attached by means of a lapped joint, indicating that it was probably replaced at some

time since its manufacture. The spout of the kettle is its most interesting feature, being

a straight spout with a spigot at its end. It protrudes from the bottom of the kettle’s

side, where it is fastened with several rivets. The spigot is cast of brass. This form is

described and illustrated by John Fuller, Sr. in his treatise on coppersmithing. It was

made, he wrote, “to furnish a reservoir of warm water, as well as to provide for boiling

a larger quantity than the common sized tea kettle would hold. They generally stood

on the hob of the fire place, and as close to the fire as was convenient. . . . The swivel

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in the bail served to hang it by, where there was a bar in the chimney on which to hang

the pot hook and rack ”159

Another large object of sheet copper produced by Hunneman which

survives is a coal hod or scoop (Figure 15). The terminology here is vague, coal hods

and scoops often referring to very similar, if not identical, objects. John Fuller, Sr. in

his 1894 treatiseArt of Coppersmithing illustrates a “common coal hod,” a cylindrical

vessel which stands upright on the circular end while the several types of coal scoops

are each an open oblong vessel which stands on a conical foot attached to one long

side. Using this definition, the surviving Hunneman object is a scoop, most closely

resembling the “Rounded Mouthed Coal Scoop.”160

The body of the scoop is made of heavy sheet copper attached together

with lap joints. The bottom of the scoop is a single large sheet rectangular at the back

and semi-circular at the front. This has been partially rolled up lengthwise and

attached to a small rectangular piece of sheet at the rectangular end, both of which are

attached to an almost circular piece of sheet which forms the back of the scoop. A

large, cast brass handle is riveted in three places to the back, which also bears

Hunneman’s mark. The entire scoop is riveted to a wide truncated cone which forms

the foot. The bottom edge of the foot and the edges around the opening of the scoop

are wired. A bail handle, formed of a rolled piece of sheet copper soldered with a

straight seam, is riveted to two sheet copper brackets. These are tri-lobed, two riveted

to the sides of the scoop just forward of the hood, and one attached to the bail handle.

The top of the hood is lightly inscribed with double lines forming a large X.

Hunneman recorded the sale of one coal hod in his day books, in October 1809 to John

Bazin for $10.161 He also recorded selling four copper coal scoops for between $11

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and S15 in 1809, 1815, and 1816.162 The surviving scoop may well be one of

those.163

Of all the marked Hunneman objects which survive, the most numerous,

aside from fire engines, are andirons of three basic types. The andirons most

commonly associated with Hunneman have very simple cylindrical turned uprights

supporting large ball finials (Figure 16). The billet bars of this type of andiron are

always curved either in a sweeping s-curve or a quarter circle (Figure 17). Some of

them have an extra collar-like element between the top of the cylinder and the ball

finial (Figure 18). All have a simple band around the ball, and all have a smaller

version of the entire upright for a log stop. This log-stop is situated at the inner end of

the curve on the billet bar, which is decorated with a brass cover up to, or just beyond,

that point.

A single extant pair of andirons represents a variant of this form. In this

case, the cylinder bulges out above turnings at the foot, and then takes on a bell-shape

just above the billet bar. The narrow neck and ball finial with a band around it, the

smaller version of the whole for a log stop, and the s-curved billet bar, however, are all

very similar to the ordinary cylinder and ball type of andiron.

A second type of andiron is a more complicated turned form which rests,

as does the cylinder and ball type, on a tripod formed by the single-footed upright, the

full-length brass log stop, and the back foot of the billet bar. This second type,

represented in this study by only two marked and one unmarked example, has a

tapering foot surmounted by a pear-shaped element, a small knop, and a bell-shaped

element which leads into a narrow neck topped with a ball finial (Figure 19). The

finials on this type are ornamented with a tri-lobed band. Of the two marked sets, one

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. has round feet (in plan) and one square feet on both the main uprights and the brass log

stops. The billet bar on both is of the s-curved type.

The third type of andiron is a form more typical of surviving Boston

andirons, but less typical of those marked by Hunneman (Figure 20). These andirons

are supported on opposed cabriole legs with spurs and slipper feet. The legs end just

below the billet bar, and above this is a plinth, surmounted with turnings including a

collar-like element on the neck. This supports, as with the other two types, a ball

finial. The ball on this type of andiron is ornamented with either a simple or a tri-

lobed band (Figure 21). Three different configurations of the billet bar are

represented: straight, s-curved, and quarter-circle. The two curved forms require full-

length brass log stops to support the billet bar, while the straight form employs a log

stop only above the billet bar. The plinths on this type of andiron also exhibit two

forms. Most are hexagonal in cross-section, but one pair has round, bulging plinths.

All three types of andirons have brass billet bar covers which begin inside

the upright and end just behind the brass log stop (Figure 22). The terminus of the

billet bar cover is most often straight, sometimes with an incised line running parallel,

but in several cases the end has been filed into a decorative pattern (Figure 23).

Hunneman’s mark is located at this end of the billet bar cover. On some of the

andirons, a small brass knob is attached in between the two components of the mark,

and on many others, a three digit number has been struck in between the name and the

town. While some of Hunneman’s other products also received numbers, only his fire

engines and andirons appear to have three digit numbers. The lowest number recorded

is 324 and the highest 842.164 These numbers do not correspond with those assigned

to customers in the waste book, nor do they correspond with particular forms or styles.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Donald L. Fennimore speculates that these numbers represent a consecutive

numbering of production of individual forms. The earliest numbered andirons, then,

would be the 324th pair made by Hunneman.165 While this seems as likely an answer

as not, it leads to further questions. Why were some andirons “counted” and others

not? What was the purpose of numbering the andirons in this way? As James R.

Mitchell has suggested, the answer to this question may lie in the similar numbering of

Hunneman’s fire engines.166 The fire engines were numbered in order of production,

and a serial register was kept of the engines and their numbers (Figures 24 and 25).

Mitchell knew only of the existence of a “serial number register in the possession of

one of the descendants [of Hunneman] who is unwilling to have its contents revealed

with the exception that he says that it has the serial numbers of 750 fire engines in it.”

This register has since been published in a book on Hunneman’s fire engines, and the

“unwillingness” of the owner to reveal its contents to Mitchell may have been mere

miscommunication. In fact, the only contents of the register are the records of the fire

engines along with their serial numbers and the place and date of their delivery.

The lack of extant serial records for andirons does not preclude their

existence at one time, however, and speculation on the purpose of one set of numbers

may shed light on the purpose of the other set. The fire engine serial numbers were

kept along with information including the town and or engine company to which it

was sold, the name given the engine, and its delivery date. Much in the same vein as

an account book or ledger, this record indicated the delivery of the product to its

owner. Furthermore, it served as a record of which towns already owned engines and

how old the engines were. Perhaps the shipping list helped Hunneman keep track of

the engines when he repaired them as they aged. Unfortunately, the shipping list

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. contains no further indication of its use. A similar record for andirons might have

been used, as Mitchell suggests, as a “form of warranty or guarantee,” or even as an

aid in recovering stolen property, since andirons were an expensive item of household

furnishing.167

The construction of the andirons is fairly typical. The upright elements

are all cast in hollow halves and seamed vertically. The legs and feet of the cabriole

type are hollowed out in back, in accordance with traditional Boston technique (Figure

26). The uprights for the cylinder and ball type are composed of two separate pieces,

top and bottom. The bottom piece extends from the floor to just below the neck. The

second piece, which has a shoulder to fit inside the lower piece, consists of the neck,

the collar if there is one, and the ball finial. The bottom section of these andirons,

then, would be interchangeable on andirons of the same size.

The end of the iron billet bar and its sheet brass cover fit through a slot cut

into the cylindrical, upright, brass portion of the lower piece. The iron billet bar was

then attached, inside the upright, to a vertical wrought iron rod threaded at the top to

receive the brass finial section. This was typically achieved by fitting the rod through

a hole in the billet bar and peening the bottom end of the rod. In many cases, these

andirons have had molten lead poured into them around this joint. The lead shows the

pattern of cloth which was probably wrapped around a tool to keep the lead in place

until it hardened. The lead served to hold the billet bar and upright solidly in place,

avoiding a looseness which might lead to the toppling of the andirons. Furthermore, it

added weight to the andirons, also making them more stable. In the andirons which do

not have lead inside, the rod is indeed peened under the billet bar.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The other two types of andiron uprights are composed of three separate

pieces. The second, ornately turned type, is divided just above a pear-shaped element,

and again just below its neck. The three sections, therefore, consist of the foot and

pear-shaped element, a central knob and flared section, and the neck and ball finial.

As with the cylinder and ball type, the billet bar and cover are let into a rectangular

hole cut out of the pear-shaped element, then attached to the threaded rod and secured

with lead.

The cabriole type of andiron was constructed differently. The three

sections are legs, plinth, and neck and ball finial. The billet bar with its cover,

however, rests on top of the legs and the threaded rod passes through both before

being peened underneath. The bottom of the plinth section has a notch cut out of to

allow the billet bar and cover to pass through. There is no lead poured inside, and the

finial section is screwed onto the threaded top of the rod, its shoulder fitting inside the

plinth section.

The full-length brass log stops on all the andirons of any type are

constructed the same way. These are made of two sections, one below the billet bar

and one above. The lower section has a small threaded iron rod peened into it. This

rod runs up through a hole into the billet bar and cover, and the upper section of the

log stop screws onto it. This serves the secondary function of holding down the end

billet bar cover. All the original billet bars are of wrought iron and have a small

shoulder to accommodate the end of the billet bar cover. In addition to the fixed brass

log stops, most of the andirons also have small wedge-shaped iron log stops which sit

approximately an inch and a half tall with small pieces which wrap around either side

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of the billet bar. One pair of cabriole type andirons has instead tall iron log stops

which extend from the floor approximately eight inches above the billet bar.

The three types of andirons as described represent the only surviving

andirons marked by Hunneman. It is difficult, nonetheless, to match them to any of

the andirons described in his day books with any certainty. Some possibilities may be

hypothesized. The cylinder and ball type, which survive in the greatest number, may

be one or all of the “new fashion circular,” “round circular,” or just circular types

noted in the books. Fifteen sets of andirons are specifically designated by these

descriptions, more than any other single description other than brass or iron. The

cabriole legged type of andiron does not seem to fit any of the account book

descriptions, however. Designations such as fluted, egg-top, octagon, urn, and S-top

all seem to refer to andiron forms which do not survive with Hunneman’s mark on

them, though andirons with these characteristics survive marked by other craftsmen.

Perhaps a careful look at unmarked specimens of these forms will provide evidence of

Hunneman manufacture.

Other early American craftsmen also produced the three types of andirons

described as marked by Hunneman. The ornate turned type of andiron is very similar

to those produced by John Molineux. Molineux’s estate inventory includes andirons

of a “french pattern with square feet or... with round feet” which probably refers to

andirons of this type.168 “The allusion to French counterparts might indicate that their

pedestal support is a simplified version of the feet on French andirons of the type sent

to Boston by Col. James Swan during the 1790s.” 169 This type of andiron was

popular in the first third of the nineteenth century along with a similarly ornamented

type with cabriole legs and ball feet.170 Molineux produced other types of andirons

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. including ones with square pedestal bases, ball finials, and quarter-circle billet bars

similar to the cylinder and ball type which Hunneman produced, and several versions

of andirons with cabriole legs and slipper feet. These had finials of all sorts, including

balls with small knops and double bands, egg or lemon-shaped finials, and steeple-

topped ball finials.171 In the eighteen-teens, Molineux was working at 26 Union

Street, while Hunneman was listed at 31 and 25 Union Street. Molineux only appears

in the extant Hunneman day books twice, however. In 1815 he was charged for some

old metal and in 1815 and 1819 for black lead pots and spelter.172

John Stimson’s mark appears on at least one pair of andirons which are

essentially indistinguishable in form from Hunneman’s cylinder and ball type.

Stimson acquired Molineux’s shop after the latter’s death around 1830,173 and may

have used Molineux’s patterns, or purchased or copied patterns from his new

neighbor, Hunneman. Unfortunately, Stimson’s working dates are too late for him to

appear in the extant Hunneman day books. Another craftsman who had a good

working relationship with Hunneman was James Davis. Davis made several different

variations of andirons with cabriole legs which are similar to the legs on Hunneman’s

cabriole type andirons, as well as those of Molineux. They share the Boston type of

hollowed out leg with spurs and slipper feet, and the basic construction techniques.

Davis also produced a square pedestaled form very similar to Molineux’s.174 Davis’s

entries in Hunneman’s account book, however, are far more numerous than any of the

other andiron producers.

Among his ten credits and 47 debits (in 1801, 1805, 1810, and 1812) for

cogs, copper, kettle ears, rivets, bells, borax, brass, cash, nails, solder, spelter, and the

like, are three of particular interest. In January 1801, Hunneman charged Davis $16

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “for my half of wooden patems at Mr. Gay’s shop,”175 and in June, Hunneman

credited him $14.50 for a set of andirons.176 Of course, since no andirons or any other

object marked by Davis are identical to those marked by Hunneman, or Gay and

Hunneman, it is impossible to know exactly what patterns Davis bought.

Nevertheless, these two transactions prove that Davis and Hunneman were working at

least in part in the same style and products in the early nineteenth century. A further

entry, in 1801 adds to this conclusion. On May 23, Hunneman charged Davis for “40

lb. handiron mettle.”177 Donald L. Fennimore believes that this represents “coarse

castings that Davis finished and assembled to market, possibly with his name stamped

into them.”178 Such castings, too, might have been finished by Davis and left

unmarked, as several unmarked pairs of andirons exist which have been attributed to

Hunneman and others. Certainly, andirons were a key production for these craftsmen,

and they exchanged resources in order to meet the demands of the market.

Andiron producers John Clark, Barnabas Edmunds, John Stickney, and

Noyes & Cummings all marked forms more or less similar to the cabriole-legged type

of andiron made by Hunneman. This was a popular form and does not necessarily

indicate an exchange of ideas or goods between or among these craftsmen. All but

Edmunds (who worked in Charlestown), however, also appear in Hunneman’s day

books. John Clark, who worked at 24 Union Street from 1810 to 1813 when

Hunneman was at nearby Ann Street, is credited with mending, and charged for

mending and solder. John Stickney was given credits for a cash settlement and casting

work, and owed Hunneman for $6.52 1/2 worth of “Andiron Work” in 1815.179

Noyes & Cummings, who worked in Salem, Massachusetts, made andirons very close

in form to Molineux’s. John Noyes also marked a pair of andirons virtually identical

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to the odd variant type made by Hunneman. Noyes & Cummings appear many times

in Hunneman’s books, mostly charged for black lead pots and spelter, and the boxing

and carting to transport their purchases.

The similarity of many of the products of these Boston area craftsmen

may be entirely due to regional taste or tradition, but such traditions are generally the

result of working relations between craftsmen as much as of origins and other

influences.

One extant object which is positively identified in the day books is a half

bushel dry measure from the New Hampshire Historical Society collections (Figure

27). The measure is a short-sided cylinder of copper sheet with two large cast brass

handles riveted on either side. A dovetailed seam runs up the side, and the bottom is

also set in with a dovetailed seam. The body has not been planished smooth and

hammer marks are clearly visible on its surface. The handles have decorative fish-tail

ends where the rivets are attached. The measure is well crafted, but simple. The

markings on it, however, give it historical importance. The bottom is marked, on four

inscribed lines with individual letter dies, “MADE BY/ W. C. HUNNEMAN:/

BOSTON/ 1803” (Figure 28). A capital B is stamped into the side just below the rim

and ninety degrees from the handles. One of the handles bears the letters N and H

separated by a small mark of three concentric circles around a tiny flower or star. This

small mark is struck twice.

Hunneman’s day books include many entries for measures. He sold over

61 individual measures, plus 51 sets of measures, in addition to measures specified for

liquids. In 1803 he recorded sales to the State of New Hampshire on three different

days. In March and February he had sold the state five each of two sizes of dry

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. measure for $18 and five sets of liquid measures for $90.180 The entry for January 22,

however, is the one which probably includes the extant measure. On that day,

Hunneman sold the state five copper half bushel measures, five copper half peck

measures, and five copper peck measures for $ 178.67.181 The significance of this

large sale is even greater because it represents the state’s purchase of standard

measures in compliance with a law passed in 1797 but postponed until December 10,

1801 by several subsequent acts.182

The 1797 “Act Regulating Scale Beams, Steelyards, Weights, and

Measures” required for the first time that every county have its own sealer of weights

and measures, who should, “provide at the expence of the State one compleat set of

scalebeam, weights and measures, similar to those now owned by this State, which

shall be kept by him as standards for the use of said county.” 183 Each town was then

required to provide a set of the same to be tried and sealed against the county

standards every five years. The towns would then use their standards to check all

measures used to sell goods within the town.184 The state standard half-bushel was to

measure “not less than thirteen inches and three quarters wide.”185 The Hunneman

measure is thirteen and thirteen sixteenths inches wide.

A third point of interest on the measure is the mark. It is not Hunneman’s

standard mark but one which is larger and more complex. The most logical

explanation for this is that Hunneman was marking an object which was to be sold and

used out of state. Not only that, but it was to be used publicly and seen by at least one

representative from every town in the county. A large mark such as this, even on the

bottom of the measure, was certain to be noticed. Furthermore, Hunneman is more

specific than usual about his name, giving his first two initials as well as the surname.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This, too, would serve well as advertising for an out-of-state audience. Anyone

coming to have his measures tested and sealed who found need to replace them would

know that W. C. Hunneman of Boston was capable of making excellent measures to

New Hampshire standards. Perhaps, too, it was a point of pride with Hunneman that

he, and not a New Hampshire craftsman, or even one of the many other coppersmiths

in Boston, was chosen for this important production.

Two warming pans one marked and one unmarked, illustrate a further

issue concerning the marking of objects (Figures 29 and 30).186 The pan of the

marked one is a shallow sheet brass pan with flaring sides, a flat rim and wired edge.

The lid is attached by a hinge made from two pieces of sheet copper folded in half

with interlocking sections at the folded ends which together wrap around a piece of

heavy wire (Figure 31). The lid itself is shaped much as a shallow plate upside-down,

with a wired edge. The lip of the lid fits into the lip of the pan. The lid can be raised

by means of a small ring attached with a brad to the side opposite the hinge. A cast

brass socket is riveted to the pan underneath the hinge, one piece of which is also

riveted to the socket. The socket holds a long turned and painted wooden handle. The

lid of the pan is decorated with a design formed by many small punches of various

shapes, including a thin rectangle, a u-shape, a small leaf, and a circle with serrated

edges. The design is one of long scrolls radiating from Hunneman’s mark in the

center (Figure 32). Near one edge, the lid is also marked with an Arabic numeral six

(or nine).

The second wanning pan is constructed identically with the exception that

the hinge has five, rather than three, interlocking loops around the wire. The metal

used is copper, and the design on the lid is different but created in the same manner.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This one employs engraved lines, dots, tiny stars, and diamond to create a six-pointed

star-like design. Near the hinge, the lid is stamped with a number four. The

construction and form of the two warming pans are very similar, but also quite typical

of the period. Donald L. Fennimore has discovered, however, that the two share a

more striking similarity. The cast brass handle sockets on both warming pans are

nearly identical in their shape and size (Figures 33 and 34).187 Furthermore, the shape

is somewhat unusual. The portion of the socket which attaches to the pan is tri-lobed,

allowing for three rivets while saving metal. The lower two sides of the triangle

between rivets has been cast and/ or filed into a convex line. All three lobes are

rounded, though the top side of the socket attachment is straight. Hunneman’s

accounts do show the sale of fifteen warming pans, ranging from $3.00 to $5.50

apiece. Four warming pans went to the Furniture Warehouse in November 1821 for

$12.00 total.188

The number four marked on the lid of the second warming pan is in

keeping with Hunneman’s habit of numbering his products.189 Fennimore has

conjectured that this warming pan was numbered but not struck with a maker’s mark

because it was intended for the New England Society for the Promotion of

Manufactures, or a similar society. This society, incorporated in 1826, held sales and

exhibitions of goods. Its regulations stipulated that these objects be free of “any

known or public mark” but must nevertheless be marked with something identifiable

to the maker.190 Hunneman’s day books would not include any mention of this

society because of its late date, but he did sell his products through the Furniture

Commission Company, the Furniture Warehouse, and several individuals who took

objects on commission.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A fender footman which is marked on its handle by Hunneman is made

primarily of iron with a thin sheet of brass attached (Figure 35). Two wrought iron

bars attached with a spacer bar extend out from their vertically hooked ends for

attaching to a fender. Iron sleeves wrap around the bars and rivet to the underside of a

thin, flat rectangle of iron which serves as a trivet. A wrought iron handle—an

elongated diamond with a circle at the end—is also riveted to this iron rectangle. By

this means, the entire trivet can be moved along the iron bars to place it closer or

further from the fire. The brass sheet is wrapped around the iron rectangle of the

trivet. The center of this rectangle is cut out, and the brass cover is pierced with an

open star pattern.191

As noted for some individual objects, several different marks were used on

the various survivals from Hunneman’s shop. The most prevalent of these is the

“HUNNEMAN/ BOSTON” mark described above.192 This is the mark found on

andirons (with or without a number in between the words) and on tea kettles

(sometimes accompanied by a number indicating capacity in quarts), as well as on the

tea boiler, fender footman, coal scoop, and warming pan.193 The “HUNNEMAN” die

for this mark is still owned in the family (Figures 36 and 37). This mark is not in itself

specific to William C. Hunneman and his shop, but might have been used by the

Hunneman shop when his sons were partners or full owners of the business as well.

The existence of other marks which specify the sons’ inclusion in the business,

however, strengthen an attribution of objects bearing the “HUNNEMAN/ BOSTON”

mark to the period from 1800 to 1825 before the eldest son was first listed in city

directories.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The relative survival rates of different forms bears on any analysis of

Hunneman’s work and its quality. In considering the numbers of objects produced,

the day books have shown that among extant forms, kettles were most numerous,

followed by andirons. As discussed above, kettles and other industrial objects do not

tend to survive. It is not surprising, therefore, that andirons survive in greater numbers

than any other form. Expensive household objects such as andirons continued to find

use as decorative heirlooms even when no longer in regular employ. Hunneman’s

andirons possessed the added desirability of being marked and thereby linked to a

specific history valued by descendants and collectors alike. The numbering of these

andirons made them even more unique and therefore more desirable to collectors. In

this same way, the complete lack of extant bells, a product made by Hunneman in

larger quantity than any other, is presumably due to their size and probable lack of

marking. In other words, they may survive unidentified as Hunneman’s products.

The single Hunneman coal scoop and two warming pans are remarkable

survivals judging from the very small numbers of these forms recorded in the day

books. Coal scoops, like andirons, however, assumed decorative as well as practical

use in the home. “Bright copper coal scoops have been considered an adornment for

the parlor, as well as a necessary accompanying adjunct for the fireplace,” writes

Fuller.194 In addition to this, coal scoops retained their functional utility far longer

than did andirons. The warming pans, too, had a long life of service, and the two

Hunneman survivals are ornamented on both their lids and handles.

Tea kettles and measures were produced in large numbers, increasing their

chances of survival. As mentioned above, several tea kettles did survive. Only one

measure is still extant, however, and perhaps this is due again to their general use

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. outside of the home. Most of these measures were probably intended for merchants

and other businesses dealing in bulk goods. The one remaining measure probably

owes its continued existence to its status as an official state measure, no doubt aided

by its prominent markings.

Highly visible and decorative markings may have helped save the three

Gay & Hunneman posnets as well, though due to the nature of the only surviving Gay

& Hunneman records, it is impossible to know how many of these were originally

made. Likewise, the number of sauce/stew pans made by Hunneman & Co. is

unknown, and may have been much greater than their numbers in Hunneman’s day

books suggest. In any case, this form, even more than andirons or tea kettles still

retains its usefulness. While continual use might have subjected them to harmful

levels of wear, it probably instead saved them long enough to assume historical

significance and achieve heirloom status.

All of the surviving objects, save the damaged posnet, exhibit good

craftsmanship and aesthetic appeal. The copper objects—especially the tea kettles,

warming pans, and the coal scoop— exhibit standard construction techniques well

executed. The joints, whether dovetailed or lapped, are neat and strong. The rivets

remain tight. Both kettle and wanning pan lids are well fitted. None of these forms is

unusual in its style. The tea kettles are simple and clean of line, but very similar to

many tea kettles of this period. The coal scoop, a form which required a great deal of

skill, is beautiful in its design and proportions.195 It is nonetheless a standard

interpretation of this form.

The cast objects are also well designed and made in a workmanlike

manner. The reinforcement of the handle connection on Gay & Hunneman’s posnets

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. is made smooth and unobtrusive in comparison with many other surviving posnets.

The decorative molding around the rim is an unusual and appealing addition. The

mark is highly decorative as well. All these aspects, however, may be attributed to the

mold maker. Nevertheless, the posnets show very little pitting, and neat file work

indicative of attention to detail and a thrifty business mind. They also demonstrate

technological advancement in the bladed sprue.

Hunneman’s andirons are also well made. The many components are well

fitted, and the seams neatly braised. The use of lead inside the uprights of the pillar

and ball type shows a consideration for stability in both holding the billet bar fast

within the upright and cheaply adding weight to the andirons. In his cabriole-legged

andirons is seen the use of a regional economy in the hollowing out of the backs of the

legs and feet.

The objects made by Hunneman which survive are fairly typical in form

and technology. They can nevertheless help to fine-tune any understanding of

Hunneman and his business world which the documentary evidence alone does not.

Hunneman’s accounts indicate a network of Boston brass founders who produced

andirons. They do not, however, include individuals such as Barnabas Edmunds, nor

any andiron-related business with John Molineux, both of whom nonetheless were

producing andirons very similar to Hunneman’s. Along with other evidence such as

hollowed-out cabriole legs, such evidence places Hunneman in a larger context of

regional craft traditions and aesthetic preferences not seen in the scant descriptions of

the day books. The survival rates of Hunneman’s goods was no doubt enhanced by his

seemingly unusual propensity to mark products. The quality of these objects, while

never wholly representative due to the chances of survival, nevertheless indicates the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. skilled competence which Hunneman and his employees attained in the areas of

casting and sheet-metal work, as well as a good craftsman’s attunement to economy

use of materials.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTES: CHAPTER 4

152 Donald L Fennimore, Metalwork in Early America: Copper and Its Alloys from the Winterthur Collection (Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1996): 74.

153 The Oxford English Dictionary: Being a Correct Re-Issue with an Introduction, Supplement, and Bibliography of a New English Dictionary on Historical Principles Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by the Philological (Oxford: Society Clarendon Press, 1933), v.7: 1154; v.9: 140.

154 William Cooper Hunneman, Manuscript Day Book (831.2) 1799-1819, The USS Constitution Museum, Boston: 222.

155 This kettle is known to me only through two photographs and accompanying dimensions in the Decorative Arts Photographic Collection at the Winterthur Museum (DAPC 66.1875).

156 The Boston Directory (Boston: Published by John H. A. Frost and Charles Stimpson, Jr., 1825): 151.

157 Hereafter, the phrases “Hunneman’s mark” or “marked by Hunneman” refer to this two-die “HUNNEMAN/ BOSTON” configuration unless a different mark is described in relation to a particular object.

158 I have not been able to examine it myself to verify its authenticity, but know it through color prints of the images reproduced in Figures 13 and 14 and illustrated in an advertisement in Maine Antique Digest 24, no. 12 (December 1996): 39-E.

159 John Fuller, Sr., Art of Coppersmithing: A Practical Treatise on Working Sheet Copper into All Forms1894; { reprint, Mendham, N.J.: Astragal Press, 1993): 107.

160 Fuller, Art o f Coppersmithing: 122-3.

161 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 150.

162 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 152, 209. William Cooper Hunneman, Manuscript Day Book (831.1) 1793-1821, The USS Constitution Museum, Boston:

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10/2/1816. This day book is unpaginated. My citations, therefore, will refer to the date of the entry, abbreviated as here by month/day/year.

163 Fennimore, Metalwork: 168.

164 I have only seen up to number 809, but Donald L. Fennimore cites the highest recorded number on a set of andirons at 842. Fennimore,Metalwork: 148.

165 Fennimore, Metalwork: 148.

166 James R. Mitchell, “Marked American Andirons Made before 1840,” (master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1965): 29.

167 Mitchell, “Andirons”: 29.

168 Fennimore, Metalwork: 150.

169 Fennimore, Metalwork: 150.

170 Fennimore, Metalwork: 150, and Peter Schiffer, Nancy Schiffer, and Herbert Schiffer, The Brass Book: American, English, and European, Fifteenth Century Through 1850 (Atglen, Pa.: Schiffer Publishing, 1978): 35.

171 Mitchell, “Andirons”: 34-6.

172 Hunneman, Day Book, 1793-1821: 5/26/1815; 2/15/1815, 5/1/1815, 5/22/1815, 6/13/1815, 10/19/1819.

173 Mitchell, “Andirons”: 46-7.

174 DAPC: Davis, James.

175 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 3.

176 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 14.

177 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 3.

178 Fennimore,Metalwork: 148.

179 Hunneman, Day Book, 1793-1821: 9/15/1815.

180 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 70, 68.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 181 Hunneman, Day Book, 1799-1819: 68.

182Laws o f New Hampshire, Including Public and Private Acts, Resolves, Votes, Etc., edited and published under the direction of the Secretary of State, v.6 (Second Constitutional Period), 1792-1801 (Concord, N.H.: Evans Printing Co., 1917): 444.

183Laws of New Hampshire, v.6:444.

184Laws of New Hampshire, v. 6:444-46.

185 Laws of New Hampshire, v. 6:445.

186 Mabel M. Swan illustrates a third warming pan, but as no mark is visible and no reference given, I cannot verify that it was made by Hunneman or offer any useful observations. Mabel M. Swan, ‘The Man Who Made Brass Works for Willard Clocks,” Antiques 18, no. 6 (June 1930): 525.

187 Fennimore,Metalwork : 178.

188 Hunneman, Day Book, 1793-1821: 11/20/1821.

189 I have compared this “4” with that on Winterthur’s tea kettle and found that different dies were used. The numbers are of different type faces, though approximately the same size.

190 Fennimore, Metalwork: 178.

191 I have been unable to determine any name given in Hunneman’s day books which refer to this form.

192 In the section describing Hunneman’s tea kettles.

193 The mark on the fender footman is actually slightly different. The arc of the word “HUNNEMAN” is flatter and the spacing of the letters in the word “BOSTON” slightly greater than in other marks closely examined. This may indicate a different die was used, or perhaps that the metal was stretched after the mark was applied. This latter scenario seems very unlikely, however, as the letters are very evenly spaced and do not appear to be stretched themselves.

194 Fuller, Art of Coppersmithing: 122.

195 Fuller, Art o f Coppersmithing: 122.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 5

CONCLUSION

Inventories and surviving objects from the late eighteenth and early

nineteenth century testify to the prominence of brass and copper objects, domestic and

industrial, in America. City directories attest to the plenitude of craftsmen working in

these and related metals all along the East Coast. Yet while collectors prize the tea

kettles and andirons which survive, and scholars have written about the importation of

raw materials, hardware and specialty goods from England, little is published about

the specifics of shop activities among coppersmiths and brass founders of this

period.196 One recent exception to this is Brian M. Sipe’s Masters thesis on the

Bentley Shop in Philadelphia from 1813-78.197

In his thesis, Sipe uses the Bentley Shop, typical in its early production

and sale of a wide variety of goods in copper, brass, cast iron, tinned sheet iron, and

other materials, to examine the causes of a widespread shift in production from

household goods to industrial goods by urban coppersmiths. He attributes this change,

accompanied by an increased division between coppersmiths and tinsmiths, primarily

to the expanding industrial base in Philadelphia which created an increased demand

for large copper products. This, along with growing awareness of the dangers of

copper poisoning, left the domestic market open to tinsmiths, and the divide between

these crafts gradually increased.198 Sipe expands his view to look at the influence of

the Bentley’s clientele on shop output and the effects of regional economic cycles on

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. copper producers during the later years of the shop’s operations. Unfortunately the

early records do not include any customer information.199

William C. Hunneman’s shop also sold a wide range of copper and brass

goods, as well as dealing in iron, cast iron, tinned sheet metal, pewter, and

occasionally other metals, in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Through

1821, Hunneman was listed in city directories as a coppersmith, except for one year,

1820, when his occupation is given as brass founder. Cast brass products such as

andirons and bells were nevertheless an important part of Hunneman’s sales

throughout the early nineteenth century. Quantitatively, sale of these items peaked in

1816, not 1820.

Hunneman produced a wide range of goods, from traditional household

manufactures, to clockwork, ship work, industrial kettles, bells, and fire engines. The

quality of his products, can only really be judged by survivals. It can be assumed that

industrial items wore out while small items such as sleigh bells remained anonymous.

Based upon survivals and the discretion of his patrons—from the State of New

Hampshire which trusted him to produce standard measures, to the Willards whose

own craftsmanship was held in high esteem, Hunneman was producing goods of very

reliable quality. If all these factors are taken into account, Hunneman seems to have

been able to produce this whole range of output in a “workmanlike manner” to the

satisfaction of his market and in many cases to stand the test of time.200 The breadth

of his production reflects a common response to the heavy competition characteristic

in urban areas.

From 1825 to 1846, Hunneman and his sons are listed as either fire engine

builders or coppersmiths, or both. In fact, the sales of fire engines according to

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hunneman’s shipping list increased in the twenties. From 1811 to 1820 Hunneman

recorded the delivery of an average of four engines per year. Between 1821 and 1830,

that average increased to 7.1 engines per year. In the next decade, the average was

only 5.9 per year, but from 1841 to 1850 it increased to 19.5 and continued to rise

under the ownership of Hunneman’s sons.

While no account books survive to record the other output of Hunneman’s

shop during the period after 1821 and solid dating of most surviving objects is very

difficult, it is possible to state that prior to 1821 non-fire engine production does not

seem to have slowed materially with the increase in fire engine sales. Donald L.

Fennimore, in his book Metalworking in Early America, states that Hunneman’s

addition of the term engine builder to his directory listings “mark[ed] a significant

shift in his career. With the purchase of a patent for a hand-pumped extinguisher from

Jacob Perkins, he devoted most of his attention to the building of municipal fire

engines, transferring the business of coppersmithing and brass founding to his sons

Samuel H. and William C. Hunneman, Jr.”201 This statement is true, except for the

date of Hunneman’s purchase of the fire engine patent. Hunneman had been

producing patent engines after Perkins’ designs for over two decades before he added

“engine builder” to his directory listing in 1825, as noted in Chapter one. Hunneman’s

production of stills, kettles for industrial manufacturers, and fire engines parallels the

pattern of increasingly industrial products noted by Sipe. Nevertheless, while

Hunneman seems to have concentrated on fire engine production after the mid-1820s,

he still considered the coppersmithing business lucrative enough to turn it over to his

sons. Possibly the sons were also catering to a predominantly industrial clientele;

records do not exist to elucidate that portion of the Hunneman business.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The extensive early shop records which do survive, however, enable the

study of Hunneman’s customers, suppliers, and workers. Hunneman was able to make

use of many different groups of customers and networks. His affiliations with West

Church, Boston and the First Church, Roxbury provided him with many important

connections. His early business partner, Martin Gay was elected deacon of the West

Church, Boston in 1773.202 Gay returned to the church upon his resettlement in

Boston at the end of the war,203 and Hunneman himself was a deacon probably at this

time.204 Upon the dissolution of their partnership, Hunneman continued to benefit

from the patronage of several of their customers and did business with some of the

other craftsmen who had business arrangements with Gay & Hunneman.205 As

mentioned in Chapter Four, Hunneman also gained many customers through contact

with the congregation of the First Church, Roxbury. This large customer base may, in

fact, have been part of the incentive to move to Roxbury.

Hunneman had important business associations among his family as well.

More importantly, each of these points of contact was only the beginning of an ever-

widening, and interconnected network of customers, retailers, and suppliers which

Hunneman used to ensure the success of his business. Fellow church-goers became

family and customers. Customers such as the Willards were contacts with a nucleus of

craftsmen with similar needs. One successful commission for the budding United

States Navy led to future work for the navy yards of New England. The Boston and

New England markets may have been tough on outsiders, but their close-knit society

could be a boon for a canny businessman with inside contacts.

Hunneman could not have known that his working years would

encompass the beginnings of naval shipbuilding and cotton mills in Massachusetts, but

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. he was able to meet those changes as an invitation to expand production. He had

strong social networks to draw on for clientele, and solid business ties with fellow

metalworkers as well as inventor Jacob Perkins, and entrepreneur Allan Pollock.

Hunneman seems also to have had good business sense with which to direct these

endeavors. In spite of his business connections with many hardware men, he never

ventured into furniture hardware production. Perhaps he saw the folly in competing

with English imports in that area. He must have calculated the risk in producing fire

engines which required a broad-reaching market for sustained success. Perhaps his

connections to shipbuilding and supply gave him the far-off connections he needed. It

is likely he knew that with competition tight in Boston he would do better with a

product which in some manner was a necessity in every town, and which nevertheless

would not be produced by local farmer-craftsmen.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTES: CHAPTERS

196 Colonial Williamsburg has done excellent work on the Geddy Foundry which dates earlier [Sven Dan Berg and George Hassell, The Geddy Foundry (Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1992)]; Henry J. Kauffman has written extensively on the technology of early brass and copper production as well as on eighteenth century Pennsylvania coppersmiths [e.g. Henry J. Kauffman, American Copper and Brass (Camden, N.J.: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1968); Henry J. Kauffman, “The American Copper Tea Kettle,” Antiques (April 1996); Henry J. Kauffman, “Coppersmithing in Pennsylvania: Being a Treatise on the Art of the Eighteenth Century Coppersmith, Together with a Description of His Products and His Establishments,” bound in with Pennsylvania German Folklore Society 11 (1946)]; Donald L. Fennimore’s new book [Donald L Fennimore, Metalwork in Early America: Copper and Its Alloys from the Winterthur Collection (Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1996)] presents an outstanding examination of individual objects in their historical contexts, as well as a wealth of primary source information concerning craftsmen, technology, and marketing. The book also contains a good overview of the metal trade in America.

197 Brian M. Sipe, “Coppersmithing in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia: The Bendey Shop,” (master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1987).

198 Sipe, “Coppersmithing”: 25-7.

199 Sipe, “Coppersmithing”: 2.

200 While it must be noted that many Hunneman objects survive in the possession of family members who may have treated them with special care, many more have survived without benefit of such favoritism, and Hunneman fire engines survive in large numbers after long years of use. Furthermore, Edward Tufts [Edward R. Tufts, Hunneman’s Amazing Fire Engines: Paul Revere’s Apprentice Changed Firefighting in Colonial America (New Albany, Ind.: Fire Buff House Publishing, 1995)] has determined that a number of Hunneman’s engines were later traded in for new engines or converted to steam power by Hunneman. This indicates customer satisfaction as well as allowing an indication of the “active life span” of some engines, which range

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. from eight to fifty-eight years, with an average of approximately thirty years, before being scrapped, converted to steam, or traded in.

201 Fennimore, Metalwork: 113.

202 Martin Gay, “Martin Gay. Three Letters Written by an American Loyalist and His Wife, 1775-1788, with Notes by Howard Wheelwright,”Publications o f the Colonial Society of Massachusetts 3 (1897): 385.

203 Gay, “Three Letters”: 386.

204 Walter Elliot Thwing, History o f the First Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1630-1904 (Boston: W. A. Butterfield, 1908): 292.

205 Gay, “Three Letters”: 398.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Appendix

FIGURES

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For For a "new and useful improvement in Fire (lie Engine." 25" II: 9/16", (Dimensions 15 VV: given include include frame not shown). Acc. no. V23 (Courtesy, CICNA Museum and Art Collection) Figure Figure I. United States of America Letters Patent issued to Allan Pollock and Jacob Perkins, August 6, 1812.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 2. Posnet. Marked, "GAY & HUNNEMAN 1794". Bell metal. H: 8 3/4", L: 17 5/8", Diam.: 7 7/8". Acc. no. 64.31 (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 3. Detail of posnet in Figure 2. Mark on handle, "GAY & HUNNEMAN 1794". (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 4. Detail of posnet in Figure 2. Bladed sprue on underside of body. (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum)

100

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 5. Detail of saucepan in Figure 6. Mark on bottom, "HUNNEMAN & COV BOSTON". (Courtesy, J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine)

101

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 6. Saucepan. Marked, "HUNNEMAN & COJ BOSTON". Copper, iron. H: 3 1/8", L: 16 3/16", Diam.: 7 3/8". (Courtesy, J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedge wick, Maine)

102

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Image removed to protect copyright

Figure 7. Kettle. Marked, "W. C. HUNNEMAN. & SON". Copper, iron. H: 22", Diam.: 30 5/8". DAPC 66.1875 (Courtesy, Decorative Arts Photographic Collection, Winterthur Museum)

L03

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Image removed to protect copyright

Figure 8. Detail of kettle in Figure 7. Mark on rim, "W. C. HUNNEMAN. & SON". (Courtesy, Decorative Arts Photographic Collection, Winterthur Museum)

104

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 9. Tea kettle. Marked,''HUNNEMAN/ 3/ BOSTON". Copper, brass, iron. H: 6 1/2", W: 10 1/2", Diam.: 6 3/4". (Private Collection)

105

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 10. Detail of tea kettle in Figure 9. Vertical dovetail joint running up the side in the middle of the figure. Bracket for bale handle riveted to shoulder.

106

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 11. Detail of tea kettle in Figure 9. Mark on handle, "HUNNEMAN/ 3/ BOSTON". See also Figures 14, 23, and 32.

Figure 12. Tea kettle. Marked, "HUNNEMAN/ 5". Copper, brass, iron. H: 7 1/4", W: 13", Diam.: 9 1/2". (Courtesy, J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine)

107

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Image removed to protect copyright

Figure 13. Tea boiler. Marked, "HUNNEMAN/BOSTON". Copper, iron, brass, pewter. H: 16", L: 19", Diam.: 10". (Private Collection)

108

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Image removed to protect copyright

Figure 14. Detail of tea boiler in Figure 13. Mark on handle, "HUNNEMAN/ BOSTON".

109

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 15. Coal Scoop. Marked, "HUNNEMAN/BOSTON". Copper, iron, brass. H: 15 1/2", W: 13", L: 18 1/2". Acc. no. 91.1 (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum)

110

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 16. Andirons—simple ball and cylinder type, with quarter-circle curved billet bars. Marked, "HUNNEMAN/ 519/ BOSTON". Brass, iron, lead. H: 10 1/4", W: 6 7/8", D: 213/8". (Courtesy, J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedge wick, Maine)

111

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 17. Andirons—simple ball and cylinder type with s-curved billet bars. Marked, "HUNNEMAN/ 681/ BOSTON", brass, iron, lead. H: 13", W: 9 13/16", D: 29". (Courtesy, J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine)

112

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 18. Detail of andiron with additional collar element between top of cylinder and ball finial. Marked, "HUNNEMAN/ 333/ BOSTON". Brass, iron, lead. H: 16 1/4", L: 22", W: 7 1/4". (Private Collection)

113

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 19. Detail, andiron base and upright—turned form with round pedestal foot. Unmarked; attributed to William C. Hunneman. (Private Collection) (Photographs of marked versions available in Decorative Arts Photographic Collection, Wintherthur Museum, or Mitchell, "Marked Andirons,": 30.) Brass, iron. H: 14", W: 6 1/2", L: c. 20".

114

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 115

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 21. Detail of andiron in Figure 20. Tri-Iobed band around ball finial. This same type of band appears on the turned andirons as well. Also note the seam where the two halves of the casting were joined together. Acc. no. 54.560.1A,B (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum)

116

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 23. Detail of andiron in Figure 20. Decoratively filed end of brass billet bar cover, and mark, "HUNNEMAN/ 474/ BOSTON". Acc. no. 54.560.1A3 (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum)

118

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 24. Detail of Hunneman hand pump fire engine "Hercules," serial number 556. Maker's mark, "HUNNEMAN & CO./ BUILDERS, BOSTON./ 1855". (Courtesy, J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine)

119

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 25. Detail of Hunneman hand pump fire engine "Hercules". Serial number, "556". (Courtesy, J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine)

120

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A2D the the ' upright and the stop. log , A,K Ace. no. 54.560.1 (Courtesy, Winterthur glit bar through Museum) the iron billet bar. Also visible are the hollow insides of both the brass Figure Figure 26. Detail of andiron in Figure 20. Ilollowed-oiit backs of and legs feet. In addition, note peened (lie end of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 27. Dry measure—1/2 bushel. Marked, "MADE. BY/ W. C. HUNNEMAN:/ BOSTON/ 1803". Copper, brass. H: 7 5/8", Diam.: 14". Acc. no. 1971.32.3.1 (New Hampshire Historical Society #P7696)

122

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 28. Detail of dry measure in Figure 27. Mark on bottom, "MADE. BY/ W. C. HUNNEMAN:/ BOSTON/1803". (New Hampshire Historical Society #P7696)

123

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 29. Warming pan. Marked, "HUNNEMAN/ BOSTON". Brass, iron, wood. L: 411/2", Diam.: 10 1/2". Acc. no. 57.581 (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum)

124

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 30. Warming pan. Unmarked; attributed to William C. Hunneman. Copper, iron, wood. L: 40", Diam.: 10 1/2". Acc. no. 60.186 (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum)

125

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum) Figure Figure 31. Detail of warming pan in Figure 29. Hinge construction (side and view), attachment to handle socket.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 32. Detail of warming pan in Figure 29. Stamped design on lid and mark, "HUNNEMAN/ BOSTON". Also note marked number "6" (or "9") near edge. (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum)

127

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 33. Detail of warming pan in Figure 29. Cast brass handle socket and flange at attachment to pan. (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum)

128

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 34. Detail of warming pan in Figure 30. Cast brass handle socket and flange at attachment to pan. (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum)

129

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 35. Fender footman. Marked, "HUNNEMAN/ BOSTON". Iron, brass. H: 4 3/4", W: 10 1/16", D: 14 1/8". Acc. no. 66.603 (Courtesy, W interthur Museum)

130

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 36. Detail of marking die in Figure 37. "HUNNEMAN” reversed in relief and arranged in an arc (end view). (Courtesy, J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine)

Figure 37. Marking die. "HUNNEMAN" marking tool. Iron. H: 3/4", L: 3 3/8", W: 11/4". (Courtesy, J. R. Hunneman, Jr., Sedgewick, Maine)

131

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Autographed Document Signed Henry Smith and Allan Pollock. March 21, 1822. Acc. no. 45. Lowell National Historic Park. Lowell, Massachusetts.

Bathe, Greville, and Dorothy Bathe. Jacob Perkins: His Inventions, His Times, and His Contemporaries. Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1943.

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