Thomas K. Ford

“ Let’s assume that young John Goodkin of Williamsburg, age 13, must be apprenticed out to learn a trade. Apprenticeship will provide the boy with an assured future livelihood, and at the same time relieve his father of the burden of supporting him. The master craftsman who accepts young Johnny as apprentice will not only teach him the trade but also provide him with board, lodging, clothing, and an occasional shilling (but no wages) for the full period of his apprenticeship. He will also teach Johnny, or see that he learns, a smattering of the three R’s. ”

“ The oldest son almost automatically followed the father’s trade and inherited his tools and shop, if he had one.
The same custom prevailed in the English colonies, including Virginia, but in modified form. Here the freedom of movement encouraged by the beckoning frontier of opportunity, and especially of cheap land, broke down many social and economic barriers. A man of one class could more easily climb into the class above or aspire to have his son do so. Even the long-standing apprenticeship system suffered. ”

“ The contemporary silversmiths at the Geddy Shop and the Golden Ball do not make mourning rings—there is not much call for them these days. They do, however, make and sell a number of other articles of silver of true eighteenth-century design. For obvious reasons their supply of raw material comes from commercial refineries rather than from melted coins or plate. But they cast the silver, forge it, raise, seam, and solder it, and decorate the finished products just as did their predecessors. ”

“ In essence, thus, there are only three techniques of forming silver into an article of desired shape: casting the molten metal in a properly shaped mold; hammering an ingot into the shape desired; and building the desired shape from smaller pieces soldered together. Wire produced on the drawing bench might be one of these smaller elements. Filing is considered to be a finishing rather than a forming process.
These forming and working processes, as they would have been used by an eighteenth-century silversmith, will be described in more detail in a moment. ”

“ Although Virginia probably contained as much concentrated wealth and as much plate as any other colony, the Virginians who held most of it leaned toward England in heart and pocketbook. If they wanted their silver refashioned, where more logical to have it done than in London—where fashions were made and where the pieces had been wrought in the first place.
16 LEARNING TO BE A SILVERSMITH
No one earned the right to be a master craftsman in silver—or a master of any other craft—in the eighteenth century without serving a long and thorough apprenticeship. ”

“ In Johnny’s case the decision is easily reached: Mrs. Goodkin’s cousin is a silversmith in Williamsburg and agrees to accept the boy as apprentice. Thus Johnny can look forward to a thoroughly respectable career. He may never rise to the social heights attained by Anthony Singleton; in fact he is unlikely to. But he may make himself so well respected by his fellow citizens as to be chosen by them a member of the city’s Common Council. That honor was bestowed on James Geddy, Jr., in 1767.
As an apprentice to a silversmith, what will Johnny do? ”

“ Acquiring a complete set of Silversmith tools, or at least a reasonably adequate set, must have been something of a task in itself. When John Coney, a leading Boston silversmith, died in 1722 at the age of 67, the inventory of his goods reflected his many years at the craft. ”

“ In cabinets of rooms adjoining both shops the visitor may examine a collection of silver, cutlery, jewelry, and 34 similar articles made in England and in the colonies during the eighteenth century. Of particular interest are the black enameled “mourning rings” so popular at that time. It was the custom for a man of wealth to provide in his will for the purchase of rings to be worn by members of his family and close friends. All Williamsburg silversmiths and jewelers advertised that they made mourning rings “on the shortest Notice.” ”

“ Unlike the countries of Europe, the colonies in America did not have uniform laws regulating every aspect of the apprenticeship system. Some colonies had no legal regulations at all, some limited the effect of controls to specified trades or to certain aspects of apprenticeship, and some had laws that were honored in the breach more than in the observance. In sum, the colonies generally did not follow the European example of employing the authority of government to insure high standards of training and practice in the trades and crafts. ”

“ Everything we know of the time and the people reinforces the belief that the planters of Virginia—the only ones who could afford large outlays in silver—bought their plate in London rather than having it made by smiths of the colony. ”

“ Among the silversmith’s final procedures would have been the stamping of his mark, his initials, or his name on the piece. This practice of identifying the maker of an article of gold or silver ware is of long standing, though perhaps not so ancient as the custom by which a painter or sculptor signs his work.
Since the year 1300 the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths of the City of London has been charged by the British government with assaying gold and silver wares 30 and coins, and certifying that the metals are of required fineness. ”

“ Since no records survive as to the interior arrangement 33 or contents of the shop, the architects and curators have again had to use their best judgment and the most appropriate precedents and parallels in designing and furnishing the shop. While none of the silversmithing tools now used in either of the two shops are those of James Craig or James Geddy, Jr., some of them may have belonged to an English silversmith of the eighteenth century by the name of George Wickes. One particular tool, a square “stake” or anvil, displayed in the Geddy Shop, once belonged to Paul Revere. ”

“ Although only the wealthy families possessed an occasional large and elaborate silver piece of London manufacture—such as epergnes and monteiths—many Virginians not of the planter aristocracy did own silver. Alexander 14 Purdie, for example, one proprietor of the Virginia Gazette, owned real estate, nine slaves, and 130 ounces of plate when he died. Other professional men and even artisans in colonial Virginia also owned silver in amounts that seem large in contrast to what their modern counterparts generally possess. ”

“ Chasing is the impression of a design on the surface by the use of appropriately shaped punches. Repoussé consists of raising a design, somewhat like bas relief, by hammering from the back or inside of the work. In the second and third techniques the metal is displaced but not removed.
27
Shown here are a few of the larger anvils and stakes on which the silversmiths shaped their silver into the finished articles. Since the silversmith had no tool the exact shape of the articles he made, he had to employ many different shaped tools in the process of manufacture. ”

“ Even with all these tools—plus forge, ingot molds, drawing bench, binding wire, and many other essentials of the craft—the silversmith was limited to six basic methods of working silver. These were casting, forging, raising, hollowing, seaming, and creasing—the principal methods still employed by hand craftsmen today.
But forging, raising, hollowing, and creasing are all hammering processes, though they differ significantly in the manipulation of the metal under the hammer. ”

“ American silver, dispensing with the heavy ornamentation for ornament’s sake that often characterized the work of London silversmiths, tended to be substantial, serviceable, and vigorous in form, befitting the environment in which it was to be used. ”

“ Their church was the Church of England, their books and songs were English books and songs, and English-made goods were to them obviously better than the country-made variety.
So strong was this preference for wares imported from London that it persisted through the various nonimportation associations and buy-American movements. In Williamsburg, curiously enough, the leading silversmiths seem to have been less enthusiastic “associators” than were tradesmen elsewhere—certainly less enthusiastic than such leaders of the planter group as George Washington. ”

“ While American smiths no doubt resented the general preference of their customers for articles of English manufacture, they could not overlook the fact that English fashions in design dominated colonial life. ”

“ A boy of the working class in England was usually launched on his life’s career by the time he was 14, and sometimes when he was only 10 or 12. The class of society into which he happened to be born and his father’s vocation usually determined the road he would take. ”

“ A workman can be seen pouring the molten silver into the mold. The two men in front of the forge are hammering the cast ingot into a sheet and the three seated workmen are flattening out the forged sheet and hammering it into various shapes. ”

“ With his own Goods, nor the Goods of others without Licence from his Master, he shall not buy nor sell. He shall not absent himself day or night from his said Master’s Service, without his Leave, nor haunt Alehouses, Taverns, or Play Houses, but in all Things behave himself as a faithful Apprentice ought to do during the said Term. ”

“ All of them combined with silversmithing some other craft, most often that of jeweler or watch repairer. Time and again they assured prospective purchasers that their wares, whether country made or imported, were in the very latest fashion. Each one without exception offered the “highest” price for old gold and silver, including gold lace, either in cash or to be credited against new work. And very often they felt it necessary to specify that sales would be “for ready money only.”
Advertisement appearing in Purdie and Dixon’s VIRGINIA GAZETTE on October 6, 1774. ”

“ Also, the law required the maker to use the first two letters of his last name, for example (G) , the mark of Paul de Lamerie. It was the custom before and after this period for silversmiths to use initials. The marks of George Wickes, John Tuite, and Dorothy Mills are shown (H, I, and J) and examples of their work are in Colonial Williamsburg’s collection of English and American silver. Some of George Wickes’s tools may be among those currently used at the Golden Ball and the Geddy Shop.
One is the true hallmark, the symbol of the guildhall where it was assayed. ”

“ The other and probably more reasonable explanation is that Williamsburg silversmiths fashioned few pieces of plate of any great size. Silver work in Williamsburg, it appears, was limited mainly to the manufacture of small articles and to the repair of items large and small.
11
This is a shop where smaller pieces were made. We would refer to it as a jewelry shop. The workmen are shown melting the metal, hammering on an anvil, soldering with a mouth blow pipe, and setting the stones. DIDEROT.
This is a shop of a silversmith who made large pieces such as tea sets, trays, and tankards. ”

“ Both are operating craft shops where skilled workers in costume produce articles of gold and silver using methods and tools like those employed by James Craig, James Geddy, Jr., and other Williamsburg silversmiths two centuries ago. For reasons important to twentieth-century visitors, a partial division of functions has been established: The making of jewelry and smaller silver items and engraving are emphasized at the Golden Ball ”

“ Kerr proposed to sell 400 tickets at one pistole each and give 80 prizes worth, at “common saleable Prices,” a total of 400 pistoles. (A pistole was the old quarter-doubloon of Spain, or a similar gold coin, worth about four dollars.) The top prize in the lottery, a combination of a diamond ring, an amethyst pin, a heavily jeweled pendant, and an ornamented gold box, was to be worth 62 pistoles; the other prizes ranged down to 40 valued at two pistoles each. ”

“ In addition, the young apprentice serves as errand boy, delivering finished goods, collecting bills, and carrying supplies. He also brings cakes and ale for the daily interlude that corresponded to the coffee break of today.
TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES OF THE COLONIAL SILVERSMITH
From the founding of Jamestown to the time of the Revolution some 300 silversmiths practiced in the three cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia alone. Another 200 worked in the smaller centers of New England and the middle colonies and in such southern places as Charleston, Annapolis, and Williamsburg. ”

“ A work bench which could accommodate five workmen, allowing each to take advantage of daylight. The latticed floor caught filings and bits of metal which were salvaged and subsequently refined. DIDEROT.
The shop of a London clock and watchmaker. The large octangular faced clock hanging on the wall is typical of the kind that would have been found in public places. It was later called the Parliament clock. One may be seen at the Golden Ball. UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE.
18
The traditions of apprenticeship, however, survived the ocean crossing somewhat better than the legal sanctions. ”

“ The silversmith often used small anvils, stakes, and dies. Figure 13, for instance, is a spoon mold used to make the final shape of the spoon. Figures 16, 18, 20, and 22 are button punches used to impress a design on smaller pieces. ”