A nineteenth-century American silver flatware service

Magazine Antiques, Sept, 1999 by D. Albert Soeffing

The recent opportunity to examine a complete mid-nineteenth-century American flatware service, preserved in excellent condition in its original tooled-leather box, provided an invaluable chance to reconsider American dining implements of the period - their design, decoration, and use.

Although the leather case bears no label of any kind, each piece is stamped with he marks of the retailer - "G.L. STEVENSON" Of Albany, New York - and of the maker - an eagle above "HH&B" in a diamond-shaped lozenge [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE IV OMITTED]. The set can be closely dated because the Stevenson firm was relatively short-lived. George L. Stevenson is first listed in the Albany directory of 1864 as the assistant treasurer of the Academy of Music. The following year he is listed as a watchmaker at 1 Green Street, and he continues to be listed as a watchmaker and jeweler through the directory of 1872 [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. In 1873 and 1874 he appears as a newsagent for the local railroads, and thereafter he disappears from the directories. The R. G. Dun and Company credit reports offer the further information that Stevenson's jewelry business failed in March 1868 and again in early 1870, that its name was changed to Geo. L. Stevenson and Company around June 1872, and that it was finally dissolved in November of that year, when the stock and remaining business were sold to Francis H. Piaget.(1) Considering Stevenson's considerable financial difficulties as early as March 1868, it seems likely that this flatware service was sold in 1866 or 1867.

The "HH&B" mark has previously been attributed to the film of Green Hall, John D. Hewson, and S. Douglas Brower,(2) but that partnership was in business only between 1849 and 1851 or 1852 and was certainly dissolved by Hewson's death in 1852.(3) In tact, the mark was introduced no earlier than 1855 - possibly at the time Green Hall retired - and was used by Brower alone and then with his son until the late 1860s and perhaps into the 1870s. This suggests that Brower created the mark in deference to the men with whom he had apprenticed and grown up and who had been his early partners.

Sperry Douglas Brower was born in or about 1809 in Troy, New York, the third son of Abraham, a merchant tailor, and Hannah Douglas Brower, whom Abraham had married in June 1806. Named after his mother's father, Sperry Douglas of New London, Connecticut,(4) the younger Brower was undoubtedly apprenticed to Green Hall and John D. Hewson, and in 1835 he was appointed superintendent of their factory.(5) On April 7, 1830, he was married to Harriet Putnam (1811-1843), whose elder sister was Hewson's wife and whose younger brother, John Smith Putnam (1814-after 1891), was also presumably apprenticed to Hall and Hewson and subsequently became a prominent silversmith in Buffalo, New York.(6) Brower and his wife had two children - Walter Scott (b. 1831) and Harriet (b. 1833)(7) - and it is reasonable to surmise that Walter was trained as a silversmith in his father's factory. Although he worked as an undertaker for a short time in the mid-1860s,(8) Walter joined his father's firm in 1868 and took it over completely when the elder Brower retired in July 1873.(9)

S. Douglas Brower was what was called a spoon, or flatware, maker. By the 1850s, when he went into business on his own, Americans were no longer content with plain spoon work and preferred what were generally termed fancy, figured, or ornamental patterns. As a role, the makers who survived in business at this time required large amounts of capital to purchase the machinery necessary to respond to the changes in taste, particularly dies and die-stamping machines.(10) Brower wats one of these. A writer in 1856 described him as

giving...especial attention to tableware, his designs of which are of the latest and most approved styles. This department of the business...has undergone a great change within a few years, in consequence of an increasing demand for variety and a desire for ornament. Mr. Brower has not failed to note this change in public taste, but is constantly renewing his patterns, improving his designs, and perfecting his machinery.(11)

The extent of Brower's success can be further gauged by his listing in the Federal census of industry of 1860, which records that on an annual basis his business produced sixty thousand dollars worth of "spoons, forks, knives and ladles" using thirty thousand ounces of silver valued at thirty-eight thousand dollars. The finished goods were made by a workforce of fifteen men and four women employing the "motive" power of a five-horsepower steam engine.(12)

Although it is not known to whom the flatware service under examination here originally belonged, each piece retains its original "A" initial in Old English style lettering. In many instances, old silver has been deformed by the misguided notion of removing such original initials or monograms. Made of coin-silver standard metal (approximately 90 percent pure silver), the service is in an engraved pattern. While engraved patterns required a large amount of hand labor, their actual cost of production was relatively modest because the wage scale at the time was so low.(13) Additional engraving appears on some of the specialized serving implements. For example, the broad blades of such serving pieces as the fish knife, cake saw, and pie knife are engraved with a scene of a villa on an island in a lake surrounded by mountains [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATES VIII, IX OMITTED]. Such ornamentation was common on silverware of the period and could reach the state of high art, although here it is relatively simple.