Silver from the First Church of Deerfield, Massachusetts

Magazine Antiques, Sept, 2003 by Donald R. Friary

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New England's Puritans continued to use domestic vessels in observing the sacrament, but became increasingly self-conscious of the need for "deceny", "neatness," and "refinement" in their worship, as in their dress and deportment. (10) No longer satisfied with mismatched cups like the three at Deerfield, they began to furnish the communion table with matched sets or groups of tankards or canns.

In Deerfield tankards were bequeathed one by one so that three were in use by 1764, four by 1802, and five in 1832. They did not match exactly, but formed a similar group that was impressive when arrayed on the communion table. The first tankard in the Deerfield church is engraved "The Gift/of/THO[??] WELLS Esq[??]/ Dec[??] to the Church of/Christ in/DEAR=FIELD/ 1750" within a cartouche of festoons, palm branches, swags, and scallops, surmounted by a fruit basket (see Pl. XI). It is a fine example of Jacob Hurd's expert engraving. The scrolled handle ends with a cast grimacing mask tip at its base. In his will Thomas Wells (1678-1750) specified, "I give and bequeath unto the Church of Christ in Deerfield a good Silver Tankard to be procured for and delivered to said Church by my Executors hereafter named." (11)

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When Ebenezer Wells died in 1758, his will left to "the Church of Christ in Deerfield a good silver Tankard to be provided by my Executors out of the remaining part of my Estate." (12) The Deerfield merchant Elijah Williams (1712-1771) paid "Mr. Samll. Edwards for a Silver Tanker 13/16/10/-" and charged "To my own Trouble in procuring. & Bringing Tanker -/6/-/-." (13) This handsome tankard by Samuel Edwards of Boston is shown in Plate XII. It is interesting to note that Elijah Williams's sister, Abigail Hinsdale (1708-1787), and her husband, the Reverend and Colonel Ebenezer Hinsdale (1706-1763), commissioned Edwards to make a cann for her niece, Anna Williams Cushing (1732-1815), in 1754 (Pl. VIII).

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In 1763 Joseph Barnard, the executor of the estate of his uncle Samuel Barnard, obtained from Patti Revere a silver tankard inscribed to the Deerfield church to fulfill one of the terms of his uncle's will (Pl. XIV). Barnard had bequeathed funds for silver to three churches:

   I allso give to that Church of Christ in Salem
   whereof I have been for some years a Member;
   plate to the Value of sixty pounds: I allso give
   to that Church in Deerfield whereof the Rev;d
   Mr. Jonathan Ashley [1712-1780] is Pastor
   plate to the Value of One Hundred pounds," I
   allso give to the Church in Greenfield Plate to
   the Value of Forty pounds. (14)

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Revere's receipt (Pl. X) shows the disbursement of only [pounds sterling] 13/16/00 for the Deerfield tankard. There is no evidence that the Deerfield church ever received any other silver from the Barnard estate. The "Church Cup" also on the receipt must have been for the Greenfield church, whose silver was replaced in the mid-nineteenth century by other pieces with Samuel Bamard inscriptions that are still in the First Congregational Church in Greenfield. The "Large Silver Cann" on another receipt from Revere that is now in the possession of the First Church of Deerfield, was made for the Salem church, whose gift of a silver cann from Samuel Barnard was incorporated in a dish "for the administration of the bread on Sacrament Days" made in 1815 of earlier silver from three donors. (15)