The New World

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

As English rule began to grow intolerable to American colonies and the Revolution approached, it was considered a fitting sign of American patriotism to discontinue to use foreign importations. Men and women were expected to leave off wearing the finery which came from abroad and to patronize their own manufacturers and craftsmen.

One of these craftsmen was Paul Revere, of the famous Midnight Ride. The poet failed to mention what Paul Revere did by day. According to records he was both silversmith and goldsmith, with a somewhat startling, sideline which, expressed with conscientious particularity, we find advertised in The Boston Gazette, December 19, 1768:

Whereas many persons are so unfortunate as to lose their Fore-Teeth by Accident, and otherwise, to their great Detriment, not only in looks, but speaking both in Public and Private:- This is to inform all such that they may have them replaced with artificial ones, that looks as well as the Natural, and answers the end of speaking to all Intents by Paul Revere, Goldsmith, near the head of Dr Clark’s Wharf, Boston.

All Persons who have had false teeth fixt by Mr John Baker, Surgeon-Dentist, and they have got loose (as they will in time) may have them fastened by the above who learnt the Method of fixing them from Mr Baker.

Surely that advertisement must have brought results. Here is another, inserted by an importer:

Imported in the Neptune (Capt.Binney) and to be sold by Daniel Paker, Goldsmith. At his Shop near the Golden Ball, Boston. An Assortment of Articles of the Goldsmith’s and Jeweller’s Way, viz. brilliant and cypher’d Button and Earing Stones of all Sorts, Locket Stones, cypher’d Ring Stones, Garnetts, Amethysts, Topaz and Sapphire Ring Stones, neat Stone Rings sett in Gold, some with Diamond Sparks, Stone Buttons in Silver, by the Card, black ditto in Silver, best Sword Blades, Shoe and Knee Chapes of all sizes.

Let the modern jeweler try to match that advertisement!

During the Revolution, of course, the jeweler’s trade did not meet with much encouragement in America, yet the custom of distributing mourning rings survived even that upheaval. At the death of Washington the country was flooded with a deluge of lockets, rings and brooches, each bearing a lugubrious little painting of Grief, symbolized by a dejected damsel mourning over his tomb. In his will Washington himself left directions for the giving of memorial rings:

To my sister-in-law, Hannah Washington and Mildred Washington, to my friends, Eleanor and Elizabeth Washington of Hayfield, I give each a mourning ring of the value of one hundred dollars.

At an earlier date, the mourning rings worn on this side of the Atlantic were as ornamentally gruesome as those of Europe, but by this time skeletons and death’s heads had been discarded in favor of less grim designs. Gold rings inscribed with the name and date of death were in general use. Sometimes a miniature or a lock of the deceased’s hair decorated the bezel.

For the most part such rings, buttons, buckles, etc. as were actually made in this country were made to order by the freelance goldsmith. It was not until after the war of ’76 that the manufacturing of jewelry as a business, with shops where one could buy ready-to-wear jewels, was established. At least we find no earlier records of them.

It is believed that the first shop of the kind was opened in Newark, New Jersey, sometime between 1790 and 1795 by a man named Hinsdale. There one could buy stock rings already inscribed with the words ‘In memory of,’ followed by a blank space where the name of the departed could readily be added according to order.

The New World (continued)