Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.
Teapot
Samuel Sprague's daughter brought 36 yards of her weaving to the store and sold it to Colden for £1:7:0 on this day, 250 years-ago. She also sold him two and one-half pounds of old pewter and purchased tea, indigo, and a black ceramic teapot. The total transaction resulted in a credit to her father's account of £1:4:0.
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| Ceramic Teapot - England 1766-1770. Image Courtesy of National Museum of American History. |
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This article is one in a series of a daily accountings of Colden Store transactions. Be sure you read the first installment for an introduction to the store. You should also read this article which appeared in the Journal of the Orange County Historical Society.
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Colden sold at least 28 teapots over the sixteen months covered by the DayBook. One was described as 'Earling' (Earthen or ceramic) and sold for one and one-half shillings. About half of the sales were around this price, so it is estimated that half of the teapots were ceramic. One of these was described as 'Blk' [Black?] and was the one sold to Samuel Sprague's daughter on this day.
One interesting teapot of this period is shown in the image above. Even though the Stamp Act had been repealed over a year ago, it still animated much of the population. The sometimes violent protests against the act and against Cadwallader Colden's father (acting governor at the time) had certainly left a bad-taste in the mouth of the store's owner. He would have been unlikely to stock such a teapot to sell in his store.
Three teapots sold by Colden were described as 'puter' [pewter] and sold for about seven shillings, or more than four times the cost of the ceramic teapots. Twelve teapots fell into this category.
American silversmiths, such as Paul Revere, were already making pewter teapots by this time, but it is likely that Colden's teapots were all imported. The teapot below is believed to have been one of 144 imported in 1765 to Boston from the London firm of Robert & Thomas Porteus. Perhaps it is similar to the ones sold at the Colden store.
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| A Scarce Footed Antique English Export Pewter Teapot by Robert & Thomas Porteus Image Courtesy of hillpewter.com |
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