Book Description:
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. TRENCHER TREEN AND PEWTER BRIGHT THE history of the use of china as tableware in America would be incomplete and ill comprehended, without some reference to the preceding forms of table furnishings used by the earliest colonists, the dishes of wood and pewter, which so long influenced the form and even the decoration of their china successors. As in the ' Life of Josiah Wedgwood ' we are given an account of the pottery and porcelain of all times, so in my story of china in America I tell of the humble predecessors that graced the frugal boards of our ancestors. In a curious book, Newbery's ' Dives Pragmaticus,' written in 1563, a catalogue of English cooking utensils and tableware is thus given by a chapman : ' I have basins, ewers of tin, pewter, and glass, Great vessels of copper, fine latten, and brass, Both pots, pans, and kettles such as never was. I have platters, dishes, saucers, and candlesticks, Chafers, lavers, towels, and fine tricks ; Posnets, frying pans, and fine pudding pricks ; Fine pans for milk, trim tubs for souse.' These were practically the table and kitchen furnishings brought by the Pilgrims to New England, and forsimilar furnishings they sent to old England for many years. The time when America was settled was the era when pewter ware had begun to take the place of wooden ware for table use, just as the time of the Revolutionary War marked the victory of porcelain over pewter. Governor Bradford found the Indians using ' wooden bowls, trays, and dishes,' and 'hand baskets made of crab shells wrought together.' Both colonists and Indians used clam shells for plates, and smaller shells set in split sticks as spoons and ladles. The Indians made in great quantities for their white neighbors, even in the earliest days, bowls from the kno...
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