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Phineas who?

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Author	Topic: Phineas who?
blakstone Posts: 493 Registered: Jul 2004	posted 08-10-2009 11:16 PM The only place I find this mark - characterized by the incomplete crossbar of the “B” - is in Flynt & Fales’ Heritage Foundation Collection of Silver (Old Deerfield, MA: Heritage Foundation, 1968), where it is identified as that of Phinehas Bradley (1745-1797) of New Haven, Connecticut. Not very likely, say I; I just don’t see this spoon being 18th century. I’m gratified to see that the new edition of Bohan & Hammerslough’s Early Connecticut Silver 1700-1840 (Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1970, rev. 2007), shares my concerns. The corrections and revisions there suggest that some spoons attributed to Bradley in the Yale collection (which sound remarkably like this one, with its pointed shoulders and handle which can’t decide if its fiddle or coffin-shaped) are perhaps by Phineas Bushnell (1741-1836) of Guilford, Connecticut. However, the Yale spoons (or their marks) aren’t illustrated in Buhler & Hood’s American Silver in the Yale University Art Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970), and none of the marks in Bohan & Hammerslough are a good match for this one – again, that oddly formed “B” which, I think, is not simply a sign of wear. So I leave it to those more capable than I. Phinehas Bradley? Phineas Bushnell? Some other Phineas? (When did the name Phineas fall out of favor, anyway, and why on earth did it need two spellings?) Or perhaps some other “PB” entirely, like Philip Brown (1789-1854) of Hopkinton & Concord, New Hampshire? For I have no reason whatever to suspect a Connecticut provenance for this spoon. I bought it at a recent local auction in a grab-bag lot of fifteen other spoons, some of which were Swiss. (Which will explain things to members who are scratching their heads wondering what I’m doing here in the Early American forum. I’ll probably post the Swiss spoons at some point in my continuing thread in the Continental Forum, where, mercifully, silversmiths generally have the decency to put some sort of city mark on their spoons.) IP: Logged
ahwt Posts: 2334 Registered: Mar 2003	posted 08-11-2009 01:05 PM There is a Phillip Becker from Lancaster, PA the used the PB mark. As shown in Robert Alan Green's book it looks the same as the mark for Bradley - the letters PB within a rectangle. The only date given for Becker is c1764 and unless Mr. Becker lived and worked until the early 1800's this may not be the right PB. IP: Logged
swarter Moderator Posts: 2920 Registered: May 2003	posted 08-11-2009 02:13 PM quote: can't decide if its fiddle or coffin-shaped It is both - called a "coffin fiddle." Such modified fiddles appeared following the appearance of coffin modified Old English - the latter around 1800, and fiddles as such did not become popular (in this country) until a bit later. IP: Logged
wev Moderator Posts: 4121 Registered: Apr 99	posted 08-11-2009 05:20 PM Phillip Bush, Jr. at the end of his career in Frankfort KY is a possibility. IP: Logged
bascall Posts: 1629 Registered: Nov 99	posted 08-11-2009 09:33 PM There is Phillip Becker in the 1800 U S Federal Census for Church, Lancaster, Pennsylvania whose age is only given as forty-five or older. [This message has been edited by bascall (edited 08-11-2009).] IP: Logged
Polly Posts: 1970 Registered: Nov 2004	posted 08-13-2009 11:54 PM I know a Phineas who's in his 20s or 30s (friend of a friend). The name has not been in the top 1,000 most popular boys' names in the 1880s or any decade since, according to a website that crunches census name data. (The 1880s are the earliest decade it offers.) "Phineas" seems due for a revival--nice, uncommon, pleasant-sounding, pronounceable name. I like the coffin-fiddle spoon, too. IP: Logged

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