Lot 659: AN AMERICAN SILVER TANKARD, JOHN STOW, WILMINGTON, DELAWARE CIRCA 1770

baluster form with stepped domed foot and matching cover, openwork thumbpiece, double-scroll handle with applied baluster and heart-shaped terminal, marked twice on base J.Stow script in conforming punch.

height 8 1/2 in.<br><br>21.5 cm

Philadelphia 1938: The Pennsylvania Society of the Colonial Dames of America. Three Centuries of Historic Silver, 1938, no. 94, illus.

Harrington 1939 p. 23, illus. p. 87.

Dundas Lippincott family, near Wilmington
Jeffords Collection by 1938

John Stow moved to Wilmington from Philadelphia in 1769, and was a founder of the gospel church there in 1785. In 1778 he served in the Delaware militia, and from 1778 to 1780 as town clerk for Wilmington.

Stow advertised the opening of his shop in Wilmington in the Pennsylvania packet, November 30, 1772. While the advertisement lists coffee pots, teapots, and tankards, few pieces bearing his mark have survived; this seems to be the only tankard known.