Souvenir spoon: Wyoming, Pennsylvania

Patented 1891

Maker

The Sterling Company (1886-1891) or successor

Measurements

4-1/4 in x 1 in x 5/8 in

Materials

Silver

Credit Line

Historic Odessa Foundation, The David Wilson Mansion, Inc.

Accession Number

1971.1170

Inscription

“JULY 3RD 1778 / VALLEY OF WYOMING” is in the bowl.  The back of the handle is stamped “STERLING” and “PAT.JULY 14 91.”

Provenance

Ex coll. Mrs. E. Tatnall (Mary Corbit) Warner

Comments

The spoon handle has a relief image of a fierce-looking Indian with full feather headdress above Indian corn.  The reverse pictures a tomahawk, bow, and quiver of arrows.

The date of July 3, 1778, in the bowl acknowledges the “Wyoming massacre” when British soldiers and Iroquois Indians overwhelmed American Revolutionary War soldiers.  The Wyoming Monument, an obelisk erected between 1833 and 1843, is pictured in the center.

The design of the die used on the front and back of this spoon was published in 1891 as a spoon called “All America,” celebrating the American Indian and produced by the Sterling Company of Providence.  See Anton Hardt, Souvenir Spoons of the 90’s:  As Pictured and Described in “The Jewelers’ Circular” & The James Catalogue in 1891 (New York:  the author, 1962). pp. 15-16.

Originally established in 1878 as the H. Howard & Co., the maker became the Howard Sterling Co. in 1891.  It folded in 1901, and some patterns and dies were then sold to the Roger Williams Silver Co.