Porringer

David Jesse was apprenticed to London goldsmith Alexander Roode in 1682 and probably immigrated to Boston shortly after becoming freeman of the company in 1691. He married Mary Wilson, originally of Hartford, Connecticut, about 1698. This marriage once led scholars to believe that Jesse was born in Hartford, but he may have met his future wife or father-in-law, merchant Phineas Wilson, during one of the latter’s business trips to Boston.

Jesse’s London training and his wife’s considerable dowry provided him with the necessary skills to establish himself in the colonies. The quality of the surviving objects bearing his mark — two of which were purchased by churches in Dorchester and farther afield, in Farmington, Connecticut — suggest that his work was esteemed. The paucity of surviving examples can be partly explained by Jesse’s early death, in his mid-thirties. In addition, he may have encountered difficulties in becoming established in the Boston community, which was already close-knit by his arrival in the 1690s.2 He may have supplemented his income by lending money, weighing hard currency, and cutting down foreign coinage for local use. His widow and three small children were in difficult straits by the time of his death. This early porringer, despite the loss of the geometric handle tip, is an important record of the silversmith’s small oeuvre.

This text has been adapted from "Silver of the Americas, 1600-2000," edited by Jeannine Falino and Gerald W.R. Ward, published in 2008 by the MFA. Complete references can be found in that publication.