Old York Historical Society

Description

A silver tankard made and signed by Boston silversmith Benjamin Burt (1729-1805) was made for York merchant Jonathan Sayward (1713-1797) and his wife Sarah Mitchell Sayward (c.1719-1775), married 1736.

They used it in their York home until they gave it to their son-in-law Nathaniel Barrell (1732-1831, who married married Sally Sayward in 1758) as noted in Sayward's diary.

The tankard remained in the Barrell family until purchased by the Old Gaol Museum (now the Old York Historical Society) in 1958.

The top is possibly a late eighteenth or very early nineteenth century replacement. A companion tankard, not signed but attributed to Burt, remains in the Sayward House in York Harbor, now a museum property of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

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