Jacob Hurd

  General notes:

Silversmith

  Events in his life were:

• Alternate Mark

• Alternate Mark

• Alternate Mark

• Apprenticed c 1720 to John Edwards in Boston MA ¹

• He worked from 1723 to 1755 as a silversmith in Boston MA with a shop located in Pudding Lane, near the Town House. Following his declaration of bankruptcy, he moved to Roxbury. ⁶

• Cup, c 1725
Boston Museum of Fine Arts ⁸
h: 4 1/8"
d: 3 3/16" (base)
wt: 7 oz
Engraved on bottom PHEBE COLEMAN

• Mug, c 1728
Boston Museum of Fine Arts ⁸
h: 4 11/16"
d: 3 ¾" (base)
wt: 7 oz, 5 dwt
Engraved P over CM for Caleb and Mary (Adams) Parker and descended in the family to Thomas Knox Emery

• Covered Bowl, 1730-1740
Boston Museum of Fine Arts ⁸
h: 4 5/16" (including cover)
w: 3 1/8" (base)
w: 4 15/16" (cover)
wt: 9 oz, 9 dwt
Unique form in published American silver

• Gold snuff box, 1730-1740
Boston Museum of Fine Arts ⁸
h: 5/8"
l: 2 11/16"
w: 2"
wt: 1 oz, 12 ½ dwt
Engraved with arms of Dummer family. Made for Lt. Governor William Dummer.

• Salver, 1730-1740
Boston Museum of Fine Arts ¹
h: 1 ¼"
d: 6 7/8"

• Sword, 1730-1740
Boston Museum of Fine Arts ⁸
l: 6" (hilt)
Engraved "EL" on edge of counterguard for Enoch Little.

• Teapot, 1730-1735
Boston Museum of Fine Arts ⁸
h: 5 ½"d: 3 ½" (base)
wt: 16 oz, 11 dwt
Engraved with cipher in Hurd's cartouche of the 1730s on the pourer's side; the initials SMS repeated on the bottom, the first S overcut to an E. On the opposite side in a later style cartouche is the Storer coat of arms. At the lip, an engraved band of bellflowers on diapered ground, broken at ends by elaborate scroll designs and at sides by diamonds with pendent bellflower buds. Cover has bellflowers at ends, buds at sides. An additional account of plate belonging to Ebenezer Storer, Jr., was taken on October 1, 1785, and contains many pieces bearing the initials SMS. Ebenezer's uncle, Seth Storer (1702-1774), had died childless and although a record of the death of his widow Mary, daughter of John Coney, is not found, it must have occurred prior to this listing and the division of their plate. Since the Storer arms appear to be in Hurd's late engraving, perhaps it was at this time that the teapot first changed ownership, and the triangular block initials revised for the first Ebenezer, whose wife was also Mary. Seth Storer had served a half-century pastorate in Watertown, Massachusetts. In 1747 he petitioned that his salary "... for many years past had fallen very much short of being sufficient to support my family" be increased. Although the petition suggests children, only his wife and kinsmen were mentioned in his will, of which his nephew Ebenezer was executor.

• Teapot, 1730-1735
Boston Museum of Fine Arts ⁸
h: 5"
d: 3 3/16" (base)
wt: 13 oz, 9 dwt
The teapot appears on a list of plate taken October 1st, 1785, belonging to Ebenezer Storer, Jr.: "a Tea Pott Jacob Hurd 12 oz Sturgis arms." The discrepancy in weight is explained by the fact that the wooden handle is included here. On the list there were also spoons engraved HQ and others with "The Crest of Quincy" indicating that the teapot belonged to Josiah (1709-1784) and Hannah (Sturgis) Quincy. Ebenezer's second wife, whom he married in 1777, was their daughter, the widow Hannah (Quincy) Lincoln. The youngest of his children by this second marriage was Susanna, who married Rev. Asa Eaton (1778-1858), Minister of Christ Church, Boston from 1803 to 1829. The cartouche is the same design that Hurd used on the Townsend-Mason teapot (Yale University Art Gallery, Garvan Collection), dated 1738.

• Tea kettle, c 1730-1740
Boston Museum of Fine Arts ⁸
h: 14 3/8" (inclusive)
d: 7 1/2"
wt: 59 oz, 12 dwt (kettle)
wt: 18 oz, 12 dwt (stand)
Engraved with Lowell arms. This is the only published kettle of New England make in the colonial period and the only silver known to bear these arms originally. For his bookplate cut by Nathaniel Hurd, Judge John Lowell (1743-1801) used the crest of a covered cup with the Lowell coat. He moved from Newbury to Boston, joining the Church in Brattle Square. With its correct crest, the Lowell coat marks the tablet to his son John (1769-1840) in King's Chapel, Boston. In the nineteenth century the quartered arms on the kettle were added to two pieces of silver which in period could have belonged to Ebenezer Lowell (1675-1711): the salver by John Coney is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the two-handled cup by Edward Winslow in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection at Yale University. Winslow's cup was not the inspiration of Judge Lowell's crest. Both pieces were owned in this century by grandchildren of James Russell Lowell, as was the kettle. His only surviving child, Mabel, married Edward Burnett. Mrs. Cunningham writes of her mother, Mabel Lowell Burnett, as a child taking the kettle from the sideboard at Elmwood to make its spout "a beautiful Roman fountain" from melting snow.

• Cann, c 1730-1740
Private Collection
h: 5"
Engraved on bottom "The Gift / of / J * Thomas / to / J * Wendell" and on the front "The Gift of / Her Grandmother Judith Tuck / To / Judith Tuck Chase / Dec 1844"

• Appointed in 1736 as Constable of City in Boston MA ⁶

• Master to Samuel Casey c 1740 in Boston MA. ¹

• Advertised in the Boston News-Letter (Boston MA), 1743-1750, ⁴

• Cup, c 1747
Yale University ¹⁹
h: 5 13/16"
d: 3 3/16" (of base)
wt: 9 oz, 11 dwt
Engraved "The Gift / of Mr^s MARY WALKER / Dec^d to the First / Church of Christ / in Rehoboth, 1747" for Mary (Abell) Walker, whose will, proved 4 August 1747, left ". . . to the first Church of Christ in Rebodoth ten Pounds in New Tenour Bills to Purchase a silver Cup for the Communion Table."

• Master to Houghton Perkins c 1749 in Boston MA. ¹

• Tankard, 1750
First Church Of Deerfield MA ³
h: 8 3/8"
wt: 27 oz, 9 dwt.
Left to the church by Thomas Welles.

• Pepper box, c 1750
Winterthur Library ²¹
h: 3 13/16"
w: 2¼"
wt: 2 oz, 18 dwt
Engraved L over D I for Daniel and Jerusha (Talcott) Lathrop.

• Master to Daniel Henchman 1753 in Boston MA. ¹

• Master to Benjamin Hurd c 1754 in Boston MA. ¹

• He worked from 1755 to 1758 as a silversmith in Roxbury MA ⁷

• Porringer, c 1755
Private Collection ¹
h: 2"
l: 7 7/8"
d: 5 3/8"

• Master to Nathaniel Hurd c 1755 in Boston MA. ¹

• Obituary printed in the Boston Gazette (Boston MA) on 20 Feb 1758 ²¹
"Last Wednesday in the Afternoon Cap^t Jacob Hurd . . . a noted Goldsmith, was siezed with a Lethargy, in which he continued till Friday Evening, and then expired, much lamented."

• Obituary printed in the Boston News-Letter (Boston MA) on 23 Feb 1758
"Jacob Hurd, Capt., goldsmith, formerly of Boston and late of Roxbury being in Town at a Relation's House was seiz'd with an apoplexy, in which he continued speechless till Friday Evening when he departed this Life Feb. 17, 1758"

He was heavily in debt at his death, owing £743/6/5½. His estate, adminstered by his son John and appraised by Samuel Edwards and William Simpkins, was valued at a meager £72/13/0, which included a house and land at "Germantown" worth £50.

• Cann
Private Collection
h: 4¾"
d: 3¾"
wt: 10 oz
Engraved on the bottom with Whitney Family ownership beginning with Samuel (1734-1808) and ending with Ellerton Pratt Whitney (b. 1858).

Jacob married Elizabeth Mason on 20 May 1725 in Boston MA. (Elizabeth Mason was born on 18 Apr 1705 in Boston MA and died on 15 Jun 1764 in Boston MA.)