Teapot for two: Joseph and Sarah Mather’s 25th(??) Anniversary Gift

With the recent cataloging of items in the Mather Homestead, this pewter teapot is now item 2017.01.0304.  But for any visitors it is the object of greatest interest in the corner cabinet in the Homestead dining room.

The teapot was crafted by Thomas S. Derby (c. 1786-1852: working 1812-1852.)  The Homestead appraisal book describes it as a “wide-bellied teapot with narrow flared neck; a hinged conical lid with button finial.  The S-curved spout opposes the C-scroll handle, resting on a narrow flared foot.”

Thomas Derby’s pewter can be found at both the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and in the Winterthur Collection in Winterthur, Delaware.  The Winterthur catalog states “It seems that Thomas Derby was responsible for leaking T.D. Boardman’s formula for brittania.  He trained in the shop of William Danforth…he apparently worked for himself through the 1830’s and worked with his son Thomas Derby Jr. for part of his career.” 

In the early 19th century, the Connecticut Valley was known for its many pewterers, some-times referred to as “the Middletown travelers.”  The Pewter Collectors Club of America’s Summer 2003 Bulletin states that Derby…”then worked for Josiah [Danforth], William's son, beginning about 1821-22. Josiah entrusted him with a secret britannia formula recently discovered by his cousin, Thomas Danforth Boardman. However, shortly thereafter, Derby was hired away by Hiram and Charles Yale, taking with him the Boardman secret. Derby worked for the Yales until around 1830. He then operated his own shop in Middletown from approximately 1830-1850.

The engraving on the bottom of the teapot reads Joseph Mather/AND Sarah Scott/Married May 29-1777.  The story most often told during Homestead tours is that the teapot was a twenty-fifth anniversary gift.  HOWEVER, if Thomas Derby’s working period did not begin until 1812, and he was not on his own until “around 1830,” it seems much more likely that the teapot was a gift for the 50th (1827) or even later.  (The Deacon died in 1840 after 62 years of marriage and Sarah died in 1843.)