Jacob Hurd was one of the leading silversmiths of pre-Revolutionary Boston. Born the son of a joiner in 1702 or 1703, he is believed to have served his apprenticeship with silversmith John Edwards (1671-1746) before setting out on his own sometime in the first half of the 1720s. In 1725 Hurd married Elizabeth Mason, with whom he would have fourteen children, including two sons who themselves became silversmiths. Active in city affairs, Hurd served as tithingman and held positions of rank in local militias. At the time of his death, he was a captain of the Boston Regiment. Hurd died in Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1758.

The Currier's silver pepper box is characteristic of the small cylindrical or octagonal spice containers that appeared on the tables of well-to-do New Englanders between about 1730 and 1770. Filled variously with pepper, cinnamon, salt, and other spices, such containers were among the more diminutive of the various caster forms that first emerged in England during the late Baroque period. Along with coffee, tea and chocolate, imported spices became increasingly available during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were still costly, however, and their display in finely wrought vessels of silver highlighted the wealth and generosity of the one who offered them to his guests. Typically, the table might carry one or two pepper boxes in addition to a container for salt and a larger sugar caster. During the later Rococo period, paired sets of casters and other vessels became fashionable, with the result that the individual pepper box began to fall out of favor. Few seem to have been made in the years after the Revolutionary War.

Although it is less than four inches high, the Currier's pepper box is carefully articulated to deliver a strong visual impact. Its octagonal body and multiple raised bands reflect light from various angles, while its delicate handle and fancifully pierced top heighten its decorative effect. The applied black enamel star is probably a modern addition, for similar devices are virtually unknown in other pepper boxes of the period.

Marked IHURD within a lobed cartouche, the Currier's pepper box probably dates to about 1730-40. In addition to Hurd's touch, the initials "IKD" are engraved on the bottom of the box. Although the original owners of the box are presently unknown, the seller of the piece identified them as members of a family named Kendall. A nearly identical pepper box by Hurd, bearing the same initials but without the applied star, was recorded in the Frank L. and Louise C. Harrington collection in 1965.

VSD

REFERENCES


Kathryn C. Buhler. Massachusetts Silver in the Frank L. and Louise C. Harrington Collection. Worcester, MA: N.p., 1965.

Barbar McLean Ward and Gerald W. R. Ward, eds. Silver in American Life: Selections from the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University. Boston: David R. Godine, in association with Yale University Art Gallery and the American Federation of Arts, 1979.

Gregor Norman-Wilcox. "American Silver Spice Dredgers, Part I." Antiques XLV, no. 1 (January 1944): 20-22.