The age-herald., 1897-10-24

the end" Tn the strong box of Duchess one silver fork flor the purpose of eat- irg sugar plums."i
 The fork for eating olives Massinger recognizes in polite society about 1916:
 I have all that's requisite
 To the making Of a signior,
 And my silver fork
 To convey an olive neatly to my mouth
 The use of dinner forks was now be coming general, and a fork was added 10 the knife and spoon which most per- sons carried with them for their use. The same knife, fork and spoon served fer Il,e entire meal, sometimes wa jhed. ard sometimes only wiped. The large dinner forks, now called table forks" were int, odueed by the Duke de Mon- tapsier. and were first used in France about 1645.
 fork bearing the Musgrave crest, with the mark of 1883, was aug up in the grounds of Eden Hall, England It ranks as the most ancient English four pronged table fork known, and was probably made out OF spoon.
 In the olden days all forks were per- fsetly straight and two-tined, later on the tines were slightly bent, soon three tines became fashionable, and about fhe middle of the last century four-pronged forks came into use. The handles or forks followed the fashion of spoons.
 Forks were not used in England when the Pilgrims set sail. In 162O travellers Q kins in Italy as a curious innovation.
 Our ancestors of the Mayfiowsr held their food in a napkin with the left hand, while with the right they cur IL with knife and carried 1t to the mouth' kariy inventories show ar entire ao- senca of forks. Governor Winthrop is said to have had the first table fork brought to America.
 lady travelling through New Eng land, in 1704, spoke with much scorn or the people of Conhcct'cut, because they allowed their negro slaves to sit and eat at the same table with themselves, saying that into the great dish goes the black hoof as finely as the white hand" As late as 1;59 this was uh- changed.
 The first mention of forks in New Erg- land is about s669 and about 1Tu0 men ton becomes more freouent.
 The handles were of various material silver ivory agate tortoiseshell, glass, japanned work, bone. horn and ,ron.
 Iron forks were used in the kitchens In N@w England as early as 16S3.
 In 1738 Peter Faneuil ordered one dozen silver forks from England, with three prongs, with my name cut upon them, made very neat and handsome.
 Four-pronged forks are spoken of In Boston inventory in 1I19.
 Alice Morse Earle than whom there IS probably no better authority on the manners and customs of colonial days, tells US that the first mention or silver forks in America she finds in will mads in 16eq Four years later one Parson oxant,ridgs.. who had the finest personnel of anyone in Boston, had silver forks.
 Early Long Island inventories or bo,,sahoId effects make no allusion to sli- yer forks prior to the first quarter oI this century, and they did not come ihto general use until the second quarter:
 Among the early settlers of New 1ork silver forks were not known before apout 175O. save in rare instances. Ihey Were either ordered to be brought from Eng land or were purchased from the Indians, who had obtained them in tne-r Iaius oii New England villages.
 William Walton, who built in l754 the Walton house. was very hospitabls, anu gave the most sumptuous entertalnmehts of any person of his day. HIS sideboara eroaned with the weight or massive Sii- Yer and the silver plate used at his dln- nafs was equal, if not superIor 10 any nobleman's. He is said to have had two ca ses of forks, knives and spoons, pos session so extraordinary, as to require snecial mention, in the records of the time in which he lived. vi.
 Mrs. Hugh Wallace, of NEW fork' whose husband, a prominent mercnaift was committed for having refused 10 e5the oath of allegiance to congress in 1776. lost in the lattsr part or the rsNo l,,tionsry war a box of plate valued at upward of fl 800, yet the inventory sho"s not the mention of fork
 Though the fork received its most per feet form from the hands Of the Ens fish. there is today, not far rom Lon don an alms-house where its us+ is un- r