Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1911-10-19
RARE OLD SILVER PLATE.
Colonial DANES Prepare an Exhibit FOR
the National Museum.

SnS INaSIOnaI MUSEUM.
The first pieces of silver for the xhibit
in the old plate collection of the National
Society of Colonial Danes We're received
at the National museum recently. They
comprise an ecclesiastical service dating
back to li24 anG consist of three pieces,
two silver chalices, eight inches in height.
ana a silver paten 5a inches in diameter,
bearing the old sterling marks and en-
graved: st. AIMS Parish, Essex County.
The old plate collection when complete
VIII awaken considerable interest in a
subject only recently revived after it's
initial exhibit at the Jamestown exposi-
ton in 1907. Within the last two years
two collections have been started. one
In the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston.
and the other in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art of New York. making that OF the
National museum the third venture.
AT one time the National museum had
on exhibition a silver baptismal basin.
coming originally from Holland in 1894
and closely connected with the colonial
history of New York. This was lent the
museum by the Colonial Danes of New
York, but subsequently recalled by them.
Mrs. Marcus Benjamin. custodian of the
plate collection for the Colonial Danes.
promises, however, that this exhibit will
he of a valuable nature and will consist
of both church and household silver of
the colonial period collected from the
southern and eastern parts of the United
States.
This church service above mentioned
dates back to 1724 when 1t was presented
to the st. AIMS parish, founded some so
years before, In Essex county. Va. There
was q tradition In the parish to the eff
feet that the service was presented by
Queen Ann, but as she died in 1914 and
this service is dated 1924. this is impossi-
Bile, although it probably did come from
the fund She established, known as
Queen AIMS Bounty" One of the cups
and the paten were lost for many years
and were not discovered until 1909 when
the Rev. Thomas ID. Lewis, then rector of
the parish, learned of their location and
succeeded in purchasing them from Mr..
Charles A. Mum, OF New York, who rec
ognized the prior claim of the parish, all
though he had purchased them from How
ard & Co, OF New York, three years be-
fore.
UP to the time of their purchase from
Howard & Co. by Mr.. Mum, no history
of the lost cup and paten is available al
though they are described and listed with
a cut in the 1903 edition of Bucks "Old
Plate The present rector of st. AIMS
accounts for his loss by the fact that at
one time two churches existed in the par
ish, between which the silver was un-
doubtedly divided; one known as Vawters
and the other, an old church abandoned
after the revolution and later destroyed.
The silver was probably appropriated and
sold, in which case it would have been
lost for nearly 125 years.
The silver collected by the Colonial
Danes is loaned by various churches and
collectors for the purpose Of study and
exhibition and in the fall the society ex-
poets to nave an English authority on old
silver examine and make an extensive re-
port on their collection. The report is to
form a book which will be put on sale for
the society upon its completion.