Colonial American Silver Family Crest

[adong]

Hi All,
Would any of you lovely people have any idea about this family crest?
The piece of silver (dish/salver) bears the mark of colonial silversmith Myer Myers of New York c.1770 I believe.

Thank you kindly in advance!

[Traintime]

Since this seems to be the first appearance of the Myers mark on the site, I re-checked Wyler (1937) to confirm this...it appears accredited properly as you have noted. Hopefully, you'll get some info. on the crest soon. Could it be a for a town, organization, or something else not family based?

[Aguest]

A friend of mine has a spoon by J&T Dubois (New York) circa 1799, a large serving spoon with the ends clipped in "coffin handle" fashion, and it has an engraving of a large whaling ship and a latin motto ::: Although it is in the general "style" of a family crest, I still do not believe it is an authentic English Family Crest, it just draws upon the tradition of English Family Crests, that is the overall impression I get ::: Anyway, in New York I have read much about the wealth created by the Whaling industry, so I do wonder if the spiral horn on your engraving is meant to represent the Narwhal, a whale with a twisted horn on its head :::

That could be a wild guess, but it's the only one I can give at this point, there could be some sort of relationship to the whaling industry with both of these engravings, both spoons being from New York and both spoons being American Colonial Spoons :::

[Aguest]

The twisted tusk of the Narwhal:


Even if I am wrong, at least someone, somewhere, has learned about the Narwhal, and that might make all the difference ___

[davidappleton]

Anyway, in New York I have read much about the wealth created by the Whaling industry, so I do wonder if the spiral horn on your engraving is meant to represent the Narwhal, a whale with a twisted horn on its head.

There is no "spiral horn" in this engraving; the "spiral" element is simply the heraldic representation of a torse, or wreath, above the coat of arms, and upon which the crest sits.

David

[davidappleton]

The arms in the first and fourth quarters appear to be Johnson. Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials cites: Johnson (London): Argent a pheon azure between three mascles gules.

There are way too many examples of the arms in the second and third quarters, "a chevron between three roses," in Papworth for to go through them all in the time that I have available.

Fairbairn's Crests shows "a pheon" used by Johnson (and 51 other families, though some are clearly simply variant spellings; e.g., Clark, Clarke, and Clerke).

I hope that this information is of some help to you.

David

[adong]

The arms in the first and fourth quarters appear to be Johnson. Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials cites: Johnson (London): Argent a pheon azure between three mascles gules.

There are way too many examples of the arms in the second and third quarters, "a chevron between three roses," in Papworth for to go through them all in the time that I have available.

Fairbairn's Crests shows "a pheon" used by Johnson (and 51 other families, though some are clearly simply variant spellings; e.g., Clark, Clarke, and Clerke).

I hope that this information is of some help to you.

David

Dear David,
Thank you very much for your time and expertise! I am not too familiar with the nuisances of family crests and so I wish to ask you a question. You identified the Johnson family for the first and third quarter of the crest. What do the other quarters signify in this case? Is the crest a representation of two families connected through marriage?

[davidappleton]

The other two quarters (the upper right and the lower left on the shield) are the arms of another family which has married, and brought their coat of arms, into this Johnson family.

In England, this situation occurs when a woman, coming from a family where the father has a coat of arms but that father has no sons (who would normally inherit the arms), may pass her father's arms down to her children. The children then "quarter" their father's arms with those of their maternal grandfather's, in the manner that appears on this piece of silver. A more detailed description of how quartering works can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartering_(heraldry)

David

[Traintime]

Fixing the link (not picking up last parenthesis): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartering_(heraldry)

[Traintime]

Apparently that didn't pick up either.