JEWELRY TRADE, The. The making of jewelry is one of the oldest trades of which the American historian can find record, for while the manufacture of such articles of adornment occupied a position of little com mercial importance until several years after the settlement of this country by the colonists, the fact remains that jewelry was made by the na tive Indians many years before the first Euro peans set foot upon American soil.
Prim and precise as the Puritans are sup posed to have been, it is a mistake to imagine that they were too primitive in their opinions to appreciate the advantages of a little jewelry in the adornment of their persons. Both the Dutch and the English brought such ornaments with them to the new world, and one's personal attire was considered incomplete without the buckles, brooches and rings which were in vogue at that time. As the natural result gold and silver smithing was one of the first indus tries to be established in the colonies, and every large town had its smiths who produced the most popular articles of jewelry, as well as cer tain kinds of trinkets for the Indians, medals, snuff-boxes, etc.
One of the most important products of the early silversmith's art was the making of elabo rate boxes from rare woods, or, sometimes, shell, inlaid with gold or silver. Snuff-boxes were manufactured in this way, while other boxes were made to contain the parchments which conferred the freedom of the city upon distin guished guests. Sometimes these boxes were made entirely of silver and were lined with gold. Occasionally the metal was gold, studded with precious stones. It was such a box as this in which the people of New York presented the "freedom" to Alexander Hamilton, after his elaborate defense of the liberties of the press in New York, in 1784; while similar boxes were later conferred upon Lafayette, Washing ton and General Scott. The making of such boxes and other ornamental insignia conferred upon distinguished men represents but one of the branches of the art of the smith, for there were so many demands made upon the craft that its ranks were constantly extending. In
1788, when the adoption of the Federal Consti tution was celebrated in Philadelphia, there were no less than 35 goldsmiths and jewelers in the procession, while, more than 20 years before, it had been the profuse display of jew elry, silverware, etc., in the homes of the promi nent New Yorkers that had incited Townshend to introduce the historic bill known as the °Stamp which was undoubtedly the enter ing wedge In the struggle which finally sepa rated the colonists and the Crown. At this period in the history of the nation the colonies that could boast of the richest inhabitants, and which could, therefore, afford to spend the greatest amount of money for jewelry and other articles of personal adornment, were South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New York, Penn sylvania and Massachusetts.
When compared to the facilities afforded to jewelers at the present day the tools of the old time silversmiths were crude enough. The only noticeable difference between them and those used by workers in other metals was in their size, a factor which fitted them for finer work. The extreme tenuity and the lack of brittleness of gold and silver gave room for the exhibition of great ingenuity on the part of the artist who aspired to forget the ordinary patterns in the creation of more fanciful designs, while the at tainment of the polished, or burnished, surface made a more tender treatment imperative. In the beginning of the century the art of frost ing gold, like that of satin-finishing silver, was unknown. Gold and silver both came from the workshop with a glittering surface, and such ornamental and decorative work as may then have been attempted was either crude enamel ing, applied work or engraving. Later, of course, came all the new processes by means of which the precious metals have been used con jointly with other metals, or with wood, mother of-pearl, glass, porcelain, pearls and gems.