Oblong printing block or cut depicting the Wilson House facing Marietta Ave. which became the Lancaster County Historical Society . Surrounded by trees and clouds. Cut created from a thin sheet of soft non-metallic material tacked onto a hardwood block for printing. Thin sheet of paper pasted to back of block.
Found in box marked "Membership card cut for Lanc. Historical Society from Stiegel Printing Co."
Provenance
Apparently used for printing membership cards for LCHS.
Large, dark blue oval Staffordshire platter with expansive countryside view, river and bridge. Multiple people and horses including a Conestoga wagon, river boat, fisherman, horse and rider, etc. Slightly scalloped edge. Decorated with an eagle at each "corner"; the remainder has acanthus leaves and flowers.
Underside of border is stamped in blue within an oval medallion: "Upper Ferry Bridge over the Schuylkill River."
Long crack from middle of center to edge. Multiple stains on underside, including tape stains.
Object ID
2003.064.1
Notes
The Colossus Bridge – also known as Fairmount Bridge, Colossus of Fairmount or Upper Ferry Bridge (and formally as the Lancaster Schuylkill Bridge[1]) – was a record-setting timber bridge across the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia. It was built in 1812 by Louis Wernwag, and was considered his finest bridge design. It had a clear span of 340 feet (103.6 m) (contemporary US Record) and was the first long span bridge to use iron rods.
The bridge was destroyed September 1, 1838, by fire.[3] The bridge was succeeded by Charles Ellet, Jr.'s wire suspension bridge and then the Callowhill Street truss bridge.[4] The modern bridge at this site is the Spring Garden Street Bridge. (Wikipedia)
The scene is from an 1823 engraving by Jacob J. Plocher, which is turn is after the painting by Thomas Birch.
Place of Origin
Staffordshire, England
Credit
Courtesy of LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Pearlware Staffordshire china plate has purple transfer-printed decoration on white ground. Scallop-edged rim has flowers and C-scrolls while sunken bottom has bucolic scene of 2-story house, outbuildings, trees, wooden fence and recumbent cow. A man in late 18th - early 19th c. garb and Quaker broad-rimmed hat walks with a cane in foreground. Underside has printed pattern name and maker under an umbrella canopy: "The Residence/ of the late/ RICHARD JORDAN/ NEW JERSEY/ J H & Co" Impressed at center of underside is mark of maker resembling an airplane propeller within a circle.
One of a set of 6, all have removed paper labels with "SD #48" on back; one has label "Staffordshire" and three have "H220", "H221", and "H222" indicating a Heritage Center loan. See file for info on abolitionist Quaker preacher Richard Jordan (1756-1826).
This set of plates was found in collection and believed to be part of the Sauder estate.
Although produced in England, the Staffordshired china shown depicts the New Jersey residence of the late Richard Jordan, a Quaker preacher in Newton, Burlington Country (near Camden).
Born in 1756, Jordan was one of the first Quakers to publicly campaign against the holding of slaves. After traveling extensively on the east coast and in Europe, he published a travel journal that gave him a degree of fame in the eastern United States.
In 1809 Jordan joined the Newton, New Jersey Quaker Meeting and settled on a small farm in what is now Camden, where he died in 1826. During the last year of his life, Jordan was sketched standing in front of his farm by this friend, William Mason, a Philadelphia drawing teacher. The china service was ordered by friends of the preacher after his death.
