XVI

Glass

BOTTLES

Round beverage bottles.—Bottles of dark-green glass were used in the colonial period for wine, beer, rum, and other potables. Although some wines and liquors were shipped in the bottle, they were distributed for the most part in casks, hogsheads, and “pipes” before 1750. John Mercer recorded the purchases of several pipes of wine—kinds unspecified—a pipe being a large or even double-size hogshead. He purchased rum by the gallon, in quantities that ranged from 2 quarts in 1744 to “5 galls Barbadoes Spirits” in 1745 and a “hhd 107½ gall Rum” in 1748.

Bottles were used largely for household storage and for the serving of liquors. They were kept filled in the buttery as a convenience against going to the cellar each time a drink was wanted. Bottles usually were brought directly to the table,[203] although the clear-glass decanter was apparently regarded as a more genteel dispenser. Mercer, like his contemporaries, bought his own bottles, as when he purchased “2 doz bottles” from John Foward in 1730. The previous year he had acquired a gross of corks, which would customarily have been inserted in his bottles and secured by covering with cloth, tying around the lips or string rings with packthread, and sealing with warm resin and pitch.

Some wines were purchased in the bottle. In 1726 Mercer bought “2 doz & 8 bottles Claret” and “1 doz Canary” from Alexander McFarlane. In 1745 he charged Overwharton Parish for “2 bottles Claret to Acquia,” apparently for communion wine. Whether all this was shipped from the vineyards in bottles, or whether Mercer brought his own bottles to be filled from the storekeepers’ casks is not revealed.

An insight into the kinds of alcoholic drinks consumed in Virginia in Mercer’s early period is given in the official price-list for the sale of alcoholic beverages set forth in the York County Court Orders in 1726:[204]

This Court do Sett the Rate Liquors as followeth:

It will be noted that Bristol beer was sold by the bottle, probably just as it was shipped, and “Fine bottled Syder” apparently came in quart bottles. Probably the wines were dispensed from casks in wine measures. Mercer bought Citron water in bottles, a half dozen at a time, as he did “Mint, Orange flower & Tansey D^o,” in 1744.

Round beverage bottles ranged in shape from, roughly, the form of a squat onion at the beginning of the 18th century to narrow cylindrical bottles towards the end of the century. The earliest bottles were free-blown without the constraint of a mold, hence there were many variations in shape. After about 1730 bottles were blown into crude clay molds which imparted a roughly cylindrical or taper-sided contour below sloping shoulders and necks. These marked the first recognition of binning as a way of storing wines in bottles laid on their sides. About 1750 the Bristol glasshouses introduced cylindrical brass molds.[205] From then on the problem of stacking bottles in bins was solved and virtually all round beverage bottles thenceforward were cylindrical with long necks.

At Marlborough the earliest form of wine bottle is represented by a squat neck and a base fragment (USNM 59.1717, ill. 35), both matching onion-shaped bottles of the turn of the century, such as one excavated at Rosewell (USNM 60.660). Except for these fragments, the oldest form from Marlborough may be seen in the complete bottle found in refuse pit D (USNM 59.1688; fig. 78, ill. 37). This bottle is typical of the transitional form, sealed examples of which regularly occur bearing dates in the 1730’s. Its sides are straight for about three inches above the curve of the base, tapering slightly to the irregular shoulder that curves in and up to a neck with wedge-shaped string ring. Two inches above the base is a seal, bearing the initials I ^C.M above a decorative device and the date 1737. The arrangement of initials exactly matches that found on Mercer’s tobacco-cask seals (p. 30 and footnote 89) indicating the “home plantation” at Marlborough.

Seals were applied by dropping a gather of glass on the hot surface of a newly blown bottle, then pressing into this deposit of glass a brass stamp bearing a design, initials, date, etc. Three similar seals from broken bottles also were found. The same arrangement of initials, but with no date or device of any kind, occurs on seven different seals (fig. 79, ills. 36 and 37).

The diameter of the base of the sealed beverage bottle is 5½ inches, the widest diameter occurring on any bottle fragments from Marlborough, excepting the early specimen mentioned above. Bases in gradually decreasing dimensions vary from this size to 2¾ inches. Six bases run from 5 inches to 5½ inches; 11 are over 4½ inches and up to 5 inches; 4 are over 4 inches and up to 4½ inches; 3 are over 3½ inches and up to 4 inches; none, except the smallest of 2¾ inches, found in a mid-19th-century deposit, is less than 3¾ inches.

Beverage-bottle bases

Since beverage-bottle diameters diminished from about 5 inches in the 1750’s and 1760’s to about 4 inches in the 1770’s and 1780’s and to 3½ inches in the 1790’s and early 1800’s, the peak of their incidence at Marlborough occurs between 1750 and 1770, the period of greatest opulence in the Mercer household.

Octagonal beverage bottles.—A rarely seen variation from the round beverage bottle is a club-shaped, octagonal, molded type with long neck, perhaps so shaped in order to permit packing in cases. Cider is said to have been put up in such bottles, and it is also possible that brandies and liqueurs were delivered in them. A quart-size bottle of this shape at Colonial Williamsburg bears the seal “I. Greenhow WmsBgh. 1769.” Another, purchased in England, in the G. H. Kernodle collection at the Smithsonian Institution, also has a seal with the name “Jn^o Collings, 1736” (USNM 59.2170). A pint-size example, 9 inches high and dated 1736, is illustrated in plate 95e in the Wine Trade Loan Exhibition catalog.[206] A restored bottle of this form from Marlborough (USNM 59.1687, fig. 80, ill. 40) is 8 inches high, but bears no seal. Among the glass found at Marlborough are also three bases and other fragments of similar bottles.

Square “gin” bottles.—Square bottles, usually called “gin” bottles, occur in the Marlborough material. Two base sections and lower pieces of the flat sides have been partly restored (USNM 59.1685, 59.1686, ill. 41), and a neck and shoulder have survived. The bases are 4 inches square, and the whole bottles were probably about 10 inches high. They did not taper but maintained a continuous dimension from shoulder to base. The bases, which are rounded on the corners, have a slightly domed kick-up with a ring-shaped pontil mark. The glass is olive green. The necks are squat—barely ⅞ inch—and have wide string rings midway in their length.

Square “gin” bottles were designed for shipment in wooden boxes with compartments in which the bottles fit snugly. Although Dutch gin customarily was shipped in bottles of this shape, indications are that the square bottles may have been used for other purposes than holding gin. For one thing, Mercer’s ledgers mention no purchases of gin. There is, in fact, almost no evidence of the sale of gin in Virginia; a single announcement of Holland gin available in Williamsburg in 1752 is the exception until 1773, when gin was again advertised in the Virginia Gazette.[207] Its sale had been prohibited in England in 1736.[208] For another thing, square bottles were both imported and manufactured in America for sale new. In 1760 the Germantown glassworks in Braintree, Massachusetts, made “Round and square Bottles, from one to four Quarts; also Cases of Bottles of all Sizes ...,”[209], while George Ball, of New York, in 1775 advertised that he imported “Green glass Gallon square bottles, Two quart ditto, Pint ditto.”[210]

Snuff bottles.—Several items in Mercer’s ledgers record the purchase of snuff, such as one for a "bottle of snuff" in 1731 for 15d., another in 1743 for 3s., and a third in 1744 for 1s. 6d. Among the artifacts is a partly restored bottle of olive-green glass, shaped like a gin bottle but of smaller dimensions, with a 2¼-inch-wide mouth (USNM 59.1686, fig. 81). The bottle is 3¾ inches square and 7 inches tall. It has a low kick-up and a smooth pontil mark. Also among the artifacts are a matching base and several sherds of similar bottles.

Medicine bottles.—Only a few fragments of medicine bottles occurred in the Marlborough artifacts. This is surprising, in view of Mercer’s many ailments and his statements that he had purchased “British Oyl,” “Holloway’s Citrate,” and other patent nostrums of his day. A round base from a greenish, cylindrical bottle (USNM 59.2056) seems to represent an Opadeldoc bottle. Another base is rectangular with notched corners. The last, as well as the base of a molded, basket-pattern scent bottle (USNM 59.2093) may be early 19th century in date. Other medicine-bottle fragments are all 19th century, some quite late (fig. 82).

TABLE GLASS

A minimum of table-glass sherds was recovered, and these were fragmentary. Glass is scarcely mentioned in Mercer’s accounts, although there is no reason to suppose that Marlborough was any less well furnished with fine crystal than with other elegant objects that we know about. Three sherds of heavy lead glass have the thickness and contours of early 18th-century English decanters, matching more complete fragments from Rosewell and a specimen illustrated in plate 98a in the Wine Trade Loan Exhibition catalog.[211] Two fragments are body sherds; the third is from a lip and neck.

Several forms of drinking glasses are indicated. A fragment of a foot from a long-stemmed cordial glass shows the termini of white-enamel threads that were comprised in a double enamel-twist stem. The twists consisted of a spiral ribbon of fine threads near the surface of the stem, with a heavy single spiral at the core. The indicated diameter of the foot is 3¼ inches (USNM 59.1761, ill. 43).

Fragments of large knops are probably from heavy baluster wineglasses dating from Mercer’s early period before 1750. A teardrop stem from a trumpet-bowl wineglass has been melted past recognition in a fire. The stem of a bucket-bowl cordial glass has suffered in the same manner (USNM 59.1607). Still with their shapes intact are two stems and base sections of bucket-bowl wineglass. Two engraved bowl sherds from similar-shaped cordial glasses and a rim sherd from another engraved piece are the only fragments with surface decoration (USNM 59.1634, 59.1864, ill. 45). Several sherds of foot rims, varying in diameter, were found, including one with a folded or “welted” edge.

Tumblers, depending on their sizes, were used for strong spirits, toddy, flip, and water. The base and body sherds of a molded tumbler from Marlborough are fluted in quadruple ribs that are separated by panels ¼-inch wide (USNM 59.1864, fig. 82c, ill. 46). Plain, blown tumbler bases have indicated diameters of 3 inches.

A few unusual, as well as more typical, forms are indicated by the Marlborough glass sherds. One small fragment comes from a large flanged cover, probably from a sweetmeat bowl or a posset pot. A specimen of more than usual interest is a pressed or cast cut-glass octagonal trencher salt (USNM 59.1830, fig. 82a, ill. 47). This artifact reflects silver and pewter salt forms of about 1725. A curved section of a heavy glass rod is apparently from a chandelier, candelabrum, or sconce glass (USNM 59.1696, fig. 82e). We have seen that Mercer, in 1748, bought “1 superfine large gilt Sconce glass.”

Although precise dates cannot be ascribed to any of this glass, it all derives without much question from the period of Mercer’s occupancy of Marlborough.

MIRROR AND WINDOW GLASS

We know from the ledgers that there were sconce and looking glasses at Marlborough. Archeological refuse supplies us with confirmation in pieces of clear lead glass with slight surviving evidence of the tinfoil and mercury with which the backs originally were coated. One piece (USNM 59.1693) has a beveled edge ⁷/₈ inch wide, characteristic of plate-glass wall mirrors of the colonial period. A curved groove on this piece, along which the fracture occurred, is probable evidence of engraved decoration.

Window glass is of two principal types. One has a pale-olive cast. A few fragments of this type have finished edges, indicating that they are from the perimeters of sheets of crown glass and that Mercer purchased whole crown sheets and had them cut up. It may be assumed that this greenish glass is the oldest, perhaps surviving from Mercer’s early period.

The other type is the more familiar aquamarine window glass still to be found in 18th-century houses. A large corner of a rectangular pane has the slightly bent contour of crown glass, which is the English type of window glass made by blowing great bubbles of glass which were spun to form huge discs. The discs sometimes were cut up into panes of stock sizes and then shipped to America, or else were sent in whole sheets, to be cut up by storekeepers here or to be sold directly to planters and other users of window glass in quantity.

The centers of these sheets increased in thickness and bore large scars where the massive pontil rods which had held the sheets during their manipulation were broken off. The center portions also were cut into panes, which were used in transom lights and windows where light was needed but a view was not. Hence they served not only to utilize an otherwise useless part of the crown-glass sheets, but also to impart a decorative quality to the window. They are still known to us as “bullseyes.” A piece of a bullseye pane of aquamarine glass occurs in the Marlborough finds. The pontil scar itself is missing, but the thick curving section leaves little doubt as to its original appearance. A similar fragment was found at Rosewell.

XVII

Objects of Personal Use

Costume accessories recovered at Marlborough are extremely few. There are six metal buttons, all of them apparently 18th century. One of flat brass (USNM 59.2004) has traces of gilt adhering to the surface; another of similar form (USNM 60.85) is silver; a third (USNM 59.2004) is copper. The silver button, ⅞ inch in diameter, could be one of two dozen vest buttons bought by Mercer for 18 pence each in 1741. A brass button with silver surface was roll-plated in the Sheffield manner (USNM 59.2004), thus placing its date at some time after 1762. “White metal”—a white brass—was commonly used for buttons in the 18th century, and is seen here in a fragmentary specimen (USNM 59.2004). One hollow button of sheet brass shows the remains of gilding (USNM 60.73). Only one example was found—a dark-gray shell button—that was used on under-garments (USNM 59.1819).