Lot 240
[Wilson, Robert] His Personal Pewter Tea Cannister and Creamer. The canister is a narrow oval box with a hinged lid and nob handle, with lock but lacking key. Exterior with ornate engraving on walls and lid, the walls with floral borders and swags and oval cartouche on both sides with the initials "R W." The lid has a similar pendant border and central starburst emanating from the handle. The hinge with, apparently, several repairs, one old and perhaps contemporary with the box, along with some more recent work. The lid has an added inscription, old, perhaps within a generation or two of the war: "Used in Camp in the War of the Revolution, 1781." Height: 4½ in.; Width: 5½ in. Condition better than Fine.
Along with the canister is a contemporary creamer---footed, with deep-bowl and arching handle. Border and shield cartouche engraved in the same manner seen on the canister, but by a different hand. The shield bears the initials, "R A W"; some dark spots in the patina. Height: 5 in. Overall Very Fine condition.
Robert Wilson was born in New York City (date unknown). His father died before the Revolution and his widowed mother moved with her six children to Albany, N.Y. Robert enlisted in the Revolution at about the age of 12 and served as fifer with the New York troops in the company of his mother's brother, Captain James Gregg. On June 9, 1781, he was commissioned ensign in the First New York Regiment, and served until the close of the Revolution. During Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown, when the British officers did not want to surrender their standards to a noncommissioned officer, Colonel Alexander Hamilton appointed Wilson Officer of the Day to conduct the ceremony of receiving the British flags. He received the colors of twenty-eight British regiments from twenty-eight British captains and handed them to twenty-eight American sergeants. Wilson, who was 18 at the time of the Battle of Yorktown, was thus the youngest commissioned officer in the Revolutionary War army. Wilson later became the second postmaster in Manlius, New York.
Estimated Value $3,500 - 4,000.
Stuart Goldman estate. Sold in Goldberg's Sept. 20, 2003 auction, Lot 22.
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