Table Glass Excavated at Fort Amherst, Prince Edward Island by Paul McNally Identification, Dating

Introduction

Fort Amherst, situated near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (Fig. 1), was built by the British in 1758 after the capitulation of the Fortress of Louisbourg, on or near an Acadian settlement which dated from 1720. Between 1758 and 1763 the garrison at the fort varied between 110 and 190 men. The fortification lost its military importance in 1763 with the end of the Seven Years' War, but some two companies (totalling 110 men) remained until the summer of 1768 when the fort was abandoned. Chief Justice John Duport took up residence at the site for an undetermined length of time in 1771 and after 1771 the site was used for agricultural purposes (Hornby 1965; Gillis: personal communication).

1 Eastern Canada, showing the locations of sites mentioned. (click on image for a PDF version)

Partial archaeological investigation of the site was conducted by John H. Rick and Ian C. Rodger of the National Historic Parks and Sites Branch in 1963 (Rick 1970: 23-5). This paper is a study of the table glass recovered in the course of the excavations.

Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 9

Table Glass Excavated at Fort Amherst, Prince Edward Island

by Paul McNally

Identification, Dating and Attribution

No table glass in the Fort Amherst collection can be related to the French occupation prior to 1758. With the exception of only one fragment, the glass is British and, where datable, was manufactured in the second half of the 18th century. There is no table glass from any later period. The collection is very small—only 16 objects—but 15 of them are identifiable and represent a surprising cross-section of the fashionable glass styles available in England in the 1760s. In addition to fragments from three tumblers, two firing glasses and a probably plain monteith, there are a teared ball finial from a decanter stopper, a knopped air-twist stem, five opaque-twist stems; a facet-cut stem and a facet-cut cruet. A sixteenth artifact, a fragment of a handle from a vessel of non-British origin, is not certainly identified.

Plain tumblers of lead glass remain ubiquitous and undiagnostic. They occur on sites of British occupation from early in the 18th century until well into the 19th and as yet there is no way of dating them within these boundaries.

Preliminary evidence from sites so far studied indicates that firing glasses may have been much used on ship board in the 18th century because of their stability; that is, their occurrence is high on sites such as Fort Beauséjour and Beaubassin in the maritime provinces, and low on sites otherwise quite similar but inland, such as the fort at Coteau-du-Lac. This can only be tentatively suggested because Fort Beauséjour and Beaubassin date from the 1750s and the fort at Coteau-du-Lac dates from 1779, and therefore the variation in the occurrence of firing glasses at these sites may reflect decreasing popularity of the glasses.

The popular connotation of firing glasses is as toasting glasses, the heavy feet sounding loud approval on table tops. They are primarily British and occur from 1730 until well into the 19th century (Ash 1962: 84-6). Although firing glasses are a long-lasting form, their period of popularity may be limited to the second half of the 18th century (Hughes 1956: 229). The Fort Amherst examples are typical of the form (Fig. 2).

2 Typical English firing glass, lead metal; popular about 1760-1800. The example shown is from Fort Beauséjour.

A fragment of a foot is from either a jelly glass or a monteith, the distinction being based largely on bowl form. This particular artifact has very little bowl extant, but corresponds closely to a monteith (or salt) illustrated by Haynes (1964: Plate 96e) and dated to the third quarter of the 18th century. Whichever it may be, it probably dates after 1750 and not much later than 1800 (Haynes 1964:291) since this period encompasses all specimens found to date on Canadian historic sites.

Teared ball-stopper finials have been considered, for want of other evidence, to have been too heavy to have lasted very long into the Excise Period of English glass (after 1745) when glass was taxed by weight. They appeared about 1710 (Hughes 1956: 254) and were associated with a type of decanter, the shaft and globe, which did not last long after the middle of the century (Ash 1962:123). However, archaeological evidence has emerged to indicate that the finials were popular into the Seven Years' War. An example found at Fort Beauséjour (McNally 1971: 89-90) probably was deposited after 1755; another at Beaubassin (Harris 1972: 35), not until 1760; and now this specimen, 1758 or later. The similarity in manufacture and decoration between teared finials and air-twist stems may be considered to indicate that they enjoyed concurrent popularity at least until 1760. The air enclosures in the finial from Fort Amherst form a circuit of rather irregular bubbles around the horizontal circumference: a better preserved example from Fort Beauséjour is illustrated in Figure 3.

3 English teared ball stopper finial, horizontal diameter; 36 mm., lead metal; made from the early 18th century until at least 1760. The example is from Fort Beauséjour.

The fragments of glass which represent the leading styles of the English Excise Period are mostly stemware. In this period the demands of rococo decoration, particularly the emphasis upon delicacy, curvature and ornament, merged with a need to make vessels light enough to offset the economic effects of taxation by weight. The two types of twist stem and the sparkling refractive effect of light faceting may thus be viewed in terms of "compensation by ornament" (Thorpe 1969:201).

Earliest of the three stem types is the air-twist stem with which glassmakers had experimented well before the Excise Period. They became very popular when that ill-advised regulation was implemented and were eclipsed through the late 1760s by opaque-twist and facet-cut stems. Thus 1740 to 1770 is a safe dating range (Elville 1961: 13; Thorpe 1969: 213). The example from Fort Amherst is a single-series multiple spiral with a swelling knop (Fig, 4).

4 Knopped fragment from an English air-twist stem. single-series multiple-spiral twist, lead metal; popular 1740-70.

Opaque-twist stems, probably inspired by the example of the air-twist and Venetian filigree precedents, commenced by 1750 and lasted until 1780 (Thorpe 1969: 213-4). Four of the examples from Fort Amherst are double-series twists, and the fifth, shown in Figure 5, is a single-series cork screw twist with a plain conical foot.

5 English opaque-twist stem, single-series corkscrew twist, with foot, lead metal; popular 1750-80.

The facet-cut stem has a longer history than either of the twist stems, being made as early as 1745 and lasting as late as 1810. Several considerations narrow the dating somewhat in this instance. They did not become very popular until about 1760 (Haynes 1964: 284) and the facets evolved into flutes late in the period, Bridge-fluting (carrying the facets onto the bowl) apparently did not commence until 1760 (Ash 1962: 104-5) and the style became less popular after 1780 or 1790 (Ash 1962: 106). The Fort Amherst specimen has hexagonal facets and bridge-fluting (Fig. 6) and 1760 to 1790 is probably a reasonable date to assign to it.

6 Conjectural reconstruction of an English facet-cut stemmed glass based on a stem-bowl fragment found at Fort Amherst, lead metal; 1780-90.

Not dissimilar in conception is the facet-cut cruet. The fragment in question has diamond cutting on the body and scale cutting on the neck. Thorpe's illustration of various mid-century cruet types (1969: Plate 151) shows two very similar examples, dated 1750 and 1770. A designation of third quarter 18th-century English is reliable for the Fort Amherst fragment since shapes changed markedly after that time.

The final specimen from Fort Amherst is a puzzle. It is the top part of a wide flat handle, attached to a thin-walled vessel of which little is left. It is of non-lead glass while all other table glass found is of lead crystal and this makes an English attribution questionable. The form of the handle tells us little, although it may be dated before 1830 because the handle was apparently attached initially at the higher of the two weld points (Wilkinson 1968: 21). Small as the fragment is, it bears close comparison with a Bohemian export decanter found at the Fortress of Louisbourg. The decanter dates to the second half of the 18th century (Charleston: pers. com.) and was found in a 1760s archaeological context (McNally 1973: Fig. 8).

Interpretation

Ivor Noël Home has pointed out (1969: 27) that glass on American domestic-colonial sites tends to lag markedly behind the dates commonly given to styles by collectors and analysts of English glass, but this argument has never seemed to hold true for 18th-century military sites in Canada. Table 1 demonstrates the periods of popularity for each identified style of table glass found at Fort Amherst, with dates based largely on standard authorities of English glass. The limits of occupation at Fort Amherst are indicated by vertical dotted lines. Clearly, glass styles were in use at Fort Amherst in the period of their vogue in England.

Table 1. Periods of Popularity for the Identified Styles of Table Glass

(click on image for a PDF version)

In addition, the glass found at Fort Amherst must be considered nothing less than fancy. During the 1760s, English glassmakers were making undecorated or plain glass, and glass of the sort which has been discussed was necessarily more expensive. For example, an air-twist glass cost about 25 per cent more than its plain counterpart, an opaque-twist glass 40 per cent more than an air-twist, and a facet-cut glass still more by a quarter than the opaque-twist (Hughes 1956: 99, 111; Elville 1951: 104). The occurrence of such glass is not in itself surprising since there are precedents on other sites such as Fort Beauséjour (McNally 1971); however, the table glass from Fort Amherst seems to present a different view of the use of table glass during this period than does that from Fort Beauséjour.

The Fort Amherst collection is remarkable, in contrast to the Fort Beauséjour collection, for the relative frequency of fine tablewares. Using decorative features, either intrinsic or extrinsic, to make a categorical distinction between plain and fine wares, it is evident that at least nine of 16 table glass artifacts represent fine wares—English filigree and cut glass of some fashionability and high cost. Without asserting this ratio to be statistically reliable in so small a sample, it is reasonable to acknowledge a tendency in the collection toward elegant rather than simple functional wares. In studying a much larger collection from Fort Beauséjour and applying a similar distinction between elegant and utilitarian wares on the basis of decorative attributes, it was found that 77 per cent of the Fort Beauséjour collection was plain or utilitarian (McNally 1971: 37).

Coupled with the apparently close parallel between deposition dates of artifacts and dating of styles in England, the elegance of the Fort Amherst table glass appears to profile a site population who had close metropolitan ties and who are readily divided into those possessing little glass and those possessing fine glass; that is, the small collection suggests that not very much glass was used and, given the expensiveness of the glass recovered, one is led to the not-revolutionary conclusion that officers alone used table glass. It is also possible that some of the table glass was deposited during Duport's short stay at the site.

Checking these observations with the ceramics found at Fort Amherst reveals a similar profile of ceramic wares in use — a high proportion of decorated and expensive pieces including creamware with over-glaze transfer prints or with low-fired enamel decoration, and high quality oriental porcelain. Once more, there is considerable contrast with Fort Beauséjour in terms of the fineness of wares, especially when the fine wares are represented as a portion of the total ceramics collection from each site.

The extremity of this contrast is mitigated when the Fortress of Louisbourg collections of table glass and ceramics are considered. Both the quality of the fine pieces from Fort Amherst and their relative quantity approximately duplicate the quality and relative quantity of fine table glass and ceramics recovered from the Fortress of Louisbourg, of which the Prince Edward Island fort was an outpost. Fort Beauséjour, during its first period of British occupation (1755 to 1768), was no less an outpost of the fortress, but Fort Beauséjour was considerably less bucolic than Fort Amherst. While the early history of Fort Beauséjour under British control is characterized by the animosity of Acadian subjects in the Chignecto region and operations against the French and Indians, Fort Amherst's history is characterized by nothing so much as dull routine, broken only by the arrival of provisions in the fall and a relief garrison in the spring, and by a brief mutiny in 1762 (Hornby 1965). Fort Amherst may also have been easier to supply because there was a direct sea link between the Fortress of Louisbourg and Fort Amherst.

It is difficult to conceive that such historical differentiation of the two forts fully accounts for a rather dramatic contrast between their table furnishings. Even if Fort Amherst afforded a relatively more retiring existence than did Fort Beauséjour, it is doubtful that it afforded greater opportunities for conviviality — there were only five officers at the fort and they had little contact, social or otherwise, with other forts. Therefore, a marked difference between lifestyles at the two forts is not supportable as an explanation for difference in table glass collections.

As mentioned above, Ivor Noël Hume's observation of anachronisms in glass styles in use in the colonies does not apply to sites such as those which have been mentioned in this report. Glass styles on these sites quite accurately reflect styles in England in the mid-18th century. They are enlightening, moreover, in that they help to reconstruct the economic availability and social use of table furnishings through the period. The contrast drawn between table glass at Fort Amherst and at Fort Beauséjour, for instance, points up much more widespread use of glass for utilitarian purposes at the latter site than at the former, a disparity for which lifestyles at the two forts in the 1760s can hardly account. The contrast devolves especially from the occurrence of tumblers at Fort Beauséjour in immense quantities along with very ordinary stemware. Since plain tumblers, on the basis of style, must be taken as nearly ubiquitous in time and space through the second half of the 18th century, it is impossible to establish from external evidence that they were more used at one time than at another. But since Fort Beauséjour was re-occupied by the British in 1776 and again in 1809, while Fort Amherst and the Fortress of Louisbourg remained essentially unoccupied after 1768, it is possible to conclude, from the contrast in proportionate representation of fine and utilitarian wares on the sites, that the availability and use of glass had expanded greatly by the fourth quarter of the century and had probably extended much lower on the social scale. Such a conclusion suggests that the burgeoning of common table glass wares was a relatively sudden and comprehensive phenomenon during the 1770s and 1780s.

It is argued, then, that the table glass (and, presumably, ceramics) in use at Fort Beauséjour and Fort Amherst in their concurrent occupations — up until 1768 — may have been roughly equivalent at each fort; not numerous and tending toward decorative and elegant pieces. At Fort Beauséjour the occurrence of plain wares, which are difficult to date out of archaeological context, apparently sharply increases during subsequent occupation periods, presenting a misrepresentative picture of table glass in use during the 1760s. The Fort Amherst collection, much more discrete in time, may reveal more truly the nature and quantity of table glass to be found on relatively unimportant British forts in North America during the Seven Years' War and immediately after.

Conclusions

Although archaeological investigation of the site is incomplete, the history of Fort Amherst is outlined by the artifacts recovered during the excavations there: the dates established for the table glass recovered from the site coincide with the 1758 to 1771 period during which the fort is known to have been occupied. It is impossible to make positive conclusions on the basis of the presence or absence of certain types of table glass when a site has been only partially examined and when only a small collection of glass has been recovered, yet a clear image of juxtaposed life styles can be discovered in the table glass collection from Fort Amherst, an image which is reinforced by the ceramics collections and by archaeological and historical evidence. Glass was not extensively used at the fort, and that which was used belonged to a privileged segment of its population or to the subsequent tenant of the site, Chief Justice Duport, in 1771.

Wider conclusions reflecting trade and military supply patterns in the maritime colonies are necessarily dependent upon the above hypothesis and are therefore still more tenuous; however, table glass styles at Fort Amherst, as at the Fortress of Louisbourg in its English periods, were certainly in step with English metropolitan fashion as it is recorded in collectors' histories.

References Cited

Ash, Douglas 1962 How to Identify English Drinking Glasses and Decanters 1680-1830, G. Bell and Sons, London.

Elville, E. M. 1951 English Tableglass, Country Life, London.

1961 The Collector's Dictionary of Glass, Country Life, London.

Harris, Jane E. 1972 Glassware Excavated at Beaubassin, N.S. Manuscript Report Series No. 65, National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Ottawa.

Haynes, E. Barrington 1964 Glass Through the Ages, Penguin Books, London.

Hornby, Brock 1965 "Port Amherst," Manuscript on file, National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Ottawa.

Hughes, G. Bernard 1956 English, Scottish and Irish Table Glass from the Sixteenth Century to 1626,Bramhall House, New York.

McNally, Paul 1971 Table Glass at Fort Beauséjour, New Brunswick, Manuscript Report Series No. 21, National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Ottawa.

1973 "Table Glass in the Collections of the National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, 1710-1850," Manuscript in preparation.

Noël Hume, Ivor 1969 "Glass in Colonial Williamsburg's Archaeological Collections," Colonial Williamsburg Archaeological Series, No. 1, Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, Va.

Rick, John H. 1970 "Archaeological Investigations of the National Historic Sites Service, 1962-1956," Canadian Historic Sites; Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History,No. 1, pp. 10-44, Ottawa.

Thorpe, W. A. 1969 A History of English and Irish Glass, Holland Press, London, Facs. of 1924 edition.

Wilkinson, R. 1966 The Hallmarks of Antique Glass, Richard Madley, London.