Object Number 1963.0661

Object Name

Lamp (Oil lamp)

Category

Metals

Credit Line/Donor

Bequest of Henry Francis du Pont

Creator (Role)

James Baker Woodbury (Maker)
10/03/1805-1873
See records for Oren Colton and Woodbury & Colton. For examples of J.B. Woodbury's marks, see C. Jordan Thorn, Handbook of American Silver and Pewter Marks (1949), pp.246, 286-288; Carl Jacobs, Guide to American Pewter (1957), p.189; Ebert, Collecting American Pewter (1973), p.145; and Montgomery, History of American Pewter (1973), p.229. See also J.B. Kerfoot, American Pewter (1942), p.61, 185 and Laughlin, Pewter in America (1981), vol.2, p.118 and vol.3, p.195.

Place of Origin

Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mid-Atlantic, United States, North America

Date

1835-1837

Mark or Signature or Inscription or Label

1. Mark ; Underside; "J. B. WOODBURY" stamped in a serrated rectangle.
2. Mark; Underside; "PHILAD\A" stamped in a serrated rectangle.

Materials

Pewter; Britannia metal; Brass; Tinned sheet iron

Techniques

Cast

Dimensions (inches)

6.693 (H) , 5.984 (W)

Dimensions (centimeters)

17 (H) , 15.2 (W)

Object Description

Web - 05/30/2014

This small oil lamp with a hollow reservoir supported by an inverted baluster stem on a wide saucer-like drip pan with a finger loop is designed to be a portable source of artificial light. It is presently fitted with a burner holding parallel twin wick tubes (wicks missing) that screws into the threaded fuel reservoir to allow for cleaning and refueling. This wick tube configuration was for burning whale oil and not kerosene.
The craftsman, James Baker Woodbury, likely trained with Israel Trask or Eben Smith and may have had a shop of his own in or near Beverly, Massachusetts before moving to Philadelphia. He married Evelina Buchanan of Delaware in 1834 and opened a pewterers shop in Philadelphia by 1835. Woodbury worked on Library Street with a partner Oren Colton, and briefly in 1837-40 on Cedar Street. It is possible that he and his wife migrated to Kentucky in about 1841 and by 1860 they are recorded living in Jamestown, Kentucky where their children were born. Evelina Woodbury, "widow of J.B. Woodbury" is recorded in the business directories for Covington, Kentucky until 1884.