Inkwell

Description

This form of inkwell commonly is referred to by collectors via terms that reflect such vessels' appearance: turtle ink (or inkwell). igloo inkwel, or Monitor inkwell, supposedly named the shape similarity to the gun turret of the Civil War Naval ship USS Monitor. The Winterthur inkwell was unearthed in the twentieth century in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, where it was found in the yard of the donor. A nearly identical example was excavated in Virginia by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, at the site of the nineteenth-century First Baptist Church. As per the Foundation, "Colonial Williamsburg has partnered with the First Baptist Church of Williamsburg and the Let Freedom Ring Foundation to locate the remains of the Nassau Street site of the First Baptist Church. The First Baptist Church of Williamsburg is one of the country’s earliest African American congregations and was founded by free and enslaved Black worshippers."