Tin vessels were exceedingly rare in the seventeenth century, either for table furnishings or for cooking utensils, and far from common in the succeeding one. John Wynter, of Richmond's Island, Maine, had a "tinninge basson & a tinninge platter" in 1638. In 1662 Isaac Willey, of New London, had "Tynen Pans & 1 Tynen Quart Pott;" and Zerubbabel Endicott, of Salem, had a "great tyn candlestick." By 1729, when Governor Burnet's effects were sold, we read of kitchen utensils of tin.

I do not think iron was in high favor among the colonists as a material for household utensils. It was not an iron age. They had iron pans, candlesticks, dishes, fire-dogs, and pots: the latter vessels were traded for vast and valuable tracts of land with the simple red men; but iron was not vastly in use. At an early date iron-foundries were established throughout New England, with, however, varying success.

Latten ware, which was largely composed of brass, appeared in various useful forms for table and culinary appointments. Hard-metal was a superior sort of pewter. Prince's metal (so called from Prince Rupert), a fine brass alloyed with copper and arsenicum, is occasionally named.

Leather, strangely enough, was also used on the table in the form of bottles and drinking cups and jacks, which were pitchers or jugs of waxed leather, much used in ale-houses in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, and whose employment gave rise to the belief of the French that Englishmen drank their ale out of their boots. Endicott received of Winthrop one leathern jack worth one shilling and sixpence. I find leathern jacks, bottles, and cups named among the property of Connecticut colonists.

Nearly all the glass ware of the eighteenth century was of inferior quality, full of bubbles and defects. It was frequently fluted. Many pieces have been preserved that have been painted in vitrifiable colors, the designs are crude, the colors red, yellow, blue, and occasionally black or green. The transparent glass thus painted is said to be of Dutch manufacture. The opalized glass similarly decorated is Spanish. Drinking-glasses or flip-mugs seem to have been most common, or, at any rate, most largely preserved. The tradition attached to all the pieces of Spanish glass which I have found in New England homes is that they came from the Barbadoes. Bristol glass also was painted in colors, and came to this country, being advertised in the Boston NewsLetter.

Glass bottles were frequently left by will in early days, being rare and valuable; but by newspaper days glass was imported in various shapes, and soon was plentiful enough. In 1773 we find this advertisement: