American Family of the Colonial Era Paper Dolls




Early American Architecture

Customs and Fashions in Old New England


Very rich Cut Glass Candlesticks, cut Glass sugar Boxes & Cream Potts, Wine, Wine & Water, and Beer Glasses with cut shanks, Jelly & Syllabub Glasses, Glass Salvers, also Cyder Glasses, Free Mason Glasses, Orange & Top Glasses, Glass Cans, Glass Cream Buckets and Crewits, Royal Arch Mason Glasses, Glass Pyramids with Jelly Glasses, Globe & Barrel Lamps, Double Flynt Wyn Glasses," &c.

The most curious glass relics that are preserved are the flip-glasses or bumper-glasses; they are tumbler-shaped, and are frequently engraved or fluted. Some hold over a gallon.

The names of table furnishings varied somewhat in the eighteenth century. There were milk-pots, milk-ewers, milk jugs, ere there were milk-pitchers; sugar-boxes, sugar-pots, sugar-basins, ere there were sugar-bowls; spoon-boats and spoon-basins ere there were spoon-holders. Terrines were imported about 1750. There were pickle-dishes and pickle-boats, twifflers, mint-stands and vegetable-basins.

One other appurtenance of a dining-room is found in all early inventories-a voider. Pewter voiders abounded and were advertised in newspapers, as were wicker and china voiders in 1740. The functions of a voider were somewhat those of a crumb-tray. They are thus given in Hugh Rhodes's "Boke of Nurture" in 1577:


"Wyth bones & voyd morsels fyll not
thy trenchour, my friend, full
Avoyd them into a Voyder,
no man will it anull.
When meate is taken guyte awaye
and Voyders in presence
Put you your trenchour in the same
and all your resydence.
Take you with your napkin & knyfe
the croms that are fore thee
In the Voyder your Napkin leave
for it is curtesye."

















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