An American silver tankard, Cornelius Kierstede, New York and New Haven circa 1720-30

tapered cylindrical with molded baseband below engraved scalloped cut-card work, flat-domed cover with shaped and engraved peak matching the base cut-card design, scroll thumbpiece, the hinge decorated with wrigglework and engraved to each side repeating scallop motif, scroll handle with applied multi-reel baluster, shaped square terminal with applied cherub head between engraved borders, the front finely engraved with contemporary interlace cypher JW within elaborate baroque cartouche with two cherub masks, scalework scrolls, laurel swags and perched exotic birds, marked CK in square at rim each side of handle and on cover near thumbpiece.

?John or Joseph Waln, to their nephew or great-nephew
Nicholas Waln (1742-1813), to his wife
Sarah Richardson Waln (m. 1771), to her son
William Waln (1775-1825), to his daughter
Sarah Waln (1806-1886), to her daughter
Mary Waln Wilcox (Mrs. A.D. Campbell; b. 1843, m. 1870, d. after 1921 exhibition)
Purchased by Walter Jeffords in April 1935, from "Mr. Reath, Philadelphia" for $3,000; in the 1938 exhibition as belonging to Mrs. Campbell Madeira, deceased.

Philadelphia 1921: Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin: Special Silver Catalogue, 68 (June 1921): no.78
Philadelphia 1938: The Pennsylvania Society of the Colonial Dames of America. Three Centuries of Historic Silver, 1938, no. 39

Moon, Robert C., M.D., The Morris Family of Philadelphia - Descendants of Anthony Morris"  Philadelphia: privately printed, 1989, p. 196, ill. opposite p. 212

In 1898, Robert Moon's history of the Morris family illustrates this tankard and identifies it as having originally belonged to William Morris and left in his will to his granddaughter Sarah (Richardson)  Waln.  However, the initials engraved on the piece suggest that instead it descended in the family of Sarah's husband Nicholas Waln, in Philadelphia and Bucks and Chester Counties.

While the dating is inexact, one possibility is Nicholas Waln's uncle Joseph Waln, either as a christening gift or a very early commission, as he was born in 1722 and married in 1747.  Another possibility is Nicholas' great-uncle John Waln, born in 1694, married in 1717 to Jane Mifflin, but seemingly dead by 1720.  In correspondance with John Marshall Phillips, Jeffords suggested the original owner was Jacob Whalen, but no one by this name has been located.

Cornelius Kierstede (1674-c. 1757) was born on Christmas day to an established New York family; he was the nephew by marriage of Benjamin and Jesse Kip (lot 741).  He became a freeman in 1698 when the fee was dropped as part of a political scheme; he registered again in 1702.  He married in New York in 1703 but the his first child was baptised in Albany, indicating time in that city; he was back in New York for the baptism of another child in 1706.  In 1721/2 Kierstede became involved in copper mining outside New Haven.  In 1727 he was still living partly in New York, though acquiring property in Connecticut, and by 1740/1 he was described as "of New Haven."  In 1753 a New Haven court moved to administer his property "by reason of his advanced age & Infirmities" (Waters 2000 p. 143), and he may have died in New Jersey in 1757.