A rare American silver three-piece tea set, Asa Blansett, Dumfries, Virginia, circa 1795

?Ezekiah Dunnington and Ann MacGregor, to their son
Francis Harmon and Elizabeth Colquhoun Dunnington, to their son
Charles W.C. and Catherine M. A. Dunnington, Dumfries, Virginia, to their fifth child
Anne Letitia Dunnington, and by descent

Asa Blansett first appears in 1794 amoung those forming a volunteer company of infantry at Dumfries, a town along the Potomac south of Washington, D.C., which was a major tobacco shipping point in the third quarter of the 18th century.  The following year he advertised as a "Gold, Silversmith, and Jeweller," sharing the information that he had recently returned from Philadelphia and New York to improve his skills.  His shop was on Main Street, "at the Stone Bridge," Dumfries (see George Barton Cutten, Silversmiths of Virginia, p. 33).  A teapot of this design was sold Christie's, New York, January 21, 1994, lot 110.

The original owner of this set may have been Ezekiah Dunnington of Dumfries, who joined the Revolutionary Army on July 17, 1776, at Charles County, Maryland, and later served at Valley Forge.  In the mid 19th century this set belong to his grandson Charles William Colquhoun Dunnington, who owned a grist mill and Graham park and Cherry Hill plantations near Dumfries, as well as residing in Washington on B Street, S.E. (the site now holds a wing of the Library of Congress).  According to family history, the tea set was buried by a "beloved family servant" during the war, while Dunnington removed to Richmond as a member of the Virginia Confederate Legislature and editor of the Richmond Sentinel.