Teaspoon
MARK: Struck on reverse of handle with an intaglio “G.C.DANIEL” mark in a rectangular reserve.
MAKER: George C. Daniel (1807-d.c.1890) announced on 11 March 1829, in an Elizabeth City, North Carolina newspaper (The Star) that his shop would provide watch- and clockmaking services. By 1831, he had moved to Halifax, North Carolina and employed a watchmaker (Roanoke Advocate, 25 February 1831). That same year he married Levenia C. Hardee in Northampton Co., North Carolina. The 1840 Federal Census recorded him living in Henry Co., Tennessee, in the in northwest corner of the state, with his wife and four children. Ten years later he was living in Marshall Co., Mississippi, just over the state border southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, recorded in the Federal Census that year as a silversmith. Living with him was his second wife, Sarah Amanda Selby (1825-1880) and children from his previous and current marriage, including a son, Whitnell H. Daniel (b.1834), listed as a jeweller. He continued to live in Marshall County (Chewella) until at least 1880 and most likely died in the 1890s.
FORM: By the nineteenth century, spoons were crafted for such specific purposes as serving salt and sugar (salt spoons), food items (serving spoons), punch and soup (ladles), and for stirring tea or coffee and/or eating custard or ice cream (teaspoons).
