"The young buyer spotted Bentzon's hallmark and realized he'd hit the estate sale jackpot. A pap boat is a shallow elongated bowl with a pouring rim on one side that was used to feed babies or sick people with a thin porridge (aka pap). The pap was highly digestible nourishment that could be given to someone who was too young or too ill to chew."
"The flat bottom of the boat is stamped P. BENTZON in capital letters embedded in a rectangle. It dates to between 1810 and 1820. Peter Bentzon was the only silversmith of African descent working in early America whose silver pieces can be identified by his personal hallmark. He was born on the island of Saint Thomas to a mother of mixed Afro-Caribbean heritage and a white European father believed to have been Norwegian Jacob Bentzon, a lawyer and royal judge advocate on the island."
A unique silver pap boat by Peter Bentzon was found in a $40 box labeled silverplate at a Minnesota estate sale and sold to a prominent American institution for $24,000. The buyer recognized Bentzon's hallmark. The boat measures less than five inches long and three inches wide, weighs 69 grams, and the flat bottom is stamped P. BENTZON inside a rectangle. The piece dates from about 1810–1820. Peter Bentzon was born on Saint Thomas to a mixed Afro-Caribbean mother and a white European father, apprenticed in Philadelphia from 1799 to 1806, and later operated a shop in Christiansted, St. Croix while trading between St. Croix and Philadelphia.
Read at www.thehistoryblog.com
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