ilable material for spoons.
Many Indian tribes excelled as they do to-day in the making of horn
spoons. The vulgar affirmation, "By the great horn spoon," has
perpetuated their familiar use.

Every family of any considerable possessions or owning good household
furnishings had a few silver spoons; nearly every person owned at least
one. At the time America was settled the common form of silver spoon in
England had what was known as a baluster stem and a seal head; the assay
mark was in the inner part of the bowl. But the fashion was just
changing, and a new and much altered form was introduced which was made
in large numbers until the opening reign of George I. This shape was the
very one without doubt in which many of the spoons of the first
colonists were made; and wherever such spoons are found, if they are
genuine antiques, they may safely be assigned a date earlier than 1714.
The handle was flat and broad at the end, where it was cleft in three
points which were turned up, that is, not toward the back of the spoon.
This was known as the "hind's-foot handle." The bowl was a perfectly
regular ellipse and was strengthened by continuing the handle in a
narrow tongue or rat-tail, which ran down the back of the bowl. The
succeeding fashion, in the early part of the eighteenth century, had a
longer elliptical bowl. The end of the handle was rounded and turned up
at the end, and it had a high sharp ridge down the middle. This was
known as the old English shape, and was in common use for half a
century. About the period of our Revolutionary War a shape nearly like
the one in ordinary present use became the mode; the bowl became
egg-shaped, and the end of the handle was turned down instead of up. The
rat-tail, which extended down the back of the bowl, was shortened into a
drop. Apostle spoons, and monkey spoons for extraordinary use were
occasionally made, and a few are still preserved; examples of five types
of spoons are shown from the collection of Edward Holbrook, Esq., of New
York.

Families of consequence had usually a few pieces of silver besides their
spoons and the silver salt. Some kind of a drinking-cup was the usual
form. Persons of moderate means often owned a silver cup. I have seen in
early inventories and lists the names of a large variety of silver
vessels: tankards, beer-bowls, beakers, flagons, wine cups, wine bowls,
wine cans, tasters, caudle-cups, posset-cups, dram-cups, punch-bowls,
tumblers, mugs, dr