American colonial interest – A George II sterling silver dessert fork, London 1758 by Ebenezer Coker (reg. 27th March 1738)

American colonial interest – A George II sterling silver dessert fork, London 1758 by Ebenezer Coker (reg. 27th March 1738)

Hanoverian pattern, three pronged, engraved to the terminal with a contemporaneous crest of a wild man proper wreathed about the middle and temples of the first holding in dexter hand a trefoil slipped, in the sinister a spiked club or, reclining on his shoulder. Fully marked.

Length – 16.3 cm / 6.4 inches

Weight – 42 grams / 1.35 ozt

The crest is for Walton

Crozier’s General Armory (1904) contains one entry for this name and crest

William Walton of New York, 1760, from Lancaster, England. Arms: Argent, a chevron gules between three hawks heads erased sable. Crest: A wild man proper wreathed about the middle and temples of the first holding in dexter hand a trefoil slipped or, in the sinister a spiked club or, reclining on his shoulder. (The Walton family of Lacock, Wiltshire, and of Walton, Lancashire, has a slightly different crest where instead of a spiked club the wild man is holding a tree eradicated.)

William Walton (1706–1768) was an American merchant and politician. The son of Captain William and Mary (Santford) Walton, he followed his father into the shipping and mercantile business and became a prominent figure in the colony of New York, serving as a member of the New York General Assembly (1751–58) and of the Governor's Council (1758–68). He was one of the founders and a trustee of the New York Society Library and a member of the Board of Trade from 1758 until his death in 1768.

The family of William Walton acquired its fortune in part through an advantageous contract to furnish provisions and supplies to the Spaniards at St. Augustine, Florida.

In 1752 he erected the mansion which bore his name, on one of the lots which he had inherited from his father near the shipyards. The house stood until 1881 as an imposing if shabby relic of the colonial period, in Franklin Square at No. 326 Pearl Street. (in 1752, Pearl was called Queen Street)