{"id":24873,"date":"2017-09-01T11:28:15","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T15:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=24873"},"modified":"2021-04-22T13:36:16","modified_gmt":"2021-04-22T17:36:16","slug":"the-historic-stevens-family-of-portland-maine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/the-historic-stevens-family-of-portland-maine.html","title":{"rendered":"The Historic Stevens Family of Portland, Maine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Captain Isaac Sawyer Stevens<\/span> (1748-1820) served in the Revolutionary War and is my ancestor. Isaac married Sarah Brackett<\/a> (1749-1830) in 1769 and the family lived for many years in a home Isaac built in Portland, Maine.<\/p>\n

Looking into the Stevens family, I learned that Isaac\u2019s son Zachariah Stevens<\/span> (1778-1856) was a prominent tinsmith in the Portland area. Intrigued, I decided to research him in GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a>, using his name and the keyword \u201ctinware.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Source: GenealogyBank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This search brought up several newspaper articles about the history of tinsmithing, and particularly Zachariah\u2019s role in American tinware.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Source: GenealogyBank, Boston Herald (Boston, Massachusetts), 25 August 1968, page 116<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to this Boston Herald<\/em> newspaper article:<\/p>\n

\u201cZachariah Stevens opened one of the first tin shops in 1789 [correction: 1798] in Stevens Plains, near Portland, Maine. Stevens and Pattison\u2019s peddlars covered great distances, sometimes reaching as far north as Canada and as far west as Detroit in the May through November months and as far south as Louisiana and Missouri during winter and early spring.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After a quick search on the Internet I found this image of one of his pieces at the American Museum of Folk Art.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: tinplate trunk, by Zachariah Brackett Stevens, c. 1815\u20131835. Source: American Museum of Folk Art. http:\/\/collection.folkartmuseum.org\/view\/objects\/asitem\/items@:4635<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next newspaper article I found in GenealogyBank, by the Dallas Morning News<\/em>, discussed Zachariah\u2019s specific role in the development of American tinware styles: he created the first American-made tole. (Merriam-Webster defines tole as: \u201csheet metal and especially tinplate for use in domestic and ornamental wares in which it is usually japanned or painted and often elaborately decorated.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Source: GenealogyBank, Dallas Morning News (Dallas, Texas), 14 December 1959, page 8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article also gave me another interesting piece of information about Zachariah: he trained to be a tinsmith \u201cunder Paul Revere.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a third newspaper article, by the Boston Herald<\/em>, Zachariah\u2019s work is recognizable by its specific style:<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the work of this plant can be distinguished because of the predominant use of off-white paints either for backgrounds or as parts of the decorations themselves.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"An<\/a>
Source: GenealogyBank, Boston Herald (Boston, Massachusetts), 27 June 1971, page 50<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Genealogy Tip:<\/em><\/strong> I was originally searching to learn more about my ancestor Isaac Sawyer Stevens, but after finding an interesting bit of information about his son Zachariah, decided to pursue that thread. Keep digging in GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a> and find the long-lost stories of your family\u2019s history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article about Zachariah Stevens, a prominent tinsmith, who was the son of Revolutionary War Captain Isaac Sawyer Stevens, the author\u2019s ancestor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12713],"tags":[12,2719,2020,19749,19751],"class_list":["post-24873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-genealogy","tag-genealogy-search-tips","tag-newspaper-archives","tag-tinsmiths","tag-tinware"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/photo-0901-2017-featured-graphic-stevens-tinware.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24873"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77487,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24873\/revisions\/77487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}