Description
This serving spoon of English silver commissioned by Landon Carter, the prolific colonial-era writer and prominent member of the House of Burgesses, features an inscription on the reverse of the handle that commemorates the 1766 repeal of the Stamp Act. Beneath his initials and the date it reads, Repeal of the American Stamp Act. Carter requested an order of tablespoons to be made in London in 1766 with the proviso that they should be made in silver if the Stamp Act were already repealed; if the act was still operative, however, the spoons should be made of horn. The return of a silver spoon marked a kind of personal victory for Carter, as he was the first public official to raise the alarm in Virginia over the Stamp Act. The spoon was a treasured artifact for generations of Carters at Sabine Hall, the residence in Tappahannock, Virginia, built by Landon Carter.
