Nathaniel Hurd

Nathaniel Hurd (13 February 1730 – 17 December 1777)[1] is widely recognized as the first American engraver and a silversmith in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 18th century.[2] He engraved "bookplates ... heraldic devices, seals, ... paper currency, and business cards" along with die engravers and engravers on copper.[3][4][1]

Silver teapot made by Nathaniel Hurd in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
This elevation of the Old State House was drawn by Thomas Dawes and engraved by Nathaniel Hurd. This view shows the building's appearance after having been rebuilt after a fire gutted it in 1747.[5]
Nathaniel Hurd
Portrait of Nathaniel Hurd by John Singleton Copley, ca.1765 (Cleveland Museum of Art)
Born(1729-02-13)February 13, 1729
Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay
DiedDecember 17, 1777(1777-12-17) (aged 48)
Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay
Occupationengraver and silversmith

Early life and family

Hurd's grandfather was from England and settled in Charlestown, having died in 1749 at the age of 70.[1]

The pine tree on this 1778 Massachusetts currency (which has been repaired by sewing together with white thread) was engraved by Nathaniel Hurd. The is the verso (back) side of the bill, which was printed by Thomas Fleet. The recto (front) was engraved and printed by Paul Revere and signed by Thomas Dawes.

Hurd's father was Jacob Hurd, a leading Boston silversmith, whose works are in the collections of the Peabody Essex Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Strawbery Banke Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Jacob Hurd married a daughter of John Mason (of Kingston, Jamaica who died in 1758).[1]

Death

Hurd died on 17 Dec 1777 and is buried in the old Granary Burial Ground in Boston.[1]

Career

An obituary from Amos Doolittle noted Hurd was the first to have engraved copper in the USA.[1]

The lion rampant logo for Phillips Exeter Academy is taken from a bookplate Hurd designed for John Phillips in 1775.[6] Examples of Hurd's work are in the collections of Harvard University; Yale University; Historic Deerfield;[7] the Lexington Historical Society; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

References
  1. Scientific American. Munn & Company. 1869-05-08. p. 294.
  2. Charles Dexter Allen (1895), American book-plates, a guide to their study, London: George Bell & Sons, OCLC 1472039, OL 7058457M
  3. "Portrait of Nathaniel Hurd by Copley." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Mar., 1923)
  4. American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series 1
  5. Cummings, Abbott Lowell. "A Recently Discovered Engraving of the Old State House in Boston," Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2017. (https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/774) Retrieved August 2018.
  6. "The Exeter Lion Rampant". The Academy Archives. Trustees of Phillips Exeter Academy. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  7. "Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Museum Consortium".

Further reading
  • William Dunlap (1834), History of the rise and progress of the arts of design in the United States, New York: George P. Scott and Co., Printers, OCLC 812030, OL 6575532M
  • Hollis French. Jacob Hurd and his sons Nathaniel & Benjamin, silversmiths, 1702–1781. Walpole Society, 1939.
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