Images(2)

Coffin Plate

PeriodCirca 1819

Place MadeMiddletown Point, New Jersey, U.S.A.

MediumSilver

Dimensions4.69 × 6.31 × 0.38 in. (11.9 × 16 × 1 cm)

ClassificationsSilver

Credit LineGift of Josephine Mabel Brown, 1948

Object number3253.1

DescriptionAn oval coffin plate, with slight domed profile, inscribed "ANN KEARNY / Departed this life / March 30th 1819 / In her 39 year of / her age." Four small screw holes have been drilled in the plate at top and bottom. Silversmith John Schanck stamped his mark twice along the upper edge of the oval.
Curatorial RemarksJohn Schanck was born in 1774, the youngeset child of Captain John Schanck and his wife Maria Denise. He chose to follow his brother into the silversmith trade. His older brother, Garret, apprenticed under Daniel Van Voorhis (1751-1825), in New York City. Voorhis was Garret's and John's third cousin. It was not uncommon for family members to be connected within a trade in this manner. John may have also apprenticed with Daniel Van Voorhis, who in 1790 had six young men in residence probably as apprentices or journeymen according to census records. Records also indicate that John left Voorhis' shop and started working with his brother, first at 25 Fair Street and then at 133 Water Street in New York City. By the time John's brother Garret died, John was 21 and ready to take over his older brother's business. After he and Garret's widow Sarah settled the estate, John purchased the business from her in 1797. By that time, Sarah had remarried to another silversmith. Her second husband, Joseph DuBois, was Garret and John's first cousin. John Schanck married Maria Van Nuyse and the couple had nine children, several of whom died in infancy. The year John purchased the business, he placed an advertisement for his shop in the Times Piece and Literary Companion, a newspaper published in New York and edited by Philip Freneau. In 1799, John and Micha Schenck left the bustling city and moved to Middletown Point (now Matawan) where they had both grown up. John continued his silversmithing work. He was active in local politics and served on the Middletown Township Committee from 1816 to 1819, where he was listed as "John Schanck, silversmith." Seven of their ten children were baptized at the Old Brick Dutch Reformed Church. John Schanck died in 1864 at the age of 91. As a well-respected and skilled silversmith, Schanck was called upon to make a wide variety of wares, including coffin plates. Also known as "breastplates," these panels were added to a casket (by the late 19th century, people began to refer to caskets as "coffins") as additional adornment and as identification. Coffin plates were used from the 17th century on. In America, these plates began appearing frequently in the early 19th century. Simple shapes such as ovals were made of tin, zinc, lead, iron, pewter, or expensive material such as silver, engraved with the name and birth and death dates of the casket's occupant. Beginning in the 1840s, breastplates were machine made and as the century drew on became more elaborate and decorative.NotesThomas Kearny (the family name was also spelled "Kearney" in various documents) was a New York merchant who purchased a large tract of land along the Bayshore in the early 18th century. By 1716, Thomas Kearny had built a house on the property. His son, also named Thomas, inherited the land and later passed it on to his son, James Kearney (1749-1811). Part of the estate was known as Key Grove. James never married and left the Key Grove property to his brother Edmund (died 1822) and Edmund's wife Ann Bowne (1780-1819). The Association owns the coffin plates of Edmund and Ann Kearny (see accession numbers 3253.1 and 3253.3). According to donor and Keyport Josephine Mabel Brown, "the Partition Sale of the Capt. Edmund Kearny Estate took place on Nov. 3 & 4, 1829, and thereafter no Kearnys lived on the tract. With none of the Kearny family to take care of the family vault it soon went to decay...The rough element of the town [Keyport] used to infest the tomb and rob it of everything they could conveniently carry off. These three coffin plates were stolen from the coffins by persons who bargained rum with them. The saloon proprietor would take them, give them the rum, and afterward give them to the Justice of the Peace, Mr. Nimrod Bedle to keep. None of the Kearnys [were] living on the tract and not knowing where they were [Bedle] wrapped them up securely and hid them in the rafters of the attic...and there they remained. When it came time to sell the old home remove their belongings...among the things were the three old coffin plates that were hidden in the rafters..." Apparently Nimrod Bedle's granddaughter gave them to Josephine Brown sometime in or around 1905, who in turn wrote that "The Monmouth County Historical Association would be the best custodian for all time, as the Kearnys were old Monmouth County people." After her marriage to Edmund Kearny, Ann Bowne had eight children, the final child a daughter named Ann Euphemia, born in June 1818. Ann Bown Kearny was thirty-nine years old at her death in 1819.

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