By 1850 the ambitious and innovative John Gorham wished to expand the family operation from spoons and other small goods to include hollowware of the best quality and in the newest styles. To provide extra capital for machinery and skilled labor, he invited his cousins Gorham Thurber and Lewis Dexter Jr. to become partners in Gorham & Company. In this pivotal decade, the firm’s sales increased fourteen-fold, from $29,000 in 1850 to $397,000 in 1859. The number of employees ballooned from fourteen to two hundred. By the end of the 1860s, with employees doubled and revenues almost tripled, Gorham was the largest fine silverware producer in the world.
This richly textured goblet may have been presented to Ophelia Annie Smith of Cambridge on her wedding engagement to Atty. Samuel Snow, son of Caleb Hopkins Snow, M.D. (1796 – 1835), author of A History of Boston, the Metropolis of Massachusetts (Boston: Abel Bowen, 1828).

This text has been adapted from "Silver of the Americas, 1600-2000," edited by Jeannine Falino and Gerald W.R. Ward, published in 2008 by the MFA. Complete references can be found in that publication.

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