Mid-Week in Manchester:  A Preview

We are pleased to note that we will be exhibiting for the first time in New Hampshire at Barnstar Production’s 11-12 August show.  Debuting with us are some very important, early New Hampshire and New England artifacts and works of art, including:  President Franklin Pierce’s Mexican War uniform and valise; the earliest New Hampshire state flag; a rare Portsmouth-made, naval boarding cap; and a pair of fine Benjamin Blyth pastel portraits. 

A rare, Portsmouth-made, Naval Boarding Cap (below:)

Boarding caps or helmets were used as protection against cutlasses and boarding axes during naval combat in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.  Made of jacked leather, often reinforced with raised crests or cross-strips of iron, they were uncommon in European navies, but were an item of issue aboard U. S. Navy warships and many American privateers well into the 1820s.  Captain Philip Vere Broke of HMS Shannon-USS Chesapeake fame, found this close-combat armor “admirable” and “decidedly the best preservative I ever saw before in any service” when he encountered such aboard American vessels during the War of 1812.    Only three examples of American boarding caps survive today and this fine example still retains its maker’s label inside the crown.  Nathaniel B. March was born in 1782 and lived and worked as a saddler in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  His known place of work was State Street from 1821-35, yet this boarding cap and an early military cap both bear labels with “Broad Street” crossed out--probably his earlier, unrecorded working address.