Museum Collections

According to the donor, Mrs. Thomas K. Gale, this well-worn teaspoon descended in the Harsen family. Mrs. Gale's ancestors included Jacob Harsen (1714-1775), after whom the Upper West Side neighborhood of Harsenville was named. The clumsily engraved initials on the spoon's handle have not been connected to a specific couple but might refer to members of the Van Arsdalen or Van Amak families, from whom the donor also descended. This spoon bears the mark of John Hastier, a silversmith who lived and worked in the affluent Dock Ward of New York, a neighborhood of wealthy French and English merchants. A runaway ad posted by Hastier in 1758 reveals that he owned a slave, Jasper, who worked as a skilled artisan in Hastier's workshop.