The Estate List of Cornelius DuBois
A document as it stands is an object tethered to a rich history of its own, but what happens when we take a closer look at its items up close? What do these objects say about the DuBois’ and New Paltz culture in the 19th century? What may seem like ordinary furnishings and supplies might reveal a hidden history of their own. Here, we took a closer look at two objects in particular – the sundial and pewter spoons – as an insight into the DuBois’s lives and the rich culture embedded in their former possessions.
Description
Drawn up in April of 1816, the Estate List of Cornelius DuBois Jr. and Getrude DuBois is a 16-page itemized list of the DuBois’s belongings, composed of simple paper and bound by twine. The booklet measures 7.5 by 12 inches, with the front cover beginning with a declaration of the “true and perfect” nature of the inventory. Though missing an official date – this most likely being a working document that the estate overseers forgot to pen in – the month and year explain the decayed, frayed nature of the inventory list, as many of the pages are yellowed and fragile to the touch. The list is split into three columns, indicated by the faint brown ink that divides the items and their quantities into one column and their dollar and cent amounts in the second and third columns. Every page lists the total dollar amount calculated from the addends in the bottom right corner, with that number repeated onto the top right corner of the next page. The estate total is listed on the final page.
Provenance
Cornelius DuBois Jr. was born to Cornelius DuBois and Margaret Houghtaling as one of nine children – 6 daughters and 3 sons. His grandfather, Solomon DuBois, gave him ownership over a large acreage of land, allowing him to establish his estate. He married Getrude Bruyn and had one son, Josiah, who in 1822, six years after his father’s death, built a house on top of the stone foundation of his father’s old home on Libertyville Road (Osborne 113).
After Josiah’s death, the property was passed onto Josiah Jr., who then sold it to William Blake in 1880. After the death of Blake’s daughter Matilda in 1965, the Historic Huguenot Society gained ownership over the property before it was sold to Jean and David Bartlett in 1983. It is best hypothesized that the estate list was recovered from somewhere in the home’s archives or storage facilities during this time by Huguenot Street staff under the advisement of President Kenneth Hasbrouck in the 1980s. The document is kept and maintained by Historic Huguenot Street today.
Narrative
From ancient Egyptian civilizations to our current globalized era, humans have always been fascinated in time, more so keeping track of it. Timepieces as large as towering clocks that chime every half hour and as small as the watches wrapped around our wrists are everywhere. In a period where we can plan and schedule our lives down to the second, timekeeping has become essential to our everyday lives.
Among the extensive list of items in the Estate Inventory of Cornelius Dubois Jr. and Getrude DuBois, wedged between a riding pillow and lot leather, there is one sundial worth 25 cents. This object seems out of place, as sundials are usually seen as an archaic method of telling time, but despite its rudimentary structure, sundials have been in use for thousands of years.
Sundials are timepieces that predate clocks, known as “the earliest type of timekeeping device, [indicating] the time of day by the position of the shadow of some object exposed to the sun’s rays” (Britannica). Based on the shadow’s length throughout the day, observers can denote the time. There are two categories of sundials, fixed and portable, that vary in design but function the same. Both feature a “gnomon," a thin piece or pillar that protrudes out and casts a shadow onto the dial, a flat circular surface marked by numbers. The gnomon’s position is carefully angled based on the Earth’s axis to ensure the most accurate measurements. While they can be made to be very complex and expensive, sundials are often inexpensive and reliable ways to tell the time, as evidenced by the cheap price of DuBois’ sundial which in today’s dollars would only be worth $5.70. As long as the sun is shining, they can be used to tell the time.
Despite being invented in the 13th century, it took centuries for the mechanical clock to supersede the accuracy and reliability of sundials. Clocks often had to be rewound to display the correct time, and sundials were a dependable source to set them against (Daniel). The two objects worked in tandem for centuries. And yet, mechanical clocks were still wildly expensive and inaccessible. Cornelius DuBois’ estate was estimated at around $12,500, or roughly $250,000 in 2025 dollars. The other timekeeping piece mentioned in the estate list is a wooden clock and case on page 10, priced at $30 or $683.97 in 2025 dollars. Clocks of this nature were difficult to attain for poorer families, demonstrating the DuBois’ wealth but also their own inquiry into slightly older, rudimentary technology.
It was around this time when Eli Terry, a Connecticut inventor and clockmaker, revolutionized the timekeeping industry, inventing the first shelf clocks. Looking to create more affordable, accessible, and long-standing clocks, Terry invented the tall case (or grandfather) and shelf clock. These clocks were largely self-contained and easily installable. The shelf clock, which was invented in 1813, could simply be placed on a shelf with no added assembly and took the nation by storm (New England Historic Society). Moving through the 19th century into the industrial era and ending today, the sundial has been largely rendered as a historic symbol of timekeeping.
Technological innovations produce a range of reactions – from those willing to adopt the new technology to those who still cling to its archaic forms to those somewhere in between. Society as a whole operates within that middle ground. Our clocks are linked to our phones, but older timekeeping methods – from something small as a pocket watch to as large as a clock tower – are still all around us, a living timeline of our time- telling methods. DuBois owning a sundial and a clock represents a midpoint between longstanding old technology and the introduction of new technology. Yet it also represents a continuity in human values, our need to keep track of time, to better coordinate and take control of our own lives. The sundial, in its simplest form, is a capsule that holds millennia of chronometric history, and it will continue to serve that purpose, so long as the sun continues to shine, and the gnomon casts its shadow onto the dial's surface, marking time.
Flaunting one’s social status is nothing new to society. From faux-designer bags to knock-off knick-knacks, objects have been used to deceive, standing in place of what should be luxurious objects. Though the DuBois family boasted a prosperous estate, they too were not spared from this longstanding cultural obsession.
The DuBois Estate List records utensils made from five different types of metal. The most common of these materials is pewter, appearing 6 times, and tin, appearing 7 times. That is in contrast to brass, which only appears twice, and silver, which is only listed once. Iron is referenced 4 times, not including the tools that can be inferred are also made of iron. While these metals seem ordinary, pewter stands out in both its historical and economic significance.
Pewter is a tin-based alloy, originating from Ancient Rome over 2,000 years ago and made of mostly tin mixed with a small percentage of another metals. Older pewter is typically harder than pure tin. It gives off a blue tint, largely due to its high lead content (Helmenstine). When pewter was first produced in ancient Rome, it would consist of about 70% tin and 30% lead (Britannica). Lead has its own long-standing history as well. From makeup to birth control to pipes to being used as a condiment, the metal was easy to manipulate and inexpensive to use (Lewis). With kitchen items, lead could be found in plates, cups, utensils, and anything else built with metal. When mixed with tin to create pewter, it not only made a new type of metal, but a metal that could seemingly blend in with its shinier, more expensive counterpart, silver.
Antique silver spoons from 1810 listed on 1stDibs.com
Antique pewter spoons from 1810 listed on 1stDibs.com
Antique silver and pewter objects are so similar that upon first glance, it can be difficult to tell them apart – both maintain a similar luster and color. However, with further inspection, differences in quality are most noticeably seen as the metals age. Comparing antique silver spoons and antique pewter spoons, these are historically similar to the ones DuBois may have owned. The silver set of spoons from 1810, when maintained, are able to achieve a mirror-like shine and a smooth texture. The pewter spoons on the other hand exhibit a dullness, having darkened and degraded with age.
There are a few explanations for these differences. This could be because of the softness of the metals in pewter as opposed to silver. This may also be due to pewter being more of a daily use object rather than the more special or valuable silver spoons. Though pewter in the long term could not maintain its illusion, in the moment, its ability to masquerade as its more luxurious counterpart became critical in fostering an illusion of prosperity.
Page 9 of the Estate List
Page 10 of the Estate List
When looking at the inventory, page 10 lists 14 silver teaspoons and tongs to be worth $12. Adjusting for inflation, this would be equivalent to spending roughly $269 today (Webster). While there is no direct set of 14 pewter spoons listed, for comparison, we may look towards the collection of 3 pewter plates and 6 pewter spoons on page 9. This set is valued at 50 cents. After adjusting for inflation, this value equates to roughly $11 today (Webster). Economically, pewter was more worthy of an investment for a family as affluent and large as the DuBois. Rather than purchasing sets of silver – which places a heavy burden on the family with its initial expense and its routine maintenance – purchasing pewter could pass that illusion for a short period of time. It was the perfect stand-in for a more expensive, valuable object, except for the obvious danger embedded in its very core.
Early pewter’s high lead content allowed it to be made cheaply; it also made using these utensils very dangerous. Due to lead being a poisonous material, the daily use of pewter utensils and drinking vessels led to many people dying from pewter poisoning (Way). The higher the amount of lead in pewter, the more dangerous it was. During what is known as a “golden age” of pewter from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, lead infiltrated every home (The Pewter Society). People knew about lead’s dangers as far back as Ancient Romans, yet restrictions on lead were not enacted until the 20th century, centuries after Cornelius DuBois’s passing (Lewis). Despite this, historical familiarity and economic sensibility enabled families like the DuBois’ to invest in this particular metal, danger aside.
The pursuit of social status and luxury is rooted in tangibility – from the very clothes we wear to the cars we drive to the very layout of our homes. These are objects that society has equated to socioeconomic status, and not everyone can afford it, leading to knockoffs, decoys, and substitutions to masquerade that value. Pewter spoons embodied that ideal, though at a considerable cost to anyone who has come across it, one bite at a time.
~Sarah Kaye and Natalie Hawkins, Revised by Sara Vala
Works Cited
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