Jeremiah Dummer

Jeremiah Dummer 1645-1718, early American silversmith and engraver, b. Newbury, Mass. He was apprenticed (1659) to John Hull and set up as a silversmith in Boston c.1666. He held several public offices, was known as a merchant, and engraved plates for currency (in 1710 he printed the first paper money in Connecticut). He may have painted the portraits of himself and his wife and of John Coney, silversmith, and his wife; these bear his inscription. Dummer's silverwork mark is ID enclosed over a fleur-de-lis in a heart or occasionally ID in a rectangle. He is represented in the collections of colonial silver of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum.

Bibliography: See H. F. Clarke and H. W. Foote, Jeremiah Dummer, Colonial Craftsman and Merchant (1935).

Dummer, Jeremiah (c.1679–1739),colonial agent for Massachusetts and Connecticut, wrote a closely reasoned Defence of the New England Charters (1721) to answer the Parliamentary attacks of the time. He was instrumental in persuading Elihu Yale to contribute to the college then named for him.