Elias Pelletreau

Place: Southampton

Born: 1726

Death: 1810

Biography:

Elias Pelletreau (1726-1810) was an important Southampton silversmith and craftsman who created richly detailed, beautifully ornate, and shimmering eighteenth-century objects such as teapots, pepper boxes, porringers, tankards, and jewelry. He was of Huguenot ancestry and was born in Southampton, where he lived and worked throughout his life. He was a contemporary of Paul Revere and was one of the few early American rural silversmiths. He trained under Simeon Soumaine and had at least one slave. In 1741, during the 'Negro Plot of 1741', his slave Tom told authorities that the conspirators asked him to get swords from his master's shop. Two years later, Soumaine advertised that a pepper box had been stolen. His work is collected in various museums, including the Brooklyn Museum, Clark Art Institute, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Harvard Art Museums/The Fogg, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, National Museum of American History, New-York Historical Society, Winterthur Museum, and Yale University Art Gallery.