Full-length sign with some portion of armature. Photo, Jason Copes, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

In the spring of 2012, a colonial trade sign surfaced at a Massachusetts auction. After the sale, its new owner launched a quest to discover the history behind the sign, which originally hung in front of Newburyport, Massachusetts, baker Thomas Tannatt’s business.


Thomas Tannatt opened his bakery in 1774 on Middle Street, formerly New Lane, and continued in the business there until 1793 when he relocated to Boston, operating his bakery in the city until he sold it in 1802. Tannatt’s father, also named Thomas Tannatt, was a prosperous captain and entrepreneur in Newburyport, with significant wharf, warehouse and land property. He died in 1759 at the age of fifty-three, leaving his seven-year-old son, Thomas, with two-thirds of his substantial land holdings and provision for his maintenance, support, and education until the age of 21.1 Still a minor when his mother died in 1766, Dr. John Sprague was appointed Thomas’ guardian.2


The year 1774 was auspicious for Thomas Tannatt. He became of age, married Mary Gallashan, had a son, sold the first parcel of his Newburyport land holdings, and opened his bakery on New Lane. The land parcel was sold for the sum of £400 to his former guardian John Sprague and baker William Teel, under whom Thomas likely apprenticed. Interestingly, this deed of sale released Sprague and Teel from an obligation to the town to provide two shillings per week for the maintenance of Tannatt’s illegitimate child, born in 1772.3 Tannatt’s marriage to Mary Gallashan produced ten children. After moving to Boston in 1793, he operated his baking business on Henchman’s Lane.4 He died and was buried in Boston in 1804.5


The sign itself features a baker’s coat of arms consisting of a red shield divided into three parts by a yellow chevron, each section containing a sheaf of wheat. Rambling green leafed vines surround the shield with a surmounting white anchor. The coat of arms image is similar to that of the bakers’ guild of Middle Ages London.6 Below the shield, three lines of text printed in yellow read, “All Sorts of Bread Made & Sold Here by Thos  Tannatt.” The year “1774” is painted in black on the scrolled skirt. On the pediment, the barely visible words “Baker’s Arms” were overpainted early in the sign’s history.


An independent analysis of the paint surface and construction was undertaken by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation while the sign was on loan for inspection and study. Paint analysis revealed that most pigments were consistent with the age and origin of the sign, with a few areas of “touch up” and a darkened surface caused by two early generations of plant resin varnish. X-ray examination confirmed the intact state of the original triple applied moldings that vertically orient the single-board, two-sided sign. X-ray also verified that the original wrought-iron armature is affixed to the sides with period nails.




Clockwise from left:
Detail of left side of wrought-iron armature. Photo, Jason Copes, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Close up “All sorts of Bread Made & Sold here by Thos Tannatt.” Photo, Jason Copes, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Microscopy of leaf surrounding shield. Photo, Kirsten Travers, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.


The survival of this colonial trade signboard, in its remarkable state of preservation, is extraordinary. How the sign survived, however, is unknown. Had it remained on Tannatt’s Newburyport property, the sign most likely would have been burned by the great Newburyport fire of 1811, when nearly sixteen acres in the town’s old waterfront area were completely destroyed, including the site of Tannatt’s old bakery.7 He may have brought it with him to Boston when he opened his new bake house, but the sign was in Newburyport in 1858 when it was prominently displayed at a Newburyport historical exhibition, suggesting perhaps that it had remained in the town with one of his children.8 Several years later, however, Currier’s History of Newburyport (1906) noted its whereabouts were undetermined.9 A 1916 rediscovery of the sign in a Newburyport attic was heralded in the Boston Post as “a relic of the days of our grandfathers,” 10 but it disappeared again for nearly a century, only to reemerge anew at auction.11

Robert Bower is an independent researcher and former educator. Norman Gronning is a historian and antiques dealer specializing in early American furniture and decorative arts.


This Discovery was originally published in the 18th Anniversary issue of Antiques & Fine Art magazine, a fully digitized edition of which is available at www.afamag.com. AFA is affiliated with Incollect. The original title of this article was "Discoveries from the Field: 'All Sorts of Bread Made & Sold Here': A Colonial Trade Sign."