Jeremiah Dummer was an American silversmith, engraver, portrait- painter, magistrate. His works are highly valued today.
Background
Jeremiah Dummer was born on September 14, 1645 at Newbury, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Richard Dummer and his wife, Frances, widow of Reverend Jonathan Burr. Richard Dummer, said to have been a native of Bishop- stoke, England, settled at Newbury and later at Boston, and in 1635-36 was one of the Governor’s Assistants.
Career
Dummer had dealings with John Hull, mint master, in whose shop he placed Jeremiah as apprentice. Hull wrote in his diary, “16t of 5th I received into my house Jeremie Dummer and Samuel Paddy, to serve me as apprentices eight years. The Lord make me faithful in discharge of this new trust committed to me.
He joined in 1671 the Artillery Company, in which he held offices, but in 1686 when the Massachusetts militia was reorganized he was one of four captains who were not reappointed. His civic services began when he was made constable in 1675. He was a member of the Council of Safety, 1689, and with others signed two petitions addressed to Governor Andros. Dummer was a selectman of Boston, 1691-92; justice of the peace, 1693-1718: treasurer of Suffolk County, 1701; overseer of the poor, 1702. He was of the commission appointed in 1700 by the Earl of Bellomont to visit Gardiner’s Island in search of treasure supposed to have been hidden there by Captain William Kidd. Dummer saw his second son, Jeremiah, Jr. , started in an honorable legal career in England, and he sat a proud man in his pew on September 27, 1716 while Mr. Pemberton preached a sermon congratulating another son, William Dummer, upon becoming lieutenant-governor and acting governor of the province.
In 1921 Frank W. Bayley discovered inscriptions in Dummer’s handwriting on portraits of himself and his wife, which suggest that he may have been the earliest native portrait-painter of the English colonies. These likenesses, owned during several generations by descendants of Samuel Dummer of Wilmington, Jeremiah’s eldest son, had previously been attributed to Sir Godfrey Kneller. Although no autobiographical or contemporary reference to Dummer’s practise of the limner’s profession has to date (1930) been found it is plausible and even probable that so clever a craftsman, perhaps having seen some itinerant painter at work, learned to do passable likenesses, such as these are. Likenesses of John Coney, silversmith, and his wife, who was Mrs. Dummer’s sister, were discovered in 1929 to bear Dummer’s signature, and several unsigned portraits in New England may well have come from his hand.
Achievements
Personality
Dummer was tall, erect and thin-visaged.
The Boston News-Letter of June 2, 1718, commended him as “having served his country faithfully in several public stations, and obtained of all that knew him the character of a just, virtuous, and pious man. ”
In his social and business relationships he seems to have been fortunate.
Connections
In 1672 Dummer married Anna, daughter of Joshua Atwater, merchant, later prominent at New Haven, Connecticut.