Thomas Boardman was born on January 21, 1784, in Litchfield, Connecticut, United States, the son of Oliver and Sarah (Danforth) Boardman. Oliver Boardman had served in the campaign against Burgoyne and at that time kept a diary now available in printed form in Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society.
Thomas Boardman was apprenticed at Hartford.
Thomas Boardman began work in the ranks of craftsmen pewterers - possibly as early as 1807, though the date is not definitely known. From 1833 to 1859 Boardman's shop was at 59 Main St. , and his output included basins, ladles, porringers, and plates (ranging from six-inch through larger sizes). J. B. Kerfoot's American Pewter has a picture of a T. D. Boardman communion flagon, thirteen and one-half inches in height. The recorded touchmarks employed by Thomas Boardman in his first period were: TDB in a rectangle; T. D. BOARDMAN in a rectangle; a spread-eagle with TDB; a spread-eagle surrounded by THOMAS D. BOARDMAN. He also occasionally used an X to indicate fine quality - this being uncommon with American makers, though standard practise in England. According to Kerfoot, Boardman stands out as the last pure representative of ancient traditions in pewter-making. A few specimens of his craftsmanship are in the Morgan collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum.
During Boardman's second period, he and his brother Sherman were in partnership, under the style of T. D. & S. Boardman, with an establishment on Main St. , near Morgan. The old principles of craftsmanship were being affected by the rising tendency toward quantity production. The firm of Boardman brothers would seem to have led the way, and to have done much to set the patterns for new designs. "Offshoots" - affiliated concerns - appeared in New York and Philadelphia. The precise relation of these "offshoots" to the original firm has been considerably mooted. One view regards them as agencies for the sale of wares from the Hartford workshops, which thus found new outlets. The firm's own touchmark was TD & SB in a rectangle.
On May 28, 1812, Boardman was married to Elizabeth Bidwell Lewis of Glastonbury, who died in 1869.
