A pewterer who lived thirty miles from Jamestown--Joseph Copeland by name--made the oldest dated piece of American pewter which has been found. In the 1930's, National Park Service archeologists, working at Jamestown, recovered the significant specimen--an incomplete pewter spoon which is a variant of the trifid or split-end type common during the 1650-1690 period. Impressed on the handle, in the trefoil finial of the stem is the mark of the maker, giving his name, the Virginia town where he worked, and the year he started business. The matchless spoon bears the sole surviving "touch" or mark of an American pewterer of the seventeenth century. The complete legend, encircling a heart, reads: "IOSEPH COPELAND/1675/CHUCKATUCK." (Chuckatuck is a small Virginia village located about thirty miles southeast of Jamestown.) Copeland later moved to Jamestown, and as he worked in the statehouse from 1688-1691 he may have made pewter in Virginia's capital "Citty." The conjectural sketch shows a Jamestown metalworker making spoons. [Illustration: Making Pewter Spoons At Jamestown About 1675 _Conjectural sketch_] [Illustration: _Photo courtesy National Park Service_ A Unique Pewter Spoon Handle Found At Jamestown The rather commonplace and incomplete spoon fragment illustrated is significant for many reasons. Its prime importance is that it is the oldest known pewter object of American manufacture. The mark on the handle is the sole surviving one of an American pewterer of the seventeenth century. The mark reveals that the spoon was made in 1675 by Joseph Copeland, who worked at Chuckatuck, Virginia (located thirty miles southeast of Jamestown).] [Illustration: _Photo courtesy National Park Service._ Items Left At Jamestown By Early Metalworkers The brass weights, ingot of scrap brass, and silver spoon shown, which were unearthed at Jamestown, are reminders of a bygone day when metalworkers made beautiful things in Virginia's colonial capital over three centuries ago. Contemporary records indicate that many metalworkers emigrated to Virginia during the seventeenth century.] FISHING When the first settlers planted their small colony at Jamestown the tidewater rivers and bays teemed with many kinds of fish and seafood. Varieties which soon appeared on the colonists' tables included sheepshead, shad, sturgeon, herring, sole, white salmon, bass, flounder, pike, bream, perch, rock, and drum; as well as oysters, crabs, and mussels. The day after the colonists reached Virginia, April 27, 1607, George Percy observed that the oysters were large and tasty: We came to a place where they [the Indians] had made a great fire, and had beene newly a rosting oysters. When they perceived our comming, they fled away to the mountaines, and left many of the oysters in the fire. We eat some of the oysters, which were very large and delicate in taste. The following day, April 28, Percy noted that some of the oysters had pearls: