Plates and platters were much valued. Governor Bradford, of Massachusetts, left to his heirs fourteen pewter dishes and thirteen platters, three large plates and three small ones, one pewter candlestick and one pewter bottle—a most luxurious and elaborate household outfit. Governor Benedict Arnold, of Jamestown, R. I., and Mr. Pyncheon, of Springfield, Mass., bequeathed their pewter plates and dishes in the same list, and with as much minuteness of description, as the silver tankards and bowls, and the humble pewter was as elaborately lettered and marked with armorial devices as was the silver. Miles Standish left to his heirs sixteen pewter dishes and twelve wooden trenchers. Pewter was not thought to be too base a metal to use for communion services. In 1729, the First Church of Hanover, Mass., bought and used for years a full communion service and christening basin of pewter; and the bill of purchase and the old pieces are still preserved by the church as relics. The pewter communion service of the Marblehead Church is now in the rooms of the Essex Institute, and until this century advertisements of “Pewter Communion Flagons” appeared in New England newspapers. These pewter dishes and plates were a source of great pride to every colonial housekeeper, and much time and labor was devoted to polishing them with “horsetails” (_equisetum_), or “scouring rush,” till they shone like fine silver; and dingy pewter was fairly counted a disgrace. The most accomplished gentleman in Virginia, of his time, gave it as a positive rule, in 1728, that “pewter bright” was the sign of a good housewife. In some old country homes, either lack of money, the power of habit, or the strong love of ancient articles and associations, caused the preservation of the old pewter utensils, and they now form the cherished ornaments of the kitchen and dining-room. In the lovely old town of Shrewsbury, which stands so high on Massachusetts hills that the railroad has never approached its lonely beauty, there stands on the edge of the “Common” a house, in which everything that is good and old has been preserved, and appears as when the house was built, in the year 1779.