Sales grew to more than $20,000 per year, and the staff of silversmiths expanded. The partnership between John and Michael soured but the company thrived. Consequently, Gorham found Gibney’s work unsatisfactory, and he purchased his own rolling press to do the work himself. The company hammered out the silver flatware, which it sent to Gibney in New York to apply decorative patterns before returning to Gorham.

Gorham wanted to expand the business, seeking to produce forks and spoons adorned with decorative flourishes adapted from British patterns. He entered into a partnership with Michael Gibney, the first American silversmith to register a design patent for a flatware pattern. John Gorham introduced steam power at the manufactory. While some name changes and personnel shifts preceded the foundry officially being established as Gorham Manufacturing Company decades later, growth of the business between its early days and the mid–19th century can largely be attributed to the work of Jabez’s son John, who assumed control of Gorham in the 1840s. When silversmiths Jabez Gorham and Henry Webster started making coin silver teaspoons and jewelry out of a small workshop in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1831, the pair likely had no idea that their modest operation would one day become the largest silver manufacturer in the world.

Antique ink blotter