decanter

This decanter is engraved with the number "40" and the initials "I.T." The number must refer to the Masonic lodge in Charleston, South Carolina, which was Lodge No. 40 only from 1793 to 1788, when its number was changed. No other American lodge had that number in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The initials indicate that the decanter was made for John Troup, a prominent Charleston lawyer and Mason, who had warranted the lodge's application for membership to the Philadelphia lodge in 1783. There was a gala dinner in that year to celebrate the granting of the warrant, and it is likely that Troup ordered the decanter-or received it as a gift from the lodge-at that time. In the 1780s, the only American glassworks that produced lead glass was located in Kensington, near Philadelphia.