Need ID help with 3 more dug wine bottle seals

[Bill D. (VA)]

First I wanted to again give a big thanks to Crusader's friend Kev for ID'ing that awesome seal I recently posted as being related to the ancestry of Robert E. Lee. Doesn't get any better than that. I've also been trying to ID some other seals that my friend Stan and I dug recently, and hope that Kev or some of the other knowledgeable posters here can help out. First is that very cool seal I previously posted depicting what looks like a dragon. That has to be a coat of arms for some prominent Virginia family back in the late 1600s to early 1700s. This seal was dug in the same pit as the Sir Henry Chichely seal, and they're both shown together below along with another pic of just the dragon seal by itself. The next 2 pics show another unknown coat of arms next to another Chichely seal, plus one of the unknown seal by itself. It has a slight similarity to the Lee seal, but they're definitely not the same. The last one we need an ID on is the one with the monogram "IM" or "JM". It was found a couple weeks ago in the same pit as a very small Robert "King" Carter seal. And lastly I'm just throwing out another pic of 2 awesome seals I dug last year in this same spot that are dated 1713 and 1719 in case some of you haven't seen those. Don't forget that you can click on the thumbnails to enlarge the pics for better detail. Anyway, I'd appreciate any help with the IDs of the 3 unknown seals. Thanks in advance for your help.

Whoops - looks like the last 2 pics were loaded in reverse order.

 

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[Garrett424]

can't help you with the ID but I really like those seals. I actually found my first lead seal a couple of weeks ago and wasn't really sure what it was.
Your are way coller though. Congrats.

 

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[trapperart]

Congrats on some great finds

 

[Rick (Nova Scotia)]

Pretty cool Bill.
Awesome relics.
Strange so many from the same pit, but associated to different families is a head scratcher, is it not ?

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

Pretty cool Bill.
Awesome relics.
Strange so many from the same pit, but associated to different families is a head scratcher, is it not ?

Rick - the site where these were found was the home of a very prominent and wealthy family, and that contained an absolutely enormous trash pit dating generally from 1650 to 1750. They entertained many guests and visitors there, and apparently some brought there own personalized bottles. So it's not surprising that we've found bottle seals displaying at least several different family names, some of which were the most prestigious in early Virginia. Just an amazing site ....

 

[thomasbrunkard]

Hi Bill and everyone! Sorry to resurrect an old thread. Just some more info on the Brouncker seal - another possibility is that the seal refers to Henry 3rd Viscount's grandfather, also Henry.

This Henry was farmer of the impost of wines for Ireland at the end of Elizabeth I's reign and the start of James VI, I reign. This basically meant he collected the taxes on wine on commission. I'm doing some research on the family and nearly fell out of my chair to see that someone had dug up the coat of arms! I'm not sure how this would be settled but if it's this Henry then it's quite an old bottle of wine in American terms (1590s to 1607). I'm not sure if Henry's descendants kept up the franchise but I'll keep digging on this and come back when I know more.

There's a bit of debate on the coat of arms but the viscount's family didn't have the cross pattée that the illustration has. If you want to read up on the family you need to deal with a lack of consistent spelling that includes Brouncker, Brounker, Brunkard, Bruncard, Brunker, Broncar, Brunckard and many more besides.

 

[Trezurehunter]

Those are some amazing finds. Congrats.

 

[thomasbrunkard]

Just looking at this again. Your seals have the cross pattée and when the family got the title this was ditched from their coat of arms. When one was a viscount the crest (arm with sword) was ditched for a viscount's coronet. So I think that these are certainly seals from wines that were imported into Ireland in the late 16th early 17th century when Henry Brouncker, Lord President of Munster rather than his grandson Henry, was collecting the duties on wine then. This Henry would have had the cross in his arms as they were granted to his father (another Henry!) in this way.

 

[joeyfresh]

The only problem is the bottle itself was, at the earliest, from the last quarter of the 17th century.

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

Just looking at this again. Your seals have the cross pattée and when the family got the title this was ditched from their coat of arms. When one was a viscount the crest (arm with sword) was ditched for a viscount's coronet. So I think that these are certainly seals from wines that were imported into Ireland in the late 16th early 17th century when Henry Brouncker, Lord President of Munster rather than his grandson Henry, was collecting the duties on wine then. This Henry would have had the cross in his arms as they were granted to his father (another Henry!) in this way.


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Thomas - thanks for looking into this for me. I'll have to admit that my knowledge of British heraldry is lacking, so I need to depend on experts like yourself for assistance. Your idea about that Brouncker seal having ties with Henry's grandfather is quite intriguing, but like Joey mentioned above, the site where it was dug did not exist prior to the mid-1600s, and nearly all the finds from the trash pit there date from the late 17th to early 18th centuries. So I believe it would be difficult for that seal to come from a bottle dating 50+ years earlier, but I guess anything's possible. I would also like to hear your opinion on the griffin seal discussed above. Again, I appreciate your input and look forward to hearing more from you.

 

[thomasbrunkard]

Thomas - thanks for looking into this for me. I'll have to admit that my knowledge of British heraldry is lacking, so I need to depend on experts like yourself for assistance. Your idea about that Brouncker seal having ties with Henry's grandfather is quite intriguing, but like Joey mentioned above, the site where it was dug did not exist prior to the mid-1600s, and nearly all the finds from the trash pit there date from the late 17th to early 18th centuries. So I believe it would be difficult for that seal to come from a bottle dating 50+ years earlier, but I guess anything's possible. I would also like to hear your opinion on the griffin seal discussed above. Again, I appreciate your input and look forward to hearing more from you.

Hi Bill, my expertise only extend as far as the Brouncker family but I should think that this is put to someone more archealogically minded. The coat of arms is simply incorrect for Henry Viscount Brouncker but if it's too recent to be his grandfather then the answers are:

1. The bottle has been recycled for other uses or the wine was well aged! This is a question for an archaeologist but seems the most plausible to me.
2. That another branch of the family were involved in provisioning the bottle in someway - Henry Brouncker snr had a son Henry of whom little is known other than he had descendants living in Boveridge, England up until the 19th century. The would have borne these arms.
3. Similarly other branches of the family in Wiltshire would have used these so this line may have been involved. I'd consider this unlikely based on what I know of them.
4. They do refer to Henry Brouncker the viscount and the arms are simply incorrect. I like this least as Henry seems unlikely to be sufficiently industrious to be running a wine enterprise and had his own arms which I'm attaching. The tell here is the crescent which indicates he's a second son. When he became a viscount he would have got his coronet on the arms as per his tomb.

It's a bit of a mystery but as I say it looks to me like your looking at a bottle that was imported into Ireland in the early 17th century based on the heraldry alone.