Silk Shoes

Shoes  
Winthrop Gray (1740-1782)
Boston, 1765-75
Leather, silk, metallic thread 
Gift of the Massachusetts Historical Society 

Before the American Revolution, Winthrop Gray (1740-1782) used metallic thread and silk brocade to fashion elegant shoes for Boston’s colonial elite. Gray enlisted in the Continental Army and served from 1776 to 1779. He allegedly resigned his commission after a disagreement with Paul Revere and later opened a tavern in Boston.  

Martha Stevens (1715-1785) purchased these shoes after her third marriage to Captain John Stevens (1715-1776), a Boston merchant who commanded a militia company stationed at Fort Ticonderoga, New York, during the war. After his death in 1776, Martha maintained her family inheritance, a vast tract of farmland in Ashford, Connecticut. She bequeathed these shoes to her relative Increase Sumner who donated them to the Massachusetts Historical Society, after which they came to Historic New England. 

Photograph courtesy of Joel Benjamin.