Spoon presented to Mrs. Edith Mathews Dawson of Easton by Capt. Robert Barrie, Royal Navy, Nov. 15, 1814.

Edith Dawson was returning from Baltimore to Easton when the packet sloop Messenger of Easton Point, Capt. Vickars, was captured by the British blockading squadron when becalmed off Poplar Island on November 11, 1814. The passengers, including Mrs. Dawson and her two young children, were taken with the others to the British flagship, HMS Dragon at Tangier Island. One account reads, “Finding Mrs. Dawson feeding one of her little children with a pewter spoon, Captain Barrie ordered his steward to bring to him from his own locker a silver teaspoon, which he politely requested the lady to accept saying apologetically that he was afraid the large spoon would make the child’s mouth too wide. This spoon he insisted upon her taking with her, and it is retained to this day as a souvenir in the Dawson family.”

The British were intent on demonstrating their civility and contrasting to the barbarity of the American militia who commanded and crewed the sloop Messenger, for leaving the women and children for capture.