A Longfellow Couplet on Bowdoin Plates

The colors of Bowdoin College are black and white, so those colors permitted Jones, McDuffee & Stratton to give the college plates an interesting treatment. Dividing the plate are the crests of the college and of John Bowdoin, its founder. Maine is "The Pine Tree State," so a pine is the basis for the border design in connection with ivy and oak. The centers offer an etching style which is pleasing with the open border treatment.

On the first edition of the Bowdoin plates, in reverse, is a couplet from "Morituri Salutamus", written by its famous alumnus, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, on the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation:

        "O ye familiar scenes, ye groves of pine,
        That once were mine and are no longer mine-"

The Bowdoin plates were also produced in a nice, bright Staffordshire blue. They are more difficult to find, but they are out there!

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