Tin Cup, unearthed by Monticello archaeologists on Mulberry Row, documents the brief tinsmithing enterprise begun there in the 1790s.
Thomas Jefferson Foundation a Monticello.
The enslaved tinsmith Isaac Granger Jefferson worked sheets of tin into cups, pepper boxes, graters, and other items. Granger cut the tin with tin snips and shaped it on an anvil using hammers, molds, and mandrels, tools which bent the tin without creasing it. Finally, Granger fastened the pieces of tin together by heating them over a fire and joining them, a process known as soldering. Granger also knew how to tin copper and iron, covering these harder metals in several layers of pure tin. The copper pots and pans in the kitchen would have required re-tinning from time to time but it is not known if he ever did this at Monticello.