AN AMERICAN SILVER WATER PITCHER

The presentation inscription reads: To / Dr. John K. Mitchell. / THE CITY OF / Philadelphia / GREATFUL / for his disinterested and / intrepid exertions / in a / PERIOD OF PUBLIC / CALAMITY / "Transeat in exemplum"

John Kearsley Mitchell (1798 - 1858) was a physician in Philadelphia who played an important role during a number major epidemics that struck the city in the mid-19th Century. This pitcher was given as a gift to Mitchell from the city of Philadelphia in gratitude for his service during the cholera epidemic that struck the city in 1832 (See The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography Volume IX, page 346).