Hotel Rochester spoon

The silver spoon is stamped on the back of the handle "HOTEL ROCHESTER," and Meriden Brita.Co.XII. 6. According to Wikipedia; The Meriden Britannia Company was formed in 1852 in Meriden, Connecticut as a manufacturing company focused on producing wares in britannia metal. By 1876, the Meriden Britannia Company had grown a great deal and the company made significant efforts at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in that year. The company won the First Place medal for plated wares. According to Sotheby's in New York, "The publicity of the award and the impression the firm made on the fair's 8 million visitors was continued by the catalogues and other intensive marketing; by the end of the 1870s Meriden Britannia Co. was considered the largest silverware company in the world." In 1898, the Meriden Britannia Company became part of the larger International Silver Company corporation headquartered in Meriden. Afterwards, while part of ISC, many designs were produced under the Meriden Britannia brand with design trade catalogues specifying Meriden Britannia wares.

Meriden Britannia Company designs are included in many museum collections, including the Brooklyn Museum, New York; Dallas Museum of Art; Davis Museum at Wellesley College, MA; Jewish Museum, New York; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; Wolfsonian FIU, Miami Beach, FL; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

The Hotel Rochester, located at 95 Main Street West, across the street from the main Institute buildings of the downtown campus, became the Nathaniel Rochester Hall. A men's dorm, the hall housed up to 483 students. The building had eight floors of rooms including singles and doubles, most with private baths. The building was dedicated in honor of Rochester's founder, Colonel Nathaniel Rochester, on February 21, 1959, on what would have been Mr. Rochester's 207th birthday.