March 1855-Dated, Engraved Coin Silver Presentation Tray, produced by N. Harding & Co. of Boston, custom engraved and “Presented to the Hon. Linus Bacon Comins by the Friends and Fellow Citizens of Roxbury as a Testimonial of Respect for His Service as Mayor”, decorated with a Beaded Outer Border with Surrounding Oak Leaf and Acorn Feet, Choice Very Fine.
This impressive Engraved Coin Silver Presentation Tray measuring 11 inches in diameter, weight roughly over one pound, rests on three Oak Leaf and Acorn decorated feet within an outer beaded border. At center within an engraved wreath of oak leaves and acorns, this tray is custom engraved, reading in full:

“PRESENTED TO / Hon. Linus Bacon Comins / BY HIS / friends and fellow Citizens of Roxbury / AS A TESTIMONIAL / of respect and esteem for his devotion to / the best interests of the City while Mayor / and also for his exalted character as a / Friend, Citizen and Man / ROXBURY / March 1855”.

The reverse additionally bears the later-Engraved names: Frank Baker Comins and Theodore Irving Reese, likely reflecting the tray's descent within the family, and is maker marked: N. Harding & Co. of Boston.

Linus Bacon Comins (1817-1892) served on the Roxbury (Mass.) Common Council from 1846 to 1848, as its President in 1847 and 1848, and as Roxbury's Fourth Mayor in 1854. This presentation is dated the following March, which coincides almost exactly with the end of his mayoralty and his departure for Washington, where he had just been elected to represent Massachusetts's Fourth District in the United States House of Representatives, a seat he would hold until 1859. Comins was a solid but secondary figure of the transitional "Know-Nothing to Republican" era of Massachusetts politics. His career maps almost exactly onto the collapse of the Whig Party, the brief rise of American Party nativism, and the emergence of the Republican coalition that would carry Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency the following decade. The silversmiths, N. Harding & Co., were founded by Newell Harding, and were among Boston's best known makers of coin silver pieces in this period, their reputation being built primarily on fine flatware and special “presentation” pieces. This example is in choice condition with a natural light golden-tone patina with excellent engraved text and designs.
Hon. Linus Bacon Comins (1817-1892):

Linus Bacon Comins was born November 29, 1817, in Charlton, Massachusetts, the son of Barnabas C. Comins and Mary (Bacon) Comins. He attended common schools in Brookfield, Massachusetts, and graduated from Worcester County Manual Training High School. He went on to establish himself in manufacturing in Roxbury, Massachusetts (then an independent city, later annexed by Boston in 1868).

Comins entered Roxbury city politics as a member of the Common Council representing Ward 5 from 1846 to 1848, and served as President of the Common Council in 1847 and 1848. He was elected the 4th Mayor of Roxbury, serving in 1854, succeeding Samuel Walker and preceding James Ritchie in that office. As mayor, he delivered the customary annual inaugural address to the Roxbury City Council in January 1854, a printed copy of which survives among the city's official documents of that era.

Comins was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 4th District, serving two terms from March 4, 1855, to March 3, 1859, succeeding Samuel H. Walley and succeeded by Alexander H. Rice. His political affiliation reflects the turbulent party realignment of the 1850s: he was elected to the 34th Congress (1855-1857) as a candidate of the American Party (the "Know-Nothings"), then won re-election to the 35th Congress (1857-1859) as a Republican, as the new Republican Party rapidly absorbed much of the old American Party's Northern base in the run-up to the Civil War. A surviving 1859 photographic portrait of Comins as a 35th Congress representative, taken by photographer Julian Vannerson, is held today by the Library of Congress.

After leaving Congress in 1859, Comins returned to his manufacturing business in Roxbury, remaining active in that trade for the rest of his working life. He died October 14, 1892, at age 75 in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston.