MARK OF SAMUEL KIRK & SON CO., BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, CIRCA 1890

The presentation engraving to the underside of this centerpiece reads,

Presented to Edward Oliver Wolcott and Frances M Wolcott on their marriage May 14th 1890 by his Colleagues in the Senate of the United States.

Edward O. Wolcott (1848-1905) was born in Long Meadow, Massachusetts as one of eleven children to Samuel Wolcott and Harriet Amanda Pope Wolcott. At age 16 Wolcott moved to Ohio and enlisted with the 150th Ohio Volunteer Infantry of the Union Army in the Civil War. Following the war, Wolcott attended high school in Cleveland before attending Yale, llowed by Harvard Law School. Upon his graduation in 1875, Wolcott moved to Colorado, eventually settling in Denver where he practiced law before embarking upon his political career in 1876 as District Attorney. Wolcott served as State Senator for Clear Creek County from 1879 to 1888 before being elected to the United States Senate as a member of the Republican party in 1889, and reelected in 1895. During his two terms in the Senate, Wolcott served as chairman of the Committee on Civil Service, as well as the Retrenchment Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads. He was also an advocate for the coinage of silver, serving as chairman of the commission sent to Europe by President McKinley to report on international bimetallism. While in office, Wolcott married Frances Esther Metcalfe (1851-1933) in Buffalo, New York, on the occasion of which he was presented with the centerpiece offered here by his colleagues in the Senate, whose names are engraved in the reserves on either side of the body.