Danforth Pewter
Pewter ornaments, oil lamps and jewelry cast, spun and finished by hand in a Middlebury, Vermont workshop
✅ Made in USA
Our assessment
Company details
Where Danforth Pewter products are made
Cast, spun and polished in Middlebury, Vermont
Danforth Pewter’s About page describes the whole sequence in one sentence: local artisans “cast, spin, polish, paint, and assemble raw metal to form the exquisite object you hold in your hands.” Workers are drawn from the surrounding community and trained in-house rather than hired in as finished craftspeople. The company keeps an open workshop in Middlebury and tells visitors that “our expert artisans make everything we sell” there.
The claim to weigh here is a manufacturing claim, not a materials claim. Danforth Pewter says its goods are handmade in Middlebury, Vermont — casting, spinning, polishing, painting and assembly all happen in that workshop. Pewter is an alloy, and like nearly every US metalworking shop Danforth buys raw metal on a commodity market rather than mining it; the same is true of the surgical steel wires and findings used on jewelry pieces. The company also operates retail gift stores in five states that stock pottery and other goods, and those store-shelf items should not be assumed to share the workshop’s origin.
The story
The Danforth name in pewter is older than the United States. In 1755, in what was then a British colony, Thomas Danforth II opened a pewter workshop in Middletown, Connecticut, making plates, cups and teapots for households that could not afford glass or porcelain. Pewter was the working person’s metal: it did not tarnish, rust or break, and it lasted.
The trade passed down through the family for more than a century, until cheap imported glass and porcelain pushed pewter out of fashion in the late 1860s. Thomas Danforth Boardman, the last of that first line, worked in his shop until he died in 1873. For roughly a hundred years afterward, the family’s metalworking tools sat idle.
They were picked up again in 1975. Fred Danforth, who grew up in Ohio expecting to be a woodworker, had moved to Vermont in his twenties and met Judi Whipple, an artist with a metalworking background and a real enthusiasm for pewter — including a working knowledge of the early Danforth pewterers. She told him that as a Danforth he simply had to try the metal. The two apprenticed with pewter artisans in Nova Scotia, came back to Woodstock, Vermont, and opened a workshop in an old dairy barn.
From the start they designed and made their own work rather than jobbing it out, and their strengths diverged usefully: Judi carved models for jewelry and ornaments, Fred spun holloware. The business became known for one-of-a-kind oil lamps, tumblers, picture frames, candlesticks and jewelry, and it has stayed independent since — though it is no longer family-run. Fred and Judi began selling equity to outside shareholders in 2006, and Danforth has been led by non-family chief executives since 2011. Today the workshop sits in Middlebury, with retail stores in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Virginia.
Why they matter
Giftware is one of the most thoroughly offshored categories in American retail. Ornaments, keychains, figurines and costume jewelry are close to the definition of a product that gets made wherever labor is cheapest, because the buyer rarely knows or asks where it came from. A company that casts and finishes those exact items in Vermont is swimming directly against that current.
The second thing worth noticing is that Danforth Pewter trains its own workforce. Its artisans come from the local community and learn the trade in-house rather than arriving as finished craftspeople. That matters because skills like spinning holloware are not taught in a classroom — they survive only where someone is still doing the work daily and passing it on. A shop that trains from scratch is generating craft capacity, not just consuming it.
And there is the durability argument, which is really an environmental one. Pewter does not rust or shatter, and a Danforth Pewter oil lamp or ornament is built to be handed down rather than replaced. That is a harder business to run than selling something people rebuy every few years, and it is precisely the kind of manufacturing worth keeping onshore.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Danforth Pewter made in the USA?
Yes. The company states that all of its goods are handmade in Middlebury, Vermont, where local artisans cast, spin, polish, paint and assemble each piece. It invites customers to visit the workshop.
When was Danforth Pewter founded?
The modern company dates to 1975, when Fred Danforth and Judi Whipple opened a pewter workshop in Woodstock, Vermont. The family’s pewter trade itself goes back to Thomas Danforth II in 1755.
Where is Danforth Pewter located?
The workshop and headquarters are in Middlebury, Vermont. The company also runs retail gift stores in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Virginia.
Update (September 2026): this profile previously described Danforth Pewter as “family-run.” That is no longer accurate and has been corrected. The company remains independent with no parent company, but the founders began selling equity to outside shareholders in 2006 and it has been led by non-family chief executives since 2011. Sources: VTDigger, 7 August 2018; Vermont Business Magazine, 17 August 2025.
Does Danforth Pewter have a parent company?
No. Danforth Pewter is independent — it has not been acquired by a parent company or corporate group. It is not, however, family-owned today. Founders Fred Danforth and Judi Whipple began selling equity to outside shareholders in 2006; by 2018 they had sold roughly half the company, which then-CEO Bram Kleppner said was held by 24 shareholders. Kleppner led the company from 2011 to 2024 and now serves as a board advisor, and Gary Jalbert is the current CEO. Fred and Judi are retired from day-to-day operations.