The Southampton Historical Museum announces a great new January program for Hamptons jewelry aficionados. Students can learn the basics of jewelry making, from sculpting wax and soldering to setting stones and polishing, over an eight-week course with Master Jeweler Eric Messin of the Pelletreau Silver Shop in Southampton. Eric will teach you step by step on how to create a piece of jewelry that will be ready to be worn when the series is complete. These classes take place at the historic Pelletreau Silver Shop on Main Street Southampton Village. The fee, which includes supplies, is $365 for members and $385 for non-members. To register for the class please call the Museum at 631-283-2494. Come learn and have fun.

More about the Pelletreau Silver Shop:

“Built in 1696, this bucolic building remains one of the oldest structures standing on the East End.  Eric Messin, resident jeweler and silversmith, practicing his art in the very same shop that Elias Pelletreau made famous centuries ago. Along with being one of the most talented jewelry designers on the East End, Messin has also been a pioneer in trying to educate the community by teaching intimate workshops for people eager to learn how to make their own jewelry in an authentic, old-world silversmith’s studio.

The gambrel-roofed building was originally owned by Francis Pelletreau and upon his death in 1737, the shop was given to the then eleven-year-old Elias, who was encouraged by his stepfather to pursue the silversmith trade. He occupied the shop in 1750 and began making jewelry, buckles, boxes and eating utensils in gold, silver and tortoise shell. For the next 30 years, Pelletreau crafted a steady flow of silverware for some of Long Island’s most prominent residents and their families, among them Nathaniel Woodhull, David Gardiner (the sixth proprietor of Gardiner’s Island), the merchant Samuel Townsend and Dr. George Muirson.”

Please go to http://www.ericmessin.com/shop.html for more information