EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Comparison of Late-18th or Early-19th Century Red Earthenware Flower Pots Found in Virginia and Massachusetts

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

A Comparison of Late-18th or Early-19th Century Red Earthenware Flower Pots Found in Virginia and Massachusetts

I know some people have already seen the recently released photos of eighteenth or early-nineteenth century red earthenware flower pot sherds recovered at George Washington's mansion in Mount Vernon, Virginia; however, I am also posting these images on this website so a comparison can be made between incised decoration used by eighteenth and nineteenth century potters in the south, as well as some potters in New England.

I have not reviewed the archaeology reports from Mount Vernon; although, I do know the property had a greenhouse and this is where these sherds may have been recovered. A comparable style of decoration can be seen on two different styles of flower pots, which I have also posted from archaeological contexts in Massachusetts.

1) The first Massachusetts flower pot was recovered within a late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century archaeological context at the Narbonne House in Salem, Massachusetts, where a matching pot was also recovered in a similar context at the Navy Yard in Charlestown, Massachusetts. It is assumed that both pots were made at a potter's business located somewhere between Boston and Salem.

2) The second Massachusetts flower pot was recovered on property that was once owned by Christopher Gore in Waltham, Massachusetts, which is located a short distance to the west of Boston. Gore was a successful Massachusetts businessman and politician in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

A large collection of red earthenware flower pots were uncovered in the area where the greenhouse used to be located on Gore's property. It has not been confirmed, but the flower pots recovered at Gore Place may have originated at the Abraham Hews Pottery in Weston, Massachusetts.

Mount Vernon, Virginia