18th Century Imitation by the Early Red Earthenware Potters of Charlestown, Massachusetts

Lighting devices have been used for thousands of years to properly light areas when darkness sets in. Its a device that has spanned the globe from one-country to the next. The forms have varied - so haven't the materials, but the purpose has always remained the same. Metals, clays, woods and whatever other substances that could hold a flame - have been used by just about all imaginable cultures. No matter the form, a small hand-held flame may have been used for night-time reading, the dinner table, a chamber or bedroom, a cellar, the outdoors, the indoors and an infinitive amount of increased demands - the needs were really endless.

In the book I am writing, I discuss the idea that Charlestown, Massachusetts red earthenware potters occasionally copied imported European products that were sought after in the American colonies. In today's report, I would like to introduce a red earthenware candlestick or candle-holder that appears to imitate an earthenware product made in Staffordshire, England in the middle of eighteenth-century. Candlesticks are considered rare from any American potter in the eighteenth-or-nineteenth-centuries. It wasn't a red earthenware form that saw a lot of popularity with the marketplace. I only known of a small number of candlesticks that were made by utilitarian American potters - and I have not found it was a product that was made in every state. I have seen candlesticks made in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia - but nothing I know of from anywhere else. I imagine states like Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland and North Carolina may have produced related products; however I cannot personally provide proof of it. The candlestick form became much-more popular with art potters during the American Arts & Crafts Movement (Ca. 1860s-1930s).

Essex County, Massachusetts Red Earthenware Candesticks or Candle-Holders

Purportedly Made at Moses Paige Pottery - Peabody (South Danvers), Ma

Ca. Late 19th Century (Likely After 1880)

Photo Courtesy: Peabody Historical Society - Peabody, Ma

The particular candlestick I am going to show today was found in a pre-1775 context in Charlestown - within the Maudlin Street Archaeological District. Maudlin Street was apart of the central area of Charlestown, located just to the west of the Town Dock where many of the industry's potters worked. Maudlin Street was home to a group of houses that burned at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. It was connected to the City Square neighborhood, which was the heart of Charlestown. City Square contained a number of shops and the Three Cranes Tavern - an important building that was originally known as the Great House when it was built for John Winthrop in the seventeenth-century. Pictured below is all that remains of what I perceive to be a copied candlestick or candle-holder from a local potter who used an English manufacturer as inspiration.

 Possibly Charlestown, Ma Red Earthenware Candlestick or Candle-Holder

Uncovered at the Maudlin Street Archaeological District in Charlestown, Ma

Probably Ca. 1740-1775

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Dept. - West Roxbury, Ma

Base of Candlestick or Candle-Holder

Probably Made by a Local Potter

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Dept. - West Roxbury, Ma

Boston City Archaeologist, Joe Bagley quickly turned to his library after I pulled this shard from the Charlestown collection last year. What he found was what appears to be a similar formed earthenware product made in Staffordshire - and thus the reason why I suggest this shard may have been a copy or imitation of that product. I have never seen another related American red earthenware product beyond this shard. It may have been a unique product, but certainly (in my opinion) not a product that was in regular production by Charlestown's potters. Unfortunately, the potter or business is not currently known.  

Pictured below is a Staffordshire earthenware candlestick from the mid-eighteenth-century that was found in Williamsburg, Virginia. I looked in Colonial Williamsburg's ceramic database; however I was not able to find the actual candleholder so the black-and-white photo will have to do for now. The idea is similar to the shard's form above.

Staffordshire, England Earthenware Candleholder

Ca. Mid-18th-Century

Found in Williamsburg, Va

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Dept. - West Roxbury, Ma

The Charlestown potters seem to have been innovative, creative and imitative with their production. I have seen shards found in various sections of Charlestown where forms appear to be a copy of its European counterpart. It's rather interesting to see these types of products in a time when European ceramics were highly sought after by those living in the American colonies. Similar copied products have been found in archaeological contexts in Virigina, Pennsylvania, New York and New Hampshire; although I assume if there was a strong market for European products in the colonies there was a potter who tried to capitalize with their own product. This is the case with one of the most-fascinating merchants and potters who worked in Boston before 1775 - when Benjamin Leigh and Jonathan Allman began an imitation company borrowing their product's appearance from a well-established English manufacturer in 1769. The story progressed into a loyalist who tried to undermine an English product in Boston - who then eventually played a pivotal role in the Boston Massacre. This subject is currently under study and will also be a part of the book I am writing. This type of imitation was seen all-over before 1775  - and really, its still very-much a part of our culture today that can be seen in industries through tangible and intangible products from all-over the world.

Much More to Come...