EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: An Interesting Pair of Crocks and the Potters Who Worked in Charlestown, Mass. After the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775

Monday, November 17, 2014

An Interesting Pair of Crocks and the Potters Who Worked in Charlestown, Mass. After the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775

On March 2, 2013, Crocker Farm, Inc., based in Sparks, Maryland, sold an important collection of mostly New England-made red earthenware. The collection was added in the final week as an addendum to the already impressive sale. I was told the collection was consigned from Vermont by the family of a long-time collector. The collection had been assembled decades ago - most of it dating back to the 1950s and the 1960s. The collection included eighteenth and nineteenth-century examples from southern Maine, Merrimacport, Massachusetts, western Massachusetts, coastal Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and elsewhere. Here is a link to the collection - see lot numbers 300A to 300Y.

I bid on a number of the lots in the sale - and I actually successfully purchased a handful of them that are now in my collection. I had asked a friend and mentor of mine, what he thought about lot number 300H; the auction house described it as an, "outstanding glazed redware jar, New England, possibly Massachusetts origin, late 18th or early 19th century, squat shaped jar of highly-ovoid form with rounded foot and ribbed strap handles. Exterior covered in a blackish lead-and-manganese glaze. Interior with gray-green glaze accented with iron flecks and light orange mottling. Excellent form. Wear to rim and handle. A few minor base chips. Height 7 1/4"."

After reviewing the listing, my friend told me that he wasn't too sure where the crock was made, but he did say it reminded him of a stoneware form he had seen made by Frederick Carpenter's business in Charlestown, Massachusetts around the turn of the nineteenth-century. He told me that he had actually owned and sold this form before.

I ended up bidding on this crock and purchasing it for the opening bid. I assume there was no competition because no one really knew where it was made. They may not have known what to make of it. I took a chance based on the information I was given - and when I saw the crock in-person - I loved it!

About a month or so after purchasing the jar, I was studying in the Charlestown Archaeology Collection at the Boston Archaeology Department in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, when I came across a red earthenware sherd with the exact same interior glaze as the interior glaze on the jar I bought from Crocker Farm. I was stunned! As I've written many times before, the Charlestown red earthenware industry was destroyed at the Battle of Bunker on June 17, 1775; it was a successful industry providing many parts of New England for more than a hundred years. Sadly, every potter's business was burned to the ground. Afterwards, most potters left and never returned. They went to work elsewhere; however some did return. Virtually nothing is known about the potters that returned and reestablished their businesses today. Today we know that a stoneware industry flourished in Charlestown beginning in the 1790s and moving onward into the nineteenth-century, but red earthenware was still produced alongside the stoneware potters for a period of time. It's something that is overlooked today.

The sherd is from the Town Dock area of the Charlestown Archaeology Collection. It's important to note that the Town Dock area is also the area where the potters who returned to work after the Battle of Bunker Hill were located. I would like to believe this crock is a red earthenware product made after the Battle of the Bunker Hill in Charlestown. I've held the sherd up next to the interior glaze on the crock and they are virtually a perfect match. It's quite fascinating!

I also brought this crock with me to Dish Camp in 2013 when I presented some of my research on the Charlestown red earthenware potters and related areas before 1775.

Late 18th or Early 19th Century Red Earthenware Crock Possibly Made in Charlestown, Ma

Ca. 1780-1810

Stands 7 1/4" Tall

The Sherd was Found in the Charlestown, Ma Archaeology Collection

The Sherd's Interior Glaze and the Glaze on the Interior of the Crock Are Nearly a Perfect Match

(Top Right) Ovoid Squat Form Made in Charlestown, Ma by Frederick Carpenter's Business
Stoneware Form is Similar to the Red Earthenware Crocks of Discussion in this Report
Ca. 1792-1810
Stands 10 3/4" Tall
Ex-Collection of Paul and Margaret Weld that Sold in 2000
Photo Courtesy: Skinner, Inc. - Boston and Marlborough, Ma

Coincidentally, I received a crock today that is identical to the black glazed crock above in form and size; however it is glazed in a beautiful, vibrant colorful glaze on the exterior with the exact same interior glaze as the sherd and the black glazed crock above. It was found in the antique fields in Brimfield, Massachusetts a few years ago and has since resided in North Carolina. When I first saw this crock this afternoon, I was stunned at its color. I can understand a black glazed product from the eighteenth-century, but something like this is what I would expect more from a nineteenth-century potter. Sherds don't lie, though. Its interesting because beginning here in New England in 1780/1790 is when potters begin to emerge in places like coastal Massachusetts, Merrimacport, Massachusetts and central New Hampshire. The use of colorful slip decoration began to fade away in this period and the use of vibrant glazes become more popular. Maybe this is an example of that happening in Charlestown!?

Interestingly, for those of you who know southeastern Massachusetts red earthenware; this glaze reminds me of some of the colorful glazes applied in southeastern Massachusetts near the Taunton River around the turn of the nineteenth-century up through 1820.