EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Stoneware Bottle Marked 'Tarbell' Discovered in New Bedford, Massachusetts

Friday, April 17, 2015

A Stoneware Bottle Marked 'Tarbell' Discovered in New Bedford, Massachusetts

Crocker Farm in Sparks, Maryland sold a rather interesting salt-glazed stoneware bottle in 2010 that was suggested to have been made at the Tarbell Pottery (ca. 1782-1819) in Beverly, Massachusetts, which is a potter's business that not a great amount is known from today. Prominently stamped on the front of this bottle is the name, 'TARBELL.'

According to Lura Woodside Watkins book, 'Early New England Potters and Their Wares,' "William Tarbell (1754-1815), a potter from Danvers (Massachusetts), lived in the central part of Beverly. As a boy he was apprenticed to a master craftsmen in his native town. At the age of twenty-four he married Anna Venn. Four years later, in 1782, he bought land in Beverly and presumably began his potting business there at the time. Anna died in 1796, and her husband took a second wife, Abigail Carter. Tarbell now purchased a piece of land whose bounds give a clew to the location of his pottery. Beginning at the end of a stonewall near Tarbell's house, the line of the lot ran northerly by the highway leading from the Essex Bridge to the Beverly Cotton Manufactory, then southerly to the land of William Woodberry, and easterly by the Woodberry heirs and Tarbell's land to the first point. The Tarbell Pottery continued for many years, William's son, William Tarbell, Jr. (1793-1819) and namesake become his assistant and partner. The elder Tarbell died in 1815, the younger died only four years later."

The output at the Tarbell Pottery is not a subject that is completely understood today; however, I would assume that they made utilitarian red earthenware similar to that of which was made in nearby, Danvers, Massachusetts. After all, that is what William Tarbell's training would have consisted of in Danvers at one of the half-dozen or so potter's businesses that operated there in the late-eighteenth-century. I happen to own a large red earthenware jar with heavy incised decoration that I think may have been made at the Tarbell Pottery, but I am not completely sure of it - and, based on today's known information, you can probably understand my confusion surrounding the stoneware bottle that sold at Crocker Farm.

Here is a link to the Crocker Farm listing.

Late 18th or Early 19th Century Salt-Glazed Stoneware Bottle with the Name 'TARBELL' Impressed

Possibly from the Tarbell Pottery in Beverly, Mass.

Possibly Ca. 1782-1819

Stands 9 3/4" Tall

Photo Courtesy: Crocker Farm - Sparks, MD

I hadn't really given the stoneware bottle much thought in recent memory; however, that all changed yesterday, when I was picking my way through a collectible and decorative-type shop called, 'New Bedford Antiques at the Cove' in New Bedford, Massachusetts. I would describe this shop as a large store, where the antique industry meets the thrift shop world. The store sells an eclectic assortment of all kinds of imaginable goods. It's basically an indoor flea market with most of the merchandise coming from the Greater New Bedford-area.

New Bedford Antiques at the Cove - New Bedford, MA

In this shop, I came across a similar stoneware bottle, also with the name, 'TARBELL' impressed with a similar stamp on the front of it; although, it should also be noted that this bottle was definitely under-fired. I really began to think about what the true meaning behind these two bottles could be, while I walked around the store and even on my drive home. It's possible that Tarbell was a merchant, but I also have another idea. On my ride home, I compared the Tarbell Pottery to the William Pecker Pottery of Merrimacport, Massachusetts - both of which, appear to have been small family-oriented businesses that overlapped the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries.

The is what I came up with - the Tarbell Pottery (ca. 1782-1819) operated during the same period as the Pecker Pottery (ca. 1790-1820), which was located only a few miles (roughly 30 miles) to the north of Beverly along the picturesque Merrimack River just south of the New Hampshire border. It wasn't until recently (past ten-years) that Pecker was identified as not only a red earthenware potter, but he also produced stoneware. I have personally collected a number of stoneware sherds, kiln furniture and kiln bricks associated with Pecker's stoneware production - and, I have found that the clay color seen on some of the sherds is comparable to the bottle that was discovered in New Bedford. Pecker's stoneware output is nowhere near the same as his red earthenware production, but from the artifacts that I have discovered, combined with the known stamped pieces that bear Pecker's name, which have survived today - it is apparent that he did successfully experiment with stoneware. It's certainly possible that the Tarbell's did the same, as Pecker, in Beverly in the early 1800's.

There is still a large amount of information to be learned about the Tarbell Pottery today, but I wouldn't be surprised if this business experimented with stoneware, too. This was the period when domestic stoneware really started to become fashionable in America - and, it was only a few miles to the south of Beverly and Merrimacport that Frederick Carpenter operated an extremely successful business in Charlestown, Massachusetts in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries. I was also told recently by Maine collector, Rick Poore that the 'Boston / 1804' mark sometimes seen on some of Carpenter's pots was the year that Carpenter opened a landmark retail business in Boston. The rare mark may have signified an accomplishment for Carpenter that made him proud. Stoneware production had been mostly disappointing in Massachusetts before all of this occurred with mostly failed experiments and non-profitable companies. The lesson learned from most of the past ventures was the specific conditions it took to successfully produce stoneware versus red earthenware - and, equally important was a margin for profit.

This new sense of success may have generated an excitement in the state's potter's industry that could have spread with a number of red earthenware potters all-over coastal Massachusetts, where few may have dared to experiment with stoneware - while the vast majority did not participate, but likely appreciated it. The bottles shown in this report may be two examples of a small line of stoneware production by the Tarbell family in Beverly, Massachusetts in the late-eighteenth or the early-nineteenth-century. It's also possible that these bottles may represent a small stoneware business that has been forgotten - and, this is part of what remains today (I assume there may be more out there).