EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: Pits Found Near a Clay Source Likely Suitable for Red Earthenware Production in Newburyport, Massachusetts

Monday, December 14, 2015

Pits Found Near a Clay Source Likely Suitable for Red Earthenware Production in Newburyport, Massachusetts

I was asked last week after writing an article about a clay source that I found in Newburyport, Massachusetts - whether, I had noticed any (clay) pits in the area. I hadn't really thought about the idea, but it dawned on me after I was asked the question that the entire area appears to be pits. I don't know for sure how these pits were created, but I do know that Newburyport sustained a strong red earthenware and brick industry in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth-centuries. Utilitarian red earthenware and art pottery from these businesses are represented in museums all over the country today. These businesses used (mostly) the local clay that was available to produce their products. The bricks that were manufactured in Newburyport can be seen on a number of nineteenth and twentieth-century buildings and nineteenth-century homes that line the city's streets, which is especially visible on some of the buildings in the downtown area.

The question that I was curiously asked was the result of that clay source that I found, which I believe is suitable for red earthenware and brick production (today). Most industries had clay pits caused from where potters would dig for clay - the most notable in Massachusetts was probably the clay pits that were found Medford, Massachusetts (next to Charlestown, Massachusetts) in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries. These pits are under water today. In theory, I am now pondering the idea that some of the pits, which are found in Newburyport may have been dug by the area's local potters and brick makers possibly beginning as early as the 1740's through the twentieth-century.

I climbed to the highest point that I could find to take the following pictures - some of the pits are easy to see while there are others that are covered in trees and brush. I found it especially interesting that some of the walls on the small cliffs that led up to the area where I took these pictures are full of a blueish-grayish colored clay. I believe this is the type of clay that would have been used for red earthenware production and the manufacture of bricks in New England. I should also note that this is the color of how the clay appeared when it was raw or 'green'; however, when it was fired in a potter's kiln the clay body took on a reddish color - and, thus, why it is named red earthenware or redware today.

It's all theory and speculation at this point since I don't believe any type of 'clay digging' has been documented in the Newburyport-area before; however, I wouldn't be surprised if some of these pits are the result of potters or brick makers digging for clay years ago.

Massachusetts author, Lura Woodside Watkins briefly touches upon the idea of digging for clay in Newburyport in her book, 'Early New England Potters and Their Wares,' but I don't believe there has ever been a serious study of where the clay digging actually happened in Newburyport. I don't even know if this is a subject that has ever been attempted as a study before; although, I do feel that these pits (shown below) are possibly revealing to a local industry that no longer exists today.

I cited the following information in the previous article that I wrote about the clay that I found in Newburyport, but I figured I would mention it again since it certainly relates to this article. This is just an example of one potter and the process that he took to dig clay in Newburyport before 1800. For the record: the area that I show below is located to the southeast of the Old Hill Burying Ground in Newburyport.

According to Lura Woodside Watkins book 'Early New England Potters and Their Wares,' "As early as 1775, Ebenezer Morrison had built a kiln southwest of his house. The town fathers voted on March 15, 1775 'to grant Ebenezer Morrison liberty to setup a Potter's Kiln at or near the North West side of Burying Hill to be under the Direction of the Selectmen for the time being.'

The right of Ebenezer Morrison to 'Dig Clay near the Burying Ground ' was questioned at a meeting of the selectmen, August 11, 1784, and was referred to a committee for investigation. They recommended, March 16, 1785, that 'no person whatever be suffered to dig any clay or gravel upon the town's land near the town's burying ground. This regulation could not have interfered seriously with the potter's getting clay, as all of the land in the area seems to be one vast clay bed."