Jabez was born in 1746/47. He married Lydia Philbrick of Exeter in 1771. It is safe to assume that the Dodge Pottery began at about that time.
Dodge's four sons were all trained as potters. The eldest, Benjamin Dodge (1774-1838) was born in 1774, and eventually departed for Portland, Maine, where he establish an extremely important potter's business in that city around 1799.
The second oldest son, Joseph (1776-1849), who was born in 1776 was living in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1804 and spent the rest of his life there as a clay worker. Joseph's house is still standing on Dearborn Street near the Piscataqua River. The site may be reached by following Vaughn Street from the railroad station until it becomes North Street west of the bridge; Dearborn crosses at this point.
In 1830, Joseph Dodge was employing three men and turning out some twelve hundred dollars worth of redware each year. He is listed in the Portsmouth directory of 1839-1840, with a house at 3 Dearborn Street, corner of North, and a shop in the rear."
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The Dodge Pottery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire is a potter's business that is completely overlooked today. The wares made at this business often resemble products that were made in Exeter, New Hampshire and coastal Massachusetts in the late-eighteenth and early-to-mid-nineteenth-centuries.
However, 'the Dodge Pottery of Portsmouth, New Hampshire' is not terminology that is often used today; although, this was a major business that produced plenty of red earthenware for decades. Undoubtedly, there are products that survive from this business today that are attributed to another potter's business elsewhere in New England.
I have personally studied a large collection of red earthenware artifacts that were recovered at the site of the Dodge Pottery, which are owned by Strawbery Banke's Archaeology Department in Portsmouth. Truthfully, I was surprised at the size of this collection, and I also wondered why this business is relatively unknown today. Instead, the Dodge Pottery should be regarded today as an important coastal New Hampshire potter's business - a business that was similar in size and skill to potter's businesses in Portland, Maine, Exeter, New Hampshire, Merrimacport, Massachusetts and Peabody, Massachusetts, which were employed during the same period.
A friend of mine, who is a retired Portsmouth, New Hampshire firefighter showed me the site of the Dodge Pottery a few springs ago. The site borders an old dam, where sherds and kiln furniture can still be recovered today.
The only potential examples of Dodge Pottery that I am aware of today, which reside in private ownership is an object kept in a prominent red earthenware collection in western Massachusetts - and, a smaller object, which I own that matches the example that I just described.
The Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut owns an early-nineteenth-century runlet that is attributed to the Dodge Pottery in Portsmouth during the circa 1810 period. Personally, I do not know how the attribution was developed, but this object does conform with the type of sherds that I have studied at Strawbery Banke. I also believe the attribution since it is such a random description in comparison to the more common terminology that is used today in respect to the better-known potter's businesses in New England.
Fundamentally, I could easily see this object mistakenly attributed to central New Hampshire, Essex County, Massachusetts or southeastern Massachusetts today. In fact, there are similar formed runlets that are often attributed to southeastern Massachusetts today during the circa 1780-1820 period.
Honestly, I am extremely curious to determine how much actually survives from the Dodge Pottery in Portsmouth - I am convinced that there are a number of examples in private collections and museum collections today.
Note: This business did not end with Joseph Dodge's death in 1849 - Joseph's son, Jabez Dodge (1804-1884) continued the business until the early-1880's. Jabez's production kept with the trends in the potter's industry - the sherds that I have studied at Strawbery Banke suggest that the bulk of the production that happened in the 1870's and the early-1880's revolved around the production of glazed and unglazed flower pots.
Early-19th Century Red Earthenware Runlet
Attributed to the Dodge Pottery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Circa 1810
Measures 3 1/4" Tall and 3" Wide
Photo Courtesy: Yale University Art Gallery - New Haven, CT
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
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