EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: 19th Century Japanese Earthenware Uncovered at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, Massachusetts

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

19th Century Japanese Earthenware Uncovered at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, Massachusetts

The Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm is a Colonial American homestead/farm located in Newbury, Massachusetts. The property's original seventeenth-century stone home still stands today, where eighteenth-century additions have also been added. The original stone house was built in a classic English style.

A section of the property was excavated by a team of archaeologists in the late-twentieth-century, where an eleven-seat early-nineteenth-century privy was discovered with artifacts dating from the circa 1770-1820 period. However, additional aspects of the property were also excavated, where ceramics used during other periods on the farm were uncovered. Overall, the artifacts represent some of the types of wares, which were available during the periods in the Newburyport, Massachusetts-area. The ceramic collection includes wares that were imported from China, Europe and Japan; although, Charlestown, Massachusetts stoneware and locally produced red earthenware was also represented.

Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, Newbury, Mass.

Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm - Newbury, Mass.

Photo Courtesy: Historic New England

Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm - Newbury, Mass.

Photo Courtesy: Historic New England

The following description was provided by Historic New England, and it represents the history of ownership at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm.

1635-1651: Spencer Ownership: First Settlement
"The site was first settled by John Spencer in 1635 when he was granted a 400-acre parcel as part of the first allocation of land to new settlers. The town also granted him a house lot of four acres near the landing site in the Parker River.

In 1637, Spencer was disarmed for being a supporter of Anne Hutchinson and part of a heretical sect. He left Newbury, and gave his property to his nephew. John Spencer died in England in 1648, and his nephew sold the property to Daniel Peirce."

1651-1778: Peirce Ownership: Colonial Farm
"Daniel Peirce, Sr. came to Newbury from Watertown, Massachusetts in 1638. He took an active role in the affairs of the new town, and was engaged in blacksmithing, malt-making, farming and cattle raising. The house remained in the Peirce family until 1778."

1778-1861: Tracy, Boardman, Pettengill Ownership: A Country Estate
"In 1778, Newburyport merchant, Nathaniel Tracy purchased the farm from the Peirce descendants. Tracy's ownership inaugurated an era when the house served as a country seat for prominent families in nearby Newburyport.

The property was sold to Offin Boardman when Nathaniel Tracy died in 1796. Boardman used the house for family quarters and also for servants.

Boardman died in 1812, and John Pettengill purchased the farm at auction, also in 1812. Pettengill seems to have used the home as a summer house, leasing portions of the property to tenant farmers."

1851-1986: Little Ownership: A Family Farm
"In 1851, Edward Little, a descendant of early settlers of Newbury leased the farm from the Pettengill heirs. By 1861, his hard work and shrewd business investments made it possible for him to purchase the farm outright. The farm remained in the Little family until it was acquired by Historic New England in 1986. Historic New England also acquired all of the Little family's furnishings with the property, which included a variety of locally produced products that remained in their original context of ownership."

Recently, when I visited Boston University's Archaeology Department, I was introduced to a type of Japanese earthenware, which was uncovered at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in a circa 1870s context during the Little family's occupancy. These objects were identified by Boston University archaeologist, Mary Beaudry, who described them as Japanese Water Drop Ware, which was a form of pottery imported into America in the second-half of the nineteenth-century.

Artifacts from this type of Japanese earthenware have also reportedly been recovered at the Narbonne House in Salem, Massachusetts, and at a nineteenth-century boardinghouse in Lowell, Massachusetts.

According to an article written by Mary Beaudry for the '2004 Edition of Ceramics in America', "In the late-1980s, we found a single potsherd of this ware beneath the kitchen floor of the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm; this was a rim sherd - a lid seating for a vessel like a tea canister.

In 1996, (further) excavations at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm began to turn up numerous examples, and soon we had enough fragments to make up at least one teapot and one tea canister."

Further Ceramics in America Reading:
Link to Mary Beaudy's article, 'A Pernicious Influence? Japanese Water Drop Ware.'
Link to Pictures from Mary Beaudy's article, 'A Pernicious Influence? Japanese Water Drop Ware'.

Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm Kitchen, Newbury, Mass.