EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Late-18th Century Philadelphia Red Earthenware Charger with a History of Ownership in Salem, Massachusetts

Friday, September 23, 2016

A Late-18th Century Philadelphia Red Earthenware Charger with a History of Ownership in Salem, Massachusetts

The export/import business, which involved eighteenth and nineteenth-century American red earthenware and stoneware potters is a subject that truly deserves a great deal of scholarship today. Undoubtedly, it happened, but the extent as to which it happened may not entirely be understood today.

For example: red earthenware made at the Daniel Bayley Pottery Company (circa 1764-1799) in Newburyport, Massachusetts has been recovered in colonial contexts at military forts in Maine and Canada. This is not by chance, either; there are eighteenth and nineteenth-century potter's who sold what they produced in both retail and wholesale environments.

Red earthenware made in Philadelphia in the late-eighteenth-century has been recovered in places, such as North Carolina, Virginia, New York City, Albany, New York and Boston - the following slip-decorated red earthenware dish was likely made in Philadelphia during the circa 1780-1810 period. However, it retains a history of family ownership in Salem, Massachusetts from the nineteenth-century.

Truthfully, I would be surprised to hear that red earthenware was imported into Salem during this period since Essex County, Massachusetts was loaded with red earthenware potters. But, in theory, this may be an example of a merchant, who imported a shipment of red earthenware to Salem from Philadelphia because they thought they could sell it based on the idea that it was routinely different, and it was "Made in Philadelphia." "Philadelphia Made Pottery" may have been a selling point with some merchants as a result of the city's storied history, and the perception that Philadelphia's ceramic industry was among the best in the country.

An advertisement from the Newport (Rhode Island) Mercury on June 22, 1767 likely explains how Philadelphia pottery was viewed elsewhere in America in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries: "Joseph Wilson - potter at the North End of Providence Informs the Public that he can Supply them with Earthen Ware at a Cheap Rate, made in the best Manner and Glazed in the Same Way as Practised in Philadelphia - All Persons in this Town may be regularly supplied by Means of the Boats which constantly pass between this Place and Providence."

Nonetheless, I do not exactly know why this dish appeared in Salem in the 1800's, but there are definitely a number of theories, which could probably be developed. Although, I thought the theory that I just provided may be a potential explanation for this dish's appearance in Salem.