EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Wonderful Variety of 19th Century Red Earthenware Objects Recovered Beneath a Building in Westbrook, Maine

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

A Wonderful Variety of 19th Century Red Earthenware Objects Recovered Beneath a Building in Westbrook, Maine

This is an exciting group of nineteenth-century red earthenware sherds that were recovered by Gorham, Maine antiques collector, Christopher Havey from beneath a building, which was taken down on the property of a late-eighteenth-century house in Westbrook, Maine. Westbrook is a small community located about five-miles west of Portland, Maine.

I am really excited over these sherds since they represent local southern Maine potters, but also Massachusetts potters in a nineteenth-century context of ownership in Maine. The sherds also vary from late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century objects to products that were manufactured in the late-nineteenth-century. The earliest example was made in Essex County, Massachusetts, and it could potentially date from the 1790's.

I do not have definitive proof, but I suspect that the Massachusetts products may have been sold in the Portland-area in the 1800's for them to appear in such a context. It is also possible that these objects may potentially represent one-hundred-years of use of utilitarian pottery on this property in Westbrook, circa 1790's to 1890's.

Note: This is not the first time that I have written about sherds, which had been recovered in Westbrook, Maine. Last year, I wrote two articles about eighteenth-century slip-decorated sherds that were recovered, which had likely been made in Newburyport, Massachusetts and/or Charlestown, Massachusetts before 1775. If you remember these articles, I would suggest that these artifacts are worth studying, again, otherwise, I would suggest reading about these artifacts when you have the time.

1) Westbrook, Maine Article 1

2) Westbrook, Maine Article 2

The Artifacts
Nevertheless, this is what I can tell about these objects:

1) William Pecker Pottery Jug: This jug is a classic style that was made at the William Pecker Pottery in Merrimacport, Massachusetts, circa 1790-1820. The form, the handle, the rim and the glaze all indicate that this object was made at the Pecker Pottery before 1820. This is potentially an important discovery that could place pottery made at the Pecker Pottery in Maine in the early-nineteenth-century.

This also may indicate that Pecker's export business was more extensive than once indicated, which I have only previously proven was shipped to the Merrimacport, Newburyport and Haverhill, Massachusetts-areas, as-well-as parts of southern New Hampshire.

2) Southern Maine Jug: This jug was made in southern Maine at one of the businesses located west of Portland, Maine, circa 1820-1860. It may have been made at the Bickford family pottery in Buxton, Maine, but it may have also been made in Hollis, Maine (or somewhere else) before 1860.

3) Hanging Flower Pot: This object was also probably made in southern Maine, but it would have been manufactured in the late-nineteenth-century when flower pots became a priority with Maine's potters. A similar shape was also made at the John Corliss Pottery in Days Ferry, Woolwich, Maine; although, I believe this object was made in southern Maine, circa 1860's to 1880's.

4) Large Flower Pot: This flower pot is huge! It must stand over twelve-inches tall. This type of form and glazed flower pot was made at potteries in south-western New Hampshire and central Massachusetts in the late-1800's. But I suspect this particular object may have come from Peabody, Massachusetts in the late-nineteenth-century. Massachusetts author, Lura Woodside Watkins (Early New England Potters and Their Wares) donated a group of these type of flower pots to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., which she also attributed to Peabody.

This is also not the first time that I have seen this type of flower pot recovered in Maine; it is believed that a number of the Peabody flower pots must have been shipped elsewhere in New England based on the extensive production that happened in the late-nineteenth and even early-twentieth-century.

These type of flower pots have also been recovered in various nineteenth-century archaeological contexts in Massachusetts, such as Newburyport, Massachusetts, Salem, Massachusetts, Charlestown, Massachusetts, Dorchester, Massachusetts and Boston.

William Pecker Pottery Jug - Merrimacport, Mass.