EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Stoneware Handle Recovered in a Mid 18th-Century Archaeological Context in Charlestown, Massachusetts

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

A Stoneware Handle Recovered in a Mid 18th-Century Archaeological Context in Charlestown, Massachusetts

Yesterday, I wrote, "There are a number of small examples of stoneware that are kept with the Parker Pottery Archaeology Collection at the Boston Archaeology Department in West Roxbury, Massachusetts - but it is difficult to properly attribute any stoneware to the Parker Pottery in Charlestown, Massachusetts, circa 1741-1745 with the lack of an actual stoneware kiln site. Evidence from a kiln site would likely provide insight into how the stoneware from this business would have ultimately appeared, along with the type of clay that was used.

Massachusetts author, Lura Woodside Watkins published this stoneware pot in 1950 in 'Early New England Potters and Their Wares.' She reportedly found it in the early twentieth-century in the basement of an early home in Chelsea, Massachusetts. It was published in Figure 86, where she wrote, "The condition and form with vertical handles suggest a Charlestown origin in pottery of Grace Parker, circa 1742-1745."

Understandably, this is obviously a debatable attribution, where critics may say that this is an early piece of stoneware that was made by either Jonathan Fenton or Frederick Carpenter in Charlestown in the 1790's. But how can the Parker Pottery attribution be completely ruled out since there is no evidence today to show how a handle from this pottery may have appeared or how the cobalt decoration was applied or how a pot may have been constructed. It is also worth noting that this pot is cracked on one side - the crack appears to have happened in the potter's kiln."

Nevertheless, a cobalt decorated stoneware handle was recovered in a mid-eighteenth century archaeological context on Wapping Street in Charlestown, which was likely the remains of a chamber pot. The Parkers also owned a store in Charlestown's City Square neighborhood, where they did sell some of the their pottery - and, Wapping Street was connected to City Square. But what I really wanted to point out about this handle tonight is the fact that the thumb impression found on the terminal is very similar to the thumb impressions that are found on the handles on the pot that Massachusetts author, Lura Woodside Watkins attributed to the Parker Pottery, circa 1741-1745. It is also worth mentioning that the cobalt was applied in a similar style; although, this type of cobalt decoration was used by many American potters in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries.

Notes: The photographs of the handle and the pot were taken in two different types of lighting. The handle was photographed under bright photography lights, whereas the pot was photographed in the middle of Historic New England's storage facility in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

Stoneware Handle Found in Charlestown, Mass.