Charlestown: New England's Potter's Industry, Circa 1635-1775

The Drinker Pottery

Charlestown, Massachusetts is likely best known today for its stoneware industry from the late eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries. Jonathan Fenton, Frederick Carpenter and Barnabas Edmunds are the names most-often associated with the known Charlestown pottery industry today. However, there were a number of names, who until Boston's Big Dig Central Artery Project took place in the 1980s, were lost in time. A team of archaeologists spent months excavating the construction area along Charlestown’s waterfront before the multi-billion dollar project broke ground. Their findings were extensive. The uncovered industry is arguably the most important archaeological findings from the seventeenth and eighteenth-century colonial New England potter's industry today.

The red earthenware industry in Charlestown was really first established in the seventeenth-century when Phillip Drinker and his family arrived in 1635 from Exeter, England. Drinker was reportedly a working-class potter in his home country. He brought his craft to Charlestown and began work soon after his arrival. Drinker is regarded as the first official potter working in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He is also certainly one of the first pioneering American potters. Phillip also taught his son, Edward Drinker the potter's trade before 1647. Presumably, the bricks that were used to the build the initial kiln may have come from England or a local brick manufacturer.

Next door to Drinker, lived John Smith and his family, who were also immigrants from England. The Smiths made a living working as shipwrights on Charlestown’s waterfront. The Smith family site is among the archaeological collections, which are kept at Boston's Archaeology Department in West Roxbury, Massachusetts today.

A domestic form of seventeenth-century red earthenware kiln bricks and kiln wasters were found at the Smith Site; however, most of the kiln waste was labeled as 'limestone'. Drinker’s kiln is believed to have been located next door to the Smiths, where I believe that this waste can be tied to the Drinker family. This type of proof has never been seen from the Drinker Pottery before - their production has only previously been found in books.

The following examples of kiln waste were recovered in a circa 1681-1707 archaeological context from the Smith Site. It was used as fill when a foundation was covered on the Smith property in the late 1600's. The debris that was used to fill the foundation was likely taken from the remote area. There was a lot of kiln waste found within this context. The only real explanation that I have been able to determine for this waste in this context is that it came from the Drinker Pottery.

17h Century Kiln Waste Recovered on the Smith Site in Charlestown, Mass.

Probably Related to the Drinker Pottery

Recovered in a Circa 1681-1707 Archaeological Context

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Department - West Roxbury, Mass.

 17h Century Kiln Waste Recovered on the Smith Site in Charlestown, Mass.

Probably Related to the Drinker Pottery

Recovered in a Circa 1681-1707 Archaeological Context

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Department - West Roxbury, Mass.

17h Century Kiln Waste Recovered on the Smith Site in Charlestown, Mass.

Probably Related to the Drinker Pottery

Recovered in a Circa 1681-1707 Archaeological Context

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Department - West Roxbury, Mass.

By 1647, Phillip Drinker had passed away, but he had laid a basic foundation for an industry that would eventually become a major manufacturer of red earthenware in Charlestown in the eighteenth-century.

Charlestown's Potter's Industry

Edward Drinker is thought to have trained Samuel Kettle, who apprenticed and also operated a business in Charlestown. But the Kettle family also helped establish the industry in Essex County, Massachusetts in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth-centuries. The Kettles are believed to be among the first utilitarian potters working within the Salem, Massachusetts area. They also produced a few unusual styles of slip-decoration, which are comparable to some of the slip that was produced in Charlestown in the eighteenth-century.

An area known as 'Town Dock' in Charlestown began to expand in the early eighteenth-century. The dock was strategically located along the town’s waterfront, which was not too far from the City Square neighborhood. City Square was where many of the local shops and taverns were located.

City Square was also surrounded by three important archaeological sites; Water Street, Wapping Street and Maudlin Street. These three streets do not exist today, but at one time they surrounded the City Square area. A number of examples of domestic red earthenware were found at these sites in seventeenth and eighteenth-century archaeological contexts. All of this domestic red earthenware is believed to have been produced in Charlestown.

The archaeologist also discovered five self-contained privies on the original property of the Three Cranes Tavern in City Square, which was originally built as the Great House for Governor John Winthrop in the 1630's; one of the privies dated from the seventeenth-century, whereas, the remaining four were built in the eighteenth-century. 

Incredibly, a number of red earthenware sherds were found in the seventeenth-century privy that were likely produced by either the Drinker or Kettle families. Red earthenware roof tiles were also discovered in this privy, which is a product that has also been tied to seventeenth-century Essex County. It is possible that the Kettles are responsible for all of the roof tiles in both locations.

But as Town Dock expanded, so did the area’s production of pottery - the names Collier, Edes, Frothingham, Larkin, Lord, Penny, Wade and Webber are all mentioned within Charlestown’s eighteenth-century red earthenware industry. The most prominent names were Bodge, Edes, Harris, Manning, Newhall, Parker, Penny, Powers, Runey, Stanley and Symmes. In all, there were at least forty names associated with Charlestown’s red earthenware industry; however, that number is likely greater since not every red earthenware potter is known from Charlestown today.

The Parker family was likely the most prominent of the potters in Charlestown; Isaac and Grace Parker established the family business, circa 1714. No kiln was recovered, but there are a number of kiln bricks, wasters and kiln furniture found within the Parker Pottery Archaeology Collection. The site of the Parker kiln is also believed to have moved to a few locations on the Parker property. The family also owned an actual retail business in City Square, which is where they are thought to have sold pottery. However, Parker Pottery has also been recovered at archaeology sites in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Maine and Canada.

18th Century Kiln Bricks Recovered at the Site of the Parker Pottery in Charlestown, MA

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Department - West Roxbury, Mass.

Archaeological evidence from Faneuil Hall has also revealed that a lot of Charlestown red earthenware was exported to Boston. This was likely Charlestown's major market for red earthenware distribution.

The Parker family lived in an urban seventeenth-century home near Charlestown’s waterfront. The family is described as well-off, harvesting prosperous seasonal gardens, owning a wharf and owning a nice home with tasteful furnishings. The wharf may have served as an export business for their company. However, the family pottery was immediately impacted when Isaac unexpectedly died in the early 1740's.

Prior to Isaac’s death, he had reportedly contacted Philadelphia, Pennsylvania potter, James Duché with hopes that he would move to Charlestown and help produce stoneware. The idea was to compete against imported stoneware from Europe and possibly American potters, as well. 

In 1741, Isaac approached Charlestown’s General Court, where he was awarded proper funding to begin a stoneware business. Sadly, a few weeks later, he unexpectedly died at the age of 50.

Isaac’s widow, Grace Parker picked up where her husband had left off; although, it is not clear today whether she was actually a potter or a proprietor. But she did enter into a partnership to produce stoneware with Duché and a Boston potter named Thomas Symmes. Her son, John Parker, a potter was also involved with the family business. However, it should be noted that John Parker worked at a number of the red earthenware shops in Charlestown outside of just the Parker Pottery. There is evidence of John Parker's employment at various businesses in his potter's daybook, which is owned by the Baker Library at Harvard University today.

18th Century Slip-Decorated Chamber Pot

Likely Made at the Parker Pottery in Charlestown, MA

This Chamber Pot was Recovered from an 18th Century Privy at the Three Cranes Tavern

Circa 1740

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Department - West Roxbury, Mass.

The Parker Pottery's stoneware success is not really understood today. It is believed that the pottery had difficulty building a proper kiln, but they also had trouble actually producing stoneware, as well. It is thought that they may have fired a successful kiln in 1745 when Thomas Symmes advertised "forty different blue and white stoneware forms near the Swing Bridge in Charlestown."

Note: I have shown some of the odd stoneware sherds (and kiln waste) recovered in various contexts in Charlestown. Unfortunately, it is not known if these artifacts are related to the Parker Pottery, a European import or another American potter.

Parker Pottery Advertisement from 1745

They Advertised 40 Different Stoneware Forms

Photo Courtesy: Boston Public Library

 18th Century Stoneware Recovered in Charlestown, MA

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Department - West Roxbury, Mass.

 18th Century Stoneware Kiln Waste Recovered in Charlestown, MA

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Department - West Roxbury, Mass.

 18th Century Stoneware Recovered in Charlestown, MA

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Department - West Roxbury, Mass.

 18th Century Stoneware Recovered in Charlestown, MA

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Department - West Roxbury, Mass.

18th Century Stoneware Recovered in Charlestown, MA

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Department - West Roxbury, Mass.

The Parker business continued to produce red earthenware until 1758, when another potter, John Harris purchased the company.

Elsewhere in town, James Ingalls began his own red earthenware company around the time of Isaac Parker’s death. Ingall’s venture did not prove very successful - and, by 1744, he was out of business. John Harris bought Ingall’s company at a public sale in 1746 held at the Three Cranes Tavern. Harris operated both Ingalls’ company and the old Parker pottery simultaneously until 1767, when he sold the old Harris pottery to business partners, Jonathan Penny and Thomas Manning. Penny and Manning began a joint venture, where they operated their own red earthenware business for years to come.

Additionally, Samuel Bodge and his son, Samuel Bodge, Jr, were also active red earthenware potters nearby with their own business. Battery Powers was even producing red earthenware near the Town Dock.

If you can imagine, a birds-eye view of what must have been one of colonial America’s most-active red earthenware industries all self-contained within a small coastal town located just north of Boston. Dozens of skilled potters worked producing red earthenware, but only one shop is known to have made any manufacturing attempt at stoneware. Charlestown has previously been regarded as just a stoneware industry, but before that stoneware industry was created by Carpenter, Fenton and Edmunds – it was pioneered by more than forty red earthenware potters.

The Tufts family was a prominent family of colonial brick-makers, who produced bricks using clay from the Mystic River – this was the same clay that was used by many of the local red earthenware potters. It has to be assumed today that many of the bricks, which were manufactured by the Tufts family were used for the taverns, homes and potter's kilns in eighteenth-century Charlestown. This is also the same Tufts family that Tufts University is named after today in Medford, Massachusetts.

The red earthenware forms produced in Charlestown included chamber pots, cups, dishes, pots, crocks, jugs, mugs, pans, plates and porringers. Glaze colors range from basic browns and black to vibrant greens, yellows, oranges, creams and reds. Peach colored halos from impurities in the clay are also sometimes found, as well as objects decorated with a dark brown or black freckled body. In some instances, the colors were used in combination on a single form. A lot of slip-decoration was produced, as well.

By 1770, Jonathan Penny and Thomas Manning were still producing red earthenware at the old James Ingalls Site. Battery Powers was among a number of potters actively producing pottery near Town Dock - and, the Bodge family pottery was in full operation in Charlestown. However, the Intolerable Acts and mounting turmoil between the colonists and English troops were about to conflict, and Charlestown’s red earthenware industry would ultimately be sacrificed for the independence of a brand new nation.

18th Centruy Charlestown, MA Slip-Decorated Chamber Pot 

Recovered from an 18h Century Privy at the Three Cranes Tavern in Charlestown, MA

Found in a Circa 1770 Archaeological Context

Photo Courtesy: Boston Archaeology Department - West Roxbury, Mass.

Impact of the American Revolution

The Intolerable Acts was a response to the Boston Tea Party; the four acts that were issued were punitive measures put in place by England, which they had hoped would put an end to all colonial uprising. British Parliament used the Massachusetts Bay Colony as an example for the remainder of the American colonies. The Boston Port Act of 1774 may have done the most harm.

The Boston Port Act shut down all trade to Boston Harbor, where only the absolute necessities were aloud in and out of port. With this parliamentary decision, any of Charlestown’s red earthenware exports would have likely been canceled unless those orders were fulfilled over land. This act probably shut down all sales to Boston, as well.

The Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775 destroyed Charlestown's potter's industry. The American Revolution was underway and homes, taverns and potters kilns/businesses were burned to the ground. This marked an end of an era for New England red earthenware production. A few of Charlestown's red earthenware potters did rebuild after the American Revolution – but most traveled north, south and west in search of work. Charlestown's industry was gone. There was some red earthenware production in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-centuries, but it was nothing like what had once existed prior to the American Revolution.

In the 1790s, the stoneware industry that is well known today was established when Jonathan Fenton and Frederick Carpenter joined into a partnership - Barnabus Edmunds followed with his business in the nineteenth-century. I have always wondered how much information the Charlestown's stoneware potters knew about the red earthenware industry that came before them. But I also wonder how much Charlestown red earthenware was produced after the American Revolution that is misinterpreted for another location today.

Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...