An 18th Century Slip-Decorated Red Earthenware Sherd that was Discovered in Germantown in Quincy, Massachusetts in the 1940s

According to the city of Quincy, Massachusetts, "In 1752, General Joseph Palmer (1716-1788) and Richard Cranch (1726-1811), brother-in-law of John Adams (1735-1826) and father of American jurist, William Cranch (1769-1855), were held by tenure of lease by a company interested in German immigration to create a planned manufacturing community in a section of Quincy known as Germantown. The land was to be settled in the 1750s by a group of glassmakers and weavers from Germany. The planned community had failed by 1760, but the name has remained."

Massachusetts author, Lura Woodside Watkins also wrote about Germantown in Quincy when she published 'Early New England Potters and Their Wares' in 1950, "Almost every authority on American ceramics has stated as a fact that pottery was made in the German colony at Quincy known as Germantown. Their reason for believing this to be so was that Judge William Cranch, a descendent of Richard Cranch, one of the proprietors of the eighteenth century German glassworks and other manufactures there, had picked up fragments of stoneware near the site of the enterprise. This I have done, also, and I have found sherds of slip-decorated red earthenware near the shore. I cannot, however, obtain any real proof that pottery making was one of the Germantown industries.

There is a list of the male members of the community in 1757 which I have used in an attempt to discover in their land records whether any of them were potters, but the search was fruitless, as an examination of documents in the state archives. It seems likely that Judge Cranch's finds were merely household breakage, particularly in view of the fact that stoneware could not be made of the local clay."

I was surprised last week when I studied the red earthenware sherds at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., which Watkins had collected on the shore in Germantown in Quincy in the 1940s. There was a wonderful slip-decorated sherd, which she discovered that she may have overlooked; whereas, similar styles of slip-decoration were manufactured by the German immigrant potters in Philadelphia during the same period.

This sherd is decorated with multiple colors of slip, as well as a tulip. This is a style of production that has never been associated with eighteenth century potters in New England, but this is a technique that could have been made by any Dutch or German potters, who had migrated to Germantown in Quincy in the 1750s.

I also feel this sherd is American-made, where this could be a style of production from Germantown that has been completely forgotten. I should also note that Watkins did not illustrate this sherd in 'Early New England Potters and Their Wares.'

Note: I also noticed with the sherds that Lura Woodside Watkins collected in Germantown in Quincy, Massachusetts that some were likely from the eighteenth century industry in Charlestown, Massachusetts. I have posted one of those sherds below, which resembles some of the mid-eighteenth century red earthenware chamber pots that were recovered by archaeologists in Charlestown in the 1980s as part of Boston's Big Dig Project. I have previously published on this website, as well as in the New England Antiques Journal that red earthenware from Charlestown was shipped all over New England and Canada before the American Revolution, but I have not previously found evidence that it ended up in Quincy before 1775.

18th Century Slip-Decorated Sherd Found in Germantown

 18th Century Slip-Decorated Red Earthenware Sherd Decorated with a Tulip

Found on the Shore in Germantown in Quincy, MA

Possibly Made in Germantown
Possibly Circa 1750s

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Photo Courtesy: The National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian

View of the Base

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Photo Courtesy: The National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian

Map Shows Location of Germantown in Quincy, MA

18th Century Map that Shows Location of Germantown in Quincy, MA

Quincy is Located Less-Than 10 Miles South of Boston

Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

18th Century Charlestown, MA Sherd Found in Germantown

 18th Century Red Earthenware Sherd Collected on the Shore in Germantown in Quincy, MA

Likely Made in Charlestown, MA

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Photo Courtesy: The National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian

Another View of the Charlestown, MA Sherd Found on the Shore in Germantown in Quincy, MA

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Photo Courtesy: The National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian

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