EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A 19th Century Red Earthenware Ring Bottle Made for Amos Weaver in North Carolina

Thursday, July 5, 2018

A 19th Century Red Earthenware Ring Bottle Made for Amos Weaver in North Carolina

Last summer, I wrote about a wonderful nineteenth century red earthenware ring bottle that sold in the Collection of Doris and Stanley Tananbaum at Northeast Auctions in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The bottle had been inscribed, "A present to / Amos Weaver."

I had speculated at the time that the bottle may have been manufactured by a potter in southeastern Pennsylvania or even in a southern state. But I was not convinced where it was made nor did I determine the exact identity of Amos Weaver. However, I was recently notified by collector Susan Mariner that the bottle had been recently acquired by the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

According to MESDA, "The handwritten script on the ring bottle, especially the letter W, bears a strong resemblance to Henry Watkins' signature on a signed jar in MESDA's collection.

Henry Watkins (ca. 1797-after 1852) was a Quaker potter working in Randolph and Guilford Counties in North Carolina in the first half of the nineteenth century. Watkins converted to Quakerism and was accepted as a member of Marlborough Monthly Meeting in Randolph County on November 1, 1817. Two years later, he married Elizabeth Elliott of neighboring Center Meeting. In 1837, Watkins moved with his family to southern Guilford County, where he was listed as a potter in the 1850 Guilford County census.

The ring bottle is emblematic of the Quaker's opposition to slavery and establishment of the North Carolina Manumission Society. The organization was formed in 1816 by Quakers and their allies in the Baptist and Methodist churches who were opposed to slavery. It existed until approximately 1834 with a stronghold in the heavily Quaker-settled region of Guilford and Randolph Counties. Henry Watkins' father-in-law Obediah Elliott (1764-1837) was one of the society's early members.

According to the inscription, Watkins made this ring bottle as a gift to Amos Weaver (1805-1889), one of North Carolina's most outspoken abolitionists. In 1830, Weaver became famous, after a speaking tour to many of the Quaker meeting houses, including Marlborough and Center; he authored an anti-slavery tract, "An Address to the People of North Carolina on the Evils of Slavery," published by the Manumission Society. The ring bottle was probably an expression of gratitude and support at that time.

In 1830, Weaver was also elected by the voters of Guilford County to the North Carolina General Assembly; he was unseated, however, the following year. During his lifetime, Weaver served as a Methodist and later as a Baptist minister in Guilford, Davidson, Iredell, and Johnston Counties."

Amos Weaver's Ring Bottle