EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: 19th Century Red Earthenware Canteen Found Years Ago at a Flea Market in Southern Maine

Thursday, June 20, 2019

19th Century Red Earthenware Canteen Found Years Ago at a Flea Market in Southern Maine

According to the website, Martin Cornell's Zethphyle - Beer Now and Then, "Porter is a dark style beer developed in London with well-hopped beers made from brown malt. The name was first recorded in the eighteenth century. This golden age for porter lasted about a century, and by the mid-1800s, tastes had changed, towards lighter ales and lagers."

While recently visiting a friend in New Hampshire, I acquired this nineteenth century red earthenware canteen, which appears very much like New England production. Both ends of the canteen are covered in slip-decoration.

I was told the canteen was found years ago at a flea market in Arundel, Maine. However, the characteristic that really piqued my interest about this object is the fact that the slip-decorated ends had been painted over; some of the information is illegible due to paint loss. But one end clearly reads "London Porter."

The information on the other end of the canteen is a little harder to see, but I can read "Medford." This might refer to Medford, Massachusetts, a city located a few miles northwest of Boston, which also employed a large brick industry in the 1800s along with some potters. But there is also a Medford, Maine located in a rural section of central Maine, as well as a Medford, Nova Scotia in Canada, situated along the coast of the Minas Basin in the Bay of Fundy. This end is also decorated with a small painted bottle and two glasses.

A similar bottle (decanter) is found painted on a local eighteenth century sign owned by the Old York Historical Society in York, Maine. The circa 1784 southern Maine sign also references the fact that this establishment sold porter. The script reads, "SOLD HERE WINE / BRANDY RUM / GIN PORTER / AND FRUIT."

According to a book recently written by author Kate McCarty, titled, Distilled in Maine: A History of Libations, Temperance and Craft Spirits, "Nearly every town had a tavern, which was usually a simple wooden-sided structure, one or two stories, with a large brick fireplace in the middle of the room. The taverns offered a few rooms for rent upstairs, a sitting room (in which wealthier gentlemen could gather privately), and a dining room. Outside the Stacey Tavern in York, Maine, a rudimentary wooden sign announced the offerings "SOLD HERE WINE / BRANDY RUM / GIN PORTER / AND FRUIT."

Interestingly, while traveling through the northeastern United States in 1807-08, American writer Edward Kendall (ca. 1776-1842) noted that "boards hung out on the Stacey Tavern, on which are uncouth inscriptions offering spirituous liquors for sale."

I should also note that the use of slip-decoration was not popular in New England in the nineteenth century outside of Conneticut, but it was manufactured sparingly in places like Portland, Maine, North Yarmouth, Maine, among other locations.

Note: I have also posted a few pictures of a great green glazed nineteenth century New England rundlet in the collection of Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. The rundlet may have been manufactured in New Hampshire before 1860.

Slip-Decorated Red Earthenware Canteen