EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: Excellent David Morgan Stoneware Jug from Manhattan that Just Sold in Austin, Texas

Sunday, July 21, 2019

Excellent David Morgan Stoneware Jug from Manhattan that Just Sold in Austin, Texas

I have always admired the stoneware manufactured by David Morgan in Manhattan in New York City during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centry. Perhaps because some of the New York City production reminds me of stoneware manufactured by William Pecker (1758-1820) in Merrimacport, Massachusetts, where I believe there may be a connection between both locations.

To date, I have not been able to prove New York author, William C. Ketchum's information that he published in Potters and Potteries of New York State, 1650-1900, saying a William Pecker was a potter working in New York City from 1802-07. Ketchum describes this Pecker as being a son, but William Pecker did not have a son by that name. Although, when Ketchum wrote this book, it had not been published or widely known that Pecker was also a stoneware potter. In fact, all of the stoneware archaeology that my nephew, niece and myself have recovered at the site of the pottery has been found within the last five or six years. A lot of these artifacts will be going on display later this summer at a pottery exhibit at the Custom House Maritime Museum in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

However, it may not be a coincidence, either since Pecker repeatedly advertised in the Newburyport Gazette in 1802, trying to sell his pottery business, outhouses and land in Merrimacport; this is the very same year that a potter by his name is first cited by Ketchum as being in New York City.

William Pecker Trying to Sell his Pottery Business in Merrimacport, Mass.

Advertisement from William Pecker in 1802 Trying to Sell his Potter's Business

He Placed this Ad Many Times in the Newburyport Gazette in 1802

See Article for More Information

Nevertheless, David Morgan is a fascinating potter seeing that he had a relationship with the Remmey family and Thomas Commeraw in Manhattan. Although, very few examples of marked stoneware are known to exist from him today. This particular jug, marked "David Morgan / New York" sold a few days ago at Austin Auction Gallery in Austin, Texas.

There is also some excellent marked Morgan stoneware in the John Paul Remensnyder Collection at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

According to Ketchum, "The Crolius-Remmey dominance of local stoneware manufacture was only once seriously challenged. In 1797 one Thomas Commeraw, who had appeared in the city the previous year, established a kiln on what was later Cherry Street near Corlear's Hook. This was a location on the East River some distance northeast of the older established manufactories. In the following year his kiln was taken over by David Morgan, a potter who had been employed by John Crolius, Jr., at Chatham Street since 1795.

There can be no doubt that there was a close relationship between the two craftsmen who worked on Cherry Street, because when Commeraw returned to Corlear's Hook in 1802, Morgan continued to work with him through the following year. Thereafter, David Morgan is listed only once more, in 1809, as a potter in Manhattan; but his son, John worked at Corlear's Hook from 1803 until 1812."

Marked David Morgan Stoneware Jug