EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: 19th Century Red Earthenware Pig Bottles and the Kirkpatrick Family's Pottery Production in Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois

Friday, December 20, 2019

19th Century Red Earthenware Pig Bottles and the Kirkpatrick Family's Pottery Production in Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois

The stoneware manufactured by Cornwall (1814-90) and Wallace Kirkpatrick (1828-96) in Anna, Illinois is well documented today. The brothers along with their father, Andrew Kirkpatrick (1788-1865) founded the pottery in southern Illinois in 1859, producing some of America's finest folk pottery until the company closed in 1894. Although, the most famous pieces made by the Kirkpatricks at the Anna Pottery were bottles or flasks in the shape of pigs often decorated with maps of railroads on the body, as well as jugs decorated with snakes and inscribed references to social issues like the Temperance Movement, a nineteenth century social movement against the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Fantastic examples of the pig bottles and Temperance jugs are represented in some of America's most prominent museums today, such as the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the New York Historical Society, among a group of art museums in Illinois. Most of the Anna Pottery pigs and jugs also date from the 1870s and 1880s.

However, it is perhaps lesser known on a national level today that Andrew, Cornwall and Wallace were not the only potters in the family, and the family's production was not exclusive to stoneware production. The family also manufactured red earthenware, where other family potters included John Kirkpatrick and Murray Kirkpatrick (1824-94), both sons of Andrew.

Some of Andrew's life was cited in 1866 when History of La Salle County, Illinois was published: "Andrew was a potter born in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1788, and was a soldier of the War of 1812. He had a family of thirteen children, ten living to maturity. In 1812, he was the first potter to begin making red earthenware in Fredericktown, Knox County, Ohio, and married Ann LeFever (1789-1850) there before 1814, the year of Cornwall's birth. By 1820, the family had moved again, this time to Urbana, Champaign County, Ohio, where Andrew had another small red earthenware pottery. He settled in Vermilionville, Deer Park Township, La Salle County, Illinois, with his family in 1837, where he established the first stone manufactory in the state."

According to an article written by Ellen Paul Denker for Northeast Historical Archaeology in 1980, titled, "The Kirkpatricks' Pottery, Anna, Illinois,"Cornwall's biography indicates he left school at the age of 12 to begin work as a clerk and book keeper in a store. After seven years he returned home to Champaign County, Ohio, and learned the trade of potter with his father, remaining about one year, and mastering the business before the year expired.

Upon Andrew leaving for Illinois in 1837, Cornwall took over his father's red earthenware business in Urbana. Andrew, his wife, and what children remained with them (including Wallace) moved to Vermilionville in northern Illinois. Andrew took over another pottery begun by another son John, several years earlier.

From 1839-48 Cornwall had a pottery in Covington, Campbell County, Kentucky. He returned to Ohio in 1848, and the next year bought a pottery in Point Pleasant, Clermont County. Wallace Kirkpatrick was also involved with the Point Pleasant venture. He came from Vemilionville in 1849 to learn the pottery trade from this brother. And while still owner of the property in Point Pleasant, Cornwall established another pottery in Cincinnati in 1855.

Late in 1857, after closing his Ohio businesses, Cornwall built a three story pottery in Mound City, Pulaski County, Illinois, on the Ohio River, and was joined in this venture by Wallace and Andrew. Although, only two years later, they fired their first kiln of wares in November 1859 in Anna."

As I have already noted, a lot of the stoneware production manufactured by the Kirkpatricks is known today, including a stoneware syrup jug decorated with a face made by Murray in Vermilionville, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. However, I would like to learn more about the family's red earthenware production. For instance, both of these red earthenware pig bottles are worth noting because they closely resemble many of the larger stoneware pigs made by the Kirkpatricks in Anna. The first pig is owned by Middlebury, Vermont antiques dealer, Jeff Noorsdy; the facial features, the feet and how the body was produced very much resemble the Kirkpatrick's pig bottles, and this great example is also inscribed all over with a map of a railroad. This could potentially be a very rare example of a red earthenware pig made by the Kirkpatricks.

The second pig was owned for sometime by West Grandy, Connecticut antiques dealer Robert Girouard, and while it is not inscribed with a map of a railroad, it does exhibit a number of features that are also similar to the pigs made in Anna.

Red Earthenware Pig Bottle Inscribed with a Railroad Map