My next feature story in Antiques And The Arts Weekly will be published next week in the June 7, 2024 issue, where the story will cover the life and career of Colonel Nathaniel Rochester (1752-1831), a veteran of the American Revolution, who owned a pottery business in West Bloomfield, New York, circa 1818-1831. Although, part of the story will also cover Rochester's 1831 will that I recently came across while going through some archives owned in New York. But he was also instrumental in the early development in part of the Western New York region, most notably founding the settlement that would become Rochester, New York, as well as playing a role in the development and implementation of the Erie Canal.
Among the documents that I found in my research, although I did not use in the story was a printed letter sent to Rochester, dated July 18, 1816, notifying him of his appointment as an agent “to procure and receive Subscription lands or money, to be applied in constructing Canals and Locks between the navigable waters of the Hudson River and Lake Erie, and the said navigable waters and Lake Champlain, or either of them.”
The letter was sent by one Samuel Young (1779-19850), Secretary of the Board of Commissioners constituted by “An Act to provide for the improvement of the Internal Navigation” of New York. Young notes in the letter that he will be forwarding forms for the cession of lands, as well as donations in money.
Rochester established his pottery business about 1818 in a field in West Bloomfield, while all of this was happening at the same time; i.e. planning the Erie Canal, founding of city Rochester, among other business dealings. He even appears to have been involved with some baptisms in Rochester in the 1820s.
But among the reasons Rochester is so well known today is partially credited to his pottery business, where he employed an incredibly skilled unnamed potter or potters. These wares were often very colorfully glazed with a variety of slip colors. I have always suspected in theory that there is a Hagerstown, Maryland connection with this pottery business, seeing that Rochester was also tied to that community, serving one term in the Maryland General Assembly and two years at the postmaster of Hagerstown. Nevertheless, this story will be available both online and in print next week, so be on the lookout for it!
Note: The slip-decorated red earthenware jar shown in this post was most likely made at the Rochester Pottery in the 1820s; it is owned today by The Bidwell House Museum in Monterey, Massachusetts, where I will also be speaking at the museum on June 1, 2024. See this link for more information: https://www.bidwellhousemuseum.org/events/.
A Preview of My Next Published Feature Story
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