The New Milford, Connecticut Pottery Company was founded in 1886 as a stock company, and the company's first kiln was in operation by 1887, where its first line of production was ordinary whiteware and semi-opaque China. Some of this production was sold by Lang & Schafer in New York City.
However, the company was incorporated in 1891 and reorganized in 1892 by businessmen William D. Black (b. 1836), Lewis F. Curtis (1813-1904), Merritt Beach (1817-1896) and son Charles M. Beach (1853-1928), and the name was changed to Wannopee Pottery. Besides the production of kitchenware, utility-ware, blue-glazed ware and decorative art pottery, the company also manufactured clock cases for the Gilbert Clock Company and the New Haven Clock Company in Connecticut.
Like many of the art pottery and formal pottery company's of this period, there are still unknowns today in terms of production. But this company did produce a line of semi-porcelain pitchers in three different sizes, which was first offered in 1895. They were decorated with relief medallion heads of McKinley, Beethoven and Mozart. Another variety had a full bust of Napoleon. The design of the cameos was the work of a young modeler named Victor Gallimore (b. 1883) of Trenton, New Jersey. He was the son of William Gallimore who was born in England in 1842, having migrated to America in 1884.
The 1900 United States Federal Census from Trenton lists both Gallimores (although their name is misspelled as Galimon); the father is listed as a "Designer & Molder Pottery," while the son was born in England in 1883 with no occupation listed. There are also other family members listed who may have worked in Trenton's pottery industry.
The Wannopee Pottery Company also produced a line of white earthenware during this period, known as "Duchess" ware, described by the Connecticut Historical Society as a whiteware shape with a mottled glaze that consisted of various colors: http://emuseum.chs.org/emuseum/objects/7398/vase?ctx=cf605a186fbf51fea18bdf12c9d6cdaf875cd0fe&idx=1. There was a variety of forms produced under this line, a type of pottery that seems to have been first introduced in the United Kingdom in the late 1880s.
In 1901, the company began the production of lettuce-leaf ware. Based originally on their Italian majolica counterpart, later molds were made actually using cabbage leaves with the outline of the stem and large veins evident. This line, with a pale green or a pink glaze, produced approximately twenty-five sizes and shapes. Among the stores that sold this type of ware was Reynolds Brothers or Reynolds, a department chain store in New Jersey. The collectors of this line of pottery included Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Another line of production from this company, which was also known as the Park Lane Pottery (because of where the business was located in New Milford) was Scarabronze, a style designed accidentally by Alfred H. Nobel (d. 1913), the pottery manager, and is characterized by a soft, satiny, metallic glaze suggestive of ancient copper. The colors range from dark bronze through reddish-copper to a tint close to sage green. The shapes, which are adaptations from old Egyptian forms, were simple in outline and often without relief decoration. Egyptian characters and figures were painted on the surface of some of the ware using slip in which different metallic colors had been mixed. The mark for this line was a scarab and a local red clay body was used to produce these objects, whereas clay imported from England and elsewhere was used in most of the company's other production. Furthermore, a first-hand account of this type of pottery was published on pages 504-505 in a book written by Edwin Atlee Barber (1851-1916) in 1893, titled, The Pottery and the Porcelain of the United States.
These various lines of pottery were also impressed with different marks, but not all of the wares produced in New Milford were marked. Some of the other New Milford shapes include a Majolica leaf-form jardinière on a dolphin stand and kerosene lamp bases with metal inserts, among other forms, including a wide variety of vases and ancient style shapes. The pottery ceased production in 1903.
Nonetheless, this is an umarked hand-thrown mottled glazed earthenware vase with a blue glazed rim and an opaque glazed interior and base that I found yesterday in the Boston area, which closely resembles some of the mottled multi-colored glazed pottery (or “Dutchess” ware as it was known back then) produced at the circa 1892-1903 Wannopee Pottery or Park Lane Pottery in New Milford. I feel there is a basic understanding of the wares produced at this company during this period, but in consideration of the size of it and the fact that it was connected to the pottery industry in Trenton, then I suspect there is still a lot to be learned.
Additionally, I think the idea behind the business was comparable to some of the ceramic companies that operated during this period in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, along the Hudson River, in Hartford and in the Boston area. The glaze on this particular jar also reminds me of some of the glazes produced on red earthenware from Bristol County, Massachusetts (and related areas) during the circa 1780-1830 period.
Note: The New Milford Historical Society and Museum owns a collection of Wannopee Pottery, along with some original photography of the company.
Mottled Glazed Earthenware Vase Recently Found in Mass.
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
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