As I noted in a post from yesterday, "Amos Seavey's (1818-1879) stoneware production in Chelsea, Suffolk County, Massachusetts is a long-overdue research project, seeing that he is not even mentioned or listed in Lura Woodside Watkins' (1897-1982) 1950 book Early New England Potters and Their Wares, suggesting that this potter has been overlooked through the years for the industry in neighboring Charlestown, Massachusetts. Seavey's production may have even been completely forgotten for part of the twentieth century, prior to Winterthur Museum in Delaware acquiring an eight-gallon stoneware cooler in 1957 that was manufactured with Seavey's name and place of manufacture on it, which was then published in Donald Blake Webster's 1971 book, Decorated Stoneware Pottery of North America."
According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission Renaissance Town Report for Chelsea from 1980, "Chelsea clay proved valuable both for brick making and pottery. By 1845, 67 men were employed producing $28,500 worth of bricks; Amos Seavey manufactured stoneware."
Interestingly, there was also another stoneware potter who worked in Chelsea named Loammi Kendall; he may have originally trained in Charlestown. Kendall first appears as a potter in Chelsea in the 1830s, where he may have also worked with Seavey.
Kendall is first documented as a potter in Chelsea in 1837 when he exhibited at The First Exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association at Faneuil and Quincy Halls, in the City of Boston, although he ran into some financial problems in the 1840s. But he is thought to have produced stoneware and some red earthenware from the circa 1836-1870s period. Among the objects he displayed at the fair in 1837 were three urn-shaped flowerpots; this may be the same type of urn found on a four-gallon stoneware crock marked “Chelsea” that is decorated with a hand-drawn urn in cobalt and dated “1850.”
Watkins noted in her book, Early New England Potters and Their Wares, "The pottery Kendall erected stood near the present Chelsea Square. Stoneware marked Chelsea or Loammi Kendall represents the potter's output."
However, as I mentioned yesterday, Watkins does not appear to have been aware of Seavey's production in Chelsea when her book was published, and taking into account that some of the forms marked "Chelsea" are also similar to some of Seavey's production (as is some of the cobalt decorations), then I wonder if both potter's used the "Chelsea" mark. Her information about Kendall came from a first-hand account of the business in the twentieth century, from a man who witnessed Kendall's output as a teenager. But this person made no mention of Seavey's business to Watkins, suggesting at the time that Kendall was the only stoneware business owner in Chelsea in the 1800s. Although, it was from this person that Watkins learned that Kendall produced both stoneware and red earthenware, whereas Seavey may have only been a stoneware potter.
Note: There was also stoneware production in nearby Medford, Massachusetts during this period that not a lot is known about at a company called, T. Sables & Co.
A 19th C. 4-Gallon Stoneware Crock from Chelsea, Mass.
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