I am thrilled with this late eighteenth or nineteenth century red earthenware jar that I just acquired on Saturday at John McInnis' auction in Amesbury, Massachusetts, although it was recently removed from an old estate on Beacon Hill in Boston. This jar will be illustrated in my forthcoming tenth book, titled, An Early Industry of Household Wares: The Red Earthenware of Salem Village, South Danvers and Peabody, Massachusetts, seeing that I feel it was made in the South Danvers (Peabody) and Salem area.
To further support this idea, the jug shown in the pictures below is basically an exact match in glaze, and I believe this jug is from the South Danvers and Salem area, circa late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.
Interestingly, though, the South Danvers (Peabody) area gets most of the credit today for this area's production, although there were also businesses that operated in Salem in the late 1700s and 1800s, which were unrelated to the families that operated in neighboring South Danvers. These companies were owned Nathaniel Butterfield (1808-1841), who eventually sold his business to the Goldthwaite family of South Danvers, as well as William Symonds (1758-1804), although there is some inaccurate information previously published about this company.
The Essex County Massachusetts Probate Records indicate there were actually two Nathaniel Symonds potters in Salem; one with an occupation of potter and a probate record, dated April 18, 1804. The second Nathaniel Symonds (d. 1793) with an occupation of potter and a probate record dated February 4, 1793 was originally from Charlestown, Massachusetts; he married Jane Phipps Symonds in Charlestown on October 8, 1745.
Furthermore, two of the sons of the Symonds who died in 1804, Nathaniel Symonds (d. 1848) and William Symonds (d. 1824) served in the American Revolution and were also potters in Salem.
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