A subject that will be included as part of Chapter 1 in my forthcoming 700-900 page, tenth book, titled, An Early Industry of Household Wares: The Red Earthenware of Salem Village, South Danvers, Peabody and Salem Massachusetts, is a master thesis written by archaeologist, Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh at Harvard University in 1976, titled, An Anthropological Historical Archaeology Inquiry Into Cultural Variation And Change Based On Ceramics Assemblages From The Massachusetts Bay Colony.
As part of her thesis, Turnbaugh compared and contrasted red earthenware potters located in Essex County, Massachusetts before the American Revolution, based on their export opportunities, the economic state of their pottery business and the marketplaces that their wares were sold. She noted that some of the potters in South Danvers (Peabody), Massachusetts had limited export opportunities compared to a business owned by the Bayley family in Newburyport, Massachusetts, which was located in a maritime city. South Danvers was more landlocked and surrounded by farms, whereas the wares made in South Danvers would had to have been shipped to Salem, Massachusetts, and then exported from that location. This would have added expenses to many of their business models; Turnbaugh concluded that many of the potters in South Danvers in the 1700s had limited opportunities to sell their production when compared to other potters.
Interestingly, based on the archaeology that I have studied collected at the Bayley Pottery site in Newburyport in the 1930s by Massachusetts author, Lura Woodside Watkins (1897-1982), I suspect there was even more going on at this business than what has previously been documented.
It has also previously been published that Joseph Wilson of the Wilson family of South Danvers, relocated to Dedham, Massachusetts in the early 1760s, and then to Providence, Rhode Island by 1767. He then advertised in 1767 that he was producing red earthenware in Providence that was similar to what was produced in Philadelphia: http://www.earlyamericanceramics.com/2025/05/two-slip-decorated-red-earthenware.html.
Wilson advertised in the Newport (Rhode Island) Mercury on June 22, 1767: "Joseph Wilson - potter at the North End of Providence Informs the Public that he can Supply them with Earthen Ware at a Cheap Rate, made in the best Manner and Glazed in the Same Way as Practised in Philadelphia - All Persons in this Town may be regularly supplied by Means of the Boats which constantly pass between this Place and Providence."
Nevertheless, some of the red earthenware mugs and bowls that I have studied, which were recovered at the Bayley site from circa 1760s-1770s archaeological contexts are similar to some wares produced in Philadelphia. The mugs in question are adorned with a tooled ribbing at the midsection, which was a popular style on various forms produced in Philadelphia. But this was also a technique produced on mugs manufactured at the industry in Charlestown, Massachusetts before the American Revolution: https://historicbeverly.net/product/the-dawn-of-independence-the-death-of-an-industry/.
Furthermore, while recently going through some of the eighteenth century red earthenware artifacts recovered over the years by archaeologists at Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I came across these green glazed red earthenware sherds with tooled ribbing. This is the same type of decoration applied at the midsection on some of the mugs produced in Newburyport, Charlestown and Philadelphia, etc., however, I have not seen any examples that were glazed green.
An 18th Century Green Glazed Red Earthenware Sherd with Tooled Ribbing
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