For those of you who enjoyed my seventh book, titled, From One Town Came Many: The Red Earthenware Industry of Ancient North Yarmouth, Maine, there will be two sections about Maine red earthenware in Volume II of my forthcoming 1,100-1,300 page, two-volume, tenth book, titled, An Early Industry of Household Wares: The Red Earthenware of Salem Village, South Danvers, Peabody and Salem, Massachusetts. These sections explain how production from Essex County, Massachusetts and the Boston area influenced some production in New Hampshire and Vermont in northern New England, although the main focus will be some of the potters in Maine.
The reason for this is because the names Alld, Bickford, Corliss, Dodge, Norcross, Philbrick, Porter and Safford, as well as the industry in North Yarmouth can all be traced back to the Essex County and Boston area in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. In most cases, these families relocated to New Hampshire and Maine in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, otherwise they were somehow influenced by Massachusetts families. For instance, one family in particular, the Porters of Wiscasset, Maine came from a family of potters in Danvers.
This is some information that will be included in the book about the Safford family of Kennebec County, Maine: "...The Safford family's red earthenware production began in Monmouth, Maine when John Milford Safford (1811-1880) arrived about 1830 after he had apprenticed in Exeter, New Hampshire, presumably with the Dodge family. Safford's cousin, John Safford II (1797-1879), followed a similar path and established his own shop in Monmouth by 1838. The thought is that the two often stamped their wares to distinguish their products. There is also some speculation that some of the more elaborate pieces may have been created to showoff their skill between the potteries, seeing that much of their production was intended for the local marketplace, and probably communities located around the Kennebec River and the Androscoggin River.
However, it may not be widely known today that the Safford family actually continued to produce red earthenware into the twentieth century - John M. Safford's son George Llewellyn Safford (1847-1921) was also a potter and he continued in the family tradition in some capacity well into the 1900s. In fact, his obituary reading in part, "George Llewellyn Safford, a pottery manufacturer of Monmouth, Me., died at his home in that town on January 20. Mr. Safford was born in Monmouth Ridge in 1847, and after his education in the public schools went into business with his father, an old time potter, later acquiring the business.
The Safford family migrated to New Hampshire in the eighteenth century when Benjamin Safford relocated from Ipswich, Massachusetts to Exeter, when he married Susanna Mahlon Safford (1738-1798) in 1763. The Safford family originated in America in Essex County, Massachusetts in the seventeenth century..."
Displayed in the Americana Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is a lidded red earthenware jar from Monmouth, which was sold to the museum in the 1990s by Manhattan dealers Garrison and Diana Stradling. The jar is heavily stamped with the different types of impressed decorations used by the Saffords, although the bottom of the lid is inscribed "S J Jewett / Monmouth / August 18, 1838 / JMS.” The jar is also inscribed near base in pin-pricked block backwards letters: "S J JEWETT."
I have not been successful in finding someone living with this name in Monmouth in 1838, although there was a Joseph J. Jewett (1836-1913), who was born in Monmouth in 1836. He was listed as a farmer in Monmouth in the 1850, 1860 and 1870 United States Federal Censuses; the record shown below is from the 1850 Census. Jewett lived his entire life in Monmouth.
The Safford Family Pottery of Monmouth, Maine
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
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