19th Century Stoneware Production in Portland, Maine and Its Ties to Exeter, New Hampshire and Peabody, Massachusetts

As I noted in a post from yesterday, "An important piece of stoneware history in the Peabody, Massachusetts area is partly a result of Joseph Reed (1809-1884), who acquired the old Osborn Pottery in Peabody in the 1850s, but he was listed as a “retired potter” in the 1870 United States Federal Census in Peabody. It was about this time that he had leased the business to Rufus Lamson (1844-1928) of Exeter, New Hampshire and later Charles F. Worthen (1852-1930), a businessman born in Lawrence, Massachusetts. There is some stoneware today that bear’s Worthen’s name, although he ordered the pottery from another American manufacturer.

Interestingly, the Exeter Historical Society owns a crock marked "F.H. LAMSON / EXETER, N.H.," which is decorated with similar birds in cobalt that are known from some of the stoneware impressed with Worthen's name. This likely indicates the two businesses were using the same manufacturer to order stoneware in wholesale amounts; the Moses Paige Pottery, which followed Worthen's company in Peabody, operated in a similar style in the late nineteenth and twentieth century, using a comparable business model selling a variety of goods purchased in wholesale amounts from other American manufacturers, as well as locally produced red earthenware."

This connection between Peabody and Exeter also spread to Portland, Maine; Eban Swasey (1843-1906) apprenticed as a potter in Exeter, although in 1875 he partnered with Rufus Lamson in Portland, establishing the Portland Earthen-Ware Factory. The firm produced both red earthenware and stoneware.

The firm split about 1890, which is when Swasey established E. Swasey & Co., producing a variety of pottery at 273 Commercial Street. This company remained in business until about 1930.

Note: For more information about stoneware production in Portland - see my seventh published book, titled, From One Town Came Many: The Red Earthenware Industry of Ancient North Yarmouth Maine: https://historicbeverly.net/product/from-one-town-came-many-the-red-earthenware-industry-of-ancient-north-yarmouth-maine/.

19th Century Stoneware Production in Portland, Maine

19th Century Two-Gallon Stoneware Crock Adorned with Cobalt Decorated Bird

Impressed "LAMSON & SWASEY / PORTLAND, ME"

Circa 1875

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Photo Courtesy: Private Collection

A View of the Mark

Impressed "LAMSON & SWASEY / PORTLAND, ME"

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Photo Courtesy: Private Collection

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