A subject that will be touched upon in my forthcoming two-volume, 1,660-page, tenth book, titled, An Early Industry of Household Wares: The Red Earthenware of Salem Village, Danvers, Peabody, Beverly and Salem, Massachusetts, will be the Bradford family's eighteenth and nineteenth century red earthenware production in parts of coastal Massachusetts. This new book will give a heavy emphasis towards the Quaker potters in Massachusetts, although the Bradfords were not a part of that religion. But a peculiar sherd recovered on property from a colonial house in Peabody, Massachusetts may shed some more light about production in Kingston, Massachusetts, otherwise it is likely related to production from the Southwick family in South Danvers (Peabody). Nonetheless, this is some of the information that will be included in Chapter 12 in Volume II of the new book:
"...The Bradford family in Kingston, Massachusetts, who were descendants of Governor William Bradford (1590-1657), although they were not Quakers but Pilgrim Separatists and members of the established "orthodox" church.
The family patriarch was a leading figure in the Scrooby Separatist congregation who fled England to the Netherlands and then to North America aboard the Mayflower in 1620 to escape religious persecution from the Church of England. He was a key author of the Mayflower Compact and was elected governor of Plymouth Colony many times.
The origin of the Bradford family pottery can be traced back to John Bradford (1732-1818), who reportedly began producing bricks and perhaps red earthenware, sometime around 1750 on his property in Kingston, a small coastal community in Plymouth County, which neighbors Plymouth, Massachusetts to the north. The family pottery then passed through multiple generations of ownership well into the nineteenth century, where multiple kilns were operated, and a family business was eventually established on Cape Cod in the 1800s.
Among the notable areas of production that this family is known for today was producing a vibrant green glaze that is similar in color to the greens produced by the Quaker potters in Bristol County, Massachusetts. The Bradfords also used various coggle wheel decorations, which are represented in the archaeology collected at the site of the Kingston business, kept today at Plimouth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C..."
Note: For more information about the Bradford family businesses – see my fifth book, titled, A Celebrated Industry: The Historic Wares of Southeastern Massachusetts, Bristol County and Cape Cod: https://historicbeverly.net/product/a-celebrated-industry-the-historic-wares-of-southeastern-massachusetts-bristol-county-and-cape-cod/.
Also see a feature story I wrote for the May 2019 issue of Maine Antique Digest, titled, The Bradford Family Potteries in Massachusetts: http://www.earlyamericanceramics.com/2019/04/the-bradford-family-potteries-in.html.
For more information about the Southwick family - see a feature story I wrote that was published on page 10 in the December 12, 2025 issue of Antiques And The Arts Weekly, titled, The Southwick Family Of Potters Of Salem & South Danvers, Mass.: http://www.earlyamericanceramics.com/2025/12/new-published-feature-story-in-antiques.html.
A Preview of Forthcoming Two-Volume Tenth Book
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
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