A Style of Red Earthenware Bowl Often Recovered from Circa 1740-1820 Archaeological Contexts

There is a type of eighteenth and early nineteenth century red earthenware bowl, likely British in origin, which will be discussed in detail in my forthcoming two-volume, tenth book, titled, An Early Industry of Household Wares: The Red Earthenware of Salem Village, Danvers, Peabody, Beverly and Salem, Massachusetts, as well as a future published research article. This type of bowl has been found at a variety of coastal locations along the American eastern seaboard, circa 1740-1820 archaeological contexts, and was likely used in many American households during this period. Objects such as this type of bowl also represent the "global goods" that connected American markets to major European pottery centers, as well as historic American cities and archaeology sites.

The archaeological contexts that this type of production has been recovered include the Fortress of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia, Canada, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Salem, Massachusetts, the site of the Three Cranes Tavern in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the Paul Revere House in Boston's North End neighborhood, Boston's African Meeting House, Battery Park in Manhattan and Philadelphia, among other locations

Furthermore, the glaze on this bowl also appears to have been imitated at the circa 1764-1799 Daniel Bayley (1729-1792) Pottery Company in Newburyport, Massachusetts, based on a surviving object and sherds owned by the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

There is also a similar type of red earthenware bowl known from the Salem, Bethabara, or Mount Shepherd Potteries in North Carolina in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. The shape of the bowl and flat rim are very similar to the imported bowls, as well as the slip decorated interior, although it is also adorned with crossing lines of green and brown slip decoration, which may have been modeled after "tortoiseshell ware" that was popularized by the English potter, Thomas Whieldon (1719-1795) in the 1700s. 

Type of Red Earthenware Bowl Often Recovered from Ca. 1740-1820 Contexts

Various Archaeological Examples Recovered in Massachusetts

See Article for More Information

Photo Courtesy: City of Boston Archaeology Program and the Smithsonian Institute

Eighteenth or Early Nineteenth Century Red Earthenware Bowl

This is a Surviving Example, Likely British in Origin

Photo Courtesy: National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institute

These are American Made Examples

(Top) The Mug was Likely Made in Massachusetts in the 1700s

(Bottom) The Bowl is Attributed to North Carolina, Ca. Late 18th or Early 19th Century

Photo Courtesy: Private Collection and Crocker Farm

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