Talk at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on Tuesday, June 2, 2026

For those interested - I will be speaking about the history of red earthenware production in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, circa 1730s-1880s, etc. at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth on June 2. This is an overview of my talk: 

"European household pottery began to arrive in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire area in the early seventeenth century, closely following the initial English settlement in 1630, which was driven by trade in fish, fur, and timber. However, it was in the first-half of the eighteenth century that domestic red earthenware was imported and manufactured in Portsmouth. Archaeological and documented evidence reveals red earthenware made at the industry in Charlestown, Massachusetts was shipped to Portsmouth before 1755, some of which was purchased by Samuel Marshall (d. 1749), a local potter who operated on land owned today by Strawbery Banke. Marshall also had at least one African slave who worked at his pottery business. 

Nonetheless, this import system likely continued until Charlestown's industry was destroyed at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. After the American Revolution, a potter named Winthrop Bennett (1757-1826) was active, although his business was acquired in the 1790s by Joseph Dodge (1776-1849), who was born in Exeter, New Hampshire in 1776. Joseph came from a family of potters in Exeter, where the family also established a longstanding pottery business in Portland, Maine. Joseph's house and likely his kiln was located on Dearborn Street near the Piscataqua River, existing for decades under multiple generations of family ownership. It is not widely known today, but Portsmouth sustained red earthenware businesses in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, while also absorbing some red earthenware imported from other coastal parts of New England.

Interestingly, not much is known about Winthrop Bennett’s career; he was born in Portsmouth in 1757, although he was living with his family in Moultonborough, New Hampshire in 1800, which was a red earthenware production center. He also appears to have died in Vermont between 1825-1828, but it is unclear if he was a potter in Vermont."

Talk at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Talk at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, N.H. on June 2

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Talk at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, N.H. on June 2

See Article for More Information

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