This post is another preview of my forthcoming two-volume, 1,800+ page, tenth book, titled, An Early Industry of Household Wares: The Red Earthenware of Salem Village, Danvers, Peabody, Beverly and Salem, Massachusetts: http://www.earlyamericanceramics.com/2026/01/update-on-new-book-book-sent-to.html.
While conducting research for the new book, I thought it was important to describe the known history of a small, black-glazed red earthenware pitcher found near Peabody, which is dated '1755. Here is that story.
"...In the nineteenth century, Salem Village in Danvers, Massachusetts, the site of the infamous 1692 Witch Trials, experienced a dramatic revival. This resurgence was fueled by a national wave of nostalgia, as well as a need for the region to find a new identity. Salem’s shipping industry was in the decline and the idea of the area’s dark past was beginning to attract visitors from all over. This movement turned a place of historical tragedy into a destination for literature and heritage.
For example, the stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) made the town’s history feel like a romantic mystery. Hawthorne reached his greatest success in 1850 with the publication of The Scarlet Letter, followed quickly by his haunted Salem masterpiece, The House of the Seven Gables, in 1851.
Second, as the 200th anniversary of the trials approached in 1892, the community began to actively preserve old landmarks and market itself as the "Witch City." By looking backward at its Puritan roots, the area was able to move forward, transforming its local heritage into a permanent part of the American imagination that still exists today.
About twenty years ago, my father, Richard Thomas, found a peculiar small, nineteenth-century black-glazed red earthenware pitcher with a glazed base near Peabody. Glazed bases are a documented style from several South Danvers and Peabody potters in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The pitcher’s hand-painted date of '1775' immediately piqued his interest. While the piece clearly does not date back to the eighteenth century, it may be a revival piece made by a later generation of Osborn potters. Alternatively, it could be a commemorative item produced in 1892 at the Moses Paige Pottery to mark the bicentennial of the 1692 Salem Village Witch Trials. Interestingly, Paige acquired the old Osborn Pottery on Central Street in the 1870s and operated it until the 1940s—a subject explored in greater detail in Volume II.
Furthermore, on January 28, 1752, Salem Village broke away from Salem to become a separate district named Danvers. By 1755, it had begun to operate as its own town, and it was officially incorporated as the Town of Danvers on June 9, 1757."
Note: The late eighteenth and/or nineteenth-century black glazed red earthenware pitcher shown below, as well as the jug, were likely produced in South Danvers or Peabody. This is the same jug I mentioned in the Preface of Volume I as an early influence on my interest in this style of pottery.
The black glazed red earthenware sherds were collected at the site of the Osborn, Reed and Paige Pottery in Peabody, and are discussed in the book, The Moses B. Paige Company: The Last of the Peabody Potteries: https://historicbeverly.net/product/the-moses-b-paige-company-the-last-of-the-peabody-potteries/.
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
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