While red earthenware production in Bristol County, Massachusetts, is included throughout my forthcoming two-volume, 1,900+ page, tenth book—An Early Industry of Household Wares: The Red Earthenware of Salem Village, Danvers, Peabody, Beverly and Salem, Massachusetts—Chapter 2 of Volume I focuses specifically on this region. A subject briefly included in the chapter is an 1892 newspaper advertisement regarding a monumental, 75-gallon exhibition jar produced by the Somerset Pottery Works of Pottersville. The advertisement reads: "The Somerset Pottery Works of Pottersville has just completed a jar that holds 75 gallons, which they will send to the World's Fair which will be held at Chicago in '92."
This massive vessel was manufactured to showcase New England’s superior stoneware craftsmanship to an international audience at the World’s Columbian Exposition. Although the announcement credits the company as a whole, local historical records and trade tradition identify master turner Charles E. Hathaway (1853-1944) as the elite craftsman who actually threw and shaped the object. Hathaway was widely recognized as one of the few artisans in Bristol County with the skill required to construct a stoneware piece of that immense size without it collapsing on the wheel or cracking inside the kiln. While regional manufacturers spent the entirety of 1892 preparing and shipping their finest showpieces for the fair's May 1893 grand opening, I have found no evidence that this specific jar survives today. Does anyone know if it still exists?
The year after this advertisement ran, the local pottery landscape expanded when William (1860-1946) and Patrick Synan (1858-1924) established the Synan Brothers Pottery in 1893. Operating in Somerset's Pottersville district until 1912, this business was also known for manufacturing large utilitarian objects, such as commercial storage crocks.
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