My forthcoming tenth book—a two-volume, 1,900-plus-page study titled An Early Industry of Household Wares: The Red Earthenware of Salem Village, Danvers, Peabody, Beverly and Salem, Massachusetts—serves in many ways as a continuation of my fifth book, A Celebrated Industry: The Historic Wares of Southeastern Massachusetts, Bristol County and Cape Cod. This stems from the red earthenware industry itself: the trade in the Danvers and Salem areas was largely driven by Quaker potters who were deeply intertwined with their counterparts in Bristol County. In fact, the Bristol County pottery industry was essentially an eighteenth century spinoff of these North Shore Quaker roots.
Prior to 1775, the Quaker communities of Bristol County and the Salem area were bound by a shared history, strict church governance, and tight family ties. Both groups emerged during the mid-1600s, forging a resilient bond out of the brutal persecution and public whippings they collectively endured under the Puritan government. By the 1700s, both communities—including their local red earthenware potters—were governed by the New England Yearly Meeting, a regional body that unified them through standardized lifestyle rules and coordinated legal resistance against mandatory Puritan church taxes.
These artisan communities maintained close contact through constant travel, maritime trade collaboration, and intermarriage, which was strictly required within the faith and resulted in vast interregional family networks. This unity extended to social reform; during the mid-eighteenth century, both regional meetings acted in lockstep to ban slavery, requiring members to free their enslaved laborers well before the Revolutionary War—though historical records show no evidence of enslaved labor within the potteries themselves.
It is against this backdrop of deep regional connection that we can better understand surviving artifacts. A preeminent example is this red earthenware jar, recovered from a house in Westport, Massachusetts years ago. It stands as a superior representation of Bristol County pottery manufactured during the 1780–1830 period.
Note: For more information about the persecution of Quakers in Salem in the 1600s - see a feature story I wrote 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.
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
No comments:
Post a Comment