While traveling through upstate New York last month with my nephew Jason and niece Alexis, we stopped at the
Clinton, New York Historical Society to learn more about the museum's collection of advertising slipware made at the John Betts Gregory Pottery in downtown Clinton. We were also given a tour of the site of the pottery, and learned that basically very little archaeology survives from this business today because of late-nineteenth and twentieth century development. As a result, it is almost impossible to differentiate the lesser decorated slipware made by Gregory in Clinton from what he also made in Connecticut and Long Island. But we also learned that very little is known about Gregory's simpler production without slip, and that some of his slipware in Clinton can even be mistaken for wares made in Pennsylvania.
However, despite the fact there is missing information about Gregory's production in Clinton, his story is still a fascinating subject to learn. In 1896, Reverend Charles Melbourne Selleck (1831-1909) wrote
Norwalk, "in an attempt to bring the town's history fully to light, and to preserve and to perpetuate its mentions and memoirs. Many of these were gathered by the author while engaged in the necessarily hasty preparation of his 1886 St. Paul's Church centenary address in Norwalk, Connecticut, but most of them have since been collected, and their public presentation upon the eve of the town's quarter-millennial birth anniversary."
As part of Reverend Selleck's history of
Norwalk was the life of John Betts Gregory (1782-1842), a potter who began and ended his career in Norwalk; although, I believe Reverend Selleck's recount was the first time Gregory's entire career had been published, only to be later cited in some twentieth century historical and pottery related publications.
According to Reverend Selleck, "
John Betts Gregory was born in Norwalk in 1782 to Abraham and Elizabeth Gregory, who lived where the late Henry Marvin resided, on East Avenue, and south of the ancient Beacham Lane. He learned his trade (potter) of Absalom Day (1770-1843) of "Old Well (neighborhood in Norwalk)." After his marriage to Olive (1786-1883), he had a good business offer from Huntington, Long Island, which he accepted. He afterward established a pottery in Clinton, Oneida County, New York, which required a building 140x40 for his operations. He returned in 1831 to Norwalk and bought from Samuel Hanford, Half-Mile Isle, paying $325.00. He there built a kiln for the burning of earthenware and stoneware. The kiln was erected in 1832 by masons Lewis and George Raymond of "Old Well." The business was here kept up until 1840. Mr. Gregory died July 22, 1842."
Situated almost 50 miles east of Syracuse, New York and in between Rochester, New York and Albany, New York, the Village of Clinton was settled in 1787 by Revolutionary War Veterans and families from Plymouth, Connecticut, having been named after New York's first governor, George Clinton (1739-1812). This settlement eventually expanded into a town, joining Kirkland in the nineteenth century, but the original village was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The reason why Gregory moved to landlocked upstate New York may have been a simple desire to operate his own pottery, but he may have also heard news of Clinton's connection to Connecticut and other areas in this part of New York. There may have also been a financial incentive to move.
Nevertheless, Gregory arrived in Clinton sometime around 1808-1810 with his wife and two daughters, purchasing a pottery from Erastus Barnes, Clinton's first potter. But Gregory's desire to move north may have also been a religious quest, seeing that at the time, parts of New York were engulfed with new religious movements in the early-nineteenth century, finding much of this activity in central and western upstate New York.
Aside from his family, Gregory brought along his knowledge of slip-decoration and slip-script, which he had learned from Absalom Day in Connecticut, a New Jersey trained potter who arrived in Norwalk about 1793. But he likely practiced this type of production while employed in Huntington, as well sometime around the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century.
John Betts Gregory may have been the first red earthenware potter producing slip-decorated pottery in upstate New York, a technique that was already practiced in
downstate New York, and later embraced by a number of potters employed in Western New York. But he clearly manufactured a lot of wares while employed in Clinton for about 20 years, circa 1810-1829. The most notable of those objects today are the wares that were decorated with slip, but he must have produced simpler decorated pottery in the same manner. Much of this production was also likely intended for local consumption.
Unfortunately, not much is left of the Clinton Pottery today, since the
Owens-Pavlot Funeral Home was built on top of the pottery in the nineteenth century and also occupying Betts' home, having been established in 1867.
Interestingly, the personalities of most early American potters are not known; however, author, Amos Delos Gridley published
History of the Town of Kirkland, New York in 1874, describing the businesses of Erastus Barnes and Gregory, as well as a first-hand account he had been told by someone who knew Gregory: "
Erastus Barnes established the first pottery in Clinton, his works being nearly in the rear of the late Reverend Charles Jerome's residence on College Street (Hamilton College established in 1793). He found clay of an excellent quality on the Gleason farm, near Manchester, and his business was, for those times, large and lucrative. Mr. John B. Gregory succeeded him, and carried on the same industry for several years. He was quite a recluse, being seldom seen outside of his own premises. Yet he had a genial soul, and loved to scatter jokes and bits of humor among old and young who came to inspect his works or to buy his wares. He was a devout Methodist. Placing a lump of clay on his lathe, he would set his wheel a-spinning, and, while moulding pan or jug or other vessel, would burst into some old refrain, as --
"Behold the potter and the clay !
He forms his vessels as he please."
Among the best known examples of slipware produced by Gregory in Clinton is a large slip-script plate, "
Why / Will You / Die," which has been published, and was owned for many years by retired New York State archaeologist and museum specialist,
George Hamell. Other notable objects of interest include a
slip-decorated vase with two eagles, as well as another plate inscribed, "
Made / By J B G / Oct 18 1823 / Clinton" (see below), which is considered one of the earliest examples of dated and signed red earthenware from New York.
John Betts Gregory's Pottery in Clinton, New York
My Nephew Jason and Niece Alexis Outside the Clinton, NY Historical Society
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My Niece Alexis Admiring Two Pieces of Advertising Slipware
Red Earthenware Made by John Gregory Betts in Clinton, NY
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The Site of John Betts Gregory's Pottery in Clinton, NY
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The Site of John Betts Gregory's Pottery in Clinton, NY
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Sign on the House Once Owned by John Betts Gregory in Clinton, NY
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The Site of John Betts Gregory's Pottery in Clinton, NY
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Building Behind the Site of the John Betts Gregory Pottery in Clinton, NY
Most of the Archaeology was Likely Removed Because of this Type of Construction
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Some Red Earthenware Artifacts Found Behind the Site of the John Betts Gregory Pottery
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Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
