Let’s dive back into the Bradford family’s red earthenware business of Kingston, Massachusetts. As I mentioned yesterday, this historic pottery first caught the eye of modern collectors and historians back in 1974, when a group of pitchers sold as part of the landmark Chris Huntington sale in Maine. Decades later, the piece that I posted from my personal collection a few days ago was used as a primary comparative model against archaeological artifacts held at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Recognizing the historical value of this archaeology, the history of the Bradford family was then published in a five-page feature story I wrote for the May 2019 issue of Maine Antique Digest, titled “The Bradford Family Potteries in Massachusetts.” This information was then published again in my fifth book, A Celebrated Industry: The Historic Wares of Southeastern Massachusetts, Bristol County and Cape Cod: https://historicbeverly.net/product/a-celebrated-industry-the-historic-wares-of-southeastern-massachusetts-bristol-county-and-cape-cod/.
Nonetheless, the archaeology from the Bradford Pottery owned by the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., reveals distinctive coggle wheel styles unlike anything else found on New England red earthenware. Collected in the twentieth century, these coggle wheel patterns—along with other archaeological evidence—directly match the coggle wheel decorations found on the red earthenware pitchers I posted about this week. This evidence also connects to other known forms, including a pot in the collection of the Plymouth, Massachusetts Public Library.
For a brief history: This historic potting lineage descended directly from Governor William Bradford (1590-1657), the Mayflower passenger who led the Plymouth Colony for over thirty years. Generations later, the family's Kingston pottery operation began around 1750 under John Bradford (1732–1811) and continued well into the nineteenth century. To sustain the regional brick-making and red earthenware business, John and his son, Stephen Bradford (1771–1837), managed the kiln and worked the local clay pits alongside other family members and local apprentices. The operation's enduring success eventually inspired a spinoff family business located on Cape Cod.
Note: For more information about the archaeology of the Bradford Pottery - see Martha L. Sulya's Graduate Masters Thesis, Ubiquitous and Unfamiliar: Earthenware Pottery Production Techniques and the Bradford Family Pottery of Kingston, MA: https://scholarworks.umb.edu/masters_theses/326/.
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
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