This salt-glazed stoneware canning jar is impressed with the rare maker's mark
HEATWOLE & SILBER
ROCKINGHAM CO. VA
which represents a brief partnership operation between potters John D. Heatwole and
Joseph Silber in Dry River, VA, near Harrisonburg. This partnership was short-lived,
lasting only about a year, sometime around 1866. Very few pieces bearing this mark
have survived. This example has an attractive, narrow, tall-collared form, more decorative
than a standard crock or cream jar. The interior of the rim has a tooled ledge to fit a canning
lid of some sort. The jar appears to hold approximately a half gallon. Heatwole and
Silber were both skilled, master potters, each successful enough to operate independently
for several years, and stamp ware with their own individual signatures. This is a rare opportunity
to own a piece of stoneware made at a time when the two found it lucrative to combine their efforts.
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