FAHRENHEIT 2300 by Crocker Farm

I wanted to briefly update those interested in my Thomas Commeraw project on its status and what has happened since I first announced it back on March 31. First, although I have already done so privately, I want to publicly thank those of you who have been so helpful in providing photographs of Commeraw’s work (and David Morgan’s pieces) for use in my book. I am very grateful for your willingness to participate in what I think is an important endeavor for the study of not just American stoneware but American decorative arts in general. I understand that it is no small favor that you have done me in trusting me with handling images of your pieces. Secondly, I want to thank everyone for their encouragement as I come down the home stretch of my writing and putting the book together. Whether providing me with pictures or simply offering kind words of support, the response I have received since announcing this undertaking has meant a lot to me.

As for the status of this project, I have dedicated a significant amount of time over the past few months to writing, and I am pleased with the progress I have made. I expect and hope to have a rough draft finished quite soon, and am very dedicated to making that happen. Since Commeraw’s surviving work is naturally an important part of the book, I just wanted to once again invite anyone in possession of either his pottery or other Corlears Hook stoneware to participate in this project. Anonymity and discretion are extremely important to me, and while when possible I would love to photograph your pieces myself, that is not necessary. In many cases I am able to use photos taken by you, and submitting them is as simple as emailing them to me. I have a fairly large, representative number of photographs of various pieces of Commeraw’s pottery right now, but I would love to expand it. Even pictures of common pieces are useful to me, but I am of course particularly seeking any unusual stoneware made in Corlears Hook―this includes the quite rare vessels stamped “COERLEARS HOOK” (note the alternate spelling) and often decorated with incised floral decorations, canning jars (and really any type of stoneware) made in the typical Commeraw style but stamped with merchant marks, and anything that would be considered different from the norm. Click here to see some photos of Commeraw’s stoneware; the canning jars and Ashmore’s Genuine Cordials jug are a couple of examples of the more unusual pieces I am seeking. As I said, even typical pieces are of value to me, but if you are curious if something you have falls into the category of rare or strange―or even if you have something that you think was made by Commeraw but aren’t sure―please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you all again for your much appreciated support and I will continue to keep everyone updated as the summer wears on. If you ever want to contact me about photos or anything else at all, the easiest way to do so is through the following web page: http://www.commeraw.com/contact.

The “MOORE & FOOTE” crock to be sold in our upcoming July 17 stoneware and redware auction is a very interesting example of American advertising stoneware. The impressed mark is one of the longest, most detailed I have ever seen:

MOORE & FOOTE WHOLESALE DEALERS IN GROCERIES, PROVISIONS,
WHITEFISH & TROUT STONEWARE PAINTS OILS, DYEWOODS SASH &
GLASS ANCHORS ROPES, CANVASS & OTHER SHIPCHANDLERY

I did my best in transcribing the punctuation, and also added spaces where, as you can see in the photo below, the potter did not bother to. I am also fairly certain the last character is supposed to be a “Y,” but it looks like the pottery had to improvise and use an upside-down “7″ or some other stamp.

Moore and Foote—Franklin Moore and George Foote—were not potters; they were very prominent merchants in the city of Detroit. In a book written in the latter part of the nineteenth century, History of Detroit and Wayne County and Early Michigan, the author, Silas Farmer, wrote,

In 1835 Mr. [Franklin] Moore engaged in the grocery business, and carried it on alone until 1837, when his store and stock were destroyed by fire. The same year he started a new store …, the firm continuing until 1846, and doing a large and ever-increasing business. It was succeeded by the wholesale and retail grocery house of Moore & Foote, George Foote being the junior partner. In 1859, on the admission of John J. Bagley, the name of the firm was changed to Moore, Foote & Company, and for many years they did the largest business of any grocery firm in the State, their sales aggregating millions of dollars annually. (History of Detroit and Wayne County and early Michigan by Silas Farmer, 1890, Volume 2, pg. 1220)

An item I found in a Michigan newspaper printed in 1869 was effusive in its praise of Moore and Foote:

A few weeks since a justly deserved compliment was paid through the columns of the Mining Gazette, to the high character of the well-known house of Messrs. MOORE, FOOTE & CO., of Detroit. There is not, probably, a merchant or mining company on Lake Superior who cannot vouch for every word of that high encomium. Ever courteous and affable in their intercourse with patrons, and exceeding lenient to all who are willing, though at all times unables to meet their obligations promptly, these gentlemen have won a place in the estimation of their many friends on the Lake, second to no other house east or west.
(Lake Superior Miner [Ontonagon, Michigan], 9/11/1869)

Moore and Foote were apparently kingpins of the Detroit merchant scene.

The crock itself may have been made under the auspices of some pottery owned by Moore and Foote, but very probably not, as is almost always the case with advertising stoneware such as this. It very closely resembles Wisconsin stoneware that I have seen, but it wasn’t necessarily made there, and could have been made in Detroit or elsewhere in Michigan or nearby Ohio by some potter using the same style. Little has been written about potters working in this area of the Great Lakes region, but my main initiative in writing this brief article is to establish the identities of the merchants Moore & Foote, and to discuss what I believe is a fascinating aspect of American stoneware production.

Growing up around stoneware and seeing the myriad advertising pieces that stand alongside those that bear potters’ marks (or no marks at all), I tended to take for granted their existence without thinking much about why they were there. But I think exploring their origin helps us not only to better understand these piece themselves, but to better understand the nineteenth century American stoneware industry in general.

Merchants who bought stoneware directly from potteries who emblazoned the vessels with their names were obviously concerned with “getting their name out there.” (For another discussion of merchant stoneware, see this article, written about one year ago). But different merchants seem to have had different mindsets about what they were accomplishing when they ordered their stoneware. Sometimes the marks seem like requisite afterthoughts, affixed mostly because it was the proper thing to do, and because the potter did it for free or cheaply. I hesitate to lower stoneware to the critical level of a free pen given out at a trade show, but I do think the same mindset always came into play with advertising stoneware—in using a vessel (or a pen) on a daily basis, the consumer is constantly reminded of whatever firm’s name is imprinted thereon. Often (I would say usually) the jug, jar, or bottle bore simply the merchant’s name and (though not always) his city. I’m not sure how much control over the wording on a particular pot the merchant had, but my educated guess is that in most cases the pottery had a standard way of handling things, which could be altered for extra money or through some other arrangement. So if Smith & Jones in Scranton, Pennsylvania, dealers in turpentine, wanted a group of jugs to sell their turpentine in, the pottery, by default, probably marked them “SMITH & JONES / SCRANTON, PA.” Had Messrs. Smith and Jones wanted their jug to spell out “DEALERS IN TURPENTINE, &C.,” they most certainly could have had that done, but it might have cost more money—or, perhaps, taken nothing more than extra negotiation or a friendly request.

So what was the point of stamping your name (and sometimes city) alone on a particular piece of pottery? I’m sure this often confused consumers. How was someone supposed to always know the difference between a maker’s mark and a merchant’s mark? Suppose they saw a beautiful jug and wanted to contact the pottery for a bunch of their own? If all they had to go on was the name impressed in the clay, wouldn’t they assume that person was the potter? This is the same problem we often encounter today in evaluating pottery. By now so many potteries are documented, but unknown marks, or barely-documented ones, turn up all the time. Often a piece is so obviously made by a known pottery that the mystery mark on it is very certainly that of some other business owner. But sometimes not, and we have to turn to paper documents to sort things out.

Often these names were so well-known to consumers of their time period that no further introduction was needed. This seems to be the case for Moore and Foote, though they still felt the need to be long-winded. But what happened when this wasn’t so? I’m sure, actually, that this was partly the point. Any particular pot stamped with a merchant’s mark was meant to direct you to that merchant. You could buy stoneware directly from a pottery, but you could also buy it from a middle-man—and that was the business relationship that the mark was supposed to initiate. This might seem like a bad deal for the potter, but it was not. Whether a pottery sold its stoneware to an agent or sold it right out of their warehouse was probably neither here nor there, and any lost mark-up that they normally enjoyed in dealing with the general public was simply the cost of doing business.

In many cases, then, I believe the merchant shop, for all intents and purposes, wanted the consumer to see a particular pot as its product, not that of the local (or distant) stoneware manufactory. For small towns where the stoneware industry was non-existent, I’m sure customers had little choice (or barely knew better) than to procure all of their stoneware through merchants. But in localities where the stoneware industry was booming, and well-known to residents—say, Bennington, Vermont, or Baltimore, Maryland—the consumer was presented with a choice between merchants or potteries. I wonder if some potteries, like most modern-day companies providing consumer goods, simply did not deal with the general public. I really doubt this, however; potters needed to make money wherever they could, and often bartered for their ware, taking necessities like firewood in exchange. Sometimes, I suppose, the price a person paid at a merchant store was the same or even less than they paid directly from the potter, depending on what the merchant paid for the ware, and what specials they might have been running on that particular day.

This implies, however, that the merchants were even selling stoneware as a standalone commodity. In the case of any theoretical company like Smith and Jones, who sold nothing but turpentine and a few other odds and ends, the only stoneware they sold would probably be given over as containers for their primary product. So a customer who needed turpentine also received a stoneware jug for his or her money. Smith and Jones wouldn’t have even bothered dealing with stoneware manufacturers if they didn’t need vessels to hold their turpentine. Taking businesses like this into account, as far as distribution of stoneware went, there were probably only a few different types of merchant shops.

There were those who sold specific consumables like liquor or turpentine, and who only provided stoneware as containers to customers. In these cases, the stoneware may have been handed over as part of some deposit system.

There were merchants who acted as brokers for stoneware potters—either selling the stoneware of one particular pottery at a time, or maybe offering the wares of a few different ones. In my Commeraw article of 5/31/2009, I noted that a Portland, Maine, merchant had advertised, in an 1828 newspaper, “a large assortment of ‘Croliu’s’ [sic] New York painted, superior ware,” claiming that he was “agent for several extensive New York manufactories” of all kinds of goods. In my 6/8/2009 article on the Boston advertising jug, I likewise mentioned how David D. Wells, a Boston merchant, had advertised that he was a “Wholesale and Retail Dealer in every description of BENNINGTON STONE WARE” in the 1859 Boston city directory. An extreme example of these types of dealers would be someone like D.P. Hobart in Williamsport, PA, who sold ware made at the local pottery, which was stamped “D.P. HOBART, Agent / Williamsport, PA.” Within this framework, there were probably infinite iterations of how a particular firm did business. Some probably openly sold, say, stoneware marked “J. & E. NORTON / BENNINGTON, VT.” Others sold pieces like the subject of this article—made by a stoneware pottery, but marked with the merchant’s name. Those businessmen who chose to have their names emblazoned on a jug or jar had varying philosophies on the “ad space” of the vessel, and those that saw it as a valuable marketing tool had nice, descriptive stamps fashioned. Others were content with their name, and maybe address. For those that only sold stoneware marked with their own name, I wonder how often they marketed it as the product of a particular pottery, or how forthcoming they were as to its origin. And still other merchants probably sold a mixture of both—for instance, some marked with the Nortons’ stamp, some other identical ones marked with their own.

But the vast majority of merchant shops—especially in the case of run-of-the-mill general merchants—probably provided stoneware in both the above two ways. Someone could come into the shop and buy grain, liquor, or pickles, and take it home in a stoneware vessel. Another person might be in need of a group of containers for his home or farm, and take back a quantity of empty stoneware. Consumers buying stoneware as its own product or merely as a container could have ended up with pottery marked by the maker or marked with the merchant’s name, probably at the discretion of said merchant. In some cases, the merchant probably saw, say, the Nortons’ stoneware as a good, salable brand, and thus favored it as the product they offered. Others probably saw more value in having their own name affixed, and that was the product they offered. Perhaps, in fact, stoneware bearing merchants’ names was (usually) that designed only to be sold as a secondary container, and stoneware bearing the potter’s name was that supposed to be sold as its own product.

In the end, this brief discussion probably provides more questions than it does answers. But I think they are questions worth considering as we attempt to understand this eighteenth and nineteenth century product we value as art and how, and why, the general public bought it.

A small-sized stoneware rum jug with an interesting history will cross the block in our April 10 auction. Standing just 5 1/4″ tall, the jug was made for Brooklyn, New York sea captain, Julius Frank Caulkins, and bears his initials, along with the inscription “His Jug,” across the front. The vessel is consistent in form and color to stoneware produced in Caulkins’ home state of New York, circa 1860-1870.

The captain was born on January 27, 1833, and eventually became master of the ship “Energy,” a fully-rigged vessel built in South Boston in 1860. It measured 168 feet long, had a 34 foot beam, and weighed 967 tons.

“Energy” was wrecked on Hunting Island, South Carolina, on October 20, 1872. Fortunately, Caulkins, his wife, and his prized jug survived. Apparently, there was some discussion as to whether the jug’s contents played a role in the grounding of the ship. Caulkins account of previous damage sustained by “Energy” nine years earlier was printed in the February 1, 1863 of the New York Times:

DEAR SIRS: After encountering a succession of the heaviest gales I ever experienced, in which I lost sails, stove boats, twisted off the rudder-head, and sustained other damage, I was compelled to bear up for this place to repair damages. I shall proceed at once with the necessary repairs, which I hope will be completed in about 10 days, when I shall leave for your port.

Yours truly, JULIUS F. CAULKINS,

Master of ship Energy.

After years of cheating death, an incident five years after the wreck in South Carolina would prove fatal for the captain. On January 3, 1877, Caulkins was lost at sea aboard the steamer, “George Cromwell,” which wrecked near Newfoundland. All hands were lost.

For stoneware enthusiasts, presentation pieces stir our curiosity when they come along. We often wonder who, exactly, they were made for, and why they were made for that particular person. Oftentimes, they are a relative of a potter or an important figure within a certain community. However, presentation pieces are often difficult to research, particularly when they are inscribed only with the owner’s initials. Fortunately for this little jug, it remained in the captain’s family. Having survived 150 years (and a shipwreck) Caulkins’ jug ultimately descended to his great grandson, its consignor. And while so much information on pottery is lost at sea, so to speak, this one’s colorful history has thankfully survived.

The stoneware of Thomas Commeraw, made in Corlears Hook, on the East River in New York City, has been valued by historians and collectors for about as long as any stoneware made in the United States. The work of the early Manhattan potters was some of the first to be recognized as important American material culture, way back around the turn of the twentieth century. At that time, authors and students had it pretty easy–a lot of the potters we now write about and spend a great deal of time trying to research were actually alive back then. But the work of the Croliuses, the Remmeys, Thomas Commeraw, and David Morgan in New York all caught the eye of people interested in decorative arts, early on. A lot has been written about their work, and about the men themselves. One of my favorite books on American stoneware, William Ketchum’s Potters and Potteries of New York State, 1650-1900, has been the definitive work on the Manhattan potters, and the entirety of what we have known about Thomas Commeraw, in particular, is encompassed in that work. Not at all a criticism of Ketchum and his near-exhaustive work, but there was something he and the scores of other authors who have written about Commeraw missed.

Thomas Commeraw was not another potter of European descent working beside the Croliuses and Remmeys. He was a free African American. I discovered this fact some time ago by chance and at the time I was so shocked by this revelation that I wondered if there were two different Thomas Commeraws running around Manhattan during the time period. But there were not, and since then I have spent a lot of time trying to flesh out the life of this man whom history forgot. I believe Commeraw’s story demands nothing less than a book on his life and work, and I will be finished writing this book soon. I have launched a website, www.commeraw.com, to keep those interested in my project updated on its progress, and to enable people to easily contact me. At this time, I am asking for your help. I have many photographs of Commeraw’s work, but I am trying to amass as large of a photographic record of his pottery as possible. I am also looking for pieces by David Morgan, his fellow potter in Corlears Hook, and the fairly well-known pieces stamped “COERLEARS HOOK” and incised with elaborate floral decorations. In many cases I can travel to you, and in some cases I will ask for you to mail or email me photos. If you attend our regular auctions in York, Pennsylvania, or would like to in the future, I can have your pieces photographed conveniently there, as well. I of course promise complete discretion and anonymity. If you are interested in helping me by providing photographs, please feel free to contact me: http://www.commeraw.com/contact.

I invite you to visit my website, www.commeraw.com, and thank you in advance for your interest and for helping me restore Commeraw’s deserved place in American history.

During his presidency, George Washington visited each of the original thirteen colonies during a three-part presidential tour. Washington took the opportunity to travel about the new nation as (I’m sure amongst other concerns) a way to help galvanize the states into a Union. Similar to Washington, in the wake of the War of 1812, James Monroe undertook his own national tour, visiting New England, the Mid-Atlantic states, the South, and the West, in four parts. About two decades later, following Andrew Jackson’s reelection to the presidency, fellow Democratic party members in New England tried to coax the President up to their neck of the woods for a tour of his own.

The clamor for the Jackson tour seems to have begun in January 1833 at the Hartford, Connecticut, “Jackson celebration.” The March 26, 1833 issue of the Hartford Connecticut Courant described the initiative this way:

It will be recollected by our readers that at the Jackson celebration in this city last January, a resolution was adopted appointing a Committee to invite the President to visit New England. The letter addressed to the President has been recently published, and we hasten to lay it before our readers, as a production too valuable to be lost. It is the more desirable that the letter should have an extensive circulation at this time, as no less than three of the committee are Jackson candidates for Congress; and if anything were wanting to enlist a becoming state pride in their favor, … it is abundantly furnished in this admirable composition.

The letter itself, mailed in early February and also printed in the Courant, addresses the “Chief Magistrate” in almost comically sycophantic terms:

Sir—The preceding resolution was adopted at a meeting of our fellow citizens at Hartford, on the 8th of January 1833, while commemorating the events of that “glorious 8th” [Jackson's victory over the British on January 8, 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans] in which you were the principal actor, and from which, has been reflected upon our country, so much honor. …

The savage torch was lighted up—the scalping knife and tomahawk glittered in the sunbeam—and the cry of the innocent victim did not reach your ear in vain. The name and prowess of ANDREW JACKSON have proved a sure defence against savage brutality over the Western States, where dwell our kindred.

The “mother country,” made haughty by European conquests, claimed dominion over the ocean. Under her flag, the right of search, and the right to interrupt the commerce of the whole world, were avowed. To maintain these arrogant claims, and to plant the standard of a King, upon the soil of a Republic, her armies marched boldly on, shouting in advance, their notes of conquest, desolation, and death. The eyes of a nation were fixed on you. General ANDREW JACKSON heard the calls of his country, and met her enemies with his open bosom. He had a home and a country to save, and his own life was thrown between that country and its foes. The results are known to the world, and history shall give to that knowledge, perpetuity.

The letter did illicit responses like that seen in the March 27, 1833 issue of the Norwich [Connecticut] Courier:

The Washington Globe received to-day contains a correspondence between a committee of Jackson men at Hartford, (Conn.) and President Jackson. The committee, it seems, addressed a letter to the President, inviting him to visit New England, as soon as it may suit his convenience. The President thanks the committee for their politeness, and tacitly accepts the invitation—but intimates a doubt whether he shall be able to make the visit during the present, or not until another year.—The letter of the committee is one of the most ridiculous pieces of bombast, and slavish exhibitions of adulation, that we recollect to have seen. It beats the famous proclamation of Sachem Mooney, in which it was represented that “terra trembled,” and “all creation expanded to explosion,” at the approach of General Jackson, when he visited this city in 1818. The reply of the President, however, is a very proper one—and very modest—all things considered.

But Hartford’s invitation set off a string of like-minded correspondence from many other New England towns. On March 11, for instance, a committee of Bostonians wrote Jackson inviting him to their city, saying, “The Republicans of this city, and we may safely assume to say, those of all New-England, … would feel proud to exhibit to the victor of New-Orleans, the plains of Lexington, and the trenches of Bunker-Hill, consecrated to liberty by the blood of our revolutionary martyrs.” (See the June 4, 1833 edition of the Portsmoth New Hampshire Gazette).

Jackson was not able to accept the invitations of every city who sought his presence, but decided he could “leave the seat of Government early in June, and be absent about six or eight weeks, with but little inconvenience to the public interest … .”  Making good on his word, on Thursday, June 6 he set out with the plan of traveling as far north as Portland, Maine; his route to New England took him out of Washington, D.C., through Baltimore, then Philadelphia, then New York—with smaller stops along the way. Besides a slow start in Baltimore, where Jackson was upstaged by the famous Sauk Indian chief Black Hawk (who had joined his delegation for the day) the President’s visits on his way to New England were marked by almost riotous adulation on the parts of thousands of Americans—and Jackson seemed to eat up the fanfare afforded him as he participated in various parades, dinners, and meetings. In Philadelphia, for instance, when Jackson attempted to welcome guests to a private reception at Independence Hall, the crowd outside entered the building and filled it beyond maximum capacity—so much so that, according to one reporter, when someone opened the windows, people came falling out. In New York, one hundred thousand people gathered around the harbor to watch Jackson as the boat he was riding on docked and the General disembarked to review troops on horseback before traveling to City Hall. So many people crowded on the bridge between Castle Garden and the Battery that it collapsed, sending many, including the Secretary of War, into the water.

The over-the-top adulation for Jackson, however, essentially subsided once he hit New England, whose political enthusiasm for him did not in any way match other parts of the Union. He made several barely-noteworthy visits between New York and Boston; in Hartford, the citizens gave him a Bible and Jackson’s thank-you note was printed in the papers (see the Norwich [Connecticut] Courier, June 26, 1833) and in New Haven he visited Yale University. Jackson entered Boston on Friday, June 21—just over two weeks into his journey—at about 4 pm. According to the June 28, 1833 issue of the Amherst, NH Farmer’s Cabinet, Jackson was escorted to Boston Common by a procession of military men, a military band, various city officials, and firemen. The firemen would remain major parts of the various celebrations in which Jackson took part during his time in Boston. After meeting with, among other dignitaries, Massachusetts Governor Lincoln at the President’s quarters in a local hotel, Jackson was treated to a review of the various companies of the Fire Department; one engine decorated with an apparently life-sized Indian figure especially caught his fancy. After dinner, fire engines appeared, all decked out in flags and banners, one in particular hanging a banner emblazoned “January 8, 1815” from a hickory branch (referring to Jackson’s nickname, “Old Hickory”).

President Jackson spent Saturday engaged in more processions and meetings, but by Sunday lingering health problems caught up with him. According to Fletcher M. Green’s excellent article, “On Tour with President Andrew Jackson” (see note at the conclusion of this article), Jackson “suffered infection of the throat, bleeding of the lungs, and severe pain in the back. [The important physician] Dr. J. C. Warren … bled him profusely and ordered him confined to bed where he remained two days.” The President’s illness caused him to miss the ceremonial sailing of the U.S.S. Constitution early Monday morning, at the conclusion of which three canes made from the timber of the vessel were presented to Governor Lincoln, Jackson confidant Joel Roberts Poinsett, and the President himself, via Vice President Martin Van Buren. The sickness also caused Jackson to postpone what was to be a momentous appearance at one of America’s most cherished battle sites.

Shortly before Jackson had departed Washington, on Wednesday, May 29, a group of residents of Charlestown, Massachusetts—now a section of Boston, but at one time its own entity and even the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—met to discuss the prospect of bringing the President to their town. According to the June 10, 1833 edition of the Concord New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette,

A meetimg (sic) was held in Charlestown on Wednesday afternoon, at which resolutions were passed favorable to the services and character of General Jackson, and inviting him to visit Charlestown in his proposed tour. On the question of adopting the resolution, Mr. E Everett observed, that he concurred in the object, for which the meeting had been called. He should cordially unite with his fellow-citizens, in tendering a hospitable reception to the President. Mr. E. remarked, that, though politically opposed to the President, he had ever been able to do justice to his public services; and on the first occasion, on which he ever made a speech in Congress, he has paid a sincere tribute to their value. This he had also done at a later period, and was ready on every proper occasion to do it again. In opposing some of the measures of the administration, he had exercised his right as a freeman: but the most important of those measures, those which had been recently adopted for the preservation of the Union, had had his cordial support. During the four winters, which he had passed at Washington, under the administration of the President, Mr. E. observed that he and his family had received each season the hospitality of the President’s house, and such attentions, as it would be his duty and a pleasure to reciprocate, even to a private gentleman. … It was then voted to appoint a committee to make necessary arrangements, and a committee of twenty-five (including the Board of Selectmen) was appointed.

(The aforementioned “Mr. E Everett” was Edward Everett, at the time a member of the House of Representatives and, as a Whig, a critic of the President, as referenced above. The 39-year-old Everett had graduated from Harvard at the age of 17, became an ordained pastor when he was about 20 years old, and had subsequently taught at Harvard for several years before his election to the House. He would go on to serve as Governor of Massachusetts, President of Harvard University, U.S. Secretary of State (under Millard Fillmore), U.S. Senator, and Vice Presidential candidate as John Bell’s running mate on the Constitutional Union Party ticket in 1860. A well-known orator, he used this ability to promote Abraham Lincoln and the Union itself during the Civil War, before his death in early 1865.)

Jackson had, according to an article in the June 13, 1833 issue of the Keene New Hampshire Sentinel, planned to arrive at Bunker Hill on Monday, June 17, an apt date that marked the 58th anniversary of the battle there. At some point the intended time of the General’s arrival was moved back one week to June 24, and it was on that date that an elaborate military exhibition was planned, presumably by the Committee of Arrangements, and this display proceeded as intended despite the President’s illness and absence. As printed in the June 28 issue of the Farmer’s Cabinet,

The appointed military parade took place in Charlestown in the course of the forenoon, notwithstanding the indisposition of the President.— The troops, consisting of two regiments of infantry, and one of artillery, were reviewed by Gov. Lincoln, and the contemplated ceremonies were conducted with as little deviation as possible from the published arrangements. It is not certain that the President will be able to proceed this morning on his Eastern tour. He was in the hands of Dr. Warren, yesterday, who could not foretell the state of his health to-day.

Jackson did not feel sufficiently hearty enough to venture on until Wednesday, June 26; he left Boston at about 9:30 a.m. that day and arrived in nearby Cambridge where he was welcomed by the President and the Fellows of Harvard University. At Harvard—much to the chagrin of Jackson’s predecessor and political opponent, Harvard alum John Quincy Adams—Jackson was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Charlestown who lived in the shadow of the most memorable hill in American history had been waiting for the President to show up. The focal point of General Jackson’s visit was to be Bunker Hill (actually Breed’s Hill) and its monument, and that fact taken along with the close proximity of momentous Lexington and Concord reinforced the already strong military bent of the celebration—thus the choreographed military exercises that, although not in any way unique to the Charlestown segment of the tour, held particular meaning within the confines of that place and whose importance seemed to transcend the actual presence of the Commander-in-Chief. The Committee of Arrangements was particularly concerned with presenting Jackson with a gift weighty with a symbolism that encompassed both the place and the man who would visit it. Some local woodworker, probably, fashioned a box—described by one reporter as a “mahogany casket”—out of wood from the U.S.S. Constitution. This container was meant to hold two artifacts rife with meaning: a grape shot dug out of the Bunker Hill battlefield and a six-pound shot, a relic from the Battle of New Orleans. Inscribed on a silver plate probably fashioned by a local smith, the Committee of Arrangements had the following inscription engraved:

These now harmless memorials of the 17th June, 1775, and the 8th of January 1815, were presented to General Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, by the citizens of Charlestown, on the 24th June, 1833, on his visit to Bunker-Hill.

In the spirit of this fine gift and any number of other commemorative objects produced to mark the President’s tour, the local stoneware manufactory made a pot.

The aforementioned manufactory was owned by one Barnabas Edmands. His pottery is perhaps best known for two different types of pots seen in stoneware collections all over the country—early stoneware jugs devoid of cobalt, dipped in a brown, iron oxide slip and often marked “CHARLESTOWN”; and later vessels, reminiscent of other Victorian stoneware such as that produced by the Nortons in Bennington, VT and the New York Stoneware Company in Fort Edward, NY, adorned with cobalt flowers, birds, and, rarely, deer. But between the crude early products of this pottery and the later more familiar ones, the potters working in Charlestown obviously created a wealth of stoneware in line with contemporary design and manufacturing trends.

The best secondary source on Charlestown stoneware I have found is Lura Woodside Watkins’ familiar, extensive 1950 book appropriately titled Early New England Potters and Their Wares. Part of her work seems to have been based on a 1902 book called Old Charlestown by Timothy Thompson Sawyer. Sawyer gives a quick sketch of the trajectory of Edmands’ pottery business as follows:

Barnabas [Edmands], whose homestead was in Richmond Street (Rutherford Avenue), in his early business life was a brass-founder, but he gave this up and, assisted by his brother-in-law, William Burroughs, established a pottery on Austin Street, not far from the State Prison. … For a time in the early history of the pottery Frederic Carpenter … was a partner with Mr. Edmands. After many years the pottery was removed to a wharf-estate on Mystic River which had been purchased by Mr. Edmands. In 1850 he sold the business to his sons, Edward and Thomas R. B., and Charles Collier, who had been his foreman, and they continued it under the style of Edmands & Co., adding to it the manufacture of drain-pipe; the latter part of the time by machinery, an invention of Mr. Collier’s for the purpose having been patented. This part of the business has now been given up, owing to western competition which has made it unprofitable, but the original pottery-manufacture is still kept up by Edmands & Hooper, as successors to Edmands & Co., at their kilns on Medford Street.

But expanding on this summary, Watkins says that Frederick Carpenter—a name, like Edmands’, that is quite familiar to students of stoneware—arrived in Charlestown in 1801, about 11 years before Barnabas Edmands bought his pottery, with Carpenter apparently as the master potter (Edmands himself clearly not a potter, but a businessman). During the interceding years, Carpenter may have himself produced stoneware bearing marks like “CHARLESTOWN” and “BOSTON.” Once Edmands’ shop got up and running, Carpenter seems to have ran it until his death in 1827. While I do not know the exact location of the pottery, it was situated on Austin Street, near the State Prison, probably quite near to the river. Watkins says that after Carpenter’s death, Charles Collier “became the foreman” and that by 1831 the pottery employed only five workers; they got their clay out of New York and New Jersey. It seems that making fairly elaborate presentation pieces was a part of Collier’s regular repertoire. According to Watkins,

In 1839 Edmands exhibited a very large stone jug at the second annual fair of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics’ Association. It was described as “an excellent specimen of so large an article of stone ware” and was said to have been turned on the wheel by an expert workman. Again, two years later, they again succeeded in obtaining awards at the Mechanics’ Fair—one, a diploma for Charles Collier, the other, for the company. Since they were the only entrants in the field, we cannot judge the quality of their exhibits by the fact that they won prizes. The commentary from the catalogue of the fair is worth quoting in full:

The Committee have but a limited field on which to construct the Report, as they find but two articles of Stone Ware offered for exhibition—one, a large Fifteen Gallon Water Pitcher, made by Mr. C. Collier; the other, a Water Jar, of nearly equal capacity, from the manufactory of Barnabas Edmands & Co., of Charlestown. The Committee find the material of these two articles of a very superior quality and the workmanship of a higher character than any that they have ever before met with of this country’s manufacture. They show an advance in the article highly creditable to the makers, and give promise that the hitherto almost untrodden field of the finer quality of Stone Ware manufactures may soon be occupied by the skill and taste of our countrymen. The Committee, however, could not but notice, that general fault in all articles made of Stone Ware, applied, (at least in one of the specimens) to those now exhibited. They found that the covers to the articles were not made with that care and fitness which they deem highly necessary; and they felt surprised that articles showing such a high state of improvement in the art, should not have met with a greater share of attention in this respect.

Just as he would do for the Mechanics’ Fair, Charles Collier was charged with producing something special for the arrival of the President of the United States. He probably did so at Edmands’ request. A prominent member of the town, Edmands, if not a member of the unknown Committee of Arrangements himself, may have been involved in that day’s planning on some level. We don’t know how many pots Collier—or one of his co-workers—made for the occasion, but my guess would be it was more than one. In doing so, he incorporated the same theme that both colored the plans for the Charlestown celebration as a whole and informed all of the artwork and objects produced for that event, as well as the Boston days. He threw a large jar and applied a molded patriotic eagle to the front. Underneath the eagle he incised the words “Gen. Andrew Jackson” in finely executed script, emphasizing the celebrated military background of the now Commander-in-Chief. He dipped a brush in a dark gray mixture of water, clay, and cobalt oxide and painted over the eagle, encircled the entire design in a cloud-like halo, then filled the General’s name in, as well. On the reverse, in large, bold characters he wrote, “17th June 1775.” Left to dry, what was a very dull, gray, matte vessel would be fired, salt-glazed, and brought out of the kiln shiny with electric blue decoration.

We don’t know, for sure, what Edmands, Collier, et al. intended to do with the jar, but it was evidently made to stand in some prominent position. Edmands’ shop on Austin Street was located near the Bunker Hill monument, but Jackson’s route into town did not take him by the pottery. So although it was possible that this pot was meant to sit either in the shop’s window or out front as a way for the pottery to both participate in the day’s festivities and show off its work, I do not think so. With the prominent Bunker Hill date on one side and Jackson’s name with the eagle on the other, the piece seems to me to have been produced to sit somewhere that could show off both sides and fit specifically with the theme of the jar. With all of this in mind, it very well could have been made to sit beside the Bunker Hill monument. In particular, it may have been used, perhaps along with others like it, to pot plants in or in some other way decorate the area where Jackson was to receive his gift and make his remarks.

The use of molded, applied eagle designs on American stoneware has been noted on a few other pieces from the time period but until recently was associated almost entirely with one pottery in particular—that of Henry Lowndes in Petersburg, Virginia. See, for instance, this piece—posted on Ceramics in America’s website—that shows the motif seen on a small number of Lowndes vessels, obviously highly regarded by American stoneware students and collectors. Last year we were very excited to sell a finely-made stoneware pitcher—similar, in fact, to the Staffordshire style of the aforementioned Lowndes pitcher—with applied eagles on both sides and stamped with the maker’s mark “WM * PORTER,” referring to the potter of the same name who worked in Pleasantville, Venango County, Pennsylvania. The discovery of this piece, made hundreds of miles away from Lowndes’ pottery, demonstrated that the use of this decoration was not a technique unique to Petersburg, Virginia, but probably part of some greater design idea within the industry at large.

Even before this revelation, though, a different style eagle that was sometimes used in Ohio had been documented for some time. We sold a churn in November 2005 with an identical eagle to that seen on a famous piece pictured in Gary and Diana Stradling’s The Art of the Potter—a six-gallon water cooler inscribed in cobalt “Anthony Baer / Cleveland / Ohio,” referring to a tavern keeper. Another similar churn is also pictured in Donald Blake Webster’s Decorated Stoneware Pottery of North America. But the existence of another eagle done in what was considered to be the exclusive style of Henry Lowndes reinforces a theory I subscribe to that this design—though clearly not often used—was employed by potters working all over the eastern part of the United States.

I do not know where these potters procured the molds for their designs. I do not believe that they fashioned them themselves, and I also do not believe that they “bootlegged” them by making new molds off of other potters’ work (for instance, china or Rockingham ware) or even the products of metal workers. (The Bell family, for instance, in Waynesboro, PA and Strasburg, VA were famous for making plaster molds from spaniels and other pieces of pottery made, I’m sure amongst other places, at Edwin Bennett’s pottery in Baltimore.) I don’t know, for that matter, where potters got a hold of their various potters’ tools—those that weren’t handmade—and this is an area of study that I hope will one day be fleshed out.

Edmands, in particular, though, seems to have been fond of the eagle design. An Albany slip-glazed stoneware crock we sold in July 2008 reads “EDMANDS, / &,CO / CHARLESTOWN” within a wreath, topped with a molded eagle.

In the late morning of Wednesday, June 26, President Jackson made his way out of Cambridge and headed over to Charlestown, where he arrived around noon. The Columbian Guards and the Warren Phalanx—local military companies—escorted him into town to the sound of the Charlestown Artillery’s guns, and he followed Main Street, flanked by lined-up local school children, to Bunker Hill. (Incidentally, according to Old Charlestown, Barnabas Edmands’ cousin, Thomas Edmands, was one of the original members of the Warren Phalanx when it was founded in 1804 and had also served as its commander.)

At Bunker Hill—that is, near the monument—Edward Everett gave a somewhat verbose speech in which he said,

To you, Sir, who, under Providence, conducted the banners of the country to victory, in the last great struggle of the American arms, it must be peculiarly grateful to stand upon the spot, immortalized as the scene of the first momentous conflict.

We have thought it might not be unwelcome to you, to possess some joint memorial of these two eventful days, and such an one I now hold in my hands;—a grape-shot dug up from the sod beneath our feet, and a cannon-ball from the battle-field of New-Orleans, brought from the enclosure, within which your head-quarters, were established. They are preserved in one casket; and on behalf of the citizens of Charlestown, I now present them to you, in the hope that they will perpetuate, in your mind, an acceptable association of the 17th of June, 1775, and the 8th of January, 1815;—the dates of the first and last great battles fought under the American standard.

The silver plate on Jackson’s gift still read “June 24,” the day he was supposed to show up. Accepting the box of mementos, after Everett finished his remarks, the President made his own, saying, in part,

It is one of the most gratifying incidents of my life, to meet my fellow-citizens upon Bunker-Hill, at the base of that Monument, which their patriotism is erecting; and upon the sacred spot hallowed by so many interesting recollections:—A spot rich in the various national objects which it presents to view, and richer still in the associations, moral and historical, which belong to it. …

I accept with gratitude the interesting relics you have presented to me. I am sure I speak the sentiments of my fellow-soldiers upon the plains of New-Orleans, when I say, that to be associated with the memory of that band of patriots, who fought with Warren, when he sealed his principles with his life, is the highest meed of praise, which our country could bestow. … It was my good fortune, on that eventful day, to lead an army composed of American citizens, appreciating the value of the prize they contended for, and determined upon exertions proportioned to its magnitude;—and it was theirs to expel a superior force, and to preserve an important section of the Union.

When Jackson said that the citizens’ patriotism was erecting the monument, he was referencing the incomplete state of that structure, which—through an interminable process of building interrupted by funding issues—would not be finished for another nine years. (Construction had commenced way back in 1825.) Nevertheless, even incomplete, the monument carried the appropriate solemnity that it was designed to project. After giving his remarks, the President climbed up to the monument.

While two different newspaper articles I consulted (see note on sources) claim Jackson left Charlestown at about 1 p.m. that day, Green states in his article that “Everett’s lengthy speech was followed by a two-hour procession around the city and a party afterwards. The speech-making and the long tour so fatigued Jackson that he was late for his scheduled appearance at Lynn [Massachusetts], where he was too ill to attend the dinner given in his honor.”

Jackson was, in fact, quite ill. He would call in sick to the dinners planned in his honor at the next two stops of his tour, as well—Marblehead and Salem, Massachusetts. He managed to move on to Lowell, Massachusetts, and Portsmouth and Concord, New Hampshire, without medical incident, but at some point after reaching the latter town on June 28, he decided—quite abruptly—to cut the tour short. He had, as mentioned previously, intended to take his road show all the way “down east” to Portland, Maine. Partisan bickering in New Hampshire may have played more of a role in Jackson’s quick exit than he let on, and John Quincy Adams suggested as much publicly. Either way, Jackson made up his mind to return to the nation’s capital and embarked on July 1, returning to the White House on Independence Day.

The potters of Charlestown, Massachusetts, seem to have been steeped in the knowledge of their revolutionary, patriotic roots that likewise colored the overall atmosphere of the town. Somewhat ironically, almost two decades later, the Edmands pottery was burned to the ground—though the business lived to see another day—when the nearby rope walk caught fire as the presumed result of firecrackers lit to celebrate America’s independence. (See the July 7, 1852 issue of the Boston Daily Atlas.) The pot that Edmands’ shop produced to mark the occasion of President Jackson’s visit to the hallowed ground of Bunker Hill provides a rare opportunity for us as we study this specialized segment of American material culture–one where the “high” history of Presidents and almost mythical subjects like the American Revolution intersects with the story of artisans and the objects they made and left behind.

Note on Sources: Fletcher M. Green’s excellent article, “On Tour with President Andrew Jackson,” published in The New England Quarterly, June 1963, provided my information for the background, circumstances, and happenings of Jackson’s New England tour, in general. Actual quotes from newspapers, however, were located and quoted directly by me. Green mostly glosses over the actual Charlestown visit, however, and for that large section of my article other sources take over. My three main sources for Jackson’s time in Charlestown are “Politics and Statistics: The President’s Tour” in The New-England Magazine, August 1833, the July 4, 1833 edition of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Sun, and the June 29, 1833 issue of The Portsmouth [New Hampshire] Journal of Literature & Politics. In some instances, but only when filling in minor details such as the specific date Jackson arrived in a particular city, for brevity’s sake I did not cite the exact newspaper article I used to flesh out the detail. Any significant primary documentary sources are noted in the body of the article.

An important large-sized redware dog by the Bell family will cross the block in our January 30th auction of the William Kelly Young collection. Measuring 8 3/4″ long by 8 5/8″ tall, the figure is one of a small number of this size known to have been produced by members of the Bell family in Strasburg, VA and Waynesboro, PA. The standing pose and robust body form, finished with a curled tail and large flattened ears, are characteristic of the Bells’ work. Examples of this general style by various members of the Bell family are documented in The Shenandoah Pottery by Alvin H. Rice and John Baer Stoudt, Folk Pottery of the Shenandoah Valley by William Wiltshire, III, and The Pottery of the Shenandoah Valley Region

by H.E. Comstock. These pieces include a few by John Bell and his son, Charles Frederick Bell, of Waynesboro, a pair by Samuel Bell of Strasburg, which descended to his son, Ashby, and a pair by Samuel’s son, Charles Forrest Bell, now in the Henry Ford Museum. An oustanding punch-decorated dog with monkey rider, attributed to one of Samuel’s sons, also bears similarities in form and size. Interestingly, the dog selling in our January 30th auction is pictured on p. 264 of The Shenandoah Pottery, catalog-numbered 157, indicating that it was collected by Alvin Rice in the Shenandoah Valley prior to 1929. The damage visible in the photo, including an area where a basket was once connected to its neck, has since been restored.

The dog is constructed from two conjoined, wheel-thrown cylinders, one forming the body and the other forming the neck. (Many of the animals produced by various Pennsylvania makers have a similar hollow-bodied construction.) Several balls of clay were placed inside the dog’s body prior to firing, causing the figure to rattle when shaken. To prevent damage during the firing, vent holes were bored into the corners of the dog’s mouth, the lower breast, and between the back legs. The famous Solomon Bell redware lion in the MESDA collection, as well as a John Bell stoneware lion, are also vented through the breast and mouth, as noted by Shenandoah pottery authority, H.E. Comstock (Comstock, pp. 151, 232).

The animal’s fur is produced from numerous diagonally-incised lines. The toes with incised demarcations and unusual incised toe nails are also visible on two of the feet. One of the most distinctive “Bell” features of the dog is its impressed eyes, composed of an oval with an inner arching line. This decorative stamp is used to create the eyes and embellish the bases of several animals produced by the Strasburg and Waynesboro Bells (Comstock, p. 155).

The surface is decorated in daubs of manganese and cream-colored slip and coated in a clear lead glaze. The use of a simple lead and manganese glaze is typical of Bell animals, as well as most animals produced by various other 19th century potters. However, the addition of cream slip spotting is unusual for animals made by the Bells (or those by any potter for that matter). The overall color is remarkably similar to a pair of cats and a seated dog attributed to Solomon Bell and pictured on pp. 232 and 233 of The Pottery of the Shenandoah Valley Region.

True Bell animals are quite rare and have been increasingly difficult to find in the antiques market. The family’s notoriety for producing figural pieces, coupled with the desirability of Bell pottery in general, has led to numerous erroneous Bell attributions. (A look at the Sotheby’s catalog for the auction of the Pauline Heilman collection, held way back in 1982, will give you an idea of these frequent errors.) This dog is a different story. With a firm attribution and Rice provenance, this example is the first of its size and origin to sell at auction in some time, with many of the “BELLS” and whistles one looks for in a quality American redware dog.

The Texas stoneware snake jug we will be selling on January 30 was one of the highlights of Kelly Young’s prominent collection of antique American utilitarian ceramics. We featured a picture of Mr. Young holding the jug on the title page of our current catalog (see below). The jug is also one of the most monumental examples of nineteenth century American folk art we have ever handled. A large snake forms the handle of the jug. His head protrudes from the other side of the jug top, biting the head of a man in a bizarre predicament–his lower half hanging out the side of the vessel. Another snake, a centipede, and a lizard also hug the surface of the jug. Several inscriptions highlight the scene. The two most prominent, as if written on plaques, are the maker’s inscription and the name of the pottery where the jug was made: “MADE & PRESENTED TO THE Fire Brick & Tile Company By J.L. STONE”  and “J.P. Johnson & J.W. Dillon / MANUFACTURERS/ OF / ALL KINDS OF / STONEWARE / Kosse Texas.” (Note that we cataloged the jug as reading “J.F. Johnson,” but after subsequent research and study, it reads, “J.P.”)

Surrounding the unfortunate man’s body are the words “First Attempt,” topped by the phrase, “Go in lemmons (sic) and come out squeezed.” Words beneath the man’s head read, “The Result.” To the right of the handle, what appears to be a brick is incised “Timse’s Best,” probably referring to a worker at the brick company.

While trying to do further research and put this remarkable jug into better context, I noticed that another example of Stone’s work was acquired by the Bayou Bend Collection of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts in 2003. A large stoneware spaniel, measuring 11″ tall, was made in a style rarely seen in American stoneware. Instead, it was made in a manner most associated with redware figures of the time period–a dog on base, standing in the front, seated at the back, incised to create fur on the body and the ears. This Midwestern pottery dog that straddles the line somewhere between redware and stoneware resembles the Stone spaniel in its body shape, tooled fur to body and ears, and smooth face and legs. Stone’s dog differs, however, in its clear spaniel breed, its size, a large base (reminiscent of that seen on some molded King Charles spaniel figures made out of various types of pottery in the nineteenth century), and its clear stoneware clay body. No slip decoration–such as cobalt or manganese–decorates the dog. Prominently incised on the front of the base are the initials “J. L. S.,” referring to John L. Stone.

Stone’s snake jug is most closely related to very similar vessels made by the famous brothers, Wallace and Cornwall Kirkpatrick, at Anna Pottery in Anna, Union County, Illinois–so closely related, in fact, that part of my motivation in researching Stone was to try to tie him to that prolific duo (or at least figure out why something made in what could be called the “Anna Pottery school” was produced in Texas).

According to an article in the March, 2003 issue of The Magazine Antiques, which describes recent acquisitions of the Bayou Bend Collection, Stone “came to Texas from Illinois and worked at a number of potteries in Limestone County, Texas, from about 1870 to 1900.” Diving into the federal census and also other period documents has enabled me to flesh out Stone’s life a bit more. Born on May 18, 1850 in Union County, Kentucky (according to a twentieth century passport application and immigration document), Stone was potting in Limestone County, Texas, by the time he was twenty years old–where, according to the 1870 federal census, he was clearly working with an Illinois-born potter named William C. Knox. Did Knox have ties to the Kirkpatrick brothers? Very possibly, but he had apparently left the state of Illinois sometime around 1855– judging by his children’s ages and places of birth–a few years before the accepted founding of Anna Pottery. Knox probably had trained as a potter in Illinois, but then spent some time in Kentucky before taking the helm of his own pottery in Hempstead, Texas (in Austin County, about 60 miles northwest of Houston) where he was working when the census taker made his rounds in 1860. About ten years later, Knox had moved about 100 miles up the road to Limestone County–probably in or near Kosse–and John L. Stone took his wife and baby boy and joined him there.

By ten years later, in 1880, John L. Stone was one of about seventeen potters or pottery workers operating in Kosse, and John Knox had turned, at least primarily, to farming. Although there was apparently one major pottery in the town at which the potters worked–Stone one of them–the census does not explicitly state who owned it. Turning to the Stone’s jug, then, which remains as a document of its own (albeit one made out of clay) we can use the census to try to interpret the pottery situation in Kosse during the time period.

According to the 1880 census, J.W. Dillon was a merchant who apparently also owned hotel, which his wife kept. He was born circa 1842 in Georgia to immigrants from Great Britain. J.P. Johnson, on the other hand, was listed as a “Brick Mason,” born circa 1840 in Virginia. Based on the records I have access to, it seems very probable that sometime around 1880, Dillon and Johnson struck up a partnersh1ip and began manufacturing stoneware in Kosse; they probably also owned the Fire Brick & Tile Company, which seems to have been run, however, as a separate concern. Three potters, another pottery worker, and one brickyard worker were all residents of Dillon’s hotel in 1880.

Fleshing out the meaning behind the jug’s inscriptions further, the name “Timse” likely refers to a member of one of the Tims families, one a family of free blacks, who lived in the area. At least three free African-Americans were employed at the pottery in 1880, and it seems one of the Tims’s worked in the brick and tile company.

By 1892, Stone moved to Washington state, where he was probably working at some as-yet-unknown pottery, but returned to Texas, probably initially Limestone County, by the early 1900’s. In 1910 he was working at the Athens Pottery Co. in Athens, Henderson County, Texas, about 100 miles northwest of Kosse. Along the way, he had at least 11 children with two different wives. Sometime after 1910, as Stone ventured into his 60’s, he divorced his wife and moved back to Washington, moving on to Los Angeles, California, by 1923. It was in that year that he, citing a desire to travel to Central America, applied for a U.S. Passport. The passport document contains very interesting information on Stone: his exact birth date and county of birth; his father’s name; his occupation (”Potter”); his physical description; his address in L.A. It also includes a photograph of Stone as an older man–another photograph of John L. Stone as a younger man also exists.

But the most fascinating part of the document is a notarized statement attached to verify Stone’s claims about himself, and brings us back to one of my prime motivations in researching Stone’s life. It reads,

Personally came before me a Notary Public in and for said County and State aforesaid, C.E. Kirkpatrick, whom I know to be entitled to credit, and being duly sworn, on his oath deposes and says that his Post Office address is Anna, Union County Illinois age 71 years, and says that he is an … American Citizen a resident of Union County, that he has known John L. Stone as an American Citizen for Sixty years, and from what I know, and have heard he was born in Union County State of Kentucky on the 18th day of May 1850. That said information he has obtained from intimate association with John L. Stone and associates during said time that John L. Stone is known and has been known during said term among his associates as an American citizen.

C.E. Kirkpatrick is none other than Cornwall E. “Cornie” Kirkpatrick, son of Cornwall Kirkpatrick, nephew of Wallace. Cornie’s statement provides a unique window into the interpersonal relationships of American stoneware potters in the nineteenth century. Incisive research into American stoneware paints a dim picture of a widespread network of potters and shops that, while financial competitors, often enjoyed strong bonds of friendship and cooperation, where potters worked at each other’s shops, and sometimes established relationships with many different manufactories in disparate places throughout their lifetimes. But this document reveals much not only about Stone’s development as a potter, but about a friendship that was probably a very common one amongst nineteenth century stoneware potters and artisans in general who shared a kinship based on their specialized knowledge of complicated crafts.

Cornie Kirkpatrick was born circa 1852, making him about two years younger than John L. Stone. While still a young boy, his father and uncle founded Anna Pottery in Anna, Illinois. Stone was born in Union County, Kentucky, less than 100 miles east of Anna. Kirkpatrick said he had known Stone for sixty years, establishing that Stone had arrived in Anna sometime circa 1863, when he was thirteen years old. The evidence suggests that Stone’s family moved to Anna around 1863 and that Stone apprenticed at Anna Pottery, learning the trade of potter that he would carry with him throughout his life, and became lifelong friends with Kirkpatrick in the process. Sometime in 1869 or early 1870, Stone left Illinois, possibly directly from his employ at the Kirkpatricks’ pottery, and went down to Texas, perhaps with the ultimate goal of striking out on his own. He met up there with another Illinois potter, William C. Knox, who was probably also associated with the Kirkpatricks in some way. Stone’s snake jug is closely modeled after similar jugs made at Anna Pottery, with men’s bodies forced through the jug in the same way; Stone seems to have literally grown up around such vessels and probably made them there, himself.

According to genealogist family members of Stone, John L. Stone died in 1928 in Limestone County, Texas. Unlike some potters who seem content to have produced mostly utilitarian ware and remain anonymous parts of larger potteries, Stone seems to have been essentially concerned with producing true art works that he signed, fired, then consigned to posterity. In this case, something he made about 130 years ago has helped us further uncloud our window into that time and into the artistic legacy of the Anna Pottery school of stoneware potters.

Author’s Note: The work of genealogists was invaluable in researching Stone’s life and discovering what I think is one of the most interesting documents I have ever come across while studying American stoneware. If you happen upon this blog because you also have information on John L. Stone or his family, please send me a reply or otherwise contact us. I would be more than happy to pass genealogical info along to these researchers.

Two exciting redware (or earthenware) animal bottles will cross the block in our January 30th auction of the William Kelly Young Collection. Both were purchased by Mr. Young in 1993 at Christie’s in New York City, in a sale that included several other fine examples of American redware and some stoneware. Both of these bottles were produced in Salem, North Carolina, sometime during the early part of the 19th century, by German-born potter, Rudolph Christ (1755-1833). Christ took control of the shop of deceased potter, Gottfried Aust, in Salem in 1789 and continued to work there until 1821 (Bivins, p. 30). He is most well-known for producing a variety of wonderful molded animal forms (along with a line of wheel-thrown vessels), including squirrels, owls, turkeys, crayfish, chickens, bear, sheep, foxes, and several sizes of fish.

The first redware bottle of the two to be sold, in the form of a standing squirrel holding a nut, is decorated with daubs of manganese and copper over a yellow slip and covered in a clear lead glaze. The reddish-orange color of the underlying clay is visible on the underside of the bottle’s recessed foot. Interestingly, manganese is brushed in a figure 8 pattern on one leg. Whether this treatment was implied to mean the number 8 or whether it was merely the haphazard brushwork of the potter, we will never know. The glaze is remarkably similar to the “multi-glaze” or “polychrome glaze” used by the Bells and Eberlys of Strasburg, Virginia, several decades later. In fact, I have seen a few Moravian pieces misattributed to the Shenandoah Valley for this reason. In actuality, this glaze was meant to mimic a glaze popularized by the English potter, Thomas Whieldon, during the mid 1700’s (Bivins, p. 209). The second Moravian bottle is more stylized, in the form of a portly bear. The figure’s small mouth reveals a few tiny sharp teeth, and its right foot rests upon a slain animal, possibly a sheep or pig. Its surface is covered in a dark brown glaze composed of lead and manganese.

Until recently, the most exhaustive study of North Carolina’s Moravian redware was John Bivins, Jr.’s book, The Moravian Potters in North Carolina, which was written in 1972. This book is an excellent source of information, and I encourage anyone interested in this fascinating school of pottery to take a

look at it. However, new information has come to light since then, particularly in the last three years. At the time the book was printed, for example, the author’s knowledge of some of Christ’s rarest forms could only be gleaned from period inventory lists and the existence of the objects’ original molds. Regarding an owl form, Bivins notes “since no finished examples are available, we do not know for what use the owls were intended (Bivins, p. 204).” The same is mentioned regarding a fox mold. However, both finished forms have surfaced since that time, adding to our knowledge of this potter’s work.

The 2009 edition of Ceramics in America, published by the Chipstone Foundation, is dedicated entirely to the Moravian potters of North Carolina, offering a current look at their work with several new discoveries.  Edited by Robert Hunter and Luke Beckerdite, the book includes the following articles:

Eighteenth-Century Earthenware from North Carolina:
The Moravian Tradition Reconsidered
Luke Beckerdite and Johanna Brown

Staffordshire in America: The Wares of John Bartlam at
Cain Hoy, 1765–1770

Lisa Hudgins

Staffordshire Ceramics in Wachovia
Robert Hunter

Tradition and Adaptation in Moravian Press-Molded Earthenware
Johanna Brown

Salem Pottery after 1834: Henry Schavner and Daniel Krause
Michael O. Hartley

The Mount Shepherd Pottery Site, Randolph County, North Carolina
Alain C. Outlaw

Making a Moravian Faience Ring Bottle
Robert Hunter and Michelle Erickson

Making a Moravian Squirrel Bottle
Michelle Erickson, Robert Hunter, and Caroline M. Hannah

The front cover of this edition pictures an incredible copper-glazed figure of a fox clutching a chicken (which in my opinion is one of the finest examples of early American pottery I’ve seen in some time). Looking at this piece, it is easy to understand why there is such great interest in Moravian pottery among historians and folk art collectors alike. I recommend anyone interested in the charming and useful objects created by Christ and others from this tradition to take a look at Ceramics in America’s latest installment, a great contribution to our knowledge of Southern decorative arts.

The case of the “Absalom Bixler” group of redware is a very interesting one. Redware pieces bearing his name, or clearly by the same maker as those that do, have long stood as landmark pieces within the canon of antique American utilitarian ceramics. Decorated with applied, bright yellow and green figures of birds and cats, or with quite elaborate sgraffito scenes depicting subjects with incredible folk art appeal, one hallmark of Bixler’s pottery is the use of large, blocky printer’s type to inscribe the ware. Several of these bold impressions read “ABSALOM BIXLER TO HIS WIFE SARAH” (or variations thereof), but no explicit maker’s mark or signature exists on any of the vessels.

As I discussed briefly in my Henry Rambo article, names inscribed on nineteenth century American pottery can be problematic. Even pieces stamped with apparent maker’s marks can be difficult to evaluate. For instance, someone unfamiliar with the history of Alexandria potters might see a jug marked “E.J. MILLER / ALEXA.” and assume that, as with many other pieces with similar marks made in that city, E.J. Miller was the maker of the item. But he was not—he was a merchant who had the Milburn family of potters make stoneware for him. Nevertheless, in the case of small stamps applied to a vessel in the manner of a maker’s mark, the situation is usually fairly straightforward—if the name isn’t the potter, it was probably some other businessman who would be reselling or otherwise distributing the vessel to consumers. Other times a pot is inscribed in an unusual manner, but the potter makes it very easy on us. For instance, the work of Henry Lowndes in Petersburg, Virginia, is signed in large slip-trailed cobalt script across the front of the ware, “H Lowndes / Manufactor / Petersburg / Va” or “H Lowndes / Maker / Petersburg / Va.” We can thank Mr. Lowndes for being so clear, but he was a rarity. Had he not added “Manufactor” to the front of his pieces, and we knew nothing about Virginia stoneware, we would have to turn to period documents to figure out who H. Lowndes was. In fact, we might assume that he was some obscure individual for whom a jar was made. Even so, our understanding of period American stoneware and redware—beyond the most simplistic of evaluations—always demands that we turn, in one way or another, to contemporaneous documentary sources. In the case of H. Lowndes, someone, at some point, opened a city directory or some other document and determined that the potter’s first name was “Henry” and not “Horace” or “Hezekiah.” But far beyond fleshing out first names, period documents are absolutely vital in properly evaluating the bulk of eighteenth and nineteenth century American ceramics—and no more so than in the case of mystery names like “Absalom Bixler.”

The best evaluation and discussion of the Bixler group that I have seen was written by Cynthia G. Falk and published in the July 2003 issue of The Magazine Antiques. Her article, “Sarah Bixler’s Plates and Flowerpots” is a comprehensive study of what are by far some of the finest pieces of Pennsylvania redware to have surfaced. One of my favorite pieces of redware, period, is the flowerpot decorated with an applied cat stalking a bird, inscribed in type, “READY FOR A CATCH” and “ABSALOM BIXLER FOR HIS WIFE SARAH,” in possession of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Another piece I greatly admire is a redware plate with a sgraffito scene of a man holding a rifle with two Indians on horseback, inscribed in the trademark Bixler type around the rim in broken German, “DAUNAE.L BOON. DES FANKNESS INDAUNAS./1787″ (something like, “Daniel Boone’s Capture by Indians”); this piece, like several others, is housed in the Winterthur Museum. For those unfamiliar with Bixler’s work, I highly recommend you read not only Falk’s article, but see also Jeannette Lasansky’s “Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Pottery” in the September 1982 issue of The Magazine Antiques and The Pennsylvania German Collection by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Beatrice B. Garvan.

Falk sums up the various attempts, over the decades, to assign a maker to the “Bixler” pieces as follows:

[S]cholars have disagreed on who exactly made the Bixler plates and flowerpots. Miriam E. Bixler, writing in the Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society in 1977, asserted that Absalom Bixler was the potter. Without citing her sources, she stated that Absalom crafted pots, which he often signed “A. Bixler,” working in a little stone house on his property near Fivepointville in what is now East Earl Township, Lancaster County. She believed the building was originally the house of Absalom’s grandfather Abraham. According to Miriam Bixler, Absalom was a multitalented individual who worked as a farmer, woodcarver, maker of gunstocks, and justice of the peace, as well as a potter.

Later scholars, while continuing to cite to Miriam Bixler’s reference to Absalom as a jack-of-all-trades, have suggested another possible creator for the Bixler pottery. According to Jeannette Lasansky, Absalom Bixler was never taxed as anything other than a farmer, and his estate included no potter’s tools (although it did include printer’s type). Absalom’s brother, David, however, was taxed as a potter in Brecknock Township, Lancaster County, from 1841 to 1847, the year of their father, Abraham’s (1782-1847) death. The pottery was located on land previously owned by their father. Lasansky could not determine whether Absalom or David made the plates and flowerpots, since Absalom could have had access to the family pottery.

The case of Absalom Bixler, then, is a case where turning to period documents has unfortunately failed to give us the answers we seek. It also underscores the difficulty of researching artisans working in rural areas where city directories and even newspapers are rarely viable avenues for investigation—where (if, as in this case, the Census is no help) tax records, probate records (both of which Jeannette Lasansky attempted to use), land records, and other legal documents are our only hope of solving a mystery. Early researchers of American stoneware and redware have sometimes done the work for us, in one way or another, but often fail to cite their sources properly; in some cases we can reconstruct their work, in other cases we are forced to assess the credibility of their accounts and then make our own judgments.

Turning to the original text of Miriam Bixler’s article (”David Bixler, Folk Artist,” written mostly about Absalom’s brother, available in Vol. 81, No. 1 of the Journal of the LCHS), she writes,

Absolam [sic] (d. 1884), David’s brother, lived on the old homestead farm of his grandfather, Abraham Bixler, now occupied by Ammon Sauder, Denver R. D. #1. A deteriorating family graveyard is there. Absalom also was a Justice of the Peace as well as farmer, woodcarver, maker of gunstocks during the Civil War and potterer.

He often signed his pottery “A. Bixler” and worked in a little stone house on the property thought to be the original house. At a public sale of his goods over one hundred eighty planes were sold. A flowerpot inscribed “Abs Bixler to his wife Sarah, 1834 [sic]” is in the Titus C. Geesey Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Ms. Bixler does not cite her sources properly, but does include a list of source material at the end of her article. While her information about Bixler’s pottery may be apocryphal, the details do not seem to be merely “imagined” by a creative historian or otherwise made-up. Ms. Bixler interviewed antiques dealers, curators, a librarian at Franklin & Marshall, and, most importantly, two locals who would have been familiar with at least a rough account of Absalom Bixler’s life and work. One of her interviews dates back to 1963, when people whose parents had had direct contact with Bixler himself were still alive to tell their stories.

One of the most interesting parts of Miriam Bixler’s account is her statement that Bixler “often signed his pottery ‘A. Bixler.’” This does not seem like a fact pulled out of thin air, and, if the author is referring to a stamped maker’s mark, is consistent with the types of signatures found on plenty of other redware made up and down the east coast and westward. It would seem that if we could find a piece stamped “A. Bixler,” we would be able to put the matter to rest and say with confidence that Absalom Bixler was a potter and that he, beyond a reasonable doubt, made the group previously doubtfully attributable to him. A piece that we discovered in the Kelly Young collection can help us immensely in this regard.

A miniature redware jar, covered in a lead and manganese glaze and measuring only 1 ¾” tall, is impressed on the bottom with one of the most important marks we have ever seen on a piece of American redware: “A. Bixler.” The typeface used to produce the mark is one I have never encountered on redware or stoneware. The style, a kind usually associated with Germany, prompted me to look into what sort of typeface this was. The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Fine Arts has an amazing collection of period typefaces, The Rob Roy Kelly Wood Type Collection. According to the University the collection “is comprised of nearly 150 faces of various sizes and styles, including examples of the most popular printing types in use between 1828 and 1900 … .” Kelly, a “noted design educator, collector, and historian,” used his collection in the early 90’s to assist the Adobe software company in resurrecting period typefaces in digital form. One of the types featured in Kelly’s collection is particularly appropriate for our evaluation of the “A. Bixler” jar. Blackletter script and, more specifically, the blackletter typeface called “German,” are strikingly similar to the type used to produce Bixler’s mark. Click here to have a look. Note in particular the strange lowercase “x,” also seen on the bottom of the pot.

According to Falk, printer’s type was sold in Absalom Bixler’s estate. While listed as a farmer in all Federal Census population schedules between 1850 and 1880, it seems that Miriam Bixler’s assessment of Absalom as a veritable one-man band of nineteenth century Pennsylvania handicrafts is correct. In their 2005 book, Flying Leaves and One-Sheets : Pennsylvania German Broadsides, Fraktur, and their Printers, Russell and Corinne Earnest note the existence of a book plate depicting a man surrounded by angels, Adam & Eve, and a sun face, inscribed, “This BOOK is the property belonging to ABM BIXLER ESQR,” probably printed, according to the authors, by Absalom Bixler in Lancaster County. (Bixler is referred to as “Absalom B. Bixler Esq.” in the 1860 Census.) Bixler’s work as a printer would explain the large, interesting type used to inscribe his redware in general, and would also explain the unusual (and apparently unique) blackletter script used to sign his miniature redware jar.

We are unaware of any other examples of American redware impressed with Absalom Bixler’s maker’s mark. It is hard to overstate the importance of this pot, which conclusively establishes Bixler as a potter and, by extension, the origin of the mystery group of Bixler redware. It also stands as an artifact of a man who clearly lived a life of artisanship and self-reliance, in this case combining his skills as both a potter and a printer to produce one object whose size does not belie its great significance.

Last August, when my father, brother, and I, traveled down to Ft. Worth, Texas, to take possession of Mr. Young’s collection, an interesting stoneware harvest jug sitting on his living room table caught my eye. According to Young’s daughter, it had been purchased by Mr. Young at an antiques show in New York City during the early 1990’s, where it had been erroneously described as a piece of Indian pottery.

The form of the jug itself was in the typical domed or beehive style characteristic of 19th century American stoneware harvest jugs. Yet the vessel was made extraordinary by the addition of a large applied rattlesnake, which curved around the body of the vessel and formed its handle. I was really taken with the look of the snake. The style was different than that of the Kirkpatrick brothers, who produced the majority of 19th century stoneware snake jugs. The head was not executed in the usual flattened, closed-mouth form characteristic of the Kirkpatricks’ work. Instead, the animal assumed an almost comical expression, as its large open mouth curved into a slight smile, exposing numerous applied teeth. The creature’s body was further embellished with numerous slashes of brushed Albany slip, and its tail ended in a thin rattle. I believe the jug was possibly made in the Midwest, where the majority of harvest jugs and snake vessels were produced during the 19th century. Yet the subject matter suggests it is more likely a product of the Southcentral U.S., possibly Texas, where the rattlesnake was a very familiar animal.

While cataloging this piece, I was wondering about its unusual form. The vast majority of harvest jugs known have two spouts, one on each side. One spout, which was larger than the other, was designed for pouring liquid into the vessel. A smaller spout on the opposite side was designed for pouring liquid out of the jug. This harvest jug, however, only had one spout, and nothing on the other side. As I studied the jug, I noticed a hole inside the back of the snake’s mouth. Seeing that the snake’s head rested on the jug’s finial, I wondered if the hole might connect through the finial to the interior of the vessel. I decided to do a test with water. After pouring a small amount of water into the tubular spout on the jug’s side, I carefully leaned the jug over a sink. Voila! The water began to flow from the snake’s mouth! Hence, a smaller,

pouring spout did exist on this jug. . . only in the form of the snake’s head!

I am impressed with the ingenuity of this jug’s potter, whoever the person was. By the addition of a clay snake, he created a handle and a pouring spout, as well as significant decorative appeal to an otherwise simple form. I, for one, am sold on the piece! We’ll see what the bidders think on January 30th.