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AMERICAN POTTERY

through the Growth and Change of the 18th and 19th Centuries

Taken from The Complete Color Encyclopedia of Antiques. Preface by Bevis Hillier, Editor of The Connoisseur.
Compiled by The Connoisseur, London. New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc. 1962.
Further editing by Judy Gonyeau, managing editor

“ like fine things Even when They are pans—formed the principal output of small potteries everywhere. New
not mine, And canot [sic] become England’s glacial clays made excellent redware, which was partly
Imine; I still enjoy them.” This translated supplemented by grey stoneware from the time of the Revolution, or
from the Pennsylvania dialect, appears on a more extensively after 1800. Always popular, ordinary redware survived
sgraffito plate signed by Johannes Leman, the competition offered by cheap and serviceable factory-made wares
made before 1830 at the Friedrich from the 1830s. In countryside districts, lasted through the 19th century.
Hildebrand pottery near Tyler’s Port,
Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Early New England Potters

New England must have been
Clay in American Soil brimming with small but able potters.
As waves of immigrants came to In 1775 [says John Ramsay in
America to begin a new life, the continent American Potters and Pottery] the two
had everything needed for the production Essex County, Massachusetts, towns
of pottery. Potter’s clays were abundant. This jug was probably made by of Danvers and Peabody had
The common red-burning clays [for John Crolius, whose family seventy-five potters, and there were
bricks, roof tiles, coarse redware] occurred worked in New York City in twenty-two Peabody potters at the
in shales at or near the ground’s surface, an area known as Pot Baker’s Battle of Lexington.
and their use since earliest days had called Hill, just north of what is now Illustrations of the day show what
for only the simplest kilns and equipment. City Hall Park. He and his Puritan austerity characterized the
Buff-burning clays of finer texture were brother, William, were among general output. Simple and appropriate Exceedingly Rare and Important
employed since the 17th century for the area’s first potters. Their forms were enough, with richly Shenandoah Valley Redware Dish,
experimental wares of every grade, and in father had emigrated from colored glazes to satisfy the eye and Inscribed “JE / his Dish / 1808,”
Germany and founded a
attributed to Peter Bell,
the 1800s provided a range of factory- pottery, which the family ran only with occasional attempts at Hagerstown, MD, tapered dish
made wares from Bennington to Baltimore, until the mid-19th century. further decoration. with rounded rim, profusely-
and westward along the Ohio River. The jug is signed and dated, decorated on the interior with a
Through the colonial years and far which is rare in 18th-century Pennsylvania-German central flowering daisy plant in
beyond, coarse red-clay pottery—jugs and American stoneware. In the Dutch counties settled in the cream and dark-brown slip,
jars, plates and bowls, mugs and milk surrounded by a cream slip band
18th century by Swiss Mennonites,
with wavy brown stripe. Decoration
is bordered by the highly unusual
Title images: 1. Among the most outstanding examples of incised American stoneware still in private hands, this cooler’s mermaid motif inscription “JE 1808 his Dish,”
is noteworthy for its subject matter, size, detail, and artistic merit. This design, akin in artistic quality to an early 19th century folk interspersed with four large clusters
portrait, establishes the cooler's maker, Moses Clark Bell, as a true master of his craft. This sold at Crocker Farm for $70,800 in of cream slip circles with brown-
October, 2019. 2. Antique Majolica serving bowl. American in origin, ca. 1880s. It is rendered in a classic aesthetic Victorian embossed spotted interiors. Surface is covered
basket and flower motif. It has rich traditional Majolica color combinations. 3. This redware double-handled pot with lid from the in a clear lead glaze over an orange
Oysterponds Historical Society in New York was made by an unknown maker ca. 1800. Written on the pot is “Captain Jonathan Terry clay ground. This significant example
/ Oysterponds / October 6th 1800.” It was most likely made on eastern Long Island or Connecticut. There is another almost identical of early Shenandoah Valley pottery
piece in the collection of Winterthur Museum in Delaware that was inscribed just one day later, “Octr 7 1800.” The remainder of the is one of the finest surviving works
inscription on this pot reads, “Mr. Silas Ruiment / Sag-Harbour – Long Island.” Captain Jonathan Terry was born in 1770 and died in attributed to the early Hagerstown,
1820. Augustus Griffin in his Journal writes that he and his brother “for may years sailed handsome coasting vessels from this village.” MD and Winchester, VA potter,
There have been Terrys in Oysterponds since the 17th century. 4. This plate, ca. 1790-1800, was possibly made by Heinrich Roth in Peter Bell (1775-1854).
Sold at Crocker Farm in
the White Hall Township in Northampton County. photo: Brandywine Museum
2013 for $10,350.
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