Catawba Clay

As usual, the Cherokee got all the credit.  Since 1540, when swine flu carried by pigs of Hernan DeSoto’s expedition erased the entire Mississippian Mound Building culture in the blink of an eye, the Cherokee had dominated the Little Tennessee River Valley.  They were Britain’s top trading partner in the area (until after the French Indian War, when they became the colonists’ main target for expansion).  And when pottery history came knocking at the door in 1768, who got the glory?  The Cherokee.

Josiah Wedgwood had heard of a fabled pure white clay deep in the interior of North Carolina.  He contracted Thomas Griffiths to collect samples.  Griffiths traveled from Charleston, SC to Fort Prince George, NC, the furthest colonial outpost.  There, he was asked to escort home a Cherokee woman recently rescued from the clutches of a rival tribe.  Lucky for Griffiths, as the Cherokee soon captured him.  What were they to make of this lone white boy in the middle of a free fire zone claiming to be ‘just out looking for clay?’

The squaw saved Griffiths.  But those “Strainge Copper Collour’d Gentry” drove a hard bargain.  It took plenty of eating, drinking, smoking, and “Strong Talk” (and 500 pounds sterling) to get at the “unaker” clay pits.  Griffiths shipped out enough material for Wedgwood to create the exact clay body needed for his masterpiece, the Portland Vase, and to kick off his fabulously successful Queen’s Ware.  Bow Pottery also used this clay, still called “unaker” in Mitchell County, NC, to make England’s first true porcelain.

In the shadow of the Cherokee, the Catawba, a small neighboring tribe, existed for generations.  But the Catawba had one main distinction; their pottery.  Other tribes made pots.  The Catawba, specifically their women, were veritable ‘Pottery Indians.’  Pottery was their primary occupation.  Pottery held the tribe together.  And continues to do so.  Cherokee families with Catawba wives became pottery families as well.

Was it possible the Catawba had a hand (even a minor one) in Griffiths’ saga?  It’s clear Griffiths dealt with the proud, powerful Cherokee.  But Fort Prince George, the Little Tennessee River and Mitchell County roughly formed the border between Cherokee and Catawba lands.  Who would best know the value of the unaker clay pits?  A family married into the Catawba tradition might.  The historical record falls silent.

Any recognition the Catawba have garnered in recent years has been well deserved.  But if they did play a part in the creation of the Portland Vase, Queen’s Ware, and England’s first porcelain, I for one would like to see that acknowledged.

Readings:
Catawba Indian Pottery.  Thomas John Blumer.  University of Alabama Press/Tuscaloosa AL.  2004.

The Pottery and Porcelain of the United States.  Edwin Atlee Barber.  G.P. Putnam’s Sons/New York.  1909.

The Art of the Potter.  Diana and J. Garrison Stradling.  Main Street-Universe Books/New York.  1977).

Early New England Potters and Their Wares.  Lura Woodside Watkins.  Harvard Univ Press/Cambridge MA.  1968.

A New Face on the Countryside.  Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 500-1800. Timothy Silver.  Cambridge University Press.  1990.

Technorati Tags: Cherokee,Hernan DeSoto,Mississipian Mound Builders,French Indian War,Wedgwood,Portland Vase,Queen’s Ware,Bow Pottery,Catawba

The Secret to Success

Rarely did anyone bother to write about pottery making during America’s early days.  One who did was Nathan Clark, working from 1839 to 1851 in Rochester, NY.  He wrote “Rules for Making & Burning Stone Ware.”

1st.  Let the wheelman be careful to have every piece run exactly true on the wheel.  Make them of a kind precisely of the same height & width.  Have the ware turned light, of a handsome shape, smooth inside & outside, the bottom a suitable thickness, and a good top.

2nd.  Let it be handsomely & smoothly polished in proper season.

3rd.  Let the ware when dry be carefully set in the loft washed and blued.

4th.  Let the plats be well made, Kiln cleaned out and mended in complete order for setting.

5th.  Care must be taken to set the courses plum and one piece exactly over the other.

6th.  Have your wood in good order, raise your fire progressively, neither too fast nor too slow.  Examine well & understand the management of your Kiln so as to heat all parts alike.  Be careful not to throw your wood in the arches too soon or do any other act that may have a tendency to retard the heat.  When fit to glaze have your salt dry.  Scatter it well in every part of your Kiln (during this act you must keep a full and clear blaze so as to accelerate the glazing and give the ware a bright gloss).  Stop it perfectly tight and in six days you may draw a good kiln of ware.

Reading:
The Art of the Potter. Diana and J. Garrison Stradling.  Main Street-Universe Books/New York.  1977.

Technorati Tags: stoneware,groundhog kilns,salt firing

Fire on the Mountain

For people of a certain age, enumerating the many wars the US instigated throughout the 19th century in the Caribbean and Central America should come as no surprise.  Our meddling in this region is not typically taught in schools.  But during the 1980’s Central American Solidarity groups tried to make that story more recognized.

Even less known are the various wars fought between the colonies, and later between individual states in this country.  Sticking to pottery history, the war between New Hampshire and New York will do.

On Jan 3, 1749 New Hampshire’s Royal Governor Benning Wentworth obtained a land grant from King George III for territory between the Merrimac and Hudson Rivers.  Bennington, the territory’s first settlement, was named in the governor’s honor.  Kith and kin were called to populate the territory after the French Indian War.

By then, New York also successfully petitioned for roughly the same territory.  Both colonies now felt they had sole rights to this real estate.  Imagine the looks on everyone’s face when New Yorkers stumbled into Bennington, claiming it as theirs!  (Somehow, the Abenaki, Mahican and Pennacook Indians never entered the equation.)

The issue soon came to blows.  Each side now called on kin to defend their land from the invader.  Official, quasi-official, and semi-quasi-official militias roamed the country, burning rival settlements.  New Hampshire’s top militia leader Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys were particularly good at their job.

Things would have escalated, had not the Revolutionary War intervened.  A compromise was reached.  “The Republic of Vermont” would be independent, but eventually folded into the United States.  Both sides could now focus on evicting the redcoats…

…This is where pottery history comes in.  A nephew of Allen’s living in Goshen CT heeded the call and marched north.  But after the “shots heard round the world” in Lexington and Concord, Jonathan Norton enlisted in the Continental Army.  Jonathan was promoted to captain after the Battle of Bennington.  Later, he was a guard at the execution of Major Andre, the British handler of turncoat Benedict Arnold.  After the war Captain John Norton settled in Bennington, founded the Norton Pottery, and became wider than he was tall.  Ethan Allen died on a British prison ship never knowing this.

If there’s a point here, it is simply that the story of how things got to be the way they are can be instructive.  In this case, it’s the difference between a sound bite image of patriots defending their homes, and a saga of people who would have killed each other were it not for a common enemy.  Two very different images indeed.

Readings:
How the States Got Their Shapes. Mark Stein.  HarperCollins Publishers/New York.  2009.

The Jug and Related Stoneware of Bennington. Cornelius Osgood.  Charles Tuttle Co./Rutland, VT. 1971.

Technorati Tags: Bennington,Vermont,Abenaki,Mahican and Pennacook Indians,Ethan Allen,Revolutionary War,Norton Pottery,pottery and politics

It May Be Remembered

“It may be remembered that I have made a kiln of ware this summer, consisting of milkpans, some pots, pudding pans & wash bowls, but mostly of stove tubes and flowerpots, and have this day finished burning the same, Hervey Brooks”.  September 23rd, 1864.

Hervey Brooks was a rare breed.  He had been making redware pottery in Goshen CT for almost 60 years.   Others gave up long before, either in favor of stoneware, to work in the mills, or to seek better fortunes elsewhere.

Like most potters then, Hervey wore many hats; selling rags, working the roads, making fence poles, trading everything from clocks to oysters, even publishing music for the Sacred Harp.  In his heyday, Hervey could throw 14 dozen milk pans a day.  All this during the time a farmer had between seasons.  Hervey wasn’t a full time potter.  Nor was he particularly gifted.  But he’s a blessing to posterity because an almost complete record of his output still exists in the ledgers he kept throughout his life.

For those who care to see, Hervey’s notes offer a precious glimpse into his world.  “It may be remembered…”  He was writing to us, today.   “…that I have made a kiln of ware this summer…”  Stove tubes and flower pots were the last hold-out items of the redware trade.  They generally turned the notion of “potter” into a factory worker.  But Hervey wanted us to know he still made the old stuff.  “…and have this day finished burning the same.”

He was then 85 years old.  Hervey had fired only one kiln a year for some time.  This was his last.  Included in the journal entry was an account of his wife’s burial.  They had been married for over half a century.

It is easy to assume, given the wide range of activities that people like Hervey Brooks were involved in, that redware wasn’t considered terribly special – even to its makers.  But ask any potter.  Nobody would write such a note if they didn’t deeply care about what they were doing.

Reading:
Hervey Brooks, Connecticut Farmer-Potter; A Study of Earthenware from His Blotters, 1822-1860. Paul Lynn,  Oneonta State University/New York.  1969.

Technorati Tags: Hervey Brooks,redware,ironstone,pearlware,pottery history

The Bloody Duke of Alva

Bernard Leach…

…I suppose it was only a matter of time before his name popped up…

…Well, I first heard about Leach, and his famous book on pottery, in college.  Some say Leach’s “A Potter’s Book” almost singlehandedly reformed craft ceramics.  In it he certainly sought to establish a standard that would be eternal.  When I finally saw the tome – it was just a little red book – my first thought was of another little red book.  This one by Chairman Mao.  “That’s it?”

I mention Leach because his book created an impression (at least in my eager mind) of a ‘golden age’ of English pottery during the Middle Ages.  We’d certainly be less today if Leach hadn’t expounded his ideas, and I do enjoy Medieval English pottery.  But by and large, English pottery from 600 to 1400AD was still in a pretty crude state.  True, a few monastic potters late in the period tried to keep up with continental trends.  But in general, the forms were limited to the “potts and panns” (pots simply being more tall than wide, and pans the opposite) of the dairy economy.  Households ate off treen ware (wooden items).  Food storage was crude.  Food preparation was cruder – unless you could afford glass, silver, and a household staff…

Between 1566 and 1648, many things changed.  A group of Spanish provinces, known today as “The Netherlands,” revolted.  The Calvinist Reformation was involved, but harsh foreign rule, as is usually the case, propelled the Dutch Republicans to fight.  Spain sought to snuff out this peasant uprising.  The man hired to do the dirty work was the Duke of Alva.  With his “Blood Court” behind him, the Duke encouraged his troops to a level of depravity not seen again for several centuries.  And that’s saying something!  (ie: Issuing, and trying to carry out, a death warrant against every living soul in the provinces.)  Eventually the Dutch cause won out.  But not before waves of refugees poured into increasingly Puritan (thanks again to Calvin) England.

Those Dutch refugees brought with them their food ways.  They drank from individual cups instead of one big bowl passed from hand to hand, they ate off of ceramic plates, etc.  Dutch potters brought their skill and knowledge.  In a few short years, whole villages of “cuppers” would form.  English potters would be copying Delftware.  And English pottery would blossom…

It is said that great beauty can arise from adversity.  English pottery was certainly enriched by refugees from the wanton devastation of Dutch society.  But if Spain had left the Dutch in peace, the English would have eventually figured it all out by themselves.  That would have been much better.

Readings:
English Delftware. GF Garner.  Van Nostrand Co., Inc./New York.  1948.

The English Country Pottery, Its History and Techniques. Peter Brears.  Charles Tuttle Co./Rutland, VT.  1971.

A Potter’s Book. Bernard Leach.  Transatlantic Arts, Inc./New York.  1976 (reprinted).

If These Pots Could Talk. Ivor Noel Hume.  Chipstone Press/Williamsburg.  2006.

Technorati Tags: Bernard Leach,Mao,middle ages,medieval England,John Calvin,Reformation,Duke of Alva,Delftware

Mischianza

There is a curious little plate in the collection of the Philadelphia  Museum of Art.  The plate was made in 1786 by a potter named Johannes Niess in Montgomery County, PA.  It is about 11″ in diameter.  The plate’s sgraffito style of decoration is typical of pottery from that region.  The decoration depicts a dance scene with two colonial era couples.  Each couple consists of an officer and a well to do woman.  A fiddle player off to the left, is also in officer attire.

The scene is said to depict a particularly elaborate gala known as the “Mischianza.”  The British Army officer corp during the Revolutionary War was particularly fond of this type of revelry.  Especially General William Howe and his staff.  General Howe commanded the forces occupying Philadelphia, previously the capitol of the rebellion, during the 1777 – 78 winter.  General Washington’s Continental Army shivered in the snow at nearby Valley Forge.  Observers believe that had Howe attacked the Valley Forge encampment, he would have destroyed Washington’s army and probably put an end to the uprising.  Instead, Howe squandered the winter in frivolous entertainment.  In the spring, Washington slipped away.  Soon afterward, Howe’s army was forced to evacuate Philadelphia.  On his departure Howe threw an unforgettably (some said unforgivably) extravagant party – the Mischianza.  The Mischianza plate is a commemorative depiction of this sordid tale of Howe’s squandered chances.

What makes the plate curious, at least to me, is the legend inscribed around the plate’s rim.  Many sgraffito plates from south eastern Pennsylvania at the time bore writing, in German, around the rim.  The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s collection of these plates is perhaps the best in the country. The sayings could be moralisms, local wit, biblical phrases, etc.  On some plates, the sayings offer a jarring juxtaposition to the imagery they surround.

That’s where the curiosity comes in.  Or, I should say, shock.  This plate was obviously meant for display, not everyday use.  But who on earth would want to prominently display on hearth or cupboard a plate with “Our Maid, the ugly pig, always wanted to be a housewife. Oh, you ugly slut. 1786” scrawled around the rim?

Readings:
The Pottery and Porcelain of the United States. Edward Atlee Barber.  G.P. Putnam’s Sons/New York.  1909.

1776. David McCullough.  Simon and Schuster.  2005.

Technorati Tags: Johannes Niess,Pennsylvania Pottery,Revolutionary War,Valley Forge

Bartmann Greybeard; A Cautionary Tale.

In 1610 Cardinal Maffeo Berberini received a copy of “The Starry  Messenger” by Galileo Galilei.  This treatise on observations Galileo made with his newly invented telescope forever changed our understanding of the universe.  Berberini was impressed.  He befriended the Florentine astronomer.  Galileo must have been pleased, because the Cardinal became Pope Urban VIII in 1616.  Galileo was invited to the Vatican to discuss his fascinating new discoveries. 

But church bigwigs got nervous.  They told Urban in no uncertain terms that Galileo was, in fact, challenging God and Church.  Pope Urban ignored what he knew to be right and acquiesced to the powers that put him, and kept him, in the Holy See.

The heat came in the form of Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino, the “hammer of the heretics.”  The Roman Inquisition had recently burned Giordano Bruno, a Dominican Friar who suggested the Earth revolved around the Sun.  But Bellarmino let Galileo go with a warning.  When Galileo defended his ideas in “The Assayer,” Bellarmino put his foot down.  Galileo was forced to recant his discoveries.  Scientific inquiry took 300 years to recover.  Galileo went to his grave muzzled by the strictures of the Cardinal.  And Bellarmino went on to fight the Reformation in the Low Countries.

People began associating the Cardinal’s name with the widely popular “bartmann,” a salt fired stoneware jug with a greybeard face applied to its side.  The bartmann had been made in Germany’s Rhineland pottery district since the previous century.  But why associate Bellarmino with this jug?  Was it sarcasm?  Endearment?  Who knows?  The name “Bellarmine Jug” stuck, though.  What’s more, as the jug’s popularity spread, all sorts of notions began attaching themselves to it.  Liquids kept in it could heal the sick.  Witchcraft could be warded off by keeping one buried under the house…

How effective any of that was, I can’t say.  But despite the Bellarmine Jug’s popularity, or its psychic powers, I’m pretty sure Galileo never owned one.

Readings:
Galileo’s Daughter.  Dava Sobel.  Walker & Co./New York.  1999.

If These Pots Could Talk.  Ivor Noel Hume.  Chipstone Press.  2001.

Stoneware: White Salt-Glazed, Rhenish and Dry Body.  Gérard Gusset.  National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada/Ministry of the Environment, Ottawa, Canada.  1980.

The Concise Encyclopedia of Continental Pottery and Porcelain.  Reginald Haggar.  Hawthorn Books/New York.  1960.

Technorati Tags: Bartmann,Bellarmine Jug,Galileo,German Salt Fired Stoneware,Rhennish Pottery,Pope Urban VIII

Luman Norton’s Barn

John Spargo was a big fan of the Nortons.  The Norton family of Bennington VT, was a powerhouse pottery dynasty from 1793 to almost to the end of the 19th century.  They initiated or excelled in virtually everything being made at the time; Redware (at first), Rockingham, Yellow ware, Sponge ware, Parian sculptures, Flint Enamel, Agate (“Scroddled”) ware, Granite ware, Porcelain, and of course, that quintessential American classic: salt-fired cobalt slipped stoneware crocks.  Begun at the foot of a mountain named after Susan B. Antony’s family,  the Nortons were one of a very few American pottery firms to successfully compete with the post-Revolutionary War British pottery invasion.  Bennington was even for a time called “The Staffordshire of America.”

Only the first few generations of Nortons were actual potters, though.  Captain John Norton, his son Luman, and Luman’s son Julius.  Most of the rest were content being local Brahmins, sitting atop the wealth created by their pottery making progenitors.  Except Edward, who tried to revive the then flagging pottery in the late 1880’s.  But he died young.  From then till today, the Norton name became affixed to their refractories and abrasives businesses.

Anyway, John Spargo was a Marxist agitator turned pottery collector (really).  He wrote several books early in the 20th century about American ceramics.  His “The Potters and Potteries of Bennington” is a landmark text.  It’s also a hagiography.  A paean to the Norton family.  The book is peppered with glowing accounts of the Nortons by their friends and neighbors.  The Nortons were gregarious, true enough.  They regularly strolled through the pottery, top hat in hand, chatting with the workers.

Luman, the second of the line, wasn’t as gifted as his father or his son.  But he put the Pottery on a solid footing.  So what a scandal when somebody burned down his barn in 1812!  Shortly after, someone tried to burn the rebuilt barn.  Luman posted night guards to protect it.  This was the very eve of the War of 1812.  A tense time.  Sitting under the stars, I wonder what the guards talked about.  Soon armies would rage across their countryside, possibly directly into their homes…

Luman Norton was, according to Spargo, well liked and well respected.  How ironic, then, that the arsonist wasn’t a British agent or an interloper from any number of rival potteries.  It was one of the trusted boys guarding his barn.

There must be a story here.

Readings:
The Potters and Potteries of Bennington.  John Spargo.  Cracker Barrel Press/Southampton, NY.  1926.

Early American Pottery and China.  John Spargo.  The Century Co./NY.  1926.

Early New England Potters and Their Wares.  Lura Woodside Watkins.  Harvard Univ Press/Cambridge MA.  1968.

The Jug and Related Stoneware of Bennington. Cornelius Osgood.  Charles Tuttle Co./Rutland, VT. 1971.

The Art of the Potter.  Diana and J. Garrison Stradling.  Main Street-Universe Books/New York.  1977.

Technorati Tags: Norton Pottery,Bennington Pottery,John Norton,Luman Norton,Julius Norton,John Spargo,Redware,Spongeware,Yellow ware,Parian ware,Agate ware,Granite ware,Porcelain,Stoneware crocks

The Poor Potter, Third and Final Part.

All the poor potters in the early days of the United States struggled to help their country survive.  But Ben Franklin’s exhortations to produce much and admit little eventually backfired.  Ben’s son, the Royal Governor of New Jersey, sided with the Loyalists during the Revolution.  Charleston, MA, a long standing and major colonial pottery center, was burned to the ground during the British occupation.  Production there never recovered.  Worst of all, the notion of competing with work coming from England morphed into a curious form of self-depreciation.  If locally made fine quality items wanted to sell, they’d do best to not be signed.  That way, they could be passed off as imported.

This mind set developed at least partly because English imports skyrocketed once the Treaty of Paris established American independence in 1782.  Most of England’s manufacturing elites, potter Josiah Wedgwood foremost among them, favored the American cause.  An independent North America was a potentially huge market, free from tax laws regulating trade with colonies.  (And we did become Wedgwood’s largest customer.)  Just as America was beginning to create a national craft identity, England’s Industrial Revolution hit high gear.  We were swamped with foreign-made mass produced goods.

It took the better part of the 19th century for American artisans to move beyond that mountain of cheap stuff and the mental block that came with it.  The spark that got things rolling again was the Centennial Exhibition of 1876.  That watershed moment initiated the first serious reappraisal of the American crafts scene.

But that story is too good, so it’ll have to wait for another time…

Meanwhile, redware production had pretty much died out.  As William Ketchum, author of “American Pottery & Porcelain (Antique Hunter’s Guide),” sadly noted: “The potters have gone, but the clay is still there.”

Readings:

Domestic Pottery of the Northeastern United States, 1625-1850. Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh, Ed. Academic Press/New York.  1985.

Unearthing New England’s Past: The Ceramic Evidence.  Exhibition Catalogue. Museum of Our National Heritage/Lexington, MA.  1984.

Early New England Potters and Their Wares. Lura Woodside Watkins.  Harvard Univ Press/Cambridge MA.  1968.

The Art of the Potter. Diana and J. Garrison Stradling.  Main Street-Universe Books/New York.  1977.

American Pottery & Porcelain (Antique Hunter’s Guide). William Ketchum.  Leventhal Publishers/New York.  2000.

Technorati Tags: Centenial Exhibit,Josiah Wedgwood,Redware,Industrial Revolution,Revolutionary War

The Poor Potter is Dead, Part Two.

A generation after the poor potter of Yorktown died, Benjamin Franklin advised his son William, the Royal Governor of New Jersey, to downplay local manufacture of consumer goods to William’s superiors in England.  Writing from London, Ben said that depreciative accounts of coarse, poor quality local production “are very satisfactory here, and induce the parliament to despise and take no notice of the Boston resolutions…”

This was the heyday of American redware pottery production.  It was also open rebellion.  There was a widespread feeling that the colonies could and should be self-sufficient.  They wanted autonomy.  It took Thomas Paine’s radical pamphlet “Common Sense” to finally push the colonists to completely sever all ties with England.  (Why is common sense always the hardest thing to swallow?)

American potters set out to prove they could equal the wares imported from England.  As this feeling grew, so did the number of potters.  Many greatly expanded their repertoire beyond the “potts and panns” of their forebearers.  Some modern observers believe all this activity didn’t necessarily result in an increase in quality, though.  Many new potteries went belly up within a short space of time.  But in Charlestown, MA, a major New England pottery center,  many potters consistently ranked in the top five percent of tax payers.  Somebody was doing something right.

Boycotts against anything imported caught on.  But people still needed things to put things in.  Redware fit the bill.  It was cheap and it was local.

So, potters as “local heroes?”  An interesting idea.  It might sound strange now, but once upon a time, making mugs was an act of rebellion in this country.

Readings:
Domestic Pottery of the Northeastern United States, 1625-1850. Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh, Ed. Academic Press/New York.  1985.

Unearthing New England’s Past: The Ceramic Evidence.  Exhibition Catalogue. Museum of Our National Heritage/Lexington, MA.  1984.

Early New England Potters and Their Wares. Lura Woodside Watkins.  Harvard Univ Press/Cambridge MA.  1968.

Technorati Tags: Ben Franklin,Thomas Paine,Common Sense,Redware,Colonial Pottery,New England Pottery