Gonic New Hampshire got it’s name, like countless other New England towns, by mangling the original inhabitants name for the place. There are many indigenous place names referring to pottery across the Americas. Gonic, known to the local Pennacook Indians as “land of the clay hills,” is particularly interesting because European colonists and their progeny continued the namesake tradition.
19th century pottery making in Gonic was synonymous with the Osborne family. They were a branch of the Quaker clan from Danvers, MA whose pottery dynasty reached back into the previous century. In those days, trades like pottery tended to stay within certain families. Some historians today believe this was due to the particularly long apprenticeship required to become a master. It made a certain sense as a natural extension of family ties to incorporate relations as they came of age (to get a Master of Fine Arts Degree today takes only two years and parental co-signing of $50,000 in loans). But another argument (probably from those with teen aged sons) considers the benefits of consigning a strapping young boy to a relative’s household so they can feed him for his teen years…
We can’t know what the Gonic Osbornes’ ulterior motives towards their teenagers were. But we do know that their mottled green glaze rivaled that of the Tauton, MA potteries who went through positively scandalous amounts of copper. And apparently the Gonic Osborne’s did a good trade in shaving mugs, or at least many of these have survived.
At some point, brick making must also have been part of the Osborne resume. Their rectangular corbel arched kilns were akin to brick makers’ scove kilns. The Osborne’s even used the so called “brick maker’s method” of clay preparation designed to wash out soluble salts before production. Hillsides were scraped to expose clay seams. They were plowed and harrowed before a rain, then sun dried. The clay lumps were broken up and carted off to the pottery.
Labor intensive? Perhaps. But that’s what teen aged apprentices were for.
Readings
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.
Slipped and Glazed: Regional American Redware. Brian Cullity. Heritage Plantation of Sandwich/Sandwich MA. 1991.
This Day in Pottery History 