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 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

Women Who Didn’t Make Pottery

Women didn’t make pottery.

Or rather, an Interpretive Staff Director of an early American life museum once told me that.  His argument?  Lack of evidence.  No solid documentation shows women making pottery in this country before the “Art Pottery” revival of the 1870’s.  No tax rolls, no signed pots, no probate records, no diaries.

Pottery was rarely classed as a distinct occupation.  Furthermore, some “potters” owned large manufactories, while others were just rural door to door sales people.  Actual pottery makers could alternately be noted as “laborers,” “mechanics” (they worked with machines), or “farmers.”  Hardly anyone wrote about it.  So, women potters?  Where is the evidence?

Some bits and pieces include; Ann Mackdugle, apprenticing to William Kettel in Charleston, MA until 1712; a woman listing herself as an “Earthen Ware Potter Maker” upon disembarking from Ireland in 1716 (Ireland lost it’s only female potter at that time?);  Catharine Bowne, inheriting a shop in Middlesex, NJ and operating it from 1813 into the 1820’s.

More is known of Grace Parker.  She and her husband Isaac made redware from 1713 to 1742 in Charlestown, MA.  By all accounts they did pretty well.  In 1742, they asked for support from the colonial government to attempt stoneware.  They got funding.  While soliciting information from southern stoneware potters, Isaac suddenly died.  Grace carried on.  She was the first potter to make stoneware in New England.  She continued until 1754, when the French Indian War ruined her business and small pox ruined her.   (Some, however, believe Grace was just a manager – because women didn’t make pottery.)

Nobody denies that Maria Crafts Kellog made stoneware in Whately, MA in the 1850’s.  Slip decorated crocks of hers can be seen at the Whately Historical Society.  Crafts Avenue in nearby Northampton was named after the Crafts family.  Thomas Crafts, her uncle and Whatley’s most famous potter, apparently favored Maria.  He, like many potters, farmed out his relations to various locales, establishing new potteries to increase his market.  He sold each of his sons the plot of land of his they settled on.  Only Maria was given a homestead for free.

In indigenous societies, of course, women did make pottery.  It was “part of their domain”.  Even Colono Ware, native pottery for the Anglo market, was made by women.  Still, to this day in many parts of rural Meso America, women potters might rather be called “comalleristas” (cooking dish makers).  It wasn’t until the Spanish introduced the potter’s wheel and all its attendant gadgetry in the 1500’s, that men got involved (or so the evidence suggests).

It is reasonable, even sane, to deny a theory where no evidence exists.  Lots of grief could be avoided by applying this simple rule.  Case in point; our current involvement in Iraq.  But to successfully maintain a pottery culture, it takes a community.

Readings:

Ceramics in America. Ian Quimby, Ed.  University Press of Virginia/Charlottesville.  1972.

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

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 Guide to Whately Pottery and The Potters.  Henry Baldwin.  Paradise Copies/Northampton MA.  1999.

Pottery of the American Indians. Helen Stiles.  E.P. Dutton & Co./New York. 1939.

Peace

One of the early settlers of the village of Tarrytown, New York, was a  French potter named Claude Requa.  He settled there in 1729 after fleeing from his native France.  He was a Huguenot, a French Calvinist.  At the time, Huguenots were being rounded up by French authorities and given a choice: convert to Catholicism, or life in prison.  Over a century before, King Henry IV signed the Edict of Nantes, guaranteeing religious tolerance.  But Henry was now gone, and so was the edict.  Huguenot potters like Requa, and his more famous predecessor Bernard Pallisy, were fair game.  Pallisy ended up dying in the Bastille of Lyons in 1589.

But Requa got away.  He and his family gave up everything to spend the rest of their life in a foreign country.  An excavation of the Requa pottery site in Tarrytown revealed many earthenware shards with geometric patterns slip trailed on them.  There was only one exception:  An almost complete platter with the word “Peace” trailed on it.

I have often thought of this platter.  Today, if one sees “Peace” trailed onto a plate, they might think “Yeah, like, peace-out dude.”  But what was Requa trying to say?  Had he finally found peace?  Was he still looking for it?  Was it his testament and warning to the world?  Was it his cherished wish for his fellow humans?

Whatever his motives, I am sure that this must have been a very powerful word to him.  I find that thought very moving.

Peace Plate by Stephen Earp

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