American Stoneware Pottery

"In the 18th century the decorations on stoneware pottery took the shape of formalized loops, flowers, animals, fish, birds, and butterflies. "

By Sharon Stajda,

It is true to say, in America's earliest years hardly a single home would have been without one or more pieces stoneware pottery. Pottery that would have been utilitarian in nature, and put to practical use. Stoneware pottery such as: crocks, jugs, jars, wine-vats, churns, water-coolers, flasks, bottles, pudding dishes, milk pans, mugs, and so on. Yet stoneware makers strove toward, and its buyers demanded, work that was not only utilitarian, but decorative in form as well as in surface ornamentation. The pottery itself was as a rule colored in shades of grey or tan, and finished off in a transparent salt-glaze. The ornamentation was most often a cobalt blue slip, and could leave a bluish tint in any given area on the piece, due to the method used to fire the piece. In the earlier work this is incised on the body of the stoneware, but later it was merely applied by means of a stencil or brush. Such as in well known Flo blue porcelain, the cobalt slip would bleed, and flow over the pottery.

In the 18th century the decorations on stoneware pottery took the shape of formalized loops, flowers, animals, fish, birds, and butterflies. Gradually the designs became more naturalistic and more elaborate. They began to include domestic items, such as chickens, and also various political symbols, such as the American Eagle, bearing the national shield. In the early years of production American stoneware designs were incised into the clay. Then in 1860 stencils were used rather than the crude freehand manner of the 18th century.

Ink Wells Milk Pitcher Cake Container Jug

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Pottery Making After The Revolution: POTTERY-MAKING AFTER THE REVOLUTION
Having acquainted ourselves generally with the processes of the potter's craft, we can proceed to follow the development of the manufacture after the rift between the Colonies and the Mother Country had actively developed.

The effects of the Revolution upon American pottery-making may be considered typical of its effect upon all non-luxury manufactures. Great Britain had been the major source of commodities for America. When this source was cut off by the war only three courses were open in regard to any given commodity:

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Old American Pottery: "A fireplace occupied half of the south wall, and heavy brands flamed between its great andirons. Above them on a crane among hooks and links, an iron teakettle lazily .gurgled; and over the fireplace earthen pans, candlesticks, and snuffers sat on a high Mantletree."

So Eliza Nelson Blair, who knew the homely fashions of olden times, wrote in "'Lizbeth Wilson," her story of New Hampshire farm life. Earthen milk-pans are no more as a household commodity. The coming of the tin peddler in his bright red cart, filled with shining wares, sounded their knell. But they are desired by the collector of early American antiques and so are bean-pots-of a kind-and stone "crocks."

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Pottery: No definite record concerning the beginning of pottery has ever been found. Some say it dates back to the earliest days of the race. Can you picture a prehistoric man roaming the plains looking for food? He carries a crude club as his only defense. Can you see him stop to dig up a bit of moist earth-with his toes, possibly?

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Americans Craftsmen In Clay: With carpentry and cabinetmaking, pottery-making was among the first crafts practiced on a wide scale in America. There is a natural logic to this, the logic of people who occupy their time and skill with necessities in a more or less natural succession of importance. American settlers arrived and built their houses. The importation of furniture on a large scale being impractical, they set about building it. Simultaneously with the need for houses and furniture arose the need for the utensils of everyday life, of which the products of the potter are among the most predominant. Again large scale importation was not immediately practical or desirable. By a curious irony, it was only after a fairly well established American potters' industry existed that importation loomed as a large factor, throwing the American potter into competition with European manufacturers.

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The Potter's Craft: Before passing from the early American potters to those who flourished largely after the War for Independence, we can pause to review the actual craft or method of the potter. We might begin this with a reminder that pottery-making is hardly a craft in which we should look for developments or techniques, other than those related to design, which are characteristically American. The origins of the potter's craft are lost in the remotest antiquity. There are ceramic records of races who left their history in no other form. As a craft its antiquity probably rates sec= ond only to that of rock-chipping.

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American Pottery - Periods Of Decoration: In 1820 the Hitchcock chair, influenced by adaptations called "fancy Sheraton," came into being. It derived its name from Lambert Hitchcock, cabinetmaker of Riverton, Connecticut. The graceful, backward-curving backs had horizontal slats. The chairs were usually painted black with gold stenciled designs of fruits and flowers. Legs were simply turned and decorated with gold bandings. The seats were of rush.

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American Pottery Chracteristics: The favorite pottery of early America was stoneware. Probably hardly a single home was without one or more pieces of it. It was put to every practical use: crocks, jugs, jars, wine-vats, churns, water-coolers, flasks, bottles, pudding dishes, milk pans, mugs, and so on. Yet its makers strove toward, and its buyers demanded, work that was decorative in form as well as in surface ornamentation. The pottery itself was usually some shade of grey or tan, covered with a transparent salt-glaze. The ornamentation was most often a cobalt blue slip. In the earlier work this is incised on the body of the stoneware, but later it was merely applied by means of a stencil or brush.

Please... read on

New Flickr Pictures

Three Norfolk Ginger Beer Bottles

Pitcher

Food container

William Hodgson. Preston 1866 by Colonel Blink

Slab seal ginger beer bottle.

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Just To Name A Few Early American Potters...

Below I have added a bit of history on just a few early American potters...

New Jersey, Burlington 1684

Daniel Coxe,

In 1684 a large pottery was founded by one Daniel Coxe, near Burlington, New Jersey. Coxe himself is one of our early potters, however. So far as we know he may never have visited America. He lived in London and was one of the court physician.

He was a well known "proprietors" of West New Jersey and organized his enterprise, strictly as a business proposition, from his London home.

New York 1742

John Remmey and William Crolius

New York was naturally a center of manufacture. Two of the earliest names in the records are those of John Remmey and William Crolius. These men are believed, by some, to have been partners. In any case a map was drawn by David Grim in 1813, purporting to show New York City as it was between 1742 and 1744. On this map, a group of buildings on Potter's Hill is labeled "Remmey and Crolius Pottery." Whether or not these buildings represented separate manufactories and Grim's notation was meant to imply that both the Remmey and Crolius potteries were here located is of little concern to us. Evidence clearly reveals a link, formal or otherwise.

Other New York potters were Dirick Benson, John Eutatse, Henry Bensing, Jonathan Durrell, and Thomas Campbell.

Philadelphia 1769

Goussin Bonnin and George Anthony Morris

By 1750 there was such recognition of the necessity for domestic manufactures for the general welfare of the colonies that public subsidy was not uncommon. Yet, as always, it was more often sought than granted. Two partners, Goussin Bonnin and George Anthony Morris, started a pottery in Philadelphia in 1769. In 1771 they hopefully sent specimens of their work to the Legislature observing that they "would not wish to aspire to the Presumption of dictating the Measure" of the Legislature's encouragement, "but with all Humility hint at the Manner." Unfortunately the hint was futile and the Philadelphia pottery failed in 1774.

Pennsylvania 1850

Isaac Stahl

The potters of Pennsylvania were the most prolific and artistic of all American Redware potters. Their forms were thrown, slabbed, coiled and hand built. Their decoration consisted of simple solid color glazes, to the multicolored, very detailed slip trailed and sgraffito ware highly prized by collectors today. The simple red slab plate with the yellow, wavy slip lines is also a classic Pennsylvania pottery form.

Stahl redware, a traditional Pennsylvania German style of pottery, was first produced by Charles Stahl from approximately 1850, until his death in 1896. Upon his death, his sons Thomas and Isaac took over the family business. The brothers continued making pottery until 1902, when the small family-run business found that it could not compete with mass-production pottery manufacturers.

Trenton New Jersey 1852

James Taylor & Henry Speeler

In 1852 James Taylor & Henry Speeler from East Liverpool, Ohio, were in business in Trenton, New Jersey, and in 1846 Taylor, Speeler & Bloor, Trenton, New Jersey, exhibited Rockingham ware at the Franklin Institute Fair. They also made a hound-handled pitcher. A. Cadmus of South Amboy made a hound-handled pitcher with a relief of a volunteer fire company. It has a grape design on the neck and the hound's head rests on the rim of the pitcher in the manner of the handles of the Greatbach design at Jersey City. A hunting pitcher with an oak border and rustic handle and a frog in the bottom was also made by Cadmus at Congress Hill Pottery, New Jersey.

Want to learn more about Early American Stoneware Pottery?

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