Earthenware Potteries - Hudson River Valley Institute

On Archaeology and

Earthenware Potteries

by warren R Broderick

Of the various types of northeastern potteries and their production, by far the
least known are the earthenware (or "redware") potteries. And concerning these
redware potteries, the least known are those that were located in the Hudson Valley
and northeastern New York State. There are a number of reasons why this is so.
First of all, because this was principally a region of stoneware production, collectors
and scholars have tended to ignore the smaller, more obscure earthenware potteries.
Their attention has been concentrated on the aesthetically pleasing early forms of
the Lower Hudson Valley potteries and the highly decorated stoneware
manufactured in communities such as Fort Edward, West Troy, Utica, and Athens.
Such is not the case in western New York State, where local redware has been
studied by scholars, is highly prized by collectors, and often bears interesting glazes
and sometimes potters' marks.

Some important general statements can be made concerning earthenware
potteries in northeastern New York and the Hudson Valley. These potteries can be
divided into several groups. First, there are the early earthenware potteries that
existed at a time (generally prior to 1800) wh en stoneware was only being
manufactured at downstate locations where stoneware clay was readily accessible.
Local potters, such as John and Philip Karner of Greenbush, could use only the raw
materials such as earthenware clay found near their potteries. Because little
documentation survives from this period, next to nothing is known about these
potters and their production.

On Archaeology and Earthenware Potteries , 105

Some potters began by producing earthenware, but as their businesses grew a~d
improved transportation allowed them to import stoneware clay, the potters turned
to producing stoneware on a larger scale. These potters include Abraham Hodgson
of Galway, Lemuel Rowell of Greenwich, and Capt. John Norton of Bennington,
Vermont. While the stoneware pottery that John Norton established became
famous, relatively little is known about his early earthenware production.

Some stoneware potters produced earthenware as an ancillary line of
manufacture. A 1984 excavation of Pliny Thayer's Lansingburgh pottery (1841-
1855) revealed the production of unglazed earthenware flower pots, vases, and
related articles. These were apparently unmarked and were considered secondary to
his widely distributed salt-glazed, "Albany slip"- glazed, and "Rockingham"-glazed
stoneware vessels. An 1837 price list (in the collection of the New York State
Historical Association) of a well-known stoneware pottery, the firm of Clark and
Fox in Athens, reveals the production of a wide variety of earthenware including
pots, pitchers, jugs, jars, washbowls, cups, cake molds, milk pans, mugs, baking
dishes, teapots, bedpans, chamber pots and flower pots.I

Some stoneware potters diluted their stoneware clay by the addition of local
earthenware clay. The reason was probably economic, due to the cost and difficulty
of shipment of stoneware clay, especially to locations away from the river and canal
system. Such mixtures of clays produced some odd-looking vessels with reddish
bodies but of true stoneware form. These have been found bearing the marks of
makers Pliny Thayer (Lansingburgh), Lemuel Rowell and Otto Lewis (Greenwich),
and Abraham Hodgson (Galway).

Still others, primarily German immigrant potters, established earthenware
potteries in the late 1800s when stoneware production was waning, and combined
the production of plain earthenware flower pots (which were machine produced)
with a wide variety of glazed and unglazed (but sometimes decorated after firing)
ornamental "fancy ware" including jardinieres, umbrella stands, hanging planters,
birdbaths, and vases. These potters included the Ammenheusers in Albany (1871-
ca. 1910), the Hilfingers in Fort Edward (1884-1942), and the Selbys in West Troy
(1875-1891). Substantially more is known regarding these later earthenware
potteries for two reasons. To begin with, more documentation survives from this
later period, and the families of these craftsmen have preserved the details of their
family potting traditions sometimes only two or three generations in the past. The
Halm Art Pottery in Sandy Hill (1877) is the best exception to the norm of
obscurity of early earthenware potteries. Not only was it widely publicized during its
brief tenure but its wares were mostly marked by the makers.

The final group of redware potters were those who manufactured only
earthenware even though they usually worked for a brief period of time in an era
when stoneware was the principal ceramic manufactured in the same general area.

106 The Hudson Valley Regional Review

Some date from the early 1800s, including Charles Rood in Sandy Hill (ca. 1800-
1828), Orcutt & Nichols in Troy (ca. 1820s), and William Bradshaw in
Mechanicville (ca. 1840-ca. 1845). Truman Wilcox of Fortsville (1824-1873) could
be placed in this category except for the relative longevity of his pottery operation.

Most potteries were seen as merely utilitarian manufacturing concerns, were
poorly documented during their years of operation, ignored by contemporary and
later historians, and business records they generated have become lost over time.
Notable exceptions were the famous potteries at Fort Edward and Bennington. The
majority of stoneware potteries, however, seem to have been best remembered by
their marked wares now prized by collectors. Bill Ketchum remarked in his recent
book American Redware that "upon finding a choice piece [of redware]' most
collectors are curious as to who made it, and where and when. Sadly enough this
information is usually unknown."2 Brian Cullity echoes the same sentiment in his
recent exhibition catalogue Slipped and Glazed, Early American Redware, stating that
"one of the more exasperating frustrations of the scholar or collector is the inability
to identify with some degree of certainty the origin of earthenware. "3

Earthenware scholars seem to either avoid completely or treat most
apologetically (for good reason!) the subject of attribution of individual vessels and
their "regional characteristics." Catherine Zusy, in her just published Norton
Stoneware & American Redware: The Bennington Museum Collection, rather than
attempting to define these "regional characteristics" and make positive attributions,
outlines the reasons why such attributions are so difficult to make with any degree
of certainty. Few marked redware vessels survive (they were utilitarian in nature and
few were marked in the first place), and few documented pieces have ironclad
provenance. Zusy also notes that many redware potteries were in operation, that
potters moved about frequently to find work, and that they infrequently advertised
having only a very localized market for their wares. She also points out how
earthenware potting was a conservative tradition and how similarly appearing vessels
were produced over a long period. In addition, the objects themselves have often
travelled far from their origin in the hands of descendants of original owners and of
antique collectors and dealers.

Older attributions, as Zusy points out, are often invalid and not to be trusted.
Recently I observed a probable western New York vessel nearly appear in a
publication as attributed to Pennsylvania, and another from the same region become
a "documented" New England piece when sold to a prominent New England
redware collector. Bill Ketchum remarks on how dealers have been known to
"enhance" the provenance of redware pieces (usually attributing them to well-
known potteries) to increase their marketability. Attributions seem to depend on
what little is known about redware potteries at the time the attribution is made.
Bear in mind that until the so-called manganese glazed "black teapots" were

On Archaeology and Earthenware Potteries 107

documented as having been produced in Troy and Athens, all such teapots were
attributed to Whatley, Massachusetts, potteries.

How can we learn more about earthenware potteries and their wares? More in-
depth research can be conducted, of course, with an emphasis on consulting original
source materials. Then more can be gleaned about the potter, his travels, and his
land holdings (which may more closely identifY the site of his pottery), but chances
are we will know little more about his work, due to the scarcity of documentation of
this kind of activity before the late nineteenth century. Though spectroscopic or
other physical or chemical analysis of sherds and vessels can prove useful, they not
only involve expensive procedures but may prove inconclusive due to similarities of
clays and glaze materials. This leaves archaeology as the vital final phase in the study
of these elusive potteries.

All pottery sites have some potential for archaeological study, some more than
others. Of course, the location of a pottery site needs to be pinpointed. Walking
most of John Karner's 317-acre farm in Greenbush revealed a few lead glazed
earthenware sherds but not enough were found at anyone spot to suggest the
location of the pottery or even its waster dump. Rural earthenware pottery sites
(once they can be identified) for the most part lend themselves more easily to
investigation than urban stoneware pottery sites, because the land is less likely to
have been greatly disturbed from changes in land use. Many stoneware pottery sites
are now located under more modern buildings or asphalt parking lots, rendering
them inaccessible to archaeology. Excavations at larger stoneware potteries are more
valuable in revealing information on the pottery building and manufacturing
process than the nature of the products themselves. Recent salvage archaeology at
the site of the Bennington, Vermont, stoneware pottery revealed the foundation of
the building, including bases of kilns, and a since documented stone canal or
sluiceway used to supply water to power the pottery. Their products may be already
well known, though sherds may reveal additional forms produced and glazes
employed by the manufacturer.

Proper excavation of an earthenware pottery site, however, will often provide
the principal means for determining the nature of that pottery's production. The
Truman Wilcox pottery site in Fortsville, Saratoga County, New York, serves as a
good example. Truman Wilcox was born in 1791 in the Hartford, Connecticut,
area and moved to Greenwich, Washington County, New York, about 1810.
Wilcox may have already known the potter's trade, for three earthenware potters
were established in the Hartford area when he was a young man. These were John
Souter (ca. 1790-1805), Seth Goodwin (ca. 1795-1818), and Nathaniel Seymour
(ca. 1795-1825) .4 Souter seems to have disappeared while Goodwin and Seymour
became stoneware potters. In addition, Lemuel Rowell, another Connecticut potter,

108 The Hudson Valley Regional Review

established a pottery at Bald Mountain in Greenwich at the same time as Wilcox's
arrival there, suggesting that Wilcox worked for Rowell for a while.

Wilcox appears to have lived briefly in Gansevoort, Saratoga Counry, before
finally settling in the hamlet of FortSville in the Town of Moreau about 1824.5
Fortsville is located about halfWay between South Glens Falls and Northumberland,
and for much of the nineteenth century consisted of a Methodist church, a few
houses, a sawmill, gristmill, clover mill, carriage factory, shoemaker's shop and the
store and pottery of Truman Wilcox. Assorted records document the location of
Wilcox's land holdings. He was involved in a number of business ventures including .
the sawmill, blacksmith shop, and pottery, and his general store, doubtless the hub
of local activiry, contained the local post office. His residence and other structures
were located on the east side of Fortsville Road (the present Counry Route 31) just
north of the crossing of the north branch of the Snook Kill, which was dammed up
to provide power for the mills.

His house and business buildings appear on Samuel Geil's 1856 counry map
and in Beers' 1866 Atlas of Saratoga Counry, but neither identifies the pottery by
name. His home still stands on the crest of the hill; the foundation of the store/post
office can be seen downhill from his home, and the outline of the blacksmith shop
foundation is visible still closer to the stream. An elongated area on a knoll to the
rear of the store foundation appears to have been the site of another structure,
possibly the pottery. This area has never grown a luxuriant lawn, making it
noticeable when observed from a hill across the stream. This may possibly indicate a
buried foundation or kiln base of the Wilcox pottery. In addition, bluish clay is
found close by in the stream bed at the base of the hill.

Most records refer to Wilcox with the generic occupation of "merchant." The
1855, 1860, and 1865 census industrial schedules, however, list his pottery. The
1855 census states that he had real estate worth $200, clay and red lead worth $50,
wood worth $25, and "brown earthenware" on hand worth $300. The 1860 entry
states that he had invested capital of $1 ,600 in his "Earthen Ware Pottery," kept red
lead, sand, and clay on hand valued at $50, 18 cords of pinewood valued at $45,
and used horse power to grind the clay. The 1860 schedule lists his annual output as
800 stove tubes valued at $100, 890 milk pans valued at $100, and 3,750 flower
pots valued at $300. The 1865 census schedule states that he employed horse
power, had invested capital of $5,000, had clay on hand valued at $400, and
annually produced "brown earthenware" valued at $800.

The R. G. Dun credit ledgers cover Wilcox's businesses between 1857 and his
death in 1873. In general, their correspondents indicated that Wilcox was "steady,
honest and reliable" in business. An entry dated June 26, 1868, stated that he was
"in poor health and does not care about doing much bus. " An entry for November
19, 1870, however, indicates that he was still in business and "also runs a pottery."6

On Archaeology and Earthenware Potteries • 109

All three censuses indicate that Wilcox had a single employee, apparently the Hiram
Holley listed as a "potter baker" in the 1850 census of the Town of Moreau.

The properry owner, Betry Combs, has uncovered many earthenware sherds,
along with clay marbles, kiln furniture, and fragments of clay pipes on the grounds.
Some initial excavation conducted in the spring of 1991 by Bill Bouck and I
revealed that Wilcox produced some ware that had shiny metallic glazes as well as
other ware that was unglazed. Still others were "reduction fired, " indicating lack of
enough oxygen during some kiln firings. The glaze on the outside of these sherds
appears dark, dull, and covered with small indentations. The metallic glazes found
on sherds are either orange-red, reddish brown, dark brown, or very dark purplish
brown in the manner of the "black teapots. " Apparently, manganese was used as
well as lead for glazing his vessels. Some sherds also reveal bands of glaze decoration
as well as incising and other tooling decoration. One would expect to encounter
only flower pots, milk pans, and stove tubes as mentioned in the census industrial
schedules, but thin-walled sherds suggest he also manufactured porringers, cups,
beakers, teapots, and other vessels. These sherds and other "kiln furniture" found at
the Wilcox pOttery site have since been donated to the Bureau of Historic Sites,
New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. According to
Bill Ketchum, local tradition also ascribes jars, pitchers, and inkwells to Wilcox's
pottery'?

Amazingly enough, no intact vessels marked by or attributed to Truman
Wilcox's nearly fifty-year pottery business have been located to date. Bill Ketchum
speculates about possible similarities to early earthenware produced at Hartford,
where Wilcox may have been trained, but relatively few early Hartford earthenware
vessels exist for comparison purposes.

The contours of the land at the site of Wilcox's businesses remain in general
relatively undisturbed with only years of gardening affecting the surface of the soil.
A professional archaeological investigation may yield the actual pottery building
foundation and kiln site, the waster dump, countless sherds, and possibly intact
vessels produced at this site. To understand the importance of archaeology at such
sites, one should read about similar archaeology conducted in western New York in
the early 1970s at the Nathaniel Rochester (ca. 1818-1832), Alvin Wilcox (ca.
1825-1862), Morganville (ca. 1829-1900) and Elias Seymour (ca. 1835) pottery
sites in Daniel Barber and George Hamell's Clay in the Hands a/the Patter.8 Photos
of these excavations and of artifacts found at these sites are illustrated in Barber and
Hamell's book. Color photographs of a pottery dig used in Bill Ketchum's recent
redware book vividly illustrate the significance of these archaeological projects as
well.9

Truman Wilcox's pottery operation is an anomaly among northeastern New
York State and Hudson Valley potteries. He ran an apparently conservative

110 The Hudson Valley Regional Review

earthenware business, but it appears always to have been quite successful. Unlike
other early nineteenth-century redware potteries, this was a long-lived business, and
never converted to stoneware production. Was his ware especially durable? Was it
reasonably priced and well marketed? Why wasn't it supplanted by locally produced
stoneware? How far reaching were his markets? How wide a variety of wares was
manufactured at his pottery? Archaeology appears to be the principal way to attempt
to provide answers to these questions.

Catherine Zusy points out that "there is much left to do to further our
knowledge of redware." Despite a few good in-depth regional studies, the last
comprehensive history of northeastern redware potteries is found in Lura Watkins's
fascinating (but unfortunately not footnoted) Early New England Potters and Their
Wares (1950).10 Scholars such as Cathie Zusy, Bill Ketchum, George Hamel!, and
Gary and Diana Stradling, among others, recognize how long and difficult a task it .
would be to properly research and write the definitive, if long overdue, work on
earthenware. It would involve, as Zusy points out, painstaking research into
documentary sources, an exhaustive study of private and public collections, some
scientific physical analysis of sherds and vessels, and last and equally important, the
identification and serious archaeological investigation of selected pottery sites.

On Archaeology and Earthenware Potteries , 111

Notes

1. Donald Webster, Decorated Stoneware Pottery of North America (Rutland, Yt.: Tuttle, 1971),
reproduced on p. 209.

2. William C. Ketchum, Jr., American Redware (New York: Henry Holt, 199 1), pp. ix-x.

3. Brian Culliry, Slipped and Glazed: RegionalAmerican Redware (Sandwich, Mass.: Heritage Plantation,
1991), p. 3.

4. Lura Watkins, Early New England Potters and Their Wares (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ. Press,
1950).

5. Nathaniel Sylvester, History ofSaratoga County (Phila.: Evarts & Peck, 1878), p. 426.
6. R. G. Dun & Co., Credit Ledgers, New York State, vol. 553, p. 283; vol. 558, p. 395. (Archives and

Manuscripts, Baker Library, Harvard Univ. School of Business Administration, Boston).

7. William C. Ketchum, Jr., Potters and Potteries ofNew York State, 1659-1900 (Syracuse: Syracuse

Universiry Press, 1988), p. 230.
8. Daniel Barber and George Hamell, Clay in the Hands ofthe Potter (Rochester: Rochester M useum &

Science Center, 1974), pp. 7-31. See also Barber & Hamell, "The Redware Pottery Factory of
Alvin Wilcox at Mid 19th Century," HistoricalArchaeology, Y., 1971, pp. 18-37.
9. Ketchum, American Redware, p. 12.
10. Catherine Zusy, Norton Stoneware & American Redware: The Bennington Museum Collection
(Bennington, Yt.: The Bennington Museum, 1991), p. 53.

112 The Hudson Valley Regional Review