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The Pottery Industry in Southeastern Massachusetts

by Justin W. Thomas

T
he red earthenware manufactured in Bristol
County, Massachusetts, in the 18th and 19th
centuries has been desired for at least a century
now by collectors, dealers, and museums. A combination
of factors have contributed to this infatuation, including
the refinement of the production, the color of the glazes,
and the history of the industry. Although these objects
can be romanticized today as works of art, they were
once viewed for their simple utilitarian purposes in the
household.
The area’s redware production first received
widespread published recognition in the early 1930s
with articles written for The Magazine Antiques by John
Ramsay and by noted Providence, Rhode Island, and
Cape Cod collector Charles D. Cook, whose collection
descended in his family until it sold in multiple highly
contested sales at Skinner in Boston in the early 2000s.
The highlight of the Cook collection was an incredible
late 18th- or early 19th-century red earthenware jar that
featured a person’s initials (“A.P.B.”) and a smaller jar
as the finial on the lid. This elegant jar graced the cover Shown above and below, part of the Hilary and Paulette Nolan collection Late 18th- or early 19th-century pitcher
of the October 1931 edition of The Magazine Antiques. of red earthenware, much of which is from southeastern Massachusetts. from southeastern Massachusetts. The
After this jar sold at Skinner for $63,000, it went on to be Photos courtesy Hilary and Paulette Nolan of Falmouth, Massachusetts. basic form began with an ovoid jar that
featured at the Winter Antiques Show in New York City. the potter converted into a pitcher.
It resides in a private collection today.
These articles may have also helped inspire Henry
Francis du Pont (1880-1969) with the collection he
assembled at Winterthur in Delaware in the 1920s and
1930s. That collection features some objects that are
very similar to what Cook published.
But even before this production was acknowledged in
publication, it had been coveted by early 20th-century
collectors, such Cook and Mr. and Mrs. William
Whitman Jr. from Cape Cod; some of their collection
was featured in an American antiques exhibit in Park
Square in Boston in 1925. This red earthenware must
have influenced author John Spargo, who later featured
some of the Whitmans’ collection in 1926 when Early
American Pottery and China was published.
Renowned New Hampshire antiques dealer Roger
Bacon was even selling red earthenware to Old
Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, as early
as the 1950s; this included pottery made in southeastern
Massachusetts. The objects he sold from Bristol County before and after the American Revolution.
were primarily slip-decorated dishes. Some of the pottery that survives from this area today has been Remarkable early 19th-century
commonly called “New Bedford” because of the amount of southeastern southeastern Massachusetts red
The aesthetic and artistic merit Massachusetts red earthenware that has been discovered in the city over earthenware jug. Photo courtesy Old
the past 100 years.
is what has attracted collectors Archaeologists and the Little Compton (Rhode Island) Historical
Sturbridge Village.

and museums for at a least
a century now.
The first major antiques collection to feature red
earthenware from this region at auction was likely the
landmark on-site sale of the Christopher Huntington
collection in Mount Vernon, Maine, on June 20 and 21,
1974. The stunning glazed forms included lidded jars,
pitchers, and harvest jugs. The collection of Oliver E.
Williams of Rockport, Massachusetts, that Richard
Withington sold in July 1966 was also noteworthy.
More recently, longtime Falmouth, Massachusetts,
antiques dealers Hilary and Paulette Nolan’s collection
of red earthenware somewhat set precedent for how this
industry is currently viewed today. Their collection had
been assembled over roughly 30 years before it was sold
at Northeast Auctions in Manchester, New Hampshire,
on August 8, 2004. The context, history, and passion it
took to assemble this collection was marvelous; many
of the objects retained early histories of ownership from
homeowners and dealers in southeastern Massachusetts,
Cape Cod, and Rhode Island.
The Industry in Southeastern Massachusetts
The industry in southeastern Massachusetts was
established decades before the American Revolution
by Quakers and was intertwined with the pottery
industry in South Danvers (today known as Peabody),
Massachusetts. The most prominent businesses were
operated by the Boyce and Shove families in Berkley,
Massachusetts, and the Chace and Purinton families in
Somerset, Massachusetts. Overall, there were dozens
of potters involved with this industry, but there were
also lesser-known individuals, who likely included
apprentices and traveling potters.
Similar to the businesses in Danvers/Peabody, where
the industry was located near its major market in Salem,
Massachusetts, the industry in Bristol County was
strategically located near New Bedford, Massachusetts,
and Rhode Island. These were both major marketplaces
32-B Maine Antique Digest, June 2018
Society have also proven that Rhode Island was a major export
opportunity, especially during the 1780-1820 period. Archaeological
evidence has been discovered throughout the state; for example, a few
years ago an archaeological dig at an 18th-century estate in Glocester,
Rhode Island, turned up at least five different glazed forms decorated
with green, black, and orange glazes, and the Little Compton Historical
Society owns a variety of objects that retain local histories of ownership
in Rhode Island.
Southeastern Massachusetts red earthenware sherds were also discovered
in 2009 by archaeologists from the University of Massachusetts Boston
within a 1750-1820 archaeological context at the site of the 17th-century
Waite-Kirby-Potter House in Westport, Massachusetts. But the most
exciting examples of ownership are perhaps green-glazed sherds from this
industry that were recovered by archaeologists in 2006 within a pre-1840
context at the site of the 19th-century African Meeting House in Boston.
According to Boston’s Museum of African American History, “The
African Meeting House on Beacon Hill was built in 1806 in what was
once the heart of Boston’s 19th century free black community.... The
Meeting House was host to giants in the Abolitionist Movement who
were responsible for monumental historical events that changed this
nation.” The sherds were recovered within such a context that they Late 18th- or early 19th-century red
may have belonged to the site when the meeting house was used for the earthenware jar from southeastern
founding in 1832 of the New England Anti-Slavery Society by William Massachusetts that has a history of
Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) and for the 1833 farewell address of Maria ownership in Rhode Island. Photo
courtesy Little Compton Historical
Stewart (1803-1879), a black woman and the first American woman
Society.
known to have spoken publicly before a mixed audience of black and
white men and women.
However, the potters were not the only persons responsible for peddling they were found in Rhode Island. But
the wares from this industry. Winterthur’s library contains a 1757-66 according to what is known today most of
account book kept by Preserved Peirce (1736-1798), a merchant from these objects are actually from the 18th-
Swansea, Massachusetts, who traded along the coast of Rhode Island and and early 19th-century pottery industry in
Connecticut. He sold wooden and pewter goods, pottery, and tools for southeastern Massachusetts.
craftsmen and potters. The account book reveals that he purchased red Massachusetts author Lura Woodside
earthenware from potters John Law, Caleb Purinton, and Isaac Upton. Watkins also cited a post-American
Isaac and his brother Samuel Upton were potters likely employed in Revolution account book from Peirce
Berkley in the 1760s when they interacted with Peirce. They later went when she published Early New England
on to build a business in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, 1771-83, for Potters and Their Wares in 1950. Watkins
which they have garnered some fame today. Unfortunately, some early wrote that Preserved Peirce “owned a sloop
published articles have attributed a number of objects, many of which called the Rosemary, in which he sailed
are green glazed, to the business in East Greenwich as a result of where up and down Mt. Hope Bay and along
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Jar from southeastern Massachusetts in a
highly unusual form. The shape may have
helped make pouring the contents easier.
Photo courtesy Old Sturbridge Village.
the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut selling
wooden ware, pewter, pottery, and such articles as
tea kettles, hats, and shoe buckles, or bartering his
stock for flour or flax, lead and manganese for the
potters, or brass and copper for the metalworkers.”
The account book verifies that Peirce was still
in business with the Purinton family, as he was
before the American Revolution, and he was also
in business with the Shove family. An entry from
1786 reveals that the red earthenware forms Peirce
had in his possession included milk pans, platters,
plates, basins, pots, bread pans, chamber pots, jugs,
pitchers, mugs, bowls, porringers, and churns.
Today, the most famous of the forms made in
this industry are certainly the colorful lidded ovoid
jars from the late 18th and early 19th centuries
resembling porcelain ginger jars that have been
made in China for centuries. The jars are often
inscribed on the base with a number or a Roman
numeral that matches an inscription also found on
the lid. This industry is also known today for its
vibrant green glazes, which certainly may have
garnered these potters some recognition when
these objects were originally created.
The pottery industry in southeastern
Massachusetts must have held some kind of
influence with craftsmen located elsewhere in
New England. That influence seems to be apparent
with some wares made by Peter Clark (1743-1826)
in Braintree, Massachusetts, and Lyndeborough,
New Hampshire; John Henry Benner (circa 1726-
1796), a German immigrant potter in Abington,
Massachusetts; and the Bradford-Parker Pottery
in West Barnstable, Massachusetts. This industry
is also responsible for training Elijah Cornell
(1771-1862), who later went on to establish an
important pottery in upstate New York, and his son
Ezra Cornell (1807-1874), who early on helped
his father with his pottery and later cofounded
Western Union and Cornell University. The
southeastern Massachusetts pottery industry may
also have influenced an 18th- and 19th-century
pottery operated by the Bradford family in
Kingston, Massachusetts.
Identifying the Pottery Made in
Southeastern Massachusetts
It is difficult to properly attribute red earthenware
from southeastern Massachusetts to a single potter,
much as it is with the Colonial pottery industry
in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and the 18th- and
19th-century production that occurred in Danvers/
Peabody. There were many family businesses
that produced similar products with overlap from
potters who worked at multiple companies. But
some presentation pieces survive today that can be
associated with a specific family.
Southeastern Massachusetts is one of the
few locations in New England known to have
manufactured red earthenware marriage jars around
the turn of the 19th century. For instance, antiques
dealers John Bihler and Henry Coger advertised in
the January 1974 edition of The Magazine Antiques
a pair of marriage jars that are privately owned
today. The jars were made for George and Debby
Purinton of Tiverton, Rhode Island, in the early
19th century. Their names were written in slip that
went along with a variety of decorative features,
such as birds.
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Eighteenth- or early 19th-century slip-decorated dish sold
by Roger Bacon to Old Sturbridge Village. Photo courtesy
Old Sturbridge Village.
Late 18th- or early
19th-century jar
from southeastern
Massachusetts.
George Purinton (1784-1858) was born in Somerset,
Massachusetts, to Clark and Sarah Purinton. He is believed
to have been a lifelong potter. George married Deborah in
1808, and the couple had one son, George Shove Purinton,
who was born in Somerset in 1816.
A marriage jar sold from the Nolan collection at
Northeast Auctions in 2004 is also believed to have been
made by the Purinton family. The jar is dated “1812” under
one handle in slip, and the initials “A.P.” are found under
the other handle in slip. The jar may have been made for
a daughter’s wedding, and it is decorated with a bright
orange glaze, splashes of bright green glaze, and a floral
decoration in slip.
It has proven difficult to identify what exactly was
made where and by whom with the little archaeology that
survives from this industry today, but in the 20th century
Lura Woodside Watkins did donate a wonderful sherd
to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of
American History in Washington, D.C. Watkins recovered
the green- and plum-colored sherd with a crimped rim
in Somerset, which suggests that it was made by either
the Chace or Purinton families. The glaze on the sherd
also closely resembles a sherd recovered at the estate in
Glocester, Rhode Island, which is also similar to the colors
found on a pitcher in my private collection.
In Conclusion
The variety of forms made in southeastern Massachusetts
was as diverse as any industry in New England in the 18th
or 19th centuries. Aside from the ovoid jars that came
in a variety of sizes, there also appears to have been an
emphasis given to rundlets for carrying liquid, which is
unusual when compared to what was produced elsewhere
in New England during the period. But there was also
a large focus given to the production of jars, jugs, and
pitchers that are known today in a variety of shapes, glazes,
and sizes. The production of pans and plates with yellow or
green slip was also fashionable, but this style of production
may have been more prominent in the 1700s rather than
the 1800s. The scarce forms to see today include bottles,
possibly bird bottles, bowls, flasks, harvest jugs, inkwells,
sanders, and teacups and saucers.
Much like the other industries in coastal Massachusetts,
the pottery industry in southeastern Massachusetts achieved
its own identity in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is
characterized today by the skill, creativity, variety, and color
that this industry produced, distinguishing it from what was
produced elsewhere in New England during the period.
I can only begin to imagine how these types of wares were
originally received in the general marketplace. Production
must have been anticipated for wherever these objects were
eventually sold. The aesthetic and artistic merit is what has
attracted collectors and museums for at a least a century
now, and that same brilliance must have been recognized
by the people who initially owned these type of products for
their utilitarian needs in the 1700s and 1800s.
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Eighteenth- or early 19th-century slip-decorated red
earthenware pan from southeastern Massachusetts
that has a history of ownership in Rhode Island.
Photo courtesy Little Compton Historical Society.
Eighteenth- or early 19th-century pitcher
probably made in southeastern Massachusetts.
Sources
Cook, Charles D. “Early Rhode Island Pottery.” The Magazine
Antiques, January 1931.
Cullity, Brian. Slipped and Glazed: Regional American
Redware. Sandwich, Mass.: Heritage Plantation of
Sandwich, 1991. (Cullity dug a number of sherds from this
pottery that were not published that resemble some of the
wares made in southeastern Massachusetts.)
Johnson, Katharine M., Christa M. Beranek, Kathryn A.
Catlin, and Laura W. Ng. “Documentary Research and
Archaeological Investigations at the Waite-Kirby-Potter
Site, Westport, Massachusetts.” Andrew Fiske Memorial
Center for Archaeological Research Publications, 6 (2010)
(https://scholarworks.umb.edu/fiskecenter_pubs/6)
Loan Exhibition of Early American Furniture and the
Decorative Arts. Park Square Building, Boston, December
8-29, 1925.
Ramsay, John. “Early American Pottery: A Résumé.” The
Magazine Antiques, October 1931.
Spargo, John. Early American Pottery and China. New York:
The Century Co., 1926. Plate 2-4.
Thomas, Justin W. “A Charlestown Sugar Bowl: The
Rediscovery of a Redware Masterpiece.” New England
Antiques Journal, February 2016.
———. “A Pioneering Potter: Samuel Marshall of
Portsmouth, New Hampshire.” New England Antiques
Journal, April 2017.
———. “A Pottery Moves to New Hampshire: Peter Clark
and His Family in Lyndeborough.” New England Antiques
Journal, August 2016.
———. “Digging Into the Peabody Potters: Archaeology
and Red Earthenware.” New England Antiques Journal,
November 2017.
Watkins, Lura Woodside. Early New England Potters and
Their Wares. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1950.
☞
Maine Antique Digest, June 2018 33-B
34-B
Late 18th- or early 19th-century red
earthenware jar from southeastern
Massachusetts with a highly sought-after glaze.
Ex-Lewis Scranton collection, Killingworth,
Connecticut. Photo courtesy a private
Massachusetts collection.
Late 18th- or early 19th-century red earthenware
pitcher with an unusual glaze that closely resembles
a sherd recovered by Lura Woodside Watkins in
Somerset, Massachusetts.
Late 18th- or early 19th-century jar attributed to
southeastern Massachusetts. Collector Charles D.
Cook owned a jar in a similar form.
34-B Maine Antique Digest, June 2018
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Late 18th- or early 19th-century red
Examples of the green-glazed forms that were produced in southeastern earthenware jar from southeastern
Massachusetts in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Massachusetts that has a history of
ownership in Rhode Island. Photo courtesy
Little Compton Historical Society.
Green-glazed sherds from southeastern Massachusetts recovered at the
Red earthenware sherd recovered by Lura site of the 19th-century African Meeting House in Boston. Photo courtesy
Woodside Watkins in Somerset, Massachusetts. City Archaeology Program, Boston.
Photo courtesy the Smithsonian Institution’s
National Museum of American History.
Late 18th- or early 19th-century red earthenware mug (left) and
pitcher (right) from southeastern Massachusetts. Photo courtesy
Old Sturbridge Village.
Late 18th- or early 19th-century red
earthenware jug from southeastern
Massachusetts with an extremely rare
combination of slip decoration.
Left: Pitcher likely made in southeastern Massachusetts. Right:
Teardrop-shaped red earthenware jug from southeastern Massachusetts
with a very rare glaze. Photo courtesy Samuel Herrup of Sheffield,
Massachusetts.
Highly unusual late 18th- or early 19th-century
handled pot from southeastern Massachusetts.
Photo courtesy Historic New England.