Part II: Pottery Evidence

_Ivor Noël Hume_

The Salt-Glazed Stoneware

Attention was first drawn to the potential importance of the 18th-century pottery factory at Yorktown in 1956 when an examination of the National Park Service artifacts from the town revealed large quantities of stoneware sagger fragments visually identical to those previously retrieved from a site at Bankside in London.[247] On the assumption that where kiln "furniture" is found there also must be examples of the product, a more careful search of the Yorktown collections was made, yielding numerous fragments of brown salt-glazed stoneware tankards and bottles which, although at first sight appearing to be typically English, were found to have reacted slightly differently to the vagaries of firing than did the average examples found in England.

The largest assemblage of stoneware and sagger fragments came from the vicinity of the restored Swan Tavern, although the actual relationship of the pieces, one to another, was not recorded in the National Park Service's archeological report on the excavations. Nevertheless, the presence on the same lot of fragments of pint tankards adorned with a sprig-molded swan ornament (fig. 3) along with numerous pieces of sagger (fig. 12) seemed positive enough evidence. English tavern mugs of the 18th century were frequently decorated with an applied panel copying the sign which hung outside the hostelry.[248] The Swan Tavern at Yorktown was probably no exception, and to the often illiterate traveler it would have been identified either by a painted sign or perhaps by a swan carved in wood and set above the entrance. The significance of the swan-decorated tankards is simply that the tavern keeper would have been unlikely to have sent to England for such objects when, as the saggers so loudly proclaim, a local potter could supply them as needed and without cost of transportation.

The above reasoning seemed to link the saggers with brown salt-glazed stonewares rather than with products in the Rhenish tradition, which would have been the other obvious possibility.[249] Wasters were thinly represented among the sherds from Yorktown, although many underfired or overburned pieces were initially claimed as such. A more mature study of the Yorktown potter's products has shown that these variations would not have been considered unsalable, nor, in all probability, would they have been marked down as "seconds." Examples exhibiting both extremes of temperature have been found in domestic rubbish pits at Williamsburg, clearly showing that such pieces did find a ready sale. Figure 4 illustrates a mug fragment from Williamsburg with a large, heavily salted roof-dripping lodged above the handle and overflowing the rim, a blemish the presence of which is hard to explain if the mug was fired in a sagger. Such a piece found in the vicinity of a kiln reasonably could be considered a waster. It must be deduced, therefore, that, providing the Yorktown potter's vessels would hold water and stand more or less vertically on a table, they would find a market.

The site of Rogers' kilns in or near Yorktown has not been found, nor have his waster tips and pits been located. In the absence of such concrete evidence, a study of his wares may be thought premature. But, while numerous questions obviously remain to be answered, sufficient data have now been gathered to identify a considerable range of brown stoneware as being of Tidewater Virginia manufacture. There is, of course, good reason to suppose that much, if not all, of it is a product of the Rogers factory, although until that site is dug one cannot be certain. It can be argued, perhaps, that if there was one more or less clandestine stoneware potter at work in the area, there might well be others. It could also be added that two earthenware-pottery-making sites have been discovered in the Jamestown-Williamsburg area for which no documentary evidence has been found. The very fact that such enterprise was officially discouraged reduces the value of the negative evidence to be derived from the absence of documentation.

The most convincing evidence for the identification of Rogers' stoneware comes from the already mentioned Swan Tavern mugs and from a quantity of sherds found in a 4-to 7-inch layer beneath Yorktown's Main Street in front of the Digges House in the spring of 1957. This material was exposed during the laying of utilities beside the modern roadway. So tightly packed were the fragments of saggers and pottery vessels that they appeared to have been deliberately laid down as metaling for the colonial street. Several years later Mr. Watkins discovered that in 1734 William Rogers had been appointed "Surveyor of the Landings, Streets; and Cosways in York Town." It is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that Rogers disposed of his kiln waste by using it for hard core to make good the roads under his jurisdiction. Such a use of potters' refuse has ample precedent in that the wasters and sagger fragments from the 17th-century-London delftware kilns were dumped on the foreshore of the river Thames to serve the same purpose. Similarly, stoneware waste from the presumed Bankside factory[250] was used there to line the bottoms of trenches for wooden drains.

The pottery fragments found in the Yorktown road metaling comprised unglazed, coarse-earthenware pans and bowls; pieces of badly fired, brown, salt-glazed stoneware jars and bottles; and numerous sagger fragments.

In the years since interest first was shown in the products of the Yorktown factory, a useful range of examples has been gathered from excavations in Williamsburg and in neighboring counties. The single most significant item was recovered from another kiln site in James City County (known as the Challis site) on the bank of the James River. This object, a pint mug (fig. 5), is the best preserved specimen yet found. It is impressed on the upper wall, opposite the handle, with a pseudo-official capacity stamp[251] comprising the initials W R beneath a crown (William III Rex) which, perhaps, might have led to an intentional misinterpretation as the mark of William Rogers' factory. The official English marks generally were incuse or stamped in relief with the cypher and crown within a borderless oval. They were always placed close to the rim, just left of the handle. Rogers' stamp was set in a much more pretentious position and was enclosed within a rectangle marking the edges of the matrix (fig. 6).

The Challis site mug was a key piece of evidence, being the first example found that illustrated the position of the W R stamp, and it was sufficiently intact for a drawing to be made, its capacity measured, and its variations of firing studied. The association of the Challis mug with the Rogers factory is based on the fact that there is an identical stamp among the Park Service's artifacts from Yorktown (fig. 7), along with another pseudo W R stamp which had been applied to the _base_ of a tankard.

A measured drawing of the Challis mug was given to Mr. James E. Maloney of the Williamsburg Pottery,[252] who kindly agreed to undertake a series of experiments to reproduce the piece in his own stoneware kiln, using local Tidewater clay. The results of the first trials were extremely successful, and they showed that it would be possible to reproduce exact copies of the Yorktown wares from this clay (fig. 8). Thus any doubt as to the supply source was dispelled.

The conditions of firing at the Williamsburg Pottery, however, are somewhat different from those that would have prevailed in the 18th century. Mr. Maloney's kiln is fired by oil rather than wood, so that the localized variations of color resulting from the reducing effects of wood smoke have been eliminated. In addition, Mr. Maloney's pots are fired without the use of saggers, thus providing more uniform atmospheric and salting conditions than would have been possible with the 18th-century method of stacking the kilns.

The Yorktown mugs were hand thrown, but a template was used to shape the ornamental cordoning. It was first assumed that a single template had served to fashion both the cordons at the base and the groove below the lip. We had such a tool made of aluminum, copying the Challis mug's ornament, and proportionately enlarged to allow for shrinkage in firing. But in using this template Mr. Maloney discovered that it was impossible to shape the whole exterior of the vessel in one movement without the tools "chattering" against the wall. Since none of the Yorktown sherds nor, indeed, any of the brown-stoneware mugs I have studied in England exhibit this feature, it is clear that the potters used only a small template which molded the base cordoning alone, a technique in marked contrast to that of the German Westerwald potters of the same period, whose mass-produced tankards and chamberpots invariably exhibit considerable "chattering." Shaping the lip of the Yorktown tankards appears to have been accomplished entirely by hand as was the application of the encircling groove below it. Because the clay used in the manufacture of these brown stonewares is relatively coarse, it does not lend itself readily to the thin potting so characteristic of English white salt-glaze or the refined Nottingham and Burslem brown stonewares. Consequently, it was necessary to pare down the mouths of the mugs to make them acceptable to the lips of the toper. This interior tooling, extending about half an inch below the rim, is found on all the Yorktown and English brown stonewares of this class. The technique is the reverse of that used by the Westerwald potters, whose mugs are thinned from the outside, leaving the straight edge on the interior.[253] Having imbibed from both types of tankard, I believe that the English (and Yorktown) technique is distinctly preferable. One's upper lip does most of the work; the paring of the inside of the vessel shapes the rim away from that lip and carries the ale smoothly into the mouth.

The treatment of the single-reeded handle on the Challis site mug equals the best English examples, being thin and of sufficient size to accommodate three fingers, with the top of its curve remaining below the edge of the rim so that the thumb cannot slip over it. In addition, the lower terminal is folded back on itself and impressed. While it has often been said that the signature of a potter is found in the shaping of his rims and his handles, we must remember that in a large commercial pottery the person who applies the handles often is not the same workman as he who throws the pot. This explains the considerable variety among the handles of supposed Yorktown tankards, some of them very skillfully fashioned and applied, others appallingly crude. It is inconceivable that all can be the work of a single craftsman.

The iron-oxide slip into which the upper part of the body and handle of the Challis site mug was dipped provided the vessel with a pleasing purplish-to-green mottling when struck by the salt, but, compared to its English prototypes, the variations of color and the unevenness of the size of the mottling label it a product of inferior firing. Nevertheless, in criticizing the Yorktown stoneware, we might remember Dr. Johnson's comment on women preachers, whom he likened to a dog walking on its hind legs, saying: "It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

On the evidence of the many fragments of Yorktown mugs found in Williamsburg excavations, it may be supposed that the Challis example was of above-average quality. Many of the Williamsburg sherds are both badly overfired and poorly mottled, owing either to inadequate salting or to the use of a slip of the wrong consistency. The much-restored specimen shown in figure 9 was found in a mid-18th-century rubbish deposit[254] and apparently had belonged to John Coke, who kept tavern in Williamsburg east of the Public Gaol. In this example, the intended mottled effect has become a solid band of purple, and the body color below has turned dark gray. I had long supposed that both were the result of overfiring. Experiments by Mr. Maloney, however, clearly showed that the gray body may result from a reducing atmosphere as readily as by excessive temperature, while the purple zone could be due to the slip's being too thick. Two test mugs fired side by side at a temperature of 2300° F., using thick and thin slips of iron oxide, produced the solid-purple band and the brown mottle respectively.

Before dismissing the John Coke mug as merely an example of wrong slip consistency, it should be noted that this piece has none of the characteristics of the Challis mug; the handle is quite different in both size and shape and is applied without the folded terminal, the proportions are poor, and the template used for the base cordoning is so worn on its bottom edge that the wide upper cordon is more pronounced than the base itself, thus giving the whole vessel a feeling of stubby instability. In addition, the body appears to have been scraped round after the slip had been applied, possibly to remove the excess. All in all, it is a miserable mug, and we may be forgiven for wondering whether it is really a product of William Rogers' operation. Some of his tankards may have been made by apprentice potters, which would account for somewhat varying shapes. But the handle is not an inept creation as handles go; it is simply an entirely different type from that used on the English stoneware that Rogers copied. Even more curious is the question of the template, which should have been discarded long before. While the throwing variations of Rogers' potters may have been overlooked, little can be said for a master craftsman who would allow the use of tools so worn as to mar the esthetic quality of every mug produced. We may wonder whether there was another stoneware potter at work in Virginia in the mid-18th century or whether, after Rogers' death, his factory's standards were allowed to deteriorate to the level of the John Coke mug.

Although the tavern tankards are the most informative of the Yorktown products, numerous other stoneware forms were produced. These are well represented in the National Park Service and Colonial Williamsburg collections. The most simple and at the same time the most attractive of these is a group of hemispherical bowls (fig. 10), two of which were found in the same deposit as the Coke mug.[255] One, which had been dipped into an iron-oxide slip in the same manner as were the tankards, has a pale gray body with a narrow band of brown mottling below the rim. The other Coke bowl has a dirty greenish-gray body, while the slipped band is a heavy purplish-brown with little mottling. The entire bowl is too heavily salted, an infirmity which often may have afflicted these pieces. A fragment of a slightly smaller and even more heavily salted bowl was found in 1961 by Mrs. P. G. Harrison in her flower bed at Yorktown,[256] thus seeming to confirm the Yorktown origin of the Coke bowls.

There is no doubt that bottles and jars, some of considerable size, were among the Yorktown factory's principal products, but this does not mean necessarily that all such items found in the vicinity of Yorktown or Williamsburg are Rogers' pieces. Just as the tavern tankards were copies of English mugs, so the bottles and jars had their prototypes among the wares of English, brown-stoneware potters. The difference is simply that the kitchen vessels have rarely attracted the attention of collectors and therefore are poorly represented in English museums. Consequently we have little opportunity to study them and to determine how such pieces differ from those made at Yorktown. At this stage it is possible to be sure only of the Virginia origin of those examples whose clay is clearly of the local variety. Such an identification can be made only when the piece is markedly underfired and retains the coloring and impurities characteristic of earthenwares of proven Virginia manufacture. Fortunately, the large bottles are small mouthed and neither slipped nor glazed on the inside, thus ensuring that, if the piece is underfired the earthenware characteristics will be readily discernible. Fragments of underfired stoneware bottles were among the most common sherds recovered from the colonial roadway at Yorktown, providing invaluable evidence to aid the identification of the Rogers stoneware body composition and color. It must be reiterated, however, that this guide is confined to underfired products and that those correctly burned cannot be distinguished as yet from others of English manufacture.

The globular bottle shown in figure 11 is underfired and consequently not a true "stoneware," but from the outside it bears all the characteristics of a good quality product. This undoubtedly local and almost certainly Yorktown example was found on the John Coke site in Williamsburg[257] in a context of about 1765. The body is evenly potted, the cordoning below the mouth neatly tooled, and the broad strap handle rugged and tidily shaped into a finger-impressed rat-tail terminal. The handle can, perhaps, be faulted, in that it will accommodate only two fingers with comfort, and it is a little wider in proportion to its size than any I have seen in England. The iron-oxide slip which extends to the midsection of the body is well mottled and predominantly of good color. Ignoring the under-firing, this bottle may be classed as a very creditable piece of potting, seemingly quite as good as most such vessels turned out by English potters in the mid-18th century.[258]

Globular-bodied jars with everted collar-like mouths can be proved to have been made at Yorktown on the evidence of a few small under-and over-fired sherds recovered from the old road metaling in front of the Digges House. The best example recovered from a dated archeological context in Virginia is a jar found in a rubbish deposit of about 1763-1772 at the plantation of Rosewell in Gloucester County.[259] But like the well-fired bottles, its Yorktown provenance cannot yet be proved.

The last major category of kitchen stoneware believed to have been made at the Yorktown pottery is a group of pipkins (fig. 13, no. 7). These were often overburned and improperly salted, turning the body a greenish gray and the iron-oxide slip to a coarse brown mottling with a similar greenish hue. The bodies of these vessels are generally bag-shaped and are broader toward the base than at the rim, which is slightly everted and tooled into a rounded lip over a cordon of comparable width. The handles were made separately in solid rolls that were pierced longitudinally with a stick or metal rod to avoid warping in firing or heat retention in use. They possess pestle-like terminals that were luted to the body after shaping. No definite evidence has yet been found to identify these vessels as Yorktown products, but they do exhibit color characteristics, particularly when overfired, comparable to those of one of the Coke hemispherical bowls as well as to some of the tankard fragments.

Figure 13

1. Creampan, rim sherd of typical Yorktown form, slightly flaring externally and incurving within, hard red earthenware with grey-to-pink surface and one spot of dark-brown glaze on the outside; presumably biscuit and rejected before glazing. Diameter approximately 10-1/4 inches. Found at Yorktown along with other similar rims beneath the roadway south of the Digges House. Colonial Williamsburg collection.

2. Creampan, section from rim to base, a typical example of the "rolled-rim" technique, the body poorly fired, pink earthenware flecked with ocher, presumably biscuit and rejected before glazing. The sherd is badly twisted and is an undoubted waster. Diameter approximately 16 inches. National Park Service collection from Yorktown. No recorded context.

3. Creampan, rim and wall fragment, rim technique similar to no. 2, but heavier and the body thicker; pale pink earthenware flecked with ocher. Presumably biscuit and rejected before glazing. Diameter uncertain. National Park Service collection from Yorktown. No recorded provenance.

4. Creampan, rim and wall fragment, the rim form a variant on the everted and rolled technique, seemingly having been turned out and then rolled back toward the interior. The body orange-to-pink earthenware flecked with ocher, presumably biscuit and rejected before glazing. Diameter approximately 10-1/8 inches. National Park Service collection from Yorktown. No recorded provenance. Fragments of three pans of this type were present in the as-yet-unpublished group of artifacts from the Challis site in James City County whence came the key Rogers stoneware tankard (fig. 3), all of which were buried around 1730.

5. Funnel, lower rim fragment, lead-glazed pale pink-bodied earthenware similar to the two examples illustrated in figure 15; the rim everted and tooled beneath, a technique paralleled by those on numerous bowls found at Yorktown and Williamsburg. A rim sherd of this form was among the pieces found in front of the Digges House. The funnel is thin walled, well potted, and coated with a ginger-to-yellow mottled glaze both inside and out. National Park Service collection from Yorktown; no recorded context. The comparable funnels cited above were discarded in the mid-18th century.

6. Porringer, small rim fragment only, but bearing traces of handle luting which thus identifies the vessel; the rim everted and flattened on the top, pale pink-bodied earthenware, presumably biscuit and rejected before glazing. Diameter approximately 6-1/8 inches. National Park Service collection from Yorktown; no recorded provenance.

7. Pipkin, brown salt-glazed stoneware, bag-shaped body with slightly rising base, the rim thickened, slightly everted, with a tooled cordon beneath. The handle (not part of this example) was made as a solid roll and when soft pierced longitudinally with a stick. The glaze is well mottled and a purplish green. The body was thrown away in the mid-18th century, but the handle is unstratified. Colonial Williamsburg archeological collection (body) E. R. 140.27A, (handle) 30B. Other fragments from Williamsburg show that the rim usually was drawn slightly outward at a point at right angles to the handle to create a simple spout. Excavated examples of these pipkins range in rim diameter from 4-1/8 to at least 5-5/8 inches.

8. Bottle, brown salt-glazed stoneware, neck and handle fragment only, the body dark gray and the oxide slip a deep purple to yellow as a result of overfiring. Glazing also occurs on the fractures, identifying this piece as a waster and therefore of considerable importance. Other blemishes include roof drippings on the handle and body which indicate that the bottle was fired without the protection of a sagger. The cordoning on the neck is well proportioned, and the handle terminates in a neatly fingered rat-tail. National Park Service collection from the Swan Tavern site at Yorktown; unstratified. S. T. 213.

Stoneware Manufacturing Processes

The types of kiln used by the Yorktown potters as well as their techniques of manufacture will not be known until the factory site is located and carefully excavated. Until that time, the Yorktown stonewares raise more questions than they answer. The most important of these is the shape of the kilns and how they were fired. The wares run the gamut from such under-burning that the iron-oxide slip has evolved no further than a zone of bright-red coloring, to overfiring which has turned the slip a deep purple and the body to almost the hardness and color of granite. Do these differences result from a lack of control over entire batches, or do they stem from temperature variations inherent in different parts of the kiln? Mr. Maloney's experiments, made without the use of saggers, have shown that close proximity to the firebox can unexpectedly and dramatically affect the wares.

Thus, one mug of his first test series was placed much closer to the direct heat than were the rest, with the result that it emerged with an overall dark, highly glossed surface somewhat reminiscent of Burslem brown stoneware.

The only real evidence of the Yorktown manufacturing process comes from the many sagger fragments that have been found around the town. The largest single assemblage was discovered on the Swan Tavern site, but another group of large pieces was recovered from beneath the Archer Cottage at the foot of the colonial roadway leading down to the river frontage. In neither instance is it likely that the sherds were serving any practical purpose, and so it is hard to imagine why they would have been taken to these widely distant locations.

The Park Service Yorktown collection includes sections through three saggers of different sizes, one for holding quart tankards (fig. 12), another for pint mugs, and a third which might have served for the bowls, the last being 5-3/4 inches in height and having an interior base diameter of approximately 8 inches, with walls 1/2 inch thick and side apertures 5-1/2 inches apart.[260] These apertures are pear shaped and are common to all the Yorktown saggers, as they are also to the examples excavated at Bankside in London.[261] The tankard saggers have three such holes plus a vertical slit which extends from the top to the bottom to house the handles, but it is not known whether the wide and shallow example described above would have possessed this feature. If this example was intended only for bowls, a slot would not have been needed and an extra aperture probably would have been substituted: but were it also used for pipkins, a handle opening would have been essential. The purpose of the pear-shaped apertures was to enable the salt fumes to percolate freely around the vessels being fired. For the same reason sagger lids sometimes were jacked up on small pads of clay, or the sagger rim scooped out here and there to let the fumes enter from the top. A careful examination of some of the Yorktown vessels shows that those closest to the salting holes received excessive fuming through the sagger apertures, the outlines of which were transferred to the pots in patches or stripes of heavy greenish mottling.

Other kiln furniture found in Yorktown includes fragments of sagger lids having an average thickness of 3/4 of an inch and various lumps of clay which served as kiln pads and props.[262] Without knowing the type of kilns used it is impossible to determine how the saggers were employed. It is obvious, however, that they prevented the pots from sticking together in the kiln, from being dripped upon by the fusing brickwork of the roof, and from becoming repositories for the salt as it was thrown or poured into the kiln. But, as Mr. Maloney demonstrates daily, it is perfectly possible to make good stoneware without saggers, though wasters will accrue from the mishaps just described. If a single-level "crawl-in" or "groundhog" type kiln is used, the number of pots discarded as wasters is more than offset by the space saved through not using saggers. It can be argued, therefore, that Rogers' kiln was of a type in which the saggers served the additional function of allowing the pots to be stacked one on top of the other instead of being spread over a wide flat area, in which case it is possible that the kiln or kilns were of the beehive variety.[263]

The manufacture of stoneware requires only one firing at a temperature of about 2300° F., and it takes Mr. Maloney approximately 13 hours to burn them, although at Yorktown the use of saggers may have necessitated prolonged "soaking" of up to 24 hours or more. The salt was thrown in at the peak temperature and repeated at least twice at intervals of about a half hour. When the fire was extinguished the kiln would have been allowed to cool for up to two days and two nights before it could be unloaded. Mr. Maloney has stated that his stoneware kiln, which he considers small, takes approximately three hours to load. Thus, if the Yorktown factory worked at full capacity, it probably would have been possible to fire each kiln once a week. But, not knowing how many workmen were engaged in the operation, we would be unwise even to guess at the size of its output. The listing of stoneware and coarse earthenware included in Rogers' inventory is not particularly large, although £5 worth of "crackt" stoneware might have represented a considerable quantity of "seconds" or wasters when one considers that 26 dozen good quart mugs were worth only 4 shillings more.

Pint mugs are the most commonly found stoneware relics of the Yorktown factory. Following the "26 doz. qt Mugs £5.4.," a value of 4d. per mug, we find "60 doz pt Do 7.10."[264] A stock of 60 dozen would be reasonable because, as Mr. Maloney has stated, a good potter can throw approximately 12 dozen a day.

Before leaving the evidence of the inventory it should be noted that the vessels which we usually term storage jars are probably synonymous with Rogers' "9 large Cream Potts 4/6"; but where are the large stone bottles? The "4 doz small stone bottles 6/" were likely to have been of quart capacity. We can only suppose that the large bottles were not included in the batches fired just before Rogers died and that, consequently, he had none in stock.

The Earthenwares

Besides the stonewares, the inventory includes the following items of earthenware:

11 doz Milk pans £2.4 9 Midle Sized Do 3/ 2 doz red Saucepans 4/ 6 Chamber potts 2/ 3 doz Lamps 9/ 4 doz small dishes 8/ 9 large Cream potts 4/6 12 Small Do 2/ 2 doz porringers 4/ 4 doz bird bottles 12/ 4 doz small stone bottles 6/ 6 doz puding pans 2/

This listing might be read to indicate that the Yorktown factory produced considerably less earthenware than stoneware, a construction that could be supported by the earlier inventory reference to "a pcl crakt redware" with a value of only £2 as against the £5 worth of "crackt" stoneware. We may wonder whether a ratio of 40 to 60 percent may not be a reasonable guide to the proportionate output of coarse-ware and stoneware, although it must be admitted that we do not know the relative sizes of the two parcels of cracked wares. It must be added also that, besides the inventory, the only extant direct documentary reference to the Rogers' factory products (1745) is to earthenware, not stoneware. Furthermore, we know that 20 years earlier he had sold a considerable quantity of earthenware to John Mercer of Marlborough.

Prior to the discovery of the Yorktown evidence we had known of no stoneware manufacturing in Tidewater Virginia in the 18th century, but archeological evidence had revealed the presence of earthenware kilns in the 17th century, with the possibility of two or three operating at much the same time.[265] It can easily be argued that there would have been more in the 18th century, though no kiln sites have yet been found. These considerations cannot be ignored, and consequently we must carefully avoid the trap of attributing all 18th-century, lead-glazed earthenwares made from Tidewater clay to the Rogers factory. A wood-fired Yorktown kiln burning pottery made from Peninsula clay and coated with a clear lead glaze would produce wares possessing variations of texture and color similar to those emerging from a comparable kiln, say, at Williamsburg.[266] Therefore, in attempting to assess the range and importance of Rogers' earthenwares we must use potting techniques alone as our guide to their identification.

The principal evidence comes from the cut beside Main Street in Yorktown in front of the Digges House,[267] where numerous rim fragments of overfired and unglazed creampans were found. Others were recovered from the edges of the roadways on three sides of the adjacent colonial lots 51 and 55, shown on the 18th-century plat (Watkins, fig. 1) as having belonged to William Rogers. The rims from these deposits flared slightly, were tooled inward, and were flattened on the upper surface (fig. 13, no. 1). Fragments of such bowls, usually coated on the inside with a mottled lead glaze varying in color from light ginger to the tone and appearance of molasses, depending on the color of the body, are frequently found in Williamsburg (fig. 14) and on plantation sites in contexts of the second quarter of the 18th century. This creampan form is one of two made from Virginia clay which constantly turn up in contemporaneous archeological deposits. The second form (figs. 13, no. 2, and 15) possesses an everted and rolled rim,[268] an entirely different technique from that described above. I am inclined to doubt that these and their variants were made at the Rogers factory and have termed them products of the "rolled-rim" potter. Nevertheless, a few unglazed fragments of such pans (fig. 13, nos. 2-4) are represented in the National Park Service collections from uncertain archeological contexts in Yorktown.[269] The fact that they are unglazed suggests that they may have been made there, though undoubtedly not by the craftsman who threw the flattened-rim creampans.

Other earthenware sherds from the Digges House group include small, folded-rim fragments which may have come from storage jars or flowerpots. Another fragment was sharply everted over a pronouncedly incurving body. This could have been part of a small bowl or porringer. The Williamsburg archeological collections include a number of bowls of this form, one of which is illustrated in figure 16. A similar rim form is present on a pair of lead-glazed funnels (fig. 17) from a mid-18th-century context at the Coke Garrett House in Williamsburg and on a presumed funnel fragment (fig. 13, no. 5) in the Park Service collection from Yorktown.[270] Also from Yorktown comes the only known porringer fragment (fig. 13, no. 6), a biscuit sherd with a flattened rim and traces of the luting for a handle.[271] Although the type is not represented among stratified finds from Yorktown, mention must be made of an unglazed earthenware water (?) bottle found in Williamsburg,[272] which is clearly a stoneware form and thus probably was made at the Yorktown factory (fig. 18).

Perhaps the most baffling item listed in Rogers' inventory was the reference to "4 doz bird bottles 12/", for it was hard to imagine that he would have been making the small feeder bottles for cages which were normally fashioned in glass. However, it now seems reasonably certain that the Rogers bird bottles were actually bird houses. Figure 19 illustrates two bottle-shaped vessels of Virginia earthenware coated with lead glazes identical in color to examples found on a creampan and other presumably Rogers products excavated in Yorktown. The example on the left has lost its mouth but when complete was undoubtedly comparable to the specimen at right. The former was found in 1935 during the demolition of a chimney of the "Pyle House" at Green Spring near Jamestown.[273] It was mortared into the chimney twelve feet above the ground with its broken mouth facing out but with its base stopping short of the flue. The bottle is now in the collection of the National Park Service at Jamestown, and a recent examination showed that it still contained a lens of washed soil lying in the belly clearly indicating the position in which it had been seated in the chimney brickwork. A stick had been thrust through the wall before firing and emerged on the inside at the same point that the lens of dirt was resting. It was apparent, therefore, that the hole was meant for drainage. The stick hole was present in both bottles as also was an ante cocturam cut in the base (fig. 20) which removed almost half of the bottom plus a vertical triangle. It is believed that this feature was intended to enable the bottles to be hooked over pintles or large nails which latched into the #V# and prevented them from rolling. In this way they could have been mounted under the eaves of frame buildings as nesting boxes (or bottles) and although firmly secure when hooked, they could be easily lifted off for cleaning. Evidence of such use is provided by slight chipping on the inner face of the vertical #V# cut of the second bottle (right) where the bottle had abraded against the nail or pintle.

The date of the Green Spring bottle is uncertain, though the paper label accompanying it says "Probably 1720, date of building of house." However, it is clear that the bottle was not installed in the intended portable manner and it is possible that it was added at a later date. The complete example (fig. 19, right) was recently discovered in a sound archeological context during excavations at the James Geddy House in Williamsburg, being associated with a large refuse deposit dating in the period about 1740-60.[274]

It may be noted that in the 1746 inventory of the estate of John Burdett, tavern keeper of Williamsburg, there are listed "16 bird Bottles 3/".[275] As it seems unlikely that a tavern keeper would have a stock of birdcage bottles when he apparently had no birdcage, it may be suggested that the reference is to bottles similar to those discussed here. In support of this conclusion, attention is drawn to the fact that Rogers' new bottles were valued at 3d each, while Burdett's (used?) seven years later were appraised at 2-1/4d.[276]

It seems evident that the Rogers earthenware was fired to biscuit, glazed, and fired again in a glost oven; no other explanation accounts for the large quantities of unglazed earthenware found at Yorktown. Mr. Maloney's experiments at the Williamsburg Pottery have amply demonstrated that the Yorktown earthenware could have been glazed in the green state and would not have required a second firing. Furthermore, the study of a late-17th-century kiln site in James City County has confirmed that not all potters thought it necessary to make glazing a separate process. It is curious that the Rogers factory found it desirable to take this second and seemingly uneconomical step. The making of stoneware certainly would not have been a double-firing operation, and, although some of the pieces actually are fired no higher than the earthenware, they have been slipped and salted. Consequently we must accept the bottle discussed above as an intentional earthenware item which had passed through only the first kiln. Furthermore, its presence in Williamsburg indicates that it was never meant to be glazed. And finally, it should be noted that an unglazed handle fragment, probably from a similar bottle, was among the sherds recovered from the roadway in front of the Digges House.

Conclusions

The Rogers inventory contains such a wide variety of forms that one may claim without fear of contradiction that his factory was _capable_ of producing any of the kinds of kitchen vessels and general-purpose containers that the colony may have required. Consequently, a Yorktown origin may reasonably be considered for any of the wares made from local clay that turn up in contexts of the appropriate period. In the Williamsburg collections are such varied lead-glazed, earthenware items as closestool pans, chamber pots, straight-sided dishes, lidded storage jars, wide-mouthed and double-handled storage bins, pipkins, and chafing dishes. But whether all these things were made, in fact, at Yorktown cannot be known until the factory site is found and excavated.

In the meantime, a few conclusions can be drawn on the basis of the existing archeological evidence. There can be no doubt that the Rogers factory at Yorktown was a sizable operation and that it employed throwers as capable in their own field as any in England. Our slender knowledge of Rogers' own background does not indicate that he himself was a potter. It must be supposed, therefore, that he obtained the services of at least a journeyman potter apprenticed in one of the brown-stoneware factories in England. One can only guess at the center in which this unknown craftsman was trained, but it is more than likely that he came from London and might have worked at Fulham,[277] or more probably at Southwark, or even, perhaps, at Lambeth, the types of sagger and the wares produced at Yorktown being stylistically identical to the fragments found on the latter sites.

Not knowing the number of craftsmen employed, we cannot hope to determine the size of Rogers' output or the number of kilns in operation. But one would suppose that he had at least two kilns, one for stoneware and the other for lead-glazed earthenware, although they could, conceivably, have been interchangeable. An indication that lead-glazed wares were sometimes burned in the salt-glaze kiln is provided by a single creampan in the Williamsburg collection,[278] which is both lead-glazed and heavily incrusted with salt. It is possible, however, that, knowing that there would be "cold" spots in the kiln,[279] the potter tried to make use of every available inch and inserted a few lead-glazed pieces along with the stoneware.

Documentary evidence relating to the distribution of Rogers' products has been discussed by Mr. Watkins (pp. 83-84), and, although some of it tends to be equivocal, we are left with the impression that both stoneware and earthenware were shipped for trade elsewhere, but that such shipments were probably infrequent and not of large quantities.[280] When seemingly comparable fragments are unearthed on sites beyond the environs of the York and James Rivers one must use extreme caution in attributing them to Yorktown. Clay of a generally similar character lies beneath much of Tidewater Virginia, and, since little serious historical archeology has been undertaken in the state beyond the Jamestown-Williamsburg-Yorktown triangle, it is much too soon to assume that apprentices trained at Yorktown did not set up their own kilns in other counties. In short, techniques of manufacture such as are exhibited by the shaping of earthenware rims and handles should be the only acceptable guide for identification, and even these are not infallible. As for the stoneware, the manufacturing techniques are so English in character that they are of no help. Thus, once the Rogers stoneware was shipped out of Yorktown, it must have lost its identity as totally as Governor Gooch presumably had hoped that it would.

Archeological evidence for the date range of the Yorktown ware is not very conclusive. The Challis site mug seems to have been thrown away around 1730, and this provides the earliest tightly dated context in which the wares have been found. The largest single assemblage of probable Yorktown products was the extensive refuse deposit believed to have been associated with John Coke's tavern in Williamsburg, but this was not discarded before mid-century. Other fragments of stoneware tankards, jars, and pipkins have been found at the Anthony Hay and New Post Office Sites in Williamsburg in contexts ranging from 1750 to 1770, while more, possibly Yorktown pieces, were encountered in a rubbish deposit interred in the period 1763-1772 at Rosewell in Gloucester County. These are, of course, dates at or after which the pieces were thrown away; they do not necessarily have a close relationship with the dates of manufacture. Nevertheless, the recovery of so many fragments from late contexts does suggest that the factory continued in operation after the last documented date of 1745.[281]

The most obvious source for dating evidence is clearly at Yorktown itself, but, unfortunately, little of the large National Park Service collection has any acceptable archeological associations. The fragments recovered from the roadway in front of the Digges House were accompanied by no closely datable items. While it is tempting to associate this deposit with Rogers' tenure as "Surveyor of the Landings, Streets; and Cosways" beginning in 1734,[282] it is also possible that he provided the City of York with road metaling before that date and that after his death his successors continued to do so. The quantity of sagger fragments from the vicinity of the Swan Tavern might have been associated in some way with the fact that Thomas Reynolds (see Watkins, p. 83) occupied the adjacent lot. More sagger fragments were found in the backfilling of the builder's trench around the recently restored Digges House on Main Street, which the National Park Service believes to have been constructed in about 1760.[283] But it can be argued that the sagger pieces were scattered so liberally around the town that their presence in the builder's trench does not necessarily imply that the factory was still operating at that date.

In summation, it may be said that the quantities of stoneware and earthenware with possible Yorktown associations which have been found in archeological sites in Tidewater Virginia leave little doubt that the venture established by William Rogers was of considerable value to the colony. There can be equally little doubt that Governor Gooch was aware of this fact and that he gave his tacit approval to the venture by minimizing its importance in his reports to the Board of Trade.

The quality of the products was good by colonial standards, and their quantity impressive. Consequently, in spite of Governor Gooch's misleading reports, William Rogers begins to emerge as one of the pioneers of industry in Virginia. It is to be hoped that it will be possible eventually to undertake a full archeological excavation of his factory site and so enable Rogers to step out once and for all from behind the deprecatory sobriquet of the "poor potter" of Yorktown that has concealed for more than two centuries his name, his acumen, and his potters' talents.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to Colonial Williamsburg for helping to subsidize the preparation of this paper and for permission to illustrate specimens from its archeological collections; also to J. Paul Hudson, National Park Service curator at Jamestown for similar facilities; as well as to Charles E. Hatch, senior National Park Service historian at Yorktown, for access to various archeological reports in his library.

I am particularly grateful to James E. Maloney of the Williamsburg Pottery for the immense amount of work which he so generously undertook not only to reproduce copies of the Yorktown products but also to recreate the wasters as well, thus providing information regarding the colonial technical processes that could not have been obtained in any other way. I am also grateful to Joseph Grace, Colonial Williamsburg's watchmaker and engraver who made an accurate copy of the unofficial excise stamp used on Rogers' mugs, and to my secretary Lynn Hill, who toiled long and hard to bring order into this report.

I am further indebted to Wilcomb E. Washburn, Chairman, Department of American Studies, at the Smithsonian Institution, who first drew my attention to the artifacts in front of the Dudley Digges House; and to my wife Audrey, to John Dunton and William Hammes, all of Colonial Williamsburg's department of archeology, who through the years have helped collect ceramic evidence from Yorktown.

I. N. H.

U.S. Government Printing Office: 1967

FOOTNOTES:

[183] For example: THOMAS JEFFERSON WERTENBAKER, _The Old South, The Founding of American Civilization_ (New York: Scribner's, 1942), p. 265; J. PAUL HUDSON, "Earliest Yorktown Pottery," _Antiques_ (May 1958), vol. 73, pp. 472-473.

[184] This material is located in the collection of the Colonial National Historical Park, Jamestown, Virginia.

[185] "Reasons for Repealing the Acts pass'd in Virginia and Maryland relating to Ports and Towns," _Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts_, edit. William P. Palmer (Richmond, 1875), vol. 1, pp. 137-138.

[186] VICTOR S. CLARK, _The History of Manufactures in the United States, 1607-1860_ (Washington, D.C.: The Carnegie Institution, 1916), pp. 26-27.

[187] Ibid., p. 203.

[188] Ibid., p. 204.

[189] Library of Congress Transcripts: Great Britain, Public Records Office, Colonial Office 5, vol. 1322, p. 185.

[190] PERCY SCOTT FLIPPIN, "William Gooch: Successful Royal Governor of Virginia," _William & Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine_ (1926), ser. 2, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 37-38; FLIPPIN, _The Royal Government in Virginia (1624-1775)_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1919), pp. 124 ff.

[191] CHARLES CAMPBELL, _History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia_ (Philadelphia, 1810), p. 448.

[192] FLIPPIN (1926), op. cit. (footnote 8), p. 38.

[193] CAMPBELL, op. cit. (footnote 9), p. 414.

[194] Library of Congress Transcripts: Great Britain, Public Record Office, Colonial Office 5, vol. 1323, p. 82.

[195] Ibid., p. 133.

[196] Ibid., p. 189.

[197] Ibid., vol. 1324, p. 3.

[198] Ibid., pp. 30-31.

[199] Ibid., p. 104.

[200] Ibid., vol. 1325, p. 83.

[201] C. MALCOLM WATKINS, _The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia_, (_Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology_, U.S. National Museum Bulletin 253), Washington: Smithsonian Institution, in press.

[202] York County Records: Deeds & Bonds, vol. 2, 1701-1713, p. 365 (In York County Courthouse, Yorktown, Va.).

[203] York County Records, Book 14: _Orders & Wills_, 1716-1720.

[204] Ibid., pp. 307, 317, 357, 386, 394, 439.

[205] York County Records, Book 17: _Orders, Wills, &c._, 1729-1732, p. 136.

[206] Ibid., p. 296.

[207] York County Records, Book 18: _Orders, Wills, & Inventories_, p. 15.

[208] Ibid., p. 121.

[209] Ibid., p. 157.

[210] LESTER J. CAPPON and STELLA F. DUFF, _Virginia Gazette Index, 1736-1780_ (Williamsburg, Va.: Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1950); and the _Virginia Gazette, 1736-1780_ (Williamsburg, Va.: Issued on microfilm by the Institute of Early American History and Culture from originals loaned by other institutions, 1950), reel 1.

[211] EDWARD M. RILEY, "The Colonial Courthouses of York County, Virginia," _William & Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine_ (1942), ser. 2 (hereinafter designated _WMQ_ 2), vol. 22, pp. 399-404.

[212] _Virginia Gazette_ microfilm, op. cit. (footnote 28), reel 1.

[213] York County Records, Book 18: _Orders, Wills, & Inventories_, pp. 525, 537 ff.

[214] Ibid., pp. 553 ff.

[215] _Virginia Gazette_ microfilm, op. cit. (footnote 28), reel 1.

[216] Library of Congress Transcripts, op. cit. (footnote 12), vol. 1325, p. 83.

[217] York County Records, Book 5: _Deeds_, 1741-1754, p. 64.

[218] _Virginia Gazette_ microfilm, op. cit. (footnote 41), reel 1 (June 17, 1737).

[219] _Tyler's Quarterly_ (Richmond, Va., 1922), vol. 3, p. 296.

[220] _Virginia Gazette_ microfilm, op. cit. (footnote 28), reel 1 (Sept. 30, 1737; April 17, 1738; June 23, 1738; July 7, 1738; April 20, 1739; July 13, 1739; Aug. 24, 1739; January 25, 1740).

[221] "Reynolds and Rogers," _WMQ_ 1 (1905), vol. 13, pp. 128, 129.

[222] _John Norton & Sons, Merchants of London and Virginia_, edit. Frances Norton Mason (Richmond, Va.: Dietz, 1937), p. 518.

[223] _Virginia Gazette_ microfilm (Parks' Virginia Gazette, June 20 and July 4, 1745); I. NOËL HUME, Part II, p. 110.

[224] "The Votes of Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania," _Pennsylvania Archives_ (Harrisburg), ser. 8, vol. 3, pp. 2047-2049. (From Rudolf Hommel, in correspondence with Lura Woodside Watkins.)

[225] _Virginia Gazette_ microfilm, op. cit. (footnote 28), reel 1.

[226] York County Records, Book 18: _Orders, Wills, & Inventories_, p. 290.

[227] "Petition of Isaac Parker, September, 1742," _Massachusetts Archives_, vol. 59, pp. 332-333 (quoted in LURA WOODSIDE WATKINS, _New England Potters and Their Wares_ [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950], p. 245).

[228] _Bideford-in-Devon: Official Guide to Bideford and District_, edit. Sheila Hutchinson (Bideford, about 1961), p. 35.

[229] C. MALCOLM WATKINS, "North Devon Pottery and Its Export to America in the 17th Century" (paper 13 in _Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Papers 12-18_, U.S. National Museum Bulletin 225, by various authors; Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1963), pp. 28-29.

[230] LURA WOODSIDE WATKINS, _New England Potters and Their Wares_ (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950), p. 16.

[231] Ibid., p. 24.

[232] _The Register of Burials in the Parish of Braintree in the County of Essex from Michaelmas ... 1740_ (MS in Essex County Record Office, Chelmsford, England), p. 40.

[233] "Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents," prepared by W. G. STANARD, _Virginia Magazine of History & Biography_ (hereinafter designated _VHM_) (1899), vol. 5, p. 186.

[234] "Viewers of Tobacco Crop, 1639," _VHM_ (1898), vol. 5, p. 121.

[235] _Virginia Wills and Administrations 1632-1800_, comp. Clayton Torrence (Richmond, Wm. Byrd Press, Inc., n.d.), pp. 364-365.

[236] _English Duplicates of Lost Virginia Records_, comp. Louis des Coquets, Jr. (Princeton, N.J.: Privately printed, 1958), p. 128.

[237] _Virginia Wills and Administrations_, loc. cit. (footnote 53).

[238] LYON G. TYLER, "Education in Colonial Virginia," _William & Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine_ (1897), ser. 1 (hereinafter designated _WMQ_ 1), vol. 5, p. 221.

[239] "Extracts from the Records of Surry County," _WMQ_ 1 (1903), vol. 11, p. 83.

[240] _English Duplicates_, op. cit. (footnote 54), p. 73.

[241] Ibid., p. 210.

[242] Ibid., pp. 81, 83, 86.

[243] _Virginia Wills and Administrations_, loc. cit. (footnote 53).

[244] "Virginia Gleanings in England," _VHM_ (1921), vol. 29, p. 435.

[245] "Tithables in Lancaster County, 1716," _WMQ_ 1 (1913), vol. 21, p. 21.

[246] From _Orders, Wills, & Inventories_, York County Records, no. 18, pp. 553 ff. The linear totals given in the right-hand column are not always the sum of the amounts noted in each line, but they are presented here as faithfully as possible.

[247] ADRIAN OSWALD, "A London Stoneware Pottery, Recent Excavations at Bankside," _The Connoisseur_ (January 1951), vol. 126, no. 519, pp. 183-185.

[248] J. F. BLACKER, _The A. B. C. of English Salt-Glaze Stoneware_ (London: 1922), pp. 46, 48, 51, 56, 57, 63, and 65.

[249] Kiln waste found in recent excavations in Philadelphia indicate that Anthony Duché was manufacturing stoneware there in the style of Westerwald in the 1730s.

[250] No trace of a kiln was found on the Bankside site in Southwark; it is probable that the waste came from another location nearby, possibly from the factory established in Gravel Lane around 1690, which continued under various managements until about 1750. It may be noted that, in the same way that much Southwark delftware has been erroneously attributed to Lambeth, it is likely that brown stonewares in the so-called style of Fulham was made in Southwark before Lambeth rose to prominence in that field. See F. H. GARNER, "Lambeth Earthenware," _Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle_ (London: 1937), vol. 1, no. 4, p. 46; also JOHN DRINKWATER, "Some Notes on English Salt-Glaze Brown Stoneware," _Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle_ (London, 1939), vol. 2, no. 6, p. 33.

[251] W. R. excise or capacity stamps continued to be impressed on tavern mugs long after William III was dead. The latest published example is dated 1792. DRINKWATER, op. cit. (footnote 69), p. 34 and pl. XIIIb.

[252] The Williamsburg Pottery, on Route 60 near Lightfoot, specializes in the reproduction of 18th-century stoneware and slipware.

[253] I. NOËL HUME, _Here Lies Virginia_ (New York: Knopf, 1963), fig. 55.

[254] Colonial Williamsburg, E. R. (Excavation Register) 140.27A.

[255] E. R. 140.27A.

[256] Colonial Williamsburg, cat. no. 1913.

[257] E. R. 157G.27A (also 159A, 165A, 173, and 173A).

[258] The majority of archeologically documented pieces have been recovered from English domestic sites and not from kiln dumps.

[259] I. NOËL HUME, "Excavations at Rosewell, Gloucester County, Virginia, 1957-1959," (paper 18 in _Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Papers 12-18_, U. S. National Museum Bulletin 225, by various authors; Washington, Smithsonian Institution, 1963), p. 208, no. 3 and p. 209, fig. 28, no. 3.

[260] U.S. National Park Service collection at Jamestown: Yorktown the first from the Swan Tavern Site and the others from Project 203, F. S. 8, unstratified material recovered during sewer digging on Main Street, 1956-1957.

[261] OSWALD, op. cit. (footnote 66), fig. IX.

[262] U.S. National Park Service collection at Jamestown: Yorktown, S. T. 1933.

[263] Mr. Maloney is of the opinion that saggers could just as usefully have served a "groundhog" kiln where they would have enabled the pots to be stacked up to four in height.

[264] See WATKINS, Part I, footnote 32.

[265] Op. cit. (footnote 72), pp. 208-220.

[266] It must be stressed that no evidence of any such kiln exists. See also footnote 30.

[267] This material is divided between the colonial archeological collections of the Smithsonian Institution and of Colonial Williamsburg.

[268] I. NOËL HUME, "Excavations at Tutter's Neck, James City County in Virginia, 1960-1961," paper 53 in _Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology_ (U.S. National Museum Bulletin 249); Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1966, fig. 19, nos. 1, 3, and 4.

[269] N.P.S. Collection at Jamestown: Yorktown, no provenance.

[270] Bowl IC.1.18C, Funnels E.R. 140.27A, and National Park Service collection at Jamestown: Yorktown, no provenance.

[271] National Park Service collection at Jamestown: Yorktown, no provenance.

[272] E.R. 157A, C, and G, 27A.

[273] National Park Service collection, J. 13049 (G.S.), with label reading "Pyle House Green Spring. Built into brickwork of chimney--removed in securing brick for Lightfoot House by C.? T. (10.29.35)."

[274] Colonial Williamsburg archeological collections, E. R. 987D.19B, cat. 3275.

[275] "Inventory and Appraisement of estate of John Burdett," York County Records, Book 20, _Wills and Inventories_, pp. 46-49.

[276] Since this paper was written and the bird bottles identified, a number of additional fragments have been recognized among mid-eighteenth-century finds from Williamsburg excavations, including a small, pierced lug handle fitting the scar on the Geddy example (fig. 19, right). The hole through the handle lined up with that through the shoulder clearly indicating that their combined purpose was to provide an alternative method of suspension for use when the bottles were hung in trees.

[277] There is a long-established belief that Fulham was the principal source of 18th-century brown-stoneware vessels. While the art of making the ware was first developed there by John Dwight, the factory fell into decline after his death in 1703 and remained in virtual oblivion until the 19th century.

[278] Archeological area 2B2, context unknown.

[279] Mr. Maloney has pointed out that a margin of 150°F. is sufficient to make the difference between earthenware and stoneware.

[280] Export records for the York River should be treated with some caution as goods often were imported from one place and later exported to another. But if we accept the 1739 and 1745 _Virginia Gazette_ references (Watkins, footnotes 38 and 41) as being to wares of Yorktown manufacture, by the same token we must draw comparable conclusions from the Naval Office Lists for Accomac (Eastern Shore of Virginia), which show "1 shipment" of "stoneware" exported to Maryland in 1749. Similarly we would have to assume that there was an earthenware factory operating near the James River in 1755 when the records list the exporting of "2 crates Earthenware" to the Rappahannock. Such conclusions may, indeed, be correct, though there is as yet no evidence to support them. Naval Office Lists, Public Records Office, London; cf. _Commodity Analysis of Imports and Exports, Accomac, Virginia, 1726-1769_, and for the _Rappahannock, Virginia, 1726-1769_ microfilm books compiled under the direction of John H. Cox, University of California, 1939 (unpublished).

[281] _Virginia Gazette_, June 20, 1745.

[282] WATKINS, Part I, footnote 37.

[283] Large numbers of wine-bottle fragments also were recovered from the builder's trench, and provided archeological support for a construction date after about 1760.

Index

Act for Ports and Towns (1691), 80

Act for Ports and Towns (1704), repeal of, 76, 77

act prohibiting importation of "stript tobacco," 77 petition for the repeal of, 77

ale, 80

Allen, William, 41

Ambler, Richard (merchant), 79

architectural drawings, Tutter's Neck, 30

Atkins, Robert, 42

Bacon, Nathaniel, 7

ball, cannon, 12, 22, 23 (illustr.)

basin, English delftware, 15, 16 (illustr.), 22, 24 (illustr.)

bead, glass, 47, 70, 71 (illustr.)

Belcher, Governor (Massachusetts), 77

Board of Trade (London), reports to, 75, 76, 77, 78-79, 82-83, 84, 85, 111

boat "shallop," 82 sloop, 82

bone, 18, 47

bones, animal, 51-52

bottles, 36, 43, 51, 82 bird, 82, 107, 108 (illustr.), 109 (illustr.) case, 13 oil or essence, 13 pharmaceutical, 13, 24 (illustr.), 25, 55 stoneware, 91, 92, 98 (illustr.), 100 (illustr.), 101, 105 water, 107 wine, 4, 10, 13, 14, 24 (illustr.), 25, 39 (illustr.), 43, 44, 45, 46, 49, 51, 55, 68-70 (illustr.) wine, miniature, 17 (illustr.), 24 (illustr.), 25 wine, seals for, 32, 35, 36, 37 (illustr.), 43, 46, 55, 69, (illustr.), 70 Yorktown earthenware, 106 (illustr.)

bottle glass, 11

bowls: delftware, 49, 64-66 (illustr.) earthenware, 48 (illustr.) Indian pottery, 67 Staffordshire, 55 stoneware, 96, 97 (illustr.) Yorktown earthenware, 49, 104 (illustr.), 107

_Braxton_ (ship), 83

Bray, David, Sr., 40

Bray, David, Jr., 35, 37, 40

Bray, Elizabeth, 41

Bray, Elizabeth Meriwether, 41

Bray, James, Sr., 40

Bray, James, Jr., 40

Bray, Judith, 35, 36, 37, 40

Bray, Thomas, 35, 40, 45, 56

brewing, 80, 82, 85

Brewster, Richard, 36

Bristol (store), 82, 87

Brown, Matthew, 36, 40

bricklaying, English bond, 4, 8, 44, 45

brickmaking, 43

bricks (_See under_ building materials)

broad arrow, 58 (illustr.), 59

Bruton Parish, 35 church, 37

buckle, shoe, 63 (illustr.), 64 (_See also_ harness)

building materials: bricks, 43, 87; shipment of, 83; sizes of, 8, 44, 45 lathes, oak, 7 lumber, 7, 9, 10, 14; oak strips, 44; weatherboards, 44 (_See also_ floor) mortar, 4, 8, 10, 43, 44, 45, 51 oystershells, 4, 10, 11, 12, 14, 44, 45, 49, 52 plaster, 51 shingles, cypress, 7

Burbydge, Richard (seal of), 36, 39, 46, 69 (illustr.), 70

Burdett, John (tavern keeper), 107, 108

Burwell, Lewis, 41

Burwell's Ferry (Virginia), 43 (_See also_ Kingsmill)

button, brass, 70, 71 (illustr.)

can, iron, 4

Carter, Robert "King", 45

Cary, Colonel Thomas, rebellion led by, 39

Challis site (James City County), 92, 94, 95, 96, 110

Chalmers, George, 78

chamber pots, 82; handle of English delftware, 15, 16 (illustr.)

charger, delftware, 49, 51, 55, 65 (illustr.), 66

Charles II, 39, 82

Charleston, R. J., 13

Chesapeake Corporation, 31, 32, 41, 42

Cheshire, ----, 87

chimney, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14; bird bottles in, 107-108; Tutter's Neck, 36, 43, 45, 49

chinoiserie, 13

Chowan Precinct (North Carolina), 37-39

churches: Bruton Parish, 37 Chowan Precinct (North Carolina), 37-38

Clark, Victor S., 76

Clay Bank, excavations at, 3-27; excavation plans, 6

Clayton, John, 87

clock, 82

closets, 7

clothing, 77, 78

Coke, John (tavern keeper), 95, 96, 97, 110

collar, iron, 24 (illustr.), 25

College Landing (Virginia), 32

Colonial Williamsburg, Inc., 3, 5, 31, 32, 42, 44, 96

ceramics, 10, 11, 31, 32, 46 Indian, 11, 15, 16 (illustr.) shipment of, 82, 84 Staffordshire, 11 (_See also_ specific forms and types)

Colono-Indian pottery, 24 (illustr.), 25, 45, 49, 55, 65 (illustr.), 67; bowl, 65 (illustr.), 67; cup, 52 (illustr.)

cooper, 12

Cotton, Ezra, 7

Council of Virginia, 40, 77, 78 petition complaining about piracy, 41

Culpeper, Lord, 41

cup, Colono-Indian pottery, 52 (illustr.); delftware, 49; earthenware, 12, 68, 69 (illustr.); porcelain, 70, 71 (illustr.)

curtains, 82; rings for, 70, 71 (illustr.)

cutlery, 46, 58 (illustr.); bone handled, 18, 19 (illustr.) (_See also_ knife; fork)

Daniel, Daniel Mack, 42

delftware, 50 (illustr.): bowls, 49 charger, 49, 51, 55 cup, 49 drug jar, 49 English, 13, 15, 16 (illustr.), 22, 23, (illustr.), 44, 46, 47, 51, 64-67, 65 (illustr.) plate, 47 porringers, 49 salts, 51 (illustr.)

Desandrouin (cartographer), 32, 34, 35

doors, 8

drug jar, 49, 65 (illustr.), 66

Duché, Anthony (potter), 91

Duché family (potters), 84

Dunbar, Jeremiah, 77

Dwight, John (Fulham potter), 55, 109

earthenware, 14 bowl, 48 (illustr.) Cistercian, 15, 16 (illustr.) English, 10, 68, 69 (illustr.) lead-glazed, 11, 22, 24 (illustr.) North Devon, 47 Staffordshire, 48 (illustr.) tin-enameled (Portuguese), 10, 15, 16 (illustr.) Yorktown, 47, 49, 51, 55, 68, 69 (illustr.) (_See also_ specific forms; William Rogers)

Eaton, Alden, 31

Eden, Governor, 42

elevations, hypothetical (Tutter's Neck), 30

_Eltham_ (ship), 83

excavation plans, Clay Bank, 6; Tutter's Neck, 37, 47

excise stamps, 92, 95 (illustr.)

Ferry, William (tobacco pipe maker), 14

firebacks, 78

fireplace, 8, 9

flax, 78

Fletcher, John (tobacco pipe maker), 27

floor, wooden, 9, 10 (illustr.), 11 (illustr.), 44

fork, table, 51, 58 (illustr.), 59

flower pots, 107

Fox, Jacob (tobacco pipe maker), 27

Fox, Josiah (tobacco pipe maker), 14

framing, 8

Frank, E. M., 44

funnel, Yorktown earthenware, 100 (illustr.), 101, 105 (illustr.)

furnace, air, 78

furniture, 82

Gale, Christopher, 42

Geddes, Captain John, 36

glass, 10, 31, 43; bead, 47, 70, 71 (illustr.); decanter, 13; stem of drinking glass or candlestick, 13, 14, 17 (illustr.); reconstructed drawing of, 18; window, 44, 49 (_See also_ bottle)

glasses, drinking, 10; Romer, 55, 71 (illustr.), 72; tumbler, 44, 51, 55; wine, 13, 14, 47, 49, 55, 64; with covers, 13

glebe-house, 7, 38

Gooch, Governor William, 75, 76-77, 78-79, 82-83, 84, 85 reports to Board of Trade, 75, 76, 78-79, 84, 85, 111

Goodridg, Jeremiah, 37

Gray, Edward, 36

Green, Dr., 7

Grice, John, 36

gunpowder, 82

Ham, Henry, 81

hardware: band, brass, 70, 71 (illustr.) bolt, 60, 61 (illustr.), 62 boss, brass, 19 (illustr.), 21 handle, 60, 61 (illustr.) hasp, 61 (illustr.) key, 58 (illustr.), 60 latch, 61 (illustr.), 62 loop, 62, 63 (illustr.) nails, 8, 10, 44 padlock, 44, 51, 54 (illustr.), 60, 61 (illustr.) rivet, 61 (illustr.), 62 spike, 60, 61 (illustr.) staple, 20 (illustr.), 21, 24 (illustr.), 27 strap, 61 (illustr.), 62, 63 (illustr.), 64 tack, 19 (illustr.), 21 ward plate, 61 (illustr.), 62

harness: boss from bridle, 19 (illustr.), 21 buckle, 47, 61 (illustr.), 62 cheekpiece from snaffle bit, 20 (illustr.), 21 fitting for, 47, 70, 71 (illustr.) ornament, 47, 63 (illustr.), 64, 70, 71 (illustr.) snaffle bit, 62, 63 (illustr.) spoon bit, 58 (illustr.), 60 stirrup, 22, 23 (illustr.)

Harrison, Mrs. P. G., 97

Harwood, Elizabeth, 28

hearth, 9, 10, 12

Herman, Augustine, 2, 5

Higgenson, Humphry, 36

Hodgson, Reverend Robert, 7

Horns Quarter (King William County), 40

horseshoe, 49, 62, 63 (illustr.)

houses: "Ardudwy" (Clay Bank), 4, 5, 7, 8, 14 brick, 45, 87 Corotoman, 45 Green Spring, Pyle House, 107, 108 Jamestown, 44 Tutter's Neck, drawings of, 30 (illustr.) Williamsburg: John Blair, 44 Brush-Everard, 44 Coke Garrett, 107, 108 James Geddy, 107 Anthony Hay, 110 New Post Office, 110

Yorktown: Archer Cottage, 102 Digges house, 92, 98, 106, 107, 108, 110 (_See also_ Tutter's Neck, buildings)

indentured servants, 81

Indians: appeal to governor for help against, 38, 40 Iroquois Confederation, 40 pottery, 11, 15, 16 (illustr.) (_See also_ Colono-Indian pottery) projectile point, 15, 16 (illustr.), 71 (illustr.) 72 tobacco pipes, 14 uprising, 39-40 war with Tuscarora Indians, 39-40

inventory, William Rogers' estate, 82, 88-90, 105, 109

iron, unidentified objects, 20 (illustr.), 21, 24 (illustr.), 25-27 (_See also_ specific items)

ironworks, 78

_Jamaica Merchant_ (ship), 36

Jamestown, 44, 107

jar: earthenware, 24 (illustr.), 25, 47, 68, 69 (illustr.) pickle, glass, 69 (illustr.), 70 stoneware, 92 storage, 24 (illustr.), 25, 68, 69 (illustr.), 105, 107

Jenings, Col., 82, 87

Jenkins, William F., 3, 4, 11

Jennings, Governor Edmund, 4

Johnson, Elizabeth Bray, 41

Johnson, Col. Philip, 41

Jones, Dorothy Walker, 41

Jones, Frederick, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44-45, 56; property attacked by Indians, 40; will of, 40; wine bottle seal of, 35-36, 38 (illustr.), 39 (illustr.), 69 (illustr.), 70

Jones, Henry (tobacco pipe maker), 14

Jones, Hugh, 42

Jones, Jane, 41

Jones, Captain Roger, 36, 41; complaints about the conduct of, 41

Jones, Thomas, 13, 35, 37, 41

_Judith_ (ship), 83

jug, brown stoneware, 65 (illustr.), 67; white stoneware, 55

kilns, 104; "furniture", 76, 91, 92, 93-94, 99 (illustr.), 103-104; location of, 84, 105-106; types of, 104; use of refuse of, 92 (_See also_ pottery making)

Kingsmill (Virginia), 40, 41 (See also Burwell's Ferry)

kitchen: Clay Bank, 7, 8 Tutter's Neck, 30, 36, 43, 44; conjectural reconstruction of, 30 (illustr.); excavation of, 45-46

knife, iron, 20 (illustr.), 21; table, 49, 58 (illustr.), 59

Knight, Tobias, 41

lamps, 82

latten (_See under_ spoon)

leather, 79

Lee, Robert (widow of), 4

Little Town (Virginia), 40, 45

majolica, Spanish, 49

makers' marks: latten spoon--R S, 58 (illustr.), 59 W W, 4, 18 pewter spoon--M, 27 tools--I H, 21 WARD, 18 (_See also_ tobacco pipe)

Maloney, James E., 92-96, 102-105

mantels, 8

manufacturing in colonial Virginia, 76-79 reports on trade and manufactures, 75, 76, 78-79

manufacturing in New England, 77

map, Tutter's Neck, 33 (illustr.); Virginia (1673), 2 (illustr.), 5; (1781), 32, 34, 35 (illustr.); Yorktown, 74; (1691), 80

marks: broad arrow, 58 (illustr.), 59 excise stamp on stoneware, 92, 95 (illustr.) shipping, 36 (_See also_ makers' marks; tobacco pipes)

Marlborough (plantation), 32, 79, 105

_Maynard_ (ship), 83

Maynard, Lieutenant, 42

Mercer, John, 79, 84, 105

Meriwether, Elizabeth, 41

Middle Plantation (Williamsburg), 40

mill, horse, 82

Minge, Robert, 81

Morse (Moss), Francis, 87

Mountford's Mill Dam, 82

mug, 82; English delftware, 15, 16 (illustr.), 22, 24 (illustr.), 46; redware, 22, 24 (illustr.); reproductions, 96 (illustr.); stoneware, 91, 92, 93 (illustr.), 94 (illustr.), 99 (illustr.), 104-105

_Nancy_ (sloop), 83

National Park Service, 91, 92, 93, 96, 102, 107, 110

Negroes, 40, 78, 79, 82 (_See also_ slaves)

Nelson, John, 84

Nelson, William, 88

"New Bottle" (plantation), 4; location of, 4-5

New Bottle (Scotland), 4

Nicholson, Francis, 41

Norton, Courtenay, 83

Norton, John (merchant), 83

oil, 83

ointment pot, 65 (illustr.), 66

Page, Elizabeth, 40

Page family, 3

pan: cream (Yorktown earthenware), 55, 68, 69 (illustr.), 100 (illustr.), 101, 102 (illustr.), 103 (illustr.), 106, 109-110 milk, 82 pudding, 82 sauce, 82 Tidewater earthenware, 22, 24 (illustr.), 25, 92

Parker, Isaac, 84

Parks, William (printer), 87

Petsworth Parish (_See under Vestry Book of_)

Pettus family, 40

Pettus, Mourning, marriage of, 40

Pettus, Thomas, Jr. (widow of), 40

pewter (_See_ spoon)

pictures, 82

pipe (_See_ tobacco pipe)

pipkin, 24 (illustr.), 25, 99, 100 (illustr.), 101

piracy, 41-42

plate, English delftware, 15, 16 (illustr.), 22, 24 (illustr.), 65 (illustr.), 67; tin-glazed earthenware, 15, 16 (illustr.)

Pollock, ----, 40

porcelain, Chinese, 49 cup, 70, 71 (illustr.)

porringers, 82; delftware, 49, 65 (illustr.), 66; Yorktown earthenware, 100 (illustr.), 101, 107

Porteus, Beilby, 4, 8

Porteus, Edward, 4, 7, 14

Porteus, Robert, 4, 5, 7, 8

pot, cream, 82; iron, 62, 63 (illustr.), 78

potteries, Charlestown, Mass., 84 Fulham (England), 109 Gloucester, Mass., 85 North Devon, England, 84 North Walk, England, 84-85 Philadelphia, 84 Williamsburg, 92-96, 102-105

pottery: inventory of, 82, 85

pottery making, 78-79, 83-84, 102-105, 110; experiments in, 92-96, 102-105

prison, 82 gaol, 95

projectile point, 15, 16 (illustr.), 71 (illustr.), 72

Purton (plantation), 4

Randolph, John, 35, 77

Reade, George, 87

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 7

Reynolds, Susanna Rogers, 82, 83, 87

Reynolds, Thomas, 83, 84, 110

ring: curtain (brass), 70, 71 (illustr.); iron, 24 (illustr.), 25, 62, 63 (illustr.)

"Rippon Hall" (plantation, York County), 4

Rogers, George, 83, 84

Rogers, Theodosia, 82, 87

Rogers, William (Yorktown potter), 75-111 brewer, 80, 82, 85 Captain of the troop, 82 death of, 82, 83 inventory of, 82, 88-90, 105, 109 surveyor, 82, 92

Rogers, William, Jr., 82, 83, 87

Rogers, William (others of same name), 86-87

Rosewell (plantation), 3, 32, 98, 110

salt, 39, 82

salt dishes, delftware, 51 (illustr.), 65 (illustr.), 66, 67

saucer, 55, 65 (illustr.), 66

Saunderson, Richard, 84

Sayer, Richard (tobacco pipe maker), 54

scales, 82

Seabrook, Captain Charles, 83

seal, wine bottle, 32, 35, 36, 37 (illustr.), 43, 46, 55, 69 (illustr.), 70

shells, 52

shoes, manufacture of, 79

Skipworth, Elizabeth, 87

slaves, 45; brought to North Carolina from Virginia, 40, 41; ceramics made for use by, 45; listed in inventory, 88; quarters for, 46

Smith, Edward, 87

Smith, John (daughter of), 4

Smith, Major Lawrence, 80

South, William, 36

spoon: latten, 4, 10, 12, 18, 19 (illustr.), 46, 58 (illustr.), 59 pewter, 11, 24 (illustr.), 27, 47, 49, 58 (illustr.), 59

Spotswood, Governor Alexander, 36, 37

Stark, William (wife of), 81

still, 82 (See also brewing)

stoneware: Bellarmine, 49 brown, 49, 51, 65 (illustr.), 67-68 excise stamps on, 92, 95 (illustr.) manufacture of, 83-84, 102-105, 110 Westerwald tankard, 49, 65 (illustr.), 68 white, jug, 55 white salt-glazed, 43, 49

strainer, brass or bronze, 19 (illustr.), 21

stratigraphy, Clay Bank, 11-12 Tutter's Neck, 49

Stubbs, William Carter, 4

Swan Tavern (Yorktown), 76, 83, 102, 110; mugs from, 91, 92, 93 (illustr.), 99 (illustr.)

sword, 49, 58 (illustr.), 60, 82

tankard, brown stoneware, 65 (illustr.), 67, 91; Westerwald stoneware, 49, 65 (illustr.), 68

tanning, 79

Tarripin Point (Virginia), 82, 84, 87

taverns, 80

Taylor, Ebanezar, 42

Teach, Edward "Blackbeard" (pirate), 41-42

textiles: cotton, 78; linen, 77, 79; manufacture of, 79; wool, 76, 77

_Thomas and Tryal_ (ship), 84

Thorpe, Otho, 36

Tippet, Robert (tobacco pipe maker), 54

Tippett, Jacob (tobacco pipe maker), 14

tobacco, 76, 77; act of 1730, 77; laws regarding, 78

tobacco pipes, 10, 13, 14, 26 (illustr.), 27-28, 46, 47, 49, 52-54; dating of, 10, 13, 14, 47, 52-54; Indian, 14, 15, 16 (illustr.); profiles, 57 (illustr.)

tobacco pipes, makers' marks on: H I, 14, 26 (illustr.), 27 H S, 49, 53, 57 (illustr.) I F, 14, 26 (illustr.), 27 I S, 53-54, 57 (illustr.) M B, 26 (illustr.), 28 R M, 53, 57 (illustr.) S A, 14, 26 (illustr.), 28 V R, 14, 26 (illustr.), 27 VS, 26 (illustr.), 28 W, 54 W F, 14 W P (or R), 14, 26 (illustr.), 27 X·I·F·X, 26 (illustr.), 28

tobacco pipes, makers of: William Ferry, 14 John Fletcher, 27 Jacob Fox, 27 Josiah Fox, 14, 27 Henry Jones, 14 Richard Sayer, 54, 56, 57 (illustr.) I. Tippet, 14, 49 Robert Tippet, 54 Richard Tyler, 54

tools, 14 chisel, carpenter's, 12; cooper's, 13, 22, 23 (illustr.); forming, 9, 12, 22, 23 (illustr.) cramp, 20 (illustr.), 21 dividers, 49, 54 (illustr.), 58 (illustr.), 60 fleam, 58 (illustr.), 60 gimlet, 19 (illustr.), 21 hoe, 12, 21, 22, 23 (illustr.); broad, 21, 23 (illustr.); grub, 21, 23 (illustr.) race knife, 12, 18, 19 (illustr.), 24 (illustr.), 25 saw, 47, 54 (illustr.) saw wrest, 20 (illustr.), 21 scissors, 54 (illustr.), 59, 60 scythe, 62, 63 (illustr.) sickle, 47, 49, 54 (illustr.), 60, 61 (illustr.) tools: spade, 22, 23 (illustr.) unidentified, 58 (illustr.), 60 wedge, 12, 22, 23 (illustr.)

tube, bone, 63 (illustr.), 64; iron, 61 (illustr.), 62

Tutter's Neck, 30-72; aerial photograph of, 32 buildings: drawings of, 30 excavation of, 43-46 kitchen, 30, 36, 43, 44, 45-46 residence, 30, 43-45 excavation plan of, 37, 47 map of, 33 (illustr.), 34, 35 (illustr.)

tyg, earthenware, 12, 15, 16 (illustr.); 22, 24 (illustr.)

Tyler, Richard (tobacco pipe maker), 54

unidentified objects, iron, 20 (illustr.), 21, 24 (illustr.), 25-27 (_See also_ specific items)

_Vestry Book of Petsworth Parish_, 5, 7

Vincent, William (potter), 85

Virginia: colonial economy, 76-79

Ward, ---- (toolmaker), 18

warehouse, 87

weaving, 79

Webb, Frances, 83

Williamsburg, 13, 35, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 82, 83, 84, 87, 91, 92, 95, 110 (_See also_ Colonial Williamsburg, Inc.)

Williamsburg Pottery, 92-96; experiments at, 102-105

Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., 31, 41

windows, 7, 44; frames for, 87; lead cames for, 44 (_See also_ glass, window)

woodenware, 83

_York_ (ship), 83

Yorktown, 74-111; list of plat owners, 81 map of, 74; (1691), 80

Transcriber's Notes:

Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were corrected.

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P. 54 Sidenote text may appear to be oddly split between lines but this is what is portrayed on the image.