TIDEWATER TYPE.--Mercer's purchase in 1725 of £12 3s. 6d. worth of
earthenware from William Rogers (p. 16, footnote 54) probably was made
for trading purposes, judging from the sizable cost. Rogers operated a
stoneware and earthenware pottery in Yorktown, which evidently was
continued for a considerable time after his death in 1739.[173] An
abundance of waster sherds (unglazed, underfired, overfired, or
misshapen fragments cast aside by the potter), supposedly from Rogers'
output, has been found as street ballast and fill in Yorktown and its
environs. Microscopic and stylistic comparison with these sherds relates
numerous Marlborough sherds to them in varying degrees. For purposes of
tentative identification, the ware will be designated "Tidewater type."
Some of the ware may have been produced in Rogers' shop, while other
articles resembling the Yorktown products may have been made of similar
clay and fired under conditions comparable to those at Yorktown.
A Marlborough milk pan (USNM 59.1961, ill. 11, and USNM 59.1580) has a
salmon-colored body and a lustrous mahogany glaze with fine manganese
streaking. Another milk pan (USNM 59.2039, ill. 2, fig. 63a) has a buff
body and a glaze of uneven thickness that ranges in color from thin
brown with black flecking to a glutinous dark brown approaching black.
The most typical glaze color, influenced by the underlying predominant
pinkish-buff body, is a light mahogany with black specks or blotches. It
occurs at Marlborough on a small sherd (USNM 60.201). A variant glaze
occurring on pottery found in Yorktown appears here in a yellowish-buff
sherd flecked with black (USNM 60.154). The flecking is only in part
applied with manganese; it is also the effect of ocherous and
ferruginous particles which protrude through the surface of the body,
assuming a dark color. Occasionally the manganese is spread liberally,
so that the natural body color shows through only as flecks in a reverse
effect (USNM 59.1855); now and then the vessel is uniformly black (USNM
60.141).
Tidewater-type forms found at Marlborough include milk pans 15 inches in
diameter and about 4-1/4 inches deep (in 1729 Mercer bought "2 milk
pans" for 5d. and 5 "gallon basons" for 4s. 7d.), a black-glazed jar
cover with indicated diameter of 6-1/2 inches (USNM 59.2013), and
fragments of other pans and bowls of indeterminate sizes. A portion of
an ale mug has a tooled base and black glaze (USNM 59.2043, fig. 63d,
ill. 12). Its diameter is 3-5/8 inches.
MOLDED-RIM TYPE.--This is a type of redware with a light-red body and
transparent, ginger-brown lead glaze. It is characterized by a rolled
rim and a tooled platform or channel above the junction of rim and side.
A small number of pan and bowl rims was found at Marlborough. The ware
is usually associated with early 18th-century materials from such sites
as Jamestown, Kecoughtan, Williamsburg, and Rosewell. It may have
originated in England.
NORTH DEVON GRAVEL-TEMPERED WARE.--The coarse kitchenware made in
Bideford and Barnstaple and in the surrounding English villages of North
Devon is represented by only two sherds. This ware is characterized by a
dull, reddish-pink body, usually dark-gray at the core, and by a gross
waterworn gravel temper. It occurs in contexts as early as 1650 at
Jamestown and as late as 1740-1760 at Williamsburg. One of the
Marlborough sherds is part of a large pan. It is glazed with a
characteristic amber lead glaze (USNM 60.202). The other sherd is a
portion of an unglazed handle, probably from a potlid (USNM 59.1679,
ill. 15).[174]
SLIP-LINED REDWARE.--Numerous 18th-century sites from Philadelphia to
Williamsburg have yielded a series of bowls and porringers characterized
by interior linings of slip that is streaked and mottled with manganese.
These are glazed on both surfaces, the outer surface and a border above
the slip on the inner surface usually ginger-brown in color. Comparative
examples are a bowl from the Russell site at Lewes, Delaware, dating
from the first half of the 18th century, and several pieces from
pre-Revolutionary contexts at Williamsburg. A deposit excavated by H.
Geiger Omwake near the south end of the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal in
Delaware included sherds from a context dated late 17th- to mid-18th
centuries.[175] Several fragments of bowls occur in the Marlborough
material (USNM 59.1613, 59.1856, fig. 64g).
ENGLISH YELLOWWARE.--The few sherds of so-called combed ware occurring
at Marlborough, although only the base fragments connect, all seem to
have come from a single cup or posset pot having a buff body and
characteristically decorated with spiraled bands of dark-brown slip that
were created by combing through an outer coating of white slip,
revealing an underlayer of red slip. The vessel was glazed with a clear
lead glaze (USNM 59.1700, fig. 64c, ill. 16). Comparative dated
examples of this ware include a posset pot dated 1735.[176] A chamber
pot bearing the same kind of striping was excavated by the National Park
Service at Fort Frederica, Georgia (1736-ca. 1750). A piece similar to
that from Marlborough was found in the Rosewell deposit, and another in
the Lewis Morris house site, Morrisania, New York.[177] Although this
type of ware was introduced in England about 1680, its principal use in
America seems to have occurred largely between 1725 and 1775.
Archeological evidence is corroborated by newspaper advertisements. In
1733 the _Boston Gazette_ advertised "yellow ware Hollow and Flat by the
Crate" and again in 1737 "yellow and Brown Earthenware." In 1763 the
_Gazette_ mentioned "Crates of Yellow Liverpool Ware," Liverpool being
the chief place of export for pottery made in Staffordshire, the
principal source for the combed wares.[178]
BUCKLEY WARE.--I. Noël Hume has identified a class of high-fired,
black-glazed earthenware found in many 18th-century sites in Virginia.
He has done so by reference to _The Buckley Potteries_, by K. J.
Barton,[179] and to waster sherds in his possession from the Buckley
kiln sites in Flintshire, North Wales. The ware probably was made in
other potteries of the region also. This durable pottery, more like
stoneware than earthenware, is represented by a large number of jar and
pan fragments. Two body types occur, each characterized by a mixture of
red and buff clay. In the more usual type the red clay dominates, with
laminations and striations of buff clay running through it in the manner
of a coarse sort of agateware. The other is usually grayish buff with
red streaks, although sometimes the body is almost entirely buff, still
showing signs of lamination. The glaze is treacly black, often applied
unevenly and sometimes pitted with air bubbles. The body surfaces have
conspicuous turning ridges. Rims are usually heavy and flat, sometimes
as wide as 1-1/2 inches. A variant of the ware is represented in a milk
pan with a dominantly red body which has a clear-amber, rather than
black, glaze. (USNM 59.1887, ills. 17, 18, and 19 and fig. 65).
[Illustration: Illustration 10.--Milk pan. Salmon-red earthenware.
Lustrous black lead glaze. Tidewater type. One-fourth. (USNM 59.1961.)]
[Illustration: Illustration 11.--Milk pan. Salmon-red earthenware.
Dull-brown glaze. Tidewater type. See figure 63a. One-fourth. (USNM
59.2039.)]
[Illustration: Illustration 12.--Ale mug. Salmon-red earthenware.
Lustrous black lead glaze. Tidewater type. See figure 63d. One-half.
(USNM 59.2043.)]
[Illustration: Illustration 13.--Cover of jar (profile). Salmon-red
earthenware. Brownish-black lead glaze. Tidewater type. Same size. (USNM
59.2013.)]
[Illustration: Illustration 14.--Base of bowl. Salmon-red earthenware.
Light reddish-brown glaze speckled with black. Virginia type. One-half.
See figure 63b. (USNM 59.2025.)]
[Illustration: Illustration 15.--Handle of pot lid or oven door. North
Devon gravel-tempered ware. One-half. (USNM 59.1679.)]
[Illustration: Illustration 16.--Buff-earthenware cup with combed
decoration in brown slip. Lead glaze. (Conjectural reconstruction.)
One-fourth. See figure 64c. (USNM 59.1700.)]
[Illustration: Illustration 17.--High-fired earthenware pan rim. Buff
paste laminated with red. Red slip on exterior. Black glaze inside. Type
made in Buckley, Flintshire, North Wales. One-half.]
[Illustration: Figure 64.--MISCELLANEOUS COMMON EARTHENWARE TYPES,
probably all imported from England: a, "molded-rim" types of redware; b,
handle of large redware storage jar, probably English; c, base of
brown-striped Staffordshire yellowware cup; d, sherd of black-glazed
ware; e and f, two slip-decorated sherds; g, redware crimped-edge baking
pan, coated with slip; and h, slip-lined manganese-streaked sherds.]
MISCELLANEOUS.--Several unique specimens and groups of sherds are
represented:
1. A large, outstanding, horizontal, loop handle survives from a storage
jar with a rich red body. Two thumb-impressed reinforcements, splayed at
each end, secure the handle to the body wall. The top of the handle has
four finger impressions for gripping; the lead glaze appears in a finely
speckled ginger color (USNM 59.2049, fig. 64b).
2. A single fragment remains from a slip-decorated bowl or open vessel.
The body is hard and dark red, the glaze dark olive-brown. The fragment
is glazed and slipped on both sides (USNM 59.1614, fig. 64e). Other
small sherds of a similar ware are redder in color and without slip.
Another, with lighter red body and olive-amber glaze, is slip decorated
(USNM 60.161, fig. 64f).
[Illustration: Illustration 19.--Rim and base profiles of
high-fired-earthenware jars. Buff paste, laminated with red. Black
glaze. Buckley type, Flintshire, North Wales. One-half. (USNM 59.2032,
59.1611, and 59.1782.)]
3. A unique sherd has a gray-buff body and shiny black glaze on both
surfaces (USNM 59.1815).
4. A group of pale-red unglazed fragments is from the bottom of a water
cooler. A sherd which preserves parts of the base and lower body wall
has a hole in which a spigot could be inserted (USNM 59.2061, ill. 20).
5. Fragments of a flowerpot have a body similar to the foregoing, but
are lined with slip under a lead glaze. A rim fragment has an ear handle
with thumb-impressed indentations attached to it (USNM 60.203, ill. 21).
6. Two sherds of a redware pie plate, notched on the edge and lined with
overglazed slip decorated with brown manganese dots, imitate
Staffordshire yellowware, but are probably of American origin (USNM
59.1612, fig. 64g).
[Illustration: Illustration 18.--High-fired-earthenware jar rim. Red
paste, laminated with buff. Black glaze. Buckley type. One-half. (USNM
59.2067.)]
[Illustration: Illustration 20.--Base sherd from unglazed
red-earthenware water cooler, with spigot hole. One-half. (USNM
59.2061.)]
[Illustration: Illustration 21.--Rim of an earthenware flowerpot, handle
with thumb impressions attached. Slip-decorated, olive-amber lead glaze.
One-fourth. (USNM 60.203.)]