❦ CHINA COLLECTING
IN AMERICA ❦ ❦ ❦
❦ ❦ BY ALICE MORSE EARLE
[Illustration: [Tea Pot]]
_ILLUSTRATED_
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
NEW YORK MCMVI
_Copyright, 1892, by
Charles Scribner’s Sons_
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
TO
THE COMPANION OF MY CHINA HUNTS
MY SISTER
FRANCES CLARY MORSE
CONTENTS
I.
PAGE
_China Hunting_, _1_
II.
_Trencher Treen and Pewter Bright_, _38_
III.
_Early Use and Importation of China in America_, _52_
IV.
_Early Fictile Art in America_, _70_
V.
_Earliest Pottery Wares_, _102_
VI.
_English Porcelains in America_, _119_
VII.
_Liverpool and other Printed Ware_, _135_
VIII.
_Oriental China_, _165_
IX.
_The Cosey Teapot_, _196_
X.
_Punch-bowls and Punches_, _210_
XI.
_George and Martha Washington’s China_, _229_
XII.
_Presidential China_, _249_
XIII.
_Designs Relating to Washington_, _257_
XIV.
_Designs Relating to Franklin_, _274_
XV.
_Designs Relating to Lafayette_, _288_
XVI.
_Patriotic and Political Designs_, _299_
XVII.
_Staffordshire Wares_, _316_
XVIII.
_China Memories_, _376_
XIX.
_China Collections_, _409_
_Index_, _425_
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
WEDGWOOD PIECES, 1
THE PLATE WE HOPED TO FIND AND THE PLATE WE FOUND, 9
MILLENNIUM PLATE, 24
“BEACH WARE,” 27
OLD WORCESTER IN “JAPAN TASTE,” 29
“THE PORRINGERS THAT IN A ROW HUNG HIGH AND MADE A GLITTERING
SHOW,” 44
WINTHROP JUG, 55
PROVINCE HOUSE PITCHER, 65
BENNINGTON WARE, 97
HOUND-HANDLED PITCHER, 100
DELFT TEA-CADDY, 104
DELFT VASE, 106
FULHAM G. R. JUG, 108
SPORTIVE INNOCENCE PITCHER, 111
FARMER PITCHER, 111
CASTLEFORD TEAPOT, 117
PLYMOUTH SALT-CELLAR. BOW “GOAT CREAM-JUG,” 121
PLYMOUTH COFFEE-POT, 123
BRISTOL MEMORIAL FIGURE, 125
CROWN DERBY COVERED DISH, 129
AN ENGLISH NOTION OF WASHINGTON, 139
MASONIC PITCHER, 147
LOWESTOFT VASE, 174
HELMET CREAMER, 176
WASHINGTON COFFEE-POT, 178
CHINESE EWER, 190
PERSIAN VASE, 192
LOWESTOFT TEAPOT, 208
BRISTOL POTTERY TEAPOT, 208
BOWL GIVEN TO MRS. ALLEN JONES, 221
CINCINNATI BOWL, 223
CINCINNATI CHINA, 231
WASHINGTON’S NIEDERWEILER CHINA, 245
LINCOLN CHINA, 253
GRANT CHINA, 254
PITCHER PORTRAIT, 259
WASHINGTON MONUMENT PITCHER, 262
APOTHEOSIS PITCHER, 265
“MAP” PITCHER, 268
NIEDERWEILER STATUETTE, 275
TOMB OF FRANKLIN TEAPOT, 285
LA GRANGE PLATE, 290
CADMUS PLATE, 292
LAFAYETTE LANDING PLATTER, 294
PROSCRIBED PATRIOTS PITCHER, 302
NAVAL PITCHER, 309
PICKLE LEAF, 317
PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY PLATE, 319
ANTI-SLAVERY PLATE, 333
BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD PLATES, 336
STATE-HOUSE PLATE, 338
JOHN HANCOCK’S HOUSE, 341
HARVARD COLLEGE PLATE, 348
STEAMBOAT PLATE, 350
MACDONOUGH’S VICTORY PLATE, 351
NAHANT PLATE, 354
CITY HALL PITCHER, 359
PARK THEATRE PLATE, 361
FAIRMOUNT PARK PLATE, 364
PILGRIM PLATE, 366
CAPITOL PLATE, 374
CROWN DERBY PLATE, 379
DELFT APOTHECARY JARS, 382
COPPER-LUSTRE PITCHER, 387
A BEAUFET, 415
CHINA STEPS, 419
[Illustration: [Wedgwood Pieces]]
I.
CHINA HUNTING
My dearly loved friend, Charles Lamb, wrote, in his “Essays of Elia,” “I
have an almost feminine partiality for old china. When I go to see any
great house, I inquire first for the china-closet, and next for the
picture-gallery. I have no repugnance for those little lawless
azure-tinted grotesques that, under the notion of men and women, float
about uncircumscribed by any element, in that world before perspective—a
china teacup.” In that partiality for old china I humbly join, and it is
of the search through New England for such dear old china loves, and of
the gathered treasures of those happy china hunts, that I write.
China hunting is a true “midsummer madness.” When grass grows green and
“daffodils begin to peer” my fancy lightly turns to thoughts of china.
Hot waxes the fever as crawls up the summer sun; fierce and fiercer
rages the passion and the hunt, till autumn touches with her cold though
glorious hand the trees and fields. Then doth my madness wane, and chase
grow dull, and icy winter finds me sane and calm, till charming spring
returns to witch me to “mine old lunes” once again. Thus is every china
captive of that mad summer chase aglow to me with summer suns and
beauty—not a dull lifeless clod of moulded painted clay, but a glorious
idealized token of long warm halcyon days too quickly passed, of
“yesterdays that look backward with a smile.”
Were the possession of old or valuable specimens of porcelain and
pottery, or even of happy memories of “days of joyance,” the only good
things which came from the long hours of country ranging and farm-house
searching spent in our china quests, Philistines might perhaps scoff at
the waste of time and energy; but much else that is good have I found.
Insight into human nature, love of my native country, knowledge of her
natural beauties, acquaintance with her old landmarks and historical
localities, familiarity with her history, admiration of her noble
military and naval heroes, and study of the ancient manners, customs,
and traditions of her early inhabitants have all been fostered,
strengthened, and indeed almost brought into existence by the search
after and study of old china. How vague and dull were my school-day
history-lesson memories of Perry, of Lawrence, of Decatur, until I saw
their likenesses on some hideous Liverpool pitchers! then I read eagerly
every word of history, every old song and ballad about them. How small
was my knowledge of old “table manners” and table furnishings until I
discovered, through my china studies, how our ancestors ate and served
their daily meals! How little I knew of the shy romance and the
deep-lying though sombre sentiment in New England country life, until it
was revealed to me in the tradition of many a piece of old china. How
entirely powerless was I to discover the story of human nature as told
in the countenance until my inquiries after old china made me a second
Lavater in regarding the possibilities of successful purchase in case
the questioned one chanced to own any old porcelain heirlooms! How few
of our noble wood and valley roads had I seen until I drove through them
searching for old farm-houses that might contain some salvage of teacups
or teapots! And not only do we learn of America through our china hunts,
but of England as well; for nearly all of our old table-ware was
English, and the history of the production of English china can be
traced as easily in New England as in old England. Few of the more
costly pieces came here, but humbler specimens show equally well the
general progress of the manufacture.
Let me be just and honest in my tale; though all is ideal happiness in
the hours of the china chase, the counting of the spoils is sometimes
vastly disappointing.
“As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low.”
There is no hobby of so uncertain gait, none other fancy in the pursuit
of which one meets with so many rebuffs as in china collecting. I mean
in real china collecting by individual search and pursuit, not in china
buying at high prices at a fashionable china-shop. For such Crœsus
buyers, who know not the sweet nor the bitter of true china hunting,
these pages are not written.
Sad, sad failures does your china hunter often make, but there is a
blessed delight and pride when a long search is at last successful which
rewards him and makes him, or rather her, forget the cruel blows of the
past, and makes hope spring eternal in her breast, undying, and
undimmed. Disappointments were few in early china-collecting days in
America; friendly farm-wives then gladly brought out their precious and
plentiful stores, and eagerly sold them for silver to buy a new cotton
gown or a shell-comb, and attics and pantries were ransacked and
depleted with delight. Now can the china hunter drive for days through
the country, asking for old crockery at every house which is surmounted
by a gambrel roof, has a great square chimney, or an old well-sweep,
without even hearing of one old teapot; and yet such is the power of
china-love, she will start out again the next week, cheerful, hopeful,
and undaunted, “to fresh woods and pastures new.”
Nor will it always prove clear sailing should she discover the home of
the sought-for treasure. She may learn from friendly and loquacious
neighbors that “old Miss Halsey” or “John Slade’s widder” has stores of
old crockery in barrels in the attic, or on the top shelf of the pantry,
or even “up over the wood-shed,” but she cannot obtain one glimpse of
the hidden hoards—far less can she purchase them.
We have visited again and again one gray old farm-house in
Massachusetts, a farm-house with moss-covered “lean-to,” which we know
contains enough old English pottery and porcelain to found a museum; but
cajoleries, flatteries, persuasions, open demands, elaborate
explanations, and assumptions of indignant and hurt astonishment at
refusals—one and all are in vain; not even one old plate have we ever
seen. The farmer’s wife greets us most cordially, gives us doughnuts and
milk in summer, and apples and cider in the winter, maple-sugar in the
spring, and hickory-nuts and butter-nuts in the fall, but in
aggressively modern pitchers and dishes; and when we leave she urges us
hospitably and warmly to “come again.” We know well where her precious
china is hidden. High up on either side of the great mantelpieces in
“living-room” and “best room” are cupboards, so high that one would have
to climb upon a chair to see into them; and from the good wife’s
frequent and furtive glances—speaking though silent—at her locked
cupboard doors, we know well what treasures are stored therein.
At that china-hiding abode we often have concocted for us an old-time
country drink, composed of water flavored with molasses and ginger,
which was in Revolutionary times called “beveridge.” Gallons of that
vile fluid have I drunk with the hostess, hoping that the joys of the
flowing bowl might loosen her tongue and unlock her cupboard doors, but
I have risked my digestion in vain. Still I sit “smiling with millions
of mischief in the heart,” for life is short, and I am waiting, wickedly
waiting; the farmer and his wife are old, very old, and when they depart
from this life they cannot take their keys and crockery with them.
More complete and mortifying routs sometimes, though rarely, have
befallen us. We were driving quietly along one day on the outskirts of
the town, when we saw at the door of a shabby modern house, a vinegar
faced woman, who sat energetically mixing chicken-dough in one of the
most beautiful old blue and white Nankin bowls that ever was seen. As
each blow of the heavy iron spoon came down on the precious antique, it
struck an echoing and keener blow to our china-loving hearts, and we
hastened to ask the owner of the bowl to sell it ere it was broken. Sell
it? not she. She didn’t know where it came from, nor who had owned
it—and she didn’t care, but she wouldn’t sell it for any money; and if a
tin pan was just as good to mix the meal in, she would use this “old
crockery thing” if she wanted to; and she walked into the shabby house,
and “slammed” the door before our abashed and sad faces. The thought of
that bowl at the mercy of that fierce iron spoon has made us very
unhappy; scores of times have we driven past the house glancing
furtively in, at the wood-shed, the hen-house, the kitchen door, ready
almost to steal the poor prisoner if we found it unguarded; but we do
not dare attempt an honest rescue lest we suffer a still more
ignominious and mortifying defeat.
Strange answers are sometimes made to our inquiries and requests;
strange objects presented to our china-searching eyes. In farm-houses,
presided over by deaf old housewives we have had shown to us crackers
for crockery, pitchforks for teapots, tubs for cups, and once, by some
strange and incomprehensible twist of the poor deaf ears, or our own
dull tongues, were cheerfully offered buckwheat flour when we asked to
see a Washington pitcher. We also drove several miles at the sea-shore,
in high spirits and with great expectations, to see some very old
teapots, “all kinder basket-work,” and were confronted by a strange
machine of seafaring appearance, which proved to be an eel-pot, and was
truly an ancient one. Other kindly country souls, knowing well what we
want, offer us as far more desirable and artistic treasures, faded
samplers, worsted flowers, crocheted tidies, preserved wreaths, wax
fruit, hair jewelry, and Parian busts, and look at us with commiseration
when we cling to our strange idiosyncrasy—our preference for old china.
Sometimes the kindly intention to guide and help us to our goal is
evident and powerful enough, the desire to inform us is rampant, but
power of expression is lacking, or even a modicum of memory; the narrow
limits of country vocabulary are painful to witness and the expressions
of its poverty are painful to hear, and suggestions only lead the
speaker farther astray in his attempted descriptions. He is also
color-blind, and has vague remembrance of size and nomenclature. He
can’t describe the china, he can’t date it, he can’t name it,
sometimes—though he vaguely remembers that he has seen it—he can’t place
it, he simply knows that somewhere he has seen something that he fancies
may be somewhat like what we want; and too often when we try to follow
his vague and jejune clue, we go upon a “thankless arrant.”
We once addressed to an old Yankee farmer, who had brought a load of
apples into town, the stereotyped inquiry which we have asked, ah! how
many hundred times, and received this drawling answer, “No-o I donow as
I know anyone as has got any old furnitoor or chayner she wants ter part
with. My wife haint got any anyway. My Aunt Rebecca’s got one curous old
plate and I guess she’d sell it—she’d sell her teeth if any-body’d buy
’em an’ pay enough ter suit her.” We finally extracted from him (after
much parrying of our direct questions) that, “she got it in Washington
more’n fifty year ago,” that “the folks set great store by it, and said
it came from Mount Vernon and belonged to Marthy Washington,” that it
had the names of the States around it, “it was blue and perhaps green
too, and it had stars sure and he guessed they were gilt.” Now we had
seen pieces of the Martha Washington tea-set, and we knew that it was
decorated in blue and green with the names of the States in the links of
a chain, and the initials M. W. in the centre in a great gilt star. We
knew at once that Aunt Rebecca’s plate must be one of that set. What a
discovery!
[Illustration: The Plate we Hoped to Find and the Plate we Found.]
To the benighted and narrow-lived souls who have never hunted for old
china it may seem strange that we knew at once that it was one of those
rare plates; but I am sure every china hunter, whose path is always
illumined by the brilliant possibilities which form such an
encouragement in the pleasures of the china chase, will fully comprehend
our confidence and anticipation. We figured our plate in all the loan
collections, marked with our names in large letters as joint owners; we
planned a velvet silver-bound box to safely hold our “heavenly jewel”
after we had caught it; we even hesitatingly thought that we might make
our joint will and leave it to the Mount Vernon Association—and then we
drove eighteen miles to secure it. I shall never forget the sickening
disappointment I felt when I saw the Martha Washington plate. There were
the names of the States; and stars there were, but not a gilt one. And
where were the touches of verdant color? All was blue—deeply, darkly,
vilely blue. At any other time we should have hailed the fine “States”
plate which was shown us with keen delight, but now we could hardly
speak or bear to look at it. At last, in sullen disparagement, we
offered a dollar for it, had our offer accepted, carelessly took it,
threw it on the carriage-seat and drove away. I reviled the farmer and
his villainous memory and vocabulary, and would not look at the
deep-dyed “States” impostor for a month, but when I heard that a
collector had paid twenty dollars for a similar plate in New York, I
unwrapped it and hung it on my dining-room wall, where it now shines a
glowing bit of dark color, a joy forever.
Warned by many such dreary mistakes I am very shy of having china sent
to me through any interest awakened by its description, and am equally
shy of buying by proxy.
“Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent.”
I have learned also to listen with attention, not placing the slightest
confidence in what I hear, and yet always to investigate with
cheerfulness and alacrity. It is not, however, from elaborately detailed
and willingly told stories that I have had knowledge of my richest
“finds.” I have learned to “take a hint”—a maxim which should be
eternally impressed on every china hunter. Learn to “grasp the skirt of
happy chance;” let your motto be, “Semper paratus.” Let no suggestion of
old people or old house-furnishings, no glimpse of blue color or
sprigged surface, even on a broken sherd of crockery by the wayside, no
hint of distant and out-of-the-way farms, no prospect of country sales,
of “New England dinners,” no news of refurnishing old houses, no
accounts of the death of old inhabitants fall on unheeding eye or ear.
For myself, I never hear the words “old china” but my heart is moved,
more than “with sound of a trumpet.” I breathe the battle afar and hurry
to the fray, to return at times victorious with dainty trophies of war,
and sometimes, alas, empty-handed, with the hanging head of sore
disappointment and defeat. Sometimes the scent is poor and broken and
you must ferret out the way to the lair; even with much trouble and
diligence you cannot always learn at once and definitely the
lurking-place of the porcelain treasures; you meet with reserve and a
disinclination to reveal. Then comes stratagem to the fore. Learn to
wheedle, to hint, to interrogate slyly, to blandly let the conversation
drift—“muster all wiles with blandished parleys, feminine assaults,
tongue batteries”—in short, vulg. dict., to “pump”—and work that pump
with judgment, with craft, and with thoroughness. Moments of quickly
repented expansiveness come to all mortals in country and in town, and
in those rare moments of telling all they know, even reticent and
secretive country people will give you many a china clue to follow.
I have not found, as did the members of the China Hunters’ Club, that
country housekeepers would, as a rule, rather have money than china; my
country people will not sell their china willingly—they prefer china to
silver. Times have changed since 1876; a fancied knowledge, an
exaggerated estimate of the value of old “crockery” now fills many a
country soul, and a high monetary value is also placed on family relics,
on “storied urns” and on the power of association. I will confess that,
as a last resort in times of direst stress, when you really cannot go
without that Pilgrim plate, when you positively need it—if you take your
money out and lay it on the table in full sight of the plate-owner, you
wield a powerful lever to work the transfer; nor do I consider such a
statement at all derogatory to the character of my New England
neighbors, nor is the trait peculiar to them.
But do not make too aggressively prominent the money part of the
transaction. Be courteous and careful even to extremes in addressing
your country people for purposes of china purchase. Never ask them to
sell their china—_sell_ is a most offensive and brutal word—ask them if
they are “willing to part with it.” Never hint, by word or deed, that
you fancy they really need the money. Never disparage the desired
articles, the shrewd country wives would see through your pretence at
once—“Why, if it be so commonplace, do you wish it?” A base and
deceitful, though clever, china hunter of my acquaintance declares that
she has found it invariably to her advantage to say that the coveted
article matched exactly, either in shape or decoration, something which
she had at home. The staid country mind, liking to see things in “sets,”
always appeared to be most immoderately and unaccountably influenced to
sell by this disingenuous assertion.
We have many times during the past five years crossed the trail of a
collector who appears to have wholly depleted of china the old
farm-houses of the Connecticut Valley. We have found, through comparing
the accounts of his visits, that he has a little slyness too. He always
desires to purchase his particular bit of china simply to form a link in
a chain. He either has a specimen of the entire succession of production
of a factory except the very piece the farm-wife has, or he has a
perfect list of historical plates except the very plate she owns, or he
has a choice bit of every known color of lustre except her special
pitcher. The satisfaction of supplying the long missing link, and the
value that link will give to a history the purchaser is going to write
of such china, seem to prove a powerful lever to effect the transfer to
his catenulate collection.
The men are, as a rule, always willing to sell china—when did man ever
reverence the vessels of his household gods? I always delight to ask a
Yankee farmer, in field or road, whether he has any old crockery that he
would be willing to part with. How he will skurry home “cross-lots,”
over the ploughed fields, or through the rows of growing corn, eager to
pull out and sell his wife’s pantry treasures! Not that he can sell them
if “Mother” isn’t willing—in her realm she reigns supreme. Even in the
midst of my sore disappointment I have thrilled with malicious
satisfaction and delight to see the calm and authoritative way in which
“Father” is turned out of the “butt’ry” when he tries to pull down from
the shelf an old blue bowl or plate to sell. “Mother” has kept her
cinnamon-sticks and nutmegs for her apple-pies in that “Blue Dragon”
bowl for forty years, and she isn’t going to sell it now to please
anyone. To hail the farmer in advance with china questions is not,
therefore, so underhanded and despicable a proceeding as might be
thought, nor so dangerous to the family peace; he really is a poor,
uninfluential, unpowered vassal in kitchen and pantry, his advice is not
asked, his word is not heeded, nor if he attempt to be at all bumptious
will his presence be tolerated. I have found it to be an unvarying rule
that the farmer is always willing and eager to sell his wife’s mother’s
china, while the wife is always openly disparaging, and cares little for
his mother’s china; and when once the source of inheritance is
discovered, the rule of action and plan of attack are plainly defined.
It may be argued that it is neither very courteous nor very kind to walk
into a stranger’s house and ask him to sell you his household goods and
chattels. To such argument may be offered the reply that one can hardly
judge a farm home by the same rule as one does a city home. The visit of
a stranger is regarded with widely different eyes; it is a pleasure, a
treat, to most farm-wives to receive such a visit, and the farmer will
come plodding home from the distant fields, in order not to lose the
chat with the stranger and the pleasant diversion. Who would attempt to
enter and to lodge over night in a stranger’s house in the city? A
police-station or a lunatic asylum would probably quickly shelter your
intruding head. There is hardly a farm-house where such a suggestion
would be unwelcome or resented, provided you look not like a bandit or
horse-thief. Then, too, farmers and even farm-wives do not generally
regard their old furniture and furnishings with quite the same feeling
that we do ours. The old blue Staffordshire ware they consider almost
worthless, and are often glad to sell it for ready cash; but their
lilac-sprigged china, a wedding gift or a purchase with their few
hard-earned dollars, they often value and cherish as we do Sèvres. A
farmer handles very little money—his wife still less, and ofttimes the
money paid by china hunters is a godsend in country homes. Much good is
done, much comfort conferred by exchanging money for crockery. Carpers
say: “But you do not pay city prices.” Sometimes, alas, we do, fired by
our china mania, “the insane root that takes the reason prisoner,”
though we never should. The farmer does not pay city rents, he has not
the risk and expense of transfer to the city, he pays no salesman. If he
could sell all his farm products as easily, profitably, and safely as he
sells his china, lucky would he be. Sometimes the discovery that the
“old blue pie-plates” are of any value is a delight and a surprise to
him, but he sees at once that when they are worth so much he cannot
afford to keep them. Hence he is far from being offended at the easy
means of sale offered to him.
One piece of advice I give to china hunters—advice, the wisdom and
advantage of which I have learned at the cost of much unpleasant and
disappointing experience. Do not hurry prospective china sellers:
bustling city ways annoy them, fluster them, and worry them, and in
sheer bewilderment they say “No” to get rid of you. Be tentative and
gentle in your approach. Do not—as we did—rush in upon a deaf and timid
old lady and frighten her, by the bouncing and bustling inquiries we
made, into vehement denials of china-possession and simultaneous
refusals to sell anything. This dear old “Aunt Dolly” lived in the sole
new house in a village of old colonial dwellings, and we rather
contemptuously thought to pass by the brand-new French roofed intruder,
but decided “just to ask”—and “just to ask” and receive a frightened
negative answer was all we did do, and we left with self-important
assurance, to hunt elsewhere. A tin-peddler (a “china runner” perhaps in
disguise), with quieter voice and more truly well-bred manners, carried
off her rare treasures about a week later—a canopy-topped mirror with
Washington and Franklin mirror-knobs, a “Boston State-House” pitcher,
four “Valentine” plates having Wilkie’s design, half a dozen
Staffordshire plates with the “cottage” pattern, and two Wedgwood
teapots; and Aunt Dolly took as payment two shining new tin milk-pans
and a cheap wringing-machine that wouldn’t wring. We knew her well in
after years when it was too late, and she confessed to us that at our
first meeting we talked so fast, and talked together, and “hollered so
she couldn’t hear,” and that she did not understand what we meant or
what we wanted, and said “No” to obtain peace.
And oh! what an enviable advantage the ubiquitous tin-peddler, that
“licensed vagrom,” has over every convention-trammelled china hunter!
What a delight, what a dream it would be to go a-china hunting with a
tin-peddler’s cart; what lonely out-of-the-way roads and by-lanes I
would take, careless where I went, since wherever I wandered I should be
welcome. How I would sit on my lofty seat and view the lovely country
o’er, in the “sessions of sweet, silent thought,” with my strong and
willing and safe horse to pull me up hill and down dale; with my stock
of shining tin-ware, my brooms and notions and gaily painted pails, all
ready for advantageous exchange; with my big, red, roomy wagon, in whose
mysterious cavernous interior I could store in safety unwieldy china
treasures, such as tureens and bowls and pitchers; with my air of ready
assurance, of intimate familiarity with the family, my jovial raillery,
my opportunities of kitchen and pantry investigation, my anxious health
inquiries and profound medical advice, backed up by bottles of patent
medicines which I should sell at half-price to curry favor and china;
or, better still, exchange, giving a bottle of liniment for a “Landing
of Lafayette,” or a box of pills for a Pilgrim plate—oh! next to being a
gipsy living under the greenwood tree, who would not be a Yankee
tin-peddler a-china hunting? But perhaps the farm-wife might wish me to
take in exchange for my wares, eggs, or butter, or rolls of wool—what
should I do with a pail of butter in summer-time on a tin-peddler’s
cart? Or, worse still, old rags—just fancy it—instead of old china! I
should then answer her with an air of deep and sombre mystery: “Madam, I
would gladly take your readily exchangeable merchandise an’ I could; the
old rags are particularly desirable and attractive, but I have sworn a
vow—I have a secret which I cannot now divulge—it must be crockery or
naught, especially dark blue crockery with American designs, else I and
my glittering and uncommonly cheap wares must pass wearily on, homeless,
chinaless, a wanderer on the face of the earth.” Alack-a-day! such happy
peaceful joys are forbidden to me, not because of lack of inclination or
capacity, but—thrice bitter thought—because I am a woman. Tin-peddlering
is not for me, it is not “woman’s sphere.” Perhaps when I am old, too
old to clamber up and proudly sit on that exalted driver’s seat (though
never too old to go china hunting), perhaps when women have crowded into
every other profession, calling, and business in the land, some happy,
bold feminine soul will taste the pleasures of “advanced life for
women,” the pleasures forbidden to me, and dare to go tin-peddlering,
though there will then be no old china left in the country to buy.
Though I have never been china hunting with a tin-peddler I have been on
the trail with a Yankee china dealer, and his unique method of
management was delightful. He worked upon the most secretive, the most
furtive plan. He never would have shared with us his coverts nor taken
us to his haunts, save for this reason: he had run down a noble prey, an
entire set of fine old English ware, and to his dismay the owner refused
to let him enter the house. Again and again had he essayed to come to
some terms, even to see the china, but without success. He felt sure,
however, that if any woman asked she would not plead in vain, hence his
divulgement as a favor to us. We made several stops at farm-houses on
the road to our goal, and his way of carrying on his business of china
buying deserves to be told as a matter of interest and instruction to
amateur china hunters, for he was a professional, a star. He never, by
any chance, told the truth about himself, and above all never gave his
correct name and place of residence, nor drove away from the house in
the way he really intended to go. He represented himself as an adopted
son, this seeming to be more mysterious than ordinary family conditions;
never gave twice alike the name of his adopted father, but had a series
of noble parents, the most prominent and influential men in the country
around. The reasons he assigned for wishing to buy the china were so
ingenious and so novel that we listened to him in delight and amazement,
and with keen anticipation as to what he would next invent; the glamour
of romance was added to the delightful madness of china hunting. He was
at one farm-house a tender-hearted, indulgent husband, whose delicate
invalid of a wife had expressed a wish for a set of old china and he was
willing to spend days of search in order to satisfy her whim. It is
needless to add that he was a bachelor. At another time his adopted
father was losing his mind and would eat off nothing but old-fashioned
china; hence he was hunting to find a set to carry dutifully home. Again
he was fitting out a missionary-box for the Western wilds, and wanted to
buy a little old-fashioned crockery to send out to the minister to
remind him of his New England home. At the next door he assumed an air
of solemnity and dignity and announced that he was founding a museum,
and was forming a collection of old New England house-furnishings as a
nucleus. At another place he swelled with paternal kindliness, and
wanted to get a few plates to give to his three little children to show
them the kind of crockery he used to eat from at his grandfather’s. Once
he boldly announced that he was a china-manufacturer and was
dissatisfied with the quality of his ware and wanted some old china to
grind up and thus learn the correct ingredients. Then he was collecting
china for the Columbian Exhibition. At another door his wife turned into
an accomplished china-painter who wanted these plates for patterns. He
curried warm favor and won much china at one house by stating that his
mother’s china set had been badly broken by her daughter-in-law and he
wished to replace the broken pieces. An aged couple who were living with
their son and his wife were easy victims to this specious invention. He
bargained for hay, for potatoes, for a whole farm; we seemed at one time
in imminent danger of being forced to buy a cow and to depart leading
her behind the wagon. Let me be just to this inventive soul; his
dishonesty lay in words only. He paid good prices for all the china he
bought, neither undervalued nor disparaged it; and showed a thoughtful
kindliness toward the dwellers in every house he visited. After a
prolonged stay within one shabby kitchen he appeared with two little
copper-lustre saucers which he rather shamefacedly acknowledged having
paid two dollars for. We extracted from him that he had found a
bed-ridden old woman alone, shivering, thirsty; that he had built a fire
for her, pumped water, and paid for her only pieces of old china double
their value because he pitied her so.
We suggested at one house that he should say plainly that he was a
dealer and wanted to buy the china to sell. He scorned our dull,
commonplace suggestion, and said it wouldn’t be any fun, and that they
wouldn’t let him within their doors. “Half the places I go to anyway
they look out the window afore they answer me to see if I aint got a
sewing-machine in the wagon, and if they don’t see any, then they think
I must have a cyclopedy.” China hunting was to him the romance of his
life, his tournament, his battle-field. He told us of several narrow
escapes he had had from detection, and exposure of his fables. In
addition to vending old china, he sold old junk and farming tools; and
thrice farmers of whom he had bought china recognized him within his own
doors. But with the active imagination of a Dumas, he had an instant
explanation. He had either just gone into the business, or else they
were mistaken: he had a twin brother who had been adopted, etc. He
developed to us a plan of action which we were to pursue at the special
farm-house that contained the set of china. He would stop at the foot of
the hill and lurk out of sight while we climbed to the door. Then we
were to represent ourselves as relatives of the Republican candidate for
Governor, as it was within a week of election and the farmer was a
Republican. We were to tell little anecdotes of the candidate’s private
life, to hint that it was to please the Governor-elect that we wished
this china, and that it would be used in the gubernatorial mansion in
Boston. He told us exactly how we were to work up the conversation and
lead up to the purchase, what to pay and what to offer at first. All was
well and carefully arranged when a dire suspicion seized him that Farmer
Rice was a Democrat after all. This depressed him much, and he decided
to sound a neighbor on this important point ere we committed ourselves
within doors. His conversation with the guileless neighbor held us
spellbound, he represented himself as a political census taker and
hinted darkly that we were to be the candidates for high offices on the
Woman’s Rights ticket at the next election. He found that farmer Rice
was a bitter Democrat. This was a sharp blow, for neither he nor we knew
one thing about the private life of the Democratic candidate—not even
where he lived, nor indeed on our part one thing about politics anyway.
Nothing daunted, he searched a newspaper which he chanced to have, and
invented an imaginary home for the Democratic Governor, which would
doubtless have answered every purpose, with the strong points on Free
Trade and Protection which he drilled into us. We very prosaically,
however, preferred our old honest plan, and whether because of our
suspicious appearance on foot at such a great distance from any village,
or because we made an extremely inauspicious entrance, awakening a very
deaf old lady from a very sound nap, we could not buy the china either,
but we saw it, a whole chest full, and the sight was well worth the long
journey.
Thus it maybe seen that china hunting, like many another hobby, is not a
wholly ennobling pursuit. Strange and petty meannesses develop in you,
envious longings, you have “an itching palm,” you learn to be secretive
and dissembling, “to smile and smile and be a villain.” You learn to
hide your trail, to refuse to give information to other sportsmen, to
conceal the location of your hunting-grounds, to employ any wile to gain
attention and entrance. Two worthy young men, without a fault, save an
overweening and idolatrous love for old china, can attribute their fall
from the paths of honesty and truthfulness to china hunting. Searching
one day in a country town, one of these china hunters descended from the
carriage and pounded the knocker of a fine but somewhat dilapidated
country mansion. A pompous and repelling old gentleman of extreme
deafness and reticence opened the door. What was the amazement and
mortification of the waiting friend in the carriage to hear the bold
intruder roar in his loudest and most persuasive voice, “I have come to
see whether you have any old china, or know of anyone who has old china
to sell,” and as the door was about to be slammed, he added, “My friend,
the late Judge V——, of Worcester, told me that if anyone in the country
knew of old china and relics it was you.”
[Illustration: Millennium Plate.]
The way that proud and shy old man rose to that transparent bait was
wonderful to behold. He ushered in the young deceiver, with
Chesterfieldian bows of welcome. The “late Judge V——” had been a man
well known and honored throughout the county, though he knew so little
and thought so little of china that he might have dined off pewter and
never known it—but he was dead, and could never be brought up as a
refuting witness, which was a great point. The lonely watcher in the
carriage sat shamefacedly waiting, cringing at the thought of his
companion’s wickedness. He listened to the loud roars into the deaf old
ears as the twain walked from room to room while “glozed the tempter,”
and the specious sounds were wafted out on the summer air; he thought of
possible treasures within, he listened and wondered and yielded—such is
the contamination of wicked example—walked into the house, and added to
the lie tenfold. As a result of their duplicity, and since the flattered
one was a widower with no woman to say nay, they captured and brought
away four Millennium plates, two Wedgwood pickle leaves, a silver-lustre
teapot, and a glorious great flip-mug. But “things ill-got had ever bad
success;” as they lifted the large and knobby newspaper parcel from the
carriage, it slipped from their contaminating grasp, and all the pieces
were broken save the flip-mug, which, being specially protected,
escaped. Though warned by this plain rebuke, they persevere; and so
hardened are they now become in their base habits of deception, that
they have worked that “late Judge V——” scheme, with some slight
variations, in a score of country homes. They always tell that
abominable falsehood whenever they have a man to deal with, not only
adding deception to deceit, but showing a most despicable lack of
originality—a “most damnable iteration.”
They cringingly allege their intention to change the name of the
imaginary recommender as soon as any one of sufficient note and
widespread fame in the county dies, and thus through his death becomes
eligible to the position in the fable. I only wish the wraith of the
late Judge V——, a man of portentous ugliness in real life, such abnormal
ugliness that the thought of the sight of his dematerialized ghost is
really appalling—I only wish his indignant wraith would appear before
them at the lintel of the door, at the portal of some china-besieged
house, and demand, in the loud roars which characterized him in his
lifetime, the meaning of this unwarrantable and presumptuous use of his
name.
In the meantime, unchecked and undiscovered, this simple and transparent
scheme invariably works to a charm—how proud the man always is to learn
that the late Judge V—— recommended him as a connoisseur of anything! he
hastens to sell his china, if his wife be willing and have any to sell,
and he manages to think of someone else who will probably sell, should
he chance to have none himself. The flip-mug has been filled many a time
to the old-time toast, “Success to Trade”—and yet the base china hunters
are really honest fellows enough in every-day life. Alas! that greed for
things so beautiful should so deform the soul!
Such duplicity is, however, rare. I tell of it only to express my
abhorrence, my condemnation. Dissimulation is seldom necessary. You are
sometimes falsely accused of it when your motives are as open as the
light of day. After telling with exact truth precisely what I intended
to do with some pieces of china, I was answered, with an angry toss of
the head, “Why didn’t ye tell me first-off ye didn’t want me to know.”
We are sometimes, in our china hunts, brought into close contact with
baser crimes than falsehood and duplicity. We have a number of
daintily-shaped pieces of sprigged china, with a graceful ribbon border,
which are known to us by the name of “Beach ware,” but which would be
generally and more correctly called “cottage china.” These six-legged
teapots and creamjugs of “Beach ware” received their descriptive and
pretty title from the simple folk of whom they were bought, not from the
name of their maker nor from their place of manufacture. “Beach ware”
was found in crates or boxes along the beach on the shores of Barnegat
Bay at the beginning of this century. It was part of the cargo of a
great English ship laden with china, which was lured to destruction and
robbed by a notorious family of Barnegat “wreckers,” one of whose
members died not many years ago at the age of ninety years, having
served in his youth a well-deserved term of twenty years’ imprisonment
in State Prison, the sentence received at his trial for cruel robbery
and murder through “wrecking.”
[Illustration: “Beach Ware.”]
At that time, though vessels and their cargoes were insured, the
underwriters frequently did not make their appearance down the coast at
the scene of the wreck for many days and even weeks after the ship broke
up or came ashore. And when the tardy officials did arrive, Barnegat
natives, even from far inland—honest men and knavish rogues alike—had
always managed to capture everything of value that came ashore or could
be taken from the vessel. In order to conceal their stolen salvage,
indestructible merchandise or articles that were not affected by the
action of the soil and water were frequently buried until after the
baffled insurance company and the ship’s owners had left the scene. The
arrest and sentence of the leader of this gang of wreckers caused much
apprehension and excitement in every Barnegat home, and much fine china
was pounded up or thrown into the water, as well as buried, lest its
presence seem proof of complicity in the convict’s guilt. Our pieces of
“Beach ware” remained under ground for years—it is said until the wicked
old convict served out his term in prison, since he alone could find the
spot where he had buried it. The green-ribboned and pink-sprigged
teapots and teacups look too innocent to have known aught of such
wickedness and violence, but bear no more guileless face than did the
patriarchal old wrecker in the peaceful prosperous days of his later
years when he unblushingly and unwincingly sold to us this “Beach ware,”
of which his gossiping neighbors had told to us the tale.
Shall I have the dire name of “fence” applied to me when it is told that
I am the receiver of stolen goods?
The best piece of Wedgwood jasper ware that I own was bought from an old
Englishman of mild appearance and junk proclivities. A second visit to
his den found it closed. A friendly plumber in the adjacent shop
explained with effusion that the junk-man was a wretched old thief, and
no one but thieves sold to him or bought of him (I winced at the
accusation); that “he broke into a museyum in England and stole a lot of
china and brought it over here to sell, and had kep’ stealin’ ever
sense,” and he (the plumber) was “glad the perlice had chased him out,
for he was a disgrace to the neighborhood.” Was not my pretty
Flaxman-designed piece of Wedgwood stolen from that English collection?
[Illustration: Old Worcester in “Japan Taste.”]
A beautiful cup and saucer of old Worcester in the “Japan taste,” rich
without and within in red and gold and blue, has long been regarded by
me with intense suspicion of my honest and legal right to its
possession. It was sold to me with the assurance that it had belonged to
Lucien Bonaparte; I did not doubt that part of the story, for I had seen
its sister in the possession of a family who I knew inherited it through
a gift of that Bonaparte. But how should my cup and saucer have been
offered for sale to anyone? By a curious chain of circumstances, too
tedious to repeat, I discovered that the pretty cup and saucer had been
stolen by a servant, and sold long ago to an old merchant in New York,
who should have and doubtless did know better, but who loved old china.
Shall I tell his name? Shall I hunt up the lawful heir and owner of my
Worcester teacup?