manufacture of earthen ware, and many new pot-works were established.
“Mangness” for the use of potters was offered for sale in the
newspapers, and the would-be purchaser was to inquire of the printer,
who in colonial days seemed literally to have a finger in every pie. One
of the oldest of these colonial potteries was started previous to the
year 1765, by a man whose descendants of the same name still conduct the
pottery works known as the factory of A. H. Hews & Co., in North
Cambridge, Mass. The record of this family firm is so remarkable for
America that it should be told at some length. Not only has the company
continued in the same business in an uninterrupted line of the same firm
name, but it possesses a record of a century and a third of unspotted
integrity in business dealings. It has passed through times of foreign
and civil wars, through business crises and depressions, in an even
career of honor and fair-dealing, and now has earned a deserved and
independent position, having the largest manufactory of flower-pots in
the world—making many millions yearly—as well as a large and varied line
of art pottery. When Abraham Hews was pottering around in his little
pottery in Weston, in 1765, making milk-pans and bean-pots, and jugs and
teapots, and exchanging them for general merchandise, in which New
England rum and molasses took no inferior part, he little foresaw the
vast business enterprise that would be carried out by his great-grandson
in 1891. The clay used by him in Weston was brought from Watertown, and
later from Cambridge, and the firm did not move their works to Cambridge
until 1870. Abraham Hews, second, lived to be eighty-eight years old
(being postmaster for fifty-one years), and his son lived to be
eighty-one years old, dying in 1891—the good old Puritan stock showing
in long life as well as in honest life. Thus does a chain of only three
lives reach to ante-Revolutionary times, and an ante-Revolutionary
pottery.
In the _Norwich Gazette_ of September 15, 1796, we find this
advertisement of a pottery: “C. Potts & Son inform the Public that they
have lately established a Manufactory of Earthen ware at the shop
formerly improved by Mr. Charles Lathrop, where all kinds of said Ware
is made and sold either in large or small quantities, and warranted
good.” This pottery was on Bean Hill. It is referred to in Miss
Caulkin’s “History of Norwich,” Dr. Peters’s “History of Connecticut,”
and in Morse’s _Gazetteer_.
At the commencement of the Revolutionary war a man named Upton came from
Nantucket to East Greenwich, R. I., and there manufactured earthen ware.
The pottery when made was baked in a kiln which stood at the corner of
King and Marlboro Streets. He made pans, bowls, plates, cups, and
saucers of common red clay, a little finer than that now used in the
manufacture of flower-pots. As little porcelain was imported from Europe
during the War, people used willingly, and even eagerly, the coarse
plates, and drank their “Liberty Tea” from the coarse cups and saucers.
The clay came from Goold’s Mount, now owned by Mr. Henry Waterman, of
Quidneset. After the war was ended Potter Upton went back to his
safety-assured home on Nantucket, and the Greenwich pottery was closed.
In 1793 there was a flourishing pottery in Quasset, Windham County,
Conn., and the pottery carts of Thomas Bugbee, the proprietor, were well
known throughout the county. He made inkstands, bean-pots, jugs, jars,
and many other common shapes, and the demand for milk-pans alone always
kept his kiln running all summer. There was at this time another similar
pottery in Stonington, owned by Adam States, who made gray jugs and pots
and jars with salt-glaze. Another firm at Norwalk manufactured red ware
with a lead glaze. There is a specimen in the Trumbull-Prime collection.
Mr. Prime says they manufactured mugs, teapots, jars, and milk-pans at
this Norwalk pottery. In 1794 a Mr. Fenton, of New Haven, set up in Lynn
Street, Boston, a pottery where “all manner of stone vessels were made
after the manner of imported Liverpool ware and sold at a lower rate.”
The clay for this manufacture was brought from Perth Amboy, N. J.
An article in the _American Museum_ in 1791, on the existing state of
American manufactures, said, “Coarse tiles and bricks of an excellent
quality, potters’ wares, all in quantities beyond the home consumption,
a few ordinary vessels of stone mixed with clay, some mustard and snuff
bottles, a few flasks or flagons, a small quantity of sheet glass, and
of vessels for family use, generally of inferior kinds, are now made.”
Dr. Dwight, in 1822, gave among his list of Connecticut factories and
manufactures, “potteries twelve,” “value of earthen and stone-ware
$30,940;” and for Massachusetts, “earthen ware, $18,700.”
Though nothing but coarse earthen ware was made in America in these
colonial days, the new land played no unimportant part in the first
steps toward porcelain manufacture in England in the middle of the
eighteenth century. It was the custom, when English vessels had
discharged their freights in southern American ports, for them to take
samples of the alluvial deposits of North and South Carolina, of Georgia
and Florida, to carry back to England for English potters and chemists
to experiment upon. The Bow china-works began to manufacture porcelain
about the year 1744. In that year a sample of china-clay being brought
from America, a patent was taken out by Thomas Frye, of West Ham, Essex,
and Edward Heylyn, of Bow, for the production of porcelain, of which one
of the ingredients was “an earth, the product of the Cherokee nation in
America, called by the natives ‘_unaker_.’” When this patent was renewed
in 1794, no mention was made of “unaker.”
In Plymouth a shrewd old Quaker, William Cookworthy, also had his eye
upon the American china-clay. He wrote to Mr. Hingston on May 30, 1745,
saying that kaolin and petuntse had been discovered in America, and that
he had seen specimens said to have been manufactured from the American
materials. One letter of his on the subject runs thus: “I had lately
with me the person who hath discovered the china-earth. He had with him
several samples of the china ware of their making which I think were
equal to the Asiatic. ’Twas found on the back of Virginia, where he was
in quest of mines, and having read Du Halde, he discovered both the
petuntse and the kaolin. ’Twas this latter earth which he says is
essential to the success of the manufacture. He is going for a cargo of
it, having bought from the Indians the whole country where it rises.
They can import it for £13 per ton, and by that means afford their china
as cheap as common stone-ware. The man is a Quaker by profession, but
seems to be as thorough a Deist as I ever met with.” In 1768 Cookworthy
established the Plymouth china-works, but no further mention is made of
the deistical Quaker and his promised cargo of china-earth.
In 1655 a box of “porcelain-earth from the internal parts of the
Cherokee nation, four hundred miles from hence (Charleston) on mountains
scarcely accessible,” was consigned to another English potter, Richard
Champion, who founded the Bristol china-works. This box of clay was sent
by Champion’s brother-in-law, Mr. Caleb Lloyd, of Charleston, to be
forwarded to the Worcester china-works to be used there in experiments.
At the same time another box was sent to Champion for a relative of his,
the Earl of Hyndford, who desired Champion to open it and make
experiments with it, or to give it to Mr. Goldney, “who is a very
curious gentleman.” The curious Mr. Goldney declined using the clay, and
Champion experimented unsuccessfully “on the principle of Chinese
porcelain,” and then decided to use clay from Cornwall, which was “not
so fine as the Cherokee; however, there can be no chance of introducing
the latter as a manufacture when it can be so easily procured from
Cornwall.”
In 1766 the English Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures,
and Commerce gave a gold medal to Mr. Samuel Bowen, with the inscription
that it was given to him “for his useful observations in china and
industrious application of them in Georgia.” It was doubtless the
industrious Mr. Bowen’s china that was referred to in Felix Farley’s
_Bristol Journal_, in the issue of November 24, 1764. “This week some
pieces of porcelain manufactured in Georgia was imported; the materials
appear to be good, but the workmanship is far from being admired.”
Though this china venture was of enough importance to be-medal its
projector, all traces of its location, progress, and fate have been
lost.
Other and more pretentious pot-works were brought into life by the
Massachusetts bounties. In the _Boston Evening Post_ of October 30,
1769, we read, “Wanted immediately at the new Factory in New Boston,
four Boys for Apprentices to learn the Art of making Tortoise-shell
Cream and Green Colour Plates, Dishes, Coffee and Tea Pots, Cups and
Saucers and other Articles in the Potter’s Business, equal to any
imported from England. Any Persons inclined to Bind out such Lads to the
aforesaid Business is desired to apply immediately at the said Factory
or at Leigh’s Intelligence Office.”
It is very evident, from many advertisements at about this date, that a
strenuous and well-directed effort was made to establish and maintain
pot-works in Boston. Thus on May 12, 1769, there appeared in the _Boston
Evening Post_ this notice: “Wanted Samples of different clays and fine
White Sand. Any Person or Persons that will send about 5 lbs. of Clay
and a Pint of fine white Sand to Leigh’s Intelligence Office, in
Merchants’ Row, Boston, if it is the sort wanted the Proprietors will
have advantage of Proposals made to them to supply a quantity.” Good
wages, too, for the times, were offered to workmen, practised potters.
“Twenty Dollars per Month with Victuals Drink Washing and Lodging given
to any persons Skill’d in Making Glazing and Burning common Earthen ware
who can be well recommended. Enquire of the Printer.”
All this applying and experimenting and establishing, and the fact that
a Quaker named Bartlam, an unsuccessful English master-potter, had
started a pottery in Camden, S. C., in the very heart of the clay
supply—all this seriously alarmed that far-seeing and shrewd business
man, Josiah Wedgwood. He had once before lost his foreman, Mr. Podmore,
who left him with the intention of establishing pot-works in America.
Mr. Chaffers, a Liverpool manufacturer, had caught the intending
emigrant during his pre-embarking stay in Liverpool, and finding that
Podmore showed so much intelligence and practical knowledge of the
business, had made him sufficiently liberal offers to induce him to
remain in England. English potters had also emigrated in large numbers.
Wedgwood wrote thus at that time to his patron, Sir W. Meredith: “Permit
me, Sir, to mention a circumstance of a more public nature, which
greatly alarms us in this neighborhood. The bulk of our particular
manufactures are, you know, exported to foreign markets, for our home
consumption is very trifling in comparison to what is sent abroad; and
the principal of these markets are the Continent and Islands of North
America. To the continent we send an amazing quantity of white
stone-ware and some of the finer kinds, but for the islands we cannot
make anything too rich and costly. This trade to our colonies we are
apprehensive of losing in a few years, as they set on foot some
pot-works there already, and are at this time amongst us hiring a number
of our hands for establishing new pot-works in South Carolina, having
got one of our insolvent master-potters there to conduct them. They have
every material there, equal if not superior to our own, for carrying on
that manufacture; and as the necessaries of life and consequently the
prices of labour amongst us are daily advancing, it is highly probable
that more will follow them and join their brother artists and
manufacturers of all classes who are from all quarters taking a rapid
flight indeed the same way.”
Wedgwood did not intend to be left out or left behind in the “flight”
into the benefits and resources of the New World; Pensacola clay was
brought to him in 1766; and in 1767, from Ayoree (or Hyoree as he spelt
it), other clays were fetched, and the canny potter at once attempted to
secure a patent right to the exclusive use of them. A man named
Griffiths, who had owned in South Carolina a one-third share in three
thousand acres of land, where he had “attempted the manufacture of
maple-sugar after the manner of the Indians,” now became Wedgwood’s
agent in America, under heavy bonds. Griffiths, the owner of the
ill-situated maple grove and sugar factory, went to the Cherokee country
and sent home clay to Wedgwood to experiment upon. The growing and free
use of the Cornish clays, however, rendered the importation of American
clays as superfluous as it was expensive and inconvenient; and the
interference of the Revolutionary war destroyed all fear of American
competition in the manufacture of pottery. The vicinity near Camden, S.
C. (where the Bartlam pottery had been established), was particularly
devastated, many fierce battles being fought around it.
In 1784, Richard Champion, who was always an enthusiastic lover of
America, and who had unsuccessfully experimented in England with the
Cherokee clays, left Bristol and came to live on a plantation named
Rockybranch, near Camden. Wedgwood must have felt many apprehensions and
fears when Champion took this step, for he knew well the energy and
determination of the emigrant to America, who had in previous years
completely routed him in a long-contested and bitter lawsuit over the
use of certain English clays in the manufacture of china. Wedgwood knew,
too, Champion’s ability and capacity as a potter, and without doubt
dreaded lest the man who had done such good work at Bristol should do
more and better still when in the land of the Cherokee clay, at Camden.
His fears (if they existed) were destined never to be realized, for
Champion became a planter, filled several public offices in the State,
died in 1793, on the seventh anniversary of the day he left England, and
was buried near Camden.
In the year 1770 china-works were in operation in Philadelphia. They
were established by Gousse Bonnin and George Anthony Morris. On December
20, 1769, an advertisement was printed in a Philadelphia newspaper,
which read thus: “New China Works. Notwithstanding the various
difficulties and disadvantages which usually attend the introduction of
any important manufacture into a new country, the proprietors of the
China Works now erecting in Southwark have the pleasure to acquaint the
public that they have proved to a certainty that the clays of America
are as productive of good Porcelain as any heretofore manufactured at
the famous factory in Bow, near London.” Later Messrs. Bonnin and Morris
advertised for “broken flint-glass and whole flint-stone,” and also for
“shank-bones” to be delivered at the china factory in Southwark. In
April, 1772, they advertised for “several apprentices to the painting
branch,” and encouragement was offered to “china painters either in blue
or enamel,” which latter notice shows that their china products were
decorated. They also offered a reward for the production of _zaffre_, a
compound of cobalt.
This china venture failed, the real estate of the company was sold, and
the proprietors returned to England asking public attention and charity
for their poor workmen. Thus forlornly ended the first porcelain factory
in America; and thus tamely subsided the rivalry between English and
American china materials. When we consider the vast natural resources in
America for the china-maker to draw from—the inexhaustible supply of raw
materials—the unlimited beds of rich kaolin, the vast stores of pipe,
potter’s, ball, and fire clay—the endless mines of quartz and felspar,
the tinted earths of Alabama, the colored kaolin of Illinois, the mines
of lithomarge in Tennessee—to say nothing of the boundless wealth of
supplies in the far West—it seems to us that America was very
slow—indeed is still very slow in taking advantage of the hints given by
Cookworthy, by Champion, and by Wedgwood in the eighteenth century.
This quickly-ended china factory of Bonnin and Morris is the one
referred to in the _Edinburgh Weekly Magazine_ of January, 1771, which
says: “By a letter from Philadelphia we are informed that a large china
manufactory is established there, and that better china cups and saucers
are made there than at Bow or Stratford.” Benjamin Franklin, writing to
his wife from London in January, 1772, after thanking her for the
cranberries and apples and various American home reminders that she had
sent to him, adds, “I thank you for the sauce-boats, and am pleased to
see so good a progress made in the china manufactory. I wish it success
most heartily.” But writing to an English potter in November, 1773, he
says, “I understand the china-works in Philadelphia is declined by the
first owners; whether any others will take it up and continue it, I know
not.”
Mr. Prime, in his book, gives the information that there were “some
undoubted specimens of the work deposited in the Franklin Institute on
exhibition.” I do not know where those specimens now are. A pair of
vases at the H. L. D. Lewis sale in Philadelphia, in December, 1890,
were catalogued as having been made at this first porcelain manufactory.
There is no existing record of the fact that they were produced there,
and no stamp or mark to prove it, and I do not know why they were thus
assigned. They were purchased by the Mount Vernon Association for
eighteen dollars each, and can now be seen in Washington’s old home.
They stand ten inches in height, are flat in shape, about six inches in
diameter, have gilded griffin handles and polished gilt faces, and are
decorated with highly colored views of naval battles. They have an
interest to all collectors as being specimens of the first china factory
in America, as well as from the fact that they were early ornaments of
Mount Vernon.
Philadelphia seems to have taken and kept the lead in the manufacture of
porcelain in America, or else we are more fortunate in having the
records of Philadelphia pot-works preserved for us. The Pennsylvania
Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures offered in 1787, a “plate
of gold to the value of twenty dollars,” as a prize for the “best
specimen of Pennsylvania-made earthen ware approaching the nearest in
quality to the delft white stone or queen’s ware,” and an equal prize
for the best salt-glazed ware; and in 1792 a prize of $50 for similar
ware. In 1808 Alexander Trotter exhibited at Peale’s Museum, in
Philadelphia, some of the articles manufactured at his Columbian
Pottery, which was situated on South Street, between Twelfth and
Thirteenth Streets, in that city, while the warehouse was at No. 66
North Second Street. This business continued until 1813. The proprietor
advertised “tea and coffee-pots, pitchers, jugs, wine-coolers, basins,
ewers, and baking dishes;” and it was also stated that an “elegant jug
and goblets from the queen’s ware manufactory” were used at the
Republican dinner on July 4, 1808, at Philadelphia. This ware was
similar to the Staffordshire stone wares. In the same year a firm named
Binney & Ronaldson made in South Street, in Philadelphia, red and yellow
teapots, coffee-pots, and sugar-boxes. At the beginning of the century
D. Freytag advertised that, at 192 South 5th Street, Philadelphia, he
would decorate piece china with gold and silver; hence he must have had
a kiln for firing. In the year 1800 a pottery, called the “Washington
Pottery,” was established by John Mullawney on the north side of Market
Street, near Schuylkill South, in the same city. The productions were
called “Washington ware,” and consisted of pitchers, coffee-pots,
teapots, cream-pots, sugar-boxes, wash-basins, bowls, etc. It was
carried on by the same proprietor until 1816, and was in operation for
many years after. In 1813 the Northern Liberty Pottery was founded by
Thomas Haig on the corner of Front and Market Streets, and the
manufacture of earthen ware is still continued by one of his
descendants. David G. Seixas had a similar manufactory at about the same
time, from 1817 to 1822, at Market Street near Schuylkill 6th. In 1817
George Bruorton announced through the Philadelphia press, that he would
enamel and gild arms, crests, ciphers, borders, or any device on china,
or queen’s ware as good as any imported. Also “china mended by burning
in and warranted as sound for use as ever.” In 1826 Joseph Keen also
decorated china in Market Street, near Eleventh Street. So we can
plainly see how much the question of china decoration and china-works
was thought of in that town.
In the year 1828, William Ellis Tucker had a china store at 86 Arcade,
in Philadelphia. He thus advertised: “American china of a quality equal
in strength and beauty to any that can be imported, and upon the most
reasonable terms. Initials or fancy work to suit the taste of
individuals will be executed agreeably to order in the neatest style.”
In the year 1868 Miss Peters presented to the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania a porcelain pitcher which had been made at the
establishment of Messrs. Tucker & Hemphill. At the request of the
Society, Mr. Thomas Tucker prepared the following paper on the
manufacture of porcelain in the United States.
PHILADELPHIA, May 13, 1868.
TO THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA:
GENTLEMEN: Herewith please find a small account of the manufacture of
porcelain in the United States.
William Ellis Tucker, my brother, was the first to make porcelain in
the United States. My father, Benjamin Tucker, had a china store in
Market Street, in the city of Philadelphia, in the year 1816. He built
a kiln for William in the back-yard of the store, where he painted in
the white china and burned it on in the kiln, which gave him a taste
for that kind of work. After that he commenced experimenting with the
different kinds of clays, to see if he could not make the ware. He
succeeded in making a very good kind of ware called queen’s ware. He
then commenced experimenting with felspar and kaolin to make
porcelain, and, after much labor he succeeded in making a few small
articles of very good porcelain. He then obtained the old water-works
at the northwest corner of Schuylkill, Front, and Chestnut, where he
erected a large glazing kiln, enamelling kiln, mills, etc. He burned
kiln after kiln with very poor success. The glazing would crack and
the body would blister; and, besides, we discovered that we had a man
who placed the ware in the kiln who was employed by some interested
parties in England to impede our success.
Most of the handles were found in the seggars after the kiln was
burned. We could not account for it until a deaf and dumb man in our
employment detected him running his knife around each handle as he
placed them in the kiln.
At another time every piece of china had to be broken before it could
be taken out of the seggar. We always washed the round Os, the article
in which the china was placed in the kiln, with silex; but this man
had washed them with felspar, which of course melted, and fastened
with every article to the bottom. But William discharged him, and we
soon got over that difficulty.
In the year 1827 my brother received a silver medal from the Franklin
Institute of Pennsylvania, and in 1831 received one from the Institute
in New York. In 1828 I commenced to learn the different branches of
the business. On August 22, 1832, my brother William died. Some time
before he connected himself with the late Judge Hemphill. They
purchased the property at the southwest corner of Schuylkill, Sixth,
and Chestnut Streets, where they built a large store-house or factory,
which they filled with porcelain. After the death of my brother, Judge
Hemphill and myself continued the making of porcelain for some years,
until he sold out his interest to a company of Eastern gentlemen; but
being unfortunate in their other operations, they were not able to
give the porcelain attention. In the year 1837 I undertook to carry it
alone, and did so for about one year, making a large quantity of very
fine porcelain, many pieces of which I still have. The gilding and
painting is now as perfect as when first done.
I herewith present you with a pitcher which I made thirty-one years
ago. You will notice the glazing and transparency of this specimen is
equal to the best imported china; but the gilding, having been in use
so many years, is somewhat injured. I would like to give you a larger
article, but I have but few pieces left.
Very respectfully yours, etc.,
THOMAS TUCKER.
I cannot understand why Thomas Tucker should have fancied that his
brother was the first to make porcelain in the United States. Could he
not have known of the ante-Revolutionary china-works of Bonnin & Morris?
There are in the Trumbull-Prime Collection several specimens of Tucker’s
“natural porcelain.” The paste and glaze are excellent, but the forms
are commonplace, and the decorations indicate want of experience and
taste, gold being profusely used.