Descriptions of Types

North Devon Sgraffito Ware

Sites: Jamestown, Kecoughtan, Green Spring, John Washington House, Kent Island, Yorktown, Joseph Howland House.

Paste

Manufacture: Wheel-turned, with templates used to shape collars of jugs and to shape edges and sometimes ridges where plate rims join bezels.

Temper: Fine, almost microscopic, water-worn sand particles.

Texture: Fine, smooth, well-mixed, sharp, regular cleavage.

Color: Dull pinkish red, with gray core usual.

Firing: Two firings, one before glazing and one after. Usually incomplete oxidation, shown by gray core. A few specimens have surface breaks or flakings incurred in the firing and most show warping (suggesting that “rejects,” unsalable in England, were sent to the colonists, who had no recourse but to accept them).

Surfaces

Treatment: Inner surfaces of plates and bowls and outer surfaces of jugs, cups, mugs, chamber pots, and other utensils viewed on the exteriors are coated with white kaolin slip. Designs are scratched through the slip while wet and into the surface of the paste, exposing the latter. Undersides of plates and chargers are often scraped to make irregular flat areas of surface. Slip-covered portions are coated with amber glaze by sifting on powdered galena (lead sulphide). Containers which are slipped externally are glazed externally and internally. Slip and glaze do not cover lower portions of jugs, but run down unevenly.

Figure 20.—Gravel-tempered chafing dish from Jamestown. Colonial National Historical Park. (Smithsonian photo 43104.)

Color: Slipped surfaces are white where exposed without glaze. Unglazed surfaces are a dull terra cotta. The glaze varies in tone from honey color to a dark greenish amber. When applied over the slip, the glaze ranges from lemon to a toneless brown-yellow, or, at best, a sparkling butter color. When applied directly over the paste and over the incised and abraided designs, the glaze appears as a rich mahogany brown or dark amber.

Forms

Plates, platters, and chargers:

(a) Diameter 7″-7½″. Upper surface slipped, decorated, and glazed. (Fig. 12.)

(b) Diameter 12″; depth 2″-3″. Upper surface slipped, decorated, and glazed. (Fig. 11.)

All have wide rims, but of varying widths, raised bezels, and heavy, raised, curved edges.

Baluster wine cups: Height 3¾″-4″. Slipped and decorated externally; glazed internally and externally. (Figs. 12, 14.)

Concave-sided mugs: Height about 4″. Slipped and decorated externally; glazed internally and externally. (Only complete specimen, at Jamestown, had incised band around rim.) (Fig. 14.)

Jugs: Height 6½″ and 8″-8½″. Globose bodies, vertical or slightly everted collars tooled in a series of ridged bands, with tooled rims at top. Some have pitcher lips, some do not. Slipped, decorated, and glazed externally above an incised line encircling the waist; glazed internally. (Figs. 13, 14.)

Eating bowls: Diameter, including handle, 9″-10″; depth 3¼″-4″. Straight, everted sides, flat rims, with slightly raised edges, one small flat loop handle secured to rim. Slipped, decorated, and glazed internally and on rim.

Figure 21.—Gravel-tempered baking pan from Jamestown. Length, 15 inches; width, about 12 inches. Colonial National Historical Park.

Chamber pots: Height 5½″. Curving sides, terminating at heavy, raised, rounded band surmounted by concave, everted rim. Rim 1″ wide and flat. Slipped, decorated, and glazed externally and internally. (Fig. 15.)

Candlestick: Unique specimen. Height 6″. Bell-shaped base with flange and shaft above with socket at top. Handle from bottom of socket to bottom of shaft. Upper portion slipped, decorated, and glazed.

Ripple-edged, shallow dish: Unique specimen. Diameter 9¼″. Concave, rimless dish or plate with edge crimped as for a pie or tart plate. Upper surface slipped, decorated, and glazed.

Decoration

Technique: (1) Incising through wet slip into paste with pointed tool for linear effects. (2) Excising of small areas to reveal paste and to strengthen tonal qualities of designs. (3) Incising with multiple-pointed tools having three to five points, to draw multiple-lined stripes. (4) Stippling with same tools.

Motifs: The motifs are varied and never occur in any one combination more than once. There are two general categories of design, geometric and floral, although in some cases these are joined in the same specimen.

In the geometric category, the majority of plate rims are decorated with hastily drawn spirals and guilloches. The centers may have circles within squares, circles enclosing compass-drawn petals, circles within a series of swags embellished with lines. Triple-lined chevrons decorate the border of one plate. A chamber pot is decorated with diagonal stripes of multiple lines, between which wavy lines are punctuated by small excised rectangles. Some cups, jugs, and the candlestick are simply decorated with vertical stripes, between which are wavy lines, stippling, and excised blocks.

The floral category includes elaborate and intricate stylized floral and vine motifs: tulips, sunflowers, leaves, tendrils, hearts, four-petaled flowers. One plate (fig. 11) combines the geometric feeling of the first category with the floral qualities of the second in its swag-and-tassel rim and swagged band, which encloses a sunflower springing from a stalk between two leaves.

The design motifs are unique in comparison with those found on other English pottery of the 17th century. The geometrical patterns and spiral ornaments, which also occur in Hispanic majolica, have a Moorish flavor. Christian symbols—especially tulips, sunflowers, and hearts—are recurrent, as they are on contemporary West-of-England furniture, pewter, and embroidery and on the carved chests, and crewel work of Puritan New England. There is considerable reason to believe that there was a connection between North Devon sgraffito-ware manufacture and design on the one hand and the influx of Huguenot and Netherlands Protestant artisans into southern and southwestern England on the other. Low Country immigrant potters were responsible for two other ceramic innovations elsewhere in England—stoneware and majolica.

Figure 22.—Slip-coated porringers and drinking bowl (center). Colonial National Historical Park.

Figure 23.—North Devon gravel-tempered pan with typical terra cotta paste and characteristic 18th-century flattened rim, slightly undercut on the interior. This pan, measuring 13¼ inches in diameter and 4⅜ inches high, was found at the Coke-Garrett house site in Williamsburg, Virginia, in a context attributed to the period about 1740-1760. Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. (Colonial Williamsburg photo 59-DW-703-44.)

Atypical Specimen

Already mentioned is a large fragment of a dish found in a context not later than 1640 and cruder and simpler in treatment than the remainder of North Devon sgraffito ware thus far seen. It nevertheless belongs to the same class. Its paste has the same characteristics of color and fracture, while the firing has left the same tell-tale gray core found in a large proportion of North Devon sherds. Surface treatment techniques match those reflected in the typical dish sherds—glazed slip over the red paste on the interior; unglazed, scraped, and abraided surfaces on the underside. The yellow color is paler and the glazed surface is duller. The rim has a smaller edge and omits the heavy raised bezel usually occurring on the typical plates and chargers. The design motifs—crude and primitive in comparison with those described above—consist of a series of stripes on the rim, drawn at right angles to the edge with a four-pointed tool, and crude hook-like ornaments traced with the same tool in the bowl of the plate. This may be regarded as a forerunner of the developed sgraffito ware made in the second half of the 17th century.

Figure 24.—Gravel-tempered pan sherds from Kecoughtan site, Hampton, Virginia. United States National Museum.

Unique Feature

The flat rim of a chamber pot from Jamestown (fig. 15) has “WR 16 ..” scratched through the slip. It is probable that the initials indicate “William Rex,” for William III, who became king in 1688. Why the king should be memorialized in such an undignified fashion could be explained by the fact that Barnstaple and Bideford were strongly Puritan and also Huguenot centers. Although William was a popular monarch, he was, nevertheless, head of the Church of England, and an anti-royalist, Calvinist potter might well have expressed an earthy contempt in this way. Later, in the 18th century, George III appears to have been treated with similar disrespect by Staffordshire potters, who made saltglazed chamber pots in the style of Rhenish Westerwald drinking jugs, flaunting “GR” emblems on the sides. Owners’ initials or names do not occur on any of the North Devon wares found in American sites, nor do the initials of the potters. Otherwise, it would seem unlikely that the only exception would appear on the rim of a chamber pot.

Comparative Evidence

Sherds owned by C. H. Brannam, Ltd., and excavated at the site of the Litchdon Street pottery in Barnstaple.—The largest of these is part of a deep dish (fig. 2). Its border design seems to be a degenerate form of a beetle-like device found on Portuguese majolica of the period. From a crude oval with a stippled line running the length of it, extends a spiral scroll, terminating in a heavy dot, reminiscent of the tendrils found on the Portuguese examples. From incised lines near the rim and on the edge of the bezel are small linear “hooks.” The interior has sunflower petals flanking a short, stylized palmette, with another stalk and pair of leaves above, reaching up to what may have been an elaborate floral center, now missing. This decoration resembles closely the interiors of the floral-type plates and chargers found at Jamestown. A section of plate rim is similar to typical rims found in American sites. The surface color is the butter yellow found on the best Jamestown pieces. Paste color also matches.

Sherds from the North Walk pottery in Barnstaple, described by Charbonnier.—These were found near the site, on the banks of the Yeo and in a pasture. They include plates and dishes, some finished and others thrown out in the biscuit state. Charbonnier illustrates a plate with a zig-zag or chevron border and an incised bird in the center. The chevron appears on Jamestown specimens but the bird does not.

Harvest jugs.—18th-century North Devon harvest jugs examined by the writer display the same characteristics of paste, slip, and glaze as the Jamestown sherds. However, the jugs differ stylistically to a marked degree, suggesting that later potters were not affected by the influences that appear in the earlier work (fig. 16). The earliest harvest jug of which we are aware is a hitherto unrecorded example, dated 1698, that is in the collection of Charles G. Dorman. This is the only harvest jug yet encountered with a history of use in America and the only North Devon sgraffito piece known to have survived above ground on this continent. It is a remarkably vigorous pot, having a great rotund body, a high flaring collar, and a lengthy inscription (see fig. 17). A female figure under a wreath of pomegranates forms the central motif. The head is turned in left profile, with hair cascading to the shoulders. The bust is highly stylized in an oval shape, within which are intersecting curved lines forming areas decorated with diagonal incising or with rows of short dashes. The design here is strongly reminiscent of the geometrical decoration on Jamestown plates and deep dishes. A pair of unicorns flanks the central figure, and behind each unicorn are a dove and swan, at left and right respectively. Under these are sunflowers and tulips, while a tulip stands above rows of leaves on a stem below the handle. Feather-like leaves flank the lower attachment of the handle. At the junction of the shoulder and collar is a narrow band of incised tulips. Above this is a heavy ridge from which springs the flaring collar. Under the spout is a male head, wearing a wig which is depicted in the same manner as the pomegranates on the wreath, and a stylized hat and stock-like collar. One suspects that the man is a clergyman, although his eyes are cast down in a most worldly manner upon the lady below. He is flanked by a pair of doves; behind each dove is a vertical tulip with stem and leaves.

Figure 25.—Gravel-tempered food-storage jar from Townsend site, Lewes, Delaware. Height, 12 inches; diameter at base, 9 inches. (USNM 60.1188; Smithsonian photo 38821.)

Figure 26.—Gravel-tempered sherds from Plymouth, Massachusetts: fragment of oven (left) and rim sherd (upper right), from John Howland house site; and pan-rim sherd from “R. M.” site. Plimoth Plantation, Inc., Plymouth. (Smithsonian photo 45008-B.)

Some of the shading is applied with a four-pointed tool, as in many of the Jamestown pieces, although the tool was smaller. The handle bears the same characteristics as those on jugs found at Jamestown—the same carelessly formed ridge, the same spreading, up-thrust reinforcement at the base of the handle. Unlike the Jamestown jugs, this one is covered completely on the exterior with slip and glaze. However, since this was a presentation piece, we could expect more careful treatment than was usual on pots made for commercial sale.

The jug descended in a Sussex County, Delaware, family—on the distaff side, curiously. Family recollection traces its ownership back to the early 19th century, with an unsubstantiated legend that it was used by British soldiers during the Revolutionary War. We may conclude at least that the jug is not a recent import and surmise that it was probably brought to America as an heirloom by an emigrating Devon family, perhaps before the Revolution. Sussex County has a stable population, mostly of old-stock English descent. It was settled during the second half of the 17th and first half of the 18th centuries. There is a strong possibility, therefore, that the jug was introduced into Delaware at a comparatively early date.

Many other harvest jugs have been similarly cherished in England. An almost exact counterpart of the Delaware jug, and obviously by the same potter, is in the Glaisher collection in Cambridge. This jug, dated “1703/4,”[69] displays such variations as absence of the male head and a different inscription. Another jug, with a hunting scene but with a similar neck and collar treatment, seems again to be by the same hand; it is dated “1703.”[70]

Figure 27.—Gravel-tempered sherds from Angelica Knoll site, Calvert County, Maryland. United States National Museum. (Smithsonian photo 45008-A.)

From the standpoint of identifying and dating the archeologically recovered sgraffito ware, these jugs are important in showing certain traits similar to those found in the sherds, while displaying other characteristics that are distinctly different. They support the archeological evidence that the Jamestown pieces are earlier than the jugs and that new design concepts were appearing by the turn of the century in a novel type of presentation piece.

North Devon Plain Slip-Coated Ware

This is a plain variant of the sgraffito ware, differing only in the absence of decoration and in some of the forms.

Site: Jamestown.

Forms

Plates: Diameter 7″-11½″. Profiles as in sgraffito plates. Upper surface slipped and glazed.

Eating bowls: Diameter 9″; height 3½″. Profile and handle same as in sgraffito bowls. Slipped and glazed on interior and over rim.

Porringers: Diameter 5½″; height 2¾″. Ogee profiles. Horizontal loop handle applied ¾″ below rim on each. Slipped and glazed on interiors. (Fig. 22.)

Drinking bowls: Diameter of rim, including handle, 5″; height 2¾″-3″; diameter of base 2″. In shape of mazer bowl, these have narrow bases and straight sides terminating in raised tooled bands at the junctions with vertical or slightly inverted rims 1″ in height. Each has a horizontal looped handle attached at bottom of rim. Slipped and glazed on interiors. (Fig. 22.)

Wavy-edge pans: Diameter 9″-10″; height 2″. Flat round pans with vertical rims distorted in wide scallops or waves. Purpose not known. Slipped and glazed on interiors.

North Devon Gravel-Tempered Ware

Sites: Jamestown, Kecoughtan, Green Spring, Williamsburg, Marlborough, John Washington House, Kent Island, Angelica Knoll, Townsend, John Bowne House, “R. M.,” Winslow, John Howland House.

Paste

Manufacture: Wheel-turned, except ovens and rectangular pans, which are “draped” over molds. (See “Forms,” below.)

Temper: Very coarse water-worn quartz and feldsparthic gravel up to one-half inch in length; also occasional sherds. Proportion of temper 15-25 percent, except in ovens, which were about 30 percent.

Texture: Poorly kneaded, bubbly, and porous, with temper poorly mixed. Temper particles easily rubbed out of matrix. Very irregular and angular cleavage because of coarse temper. Hard and resistant to blows, but crumbles at fracture when broken.

Color: Dull pinkish red to deep orange-red. Almost invariably gray at core, except in ovens.

Firing: Carelessly fired, with incomplete oxidation of paste.

Surface

Treatment: Glazed with powdered galena on interiors of containers, never externally. Glaze very carelessly applied, with much evidence of dripping, running, and unintentional spilling.

Texture: Very coarse and irregular, with gravel temper protruding.

Color: Unglazed surfaces range from bright terra cotta to reddish buff. Glazed surfaces on well-fired pieces are transparent yellow-green with frequent orange splotches. Overtired pieces become dark olive-amber, sometimes approaching black. Rare specimens have slipped interiors subsequently glazed, with similar butter-yellow color effect as in sgraffito and plain slip-coated types.

Forms

All forms are not completely indicated, there being many rims not represented by complete or reconstructed pieces. The following are established forms.

Round, flat-bottomed pans: Diameter 16″, height 4″; diameter 16″, height 5″; diameter 18″, height 4″; diameter 15″, height 4½″; diameter 13¼″, height 4⅜″. Heavy rounded rims. Glazed internally below rims. These were probably milk pans, but may also have served for cooking and washing. Those lined with slip may have functioned as wash basins. (Figs. 18, 23.)

Round, flat-bottomed pans: Diameter approximately 19″, height unknown. (No complete specimen.) Heavy rims, reinforced with applied strips of clay beneath external projection of rim. Reinforcement strips are secured with thumb impressions or square impressions made by end of flat tool. (Figs. 28, 29.)

Cooking pots: Diameter 12″, height 6″; diameter 8″, height 5″. Curving sides, terminating at tooled concave band with flattened, slightly curving rim above. Glazed inside.

Bowls: Diameter 8″, height 5″. Sides curved, with flattened-curve rims, tooled bands below rims. Glazed internally. (Fig. 19.)

Figure 28.—Exteriors (left) and interiors of gravel-tempered sherds. Top to bottom: bowl; pan; heavy pan with reinforced rim; and pan with 18th-century-type rim. Colonial National Historical Park. (From Smithsonian photos 43039-A, 43041-A.)

Cooking pots: Diameter (including handles) 9½″, height 6″. Profile a segmented curve, with rim the same diameter as base. Exterior flange to receive cover. Small horizontal loop handles. Band of three incised lines around waist. (Fig. 18.)

Cooking pot covers: Diameters 7″, 10″, 10½″, 11″. Flat covers, with downward-turned rims. Off-center loop handles, probably designed to facilitate examination of contents of pot by permitting one to lift up one edge of cover. Covers are sometimes numbered with incised numerals. Unglazed. (Fig. 18.)

Figure 29.—Exteriors (left) and interiors of gravel-tempered sherds. Pan (top) with 18th-century-type rim, and handle of heavy pan with reinforced rim. Colonial National Historical Park. (From Smithsonian photos 43039-C, 43039-D.)

Pipkins: Diameter 7″, height 3″; diameter 8½″, height 3½″; diameter 8¼″, height 4″; diameter 8″, height 5″. Curving sides, terminating at tooled concave band with flattened, slightly curved rim above. Three stubby legs. Stub handle crudely shaped and casually applied at an upward angle. Glazed inside. Used as a saucepan to stand in the coals. (Fig. 19.)

Rectangular basting or baking pans: Length 15″, width 11¾″ (dimensions of single restored specimen at Jamestown; many fragments in addition at Jamestown and Plymouth). Drape-molded. Reinforced scalloped rim. Heavy horizontal loop handles are sometimes on sides, sometimes on ends. Glazed inside. (Fig. 21.)

Storage jars: Various sizes. The one wholly restored specimen (Lewes, Delaware) has a rim diameter of 8″ and a height of 12½″. Rims of largest examples (diameters 7″, 10″, 12″) have reinforcement strips applied below external projection. Heavy vertical loop handles, with tops attached to rims. Most have interior flanges to receive covers. Glazed inside. Such jars were essential for preserving and pickling foods and for brewing beer. (Fig. 25.)

Plate warmer or chafing dish: Unique specimen. Diameter (including handle) 11″, height 7″. Heavy, flaring pedestal foot supports wide bowl, glazed inside. Flat rim with slight elevation on outer edge. Protruding vertically from rim are three lugs or supports for holding plates. Vertical loop handles extend from rim to lower sides of bowl. “Spirits of wine” were probably burned in the bowl to heat the plate above. (Fig. 20.) Fragmentary pedestals, similar in profile to the one here (but smaller, having step turnings around base) may have been parts of smaller chafing dishes. (Fig. 31.)

Figure 30.—Exteriors (left) and interiors of gravel-tempered sherds. Top to bottom: rim of small bowl; rim of small jar with internal flange to receive cover; and pipkin handle. Colonial National Historical Park. (From Smithsonian photos 43039-C, 43039-D.)

Ovens: (1) One wholly reconstructed oven at Jamestown. Made in sections on drape molds: base, two sides, two halves of top, opening frame, and door. Side and top sections are joined with seams, reinforced by finger impressions, meeting at top of trapezoidal opening. The opening was molded separately and joined with thumb-impressed reinforcements. A flat door with heavy vertical handle, round in section, fits snugly into opening. Thickness varies from ¾″ to 1½″. Unglazed, although smears of glaze dripped during the firing indicate that the oven was fired with glazed utensils stacked above it. (Fig. 10.)

(2) Oven in place in Bowne House, Flushing, Long Island. Similar in shape to Jamestown oven. Opening is arched.

(3) Body sherd and handle sherds at Jamestown, from additional oven or ovens.

(4) Body sherd from dome-top oven similar to those at Jamestown and Flushing. John Howland House site, Rocky Nook, Kingston, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. (Fig. 26.)

Comparative Evidence

Paste color, temper, and texture are consistent when examined microscopically. Resemblance is very close between oven sherds from the Jamestown and Howland house sites, and between these and a large chip obtained from the Smithsonian’s oven purchased in Bideford. Except for a somewhat lower proportion of temper, utensil sherds from various sites are consistent with the oven fragments. The Smithsonian’s 19th-century Bideford pan also closely resembles these, except for the proportion of temper, which is somewhat less. Further close resemblance of form exists between the Jamestown and Flushing ovens and those in the Bideford Museum. (Figs. 7, 9.)

In 1954 comparative tests were made by Frederick H. Norton, professor of ceramics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jamestown clay was used for a control. Thin sections, made of sherds found at Jamestown, were fired at several temperatures and the results recorded in photomicrographs. Of the gravel-tempered sherd submitted in these tests, Professor Norton commented, “The clay mass looks quite dissimilar from the Jamestown clay.”

No other identifiable English ware of this period compares with the gravel-tempered pottery, the use of gravel for temper apparently being restricted to North Devon. Gravel is found in red earthenware sherds from Spanish colonial sites and in olive oil jars of Hispanic origin, but both the quality and proportion of temper differs, as do the paste characteristics, so that no possibility exists for confusion between them and the North Devon ware.

The North Devon potteries produced gravel-tempered ovens that probably were unique in England. Ceramic ovens were made elsewhere, to be sure; Jewitt describes and illustrates an oven made in Yearsley by the Yorkshire Wedgwoods in 1712, but it is in no way related to the North Devon form. We have mentioned Dr. Pococke’s allusion to “earthenware ovens” made in the mid-18th century at Calstock on the Cornish side of the Devonshire border, about 35 miles from Bideford; however, one may suppose that these were the products of diffusion from the North Devon center, if, indeed, they even resembled the North Devon ovens.

The closest comparisons with the North Devon ovens are to be found in Continental sources. A woodcut in Ulrich von Richental’s Concilium zu Constancz (fig. 35), printed at Augsburg in 1483, shows an oven whose shape is similar to that of the Jamestown specimen. The oven in the woodcut is mounted on a two-wheeled cart drawn by two men. A woman is removing a tart from the flame-licked opening while a couple sits nearby at a table in front of a shop. Le Moyne, a century later, depicted the Huguenot Fort Caroline in Florida.[71] Just outside the stockade, on a raised platform under a thatched lean-to appears an oven whose form is similar to that of typical North Devon examples (fig. 36). It is a safe assumption that the ovens in both Richental’s and Le Moyne’s scenes were ceramic ovens, for both were used outdoors in a portable or temporary manner. No other material would have been suitable for such use.

This portable usage gives support to Bailey’s conjecture that the Jamestown oven may have been used indoors in the winter and outdoors in the summer. He noted that carbon had been ground into the base, as though the oven had lain on a fireplace hearth.[72] Sidney Strickland, writing about his excavation of the John Howland House site, noted that the stone fireplace foundation there had no provision for a built-in brick oven of conventional type.[73] Not having recognized the earthen oven sherd, he assumed that bread was baked on the stone hearth. The pottery oven may well have been placed on the hearth or have been set up in an outbuilding. That ovens of some sort, whether ceramic or brick, were used away from houses is borne out by occasional documentary evidence. In 1662 John Andrews of Ipswich, Massachusetts, bequeathed a “bake house” worth 2 pounds, 10 shillings. In 1673, Henry Short of Newbury provided in his will that his widow should have “free egress and regress into the Bakehouse for bakeing & washing.” In 1679 the inventory of Lt. George Gardner’s estate in Salem listed his “dwelling house, bake house & out housing.”[74] Bailey quotes the records of Henrico County, Virginia, to show a similar usage in the South.[75]

Figure 31.—Pedestal bases of small chafing dishes or standing salts. Top, exterior and interior of one sherd; bottom, exterior and top view of another sherd. Colonial National Historical Park. (From Smithsonian photos 43039-C, 43030-D.)

The only unquestionable evidence of how these ovens were used remains in the Bowne House, where the oven is built into the fireplace back. Originally, the oven protruded outdoors from the back of the chimney.[76]