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

Figure 17.—A pair of brown lead-glazed local earthenware funnels, paralleled by a fragment from Yorktown, discarded in the mid-18th century. Found in Williamsburg. Rim diameters: left, 18.25 centimeters; right, 18.42 centimeters.

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

The Earthenwares

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

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

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