Under the conditions in which these pipes were retrieved it is obvious that the numbers of the different forms located give little indication of the relative numbers of the different styles that were manufactured, the popularity of the various styles, or the relative time of their manufacture.
Nearly all of the pipes examined were retrieved by excavation, by people who simply happened to become interested; this is equally true whether the pipes had been made by the factory and excavated out of fill on the old factory grounds, or whether they were made at the homes and excavated from the basement of the old Thornton Store, which through the years had taken them in trade for merchandise.
In some cases among the pipes examined there were not more than one, or a few, examples of a certain form. In other cases there were hundreds. Among the examples available to us there was generally little variation in size within the same form. We have illustrated the largest and the smallest, since this also gives an opportunity to note minor variations that may exist between different molds for the same pipe form. However, a rather wide variation in size was present in that shown as ([Plate 13] A), the “Original” Powhatan, where a total of 12 gradations from largest to smallest were found.
The predominant color of the pipes is dark red. A lighter color is infrequently present, running from almost yellow, to salmon, to light brown. The very dark, almost black coloration of some is said to come either from minerals present in the soil of this area, to which the pipes presented here had been subjected since nearly all had been many years underground, or from actual fire that had fallen into the saggers of the Company kiln, or the iron pots in which the pipes had been fired in the home industry.
During the last years of factory operation “some white clay from either West Virginia or Kentucky was shipped in by railroad”. This resulted in pipes of a lighter color, at times light grey to white. Apparently no pipes made from this particular clay were seen by us, except possibly those illustrated in [Plate 23] AJ.
THE HOME PIPEMAKING INDUSTRY
Well established local tradition indicates that clay pipemaking in the homes, for home and neighborhood use, started almost as soon as the first settlers reached the area, and after the suitability of the local clay was discovered. Initial county organization in this part of Virginia was well underway by the 1740’s.
Bradshaw’s History of Prince Edward County, Virginia, 1955, p. 5 states, Batho Austin road to be cleared from the Appomattox River near Colonel Richard Randolph’s quarter to Hill’s Fork on Vaughan’s Creek by all who lived near the route and were not employed on other roads. 1742.
Vernon C. Womack, Clerk of the Circuit Court, Prince Edward County, in a personal letter states, “Since the south fork of Vaughan’s Creek originates a short distance from where the pipe factory was later located in Pamplin, this might be the starting point. John Wood’s map of Prince Edward County, dated 1820 which shows that part that was later cut off to form Appomattox County, gives a detail network of roads through Kelso’s Old Store, which appears to be near the present location of Pamplin.”
There were stores at Sandy River, Wm. and Samuel Matthew had a store at Walker’s Church, and Kelso’s Old Store was between Walker’s Church and Merriman’s Shop (now Pamplin).” The statement is footnoted John Wood map, 1820. (Bradshaw, 1955:319).