River provided important transportation hub for domestic and European an
imports in the late seventeenth,
But Marshalls legacy may be the most exceptional today since he operated in a period of uncertainty, conflict and constant change.
eighteenth and nineteenth Samuel Marshall
centuries. Portsmouth, N.H., Pottery especially was a target for boats Samuel Marshall (no unloading crates of European record of birth, d. 1749) was ceramics, red earthenware and an eighteenth-century utilitarian stoneware. red earthenware potter, active c. 1729- Archaeological work in 1749. He may have apprenticed in Portsmouth in the last 50 years Massachusetts, and he may have also has uncovered pieces of English have run a pottery prior to 1729. earthenware, English slipware, State records show that Marshall English stoneware, European purchased a piece of waterfront property delftware, German stoneware and in Portsmouth in 1736. The land was Chinese porcelain: Clear evidence conveniently located next to an inlet that these were among the types from the Piscataqua River. In 1736, of imported ceramics unloaded Marshall married Eleanor Sherburne, at the docks in Portsmouth in the and the couple used their lot of land eighteenth century. Evidently, local to build a Georgian-style home. This homes enjoyed European-made is where Marshall likely dug clay, and pottery, particularly before the manufactured red earthenware. American Revolution. The inlet in front of Marshalls home Domestic red earthenware from was where he owned a dock, a warehouse Maine, Massachusetts and New and a gundalow, a flat-bottomed cargo Hampshire has also been recovered vessel up to 70 feet long, that was from eighteenth- and nineteenth- common in New England coastal waters, century sites in Portsmouth. But the and well suited to carrying pottery. only identifiable domestic stoneware Marshall operated his potters business appears to have been imported next to Puddle Dock in Portsmouth as early from Charlestown, Mass. in the late as 1736. His shop was located on property eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. now owned by Strawbery Banke that Despite its thriving import trade, was excavated by archaeologists in the Portsmouth also managed to sustain 1970s. The recovered artifacts included a market for locally produced red lead-glazed red earthenware sherds, earthenware. At least four businesses some decorated with slip-decoration, fed this market: Samuel Marshall, who kiln wasters, kiln furniture and kiln bricks. operated before 1750; John Shilabur, Archaeological evidence also shows that who is listed as a potter in 1766; Marshall produced simple utilitarian Winthrop Bennett, who ran a shop from kitchenware for the local market such 1789-1796; and Joseph Dodge, who Slip-decorated mug recovered in Charlestown, Mass. Found as bowls, crocks, chamber pots, jars, purchased Bennetts company in 1796, in an early to mid-18th-century privy at the site of the Three mugs and pans. and continued to operate a successful Cranes Tavern. The slip is similar to that on the mug found in Portsmouth. Courtesy of Boston Archaeology Department. Samuel Marshall owned African business into the nineteenth century. American slaves, whose involvement
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in the pottery is recorded in the There was clearly a brisk book, Black Portsmouth: Three domestic trade in pottery: Red Centuries of African-American earthenware made at the Daniel Heritage. Adam and Mercer were Bayley Pottery Company in slaves of Samuel Marshall who Newburyport, Mass. has also been worked in the pottery. They dug discovered in colonial contexts in and weathered the clay; they Maine and Canada. milled and kneaded the clay; they The pottery did not close when made the glaze; they stacked the Samuel Marshall died in 1749. kiln; they stoked the fire for the Instead, it appears that his wife, kiln; and in addition to all this Eleanor temporarily continued manual labor, they turned pots on with the business. She is recorded the wheel themselves. in John Parkers daybook in the According to Lura Woodside early 1750s purchasing orders Watkins in Early New England of earthenware. Another widow Potters and Their Wares, There is who kept a pottery running after evidence to show that Marshall was her husbands death was Grace a wholesale dealer in pottery and Parker in Charlestown: When her perhaps did a shipping business, husband died in 1742, she ran the Chamber pot recovered at the site of Samuel Marshalls Pottery sending out consignments along Parker Pottery until she died in in Portsmouth, N.H., 1736-1749. Courtesy of Strawbery Banke the coast. 1754. Archaeology Department. Likewise, Marshall also purchased red earthenware An important mug found wholesale from John Parker in in Portsmouth Charlestown in the late 1740s. To my knowledge, there has This information is recorded in not been any red earthenware Parkers potters daybook, which properly attributed to Samuel is owned by the Baker Library Marshall except what has been at Harvard University. However, recovered archaeologically. Marshall may have also imported The most hopeful candidate is Charlestown red earthenware probably a slip-decorated mug, earlier in his career, as well since which was discovered filled with archaeologists have recovered dried paintbrushes by Portsmouth Charlestown pottery as early as antiques dealer, Hollis Brodrick, a 1715-1735 in Portsmouth. The in the 1970s, in a shed just a few Charlestown pottery that Marshall hundred yards from Marshalls bought from Parker was shipped pottery. Slip-decorated Charlestown, Mass, porringer with an unusual to Portsmouth but was probably This mug is an important handle. Recovered in a 1715-1735 archaeological context on Deer sold all over the region (detailed Street in Portsmouth, N.H. This unusual form and slip decoration survivor whose slip technique is records do not exist). has been found in Charlestown. Courtesy of Strawbery Banke similar to that found on a pair of Archaeology Department. From what I have studied, red earthenware mugs that may Charlestown red earthenware have been made at the Parker has not been recovered in great Pottery, which were recovered quantity in Portsmouth, but it has from an early to mid-eighteenth- been found at colonial military century privy at the Three Cranes forts in Maine and Canada. Marshall Tavern in Charlestown. The form may have acted as a broker for of the mug is also similar to Parker, and helped fulfill some that of mugs recovered both in of the utilitarian pottery needs Charlestown and at the site of the at military forts in northern New Marshall Pottery. England and Canada. Marshall may have been For example, a wonderful influenced by English predecessors: Charlestown red earthenware The mug shares characteristics with chamber pot was recovered at the pottery produced in Staffordshire, Fortress of Louisbourg in Nova England, and also by John Astbury Scotia that dated to 1755-1760, in England in the early to mid- only a few years after Marshall eighteenth century. purchased wholesale orders of This mug may possibly red earthenware from Parker. represent what is left from Samuel Charlestown red earthenware Marshall today, and certainly sherds have also been recovered in speaks for the export/import a mid-eighteenth-century context Charlestown, Mass., chamber pot recovered at the Fortress of business between John Parker and Louisbourg in Nova Scotia. Found in a 1755-1760 archaeological at a tavern in Berwick, Maine. the Marshalls. context. Decoration is similar to pots from the Parker Pottery in Charlestown. Courtesy of Fortress of Louisbourg/Parks Canada.
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Samuel Marshalls legacy Philadelphia, but family members eventually Marshall was literally a pioneer potter in Samuel Marshall was a landmark potter. He branched out into South Carolina and New Hampshire. His early intuition that there had the foresight to establish the first known Charlestown, Mass. was a market for local pottery helped spark a American pottery in Portsmouth, which had There is documentary evidence of the fire that would ultimately spread throughout previously been dominated by English and coastal trade between Charlestown and New Hampshire. There always has to be a first European imports. Portsmouth, so it is quite feasible that the trade for others to follow, and Marshall was a leader There is informed speculation, but no extended south to Philadelphia. In some ways, in that first generation of New England potters proof, that Samuel Marshall, the Parkers and the Marshall Pottery could be considered as an who challenged the import trade by meeting the Duches in Philadelphia were all involved extension of the Charlestown, Mass., pottery local needs with local products. in an inter-coastal trade. The Duches were industry: An expansion that occurred as early a prominent family of potters based in as the 1720s.
Slip-decorated mug found in a
shed in Portsmouth, N.H., in the 1970s. The decoration appears to imitate known early to mid- The site of the Samuel Marshall Pottery in Mugs recovered at the site of the Samuel Marshall Pottery in 18th-century styles. Probably Portsmouth, N.H., 1736-1749, as it appears Portsmouth, N.H., c. 1736-1749. Charlestown, Mass., 1730-1760. today. Courtesy author. Courtesy Strawbery Banke Archaeology Department. Courtesy of Hollis Brodrick.
Story Behind Smithsonian Ashleys Sack Uncovered by CWU Professor
ELLENSBURG, WA For almost a were recently published in the article decade, a slavery-era artifact known as Slaverys Traces: In Search of Ashleys Ashleys Sack has intrigued historians Sack, in the noted academic journal unable to identify Ashley the girls Southern Spaces. name preserved in needlework. The original object was found The Smithsonian, where the sack in 2007 at a flea market in the small is on display, may now attribute the town of Springfield, Tenn. Little was recent discovery of Ashleys identity known of its history, but it gained to Central Washington University great attention by historians and Professor Mark Auslander. academics. Even less was known Auslander, who teaches in the about the females listed on the sack. department of anthropology and Ruth Middleton created the museum studies and is director for the embroidered sack in 1921. In museum of culture and environment needlepoint lettering, Middleton spent the last year researching the presented an account of her familys lineage of the three women whose legacy. She traced the story of 9-year- names were needle-worked into the old Ashley, who was born a slave, cloth. Research led him to North being sold to another owner, and Carolina and Philadelphia where how Ashleys mother, Rose, provided he searched slave, court and estate her with simple yet meaningful records, as well as early bank and family keepsakes. Ashley was Ruths census data. grandmother. Since its rediscovery, The object has become a kind the sack is now considered a lasting of obsession for me during this past legacy of slavery and the resilience of year, said Auslander. His findings families to keep connected.
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