tobacco-pipe fragments present might support the 

 latter construction but the dearth of wine-bottle 

 pieces does not. Numerous fragments of English delft- 

 ware were found scattered through the filling from 

 top to bottom, most of them in very poor condition. 

 While none of the pieces was of particularly good 

 quality, a medium-sized basin with crude chinoiserie 

 decoration in blue, is of some importance. The vessel 

 (fig. 15, no. 1) is of a form that is extremely rare from 

 the 17th century, but which clearly was the ornamen- 

 tal ancestor of the common washbasins of the 18th 

 century. 21 



In marked, and even staggering contrast to the 

 assemblage of cheap and utilitarian earthenware, was 

 the presence of a massive lead-glass stem from a 

 "ceremonial" drinking glass or candlestick, a form 

 undoubtedly made in London in the period 1685-1695 

 (fig. 10). Although the double-quatrefoil stem units 

 and central melon knop are paralleled by existing 

 glasses, the heavily gadrooned foot is seemingly 

 unknown. This last feature gives the foot such weight 

 that it has led Mr. R. J. Charleston, Keeper of 

 Ceramics at the Victoria and Albert Museum in Lon- 

 don, to suggest that the stem may come from a 

 candlestick (fig. 11) rather than from a large, covered 

 glass. However, no parallels for such a candlestick 

 are known. 



One might be tempted to believe that a glass candle- 

 stick would be more likely to have been brought to 

 17th-century Virginia than would a seemingly preten- 

 tious, covered, "ceremonial" drinking-glass. But in 

 1732, Thomas Jones 22 of Williamsburg made a settle- 

 ment upon his wife in case of his death, and among the 

 possessions listed were "6 glass decanters, 6 glasses 

 with covers . . . ." 23 Covered glasses ceased to be 

 popular after about 1720 when fashions in glass were 

 turning from the icy sparkle of mass towards more 

 delicate and lighter designs. It is possible, therefore, 

 that the Jones' glass might have been of the general 



21 Rosewell, fig. 26, nos. 1-4. 



22 Thomas Jones was the younger brother of Frederick Jones, 

 whose James City County home site at Tutter's Neck was ex- 

 cavated in 1961. See Ivor Noel Hume. "Excavations at 

 Tutter's Neck in James City County, Virginia, 1960-1961" 

 (paper 53 in Contributions from the Mum urn oj History and Techm logy; 

 U.S. National Museum Bulletin 249 ; Washington: Smithsonian 

 Institution), 1965, fig. 20, no. 8. Hereafter cited as Tutter's 

 . V/c /.. A fragment of a lead-glass gadrooned Romer of the same 

 period as the Clay Bank stem was found on the Tutter's Neck 

 site. 



23 Mary Stephenson, "Cocke-Jones Lots, Block 31" (MS., 

 Research Dept., Colonial Williamsburg. Virginia. 1961), p. 6. 



type indicated by the Clay Bank stem. But be this as 

 it may, there is no doubt that the excavated stem is 

 the finest piece of glass of its period yet discovered in 

 America, and that it is sufficiently important to be 

 able to add a paragraph to the history of English glass. 



Other glass objects included the powdered remains 

 of a small quatrefoil-stemmed wineglass, a form 

 common in the period 1680-1 700. 2i Like so many 

 glasses of its type, the metal was singularly imperma- 

 nent when buried in the ground, and little or nothing 

 could be salvaged of it. Also present were fragments 

 of at least seven wine bottles of the short-necked, 

 squat-bodied forms of the late 17th century, as well as 

 one fragment of a short-necked and everted-mouthed 

 case bottle. A few fragments of cylindrical phar- 

 maceutical bottles were also found as was a well- 

 preserved bottle of similar metal but in wine-bottle 

 shape (fig. 9 and fig. 15, no. 19). Such bottles are 

 thought to have been used for oils and essences, and 

 their manufacture seems to have been confined to the 

 period about 1680-1720. 



Tobacco-pipe fragments (fig. 16) were plentiful 

 throughout the cellar fill and provided a useful range 

 of bowl forms as well as a key to the dating of the 

 deposit. All the bowls were of types common in the 

 last years of the 17th century, a period in which the 

 two English bowl styles of the second half of the cen- 

 tury (one evolving with a spur and the other with a 

 heel) merged together into the single spurred form 

 of the 18th century. 25 In addition, the Clay Bank 

 cellar contained examples of bowls with neither heel 

 nor spur, a style never popular in England, and which 

 seems to have been developed specifically for the 

 American market initially copying the shape favored 

 by the Indians. 



No fewer than 648 stem fragments were recovered 

 from the cellar and their stem-hole diameters, using 

 J. C. Harrington's chart, 26 indicated a manufacture 

 date in the period 1680-1710. Because pipes arc- 

 considered to have had a short life, it is generally 

 assumed that the dates of manufacture and deposi- 

 tion are not far apart. Other artifacts from the 



21 Tutter's Neck, fig. 17, no. 1": also 1. Noel Hume, "Some 

 English Glass from Colonial Virginia," Antiques (July 1 

 vol. 84 no. 1, p. 69, figs. 4 and 5. 



•s Ivor Noel Hume, lien- Lies Virginia (New York: Knopf, 

 1963), fig. 105. 



-'• J. C. Harrington, "Dating Stem Fragments of S 

 teenth and Eighteenth Century Clay Tobacco Pipes," Archeo- 

 logical Society of Virginia, Quarterly Bulletin (September l' 1 

 vol. 9, no. 1. 



PAPER 52: EXCAVATIONS AT CLAY BANK 



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