was filed in 1741 (none having been sent in 1740). 

 In it he stated : 



The poor potter is Dead, and the business of making 

 potts & panns, is of little advantage to his Family, and 

 as little Damage to the Trade of our Mother Country. 34 



There is little question now that this William Rogers 

 was, indeed, the "poor potter." We also learn from 

 this report that the business was being continued by 

 his family after his death. This is confirmed by a 

 number of documentary clues, the first of which 

 occurs in an indenture of 1741 (proved in 1743 in 

 the York County Deeds). It begins: 



I George Rogers of Bra[i]ntree in the County of Essex 

 [England] coller Maker Send Greeting. Whereas 

 William Rogers late of Virginia Merch' was in his life 

 time younger brother to me the said George Rogers and 

 at the time of his death left an Estate to his only son 

 named William Rogers which s d last mentioned William 

 Rogers dyed lately intestate so that in right of Law the 

 said Estate is devolved & come unto me .... 



This document served to appoint "Thomas Reynolds 

 of London Mariner" as his attorney and to assign 

 to him all his rights in the estate. 35 



We hear no further of George, suggesting that his 

 claim on the estate was settled permanently, but of 

 Thomas Reynolds we learn a good deal. On June 6, 

 1737, as captain of the ship Braxton of London, he 

 arrived at Yorktown from Boston "where she was 

 lately built." He brought from New England a cargo 

 of 80,000 bricks, "Trayn Oyl," woodenware, and 

 hops."' It was he who had married Susanna Rogers. 37 



He sailed to Bristol on September 30, 1737, perhaps 

 to sell or deliver his new ship in England. In any 

 case, he returned from London the following April 

 as master of the ship Maynard. He made several 

 crossings in her until he docked her at London on 

 October 10, 1739. :,s While there he must have 

 learned of the death of his father-in-law; whether for 

 this reason or some other, his name was no longer 



31 Library of Congress Transcripts, op. cit. (footnote 12), vol. 

 1325, p. 83. 



33 York County Records, Book 5: Deeds, 1741-1754, p. 64. 



3ti Virginia Gazette microfilm, op. cit. (footnote 41 J, reel 1 

 (June 17, 1757). 



" Tyler 1 s Quarterly (Richmond, Va., 1922), vol. :i, p. 296. 



38 Virginia Gazelle microfilm, op. cit. (footnote 28), reel 1 

 (Sept. 30, 1737; April 17, 1738; June 23, 1738; July 7, 1738; 

 April 20, 1739;July 13, 1 739 ; Aug. 24, 1739; January 25, 1740). 



listed among those of shipmasters arriving at and 

 leaving Yorktown. Since he then would have been 

 in effect the head of the family, he probably gave up 

 the sea and settled in Yorktown to manage William 

 Rogers" enterprises, because William, Jr., — intended 

 to take over the principal family properties upon his 

 coming of age — died within about a year of his 

 father's death. Reynolds, both on his own account 

 as Susanna's husband and as attorney for George 

 Rogers, logically would have succeeded to proprietor- 

 ship. In any case, by 1745 he was established so 

 successfully at Yorktown that he was made a justice of 

 the peace. At some point he went into partnership 

 with a Captain Charles Seabrook in a mercantile 

 venture that involved ownership of the ocean sloop 

 Judith and two "country cutters" named York and 

 E/tham. 39 



Reynolds lived next to the Swan Tavern in York- 

 town and was characterized by Courtenay Norton, 

 wife of the merchant John Norton, as having "shone 

 in the World in Righteousness." 40 He died in 1758 

 or 1759. 



That the pottery was being operated, presumably 

 by Reynolds, at least until 1745 is evident from an 

 advertisement by Frances Webb of Williamsburg in 

 the Virginia Gazette for June 20, 1 745. This called 

 attention to "all Sorts of Rogers' Earthenware as cheap 

 as at York." And, although we have no assurance 

 that the earthenware was made at the Rogers pottery, 

 we learn from the Gazette that two days prior to this 

 the sloop Nancy had sailed from Yorktown for Mary- 

 land, bearing a "Parcel of Earthenware." 41 



How long the pottery may have flourished is not 

 known. There is no further mention of it after 1745, 

 and the shipping records do not suggest that earthen- 

 ware or stoneware products were then being shipped 

 out of York River. 



The most significant fact about the "poor potter" is 

 the revelation that he made stoneware. Stoneware 

 manufacture is a sophisticated art, requirinsi special 

 clays, high-temperature firing, and the ability to use 

 salt in glazing. When William Rogers acquired his 

 first lots in Yorktown in 1711 no stoneware, so far as 



3« "Reynolds and Rogers," WMQ 1 (1905), vol. 1 $, pp. 128, 

 129. 



111 John Norton S Sons, Merchants of London ami Virginia, edit, 

 Frances Norton Mason (Richmond, Va.: Dietz, 1937 1, p. 518. 



«i Virginia Gazette microfilm (Parks' Virginia Gazette, June 

 20 and July 4, 174:.); 1. Noel Hume, Part II. p. 110. 



PAPER 54: THE POOR POTTER OF YORKTOWN 



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