Figure 3. — Pint and quart mugs of 

 brown salt-glazed stoneware made 

 for the Swan Tavern at Yorktown. 

 Each mug is decorated with an 

 applied swan in high relief. 



The conditions of firing at the Williamsburg Pottery, 

 however, are somewhat different from those that 

 would have prevailed in the 18th century. Mr. 

 Maloney's kiln is fired by oil rather than wood, so that 

 the localized variations of color resulting from the 

 reducing effects of wood smoke have been eliminated. 

 In addition, Mr. Maloney's pots are fired without the 

 use of saggers, thus providing more uniform atmos- 

 pheric and salting conditions than would have been 

 possible with the 18th-century method of stacking the 

 kilns. 

 The Yorktown mugs were hand thrown, but a 



template was used to shape the ornamental cordon- 

 ing. It was first assumed that a single template had 

 served to fashion both the cordons at the base and the 

 groove below the lip. We had such a tool made of 

 aluminum, copying the Challis mug's ornament, and 

 proportionately enlarged to allow for shrinkage in fir- 

 ing. But in using this template Mr. Maloney dis- 

 covered that it was impossible to shape the whole 

 exterior of the vessel in one movement without the 

 tools '"chattering" against the wall. Since none of the 

 Yorktown sherds nor, indeed, any of the brown- 

 stoneware mugs I have studied in England exhibit 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



I am indebted to Colonial Williamsburg for helping to 

 subsidize the preparation of this paper and for permission 

 to illustrate specimens from its archeological collections; 

 also to J. Paul Hudson, National Park Service curator at 

 Jamestown for similar facilities; as well as to Charles E. 

 Hatch, senior National Park Service historian at York- 

 town, for access to various archeological reports in his 

 library. 



I am particularly grateful to James E. Maloney of the 

 Williamsburg Pottery for the immense amount of work 

 which he so generously undertook not only to reproduce 

 copies of the Yorktown products but also to recreate the 

 wasters as well, thus providing information regarding 

 the colonial technical processes that could not have been 

 obtained in any other way. I am also grateful to Joseph 



Grace, Colonial Williamsburg's watchmaker and en- 

 graver who made an accurate copy of the unofficial 

 excise stamp used on Rogers' mugs, and to my seen tai ; 

 Lynn Hill, who toiled long and hard to bring order 

 into this report. 



I am further indebted to Wilcomb E. Washburn, 

 Chairman, Department of American Studies, at the 

 Smithsonian Institution, who first drew my attention 

 to the artifacts in front of the Dudley Digges House; 

 and to my wife Audrey, to John Dunton and William 

 Hammes, all of Colonial Williamsburg's department of 

 archeology, who through the years have helped collect 

 ceramic evidence from Yorktown. 



I.N.H. 



PAPER 54: THE POOR POTTER OF YORKTOWN 



93 



