Figure 10. — Hemispherical bowls of Yorktown stoneware, discarded in the mid-18th century. 

 Found in Williamsburg. Rim diameter of both 17.15 centimeters. 



manner as were the tankards, has a pale gray bcdv 

 with a narrow band of brown mottling below the rim. 

 The other Coke bowl has a dirty greenish-gray body, 

 while the slipped band is a heavy purplish-brown with 

 little mottling. The entire bowl is too heavily salted, 

 an infirmity which often may have afflicted these 

 pieces. A fragment of a slightly smaller and even 

 more heavily salted bowl was found in 1961 by Mrs. 

 P. G. Harrison in her flower bed at Yorktown,' ' thus 

 seeming to confirm the Yorktown origin of the Coke 

 bowls. 



There is no doubt that bottles and jars, some of 

 considerable size, were among the Yorktown factory's 

 principal products, but this does not mean necessarily 

 that all such items found in the vicinity of Yorktown 

 or Williamsburg are Rogers' pieces. Just as the tavern 

 tankards were copies of English mugs, so the bottles 

 and jars had their prototypes among the wares of 

 English, brown-stoneware potters. The difference is 

 simply that the kitchen vessels have rarely attracted 

 the attention of collectors and therefore are poorly 

 represented in English museums. Consec|uently we 

 have little opportunity to study them and to determine 

 how such pieces differ from those made at Yorktown. 

 At this stage it is possible to be sure only of the 



Virginia origin of those examples whose clay is clearly 

 of the local variety. Such an identification can be 

 made only when the piece is markedly underbred and 

 retains the coloring and impurities characteristic of 

 earthenwares of proven Virginia manufacture. For- 

 tunately, the large bottles are small mouthed and 

 neither slipped nor glazed on the inside, thus ensuring 

 that, if the piece is underfired the earthenware 

 characteristics will be readily discernible. Fragments 

 of underfired stone ware bottles were among the most 

 common sherds recovered from the colonial roadway 

 at Yorktown, providing invaluable evidence to aid tin 

 identification of the Rogers stoneware body compo- 

 sition and color. It must be reiterated, however, that 

 this guide is confined to underfired products and that 

 those correctly burned cannot be distinguished as yet 

 from others of English manufacture. 



The globular bottle shown in figure 1 1 is underfired 

 and consequently not a true "stoneware," but from 

 the outside it bears all the characteristics of .i good 

 quality product. This undoubtedly local and almost 

 certainly Yorktown example was found on the John 

 Coke site in Williamsburg T6 in a context of about 

 1765. The body is evenly potted, the cordoning 

 below the mouth neatl) tooled, and the broad strap 



« Colonial Williamsburg, cat. no. 191 !. « E.R. 157G.27A (also I59A, L65A, 17;. and 173A 



PAPER 54: THE "POOR POTTER" OF YORKTOWN 9/ 



