Figure 36. — Detail from De Bry's engraving of Le 

 Moyne's painting of Fort Caroline, depicting an 

 oven on a raised platform under a crude shed. 

 Fort Caroline was a French Hugenot settlement 

 established in Florida in 1564. Rare Book Room, 

 Library of Congress. 



the gravel-tempered ware occasionally is found with a 

 plain coating- of slip, which, under the glaze, has the 

 same yellow color as the sgraffito ware, while an un- 

 decorated variant of the sgraffito ware also occurs 

 with a similar plain slip. 



All these wares, including the ovens, are interre- 

 lated — the specimens found in America having been 

 shipped in a busy North Devon-North American trade. 

 The North Devon towns, moreover, were an important 

 pottery-making center for export markets in the West 

 of England, Ireland, and North America. Thousands 

 of parcels of earthenware were shipped to the Ameri- 

 can colonies from Bideford and Barnstaple during the 

 17th century. Any doubts that ovens were among 

 these overseas shipments are dispelled by the knowl- 

 edge that they continually were being shipped in the 

 English coastwise trade, and also by intrinsic and 

 comparative evidence that o\en sherds found on 

 American sites are of North Devon origin. 



The only known counterparts of the North Devon 

 ovens are Continental. A 1 5th-century example ap- 

 pears in an Augsburg woodcut, and a 16th-century 

 specimen is depicted in De Bry's engra\ing after Le 



Moyne's painting of Fort Caroline, the Huguenot 

 settlement in Florida. There are many suggestions 

 of Huguenot and Low Country influences on North 

 Devon pottery. Bideford and Barnstaple both were 

 Puritan strongholds in the 17th century, and both 

 became Freiich Huguenot centers, especially after 

 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. 



The style of sgraffito decoration changed radically 

 after about 1700. After that date, decoration was 

 confined mainly to harvest jugs and presentation 

 pieces. Gravel-tempered utensils and ovens continued 

 to be made, but the North Devon trade with America 

 ceased by 1760. 



Archeological evidence indicates that gravel-tem- 

 pered ware was used in America between about 1675 

 and about 1760. An isolated example of sgraffito 

 pottery, distinguished by crude design and glaze, 

 dates from before 1640. The typical sgraffito ware 

 is illustrated lay specimens found in the fill under and 

 around the brick drain in the May-Hartwell site at 

 Jamestown. This ware dates between 1677 and 16')5. 

 No other sites provide a more certain dating than this. 

 Sgraffito ware found at Bridge's Creek, Mrginia (John 



58 



BULLETIN 225: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



