30 
House & Garden 
A m e r ic an Rockingham 
ware of 1850 is illustrated 
in the mottled brown and 
yellow hound-handle pitch¬ 
er to the right, the dog and 
Swan Hill pitcher 
EARLY AMERICAN HOUSEHOLD POTTERY 
The Lead Glazed Earthenware of Post-Revolutionary Days Affords 
a Pleasant Hobby for the Collector 
M. HOLDEN 
E ARLY American household 
earthenware, fashioned on the 
potter’s wheel, glazed with lead, 
sun dried or fire burnt, represents the 
extent of the product, skill and craft 
of the early potters of America, from 
whose hands they passed into the homes 
of this land, serving well the humble 
purpose for which they were made. 
Now after years of faithful service, 
such examples as are extant have come 
to be sought by the collector who has an 
eye for their unassuming beauty of 
color and form, and also for the story 
they tell. 
Common household utensils of clay 
they are, but they “tell a tale of early 
days and of things as they used to be”. 
They tell of the homes of the colonist 
in early Colonial days. They tell of 
the pioneers and early settlers who 
Early American Dutch pottery is found in the Hudson 
River valley and adjacent counties of New Jersey and Con¬ 
necticut. These examples have a black glaze 
built new homes, ever westward from i 
the sea, all over this land; and to me 
they tell of the old farm home where 
pottery utensils such as these were used 
in grandmother’s time,—row upon row 
of preserve jars on the shelves in the 
cellar, milk pans on the old bench on 
the stoop, pie-plates and bacon-platters 
in the kitchen cupboard,—and in the 
evening when the snow drifted deeper 
outside and the log fire burned higher 
inside, there on the dining table (a 
table set for twelve) would be the 
earthenware pitcher filled with cider, 
and the bowls of apples, while the 
shadows that danced on the log cabin 
walls were surely those of good cheer. 
Earthenware household utensils were 
needed most and largely used in the 
farm homes from the earliest Colonial 
times until the Civil War. They were 
A horse and hounds 
design in Rocking¬ 
ham ware 
These examples of early Pennsylvania pottery show two of many types made The 
flower pot and two plates on either side of it are sgraffito ware or mersed pottery. 
The others are slip ware, so called from the type of glaze 
Washington is pic¬ 
tured on this Rock¬ 
ingham pitcher 
The three pigs are of early Marne pottery, the balance are from the 
pottery of Jeremiah Burpee. The milk bowl to the left is mottled 
green slip ware and the other of yellow slip 
This group is of early American Dutch ware—pie plates with inscrip 
tions, a bacon dish with zigzag decorations, jelly moulds and an appl 
bowl, all representative of the kind and period 
