Description:
Tan-bodied stoneware jar stamp-impressed "ORCUTT .BELDING & CO./ ASHFIELD MASS / 2" in-filled with cobalt blue and over two symmetrical, stylized blue leaves with three dots in their centers. Walter Orcutt (1799-1854) and his brother Eleazer Orcutt (b.1796), sons of Whately potter Stephen Orcutt (1777-1821), probably moved to Vermont with their family in 1817, and later worked as potters in Troy, New York, where they moved around 1823. Walter seems to have left Troy in the summer of 1824, and probably continued as a potter in NY's Hudson Valley pottery area (although his second child may have been born in Conway in 1825). Walter left NY in 1832 to return to Whately to convert the redware works owned by Thomas Crafts (1781-1861) to a stoneware pottery; he was joined by David Belding (1813-1854) of Whately, who probably trained with Thomas Crafts, and later worked with Thomas's son Martin (1807-1880) in Portland, Maine, in 1837. In 1840, Walter Orcutt was listed in the census as living in Conway, and appears in the 1847 Ashfield town records in which he is listed in partnership with Alvin Warner and taxed for a "house and store, with stock in trade worth $900 dollars." In 1848, Orcutt and Warner, "traders and co partners in trade," sold a third share of the Ashfield property ( just purchsed from the Guilford family) to Walter's nephew, John Luther Guilford, to finance building a stoneware factory. Their marks included "ORCUTT, GUILFORD & CO, / Ashfield. Mass." and "ORCUTT, GUILFORD CO." Eleazer Orcutt also worked there, and may have been a member of the firm. David Belding is reported to have returned to Whately and assumed operations of Thomas Crafts stoneware manufactury by 1840, although this is not listed in the Whately tax records. In 1842, Thomas's son James Monroe Crafts (1817-after 1899) returned from Nashua, New Hampshire, to run his father's operations, and Belding married Thomas Crafts' daughter, Triphena who died six weeks after the November wedding. In 1845, Belding married Sybil Maria Hastings Stanley, and they moved from Whately to Ashfield in 1848. David Belding joined Orcutt, and they are listed in the 1849 Ashfield tax records as "Orcutt, Belding & Co., 3 horses, stock in trader $500"; their wares were marked "ORCUTT, BELDING & CO." In 1850, Walter Orcutt sold his 2/3 share in the stoneware factory to David Belding and his brother-in-law Wellington Hastings (b.1812); the Hastings & Belding pottery operated until 1854 when Belding died and the business failed. As insolvent debtors, their 2/3 interest in the land and pottery buildings (John Luther Guildford kept his 1/3 interest) were to sold George Washington Boyden (1830-1858) who joined Staats D. Van Loon to manufacture stoneware as "VAN LOON & BOYDEN. / Ashfield, Mass"; that business failed in 1856. The jar has a flared rim defined by an incised line; curved shoulder and straight sides; C-shaped lug handles with some blue, straight sides; and a flat base; the interior is coated with Albany slip. See also HD 2008.18.7.
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