Description:
Thrown, grey-bodied stoneware water cooler stamp-impressed "P.CROSS / HARTFORD" within a wreath on one side in-filed with cobalt blue; a scratch floral sprig in-filled with cobalt blue on the other side over a slightly damaged bunghole or spigot; two large lug handles with smeared cobalt blue where attached; and some damage on the sides. These semi-ovoid or barrel-shaped vessels had a bunghole at the base and open top or, if covered, a filling hole; and were used to hold water, hard cider, beer, or in smaller sized, hard liquor. Around 1800, the Hartford-area potters began to shift from the production of red earthenware to stoneware; improved transportation networks made it possible to import clays needed for stoneware from the Amboy area of New Jersey. Much of the information on Cross has come from Lura Woodside Watkins, "Early New England Potters and their Wares." Peter Cross operated one of the earliest stoneware kilns in Hartford between 1806 and 1808. Cross bought his first property from John Souter in 1805, and eventually operated two locations on Front Street. Horace Goodwin (1781-1850) and McCloud Webster (1783-1857) purchased one of Cross's Hartford locations in 1808; and the second was bought by two retired sea captains, George Benton and Levi Stewart, and managed by Daniel Goodale until he and Absalom Stedman bought it in 1822. However, new research by Brandt Zipp of Crocker Farm Auctions has located newspaper evidence that stoneware production at Cross's pottery did not start production until 1806, and that Cross had a partner in the business, Samuel W. Smith, who dissolved their co-partnership early in 1806 as found in the "American Mercury" issue of March 27, 1806. The partnership of Cross and Smith is previously unknown, and no pieces, to Zipp's knowledge, exist with their marks. Samuel W. Smith is a previously unknown potter, but it is likely he may have been a relative of prolific Norwalk, Connecticut, potter Asa E. Smith, whose work exists bearing many different maker's marks. Cross's attempt to operate his own shop ended shortly in 1808. On November 17, 1808, the "American Mercury" ran an ad that the potters Goodwin and Webster had taken over Cross' pottery. Zipp believes that Cross may have ceased production after this date due to the paucity of marked stoneware bearing his name - in contradiction to Lura Woodside Watkins' assertion that he operated a stoneware pottery until 1818. Watkin's book contains no citations or evidence to prove Cross's continuing efforts in stoneware production, and no city directories for Hartford exist for 1800-1824. Interestingly, a stoneware jug stamp-impressed "P.CROSS / HARTFORD" was found in 1970 in a shipwreck just inland from Charleston, South Carolina, in the west branch of the Cooper River just off-shore from Mepkin Abbey, which had once been the Mepkin Plantation. The vessel, which was probably made in the South Carolina or Georgia low country based on timber analysis, was likely a working vessel for the plantation, carrying everything from people to lumber and transporting goods between the plantation and Charleston. Its main cargo seemed to be planks, but divers also recovered 11 ceramic jugs, 2 three-piece-mold bottles and 2 hammers. It has been suggested that the large number of jugs may have been used for drinking water. Two of the other jugs was stamped "SWAINE" for Robert and Thomas Swaine of Sutton Heath, England, who were making brown and black stoneware between 1825-1846, suggesting that the vessel sank sometime after 1825.
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