Description:
Tan-bodied stoneware jug stamp-impressed "D BELDING / WHATELY / 3" in-filled with blue, over two large and one small blue flower. David Belding (1813-1854) of Whately probably trained with Thomas Crafts (1781-1761), and returned to Whately in 1832 to join Walter Orcutt (1799-1854) in converting Thomas Crafts' redware works to a stoneware pottery. In 1837, Belding worked with Thomas's son Martin (1807-1880) in Portland, Maine. 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. In 1849, David Belding joined Walter Orcutt in Ashfield, where Orcutt and Alvin Warner, "traders and co partners in trade," had sold a third share of their 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." After Belding joined, they were 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 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 jug has a round lip; tooled line around the neck just below the lip; sloping shoulders and straight sides; applied coil handle extending from the lip to the shoulder; and beveled base with rows of incised grooves. The salt glaze is of a medium thickness; the interior is covered with Albany slip. There is a thick glaze drip on the piece from the kiln roof; and a.mark on the side of the jug from other pottery in the kiln touching. The potter seems to have wiped off chocolate-colored Albany slip from jug surface.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+79.035 |
