Kilns Gone Wrong

Earthenware separating bars, Piercy Pottery site. Courtesy, Alexandria Archaeology Museum

There are archaeological sites where evidence of the production of stoneware and earthenware are found. Often these sites are called "transitional" with the implication that the potters were moving from working with earthenware to stoneware. However, my thoughts are that many of the potters, particularly in regions with less potters, or with higher levels of competition, met the market demands by making both either simultaneously or attempting to make both at some point in their production. For example, the William Rogers site in Yorktown, Virginia was making both stoneware and earthenware. There are certainly numerous sites where the potters did in fact move from earthenware to stoneware, such as the Thompson potters in Morgantown, West Virginia (on which topic I highly recommend an article on these potters in the 2011 Ceramics in America).

REALLY overfired bar used on the top of a jug -- the ring in the middle was the top of a jug! Piercy Pottery site. Courtesy, Alexandria Archaeology Museum

Closeup of the melted bar. Piercy Pottery site. Courtesy, Alexandria Archaeology Museum

The (nerdy) humorous thing is to see archaeological evidence that potters who may have been more familiar with one material (i.e. earthenware), may not have been familiar with the other (i.e. stoneware). Which explains why sometimes you read about potters being brought in for their expertise in one material or another. For example, when I was recently at the Alexandria Archaeology Museum, I saw a collection from the Piercy Pottery site. This was primarily an earthenware production site, but there was some evidence of stoneware production as well. I should say that there is speculation that because the amount of stoneware wasters are so low, the attempts at stoneware production were made in the late 18th-century when the site was rented by another potter who went on to make both earthenware and stoneware. Either way, the wasters revealed that at some point their stoneware attempts went horribly wrong! The stoneware separator bars they made are also some of the thickest bars I have seen yet, which is not surprising after seeing their earthenware separator bars (first photo at top). 

On left, bisque stoneware separator bar and fired salted separator bar on right. Piercy Pottery site. Courtesy, Alexandria Archaeology Museum

Their method of stacking the stoneware pottery seems more precarious, too. Typically, one wants to balance the weight of the pieces over another, placing rims, bases, and other points of weight on top of each other.

Bar adhered to base of jar, with indentation showing where the rim of another jar rested during firing. Piercy Pottery site. Courtesy, Alexandria Archaeology Museum

How the base of the jar rested above the rim of the other vessel-- off center! Piercy Pottery site. Courtesy, Alexandria Archaeology Museum

I said that this was humorous because I reflect on these pieces both as a potter and as a scholar. As a potter, I can only imagine the horror on the workers' faces when they opened the kiln and their experiment had gone horribly wrong (been there, done that!). I chuckle sometimes because I think there were a lot of "oh, poop!" moments historically, just like there are in contemporary potters' lives. And as a scholar, I reflect on the attempts of pottery production sites to challenge an import market, a growing population of potteries, and the changes in the uses of utilitarian vessels and forms.
For more information on the Piercy Pottery site, be sure to check out Barbara Magid and Bernard K. Means' article in the 2003 Ceramics in America. You can read the text here, but you miss the beautiful photos!

Eighteenth-Century Kiln Wadding



A box of kiln wadding. Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection 

Next time you go to wad your pottery for a kiln firing, think of the William Rogers pottery factory in Yorktown, Virginia. William Rogers was the proprietor of the pottery, which operated from the 1720s until circa 1745. William Rogers is often referred to as the "Poor Potter" of Yorktown. This was due to a 1732 report written by Governor Gooch of Virginia which said "As to manufactures seet up, there is one poor Potters work for course earthen ware, which is of so little consequence, that I dare say there hath not been twenty shillings worth less of that comodity imported since it was sett up than there was before." This report was not exactly telling the truth, and in fact, William Rogers' production was quite lucrative, reportedly selling as far as New England (see the 2004 Ceramics In America publication for two good articles on Rogers). This site produced both earthenware and stoneware vessels. I had the pleasure last week of looking over the kiln furniture and some of the archaeological material from the stoneware kiln site. One of the most fascinating things to me was to handle the wadding and props from the kiln.

Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection 

For those who do not crouch in, stand next to, or crawl around in kilns loading pots, wadding is a basic component which (in modern recipes) usually consists of kaolin, alumina hydrate, and sometimes grog, or heavy sand.


You can see the texture of the sand on this small piece of wadding. Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection 

Historically, it would seem that many potters used their basic clay combined with grog. Wadding basically acts as a buffer between the pot which it is put underneath and the other vessels or kiln furniture. It basically keeps the pot from sticking to everything. Very handy in a salt-glaze kiln, which the William Rogers site was. And, historically, kiln shelves were generally not used, so pieces were often stacked one on top of the other. 

This is the base of a tankard. You can see the small orange-colored spots which are where the wadding was placed on the tankard before it was fired. Wadding typically leaves little marks like this. Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection 



This is the interior floor of a saggar. You can see the orange-colored markings where there were vessels propped up. My estimation is that this saggar held mugs with three pieces of wadding on each mug. Count up the little marks and you can kind of guess where the mugs were sitting! Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection 



Wadding usually has no particular shape, and is often just grabbed and made into whatever shape is necessary for the vessel, be it a small ball, a square pad, or a fistful. There were quite a few fistfulls in the collection, which was really fun to hold and see the fingerprints of the potters. 

A fistful of wadding with my fingers in the same place as the original potter. Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection 

 There were some pieces of wadding which I thought may have been used in a particular way, and connected to some of the archaeological vessels I looked at. Take a look at this bottle, and notice the marks on the shoulder of the bottle where my fingers are.

Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection 



Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection 



Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection 

There were likely wads or pads there, and this may have been the shape of the wadding:



Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection 

I say that because if you think about sitting something on the shoulder of the bottle, a triangular piece of wadding would work really well for support. I could be wrong here, I'll have to test my theory once I get a kiln built!

Happy wadding.