XV
Ceramics

Most of the ceramic artifacts found at Marlborough can be dated within John Mercer’s period of occupancy (1726-1768). A meager scattering of late 18th- and early 19th-century whitewares and stonewares reflects the John Francis Mercer and Cooke ownerships (1768-1819).

COARSE EARTHENWARE

Tidewater type.—Mercer’s purchase in 1725 of £12 3s. 6d. worth of earthenware from William Rogers (p. 16, footnote 54) probably was made for trading purposes, judging from the sizable cost. Rogers operated a stoneware and earthenware pottery in Yorktown, which evidently was continued for a considerable time after his death in 1739.[173] An abundance of waster sherds (unglazed, underfired, overfired, or misshapen fragments cast aside by the potter), supposedly from Rogers’ output, has been found as street ballast and fill in Yorktown and its environs. Microscopic and stylistic comparison with these sherds relates numerous Marlborough sherds to them in varying degrees. For purposes of tentative identification, the ware will be designated “Tidewater type.” Some of the ware may have been produced in Rogers’ shop, while other articles resembling the Yorktown products may have been made of similar clay and fired under conditions comparable to those at Yorktown.

A Marlborough milk pan (USNM 59.1961, ill. 11, and USNM 59.1580) has a salmon-colored body and a lustrous mahogany glaze with fine manganese streaking. Another milk pan (USNM 59.2039, ill. 2, fig. 63a) has a buff body and a glaze of uneven thickness that ranges in color from thin brown with black flecking to a glutinous dark brown approaching black. The most typical glaze color, influenced by the underlying predominant pinkish-buff body, is a light mahogany with black specks or blotches. It occurs at Marlborough on a small sherd (USNM 60.201). A variant glaze occurring on pottery found in Yorktown appears here in a yellowish-buff sherd flecked with black (USNM 60.154). The flecking is only in part applied with manganese; it is also the effect of ocherous and ferruginous particles which protrude through the surface of the body, assuming a dark color. Occasionally the manganese is spread liberally, so that the natural body color shows through only as flecks in a reverse effect (USNM 59.1855); now and then the vessel is uniformly black (USNM 60.141).

Tidewater-type forms found at Marlborough include milk pans 15 inches in diameter and about 4¼ inches deep (in 1729 Mercer bought “2 milk pans” for 5d. and 5 “gallon basons” for 4s. 7d.), a black-glazed jar cover with indicated diameter of 6½ inches (USNM 59.2013), and fragments of other pans and bowls of indeterminate sizes. A portion of an ale mug has a tooled base and black glaze (USNM 59.2043, fig. 63d, ill. 12). Its diameter is 3? inches.

Molded-rim type.—This is a type of redware with a light-red body and transparent, ginger-brown lead glaze. It is characterized by a rolled rim and a tooled platform or channel above the junction of rim and side. A small number of pan and bowl rims was found at Marlborough. The ware is usually associated with early 18th-century materials from such sites as Jamestown, Kecoughtan, Williamsburg, and Rosewell. It may have originated in England.

North Devon gravel-tempered ware.—The coarse kitchenware made in Bideford and Barnstaple and in the surrounding English villages of North Devon is represented by only two sherds. This ware is characterized by a dull, reddish-pink body, usually dark-gray at the core, and by a gross waterworn gravel temper. It occurs in contexts as early as 1650 at Jamestown and as late as 1740-1760 at Williamsburg. One of the Marlborough sherds is part of a large pan. It is glazed with a characteristic amber lead glaze (USNM 60.202). The other sherd is a portion of an unglazed handle, probably from a potlid (USNM 59.1679, ill. 15).[174]

Slip-lined redware.—Numerous 18th-century sites from Philadelphia to Williamsburg have yielded a series of bowls and porringers characterized by interior linings of slip that is streaked and mottled with manganese. These are glazed on both surfaces, the outer surface and a border above the slip on the inner surface usually ginger-brown in color. Comparative examples are a bowl from the Russell site at Lewes, Delaware, dating from the first half of the 18th century, and several pieces from pre-Revolutionary contexts at Williamsburg. A deposit excavated by H. Geiger Omwake near the south end of the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal in Delaware included sherds from a context dated late 17th- to mid-18th centuries.[175] Several fragments of bowls occur in the Marlborough material (USNM 59.1613, 59.1856, fig. 64g).

English yellowware.—The few sherds of so-called combed ware occurring at Marlborough, although only the base fragments connect, all seem to have come from a single cup or posset pot having a buff body and characteristically decorated with spiraled bands of dark-brown slip that were created by combing through an outer coating of white slip, revealing an underlayer of red slip. The vessel was glazed with a clear lead glaze (USNM 59.1700, fig. 64c, ill. 16). Comparative dated examples of this ware include a posset pot dated 1735.[176] A chamber pot bearing the same kind of striping was excavated by the National Park Service at Fort Frederica, Georgia (1736-ca. 1750). A piece similar to that from Marlborough was found in the Rosewell deposit, and another in the Lewis Morris house site, Morrisania, New York.[177] Although this type of ware was introduced in England about 1680, its principal use in America seems to have occurred largely between 1725 and 1775. Archeological evidence is corroborated by newspaper advertisements. In 1733 the Boston Gazette advertised “yellow ware Hollow and Flat by the Crate” and again in 1737 “yellow and Brown Earthenware.” In 1763 the Gazette mentioned “Crates of Yellow Liverpool Ware,” Liverpool being the chief place of export for pottery made in Staffordshire, the principal source for the combed wares.[178]

Buckley ware.—I. NoËl Hume has identified a class of high-fired, black-glazed earthenware found in many 18th-century sites in Virginia. He has done so by reference to The Buckley Potteries, by K. J. Barton,[179] and to waster sherds in his possession from the Buckley kiln sites in Flintshire, North Wales. The ware probably was made in other potteries of the region also. This durable pottery, more like stoneware than earthenware, is represented by a large number of jar and pan fragments. Two body types occur, each characterized by a mixture of red and buff clay. In the more usual type the red clay dominates, with laminations and striations of buff clay running through it in the manner of a coarse sort of agateware. The other is usually grayish buff with red streaks, although sometimes the body is almost entirely buff, still showing signs of lamination. The glaze is treacly black, often applied unevenly and sometimes pitted with air bubbles. The body surfaces have conspicuous turning ridges. Rims are usually heavy and flat, sometimes as wide as 1½ inches. A variant of the ware is represented in a milk pan with a[Pg 127]
[Pg 128] dominantly red body which has a clear-amber, rather than black, glaze. (USNM 59.1887, ills. 17, 18, and 19 and fig. 65).

Miscellaneous.—Several unique specimens and groups of sherds are represented:

1. A large, outstanding, horizontal, loop handle survives from a storage jar with a rich red body. Two thumb-impressed reinforcements, splayed at each end, secure the handle to the body wall. The top of the handle has four finger impressions for gripping; the lead glaze appears in a finely speckled ginger color (USNM 59.2049, fig. 64b).

2. A single fragment remains from a slip-decorated bowl or open vessel. The body is hard and dark red, the glaze dark olive-brown. The fragment is glazed and slipped on both sides (USNM 59.1614, fig. 64e). Other small sherds of a similar ware are redder in color and without slip. Another, with lighter red body and olive-amber glaze, is slip decorated (USNM 60.161, fig. 64f).

3. A unique sherd has a gray-buff body and shiny black glaze on both surfaces (USNM 59.1815).

4. A group of pale-red unglazed fragments is from the bottom of a water cooler. A sherd which preserves parts of the base and lower body wall has a hole in which a spigot could be inserted (USNM 59.2061, ill. 20).

5. Fragments of a flowerpot have a body similar to the foregoing, but are lined with slip under a lead glaze. A rim fragment has an ear handle with thumb-impressed indentations attached to it (USNM 60.203, ill. 21).

6. Two sherds of a redware pie plate, notched on the edge and lined with overglazed slip decorated with brown manganese dots, imitate Staffordshire yellowware, but are probably of American origin (USNM 59.1612, fig. 64g).

STONEWARE

Rhenish stonewares.—The stoneware potters who worked in the vicinity of Grenzhausen in the Westerwald in a tributary of the Rhine Valley held a far-flung market until the mid-18th century. It was not until the Staffordshire potters brought out their own salt-glazed whitewares that the colorful blue-and-gray German products suffered a decline. Before that, Rhenish stonewares were widely used in England and the colonies; those for the British market frequently were decorated with medallions in which the reigning English monarch’s initial appeared. Elaborate incising and blue-cobalt coloring gave a highly decorative character to the ware, while salt thrown into the kiln during the firing combined with the clay to provide a hard, clean surface matched only by porcelain.

John Mercer, like so many of his fellow colonials, owned Westerwald stoneware. From Ledger G, we[Pg 130]
[Pg 131] know that in 1743 he bought “2 blew & W^t Jugs 2/.” From the artifacts it is clear that he not only had large globose jugs, but also numerous cylindrical mugs and chamber pots. A small group of sherds has a gray-buff paste, more intricately incised than most. Internally the paste surface is a light-pinkish buff. These sherds are probably of the late 17th century, or at least earlier than the predominantly gray wares of the 18th century, which have hastily executed designs.[180] Only two "GR" emblems (Guglielmus or Georgius Rex), both from mugs, were recovered (fig. 66d).

Miscellaneous gray-and-brown salt-glazed stoneware.—The shop of William Rogers apparently made stoneware of fine quality in the style of the London stoneware produced in the Thames-side potteries.[181] Wasters from Yorktown streets and foundations indicate many varieties of colors and glaze textures, some of which are matched in the Marlborough sherds. Admittedly, it is not possible to distinguish with certainty the fragments of Yorktown stoneware from their English counterparts. Sherds of a pint mug, externally gray in the lower half and mottled-brown in the upper, may be a Yorktown product (USNM 59.1780, ill. 22). The interior is a rusty brown. Fragments of the shoulder of a very large jug, mottled-brown externally and lined in a dull red like that often found on Yorktown wasters, also have body resemblances. (Mercer bought a five-gallon “stone bottle” from Charles Dick in 1745.)

There are numerous other types of coarse stoneware of unknown origins, including one sherd with a dull-red glaze and black decorative spots (USNM 59.1840, ill. 23).

Nottingham-type stoneware.—Several sherds of stoneware of the type usually ascribed to Nottingham appeared at Marlborough. This ware is characterized by a smooth, lustrous, metallic-brown glaze. The fragments are apparently from different vessels. One is a foot rim of a posset pot or jug. Several body sherds have fluting or paneling formed by molding, with turning lines on the interior showing that the molding was executed after the forms were shaped. One sherd is decorated with shredded clay applied before firing when the clay was wet. It appears to come from the globose portion of a small drinking jug with a vertical collar. A handle section comes from a pitcher or posset pot. Interior colors range from a brownish mustard to a reddish brown. Nottingham stoneware was made throughout the 18th century,[182] but these sherds correspond to middle-of-the-century forms (fig. 67a).

Drab stoneware.—The dominant position attained by the Staffordshire potters in the 18th century is due to unremitting efforts to achieve the whiteness of porcelain in their native products. Improvements in stoneware were mostly in this direction, with the first steps plainly evidencing what they failed to achieve. One of the earlier attempts has a gray body coated with white pipe-clay slip obtained at Bideford in North Devon. This slip created the superficial appearance of porcelain, as did tin enamel on the surface of delftware. Although some Burslem potters were making “dipped white stoneware” by 1710,[183] it does not seem to have occurred generally until about 1725. Salt glaze was applied in the same manner as on the earlier and coarser stonewares. Mugs in this ware were banded with an iron-oxide slip, presumably to cover up defects around the rims.

Several sherds of this drab stoneware were found at Marlborough, including the base of a jug with curving sides and pieces of tall mugs with brown rims (USNM 59.1893, fig. 67b, ill. 25). The body is characteristically gray, while the slip, although sometimes dull white, is usually a pleasant cream tone. Two sherds were found beneath the flagstones around the north porch of Structure B, where they probably fell before 1746 (USNM 59.1754).

One of the Burslem stoneware potters between 1710 and 1715 made what he called “freckled ware.”[184] Possibly this describes a sherd of a thin-walled mug from Marlborough (USNM 59.1636) which is coated with white slip inside and is finely speckled, or “freckled,” in brown on the outside. Its body is the gray of the drab stoneware, but with a high content of micaceous and siliceous sand. Simeon Shaw, the early 19th-century historian of the Staffordshire potteries, asserted that what he called “Crouch” ware was first made of brick clay and fine sand in 1690, and by 1702 of dark-gray clay and sand.[185] Although his dates are questioned by modern authorities, his order of the progressive degrees of refinement in the paste are acceptable as he suggests them. In respect to the Marlborough sherd, although it is coarser than the white-coated fragments described above, it answers very well Shaw’s description of sandy-gray “Crouch” ware.

White salt-glazed ware.—About 1720 calcined flints were added to the body of the Staffordshire stoneware, thus making possible a homogeneous white body that did not require a coating of slip between the body and the glazed surface.[186] With this ware the Staffordshire potters came closer to their goal of emulating porcelain.

At Marlborough the earliest examples of this improved ware are found in two sherds with incised decorations that were scratched into the wet clay (USNM 59.1819, Fig. 67b); the incised lines next were filled with powdered cobalt before firing. This technique is known as “scratch blue,” dated examples of which, existing elsewhere, range from 1724 to 1767. The body in the Marlborough specimens is still rather drab, the whiteness of the later ware not yet having been achieved. No slip was used, however, so that the surface color is a pleasant pale gray. One sherd is from a cup with a slightly flaring rim. The exterior decoration is in the form of floral sprigs, while the inside has a row of double-scalloped lines below the rim. The other fragment is from a saucer. Possibly the cup is part of Mercer’s purchase in 1742 of a dozen “Stone Coffee cups,” for which he paid 18d. In Boston “White stone Tea-Cups and Saucers” were advertised in 1745, and “blue and white ... Stone Ware” in 1751.[187]

A later variant on the “scratch blue” is a class of salt-glazed ware that resembles Westerwald stoneware. Here loops, sworls, and horizontal grooves are scratched into the paste. The cobalt is smeared more or less at random, some of it lying on the surface, some running into the incised channels. This style of decoration was applied mostly to chamber pots but also to small bowls and cups. Fragments of all these forms occurred at Marlborough (fig. 67c).

After 1740 the body was greatly improved, resulting in an attractive whiteware. Many wheel-turned forms were produced, and these were liberally represented at Marlborough in fragments of pitchers, mugs, teapots, teacups, bowls, posset pots, and casters (fig. 67d).

In the middle of the 18th century a process was developed for making multiple plaster-of-paris molds from brass or alabaster matrices[188] and then casting plates and other vessels in them by pouring in the stoneware clay, diluted in the form of slip. The slip was allowed to dry, and the formed utensil was removed for firing. This molded salt-glazed ware occurs in quantity in the Marlborough finds, suggesting that there were large sets of it. One design predominates in plates, platters, and soup dishes: wavy edges, borders consisting of panels of diagonal lattices—with stars or dots within the lattices framed in rococo scrolls, and areas of basket-weave designs between the panels. On a large platter rim the lattice-work is plain, somewhat reminiscent of so-called Chinese Chippendale design. The pattern is presumably the design referred to in the Boston News Letter for May 29, 1764: “To be sold very cheap. Two or three Crates of white Stone Ware, consisting chiefly of the new fashioned basket Plates and Oblong Dishes.”[189] One fragment comes from a cake plate with this border design and a heavily decorated center (fig. 67e).

Other molded patterns include gadrooning combined with scalloping on a plate-rim sherd. A rim section with molded rococo-scrolled edge is from a “basket weave” sauceboat. Considerably earlier are pieces of a pitcher or milk jug with a shell design (USNM 59.1894, ill. 27). One rare sherd appears to come from a rectangular teapot or tray. All the white salt-glazed ware from Marlborough represents the serviceable but decorative tableware of everyday use. It must have been purchased during the last 10 years of Mercer’s life.

Tin-enameled earthenware.—The art of glazing earthenware with opaque tin oxide and decorating it with colorful designs was an Islamic innovation which spread throughout the Mediterranean and northward to Holland and England. Practiced in England before the close of the 16th century, it became in the 17th and the first half of the 18th centuries a significant source of English tableware, both at home and in America. Because of its close similarity to the Dutch majolica of Delft, the English version was popularly called “delftware,” even though made in London, Bristol, or Liverpool.

Surprisingly, a minimum of tin-enameled wares was found at Marlborough, with several sherds reflecting the Port Town period. One of the latter shows the lower portion of a heavy, dark-blue floral spray, growing up, apparently, from a flowerpot. A section of foot rim and the contour of the sherd show that this was a 17th-century charger, probably dating from about 1680 (USNM 60.177, fig. 68a). The leaves are painted in the same manner as on a Lambeth fuddling cup.[190] A section of a plate with no foot rim includes an inner border which encircles the central panel design. It consists of two parallel lines with flattened spirals joined in a series between the lines. The glaze is crackled. This probably dates from the same period as the preceding sherd (USNM 60.99, fig. 68a). Sherds from a larger specimen, without decoration, have the same crackled enamel (USNM 59.2059). There is also a fragment decorated with small, blue, fernlike fronds, again suggesting late 17th-century origin (USNM 59.1756, fig. 68a). A small handle, the glaze of which has a pinkish cast, is decorated with blue dashes, and probably was part of a late 17th-century cup (USNM 59.1730, fig. 68a).

Several fragments of narrow rims from plates with blue bands probably date from the first quarter of the 18th century. A reconstructed plate with the simplest of stylized decoration was made at Lambeth about 1720 (USNM 59.1707, fig. 69). This plate has a wavy vine motif around its upward-flaring rim, in which blossoms are suggested by stylized pyramids of three to four blocks formed by brush strokes about ¼-inch wide, alternating with single blocks. The central motif consists of two crossed stems with a pyramid at each end and two diagonal, block brush strokes intersecting the crossed stems. A large fragment of a washstand bowl also has similar plain, block brush strokes along a border defined by horizontal lines—in this case a triplet of three strokes, one above two, alternating with a single block. Edges of similar brush strokes on the lower portion of the bowl remain on the fragment. Garner shows a Lambeth mug embodying this style of decoration combined with a suggestion of Chinoiserie around the waist. He ascribes to it a date of “about 1700,” although the block-brush-stroke device, with variations, was practiced until the 1760’s at Lambeth.[191] The Marlborough bowl fragment may be from one of the “2 pottle Basons” bought by Mercer in 1744 (fig. 68b, ill. 28).

Another reconstructed plate, probably a Lambeth piece, has blue decoration in the Chinese manner. It dates from about 1730 to 1740 (USNM 59.1706, fig. 70). Several small bowl sherds seem to range from the early to the middle 18th century. Polychrome delft is represented by only three sherds, all apparently from bowls, and none well enough defined to permit identification.

There are several fragments of ointment pots, all 18th-century in shape. Three sherds of tin-enameled redware are probably continental European. Two of these have counterparts from early 17th-century contexts at Jamestown. A blue-decorated handle sherd from a large jug or posset pot is also 17th century.

The predominance of early dating of tin-enamel sherds and the relatively few examples of it from any period suggest that much of what was found either was used in the Port Town or was inherited by the Mercers, probably by Catherine, and used when they were first married. It also points up the fact that delftware early went out of fashion among well-to-do families.

English fine earthenwares.—The fine earthen tablewares introduced in Staffordshire early in the 18th century, largely in response to the new tea-drinking customs, are less well represented in the Marlborough artifacts than are those made later in the century. Apparently, the contemporary white salt-glazed ware was preferred.

Marbled ware.—The Staffordshire factories of Thomas Astbury and Thomas Whieldon were responsible for numerous innovations, including fine “marbled” wares in which clays of different colors were mixed together so as to form a veined surface. The technique itself was an old one, but its application in delicate tablewares was a novelty. Although Astbury was the earlier, it was Whieldon who exploited the technique after starting his potworks at Little Fenton about 1740.[192] From Marlborough come three meager sherds of marbled ware, probably from three different vessels (USNM 59.1625, 59.1748, 59.1851). They are brownish red with white veining under an amber lead glaze. A posset pot of these colors in the Victoria and Albert Museum is supposed, by Rackham, to date from about 1740.[193]

Black-glazed fine redware.—Whieldon made a black-glazed, fine redware, as did Maurice Thursfield at Jackfield in Shropshire.[194] A fragment of a black-glazed teapot handle was found at Marlborough, although the body is more nearly a hard grayish brown than red (USNM 59.1638).

Tortoiseshell ware.—Cream-colored earthenware was introduced as early as 1725, supposedly by Thomas Astbury, Jr. It was not until the middle of the century, however, that Whieldon began the use of clouded glaze colors over a cream-colored body. After 1756 Josiah Wedgwood became his partner and helped to perfect the coloring of glazes. In 1759 Wedgwood established his own factory, and both firms made tortoiseshell ware in the same molds used for making salt-glazed whiteware.[195] From Marlborough there are several sherds of gadroon-edge plates and basket-weave-and-lattice plates, as well as a piece of a teapot cover. Tortoiseshell ware was advertised in Boston newspapers from 1754 to 1772 (fig. 71).[196]

Queensware.—Josiah Wedgwood brought to perfection the creamware body about 1765, naming it “Queensware” after receiving Queen Charlotte’s patronage. Wedgwood took out no patents, so that a great many factories followed suit, notably Humble, Green & Company at Leeds in Yorkshire (later Hartley, Green & Company).[197]

The Marlborough creamware sherds are all plain (with one exception), consisting of fragments of wavy-edge plates, bowls, and platters in Wedgwood’s “Catherine shape,” introduced about 1770, as well as mugs and pitchers (fig. 72). A piece of a large platter has impressed in it the letters WEDG, running up to the fracture. Below this is the number 1 (USNM 59.1997, fig. 73).

Whitewares used in the Federal period.—During the late 1770’s Wedgwood introduced his “pearlware,”[198] in which the yellow cast of the cream body was offset by a touch of blue. With the use of a nearly colorless glaze that was still slightly bluish, it was now possible to make a successful underglaze-blue decoration. These whitewares were made in three principal styles by Wedgwood’s many imitators, as well as by Wedgwood himself. The most familiar of these styles is the molded shell-edge ware, which was used in virtually every place to which Staffordshire wares penetrated after 1800. In a plain creamware version, this was another Wedgwood innovation of about 1765.[199] After 1780, the ware was white, with blue or green borders. The Wedgwood shell-edge design has a slightly wavy edge, and the shell ridges vary in depth and length. At least one Leeds version has a regular scalloped edge, like those found on several other Marlborough sherds. In the 19th century the ware became coarser and heavier, as well as whiter, and in some cases the shell edge was no longer actually molded but simply suggested by a painted border. Some variants were introduced that were not intended to be shell edge in design, but merely blue or green molded patterns. A Marlborough sherd from one of these has a gadrooned edge and molded swags and palmettes. Except for two late rims, painted but not molded, the shell-edge wares from Marlborough probably date from John Francis Mercer’s period in the late 1700’s and from John Bronaugh’s occupancy of the mansion during the Cooke period in the first decade of the 19th century (fig. 74c).

The success of the new whiteware in permitting the use of underglaze blue resulted in a second class that is decorated in the Chinese manner, after the style of English delft and porcelain. This type was popular between 1780 and 1790, especially in the United States, where many whole specimens have survived above ground. Several sherds are among the Marlborough artifacts and appear to have come entirely from hollow forms, such as bowls and pitchers.[200] Sherds from a blue-and-white mug with molded designs, including the shell motif around the handle, have been found also.

The third class of whiteware, which was heavily favored in the export trade, consisted of a gay, hand-decorated product, popular at the end of the 18th, and well into the 19th, century. It had pleasing variety, with floral designs in soft orange, green, brown, and blue, often with brown or green borders. A few examples of this later whiteware occur among the Marlborough artifacts (fig. 74b). One sherd from a small bowl is mottled in blue and touched with yellow (USNM 59.1805, fig. 74b). Another is also mottled, but in gray and blue. Such wares as the latter were made by Hartley, Green & Company at Leeds before the factory’s demise in 1820 (USNM 59.1950, fig. 74b).[201]

The transfer-printed wares that were so popular in America after 1820 are represented by a mere eight sherds, which is in accord with evidence that the mansion house was unoccupied or destroyed after 1819. Of these sherds, only five can be dated before 1830. Two are pink, transfer-printed sherds of about 1835-45, and one is gray-blue, dating from about 1840-1850.

Black basaltes ware.—Another late 18th-century innovation by Wedgwood, imitated by his competitors, was a fine stoneware with a black body, called black basaltes because of its resemblance to that mineral. A few sherds of this were found at Marlborough. Typically, they are glazed on the insides only. They postdate John Mercer by twenty or thirty years.

Chinese porcelain.—Oriental porcelain was introduced to the English colonies at a very early date, as we know from 17th-century contexts at Jamestown. As early as 1725 John Mercer acquired “1 China Punch bowl.” Presumably the “6 tea cups & Sawcers,” “2 chocolate cups,” and “2 custard cups” obtained by him the same year were also porcelain. Even before 1740, porcelain was occurring with increasing frequency in America. We are told that in 1734, for example, it can be calculated that about one million pieces of it left Canton for Europe.[202] Doubtless a large proportion was reexported to the colonists. William Walker, Mercer’s undertaker for the mansion, left at his death in 1750: “1 Crack’d China bowl,” “1 Quart Bowl 6/, 1 large D^o 12.6,” “6 China cups & Sawcers 5/,” and “12 China plates 15/.”

It is not surprising, therefore, that 18th-century China-trade porcelain sherds occurred with high incidence at Marlborough. Mercer’s accounts show that he acquired from Charles Dick in 1745 “1 Sett finest China” and “2 punch bowls.” From the archeological evidence it would appear that he had supplemented this several times over, perhaps after 1750 in the period for which we have no ledgers.

Most of the porcelain is blue and white. One group has cloudy, blurred houses and trees, impressionistic landscapes, and flying birds. This pattern occurs in fragments of teacups, small bowls, and a coffee cup. Another type has a border of diamonds within diamonds, elaborate floral designs delicately drawn, and a fine thin body. Similar sherds were found at Rosewell. At Marlborough the design survived in teacups, coffee cups, and saucers. There are several additional border designs, some associated with Chinese landscape subjects or human figures (figs. 76, ill. 24, and fig. 77, ill. 25). A coarse type with a crudely designed border hastily filled in with solid blue is represented in a partly reconstructed plate (USNM 60.122, fig. 77).

Polychrome porcelain is found in lesser amounts, although in almost as much variety. Three sherds of a very large punchbowl are decorated in red and blue. Fragments of a small bowl have delicate red medallions with small red and black human figures in their centers. Fine borders occur in red and black. Gold, yellow, and green floral patterns constitute another class (fig. 75).

Almost all the porcelain is of high quality, probably reaching a peak during Mercer’s middle and prosperous years between 1740 and 1760. We cannot expect to find any porcelain purchased after his death in 1768, and certainly none appears to be connected with the Federal period or with the so-called “Lowestoft” imported in the American China trade after the Revolution.

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XVI
Glass

BOTTLES

Round beverage bottles.—Bottles of dark-green glass were used in the colonial period for wine, beer, rum, and other potables. Although some wines and liquors were shipped in the bottle, they were distributed for the most part in casks, hogsheads, and “pipes” before 1750. John Mercer recorded the purchases of several pipes of wine—kinds unspecified—a pipe being a large or even double-size hogshead. He purchased rum by the gallon, in quantities that ranged from 2 quarts in 1744 to “5 galls Barbadoes Spirits” in 1745 and a “hhd 107½ gall Rum” in 1748.

Bottles were used largely for household storage and for the serving of liquors. They were kept filled in the buttery as a convenience against going to the cellar each time a drink was wanted. Bottles usually were brought directly to the table,[203] although the clear-glass decanter was apparently regarded as a more genteel dispenser. Mercer, like his contemporaries, bought his own bottles, as when he purchased “2 doz bottles” from John Foward in 1730. The previous year he had acquired a gross of corks, which would customarily have been inserted in his bottles and secured by covering with cloth, tying around the lips or string rings with packthread, and sealing with warm resin and pitch.

Some wines were purchased in the bottle. In 1726 Mercer bought “2 doz & 8 bottles Claret” and “1 doz Canary” from Alexander McFarlane. In 1745 he charged Overwharton Parish for “2 bottles Claret to Acquia,” apparently for communion wine. Whether all this was shipped from the vineyards in bottles, or whether Mercer brought his own bottles to be filled from the storekeepers’ casks is not revealed.

An insight into the kinds of alcoholic drinks consumed in Virginia in Mercer’s early period is given in the official price-list for the sale of alcoholic beverages set forth in the York County Court Orders in 1726:[204]

This Court do Sett the Rate Liquors as followeth:

It will be noted that Bristol beer was sold by the bottle, probably just as it was shipped, and “Fine bottled Syder” apparently came in quart bottles. Probably the wines were dispensed from casks in wine measures. Mercer bought Citron water in bottles, a half dozen at a time, as he did “Mint, Orange flower & Tansey D^o,” in 1744.

Round beverage bottles ranged in shape from, roughly, the form of a squat onion at the beginning of the 18th century to narrow cylindrical bottles towards the end of the century. The earliest bottles were free-blown without the constraint of a mold, hence there were many variations in shape. After about 1730 bottles were blown into crude clay molds which imparted a roughly cylindrical or taper-sided contour below sloping shoulders and necks. These marked the first recognition of binning as a way of storing wines in bottles laid on their sides. About 1750 the[Pg 147]
[Pg 148] Bristol glasshouses introduced cylindrical brass molds.[205] From then on the problem of stacking bottles in bins was solved and virtually all round beverage bottles thenceforward were cylindrical with long necks.

At Marlborough the earliest form of wine bottle is represented by a squat neck and a base fragment (USNM 59.1717, ill. 35), both matching onion-shaped bottles of the turn of the century, such as one excavated at Rosewell (USNM 60.660). Except for these fragments, the oldest form from Marlborough may be seen in the complete bottle found in refuse pit D (USNM 59.1688; fig. 78, ill. 37). This bottle is typical of the transitional form, sealed examples of which regularly occur bearing dates in the 1730’s. Its sides are straight for about three inches above the curve of the base, tapering slightly to the irregular shoulder that curves in and up to a neck with wedge-shaped string ring. Two inches above the base is a seal, bearing the initials I^C.M above a decorative device and the date 1737. The arrangement of initials exactly matches that found on Mercer’s tobacco-cask seals (p. 30 and footnote 89) indicating the “home plantation” at Marlborough.Seals were applied by dropping a gather of glass on the hot surface of a newly blown bottle, then pressing into this deposit of glass a brass stamp bearing a design, initials, date, etc. Three similar seals from broken bottles also were found. The same arrangement of initials, but with no date or device of any kind, occurs on seven different seals (fig. 79, ills. 36 and 37).

The diameter of the base of the sealed beverage bottle is 5½ inches, the widest diameter occurring on any bottle fragments from Marlborough, excepting the early specimen mentioned above. Bases in gradually decreasing dimensions vary from this size to 2¾ inches. Six bases run from 5 inches to 5½ inches; 11 are over 4½ inches and up to 5 inches; 4 are over 4 inches and up to 4½ inches; 3 are over 3½ inches and up to 4 inches; none, except the smallest of 2¾ inches, found in a mid-19th-century deposit, is less than 3¾ inches.

Beverage-bottle bases

Since beverage-bottle diameters diminished from about 5 inches in the 1750’s and 1760’s to about 4 inches in the 1770’s and 1780’s and to 3½ inches in the 1790’s and early 1800’s, the peak of their incidence at Marlborough occurs between 1750 and 1770, the period of greatest opulence in the Mercer household.

Octagonal beverage bottles.—A rarely seen variation from the round beverage bottle is a club-shaped, octagonal, molded type with long neck, perhaps so shaped in order to permit packing in cases. Cider is said to have been put up in such bottles, and it is also possible that brandies and liqueurs were delivered in them. A quart-size bottle of this shape at Colonial Williamsburg bears the seal “I. Greenhow WmsBgh. 1769.” Another, purchased in England, in the G. H. Kernodle collection at the Smithsonian Institution, also has a seal with the name “Jn^o Collings, 1736” (USNM 59.2170). A pint-size example, 9 inches high and dated 1736, is illustrated in plate 95e in the Wine Trade Loan Exhibition catalog.[206] A restored bottle of this form from Marlborough (USNM 59.1687, fig. 80, ill. 40) is 8 inches high, but bears no seal. Among the glass found at Marlborough are also three bases and other fragments of similar bottles.

Square “gin” bottles.—Square bottles, usually called “gin” bottles, occur in the Marlborough material. Two base sections and lower pieces of the flat sides have been partly restored (USNM 59.1685, 59.1686, ill. 41), and a neck and shoulder have survived. The bases are 4 inches square, and the whole bottles were probably about 10 inches high. They did not taper but maintained a continuous dimension from shoulder to base. The bases, which are rounded on the corners, have a slightly domed kick-up with a ring-shaped pontil mark. The glass is olive green. The necks are squat—barely ? inch—and have wide string rings midway in their length.

Square “gin” bottles were designed for shipment in wooden boxes with compartments in which the bottles fit snugly. Although Dutch gin customarily was shipped in bottles of this shape, indications are that the square bottles may have been used for other purposes than holding gin. For one thing, Mercer’s ledgers mention no purchases of gin. There is, in fact, almost no evidence of the sale of gin in Virginia; a single announcement of Holland gin available in Williamsburg in 1752 is the exception until 1773, when gin was again advertised in the Virginia Gazette.[207] Its sale had been prohibited in England in 1736.[208] For another thing, square bottles were both imported and manufactured in America for sale new. In 1760 the Germantown glassworks in Braintree, Massachusetts, made “Round and square Bottles, from one to four Quarts; also Cases of Bottles of all Sizes ...,”[209], while George Ball, of New York, in 1775 advertised that he imported “Green glass Gallon square bottles, Two quart ditto, Pint ditto.”[210]

A smaller base (USNM 59.1642) has a high kick-up, the dome of which intersects the sides of the base so that the bottle rests on four points separated by arcs. This fragment measures 3 inches square. An even smaller version (USNM 59.1977) is 2¾ inches.

Snuff bottles.—Several items in Mercer’s ledgers record the purchase of snuff, such as one for a "bottle of snuff" in 1731 for 15d., another in 1743 for 3s., and a third in 1744 for 1s. 6d. Among the artifacts is a partly restored bottle of olive-green glass, shaped like a gin bottle but of smaller dimensions, with a 2¼-inch-wide mouth (USNM 59.1686, fig. 81). The bottle is 3¾ inches square and 7 inches tall. It has a low kick-up and a smooth pontil mark. Also among the artifacts are a matching base and several sherds of similar bottles.

Medicine bottles.—Only a few fragments of medicine bottles occurred in the Marlborough artifacts. This is surprising, in view of Mercer’s many ailments and his statements that he had purchased “British Oyl,” “Holloway’s Citrate,” and other patent nostrums of his day. A round base from a greenish, cylindrical bottle (USNM 59.2056) seems to represent an Opadeldoc bottle. Another base is rectangular with notched corners. The last, as well as the base of a molded, basket-pattern scent bottle (USNM 59.2093) may be early 19th century in date. Other medicine-bottle fragments are all 19th century, some quite late (fig. 82).

TABLE GLASS

A minimum of table-glass sherds was recovered, and these were fragmentary. Glass is scarcely mentioned in Mercer’s accounts, although there is no reason to suppose that Marlborough was any less well furnished with fine crystal than with other elegant objects that we know about. Three sherds of heavy lead glass have the thickness and contours of early 18th-century English decanters, matching more complete fragments from Rosewell and a specimen[Pg 153]
[Pg 154] illustrated in plate 98a in the Wine Trade Loan Exhibition catalog.[211] Two fragments are body sherds; the third is from a lip and neck.

Several forms of drinking glasses are indicated. A fragment of a foot from a long-stemmed cordial glass shows the termini of white-enamel threads that were comprised in a double enamel-twist stem. The twists consisted of a spiral ribbon of fine threads near the surface of the stem, with a heavy single spiral at the core. The indicated diameter of the foot is 3¼ inches (USNM 59.1761, ill. 43).

Fragments of large knops are probably from heavy baluster wineglasses dating from Mercer’s early period before 1750. A teardrop stem from a trumpet-bowl wineglass has been melted past recognition in a fire. The stem of a bucket-bowl cordial glass has suffered in the same manner (USNM 59.1607). Still with their shapes intact are two stems and base sections of bucket-bowl wineglass. Two engraved bowl sherds from similar-shaped cordial glasses and a rim sherd from another engraved piece are the only fragments with surface decoration (USNM 59.1634, 59.1864, ill. 45). Several sherds of foot rims, varying in diameter, were found, including one with a folded or “welted” edge.

Tumblers, depending on their sizes, were used for strong spirits, toddy, flip, and water. The base and body sherds of a molded tumbler from Marlborough are fluted in quadruple ribs that are separated by panels ¼-inch wide (USNM 59.1864, fig. 82c, ill. 46). Plain, blown tumbler bases have indicated diameters of 3 inches.

A few unusual, as well as more typical, forms are indicated by the Marlborough glass sherds. One small fragment comes from a large flanged cover, probably from a sweetmeat bowl or a posset pot. A specimen of more than usual interest is a pressed or cast cut-glass octagonal trencher salt (USNM 59.1830, fig. 82a, ill. 47). This artifact reflects silver and pewter salt forms of about 1725. A curved section of a heavy glass rod is apparently from a chandelier, candelabrum, or sconce glass (USNM 59.1696, fig. 82e). We have seen that Mercer, in 1748, bought “1 superfine large gilt Sconce glass.”

Although precise dates cannot be ascribed to any of this glass, it all derives without much question from the period of Mercer’s occupancy of Marlborough.

MIRROR AND WINDOW GLASS

We know from the ledgers that there were sconce and looking glasses at Marlborough. Archeological refuse supplies us with confirmation in pieces of clear lead glass with slight surviving evidence of the tinfoil and mercury with which the backs originally were coated. One piece (USNM 59.1693) has a beveled edge ⁷/₈ inch wide, characteristic of plate-glass wall mirrors of the colonial period. A curved groove on this piece, along which the fracture occurred, is probable evidence of engraved decoration.

Window glass is of two principal types. One has a pale-olive cast. A few fragments of this type have finished edges, indicating that they are from the perimeters of sheets of crown glass and that Mercer purchased whole crown sheets and had them cut up. It may be assumed that this greenish glass is the oldest, perhaps surviving from Mercer’s early period.

The other type is the more familiar aquamarine window glass still to be found in 18th-century houses. A large corner of a rectangular pane has the slightly bent contour of crown glass, which is the English type of window glass made by blowing great bubbles of glass which were spun to form huge discs. The discs sometimes were cut up into panes of stock sizes and then shipped to America, or else were sent in whole sheets, to be cut up by storekeepers here or to be sold directly to planters and other users of window glass in quantity.

The centers of these sheets increased in thickness and bore large scars where the massive pontil rods which had held the sheets during their manipulation were broken off. The center portions also were cut into panes, which were used in transom lights and windows where light was needed but a view was not. Hence they served not only to utilize an otherwise useless part of the crown-glass sheets, but also to impart a decorative quality to the window. They are still known to us as “bullseyes.” A piece of a bullseye pane of aquamarine glass occurs in the Marlborough finds. The pontil scar itself is missing, but the thick curving section leaves little doubt as to its original appearance. A similar fragment was found at Rosewell.

FOOTNOTES: