Crock

Object Name:

Crock

Object ID:

1956.334

Creator:

Crafts, Thomas Spencer; Crafts, Martin; Crafts, James Monroe

Place of Origin:

Nashua, NH

Date:

1838-1852

Description:

Crock. Brown salt-glazed stoneware with Albany slip glaze interior. Three gallons. Cylindrical body with applied handles on sides. Two incised rings around top of exterior. "T.CRAFT & CO." stamped in semi circle on front. "NASHUA. / 3" stamped beneath. Incised on bottom in script "Whately"

Material:

Ceramic
Stoneware

Dimensions:

H-10.9 Dia-10 inches

Provenance:

One of many pieces of stoneware donated by Margaret Jewell. There is no known history for the ownership of this item.

The stoneware pottery of Martin Crafts in Nashua was the first of its kind in New Hampshire and, with the exception of the one in Keene, was the only stoneware concern in the state. The Crafts pottery was an offshoot of the stoneware business begun by Thomas Crafts in Whatley in 1833. His son James M. was the first manager of the Nashua works. Another son, Martin, who had been running a stoneware pottery business in Portland, ME, with his uncle Caleb, came to Nashua in 1839 and bought out the business two years later. He operated it for 10 years and it is known as his pottery. Martin left the management to his two brothers James M. and Thomas Spencer Crafts in 1851 while he went to Boston to conduce a wholesale stoneware agency for the sale of their products. The pottery closed in 1852. The clay for the works is said to have come from Boston by boat through the Middlesex Canal and up the Merrimack River. The factory opened in 1838 and in 1850 was doing $16,000 worth of business annually, which must have been somewhere near 53,000 pieces per year. "T. Crafts & Co Nashua" is the earliest mark used by the company.

Credit Line:

Gift of Margaret H. Jewell

People:

Jewell, Margaret H. (1866-1970), Crafts, Thomas Spencer, Crafts, James Monroe, Crafts, Martin, Crafts, Thomas

Subjects:

Crocks, Pottery, Pottery industry