Part 6 (1/2)

(2) Oven in place in Bowne House, Flus.h.i.+ng, Long Island. Similar in shape to Jamestown oven. Opening is arched.

(3) Body sherd and handle sherds at Jamestown, from additional oven or ovens.

(4) Body sherd from dome-top oven similar to those at Jamestown and Flus.h.i.+ng. John Howland House site, Rocky Nook, Kingston, Plymouth County, Ma.s.sachusetts. (Fig. 26.)

COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE

Paste color, temper, and texture are consistent when examined microscopically. Resemblance is very close between oven sherds from the Jamestown and Howland house sites, and between these and a large chip obtained from the Smithsonian's oven purchased in Bideford. Except for a somewhat lower proportion of temper, utensil sherds from various sites are consistent with the oven fragments. The Smithsonian's 19th-century Bideford pan also closely resembles these, except for the proportion of temper, which is somewhat less. Further close resemblance of form exists between the Jamestown and Flus.h.i.+ng ovens and those in the Bideford Museum.

(Figs. 7, 9.)

In 1954 comparative tests were made by Frederick H. Norton, professor of ceramics at Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology. Jamestown clay was used for a control. Thin sections, made of sherds found at Jamestown, were fired at several temperatures and the results recorded in photomicrographs. Of the gravel-tempered sherd submitted in these tests, Professor Norton commented, ”The clay ma.s.s looks quite dissimilar from the Jamestown clay.”

No other identifiable English ware of this period compares with the gravel-tempered pottery, the use of gravel for temper apparently being restricted to North Devon. Gravel is found in red earthenware sherds from Spanish colonial sites and in olive oil jars of Hispanic origin, but both the quality and proportion of temper differs, as do the paste characteristics, so that no possibility exists for confusion between them and the North Devon ware.

The North Devon potteries produced gravel-tempered ovens that probably were unique in England. Ceramic ovens were made elsewhere, to be sure; Jewitt describes and ill.u.s.trates an oven made in Yearsley by the Yorks.h.i.+re Wedgwoods in 1712, but it is in no way related to the North Devon form. We have mentioned Dr. Poc.o.c.ke's allusion to ”earthenware ovens” made in the mid-18th century at Calstock on the Cornish side of the Devons.h.i.+re border, about 35 miles from Bideford; however, one may suppose that these were the products of diffusion from the North Devon center, if, indeed, they even resembled the North Devon ovens.

The closest comparisons with the North Devon ovens are to be found in Continental sources. A woodcut in Ulrich von Richental's _Concilium zu Constancz_ (fig. 35), printed at Augsburg in 1483, shows an oven whose shape is similar to that of the Jamestown specimen. The oven in the woodcut is mounted on a two-wheeled cart drawn by two men. A woman is removing a tart from the flame-licked opening while a couple sits nearby at a table in front of a shop. Le Moyne, a century later, depicted the Huguenot Fort Caroline in Florida.[71] Just outside the stockade, on a raised platform under a thatched lean-to appears an oven whose form is similar to that of typical North Devon examples (fig. 36). It is a safe a.s.sumption that the ovens in both Richental's and Le Moyne's scenes were ceramic ovens, for both were used outdoors in a portable or temporary manner. No other material would have been suitable for such use.

This portable usage gives support to Bailey's conjecture that the Jamestown oven may have been used indoors in the winter and outdoors in the summer. He noted that carbon had been ground into the base, as though the oven had lain on a fireplace hearth.[72] Sidney Strickland, writing about his excavation of the John Howland House site, noted that the stone fireplace foundation there had no provision for a built-in brick oven of conventional type.[73] Not having recognized the earthen oven sherd, he a.s.sumed that bread was baked on the stone hearth. The pottery oven may well have been placed on the hearth or have been set up in an outbuilding.

That ovens of some sort, whether ceramic or brick, were used away from houses is borne out by occasional doc.u.mentary evidence. In 1662 John Andrews of Ipswich, Ma.s.sachusetts, bequeathed a ”bake house” worth 2 pounds, 10 s.h.i.+llings. In 1673, Henry Short of Newbury provided in his will that his widow should have ”free egress and regress into the Bakehouse for bakeing & was.h.i.+ng.” In 1679 the inventory of Lt. George Gardner's estate in Salem listed his ”dwelling house, bake house & out housing.”[74] Bailey quotes the records of Henrico County, Virginia, to show a similar usage in the South.[75]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 31.--Pedestal bases of small chafing dishes or standing salts. Top, exterior and interior of one sherd; bottom, exterior and top view of another sherd. Colonial National Historical Park. (_From Smithsonian photos 43039-C, 43030-D._)]

The only unquestionable evidence of how these ovens were used remains in the Bowne House, where the oven is built into the fireplace back.

Originally, the oven protruded outdoors from the back of the chimney.[76]

Conclusions

Archeological, doc.u.mentary, and literary evidences indicate that yellow sgraffito ware, gravel-tempered earthenware utensils, and gravel-tempered pottery ovens were made in several potteries in and around Barnstaple and Bideford in North Devon. Clay from the Fremington clay beds was used.

The North Devon potteries manufactured for export, sending their wares to Ireland as early as 1600 and to America by 1635. The trade was particularly heavy in the years following the Stuart Restoration and was tied to the influential 17th-century West-of-England commerce with America. New England, Maryland, and Virginia received many s.h.i.+pments of North Devon pottery, an entire cargo of it having been delivered in Boston in 1688.

Sgraffito ware found in colonial sites in Virginia and Maryland is from a common source. The style of decoration is unique to English pottery and reflects Continental elements of design. It is reminiscent of decoration found on English and colonial New England furniture and embroideries. The only counterparts of this ware--matching it in style, paste color, and technique--are found among 17th-century sherds excavated from the sites of two potteries in Barnstaple. The 18th-century and 19th-century North Devon sgraffito ware surviving above ground differs considerably in style and form but in other respects it is the same as the ware found archeologically in Virginia and Maryland. The stylistic differences, noticeable on a piece in the Glaisher collection dated as early as 1704 (in which traces of the earlier style remain), were introduced by the turn of the century, thus strengthening the conclusion that the sgraffito tablewares found archeologically in this country must date from before 1700.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 32.--Photomicrographs of gravel-tempered sherds enlarged twice natural size, showing cross-sectional fractures. Top left, pan sherd from Jamestown (Colonial National Historical Park); top right, pan sherd from Angelica Knoll site, Calvert County, Maryland (United States National Museum); and oven sherd from Bideford (United States National Museum).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 33.--Photomicrographs of gravel-tempered sherds enlarged three times natural size, showing cross-sectional fractures. Top, pan sherd from ”R. M.” site, Plymouth, Ma.s.sachusetts (Plimoth Plantation, Inc.); lower left, oven sherd from Jamestown (Colonial National Historical Park); and oven sherd from John Howland house site, Rocky Nook, Plymouth, Ma.s.sachusetts (Plimoth Plantation, Inc.).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 34.--Rim profiles of North Devon gravel-tempered earthenware pans. All are from the fill around and beneath the May-Hartwell site drain at Jamestown (constructed between 1689 and 1695) except those marked, as follows: _A_, from Angelica Knoll site, Calvert County, Maryland, late 17th century to about 1765; _B_, from John Was.h.i.+ngton House site, Westmoreland County, Virginia, the period from about 1664 to about 1680; _C_, from ”R. M.” site, Plymouth, Ma.s.sachusetts, about 1670; _D_, from site of George Was.h.i.+ngton's birthplace, near the John Was.h.i.+ngton house site; _E_, from Winslow site, Marshfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, which was occupied from about 1635 to about 1699.]

For kitchen utensils, tiles, and other objects subject to heat or breakage, the same Fremington clay received an admixture of fine pebbles, or gravel, secured at a special place in the bed of the River Torridge in Bideford. The use of gravel was described by 18th-century writers as well as by later historians. As found in America, the gravel-tempered ware apparently is unique among the products of either English or colonial American potters.

A specialty of the North Devon potteries was the manufacture of ovens made of the same gravel-tempered clay as the kitchen utensils. The appearance of these ovens and the method of making them remained virtually the same from the 17th through the 19th centuries. At Jamestown, a wholly reconstructed oven reveals typical North Devon traits throughout, while a fragment of an oven from the John Howland House site near Plymouth displays, under a microscope, the same qualities of paste and temper as in a fragment of an oven obtained in Bideford by the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution.