The Weitsman Stoneware Collection at the New York State Museum

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 2002 by John L. Scherer

In 1996 the New York State Museum in Albany received an extraordinary gift of 105 pieces of decorated New York State stoneware from Adam Joel Weitsman, who is one of the premier collectors of New York stoneware, having begun in 1980 at the age of eleven. He and his father, Harold F Weitsman, the owner of a scrap metal and steel business in Owego and Endicott, dug up two stoneware beer bottles on their property, which they took to an Owego stoneware collector for identification. When they saw the collector's display they were hooked. The first piece they bought together was a crock decorated with cobalt blue flowers for $150. Adam raised his share of the cost by doing chores.

Adam Weitsman continued to collect decorated New York stoneware throughout his teenage years. He scoured East Coast antiques shows, estate sales, dealers, and auctions, and he often made news in the trade papers by acquiring important rarities. He focused on presentation pieces made for special occasions. These were usually oversized and frequently decorated with elaborate and unusual cobalt blue designs.

In 1987 Weitsman acquired the huge and elaborate pitcher shown in Plates I and Ia, one of the finest known pieces of American decorated stoneware. The handle in the shape of a hound dog was a popular treatment for mid-nineteenth-century pitcher handles. The pitcher was displayed in the shop window of the maker as an advertisement, and oral tradition indicates that it was exhibited at a world's fair Weitsman purchased the pitcher from Elizabeth Pike, the great-great granddaughter of John Burger, one of the two makers. She had been using it as an umbrella stand.

Stoneware was the basic ceramic ware for utilitarian objects in the nineteenth century. Stoneware containers were used primarily in the preparation, storage, and serving of food. The ceramic was also used for inkwells, match holders, flowerpots, and tobacco pipes. In the twentieth century, plastic and aluminum replaced stoneware as the chief materials for kitchen containers.

The shape of stoneware containers can help date them, since ovoid vessels of the first half of the nineteenth century gave way to cylindrical ones after mid-century. Because of its canal system, New York State became one of the leading producers of stoneware, since the necessary white clay could be shipped from Bayonne, New Jersey Huntington, Long island, and Staten Island, New York, to the potters along the network of canals and turnpikes. The finished products were then sent to markets along the same routes.

Stoneware vessels were often shaped by hand on a potter's wheel or sometimes formed in a wooden mold. After being air-dried, an awl or pointed stick could be used to scratch a simple design into the surface. Decoration with cobalt blue paint was also applied freehand. The interior of the vessels might be coated with dark brown slip clay from Albany, and the finished pieces were then fired at about twenty-one hundred degrees Fahrenheit in a beehive-shaped kiln. When the heat was at its maximum a bucket of coarse salt was thrown into the kiln, where it vaporized, covering all exposed surfaces with a shiny and somewhat pitted or pebbled finish referred to as salt glaze. Once the kiln cooled, usually after two or three days, the finished ware was loaded onto flatboats or wagons (and later trains) and shipped to distributors and merchants often several hundred miles away.

The desire to make utilitarian stoneware objects more pleasing to the eye resulted in an assortment of artful designs reflecting the daily life and interests of the decorators. Most potters were not trained artists, but some of the incised or painted decorations they created are now appreciated as prime examples of American folk art. Flowers and birds were by far the most popular motifs, but a variety of animals are also found. Lions, dogs, stags, horses, goats, and even fish were often depicted. Patriotic motifs such as eagles, shields, and flags were also popular. Unusual designs featured buildings or people engaged in some activity. Punches and coggles were used to apply bands of decoration such as circles, stars, floral emblems, and other motifs. Often the potter's name and location and the size of the vessel were also stamped into the piece.

Flowers including daisies, sunflowers, roses, and tulips are depicted on stoneware vessels. The large butter churn shown in Plate II is decorated with an elegant urn filled with flowers. In 1856 Shem Thomas, one of the partners of the firm in Penn Yan, New York, that made it, left to operate his own stoneware pottery in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The other partner, James Mantell, became very prosperous, employing Ezra Warren of Penn Yan to peddle his wares through the neighborhood from a horse and wagon. (1)

Flowers also decorate the large whiskey jug shown in Plate IV. Vessels like this, sometimes referred to as coolers, had a spigot at the base and were often used to serve whiskey in a bar room. The maker, William H. Farrar, was a member of a large family connected with potteries in Vermont and Canada as well as New York State. (2)