Stoneware Jug
date: label: date made
content: 1816-26
notes: label: Description
content: This two-gallon stoneware jug was made by Calvin Boynton & Co, Troy, New York, about 1826-29. The maker's mark is stamped on the front shoulder above a gaff-rigged sloop in full sail with a banner flying from the masthead and "TROY" marked on the stern.
label: Description
content: Two brothers, Jonah and Calvin Boynton, came from Vermont to, at first, become merchants in Albany, New York. The pottery on Washington Street in Troy was first in operation by 1816, but Jonah appears to have abandoned the trade early on, leaving Calvin to continue the stoneware pottery, which was then taken over by Moses Tyler and Charles Dillon in 1826. Calvin Boynton then moved his business to West Troy.
label: Description
content: The sailing vessel incised onto the jug, was probably a local sloop used in the Hudson River trade and inshore waters. The technique of incised decoration on stoneware, common in the early 19th century, had more or less disappeared by 1840.
label: Description
content: The presence of nearby stoneware clays gave rise to the New York state salt-glazed stoneware tradition that, by the early 1800s, developed in villages and towns along the Hudson River. Shipped upriver, the clay returned downstream after being transformed into useful ceramic vessels. With the Erie Canal completion in 1825, stoneware production extended its range to meet the increased flow of perishable goods from the Great Lakes region.
label: Description
content: The production of these sturdy salt-glazed containers declined following improvements in tinning and canning perishable foodstuffs. In the late 1850s, the glass Mason canning jar entered the market, after which the potteries lost much of the demand for food storage containers that sustained so much of their production.
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York
topic: label: related event
content: Expansion and Reform
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
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content: Food
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content: Work
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content: Industry & Manufacturing
label: Exhibition
content: On the Water
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.300894.18
label: catalog number
content: 300894.18
label: accession number
content: 300894
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Jug
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: monochrome, blue (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, stoneware, coarse (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 13 3/4 in; 34.925 cm