Trenton New Jersey Potteries (Maddock’s Lamberton Works, Maddock Trenton China, Trenton China Company)
In 2015, ceramic specialist Amy C. Earls donated to the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory a five-box collection of ceramic waster sherds from various pottery manufacturers in Trenton, New Jersey. Earls and George L. Miller surface collected on three turn-of-the-twentieth-century/World War I-era pottery waster dumps exposed by excavations along the N.J. Route 29 realignment and tunnel construction project in south Trenton from March 1998 through April 2000. The New Jersey Department of Transportation had hired archaeological firm Hunter Research of Trenton to monitor trenching and perform data recovery to mitigate impacts of construction on significant archaeological resources along the road. At the invitation of Hunter personnel, Earls and Miller collected wasters and assisted in advocating for the national archaeological and historical significance of these pottery wastes.
Trenton, New Jersey, was one of two major American pottery production centers from the nineteenth to mid twentieth century (the other was East Liverpool, Ohio). Key potteries represented in the dumps include the Trenton China Company, Thomas Maddock and Sons (doing business as Maddock Pottery Co.) Lamberton Works, Joseph Mayer’s Arsenal Pottery, and Mercer Pottery. Considerable historic documentation, including Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, correspondence, and pottery records, survives for these potteries and offers much research potential.
Hunter Research designated three dump locations within the overarching Waterfront Stadium Archaeological Complex (28Me266): the Waterfront Stadium Dump, the Lalor Street Dump, and the New Lamberton Street Dump (Table 1). Each of the three dumps contains hotelwares from the Lamberton Works pottery operated by the Trenton China Co. and its successor, Thomas Maddock and Sons. The New Lamberton Street Dump consists of material removed from the Route 29 impact area and redeposited at the corner of Lamberton Road and the 195 connector. Hunter Research personnel used marked sherds to date the dumps (tables provided by Hunter Research listing badge/client, merchant, decoration, and marks, 10/21/98). Significant amounts of sponge and Victorian majolica wasters from Joseph Mayer’s Arsenal Pottery occur in the Lalor Street and New Lamberton Street dumps. Mercer Pottery sherd concentrations occur in the Waterfront Stadium Dump.
Table 1. Waterfront Stadium Archaeological Complex Dumps Collected by Miller and Earls
| Dump No. | Dump Name, Date | Factories | Ware |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Waterfront Stadium, ca. 1918–23 | Maddock Pottery Lamberton Works Mercer Pottery |
Hotelware (decor.) Printed tableware |
| 2 | Lalor Street, ca. 1912–21 | Trenton China Co. Maddock Pottery Co. Lamberton Works Joseph Mayer’s Arsenal Pottery |
Hotelware (undec.) Hotelware (decor.) Sponge, majolica |
| 3 | New Lamberton Street, ca. 1906–12 | Trenton China Co. Maddock Pottery Co. Lamberton Works Joseph Mayer’s Arsenal Pottery |
Hotelware (undec.) Hotelware (decor.) and sanitary ware, Sponge, majolica |
The dumps’ integrity is limited, with most contexts mixed and some containing household as well as factory waste. The presence of kiln furniture, block molds, misfired wasters, and biscuit sherds were reliable indicators of factory waste as well as possibly unmixed contexts. These concentrations within the larger dump area are noted below.
The waster dumps show types of wares made in Trenton at the turn of the twentieth century, including types that may not be well represented in modern collections. Maddock’s Lamberton Works sold its hotelwares to a national market, and the contents of all three dumps demonstrate the wide range of this production line. The dumps contain abundant technological evidence, such as factory tools, kiln furniture, block molds, and manufacturing failures showing the results of inadequate temperature control. The abundant hotelware marks, in particular, record a variety of information, including in addition to the patterns the factory’s clients (e.g., the Stevens Hotel, Chicago) and merchants (Albert Pick, Chicago), as well as maker (Maddock’s Lamberton Works) and body (Lamberton China, Trenton China, or American China).
The Arsenal Pottery wasters document production in Trenton of two types that survive on the antiques market: cut sponge and American majolica. Although the sponge sherds occasionally are marked, their Trenton origin has been obscured by the presence of two Mayer factories, one on either side of the Delaware River. The long-lived factory (1881–present) in Beaver Falls, Pa., originally owned by Joseph, Arthur, and Ernest Mayer, is much better known among collectors than the earlier Arsenal Pottery (1876–1905) in Trenton, owned by James and Joseph Mayer (Liebeknecht 2001:1). Both factories used pseudo-British coat of arms backstamps, with the Trenton firm using the wording Mayer Pottery M’f’g Co. (see two examples of marks in the Photo Gallery section of the Potteries of Trenton Society website, http://potteriesoftrentonsociety.org/majolica/mayer_marks.html). These marks often do not provide factory location, however, and some contain only initials, rather than names, further contributing to confusion in identification (in fact, Lehner’s 1988 dictionary of marks does not have a listing for the Arsenal Pottery or the Trenton factory but only for the Beaver Falls location). Thus the sponge-stamped wares marked Mayer are often wrongly attributed to the Beaver Falls, Pa., factory (e.g., see Robacker and Robacker 1978: 79 illustration of plates marked Mayer Mfg. Co.). An exception is Kelly, Kowalsky, and Kowalsky (2001: 102–104), which incorporated information from waster dump collection to correctly attribute extant vessels to Trenton. The sponge waster sherds in the Hunter Research (Liebeknecht 2001) and Earls collection demonstrate the variety of Trenton’s Arsenal Pottery production of this ware.
Based on surviving vessels on the antiques market, the sponge vessels produced by the two factories appear to be large identical except for color palette (the Trenton facility did not use red or black; Liebeknecht 2001: 2). Bill Liebeknecht suggests that the Trenton factory ceased production of spongeware after 1883, when they began producing majolica ware, and sponge production shifted to the Beaver Falls pottery (Liebeknecht 2001:2), which had opened two years earlier. Other Trenton factories producing sponge at the turn of the twentieth century include Willets Manufacturing Co. and Columbian Art Pottery (Earls Collection; Robacker and Robacker 1978; Kelly, Kowalsky and Kowalsky 2001: 102–105). Trenton potteries making sponge ware may have shared a common cut-sponge supplier, making attribution based on sponge motifs difficult. Note that unlike British sponge wares of the mid nineteenth century, the Trenton sponge versions occur on tableware, not teaware, vessels.
American majolica (often termed Victorian majolica by collectors to distinguish it from European wares) is even less commonly recognized as a Trenton product because marks are rare. Researchers, antique dealers, and collectors commonly identify Mayer majolica as made in East Liverpool, Ohio, or Britain. Not until the Route 29 archaeological work has this ware been firmly attributed to Mayer by the presence of waster sherds and association with marked sponge wasters. For the first time in over 100 years Mayer’s majolica can claim its rightful place in New Jersey and American ceramic history (Liebeknecht 2000). In addition to the limited-access gray literature of archaeological reports, the Photo Gallery section of the Potteries of Trenton Society website (http://potteriesoftrentonsociety.org/mayer.html) provides a readily accessible source for identification, illustrating 14 Mayer majolica vessels and matching waster sherds from Hunter Research’s collection on the waster dumps. The sherds in the Earls collection offer the potential to identify other surviving vessels as Trenton products.
The naturalistic shapes of the majolica produced by Mayer’s Arsenal Pottery are decorated with broad swathes of painted color. The nonmolded surface formed by a jolly (interior of hollowares) or jigger (backs of flatwares) template is covered with a ground or mottled color. Unlike British Victorian majolica, the Mayer version is not limited to the low-fired beige-colored body typical of the former; this collection demonstrates that many sherds have well-fired white granite bodies.
The letterhead of an 1897 letter from the Mayer Pottery Manufacturing Co. of Trenton lists the firm as manufacturers of majolica and white granite (underglaze and enamel decorations). In 1893 Edwin AtLee Barber (1971: 241) described the Arsenal Pottery of the Mayer Pottery Manufacturing Co. as “probably, at the present time, the only concern in the United States which manufactures the so-called majolica ware.” Van Hoesen (1973: 160) describes the Mayer Pottery as one of only six U.S. firms to produce American majolica ware in the 1880s–1890s.
References Cited
1971 (reprint, orig. 1893) Pottery and Porcelain of the United States. Watkins Glen, NY: Century House Americana.
2000 “A Selection of Cut Sponge Designs,” Pt. 1. Victorian Ceramics Group Newsletter 5, no. 1 (May).
1999 Poster, “The Waster Dumps of the Thomas Maddock and Sons Lamberton Works.”
2001 Spongeware 1835–1935: Makers, Marks, and Patterns. Atglen, PA: Schiffer.
1988 Lehner’s Encyclopedia of U.S. Marks on Pottery, Porcelain, and Clay. Paducah, KY: Collector Books.
2000 “Joseph Mayer’s Arsenal Pottery Dump, Pt. 2: Majolica,” Trenton Potteries (Potteries of Trenton Society newsletter) 1, no. 3 (August/September).
2001 “Joseph Mayer’s Arsenal Pottery Dump, Pt. 3: Cut Sponge Decorated Ironstone China,” Trenton Potteries (Potteries of Trenton Society newsletter) 2, nos. 3/4 (December).
1897 Letter to the Bonnot Co., East Liverpool, Ohio. George L. Miller Collection.
1978 Spatterware and Sponge: Hardy Perennials of Ceramics. South Brunswick, NJ: A. S. Barnes.
1973 Crafts and Craftsmen of New Jersey. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.