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Teapot

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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This teapot was made at a company operated by Thomas Crafts of Whatley, Massachusetts. Crafts began making pottery there in 1803 and in 1822 opened a teapot factory in partnership with Justus White. They continued as partners for only two years, but Craft continued making teapots until 1832. The factory may have remained open as late as 1848. The teapots Crafts made were apparently highly prized and were sold in New York and Philadelphia. The first newspaper advertisement of their product claimed that they could "manufacture as good pots as are made any where n the United States." This teapot is redware, a kind of pottery process that makes a porous and fragile product but which requires much lower firing temperatures. It has a manganese-lead glaze, and like all the Crafts teapots has a distinctive brownish-black color.

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