Fenton Family Pottery Ventures: New Discoveries

May 19, 2023 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Fenton Family Pottery Ventures: New Discoveries

To begin this two-part presentation, Lorraine German will introduce attendees to a newly discovered pottery operated by Jonathan Fenton Jr. in the present town of Bloomfield (formerly part of Windsor), Connecticut, between 1798 and 1801, prior to his removal to Dorset, Vermont. The Bloomfield pottery followed his involvement in the well-known Boston pottery from 1793 to 1796 and his removal to Walpole, Cheshire County, New Hampshire in 1796.
Warren Broderick will then present briefly on the newly discovered Walpole pottery that Jonathan and his younger brother, Richard W. Fenton, operated for a few years. Richard removed to St. Johnsbury in Caledonia County, Vermont ca. 1800 and established a pottery there in the next few years. Warren will then present newly discovered information on the Fenton redware and stoneware pottery which operated there until 1860. Early photographs and remarkable documents concerning the Richard/Leander Fenton family, in the collection of the Bennington Museum, as well as examples of their production, will be on display. The site has been located and field investigation has begun.

$7/Bennington Museum Member or $10/Not-Yet-Member.
Event fee includes all day admission to the Museum!

Saturday morning sale & swap in the upper parking lot of the Paradise Hotel

About the Presenters:

Lorraine German and her late husband Steve established Mad River Antiques, LLC in 2001, with a concentration on 18th, 19th, and 20th century Americana and decorative arts. Over the years, they have received extensive recognition from their peers for their expertise in stoneware, textiles, Christmas decorations, and Indian baskets. They have been frequent guest speakers at antiques shows, museums, and antiques organizations, where they have covered a variety of topics, including stoneware, redware, quilts, Christmas ornaments, and Santa Claus.

Lorraine is a member of the Antiques Dealers’ Association of America and the Cape Cod Antique Dealers Association. Both she and Steve have served as collection advisors for the Bidwell House Museum in Monterey, Massachusetts.

Lorraine has done extensive research on the potting and decorating styles of the 19th century stoneware potteries in the Northeast. The research that she has conducted on the Boston and Charlestown, Massachusetts stoneware potteries of the late 18th and early 19th century has resulted in some new discoveries. Her article “Eighteenth-Century Boston Stoneware: Appealing to a Local Market” appeared in the 2019 volume of Ceramics in America. Her latest article “The Little Pottery of Charlestown, Massachusetts” appeared in the publication’s 2021 volume. Lorraine is also the author of Soil and Shul in the Berkshires: The Untold Story of Sandisfield’s Jewish Farm Colony, published in 2018.

Warren F. Broderick is an independent scholar and emeritus from the New York State Archives.  Mr. Broderick received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in American Studies from Union College.

With a background as a historian, he has authored five books, edited or contributed to ten others, and written a number of journal articles on natural history, the history of American ceramics, art history, and on literary and local historical subjects, in particular on Herman Melville and New York State’s Native Americans in literature.  His most recent works include an Introduction to a new edition of Small Town by Granville Hicks (1946, reissued 2004) and Grafton, Berlin, and Petersburgh in the Images of America Series (2006). Much of his time in currently devoted to fine art and Bennington and St. Johnsbury pottery history research.  He is also working with the Southern Vermont Art Center on digitizing art exhibition records.

Mr. Broderick resides in Lansingburgh, Rensselaer County, New York.

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