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William Pecker (1757 – 1820) was one of the most famous potters in South Amesbury (Merrimacport), Massachusetts, and one of the earliest potters in New England to produce red earthenware and stoneware. Recent research proves that Pecker spent time working in New York City, possibly with the Crolius or Remmey families, before producing stoneware in South Amesbury during the last decade of his life. Newly discovered archaeological evidence recovered at the site of the Pecker Pottery has revealed more information about this relatively forgotten aspect of the company’s production. In addition to his presentation about the stoneware made in South Amesbury, Justin Thomas will also share some of the materials recovered at the site of pottery, including important stoneware sherds, kiln bricks, kiln wasters and kiln furniture, most of which have never been shown publicly before.

$7/person for Bennington Museum Members
$10/person for Not-Yet-Members
Includes admission to the galleries for the day, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Justin W. Thomas is a collector and researcher into the history of American utilitarian pottery production from the seventeenth through the twentieth century. He has authored a number of research articles for various regional and national publications, guest curated a major exhibit at the Custom House Maritime Museum in Newburyport, Massachusetts about the local eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century potters, as well as helped author the exhibit catalog, Potters on the Merrimac: A Century of New England Ceramics. He also has an ongoing pottery book series through his publisher Historic Beverly in Massachusetts, where he has authored the books, The Beverly Pottery: The Wares of Charles A. Lawrence, The Moses B. Paige Company: The Last of the Peabody Potteries, The Dawn of Independence, the Death of an Industry: The Pottery of Charlestown, Massachusetts, South Amesbury’s Red Earthenware & Stoneware: The 1791-1820 William Pecker Pottery, A Celebrated Industry: The Historic Wares of Southeastern Massachusetts, Bristol County and Cape Cod and A City on the River: The Early Red Earthenware of the Hartford, Connecticut Area. These books are sold through Historic Beverly, as well as major bookstores all over America, Canada and England. Thomas also has three forthcoming books that are set to be published later in 2023 and 2024, titled, From One Town Came Many: The Red Earthenware Industry of North Yarmouth, Maine, An Influential Family of Early Potters: The Clarks of New Hampshire and Related Businesses and America’s Great Awakening and Migration: The Red Earthenware of Western New York.

Saturday morning sale & swap in the upper parking lot of the Paradise Hotel, just east of Bennington Museum on Main Street.