The Hutchinson Family and Their Vermont Redware Potteries

By Warren F. Broderick 

In a previously published article entitled “A Re-evaluation of Early Woodstock Potteries,” I spoke briefly about Ebenezer Hutchinson’s tenure in Woodstock in the 1820s.  Even though he never potted in Woodstock proper, the complete story of Ebenezer and his family of potters merits detailed analysis.

The first published reference to Ebenezer is a notice dated August 8, 1815, in the Farmer’s Cabinet, published in Amherst, New Hampshire, where Ebenezer (1787-1855) announced that he had removed his pottery operation from Lyndeborough, New Hampshire, to Vermont.  The newspaper notice did not specify the Vermont town, but Lura Watkins assumed incorrectly that it was St. Johnsbury.  Lyndeborough was a potting center, and the potters largely came from Danvers and other towns in Essex County,  Massachusetts, the best known, Peter Clark, arriving there as early as 1775. In fact, it was Ebenezer’s brother, William, who moved to St. Johnsbury and established a pottery at that time.

The Hutchinson brothers made certain their potteries were not competing for the same geographical market. St. Johnsbury, in Caledonia County, already had an earthenware pottery established in the early 1800s by Richard W. Fenton just north of St. Johnsbury village, but Rev. William Hutchinson (1794-1842) saw the need for another redware pottery downtown.  His father, Rev. Ebenezer Hutchinson (1764-1854), had come to Lyndeborough, New Hampshire, from Saugus, Massachusetts, before 1810 and resided there until 1833. His ministerial duties led him eventually to relocate in St. Johnsbury shortly after 1840. His son, Arnold Hutchinson, was a Deacon of the Second Congregational Church on the corner of Main Street and Winter (then known as School) Street. Neither Arnold nor his father is documented as having any role in the Hutchinson potteries.

Three locations have been identified for the William Hutchinson Pottery. It was first located at a mill complex along the Sleepers River on the west edge of the principal settlement, south of Danville Road in a neighborhood known as Fairbanks Village. The industrialization of this site began in the summer of 1815 when new resident, Joseph Fairbanks, began to erect various mills. Years later former resident, Henry Little, recalled how he as a young man helped erect some of these factories including “a pottery for making brown ware by William Hutchinson.” The E. and T. Fairbanks Company erected their large scale works in this area, and in a few years smaller industries needed to relocate. This probably accounted for William’s temporary relocation to Quechee in 1817.  More on William and his pottery ventures follow below.

The 1815 newspaper notice surely refers to Quechee in the Town of Hartford, in Windsor County. Ebenezer Jr. acquired land by deeds dated 1814 and 1815 both stating his residence was still Lyndeborough. This pottery was located on the south side of the present Quechee Main Street, west of the covered bridge, where a much-altered wood frame house numbered 2066 now stands. The “potters shop” is mentioned in an 1828 deed from Abel Barron to Shubael Russ, but by then the pottery had probably ceased operation. The building is mentioned again as standing forty years later in an 1868 deed although it surely had been converted into a gable-front residence by that time that has since been greatly enlarged into a multi-family structure.

According to a deed for a neighboring piece of property, the above pictured house (now numbered 2066 Main Street) was the “Potters Shop.” It was likely built around 1820.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, the “Potters Shop” was altered and expanded. It is now an apartment building.

Ebenezer also acquired land on the north side of the river east of the village center on Dewey’s Mills Road, more or less opposite “Marshland” (the Georgian mansion of the Marsh family, now the Quechee Inn). I have not determined which of his many business ventures were located here. Ebenezer acquired additional property in 1817, 1818, 1821 and 1822 and soon thereafter began to sell off some of his interest in these parcels to satisfy his debts with his final involvement in property in Quechee being in 1829. He was involved, sometimes with one or more of his brothers, as plaintiff or respondent, in a number of legal actions involving debt in Windsor County Court during these years as well. A puzzling exception was a suit of trespass brought by Hutchinson in 1825 against John R. Phelps of Swanton, Franklin County, involving the forceful removal of “goods and chattels” of Ebenezer’s the previous year in the Town of Alburgh, Grand Isle County. This occurred in the northwest corner of the state, some distance from Quechee, and it is unclear what activity transpired here.

In this advertisement from the Vermont Journal, dated December 15, 1817, the Hutchinson brothers boasted of the benefits of their pottery sap pots. Sadly, none of these pots is known to have survived to present day.

William “formed a connection” with his brother in 1817, and they announced in the Vermont Journal that they sold brown earthenware wholesale and retail. Their specialty was “sap pots” meant to hang on sugar maple trees to collect sap for making sugar. Ebenezer remarked that “sap caught in them is of superior quality,” suggesting that their glaze (whether mineral or slip clay) prevented toxins from leaching into the syrup better than glazes with a higher percentage of lead or manganese. In another advertisement in the Journal, dated September 26, 1818, Ebenezer stated that he had been experimenting with glazes for the sap pots for four years.

In October of 1820, their pottery was taken over by two other brothers, Benjamin and Daniel G. Hutchinson, who continued to produce earthenware, including sap pots. How long their business operated is not known. Daniel Hutchinson (1796-1876) removed first to Gorton, New Hampshire, and subsequently to Colebrook, New Hampshire, by 1840 and devoted the remainder of his life to agriculture. Benjamin Hutchinson (1792-1872) appears in Quechee in 1816 and by 1830 he had removed to Sherburne, Rutland County, and by 1870 to Bridgewater, Windsor County. There is no indication that either of these brothers potted after leaving Quechee in the 1820s.

Ebenezer had opened an engraving and copper plate printing business by 1817 announcing his new Map of New England for sale as well as Masonic aprons and diplomas. In addition, he manufactured hair-combs in a comb factory. He published a series of editions of James Whitelaw’s Map of Vermont through the early 1820s.  The Vermont maps were officially sanctioned by the State Legislature and are mentioned often in the State Papers.

1824 Whitelaw map of Vermont published by Ebenezer Hutchinson.

Ebenezer Hutchinson’s signature that appears on the map of Vermont.

The quality and accuracy of his Vermont maps received only laudatory comments from State officials.  Financial success did not follow, however, and Ebenezer sold most of the contents of his house, along with books, maps and “brown ware, sold in small lots,” at an auction held at his property in Quechee on October 4, 1823, “to keep him from [debtors’] prison.”

View of Edson’s Row where Hutchinson was working after moving to Woodstock. Edson’s Row burned a few years after this photo was taken.

Woodstock Observer, February 22, 1825

He moved to Woodstock in 1825 and executed copper-plate printing, produced maps and even dug and stoned cellars for houses. He took up an upstairs room in No. 4 Edson’s Block where he placed a somewhat unusual notice in the Woodstock Observer where he encouraged persons either owing him money or vice versa to settle their accounts. He stated that it was “not in his power at this time to call on his friends in person, especially those out of the village,” therefore a third party had to intervene. He may have been under some kind of court-ordered house arrest in lieu of being sent to debtors’ prison. This building stood on the south side of Central Street. He stated that his former engraving business was now conducted by Messrs. Barron and Russ in Quechee, but Hutchinson offered to trade maps and books for “old cotton and linen sheets” for map linings. In his 1829 quit-claim deed to Abel Barron and Shubel Russ, he released his rights to any property he owned in Quechee. Ebenezer also relinquished his right to publish the official state map in 1826 to the noted Globe maker, James Wilson, of Bradford.

Ebenezer also informed the public that his “Pyroligneous acid, or essence of smoke” for curing hams now had to be obtained from Barron and Russ in Quechee as well as from merchants in Hartford, Barnard and Royalton. The record of his (second) marriage to Betsy Watson in 1827 calls him a Woodstock resident, but by 1828 he had removed to Barnard where their 1850 Federal Census lists him as a “laborer.” The Renaissance man of many talents who struggled to make ends meet died of consumption in West Randolph on October 8, 1855.

Following the end of his partnership with his brother Ebenezer, William Hutchinson returned to St. Johnsbury in 1820. In 1821 he acquired a lot of land from Joseph Lord on “the east side of the road [Main Street] at the south end of the plains” currently occupied by part of the campus of St. Johnsbury Academy. The “Plain” is a high, flat terrace of land which lent itself to development as the village center. The deed states that the land contains “the kiln house & other buildings standing on the same,” thereby suggesting that Hutchinson had already opened a pottery on leased or rented property. William and his family were enumerated in the 1820 Census in the Town of Waterford, a short distance to the south. He married Mary Abbott in St. Johnsbury in 1823.

The William Hutchinson pottery had a third and probable final location in St. Johnsbury north of the previous location in the center of the “Plain” on the southwest corner of Main and Church Streets (now located across Main Street from the Fairbanks Museum). In early days, a small stream flowed through a ravine where the south lawn of the Second Congregational Church is presently located, and an early ashery was constructed on that site below street level. Some time prior to 1827, the ashery building became an earthenware pottery. In that year Deacon Luther Clark donated the entire lot, and the large and impressive edifice then known as the North Church was constructed on the north side of the lot.

Above: Late 19th-century image showing the location of the North Church. The present location of the church is near the site of what was formerly an earthenware pottery in the early 1800s.

Above: The site of the William Hutchinson pottery in St. Johnsbury, as seen from the the Fairbank’s Museum across the street. Note the front of the church in the right-hand side of the image.

Rev. Henry Jones later recalled that “certain boys used to spend part of their noonings” working at the pottery, and hopefully “the clay on that wheel, so helpless in the boys’ hands who turned, taught them silent lessons of submission to a higher power.” William Hutchinson does not appear to have remained much longer in St. Johnsbury and eventually the ravine was filled in and the pottery was removed. We know that by the 1830s, the Hutchinson brother potters were pursuing different occupations.

William remained in St. Johnsbury until around 1827 when he removed to Bethlehem, New Hampshire, where he was ordained the First Congregational minister in 1830. He resigned in 1833 and moved to Dalton, New Hampshire, where “there was a revival and a goodly number united with the church.” His wife, Mary, died there in 1835, and William removed to Plainfield, New Hampshire, the following year, where he died on April 24, 1842. No earthenware attributed to William Hutchinson’s potteries in St. Johnsbury has been identified.