BORN AND TRAINED IN AMERICA, potter Justus Morton is paradoxically best known for his work in the Canadian industry. In 1849 he founded the first and certainly one of the largest, most successful stoneware manufactories in Canada West (now Ontario). His Brantford pottery started winning awards almost immediately, and, although Morton ran the company himself for only about eight years, his marked stoneware is still highly sought in Canada: a monumental Morton/Brantford water cooler dating to the early to mid-1850s sold at a recent Ontario auction for CAD$30,680 (figs. 1–3).
In the United States, the story is very different. A search of books on American pottery turns up very little on him, with the exception of one by William Ketchum, who tells us that Justus Morton was an American, born in Massachusetts, who spent some time in the Clark stoneware factory in Lyons, New York, in the 1840s before heading up to Canada in 1849 at age forty-eight.[1] Yet, Morton had been an active potter in the U.S. for at least twenty-five years before he arrived in Canada, where he would work for less than a decade. Why is he celebrated in Canada and so little known in his native land?
Of course many potters were successful and known by their peers even though their names and reputations are unknown to posterity and their wares now unrecognized. But in Morton’s case, it is surprising since he was connected by marriage to a number of very well-known potters, and worked alongside many more in some of the major northeastern American pottery centers. It is even more surprising when one realizes that marked Morton stoneware made in the U.S. is not uncommon.
How did a well-connected, well-known, and prolific American potter—with signed pottery, no less!—slip under the radar so completely? The answer lies almost entirely with the enumerator of the 1850 U.S. census of the Town of Elbridge, Village of Jordan, Onondaga County, New York, who recorded Justus Morton’s last name as “Norton” (fig. 4).
The misdirection of that slip of the pen was compounded by the fact that, while there were no other Mortons in the town of Jordan, there was one Sydney Norton. Researchers erroneously connected “Justus Norton, potter” with this Sydney Norton, although there is no family relationship whatsoever. Justus Morton thereby was erased from the stoneware history books, replaced by “Justus Norton,” who had no antecedents, no history, of whom there is no record of having worked at a pottery or traveled outside Jordan, New York, who paid no taxes, owned no property, and had no family that we know of other than what was listed on the census page. Even those who accepted him as the potter were a bit puzzled by his lack of marked pottery. In his 1987 Potters and Potteries of New York State, 1650–1900, William Ketchum Jr. wrote:
There is, however, also ware marked J. MORTON / JORDAN, and it presents a problem. At first glance the “M” appears only a typographical error . . . for there is no doubt that the name is given as Justus Norton in the census. On the other hand, a potter by the name of Justus Morton worked at Lyons in Wayne County in 1845 and Collard refers . . . to Morton and Company of Brantford, Ontario, “founded at the end of the 1840’s by an American Justus Morton (b. Massachusetts c.1800).” An odd coincidence, indeed, and one that remains unresolved.”[2]
Unlike the elusive Justus Norton, Justus Morton did exist. He had parents, siblings, a wife, and two children, plus he bought property, bought insurance, was named in his father-in-law’s will, filed court papers, took out ads in newspapers, and marked his pottery. But was Justus Norton really this Justus Morton? A comparison of that troublesome 1850 census of Jordan, New York, with that of the 1852 census of Brantford, Canada, is informative:
1850, Jordan, New York[3]
Justus Norton, a potter
Age: 49, born in Massachusetts
Wife: Jane, age 46, born in Ireland
Daughter: Eliza, age 20, born in Vermont
Boarder: Spencer Flanburgh [sic], age 18, born in New York, a laborer
Two years later, the 1852 census of Canada West (Ontario), where Justus Morton was running his successful stoneware factory, Morton & Co., states:
1852, Brantford, Ontario[4]
Justus Morton, a potter
Age: 51, born in Massachusetts
Wife: Jane, age 48, born in Ireland
Boarder: Spencer Flansburgh, age 20, born in New York, a potter
It seems fairly clear that Justus Norton and Justus Morton were the same person.
One other factor links Justus Morton to Jordan, New York. It is something no previous researcher has mentioned and it destroys, I think, any lingering doubts that he, not someone named Justus Norton, was the potter in Jordan. Morton was linked to Jordan through his wife, Jane McBurney, the sister of Jordan stoneware potter James McBurney. James McBurney and Justus Morton were brothers-in-law. They would collaborate in the 1840s, but their relationship was close and went beyond working together as potters for a few years in Jordan. When they were young men, James named his third son (Justus Morton McBurney) in honor of his brother-in-law. After Justus Morton’s death, Morton’s two grieving daughters turned to “Uncle James” McBurney for comfort and counsel.
Because of the confusion between Norton and Morton, Justus Morton’s twenty-five years of work in the United States has been mostly ignored or misattributed. But now that the confusion is cleared up, we can start to look at the long arc of the heretofore unknown life and work of this no-longer-invisible American potter.
A Life of Justus Morton, Potter
Justus Morton was born on April 13, 1801, in Whately, Massachusetts, to Daniel and Sophronia Morton.[5] Daniel, a son of a Revolutionary War veteran,[6] was a brick maker, active from 1782 to 1827. It is probable that Justus and his brothers worked at their father’s brick works, but clay in one form or another seems to have been in Daniel and Sophronia’s children’s blood: two sons became brick makers, two sons became potters, and two daughters married potters.
Whately was an important pottery hub in the early 1800s. Such well-known names as Stephen Orcutt, Luke and Obediah Waits, and Thomas Crafts all got their start in Whately, and Justus and his younger brother Isaac might have apprenticed with them. The Mortons had a close connection with the Crafts family, so it would not have been surprising if Thomas Crafts had taken Justus and Isaac on. Sometime around 1817, potter Sanford S. Perry arrived from Troy, New York, and appears to have worked with Thomas Crafts manufacturing black teapots based on a formula Perry had developed in Troy (figs. 5, 6).[7] It is possible that Justus trained with Perry in this period. In 1821 Justus’s older sister, Julia, married Perry and the newlyweds headed back to Troy, taking twenty-year-old Justus with them.[8]
It is likely that Justus stayed in Troy during 1821–22 working with Perry, possibly for noted stoneware manufacturer Israel Seymour (fig. 7). A number of well-known potters worked at the Seymour factory, among them Perry, Nathan Church Jr. (who was Seymour’s brother-in-law), and William Lundy. Sometime in 1822 or 1823 Justus met and married Jane McBurney in Troy.[9] Their first child was born there in 1824.
Jane and her family had arrived in Troy from Northern Ireland in 1804. Jane’s father, William McBurney, might have been a stoneware potter.[10] In the 1810 U.S. census of Troy, the McBurneys were close neighbors of potter and fellow northern Irish immigrant William Lundy, and the family attended the same church as Israel Seymour.
In 1823 the young Morton family made the first of many moves, relocating across the river to Albany, New York.[11] Justus was listed in the city’s directory as an earthenware maker/baker at “130 State Street, continuation,” near the Lark Street/Washington Square area (fig. 8).[12] In 1824 Nathan Church Jr. arrived from Troy and joined Justus Morton at the 130 State Street address producing stoneware[13] until Church’s death in 1825.[14] Morton continued to operate his pottery/bakery at that address for at least a year after Church died.[15] There are no known examples of Morton’s wares from this period.
The Mortons left Albany in 1826 or 1827. It is possible that Justus went to Athens, New York, to train at Nathan Clark’s factory, as mentioned by Ketchum.[16] By 1828, however, the Mortons had moved to Bennington, Vermont, where second child, Eliza Jane, was born in 1829 or 1830 and where Justus served as a justice of the peace in 1832.[17] It is likely he worked at the pottery there, as his brother Isaac would do fifteen years later. Indeed, there are similarities between Morton’s earliest known works and Bennington pots from this period that go beyond coincidence (figs. 9, 10).
Morton left Vermont in 1833 and appears to have gone back to -Whately for a brief period, perhaps working at Thomas Crafts’s pottery, along with his brother-in-law Caleb Crafts (Thomas’s younger brother), who had married Sophronia Morton a few years earlier (fig. 11).[18] Also in 1833, Sanford S. Perry’s Troy stoneware factory burned down and Perry started a new enterprise in West Troy with his brother-in-law Isaac Morton as his partner. In 1834 Justus Morton and Caleb Crafts headed to West Troy, New York, to work at the family business.[19] Pots produced at that factory bear a striking resemblance to some of Justus Morton’s later wares, and the stamped typefaces are similar (fig. 12). But it seems Justus Morton did not stay long in West Troy, since the Vermont Gazette of October 6, 1835, indicates he was back in Bennington for a few months in 1835. When Perry’s partnership with Isaac Morton terminated at the end of 1835 all four Morton brothers or brothers-in-law left the Troy area for good and dispersed widely (fig. 13).[20] By 1836 Sanford Perry had gone to Virginia, Isaac Morton had relocated to Taunton, Massachusetts, and Caleb Crafts had decamped to Portland, Maine. Justus and Jane Morton went to Baltimore.
The 1837 Baltimore Matchett’s directory lists “Morton, Justus, potter, Washington st. s of Wilk.”[21] The Craig’s and Matchett’s directories for the next few years show Morton at different addresses around Baltimore.[22] By July 1840 Morton was in partnership with Thomas W. Brotherton, who had been in operation at his business on Pitt Street (formerly Parr’s) since 1830 (fig. 14).[23] The partners ran the following advertisement in the Baltimore Pilot and Transcript from July 1840 through January 1841:
The subscribers have associated themselves in co-partnership for the purpose of manufacturing STONE WARE under the firm of BROTHERTON & MORTON, at the old stand, Pitt street, adjoining Harford Run. A large supply will be always kept on hand of a very superior quality. They will still continue to manufacture the PERCOLATING FILTERS, so well known as the best purifiers of water ever invented. They hope by strict attention to business to merit a share of public patronage. T.W. BROTHERTON, JUSTUS MORTON
Brotherton had worked as a potter in Baltimore from 1830 to at least 1842.[24] Beginning in 1837 he was in partnership with a Robert Davidson (who would later go into partnership with James Parr), according to a 1996 report on archaeological mitigation in Baltimore.[25] Although the report shows the Brotherton-Davidson partnership continuing to 1842, it seems clear that Brotherton had ended his partnership with Davidson by 1840 and entered into a new partnership with Justus Morton. So far as I know, there is no surviving Baltimore pottery with Morton’s mark, let alone that of Brotherton & Morton. Recently, however, a Davidson-Brotherton percolating filter appeared at auction, the first known piece with Brotherton’s name (figs. 15, 16). It is likely that any Brotherton & Morton filter would have had a similar shape, if not similar decoration.
Morton left Baltimore in 1842 and turned up in Ithaca, New York, helping Elijah Cornell (who had been making redware) set up his first stone-ware manufactory (figs. 17, 18).[26] Cornell’s son Ezra (who would go on to found Western Union and cofound Cornell University) had been involved in business in the Baltimore area; it is possible that he met Morton in Maryland and arranged for Morton to tutor his father.[27] Morton first appears in Cornell’s journals on July 9, 1842, and their first kiln was fired shortly thereafter.[28] Elijah wrote to Ezra on August 29, 1842:
we have burned a kiln of stoneware and had good luck as we could expect for the first kiln and Morton will likely have another made this week and likewise we have an earthen kiln about glazed and am going to burn this week. . . . I have through Morton advise [sic] wrote to Morgan to know of him as he will let us have a load of clay on credit until spring and then we shall want another load and will make payment for this. . . . PS We want some powder blue that is of a deep coler [sic] as this that we have is very pale.[29]
It is frustrating that Cornell’s journals end in 1842. He did record that Morton owed him $6.28 for three weeks and one day’s room and board for July 1842.[30] In 1844 he wrote to Ezra that Morton had talked to him about Baltimore clay, but the partnership, such as it was, ended in 1844. No records of payments to Morton have survived, so whether Morton was sharing in the profits or was on a salary is not known.[31] Cornell’s stoneware—marked E. Cornell & Co. from 1842 to 1852—is exceedingly scarce (fig. 19). Whether any of the few known pieces were made during Morton’s tenure is difficult to say, although, again, the Cornell stamped typeface is strikingly similar to that used by Morton himself later in the 1840s.
It is very likely that, after the initial setup in Ithaca was done, Morton worked with Cornell either via correspondence or occasional visits, since the Morton family was in Jordan by 1843, ensconced in the bosom of Jane’s family. The Mortons’ eldest daughter, Emily, married to a young man from Penn Yan, gave birth to her first child in Jordan in 1844. And Justus himself filed a court petition in 1845 as “Justus Morton of Jordan, New York,” on behalf of the family of his sister-in-law, Elizabeth McBurney Watkins.[32]
According to reminiscences of a Jordan old-timer, James McBurney and his brother John were coopers in Jordan until Justus Morton arrived to make pottery with his brother-in-law James in the early 1840s, and then Justus and James worked together until the pottery burned in 1849.[33] It is very possible that McBurney’s sons William, Justus, and Harvey—all young teenagers in the mid- to late 1840s and all of whom would go on to become potters—apprenticed with their uncle Justus Morton. The Morton & McBurney mark is quite scarce and the only examples I am aware of are housed in the Jordan Historical Society (fig. 20).
Between 1842 and 1848 Justus Morton was also in Penn Yan, pursuing a partnership with George Campbell (fig. 21).[34] Almost nothing is known about that partnership, and only two jars with the Campbell & Morton mark are known (figs. 22, 23). Daughter Emily Morton’s husband, Michael Waring, was from Penn Yan and in the 1850 census, Emily and Michael are listed as living in Penn Yan next door to Campbell.
With the exception of the two Penn Yan pots, all of Morton’s extant signed American pottery is from Jordan. Currently three marks are known: Morton / Jordan; Morton & McBurney / Jordan; and Morton & Sheldon / Jordan. There are also quite a few pots marked simply “Jordan, New York.” that match the typeface of marked Morton pots (figs. 24–29). Recently a jug marked only “J. Morton” without a place stamp turned up at auction, likely from Jordan but we cannot be certain (figs. 30–32). Precisely when in the period 1842–1850 Morton was producing each of these marks is unclear. We do know that in March 1846, James McBurney sold land to Franklin L. Sheldon and on June 9, 1846, Morton and Franklin L. Sheldon insured a “potter shop and storehouse” on a section of Great Lot 46 on the eastern side of Jordan (figs. 33, 34).[35]
In 2017 Crocker Farm sold an example of Morton & Sheldon stoneware, a short jar or cake crock decorated with an unusual looking man (figs. 35, 36). They dated it 1840–1845 and identified it as having been produced by Franklin Sheldon and Sydney Norton,[36] but the stamp is clearly “Morton” (figs. 37, 38). Sheldon’s 1876 obituary from Auburn, New York, states that he started a manufacturing partnership in that city in 1848, so it is possible his partnership with Morton had ended by 1848, although he was still in Jordan in the 1850 census, working as a laborer—perhaps at the pottery?[37]
To complicate the timeline of Morton’s tenure in Jordan and Penn Yan is Ketchum’s claim that Morton worked for the Clark factory in Lyons, New York, during that period: “Justus Morton, a potter trained at Athens and employed at Lyons until 1848 (when he removed to Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and set up his own stoneware factory), is credited with Albany slip-glazed pitchers with sophisticated sprig decoration. Some of these are stamped LYONS on the base.”[38]
George R. Hamell puts Morton at Lyons in the early 1840s and, like Ketchum, also credits an Albany slip-glazed pitcher made at Lyons to -Morton and it does, indeed, look remarkably like a Morton-marked pitcher produced in Jordan (figs. 39, 40).[39] Given the relative ease of transportation via the Erie and other canals (figs. 41, 42), it is possible that Morton
was shuttling between Lyons, Penn Yan, Ithaca, and Jordan during the 1840s, but it seems impossible that he was solely at Lyons from the early 1840s through 1848. Many details of Morton’s time in central New York need clarification (figs. 43–47).
Although we have no examples of Morton’s wares before his move to central New York, his work there has certain characteristics that might help identify other stoneware:
1. He used the same stamp typeface for all his central New York marks, and it is clearly different from McBurney’s stamp.
2. A laurel wreath surrounds stamped size marks.
3. Often, though not always, cobalt is around the terminals.
4. The potting is experienced but not precise.
5. Any cobalt is often skimpy, pale, and hastily drawn, not the lavish, deep blue, precise designs as found at Fort Edwards or at Burger’s in Rochester. Designs tend to be small or, if large, a bit peculiar. The cobalt often became blurred in firing.
6. He liked molded ware with sprigged decoration, often glazed with Albany slip.
7. Jugs handles are thick and strong, often with a “whale tail” connection. In profile the handles come almost straight off the top of the jug’s mouth, with no rise above the horizontal plane of the mouth.
8. Handles may have shallow ribs or be smooth.
9. The lip is squared off and crisp.
Many of these characteristics carried over into his stoneware in Ontario, particularly his parsimonious use of cobalt and his affection for molded and sprigged wares.
It is no surprise that Morton left New York for Ontario, particularly if the report of the Jordan pottery burning in 1849 is true. He never stayed in one place very long, and the expanding Canadian economy, new railroads, and a new canal in Ontario—combined with a complete lack of stoneware potteries there—undoubtedly drew him.[40] There is some confusion about the date of his move. Records indicate that in 1848 Morton moved to Brant-ford, a town in Brant County, Ontario, and started his factory in 1849. Yet, as we have seen, the 1850 U.S. census shows Justus still in Jordan, New York, working as a potter. At any rate, by 1851 Justus and his wife were definitely in Brantford, and by 1853 he employed six men and produced $8,000 worth of goods per year.[41]
One of the men working at the factory was young Spencer Flansburgh, who had moved with the Mortons from New York. Another was William Richardson, who boarded with the Mortons in Brantford. It is likely that the factory workers included William and Harvey McBurney, both of whom were in Canada in the mid-1850s.[42] It is also likely that Justus McBurney, who left Jordan after 1855, worked for his uncle Justus’s factory: an 1869 newspaper article about him in Iowa mentions his prior renown in Canada.[43] When McBurney married a Canadian girl in Toronto in 1860, William Richardson was one of the witnesses.[44]
The Mortons seemed to do well in Brantford (fig. 49). The factory was prosperous and Justus was elected a trustee at the Brantford Congregational Church.[45] But in 1857 Justus leased the Brantford factory to James Woodyatt and decamped back to the U.S., to Parma, Ohio, near -Cleveland, where he bought a farm for $2,300.[46]
What brought Justus to Ohio is unclear. His brother Erastus was a brick maker in northern Ohio, but we do not know what influence, if any, that had on his decision to move. Whether Justus worked as a potter in Ohio is also unknown. No Ohio pottery with his mark has turned up and, significantly, none of his young protégés appears to have gone to Ohio from Canada with him. Spencer Flansburgh and Harvey McBurney returned to New York, William McBurney went to Detroit, and Justus McBurney stayed in Canada for a time. But whatever Justus Morton’s plans in Ohio had been, they went awry: sometime in 1858 his wife died in Ohio and he returned to Ontario.
In December 1858 Morton entered into partnership with Franklin P. Goold and the Brantford pottery opened again under the name Morton, Goold & Co (fig. 50).[47] On March 16, 1859, Justus, age 57, married 30-year-old Margaret Larlee, a well-off young woman from New Brunswick.[48] But Justus’s plans went awry once again: by summer he knew he was dying of tuberculosis.
He made his will on August 19, 1859, complete with complex instructions on how to keep the pottery running after his death.[49] For reasons unknown, Justus had a change of heart and on August 20 sold the Brantford pottery to Franklin P. Goold and Charles H. Waterous.[50]
Justus Morton died in Brantford early in November. His estate papers do not give the exact date of death, but the bill for the hearse is dated November 6. In his will, he described himself as “Justus Morton, Potter, of Ohio and of Brantford.” He directed that his “beloved” wife, Margaret, be given one-third of his estate, and that his two daughters divide up the remaining two-thirds. And he directed that his body be sent back to Ohio to be buried next to first wife, Jane.[51] He also appointed Thomas Shenston, his friend and Brant county registrar, as his executor.
Shenston would have cause to rue the appointment. As soon as Margaret Larlee Morton had given Shenston the bill for her funeral wardrobe (about $500 in today’s money), she sued to claim the entire estate from Justus’s two daughters, both of whom were in Ohio. Their letters to Shenston—bewildered, angry, and despairing—are preserved in Shenston’s papers at the Ontario Archives. Also preserved is a letter to Shenston from the girls’ uncle, James McBurney, now also living in Ohio—his pottery in Jordan having failed—urging peace between the parties. After four years of wrangling, the estate of Justus Morton was finally settled, with the young widow (now a Mrs. Robinson) and the two daughters each getting one-third.
It is difficult to calculate Justus Morton’s legacy. We do know that his name and his potting skills were passed on, even though his daughters did not marry potters and none of his five grandchildren lived to maturity. Spencer Flansburgh, who moved back to the U.S. after Justus’s death and worked as a potter in Cato, New York, named his son Justus Morton Flansburgh in honor of his mentor.[52] Morton’s nephew, Justus Morton McBurney, would go on to become a successful potter after he left Canada, first in Ohio, then in Iowa. Nephew William McBurney worked as a potter in Detroit and then in Akron, Ohio, and Williams’s sons and grandsons became potters as well, in Ohio and Texas. Nephew Harvey McBurney worked as a potter with T. Harrington in Lyons, New York, and then, along with his son Charles H. McBurney, for John Burger in Rochester for a number of years. Many of the potters who worked and trained at the Brantford pottery learned their craft from Morton and passed that knowledge on to others. None of his work before he started producing stoneware in Penn Yan and Jordan has been identified, so it is difficult to pinpoint his early influences. Surely Thomas Crafts and brothers-in-law Sanford S. Perry and Caleb Crafts were a part of his development as a potter, and perhaps he was part of their development as well. Certainly there is great similarity in their stoneware shapes and designs, and there is no doubt that his time at Bennington influenced his work.
A great deal remains to be learned about this heretofore mostly unacknowledged potter. It is my hope that now that the illusory “Justus Norton” has been dispensed with, the work of the very real and very American potter Justus Morton can at last be examined and appreciated.
