AMONG THE MORE DISTINCTIVE ceramic pots produced in New York City during the first years of the nineteenth century are the stoneware oyster jars made by Thomas Commeraw (1771 or 1772– 1823), the free Black potter working at Corlears Hook on the Lower East Side of Manhattan (figs. 1–2).[1] These small cylindrical jars, often marked with the name and address of the oysterman who filled them, have been recovered at coastal sites throughout the Atlantic world.
While Commeraw’s jars are the most well known, he was not the first or only potter making them. A rudimentary type first appeared in New York in the mid-eighteenth century, long before Commeraw was in business, and a more refined collared version was being produced well after his death (fig. 3). Regardless of who made them, considerable evidence points to the fact that these jars played a unique and enduring role in trade from the port of New York during the latter years of the age of sail, from the mideighteenth into the first half of the nineteenth century.
Due to their gastronomical renown, pickled oysters were among the more sought-after and costly pre-packaged provisions available to sea-going travelers during this period. While salted beef, biscuits, peas, and grog were common shipboard fare, captains and other traveling gentlemen often supplemented or replaced those with their own private stocks, including fresh meats, fruits, fine wines, and jars of pickled oysters from New York. While on board, these men of power and privilege often exchanged and shared such delicacies.[2] Following these meals, empty jars would have been tossed overboard, leaving no trace of the sturdy containers that had so ably protected their perishable contents.[3]
For all these reasons, oyster jars made during this period are inextricably linked to the sea, from the briny oysters they were designed to hold, to the watery grave where most now lie. These simple ceramic pots serve as unique and enduring touchstones to a long-forgotten past involving the sometimes profitable and often perilous adventures of men and ships.
New York As a Center of Oyster Production
In its unspoiled state, New York Harbor was as close to a perfect oyster nursery as Mother Nature could devise, and few places on earth challenged this supremacy (fig. 4). The waters around Manhattan Island, and those bordering Staten and Long Islands, were home to some of North America’s most productive oyster grounds, which had been providing food for the native Lenape people for more than three thousand years before Dutch settlers arrived.[4]
With an appreciation for the oyster refined over centuries, the first European inhabitants of New Amsterdam/New York were initially content to consume the harbor’s bounty themselves, but they quickly realized that this valuable and abundant commodity could be exported for profit as part of the city’s lucrative trade with the West Indies, a group of islands separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic. In 1679 Jasper Danckaerts wrote that the residents of Brooklyn “pickle the oysters in small casks, and send them to Barbados and the other islands.”[5]
By the mid-eighteenth century, New York City was world renowned for the quality and size of its oysters, and in 1748 Finnish botanist and naturalist Peter Kalm noted:
. . . in their Quality they are exceeded by those of no Country whatsoever. People of all ranks amongst us in general prefer them to any other kind of food . . . they continue good eight months in the year, and for two months longer the daily food of our poor . . . .[6]
Kalm was referring to the seasonal restriction on harvest, which was designed to protect both the public from sickness and the oysters from overharvest. While city officials looked the other way when the poor fed themselves on oysters harvested in May and June, in truth only preserved oysters could be sold legally between May and August. This meant that anyone who wanted to enjoy this most favorite of New York foods during the summer months would have had to partake in those that had been previously “put up.” Given the high demand for oysters year-round, the labor involved in pickling them, and the fact that they had a shelf life of six months or longer, pickled oysters were considerably more expensive than those in the shell, putting them out of reach for many Manhattan residents.[7]
This opportunity to make a significant profit from what was an otherwise plentiful and inexpensive commodity was not lost on New York merchants—as previously noted by Danckaerts—and seventy years later the practice was still commonplace as noted by Kalm:
. . . the merchants here buy up great quantities of oysters about this time, pickle them in the above-mentioned manner, and send them to the West Indies: by which they frequently make a considerable profit: for, the oysters, which cost them five shillings of their currency, they commonly sell for a pistole, or about six times as much as they gave for them; and sometimes they get even more; the oysters which are thus pickled have a very fine flavour.[8]
The Pickled Oyster
Although unknown to all but the most avid of oyster enthusiast today, pickled oysters would have been familiar to everyone living in eighteenthand nineteenth-century New York as this food enjoyed a prominent role in the foodways of early modern Europe. . Recipes for pickling oysters are known from as early as the seventeenth century in England, where they were often served at royal banquets and other important celebrations.[9] From this period forward, they continue to appear in cookbooks until well into the nineteenth century.
Methods for pickling oysters didn’t vary significantly from the earliest days. In all cases, the oysters were boiled in water, then combined with vinegar, spices, and often salt, to give them a distinct flavor (fig. 5). A particularly detailed and informative recipe published in 1747 uses ingredients common to most recipes:
Take two Hundred of Oysters, the newest and best you can get, be careful to save the Liquor in some Pans as you open them, cut off the black Verge, saving the rest, put them into their own Liquor, then put all the Liquor and Oysters into a Kettle, boil them about Half an Hour, on a very gentle Fire, do them very slowly, skimming them as the Scum rises, then take them off the Fire, take out the Oysters, strain the Liquor through a fine Cloth, then put in the Oysters again; then take out a Pint of the Liquor whilst it is hot, put thererto three Quarters of an Ounce of Mace, and Half an Ounce of cloves; just give it one Boil, then put it to the Oysters, and stir up the Spices well among the Oysters; then put in about a Spoonful of Salt, three Quarters of a Pint of the best White Wine Vinegar, and a Quarter of an Ounce of whole Pepper; then let them stand till they be cold, then put the Oysters as many well you can into a Barrel; put in as much Liquor as the Barrel will hold, letting them settle a while, and they will soon be fit to eat, or you may put them into Stone Jars, cover them close with a Bladder and Leather, and be sure to be quite cold before you cover them up.[10]
Pickled oysters were no different than other foods preserved under acidic conditions, and early cooks quickly recognized that they needed to store this corrosive mixture in a sufficiently resilient container. In 1756 one writer noted that “nothing but stone or glass will hold pickles, for the vinegar and salt in preparing them, [will] eat through anything else. Glass is too brittle, therefore stone jars are the only proper convenience.”[11]
While stoneware and wooden vessels made with relatively large openings were used in homes and taverns to store quantities of preserved oysters, shipping of single-serving-size portions required a different approach—one that utilized smaller and more rugged containers that could be easily sealed and withstand the rigors of travel. The obvious packaging for this purpose was the wooden keg, which had been in use for centuries to transport all types of liquids, solids, and hard goods. In England, the standard container used to hold small quantities of pickled oysters was a diminutive wooden keg referred to as a “barrel,” of a pint and a half to a quart capacity that held up to a hundred oysters.[12]
Pickled Oysters and Ship Captains
From the middle of the seventeenth through at least the first quarter of the nineteenth century, pickled oysters were closely associated with the men who commanded ships in trade and battle on the high seas. Men of means, including the captain and any gentlemen passengers and guests, would bring their own food, or “cabin store,” on board, often including things like potted oysters. The captain’s cabin was a private space, away from the “men before the mast,” where he could host meals and conduct business. While at sea, he dined there with officers and guests of his choosing. In England, ship captains and naval officials often shared and exchanged barrels of pickled oysters, as evidenced by English diarist and naval administrator Samuel Pepys, who on April 21, 1660, wrote:
In the afternoon the Captain would by all means have me up to his cabin, and there treated me huge nobly, giving me a barrel of pickled oysters, and opened another for me, and a bottle of wine, which was a very great favour.[13]
More than a hundred years later during the American Revolution, in an account that demonstrates both the continuing affinity of a British naval captain for pickled oysters and their value as a prize of war, a jar of pickled oysters was seized from the British schooner Alert that was captured on the Delaware River in 1778 by American Captain John Barry. As proof of conquest, Barry sent the jar and a note to George Washington, then encamped at Valley Forge.[14] Clearly pleased with the prize delivered to him, Washington replied: “accept of my sincere thanks, for the good things which you have been so polite as to send me.”[15]
While naval captains almost certainly purchased jars for their own consumption—and perhaps to share with senior officers and naval officials, as Pepys noted—merchant captains may have had other motivations. In addition to what they could eat themselves, these men likely purchased additional jars of oysters intended as part of a system of private ventures or personal trades.[16] New York pickled oysters were a widely recognized, high-value commodity that could be readily traded at any port, and since these provisions were considered the personal property of the captain and not cargo, they would not have been subject to import duties, thus further increasing profits when sold.
An advertisement from March 16, 1791, in a Philadelphia newspaper demonstrates this practice as it notes the sale of sixty pots of pickled oysters by the master of the sloop New-York Packet, docked at Hodge’s Wharf; a similar advertisement appears in a 1797 Charleston, South Carolina, newspaper offering the sale of “a few pots of PICKLED OYSTERS” from on board the Matilda, a vessel that regularly sailed between New York and Charleston.[17] In both cases the captains appear to have been more interested in making a profit than satisfying a personal craving, although they also might have had their fill of oysters by the time they reached port.
While these general speculative sales were almost certainly commonplace based on such listings, at other times a captain may have had a specific person in mind when he stocked for his journey. As a part of his West Indies trade, a captain might have planned to share with or gift jars of oysters to a wealthy planter he hoped to do business with. Being in good standing with such powerful men could greatly increase the chances of a successful trading voyage, and pickled oysters could have helped with this.[18]
The use of pickled oysters as a gift or informal means of exchange may have contributed to the design and marking of the single-serving oyster jar, allowing for a valued New York delicacy to be safely and conveniently packaged in a way that facilitated its transportation and presentation while also potentially helping to circumvent trade restrictions.[19]
Origins of the Oyster Jar
The first ceramic pickled oyster jars may have actually been produced in England. In 1708 a London merchant advertised the sale of “right Ground oysters pickled to be sold by the Pot for 2s there being 25 large oysters in the Pot.”[20] Although wooden barrels appeared to be the more common means for selling pickled oysters at the time, there is evidence that stoneware jars were also in use throughout the late eighteenth century, with some merchants offering both jars and casks in different sizes simultaneously.[21] In about 1806, a London oyster seller named Sommervail was offering oysters in diminutive, baluster-shaped stoneware jars unlike any ever produced in America (fig. 6).[22]
It is not clear exactly what forces were at play when New York potters first began producing what would become the American version of the oyster jar, but it may have been a simple matter of imitation and opportunity. Given the quantity and quality of oysters available in New York and the chance to make a profit in shipping them abroad, oystermen and merchants would have welcomed any suitable packaging innovation that enhanced shelf life and reduced costs.
The fact that Manhattan was blessed with at least two large stoneware manufacturers meant that the city was prime for innovation in ceramic packaging.[23] For the larger volumes of two to five gallons, wooden kegs were perfectly suitable, and based on newspaper listings and export records, those would remain the standard; but for the single-serving quart and smaller sizes, ceramic containers may have offered advantages over their wooden counterparts.[24]
Oyster Jar Design and Evolution
Given the simplicity of their design and the effectiveness with which they served a single purpose, oyster jars are an almost perfect example of early commercial food packaging in that the form clearly follows the function.[25] However, given that this function centered on the ability to seal the contents from contact with air (and this favored a design with very small openings), it resulted in a container that was nearly useless for any other purpose. In addition to this, the fact that their contents mostly were consumed at sea meant that these jars were discarded immediately, making them possibly the only single-use and disposable stoneware containers produced at the time.[26]
The earliest identifiable oyster jars likely made in New York are a group of six recovered from the French frigate Machault, which sank off the coast of Canada in 1760 (fig. 7).[27] These jars are small (six inches tall and four inches across at the base), straight-sided and cylindrical, with somewhat rounded shoulders and a smooth flat top surrounding a small opening of just over one and a half inches in diameter. There is a hint of a very subtle depression surrounding the opening, but nothing like the later Commerawtype jars that included a prominent and often recessed gallery. The shape of these jars, not unlike modern soda cans, would have facilitated stowing on board in wooden boxes.
From this early design, subtle changes were introduced to the area surrounding the opening, such as an incised groove or slightly protruding ring. This modification was almost certainly intended to help retain the wax used to seal the opening. The details of this can be seen in a 1774 advertisement of Abraham Delanoy of New York (fig. 8). Interestingly, this illustration shows the ceramic jar alongside a similarly sized wooden keg, suggesting that both were used in New York at the time (fig. 9).[28] Given that both the Crolius and Remmey families were manufacturing utilitarian stoneware then, it is reasonable to think that one or both potters were producing such jars.[29] Indeed, about 1810 Clarkson Crolius was offering “oyster pots” at the price of eight shillings each wholesale, one shilling cheaper than the quart-sized mug, but four shillings more expensive than a pint-sized mug, suggesting that the jars were closer to a quart in size.[30]
In addition to stoneware vessels, at least one New York earthenware potter was producing oyster jars. Jonathan Durell, a potter who moved to New York from Philadelphia in about 1771, posted an advertisement dated March 22, 1773, in the New York Gazette listing “oyster pots” among his offerings.[31]
By the time Thomas Commeraw began producing stoneware at his factory around 1797, the oyster jar had evolved into the form we are most familiar with today, including the small size (approximately a pint), straight sides, square shoulder, and distinctive recessed well or gallery surrounding the opening (figs. 2, 3, 10). Ivor Noël Hume theorized that this gallery was designed to receive a small ceramic disk acting as a sort of cap, thus his use of the phrase “cap hole oyster jars” in his well-researched article—but considerable evidence argues for corks as the actual means of closure.[32]
The most convincing evidence for the use of corks lies in the fact that a large number of surviving jars, including several made by Commeraw, have galleries that are not sufficiently recessed to receive such a cap; in fact, some of these have raised or protruding edges to the openings, making the use of a cap impossible. In addition to this, several Manhattan businesses advertised the sale of “oyster pot corks,” suggesting that these were commonly available by the third quarter of the eighteenth century, when oyster jars were in wide use: in 1774 Jarvis Roebuck, a cork cutter on King Street in Manhattan, was selling oyster pot corks; twelve years later, another businessman was selling oyster pot corks at his shop at 44 Maiden Lane; and by 1788 George Warner on Murray’s Wharf offered oyster pot corks among other products (fig. 11).[33]
It is not known whether or not Commeraw played any part in developing or refining the style of the jars he produced, but what is clear is that he was the first to incorporate the names of the oystermen on his pots; of those that can be positively identified, all were African American.[34] Since there were white oystermen working in Manhattan during the same period, it is unclear whether Commeraw made jars for these men as well or if that job fell to the Crolius and Remmey families working nearby.
While the small pint-capacity jars appear to have been the standard size produced by Commeraw and his contemporaries, a few larger-sized jars also survive, suggesting that at least two sizes were being produced (figs. 2, 3). The larger, approximately half-gallon jars, are less common, suggesting that there may not have been as much of a demand for that size. This could be due to the fact that these would have held approximately two hundred oysters compared to the forty to fifty held in the standard-size jars.[35] While forty-five is a somewhat reasonable number of pickled oysters for one individual to eat in one or maybe two sittings, two hundred would have been more appropriate for a small gathering. Regardless of the size, once the jars were opened, all of the oysters would have had to be consumed in relatively short order, since contact with air would cause them to spoil.
To help in determining how these jars could have been made, studio potter Mark Shapiro set out to recreate a typical Commeraw jar at his studio in Massachusetts (fig. 12). Mark was able to demonstrate that these jars could be turned very quickly, and based on this test he estimated that a trained potter could throw several hundred in one day, providing additional weight to the theory that stoneware vessels may have been an easy-to-manufacture and potentially cost-effective alternative to the traditional wooden keg.[36] In addition to this finding, the fact that this simple cylindrical form could be stacked efficiently one on top of the other in the kiln—as evidenced by the pad marks visible on several Commeraw jars— means that the jars would have taken up minimal space in the kiln, allowing for further manufacturing efficiencies.
By about 1830, New York oyster jars had taken on one final design refinement. This form is characterized by straight sides and a sharp and angular shoulder that rises gently to a high and thick parallel-sided or slightly flaring collar. This design, likely introduced by Connecticut potters, for the New York market, represents an improvement over the earlier style as being better suited to receive and hold the cork and for pouring of the contents.[37] While the most well-known jars of this type were made for the Black oysterman Thomas Downing of No. 5 Broad Street in New York, one surviving example bears the mark of another Black oysterman named Henry Scott, who had a stand at 217 Water Street (fig. 13).[38]
At the same time that the improved collared jars were being produced, a jar that has more in common with the earlier Commeraw-type vessels appeared in the Chesapeake region about the same time. This mid-Atlantic type, which may have been introduced by New York potter Henry Remmey (who arrived in Baltimore about 1812) is distinct from the earlier New York types in that the former were more carefully potted and uniform in manufacture, with highly angular and sharp openings compared to the somewhat misshapen and irregular examples produced by Commeraw and others.[39] Two jars of this type were recovered from a circa 1850 Sacramento, California, hotel privy, which points to shipment of Chesapeake Bay oysters to the West Coast via clipper ship (fig. 14).[40] This brief appearance of these jars would mark the last time that ceramic jars would be used in any significant numbers to ship oysters, as metal cans came to dominate the trade by the 1850s.[41]
While it is clear that Commeraw and at least Crolius made oyster jars, it is almost impossible to attribute the maker of individual jars accurately except for marked examples. While various characteristics such as general typology, details of the opening, clay color, and glaze have all been used to make qualitative attributions, this practice is clearly fraught with error.[42]
Where Are All the Jars?
Although thousands of oyster jars were almost certainly produced during the period from 1750 to about 1850, remarkably, less than one hundred are known to this author today. The reasons for this relate to both how they were distributed and aspects of their design that made reuse impractical and disposal likely.[43]
As noted previously, these single-serving-sized jars of oysters were marketed specifically to captains and other gentlemen headed to sea, usually to the West Indies or other southern ports. Depending on the period, customers would have included British or American officers engaged in wartime maneuvers, Atlantic trade, and even privateering. By 1800 there were as many as eight hundred British merchant vessels alone visiting North American ports, and a large number of these would have passed through New York, providing ample opportunity for the export of New York oysters in small jars.[44]
While it is logical to assume that the vast majority of such jars were opened and discarded while at sea, now lying on the bottom of the ocean like countless ceramic breadcrumbs marking the path of these long-forgotten voyages, a much smaller number either never left port or did arrive at some far-off destination only to be similarly discarded. Of the former group, two nearly identical jars were recovered in excavations at Fulton Street, New York City, and are the only jars definitively recovered in Manhattan.[45] From the latter group, shipped abroad and eventually discovered by SCUBA divers searching in shallow harbors or by bottle hunters probing in mudflats and digging in privies, we get the bulk of surviving jars.
A finds map of the approximately eighty-eight jars known to the author confirms distribution patterns related to the routes of trade and warships leaving New York (fig. 15). Here we see that jars have been recovered at sites from Martha’s Vineyard in the north, down to Guyana in the southern Caribbean. The islands of the West Indies, an area that should potentially yield a large number of jars, has of yet only produced one jar, recovered off St. Croix (the large jar at the center of figure 3). For reasons unknown, South America is the area where most oyster jars, especially those produced by Commeraw, have been recovered.[46]
We don’t know whether the jars recovered in Guyana represent a single shipment or are the result of multiple shipments over several years. The latter is more likely given the fact that jars from several different oystermen have been found, and for the most numerous of the group, those made for Daniel Johnson (see figs. 1, 2), the marks vary, indicating what appear to be different batches, with some suggesting a change in partnership for his business.[47] A likely source of at least some of these jars is one particular New York merchant active during the period. Thomas T. Thomson (d. 1807), an attorney from Catskill, New York, a village just up the Hudson from Manhattan, arrived in Demerrara (located in present-day Guyana) in 1803 and acted as an agent for the prominent New York merchants William and John Radcliffe.[48] Soon he was trading in his own right, and in August of 1804 he advertised the sale of pickled oysters among his other goods received from New York, almost certainly in stoneware jars made by Thomas Commeraw or other New York potters.[49]
Of special note among the surviving jars are examples recovered in Bermuda. Here were discovered at least ten jars spanning the period from the 1770s up to the 1840s, indicating regular trade between New York and that island. Notable among the jars recovered is one redware example that may be the product of Jonathan Durrell’s Manhattan pottery, as well as a number of jars clearly produced by Thomas Commeraw. One example is a jar marked with the abbreviated version of Daniel Johnson’s name that is infilled with cobalt matching an example recovered in Charleston, South Carolina, and another found in Guyana.
All of the jars found in Bermuda were recovered by divers probing in protected coves and harbors where British men-of-war, and possibly American trade vessels, moored. While many show evidence of wear and various types of attached marine growth, one discovered by the renowned marine explorer Teddy Tucker shows the tell-tale marks of grazing by a particular type of reef fish. In this case, the edges and opening of the jar show the distinct double-grooved teeth marks of the green parrotfish (fig. 16). While this species typically feeds on attached growth covering rocks and heads of coral with a bite so formidable it reduces both to sand, in this case it chose to feed on an oyster jar.
Despite the small number of jars that are currently known, there is little doubt that more jars will be recovered as historic mooring areas and shipwreck sites in the Caribbean, especially at sites frequented by British ships, are explored. There is even the possibility for deep sea discoveries as petroleum companies continue to map the ocean floor using autonomous underwater vehicles and other means. As these discoveries are made, they will help shed more light on the men who toiled in the waters surrounding Manhattan to harvest oysters—and on those who prepared that delicacy to feed the men who sailed the Atlantic in search of riches and glory through trade and battle.
