Commeraw is best known for the swag and tassel designs, filled with a cobalt blue wash, he used on his pots and jugs, but his distinctive oyster jars, marked with the name of the oystermen, are also noteworthy. For these jars he stamped the names and addresses of the black oystermen who were his customers. We know of at least three oystermen who were apparently using Commeraw’s jars including: Daniel Johnson, George White and George Brown. For an in-depth description of Commeraw’s story and body of work as well as a deep dive into the subject of his oyster jars, see Brandt Zipp’s (of Crocker Farms) book published in 2023. At least two of the jars pictured in this book are part of my collection.
The turn of the 19th century, just as the oyster industry had reached something of a zenith and was showing signs of failing, is when the free black potter Commeraw was making his jars. Like the other Manhattan potter, he was making a variety of the more typical utilitarian stoneware vessel types including pots, jugs, jars and pitchers alongside the oyster jars. What caused him to develop a unique style of these jars is not clear, but based on the surviving examples, he cornered the market for the black oystermen needing jars.
With regard to their style, Commeraw’s jars differ from earlier potters in that they are characterized by a prominent and often deep recessed well or gallery surrounding the opening. Earlier potters had included a gallery, most likely included to help retain the wax used to seal the cork, but these were typically very subtle and and shallow. In general, the details used on the top of Commeraw’s jars are much more boldly executed with deeper cuts with either sharply square or very rounded edges. Based on variations between jars made on or about the same time, based on the imprints on the side, it appears that at least two potters were turning the jars in his shop. One potter produced jars with a recessed flat gallery, while the other produced galleries with a raised and even protruding inner edge to the opening.
While Commeraw is the most represented in surviving jars, he was clearly not the only potter making them. Clarkson Crolius, working nearby on Pot Baker’s Hill was also producing oyster jars as a price of oyster pots is included in both his 1807 and 1809 price list. Based on the wholesale price of these jars, we can place them at about a quart in size making these much larger than the “typical” (at least among surviving examples) Commeraw jar. One large-sized jar in my collection appears to be one of these. Another example, probably from the period after Commeraw left the potting trade, was dug in a privy in Charleston, SC and bears the stamp of Clarkson Crolius.
Most extant jars from this period are relatively small, averaging about a pint to a pint and a half in size and on the order of 5-1/2” to 7” tall. There area also three known Commeraw large (quart) size, two in my collection (one recovered in St. Croix the other on Martha’s Vineyard) and one in the collection of the New York State Museum in Albany (unknown provenance) and two large-sized Crolius jars, one in my collection (unknown provenance) and one dug in a Charleston, SC privy.
The bulk of the surviving Commeraw-type oyster jars, produced by him and other New York potters, appear to have been recovered in Guyana, South America, with a couple also found by SCUBA divers in Bermuda and bottle diggers in Charleston, SC. The reason for large number in Guyana, in Commeraw’s time known a Demerara, is somewhat unclear, but may trade by William and John Radcliffe NYC merchants doing in business in Demerara and represented by Thomas T. Thomson, an attorney from Catskill, NY who set up his own store shop in and listed “pickled oysters” for sale from New York more than once. Other sources of the large number of jars recovered here could have also been ship captains bringing jars to the colony as part of their private trades.
