Two Cobalt-Blue Decorated Vessels, Attributed to Captain James Morgan, Cheesequake, South Amboy, New Jersey, Circa 1740-85

Crock:

Warren Hartman, 1998.

Jug:

Crocker Farm, Sparks Glencoe, Maryland, July 19, 2008

Kemple & Morgan, Ceramics in America, 2008;

Leslie and Peter Warwick, Love At First Sight: Discovering Stories About Folk Art & Antiques Collected by Two Generations & Three Families, (New Jersey: 2022), pp. 91-2, fig. 154 and fig. 157a-b.

Captain James Morgan worked in Cheesequake, New Jersey, an area along the Raritan Bay, from 1775-1784. He owned an inn, called either the Morgan Hotel or Cheesequake Inn, as well as one of the largest clay pits in the area and sold the clay through the New England region. Thus, Captain James Morgan was not a potter but an owner and manager of the pottery. He died in 1784. His son, General James Morgan, was born 1756 and married Ann S. Van Wickle, his second wife. He was a line officer in the Revolutionary War and subsequently in the militia, and upon capturing the British brigantine Ann & May near Long Branch, New Jersey, he became a Major General in the New Jersey Militia and a member of the US Congress from 1811-1813. A manager, perhaps William Crolius, ran the pottery business for Morgan after 1784 until he sold the land in 1801. In 1805, General Morgan started another pottery in Old Bridge with Jacob Van Wickle and the potter, Branch Green. In 1786, his sister and Captain Morgan's daughter, Mary, married Thomas Warne. Warne likely apprenticed under Morgan and used Morgan's equipment to produce his own pottery before partnering with Joshua Letts about 1805. Warne died in 1812 and Letts ran the pottery until 1816. After 1816, General Morgan bought out Warne and Letts.

Two other examples of quadruple spiral decorated stoneware are in the Winterthur Museum Collection and the Thomas Warne Museum, Old Bridge, New Jersey. For examples of stoneware by Warne and Letts, please see lot 102.