Locally-Made Tobacco Pipes in the Colonial Chesapeake

by C. Jane Cox, Al Luckenbach, Dave Gadsby, with contribution by Shawn Sharpe

Paper Presented at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology in York, England.

Tobacco pipes made in the colonial Chesapeake are often referred to as “terra-cotta” pipes. Made of local clays, they often exhibit a brown, reddish, earthen color, though they also come in a fascinating array of colors from orange to pink to almost pure white.

These New World products have been fascinating Tidewater archaeologists for decades. Who in colonial society most likely produced and used terra-cotta pipes has been an ongoing discussion for over three decades. Theories have credited their production to immigrant Europeans producing them for personal use, Native populations producing them for colonists, and Africans producing pipes them with decorative motifs representative of African origins. Most recently, an appeal to consider who used these pipes, as opposed to who made; them has concluded that the servant class or bound laborers used locally-made pipes because they had limited access to imported European items (Nieman and King 1999).

As the question of authorship continues to be discussed, the archaeological community appears to have found a consensus that the material culture of the 17th century colonial Chesapeake represents a unique interaction between Native and immigrant populations. The production and use of terra-cotta—or preferably “local pipes” or “Chesapeake pipes”—are a material remnant of the complex transitional process of cultural interaction, and of power and conflict. This paper explores the transition, nuances and anomalies of tobacco pipe use—from a mixture of European and local pipes in the early 17th century to an almost exclusive use of European imports by the 1680s. Neiman and King have further encouraged us to look beyond the authorship—who produced Chesapeake pipes? Instead they have encouraged us to also consider who was the intended audience for this product… Who smoked Chesapeake pipes?

While we agree that this is a valuable approach, we would also suggest that the local production and distribution of Chesapeake pipes are inherently intertwined. As such, one must take on the challenge of onsidering the relationship of both production, and the pipes’ eventual distribution and use, in order to hear what the Chesapeake pipe has to say about 17th century colonial society.

The NEH comparative study offers a valuable resource to consider the distribution of locallymade pipes throughout the Chesapeake, offering data that spans across the most critical years of innovation and change, from the 1620s until the 1680s.

Not only can we consider the temporal and geographic distribution of Chesapeake pipes, but we can also consider similarities and variation between these sites; reflections which offer insight into the unique development and creolization of Native populations meeting with European, Anglo, and even African immigrants.

But first a few thoughts on Chesapeake pipe production.

New and exciting revelations regarding pipe production have come to light in the last several years with the discovery of Swan Cove in Anne Arundel County, just a few miles from Maryland’s state capital of Annapolis.

It is the only confirmed tobacco-pipe production site yet investigated in the New World. Though clearly, with products such as pipes from the “Bookbinder” tradition found throughout southeastern Virginia, others were undertaking concerted efforts at pipe production. The copious assemblage of kiln furniture, waster pipes, tools, raw clays, and clay working pits make Swan Cove an invaluable resource for exploring this artifacts’ colonial production. Matthew Emerson attributes local pipe production to something of a casual past time, requiring little in the way of skills or tools. Firing of the pipes, he suggests, occurred within a hearth in the home space (Emerson in Shackel and Little 1994.)

The Swan Cove investigations and associated experimental archaeology conducted in conjunction with those excavations has proven that pipe making is in fact a highly specialized and time-consuming effort (Luckenbach and Cox 2002.)

Anne Arundel County’s Lost Towns Project, with guidance from Dr. Allan Peacey, has re-created a colonial era pipe kiln, and produced and fired pipes in it. This exercise has proven several points. Finding, preparing and curing the appropriate clay, and forming and decorating pipes require a substantial time commitment (Cox 2005.) Many of the locally made pipes recovered from Anne Arundel County and from the “Book binder” tradition of southeastern Virginia reveal the use of specialized tools such as a pipe molds or stamps and they exhibit a clear decorative grammar (Luckenbach and Kiser, in press.)

Finally, the heat required for a successful firing (1000 degrees C/more than 1800 degrees F) is intense, far beyond that which can be achieved in the typical colonial era open wattle and daub hearth (Lindauer, Personal Communication, 2004.) The point of this is that producing a quality pipe was not an incidental activity but was in fact, a more specialized endeavor than has previously been recognized; one that would have required time and effort, special skills, tools, and financial investment. Producing tobacco pipes in the 17th century would have taken valuable labor away from the intensive efforts required for successful tobacco production, work which we know that nearly every man, woman, and child participated in the 17th century.

So Where Are Chesapeake Pipes Found?

Perhaps the most telling revelation upon review of the local pipes from the 18 NEH study sites is that not all sites have them. In fact, nearly half of those in the study group have only a negligible amount, accounting from none to less than 3% of the pipe assemblages. The 18 sites naturally divide into three groups when one considers the presence of local pipes.

Group One includes eight sites with negligible representation; zero to less than 3%. Group Two consists of five sites with between 9 and 25% of their pipe assemblage represented by locallymade pipes. Finally, Group Three is comprised of five sites that have a majority- more than 50%.

We also attempted to look at the presence of pipes on each the sites by considering there median occupation date. One of the troubles with comparative studies such as these is that the sites vary in their occupation length. Some provide a snapshot of only one decade while others span a century or more.

Interestingly, three temporal clusters appear when considering Chesapeake pipes this way, pre- 1660, 1660-1680 and post-1680. Now there are notable and significant anomalies will be explained later in this paper. Note the middle cluster, as this is the key transitional phase when considering Chesapeake pipes.

We’ll begin with a more detailed discussion of those sites in Group One. Of these, two represent the earliest occupations in the full study set; Jordan’s Journey (1620-1635) and Sandy’s (1620-1650).

The Sandy’s site, with only ½ percent Chesapeake pipes, was occupied by merchant John Wareham from the late 1620s until 1638 (Mallios 2000.) The paucity of Chesapeake-made pipes on this early site is perhaps explained by Wareham’s occupation. As a merchant, occupying a site that included a storehouse, he had relatively easy access to European made goods, as evidenced by the extensive assemblage of European marked pipes recovered from the site. He simply had no need to acquire locally produced pipes when he had relative easy access to imported ones.

Jordan’s Journey (1620-1635) was a palisaded compound with multiple structures and had only 2.75 % in local pipes (n=112). While fourteen percent (n=16) of these came from a well outside structure 18 to the northern end of the compound, sixty-four percent of all the Chesapeake pipes recovered at Jordan’s Journey (n=72) came from a cellar feature beneath Structure 4. According to Mouer and McLearan, Structure 4 was a large dwelling and food storage structure (McLearan and Mouer 1993.) The field report notes that Structure 4 intruded upon an earlier Native American structure. Interestingly, there was also a proto-historic Native American occupation outside the Jordan’s Journey palisade. Both suggest that the relatively few local pipes recovered are likely Native-American in origin. The pipes may have come from a mixed context with this underlying deposition or they have made their way inside the palisade during trade or other social interactions with the colonists who occupied Jordan’s Journey.

Taft Kiser notes that these colonists had been in Virginia for a decade prior to settling at Jordan’s Journey. They were high status and as such most likely had a well-established system in place for acquiring material goods, presumably of European origin. As with the Sandy’s site, the residents of Jordan’s’ Journey- including the families servants, had other alternatives for pipe acquisition thus negating the need for obtaining Chesapeake pipes for there own consumption (Kiser, Personal Communication December 2004.) A concern for interaction with Native populations may have also played a role in the minimal count of local pipes recovered at these two early sites. As Fausz explored in his seminal article, ‘…most colonists maintained their ethnocentric insularity and concentrated on their profitable tobacco fields.” (Fausz 1988.)

Other sites in Group I include Chaney’s Hills, Chalkley, Bennett’s Point, King’s Reach, Mattapany and Clift’s Plantation. These sites all represent the last ½ to quarter of the 17th century. Both Chaney’s Hills and Chalkley in Anne Arundel County had no local pipes in their assemblage. Both are located on upstream tributaries of the South River, a major river on the Chesapeake Bay. Notably, the Chalkley site was occupied by the Jeffe family for less than a decade; planters who existed at the very poorest end of the colonial spectrum, yet even they had the resources to procure European pipes without resorting to making their own or buying them locally (Luckenbach, et al: 1995.) Inexpensive and ready access to European goods made local acquisition unnecessary.

King’s Reach, Mattapany, and Bennett’s Point are predominately occupied during the last quarter of the 17th century and in most cases, well into the 18th century. These sites each had fewer than 20 fragments of Chesapeake pipes. By the 1670s, the Bristol American Export trade had exploded—which made European pipes, and specifically English pipes from Bristol easy and cheap to obtain (Menard 1980). Coupled with a more mature and reliable trade network, local production couldn’t compete with imported pipes, making such efforts economically infeasible.

In light of the work done by Neiman and King in 1999 questioning who smoked Chesapeake pipes, Clifts Plantation bears further review. Clifts Plantation was one of four sites in their study, which used statistical modeling to determine the spatial correlation of white, and “red” pipes. Their argument reasons that white imported pipe usage is limited to those who can afford to pay the costs of importation- the labor-owning planters (Neiman and King 1999). Based upon the discussion of pipe production offered earlier, we would suggest that in fact local pipes are not cheaper to produce or easier to acquire.

We know that in the burgeoning 17th century colonial society, the use of space and material culture within a household was less-structured and more of an overlapping, amorphous phenomena. Servants, especially in smaller or less well-to-do households, would share in the work and to some extent the rewards of their labor in a more equal fashion (Upton 1986.) While wealthier planters, with larger households, may have constructed a tenant quarter or otherwise divided the households’ social space, most would have coexisted with all members of their household and thus, servants would have lived a material life more similar to their “masters.”

The following review of the Clifts Plantation assemblage only used the pipes reported upon from major trash pit features and did not have plowzone data available to consider horizontal distribution, yet the scarcity of local pipes within later features (phase II, III, and IV) reinforces this artifacts temporal limitation.

In fact, it appears that the use of local pipes at Clift’s Plantation dropped off considerably after the first 15 years of occupation (Neiman 1980, Appendix 1). Additional review is certainly warranted to understand why servants stopped using “their” local pipes after 1685. Alternatively, did the activity areas on site shift when the Manor House underwent renovation, or is the transition simply a reflection of the increased availability of European goods, which were perhaps more readily available to servants and master alike. Such temporal sensitivity tempers the conclusion that primarily servants used local pipes, as these pipes all but disappear from Clift’s Plantation features by 1685. Particularly in consideration of the efforts that are required for producing pipes, we would suggest that busily laboring servants are not the logical end-user of the locally made pipe.

While none of the Group One sites have more than a token representation of Chesapeake pipes, the presence of even a small number certainly raises questions. Are these incidental carry-overs from an earlier era? We would suggest that on sites with particularly long occupations, one must carefully review the use and context of sealed features from which local pipes are recovered.

Five sites in the study sample have Chesapeake pipes that account for between 9 and 25% of their pipe assemblages, all represent the middle to third-quarter of the 17th century. Surface distributions for Compton, Burle’s Town Land, Patuxent Point and Homewood’s Lot were produced to consider the spatial and temporal distribution of local pipes in relation to their European counterparts. The maps from Patuxent Point were inconclusive in this study and the site certainly bears further consideration. The other three sites, however, offered interesting results.

Compton, occupied from 1651 until 1684, had 9% of its pipe assemblage as locally-made. Nieman and King concluded, based upon the statistical north to south zonation of a red-pipe index, that the northernmost house was the preserve of the owners while the southern house and the smokehouses were the preserve of bound or owned laborers (Neiman and King ibid.) Using surface distribution maps, we too found a zonal variation between white pipes versus locally made or “red” pipes. However, when the white pipes were separated in two groups- those with bores 8/64ths and larger (presumably the older pipes) and 7/64ths and smaller (later pipes), the distribution of larger bore pipes mimic that of the Chesapeake pipes, while the concentration of smaller thus later bores (those 7/64ths and below) moved north- away from the “servant activity area” concluded by Neiman and King. Is this shift a result of use by different occupants of the site, or is it a transition from the use of local pipes in the early years of the sites occupation?

While Burle’s Town Land (1649-1680) offered relatively few subsurface features, much of the site had not been plowed so distributional analysis is particularly informative. Here, a shift in the deposition pattern of local pipes versus those of European origin appears to reflect subtle temporal shifts in the activity areas on site. The locally made pipes correlate with European pipes that have bores 8/64th’s and greater in that they are denser towards the western side of the structure.

Opposing this, the concentration of European bores measuring 7/64ths or less shift to the east side of the building. Such temporal sensitivity can be seen in distribution maps, particularly if they are partnered with other temporally sensitive artifacts, besides pipes. Sealed features however are the most reliable method for understanding a sites’ development, particularly on sites with extended occupations.

Homewood’s Lot in Anne Arundel County is challenging in that it is continuously occupied from 1649 until 1780. The site is a hodge-podge of overlapping features and while limited salvage excavation revealed numerous buildings, the continual occupation may mask patterns of artifact distribution solely from plowzone data (Franz and Luckenbach 2005, Gadsby and Callage 2002.) In response, we took an approach of carefully querying pipes found in a sequence of 17th C features. Such review adds to and further clarifies the distribution results.

The pipe data clearly reveals two phases of 17th century occupation. Note that the features that date to Phase One of Homewood’s (1649- 1675) have more than 21% local pipes. When we look at features that are open for a longer period, (ca 1649-1700), there are decreasingly few local pipes (about 12%) and most of these were recovered from lower, thus earlier levels, of those features. Still more telling are those features that are a post-1700s context- which have only 2.4 % local pipes.

While a vague correlation can be seen in surface distribution maps of the dense plowzone deposits, sealed features offer a chronological responsiveness to artifact trends, as opposed to a mixture representative of the full length of the sites occupation as seen in the surface contour maps. Such feature data is far more temporally sensitive and informative when considering the deposition patterns of all artifacts, including locally- made pipes.

Rich Neck would offer an interesting addendum to this feature-based approach as David Muraca and his colleagues have identified four phases of occupation (1640s/1665/ca. 1680/post- 1684) (McFaden, et. al. 1999.) Unfortunately, the level of detail presently available by the NEH study set does not yet offer easily extracted feature details such as this without a more intimate knowledge of the site.

Conducting a closer review of the temporal distribution for locally made pipes, whether based upon surface distribution maps or tightly-dated sealed features is necessary to fully understand the nuances of the local pipe in the Chesapeake. Without this temporal scrutiny, making assumptions about a local pipes use by various elements of colonial society can be tricky business.

Those sites with a majority assemblage of Chesapeake pipes include the following three—all with exclusively pre-1650s occupations; Carters Grove 8, Old Chapel Field, and Reverend Buck site.

Carters Grove 8 and the Buck Site both represent some of the earliest settlement in and near Virginia’s colonial population center of Jamestown. Old Chapel Field (1636-1660) represents the early settlement in Maryland’s colonial capital of St Mary’s City. It seems plausible that in the first years of settling a new town or population center, in something of a frontier land, necessity drove the use of local pipes when compared to European counterparts of both Dutch and English origin. Immature and sporadic trade networks with European sources and possibly a heightened interaction with Native populations would account for such a high percentage of local pipes.

Two obvious anomalies are found in this grouping, but they are anomalies that speak volumes for further consideration of who was producing Chesapeake pipes. The two later sites in this subset are Posey (1660-1690) and Camden (1650-1670). Both are not only occupied later than the three just mentioned, but both are occupied by Native Americans and are located further inland. The later occupations, along with such a high percentage of local pipes strongly suggests that in addition to a delayed response to the temporal sensitivity found on sites occupied by immigrant colonists, the association with Native American traditions cannot be understated.

CONCLUSIONS

The overwhelming majority of Chesapeake pipes pre-date 1670, with the larger assemblages occurring in pre-1650 contexts. Those earliest sites lacking local pipes are higher status or they obtain tobacco pipes through regular European-based trade systems, negating a need for local pipes. Those sites that attribute locally made pipes to a post-1670s deposition often represent a long or multi faceted occupation, which begins by mid-century—when locally made pipes are more prevalent. On those few sites where local pipes are deposited in a post-1670s context, the Native American influences are strong. As Mouer and his colleagues have argued, there needs to be a more concerted effort at Posey was a small, singleoccupation component, probably Native American, ca. 1660 and 1690 Camden was occupied by Virginia Indians from ca. 1650 until c. 1700 understanding the Native populations role in the development of a creolized 17th century colonial society in the Chesapeake (Mouer, et al. in Singleton 1999.)

Sites and even features that represent the 1670s are significant to these questions, as it is an important transitional decade. This temporal shift is clearly a function of the increased production of tobacco and its corresponding lowered cost (Menard 1980,) which encouraged a substantial smoking population in England that in turn fueled the explosion of the Bristol American Export trade. While some have suggested that Chesapeake pipes were used primarily by bound labor and some have even suggested that Africans were responsible for producing local pipes, it is important to note that until ca. 1680, most bound laborer in the Chesapeake were indentured servants in smaller households- and not enslaved Africans (for a discussion, see Mouer, et al. in Singleton, 1999.) If locally produced pipes are disappearing by the time that slavery of Africans is on the increase, then other alternatives for the production of local pipes needs to be considered.

The temporal sensitivity of locally made pipes in the colonial Chesapeake and the vagaries of their distribution should be more carefully weighed when posing the question of who was smoking these pipes. The distribution patterns found in the 18 sites in this NEH sponsored study set along with revelations from the Swan Cove site and the Lost Towns Projects’ experimental work with a reconstructed pipe kiln, has revealed that in fact, the production of locally made pipes in the colonial Chesapeake is not a past time pursuit.

The local pipe phenomenon is relatively short-lived encompassing only about 70 years, yet it is a revealing topic for studying the transformation of colonial Chesapeake society. It appears that while early, valiant and concerted efforts were made to establish a local pipe industry in the Chesapeake, mass production of pipes from Europe eclipsed local efforts. Colonists soon found that the best way to obtain pipes was to buy one from England—rather than attempting to make their own.

References

Cox, C. Jane: 2005 Comparative Analysis of Tobacco-pipes and Clays from Colonial Chesapeake Sites. Submitted to the Maryland Historical Trust, March 2005 in fulfillment of FY 2002 MHT Non-Capital Historic Preservation Grant. On File at the Anne Arundel County Office of Environmental and Cultural Resources, Annapolis, MD 21401.
Emerson, Matthew C.: 1994 Decorated Clay Pipes from the Chesapeake: An African Connection. In Historical Archaeology of the Chesapeake. Edited by Paul A Shackel and Barbara J Little. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC and London.
Fausz, J. Frederick: 1988 Merging and Emerging Worlds: Anglo-Indian Interest Groups and the Development of the Seventeenth Century Chesapeake. In Colonial Chesapeake Society, edited by Lois Green Carr, Philip Morgan and Jean Russo, pp 47-98. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.
Franz, Lauren and Al Luckenbach: 2005 The Building Sequence at Homewood’s Lot, Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Expected in Maryland Archaeology Spring 2005. Journal of the Archaeological Society of Maryland, Crownsville, MD.
Gadsby, David and Rosemarie Callage: 2002 Homewood’s Lot through Four Generations: Tobacco-Pipes from 18AN871. In Al Luckenbach, C. Jane Cox and John Kille, eds. The Clay Tobacco-Pipe in Anne Arundel County, Maryland (1650-1730), pp 18-26. Anne Arundel County Trust for Preservation, Inc. Annapolis, MD.
Kiser, Taft: 2004 Personal Communication.
Lindauer, Anthony: 2004 Personal Communication. Historian and Master Pipe Maker at London Town House and Gardens, Edgewater, Maryland.
Luckenbach, Al, and C. Jane Cox: 2003 Tobacco-Pipe Manufacturing in Early Maryland: The Swan Cove Site (ca. 1660-1669). In Al Luckenbach, C. Jane Cox and John Kille, eds. The Clay Tobacco-Pipe in Anne Arundel County, Maryland (1650-1730), pp.46-63. Anne Arundel County Trust for Preservation, Inc. Annapolis, MD.
Luckenbach, Al, Esther Read and Donna Ware: 1995 The Excavations at Jeffe’s Inheritance: The Chalkley Site (18AN711). Maryland Archaeology 31 (1 & 2): 39-58. Journal of the Archaeological Society of Maryland, Crownsville, MD.
Luckenbach, Al and Taft Kiser: 2005 (in Press) Terra-cotta Tobacco Pipe Manufacturing in the Chesapeake Region: a Delineation of Makers and their Styles. Draft on file Anne Arundel County Office of Environmental and Cultural Resources.
Mallios, Seth: 2000 At the Edge of the Precipice: Frontier Ventures, Jamestown Hinterland, and the Archaeology of 44JC802. Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. Jamestown, Virginia.
McFaden, Leslie, Philip Levy, David Muraca and Jennifer Jones: 1999 Interim Report: The Archaeology of Rich Neck Plantation. VDHR File Number 97-1411-F. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Department of Archeological Research. PO Box 1776, Williamsburg Virginia.
McLearan, Douglas C, and Daniel Mouer: 1993 Jordan’s Journey II: A Draft Preliminary Report on the 1992 Excavations at Archaeological Sites 44PG302, 44PG303, and 44PG315. Prepared for the Virginia Department of Hisotoric Resources, Richmond, Virginia.
Menard, Russell: 1980 The Tobacco Industry in the Chesapeake Colonies, 1617-1730: An Interpretation. Research in Economic History 5. p. 128-42.
Mouer, L. Daniel, Mary Ellen N. Hodges, Stephen R. Potter, Susan L. Henry Renaud, Ivor Noel Hume, Dennis J. Pogue, Martha W. McCartney, and Thomas E. Davidson: 1999 "Colonoware Pottery, Chesapeake Pipes, and 'Uncritical Assumptions.'" In "I, Too, Am America": Archaeological Studies of African-American Life, ed. Theresa A. Singleton Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia. p. 83-115.
Neiman, Fraser D.: 1980 Field Archaeology of the Clift’s Planation Site, Westmoreland County, Virginia. Appendix I - Artifact Inventory. Prepared for the Robert E. Lee Memorial Association. Westmoreland County, Virginia.
Neiman, Fraser D. and Julia A. King: 1999 Who Smoked Chesapeake Pipes? Paper presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. Manuscript on File with Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum Library, St Leonard, Maryland.
Upton, Dell: 1986 Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture, edited with John Michael Vlach. Athens: University of Georgia Press.