In August 1999, Lon Pelton of Pelton Excavation Co. discovered this site while excavating the foundation of a new home. It is located about one mile north of Bloomfield center on route 189 and was the last available building lot left in a tract that was divided up back in the 1940s. The property's dimensions are approximately 130 feet frontage by 130 feet deep. Lon informed me of his find after he uncovered a large amount of stoneware shard and associated kiln furniture used in stacking the pottery when fired. After seeing the site and artifacts, I was satisfied that this was compelling evidence of a rare stoneware pottery manufacture site and notified State Archaeologist Nick Bellantoni. He visited the site and, being impressed with what he saw, decided to put a crew together to recover and record what we could before the foundation was poured and final landscaping was completed.

In September, Nick Bellantoni and crew met several times and recovered a deluge of stoneware shards, kiln furniture, and some glazed bricks and furnace slag. Much of the pottery was found in several of the surrounding mounds of topsoil that were scraped away before the foundation was dug. The artifact provenience was recorded relative to the mounds in which they were found and the stratified layer that Lon initially discovered in the foundation wall. In the meantime, I was researching maps and land deeds at the Bloomfield Town Hall to gather historical information about the site.

By October the foundation was poured and hundreds of stoneware shards and associated kiln furniture had been recovered. Time was starting to run out but Lon held off the final landscaping as long as he could, allowing further site research and artifact recovery. I test pitted across the back part of the property but didn't find anything except for a layer of stones I thought was a ledge, but further investigation by Lon with earth moving equipment revealed a feature that was possibly the partial remains of a building foundation. Also while moving earth in another part of the property, Lon ran into a dug out area filled with stone. From his description, this feature sounds like it could have been a dry well.

Despite all that was being recovered, the most exciting discovery was yet to come. Lon was digging by the street to connect up to the storm drain when two feet below the surface a dense deposit of large stoneware shards was uncovered. Further, many of the shards could be mated with others found in the vicinity. I was able to piece together about 70 percent of a beautiful salt-glazed, cobalt blue decorated stoneware cooking pot. This ability to mate and reassemble is strong evidence of primary deposition and not artifacts that have been trotted upon and scattered over time. Since they were laying close to the road, it is possible these shards were conveniently dumped here from another location nearby, without a connection to any of the previous property owners.

Many of the shards were from single-handle stove pots, plain and decorated jugs with incised and painted bird and flora decorations. They were all manufactured on a wheel and all are typically ovate in shape. The stylistic evolution, through the 19th century, of American stoneware goes from ovate to straight-sided forms manufactured in mass and formed in presses and molds. Therefore, from my research, I tend to attribute our artifacts to a pre-1850 style.

The kiln furniture themselves were interesting artifacts. They are props and tiles used to support the pottery in the kiln when stacking it for firing. All those found came in four different shapes and looked exactly like the examples found in stoneware pottery books.

Another surprisiing find was shards that had other shards embedded in them under a layer of glaze. This is a result of kiln explosions, possibly because the greenware (prefired pottery) had too much water content. After being formed on the wheel, pottery has to be put aside for days to thoroughly dry before stacking and firing it in the kiln. Exlposions were a risk of the business and all the remains on this property may have come from this disaster. This must have been a very discouraging occurrence and may have put this venture out of business.

The pottery varies in quality. Some pieces have a high quality stoneware body with a beautiful cobalt blue decoration and slat glaze exterior. Others have a beautiful chocolate brown Albany slip glaze in its interior. But some had a high percentage of local clay mixed with the stoneware clay, evidently to stretch the potter's valuable supply of stoneware clay. I say valuable because this clay isn't found in New England and had to be shipped into the area from as far away as New Jersey or New York.

Connecticut had several stoneware potteries located in cities and towns along the shoreline or near navigable waterways where the stoneware clay could be transported. Hartford had several potteries in the 19th century, located near wharves on the Connecticut River. Transporting stoneware clay to this area of Bloomfield is probably the most interesting aspect of this site because it is not located near a navigable waterway or railroad. There was no railroad in Bloomfield until the 1870s. One possible transportation option previous to 1850 other than overland was via canal. This area of Bloomfield is only a few miles from Simsbury where the Farmington Canal, between the early 1830s to 1847, handled freight inland from New Haven Harbor through the center of Connecticut. Therefore, before 1850 any stoneware clay brought to this site would have arrived by canal or overland from the wharves of Hartford that were 15 to 20 miles away.

Digging stopped just before Thanksgiving in 1999 because of heavy rains followed by final landscaping. I continue to research the historical record trying to find who the potter was and the scope of this enterprise. All property owners going back to 1850 are known and deeds and probates of these owners show no mention or connection to pottery.

We owe Lon Pelton a great deal of gratitude for his discovery and interest in the site, and for buying us time to accomplish this rescue archaeology. We think of archaeology as digging meticulously with small tools, such as hand trowels and dental picks, but this is a good example of a site that would have been probably lost forever if it weren't for large earth moving equipment.