For local antiques dealer and City of Poughkeepsie historian George Lukacs, one earthenware pot unlocked a piece of Poughkeepsie’s forgotten history.
Lukacs is speaking Dec. 2 at 5 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble on Route 9 as part of a fundraiser for the Poughkeepsie Public Library District (see sidebar).
The brown clay pot with blue decoration, now housed in a private collection, was a modest household item when it was inscribed on Oct. 6, 1798, but the jug is worth more than $100,000 today. Its value stems from its role as a tangible piece of evidence proving Poughkeepsie’s ceramics industry got an earlier start than some experts had previously thought.
The vessel’s history is one of humanitarian aid. The story begins in 1978 when City of Poughkeepsie officials wrote to the mayor of New York, Richard Varick, asking him what they could do to help New Yorkers during a calamitous outbreak of disease. Beginning in 1795, yellow fever claimed 500 to 2,500 lives each time it struck in New York City. Outbreaks continued for 10 years.
In a letter, Varick responded that ships’ skippers were avoiding city docks because of their “ill founded fears” of catching yellow fever – food and fuel in the city were becoming scarce as a result. Varick asked Poughkeepsie officials to ensure supplies from the Hudson Valley were not cut off and reassured them that docking in New York was safe – goods “may as yet be landed at the wharves on Hudson’s river, especially when westerly winds prevail,” Varick wrote.
But rather than simply continue supplies of goods for sale, Poughkeepsie leaders did one better. They gathered donations and delivered them by ship to the Union Street Wharf. The ceramic jug, fired at a kiln by Poughkeepsie pottery makers, was filled with butter and as a symbol of Poughkeepsie’s support and sent along with the shipment, according to Lukacs.
During the yellow fever outbreaks, many residents fled New York to take refuge in Poughkeepsie, which was already a well-established community. As a result, more basket makers, major booksellers and dry goods stores sprung up. Streets improved and curfews and fire ordinances were imposed, according to Lukacs. Plague in New York is also likely what drove earthenware merchants James Egbert and Durrell Williams, the makers of Lukacs’ pot, to set up shop in Poughkeepsie.
Before refrigeration, earthenware pots were inexpensive storage containers used in everyday life. The reusable “green” grocery bags of their day, pots were filled with produce and dairy goods at shops for the trip home and later returned to the merchant for a deposit. In today’s terms, a dozen 3-gallon pots would cost $6.50 – a far cry from the hundreds of thousands the most rare pots go for in 2007.
Earthenware collectors have to some extent overlooked Poughkeepsie as a producer of quality earthenware at the turn of the 19th century, Lukacs says. Although lower quality “red glaze” ceramics (dangerous because of their lead content) were common in rural areas, New York City and Albany were thought to be the state’s sole producers of earthenware during this early period.
But Lukacs’ pot is tangible proof to the contrary. After earthenware merchants got their foothold in Poughkeepsie, Lukacs estimates that tens of thousands of ceramics were made here through the 20th century. Only a small fraction have survived, and Lukacs says most are worth between $100 to $300.
Only the most rare are worth more – but their values are remarkable. The earliest example of earthenware from New York State, an inkwell from 1773, sold for $148,000 in 1991, and Lukacs estimates it would go for even more today. A previous sale for $16,500 in 1979 documents the recent price escalation for antiques.
Lukacs acquired the pot from an antique dealer in Highland in 1996, but will not disclose what he paid for it. Now secured in a private collection, he also does not disclose its exact worth.
A collector of stamps and coins from childhood, Lukacs began his stoneware collection 25 years ago. City mayor Nancy Cozean, impressed by his efforts on a historical display for Hoffman House, invited him to become the city historian in 2006, revamping the position after it sat vacant for a number of years. As historian, Lukacs fields questions from the public, runs a booth at the Dutchess County Fair, and oversees the creation of bronze sidewalk plaques for historic sites.