Clay pipes and pipestems.

[Robert Braun]

After a recent visit to the Indian Agency House in Portage-- where we were well-treated by the docents, who gave us a very nice tour-- I felt compelled to address the alleged practice of "breaking off pipe stems, for reasons of sanitation, etc., for the next smoker."

You may find my preliminary rant on the "Oops" page of the website. www.geocities.com/old_lead/oops.htm

An expanded article will be forthcoming in the Fall edition of the newsletter (not the issue that should be out within a week.)

Bob.

[Greg Carter]

Not to break off from the topic of pipe stems, but are there any other types of pipes that are known to have been popular during the era? It is my understanding that the reed-stemmed pipe came much later, and I have seen that the short wooden "briar" pipe was quite common during the antebellum era, but what other that clay found it's way into the common households of the 1830's?

GMC

[Robert Braun]

Mr. Greg...

My best "tip" (broken off for your sanitary protection... just because I care) is that the red clay pipe bowls claimed by at least one vendor as "available from 1750 onward" are not found in the known archaeology done within the Lead Region.

If any were found at the Indian Agency house as part of their 1989 archaeological study, only the kaolin pipe fragments were on display. My guess is that they did not find any. I can tell you that plenty of kaolin fragments have been found---and at multiple sites.

Clearly, these red pipe bowls-- and we're talking the clay fired pipe bowls, and not pipes made from catlinite and other materials-- were known and used later in antebellum America. I can easily document pre-Civil War use of these pipe bowls; for example, a portion of the cargo lost aboard the steamboat Arabia included a crate of those red-clay pipe bowls.

My recommendation is to stick with those pipes and pipe styles know to have been in use in the region. This can always be modified as more evidence comes to light.

[Greg Carter]

Recently following the trip to the New Salem Reenactment I stopped by the Under the Prairie frontier archeological museum and made some interesting discoveries on this subject...

I asked the researcher at the desk about pipes and was able to glean the following confirmation- Gottfried Aust, a Moravian, was making redware pipe bowls and other items in North Carolina in 1750.

In her book Art, Crafts, and Architecture in Early Illinois, Betty Madden identifies 12 makers of pottery, particularly of stoneware and redware, in the region around present-day Springfield and St. Louis who were in operation during the period of 1826-1832.

Numerous artifacts at the museum also support the use of pipe bowls with separate stems in the central and southern Illinois regions.

However, a mix of clays and tips are also located at the same museum, indicating a presence of both types of pipes being present in central and southern Illinois.

What puzzles me is that numerous companies of militia from the southern and central Illinois regions were present at various times throughout the Lead District, but no evidence of the presence of reed-stemmed pipes has been found there as of yet.

GMC

[Robert Braun]

Greg... It would appear that of the very few sites that have been excavated, there does not seem to be archaeological evidence to support the use of these clay pipes with reed stems.

Emphasis on "few" sites.

I have not exhaustively seen the artifacts from Wisconsin Heights, but no pipe bowls have been mentioned by the archaeological staff familiar with the work, as yet. The Kinzie's home at the Portage saw extensive gatherings of native people and some military; if they found such pipe bowls in the archeology done on the house grounds, the artifacts are not on display. The only other sites where excavation has been done include the Fort Cos-co-nong site, Apple River Fort, and Fort Crawford. To my knowledge only kaolin fragments have been found at these sites.

Again... these pipe bowls are not showing up in the limited archaeological investigations of a very few BHW era sites. Perhaps museum holdings in Galena and elsewhere might yield more clues.

Regarding the red clay pipe bowls available in 1750--- I concede the point about pre-Revolutionary War availability, HOWEVER, what was the instance of usage outside this particular North Carolina Moravian community? Enough to warrant some reenactor supply catalogs to list them as a period product?

Now to be fair, one lists the pipe simply as "This type of pipe was made from the 1750's onward." But what does that mean? I suggest it means nothing more than it says. It is incumbent upon the buyer to ascertain the correctness of the item for one's historical "kit."

I support the assertions of authors and archaeologists that suggest such pipes may well be in use in central and southern Illinois... the evidence certainly points that way. I can point to Mount paintings that show Missouri rvermen using such pipes circa late 1840s-1850s. I have seen evidence from the cargo of the "Arabia" that indicated from the late 1850's and probably before, cargoes of such pipe bowls were trafficked up and down the Missouri.

HOWEVER, my GUESS is that such pipes did not acheive widespread use until the time of the Gold Rush and later.