Samuel Capen
An Early Brickmaker’s Daybook of 195h Century Dorchester, MA—An Interesting Story It Held!
Samuel Capen, a working-class brickmaker and native of eighteenth-
century Dorchester, Massachusetts – manufactured bricks by the thousands for use in a number of area architectural needs in the nineteenth-century. Through my studies at Harvard University’s Baker Library – I have been fortunate enough to review the daybook or company ledger that Capen used from 1800 thru 1817. Based on these dates – it is assumed that Capen likely worked earlier in the eighteenth-century and he may possibly have ties to a very early eighteenth-century Charlestown, Massachusetts, potter.
Since I am not using this daybook in any of my writing and I only merely viewed it out of curiosity and reference – I figured I would share a few of the important records it holds.
Samuel Capen Daybook – Dorchester, Ma
Dated Used: 1800-1817
Capen was a Local Brickmaker
Photo Courtesy: Baker Library, Harvard University – School of Business – Boston, Ma
Enclosed loosely within it – and actually not part of the daybook, is a contract for a man known as John Consil. Consil apparently desired to become an apprentice under Capen and was petitioning him to do so in this contract. This brief caption is not the entire three-page agreement, but the specific citations that I found most fascinating.
No. 22568 Samuel Capen’s Daybook
“Mr. Samuel Capen,
Seeing we have talked so much about the clay, I will make you the following propositions to which you may either give your consent or your final denial.
..I will allow you for every fourteen holes, or you may have the bricks counted and allow me the same or after the bricks are wet and burnt. I will leave it up to me, the men who are good judges of bricks in making how many. I (John Consil) will pay you the sum of 33 cents per thousand bricks.
This agreement with that, I, Samuel Capen, in the town of Dorchester, County of Norfolk, Commonwealth of Massachusetts do agree to sell John Consil a certain amount of clay to make into bricks upon following terms:
I, Samuel Capen do agreen to let John Conssil have clay to dig or make bricks for two seasons at the cost of 100 per season.
I, John Consil do likewise agree to make as many bricks or clay into bricks that the clay I shall have of the said, Samuel Capen shall amount to two hundred dollars at rate of thirty three cents per thousand to one hundred dollars per season.
Your humble servant, John Consil”
If you do the math – that is roughly 300,00 bricks per season. I am not exactly sure what a season equals in early nineteenth-century Massachusetts – it may be a full calendar year, it may be an end of a growing season in six month cycles or it may be one of the four seasons in three month cycles. Either way – 300,000 bricks produced by an apprentice and not including the actual output of Samuel Capen’s company gives an idea of the large demand for bricks of the area.
How many bricks does it take to build a three-floor Federal house? Or even period buildings of a smaller size? The bricks from the Capen business were obviously responsible for a number of buildings that were built inside the early nineteenth-century greater Dorchester area each year. Many of these buildings likely still stand today.
The Dorchester Atheneum in Dorchester, Massachusetts has a large collection of early domestic bricks. Many of the bricks have been associated with brick structures that once stood or still do, in the town – and most bricks have a painting of the house on them that each once belonged to – painted by a number of artists in the early twentieth-century.
The museum description, “this collection (bricks) is important not only as a record of the architectural history of Dorchester but also as an intriguing example of folk art.” It is very-well likely that Capen is responsible for the production of some of these bricks inside this 100 piece collection.
Within Capen’s Daybook reads:
“6, April, 1803 – Mr. Consil began to work for me today and he is to work all this month and three days he is to work in next month which make 24 days that he has agreed to work for seven dollars.
He has done the work ok – is paid.”
The daybook goes far beyond only the sale of bricks – it includes the purchase of household and business expenditures, groceries, tax records, loan records with interest and such.
However, there is no mention of a kiln or earthen ware within the daybook. I read the book cover to cover, the first page thru the last and there was never any mention of an attempt at a utilitarian production, and as far as the book was concerned – Capen never did attempt such an enterprise. I assume there must have been some kind of experimental crossover into earthen ware. Why wouldn’t they at least mess around with the idea? The clay source for bricks and what we call today, redware were exactly the same. Who’s to say that brickmakers did not experiment with a more refined form within the clay industry? I assume that some earthen ware potters may have made their own bricks – so why could the likewise not happen?
It appears that Capen was a major provider of bricks within the Dorchester area. Could he or someone have possibly produced redware platters within this company? The John Consil contract was signed by: Samuel Capen, Jabez Capen, John Consil and Stephen Hersey. Could any of these four have experimented with utilitarian wares? Were there additional potters who worked at this company over the seventeen-year period of this daybook? There are about a dozen known marbleized redware plates that have a Dorchester attribution and for my own records – I am attempting to identify this potter.
Possibly Dorchester, Ma Redware Loaf Dish
Late 18th to Early 19th Century
Museum of Fine Arts Collection – Boston
(Possibly the Finest Example Known to Exist)
I am in the process of searching for the residence of Daniel Bayley’s eighteenth-century daybook from Newburyport, Massachusetts. If anyone knows its whereabouts, I would love to know that information for my studies. I do not believe it is a part of Lura Woodside Watkins collection at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. I do not believe the Olde Newbury Historical Society owns it either. Does it even exist? Maybe it is still out there hidden and left to be discovered – either way, I am in need of it for my studies. If anyone can please help – the book would provide a great deal of important
Justin Thomas. Study of Early Boston-Area Ceramics, Newburyport, Mass
www.EarlyAmericanCeramics.com