1 During the years 1974-76 archaeological excavations at two Huron County earthenware potteries uncovered a large collection of potter's tools, including plaster of Paris forms for slip-moulding of wares, a plaster of Paris coggle-wheel and twenty-five sprig moulds, small hand-held forms for making decorative reliefs or "spriggings" for ornamentation on pottery.1

2 The use of spriggings on Ontario pottery, both stoneware and earthenware, extends back to the early 1850s. Justus Morton of Brantford (working dates: 1849-1856) used stoneware "appliqués" on water filters;2 the Hart Pottery at Picton also used "appliqués" beginning in the late 1850s. The earliest datable use of spriggings at earthenware potteries is established by the collection reported in this paper.

3 The use of spriggings to decorate pottery was only one method of producing decorative pieces. The advantage of the use of spriggings was that the wares could be formed on the potter's wheel and the spriggings attached to the completed pot. The second method of producing decorative wares was by casting, using two plaster of Paris forms. Slip, or liquid clay, was poured into the two forms and as the moulded pottery dried it was removed and assembled by the potter. In cast or moulded wares, the decoration was an integral part of the pot, while the use of spriggings meant that the decoration could be placed anywhere on the vessel.

10 Attempts to locate contemporary sources for the motifs of the sprig moulds shown in this catalogue have not been successful to date. Similar, but not identical, motifs were found on furniture, picture frames, woodenware and slip-cast pottery in southwestern Ontario during the mid nineteenth century, but beyond these general attributions, no specific sources can be cited.

11 Boehler, Weber and David Burns could have produced the designs themselves, or have had them made by one of the numerous local furniture craftsmen. It seems most probable to the author that the motifs were copied from European or American furniture, pottery or other household objects, a practice not unknown in the history of Canadian decorative arts.

12 An examination of moulded plaster ceilings and walls and terra cotta tiles in the Huron County area has likewise been of no help in determining a source of the motifs. In all instances, with the exception of the classical head (fig. 25), the moulds are too shallow to have been copied from such work.

13 The sprig mould fragment (fig. 32) from the David Burns Pottery has a stippled surface, suggesting it may have been made from another vessel, such as a salt-glazed tea caddy like those produced at the Staffordshire potteries in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

14 All the moulds from the Huron Pottery were found intact directly above the wooden floor of the cellar. Layers of debris above the floor included intact vessels and a large number of other potter's tools, presumably discarded at the time the building was abandoned as a pottery. The three sprig moulds from the David Burns Pottery were found in fragmentary condition, and were associated with ash and pottery debris around Kiln B, a rectangular pottery kiln. All but two of the Huron Pottery sprig moulds are negatives, that is they produce raised, or positive, spriggings which are then applied directly to the vessel. The two positive moulds (figs. 10,11) produce either impressed designs on the surface of the wares, or are applied to a plaque of clay that is in turn applied to a pot in the same way as spriggings produced by the negative moulds.

15 The Huron Pottery sprig moulds (figs. 4-30) vary in length from four to twenty-one centimeters. The very small moulds have a handle (illustrated in each case); the larger moulds have a set of finger-impressed grips on the side of the mould for holding it comfortably in the hand. All moulds illustrated in this catalogue are fired earthenware, but unglazed.

16 The sprig moulds are currently in the archaeological collection of the Canadiana Department of the Royal Ontario Museum. The moulds from the Huron Pottery were recovered during excavations licensed by the Minister of Culture and Recreation, Province of Ontario, under terms of the Ontario Heritage Act 1974, provisions of which state that all artifacts retrieved from the excavations are the property of the Province of Ontario until final deposition is decided by the Minister. For this reason, only the provenance and field object register numbers are indicated in the catalogue. Readers of this Bulletin who would like photographs of the sprig moulds or other potter's tools recovered in the excavations for study purposes should direct an inquiry to the author.