An Incised and Cobalt-Blue Decorated 'Jersey Devil' Jug, Attributed to Morgan Van Wickle and Green, Old Bridge, New Jersey, circa 1818

Barry Cohen Collection, New York;

Sotheby's, New York, Fine Americana, October 24, 1993, sale 6483, lot 309;

Grace and Elliot Snyder, Great Barrington, Massachusetts;

Private Collector;

Don Walters, Northampton, Massachusetts;

Ron Merican, A Bird in Hand, Florham Park, New Jersey;

David Wheatcroft, Massachusetts, Philadelphia Antiques Show, 2006.

Georgiana Greer, American Stoneware, (Exton, 1984), illustrated p. 237.;

Leslie and Peter Warwick, "The Sighting of the New Jersey Devil on a Stoneware Jug," Ceramics in America 2008, (Milwaukee, WI: Chipstone Foundation, 2008), Fig. 1 and 2;

Leslie and Peter Warwick, "Money, the Root of All Evil," Maine Antiques Digest, (May 2020), p. 40, in response to a question posed in "Letter to the Editor" in Maine Antiques Digest, April 2020.

Leslie and Peter Warwick, Love At First Sight: Discovering Stories About Folk Art & Antiques Collected by Two Generations & Three Families, (New Jersey: 2022), pp. 96-97, fig. 166a-b.

The imagery on this extraordinary jug has two possible sources of inspiration, as detailed by Peter and Leslie Warwick in their extensive research articles published in the Chipstone journal, Maine Antiques Digest, and in their own collecting memoir (see literature field for articles). The first possibility for the chosen imagery derives from 18th century folklore. Mrs. Leeds of Atlantic County, new Jersey was reportedly pregnant in 1735 and delivered an unwanted thirteen-inch child and exclaimed, "I hope it's a devil!" While "the New Jersey devil" continues to be a prevalent pop culture symbol of the state today, an additional and perhaps more plausible motive for a devil on the jug was due to a major scandal involving General James Morgan's brother, Charles, and Jacob Van Wickle.

Captain James Morgan worked in Cheesequake, New Jersey, an area along the Raritan Bay, from 1775-1784 and owned one of the largest clay pits in the area, whom his son, General James Morgan Jr., inherited. General James Morgan, was born 1756 and married Ann S. Van Wickle, his second wife. He was a line officer in the Revolutionary War and subsequently in the militia, and upon capturing the British brigantine Ann & May near Long Branch, New Jersey, he became a Major General in the New Jersey Militia and a member of the US Congress from 1811-1813. A manager, perhaps William Crolius, ran the pottery business for Morgan after 1784 until he sold the land in 1801. In 1805, General Morgan started another pottery in Old Bridge with Jacob Van Wickle and the potter, Branch Green. The Old Bridge Pottery continued until General Morgan's death in 1822.

The devil on the jug could have been a caricature of either Jacob Van Wickle and Charles Morgan, James's brother, after they committed sinister crimes resulting in scandal. In 1818 Jacob Van Wickle was revealed to be at the center of a ring that sent over sixty free (and soon to be free) New Jersey Blacks back into slavery in Louisiana on Charles Morgan's plantation. Charles returned to New Jersey in the spring of 1818 to find slaves to man his Louisiana sugar plantation. It was then against the law to export slaves from New Jersey without their (and their owner's) consent. Judge Van Wickle probably through subterfuge, secured and provided the legal documentation of the consent of sixty plus individuals, who were then sent to Louisiana in three shipments between March and May of 1818. The ring and its activities were first exposed in Franklin's Philadelphia Gazette.

Van Wickle was pilloried in the Federalist papers in articles highlighting his greed. He tried to defend himself in the Democratic papers, as he was the local party chief, but the It was a major scandal of the day and may have provided a motivation for one of the workers in Morgan & Van Wickle's pottery to show the greed of his employers. For more information on this event, see Jarrett M. Drake, M.S.I. "Off the Record: The Production of Evidence in 19th Century New Jersey", NJS: An Interdisciplinary Journal Summer 2015.

A mermaid jug owned by barry Cohen with similar punch decoration was sold in these rooms, June 26-27, 1991, lot 212. This jug depicts a mermaid with a cartouche inscribed "M V Poole," who was found to be Monroe V. Poole from Eatontown, New Jersey (b. 1848).