PORCELAIN, POTTERY AND GLASS Cast away by the soldiery in the War of Independence By Reginald Pelham Bolton Member, The New York Historical Society The fractured wares which are a common accompaniment of military objects upon and around the places occupied by the troops during the Revolution have a special interest for the collector and student, since they can be definitely attributed to a date not later than 1783. In addition, they possess the interest of having passed from the homes of their original possessors through the rough hands of soldiery, by whom they were utilized, broken and cast away during the great events of that crucial period. By diligent search, and by careful sifting, parts, and sometimes all, the fragments of many specimens have been salvaged, and by painstaking restoration some have been reconstructed in their original form, and now afford, in the collections of The New York Historical Society, and upon the shelves of Washington's head- i quarters and of the Dyckman House, illustrations of the art of the potter and of the glassmaker of Colonial times, which had been developed and were in use at the time of the War of Independence. In Fig. 1 a group of such restored wares is exhibited, the several objects being designated for reference herein, with Nos. 1 to 25. From the delicate nature of much of the material, and from the known domestic character of other parts, it has been evident that many of such wares cannot have been intended for, or issued to, the troops in active service, but were taken from the ransacked and plundered dwellings of this region, in which at the time it was the pride of their owners to possess artistic pottery wares then imported in quantities from Europe, and the more rare and expensive porcelains of the Far East. It has been observed that the fragments are most abundant and the greatest variety of wares have been found on the camp 87