Elisabeth Harpster's Small 3 Cup Stoneware Harvest Jug

Circa 1850-1870: This incredibly rare and important Ohio harvest jug inscribed "Elisabeth Harpster / Flat Rock / Seneca Co / O" stands a mere 7" high to the top of its handle and has a capacity of only 24 ounces. On top if its small size, it is the only known harvest jug of this type that has a woman's name on it, making it extremely scarce. Fresh from the collection of Ohio stoneware scholar F. Robert Treichler, this jug was recently featured at Freeman's | Hindman Auctions, and they tell us that "Elizabeth Beck was born on September 25, 1829, in Center County, Pennsylvania, one of at least nine children of Daniel (1799-1863) and Juliana Margaretha Crouse Beck (1795-1875). The Beck family moved to Seneca County, Ohio before 1840, and Daniel and one of his sons are both listed as carpenters in the U.S. Federal Census of 1850. On June 16, 1850, Elizabeth married Lewis Harpster (1827-1902), a laborer and farmer who had relocated to Flat Rock from Wayne County at some point between 1830 and 1840. The couple had several children together, including son Franklin, an oil dealer in Tiffin, Ohio, with whom Elizabeth lived following the death of her husband." Samuel Routson's pottery in Wooster, Ohio, was the nearest manufactory to Harpster's Flat Rock home; so this scarce one and half pint presentation monkey jug is most likely a product of Routson's pottery. The jug survives in almost completely as made condition with one miniscule nick on the handle and no other chips, cracks, or repairs and only typical firing anomalies, including firing separations in the thickly coated Albany slip glaze. This is an astounding piece of mid 19th century Ohio stoneware.