E. Lulley Washington, D.C. 1 Gallon Merchant Pitcher

Circa 1880s: After the last pottery in Alexandria, Virginia, shut its doors in 1876, Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area crockery merchants began to commission their salt glazed stoneware from Greensboro, Pennsylvania potteries. This 10.75" tall one gallon Greensboro PA pitcher has superb blue/gray contrast, sports a nice clean stencil, and is filled out on the rest of the field with freehand decoration. Condition is excellent with one shallow spout flake and minor roughness around spout, two as fired salt drips, and no cracks or repairs. This exceedingly rare merchant pitcher is signed "E. Lulley. 616 Penn Ave. Washington D.C." Very few Lulley pitchers are known to exist, and merchant pitchers are generally considered the most desirable form of merchant ware. The history of this particular merchant has been fuzzy, but we are beginning to piece together the Lulley family story.

Emanuel Lulley was a Jewish Hungarian revolutionary, who, with his growing family, came to America in 1850. His obituary in the October 30, 1895 edition of the city's Evening Star explains that "Mr. Lulley was an active participant in the rebellion in Hungary, serving as an aid-de-camp on the staff of Gen. Kossuth. With the general and his staff he came to this country in 1850 as an exile, and took up residence in Wasington the following year. During the war of the rebellion <the American Civil War> Mr. Lulley was employed in the secret service. Later he enaged in the auctioneering and commission business, having an establishment on Pennsylvania avenue near 11th Street Northwest." Lulley was well known in the capitol and obviously in the city's Jewish community as a heroic revolutionary, an important government employee, and a very successful local businessman.

It is also important that Lulley's obituary tells us that he "was the father of eleven children, eight of whom are now living, five sons and three daughters. The sons are all well known, J. C. Lulley being an auditor of the aqueduct commission in New York city, and the others engaged in business here." The obituary, however, fails to mention anything about Lulley's daughters. It has been reported that E. Lulley's shop at 616 Pennsylvania Avenue, just a few blocks from Emanuel "Meno" Lulley's business on the same street, was purportedly run by a woman named Elizabeth Lulley, but we can find no mention of a business engaged in crockery, queensware, or china run by any Elizabeth with surname or maiden name of Lulley. Research into Lulley's daughter Fannie, however, provides us with key evidence to the shop's proprietorship.

Fannie Lulley was born in 1841 in Hungary, emigrated to the United States with her family in 1850, and married Leopold Gassenheimer, one of the founders of the Washington Hebrew Congregation, on January 18, 1856 in the capitol city. Fannie Lulley Gassenheimer's 1898 obituary in The Evening Star asserts that she "was a dealer in china ware in Washington, D.C." and that her "father <Emanuel Lulley> was the turnkey at the prison where Kossuth was incarcerated, and himself liberated the great Hungarian leader, and was then obliged to flee with his family and their little band to this country." Leopold Gassenheimer, Fannie's husband, is listed in the 1860 census as a clothier, in 1870 as a dealer in crockery, and in 1880 as a restauranteur." It is likely that Emanuel Lulley either had a share in the crockery and china business or simply allowed his daughter and son-in-law to use his well known identity on the business front to add creedence to the shop itself.

By 1880, then, Fannie Lulley Gassenheimer, was running the crockery business by herself, while her husband busied himself with a restaurant. Leopold died the following year, leaving his widow fully in charge of their enterprises. When Fannie expired 17 years later, she was living on 7th Street NW, about a mile from the shop at 616 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, which was just around the corner from 7th. Because this pitcher was manufactured in the 1880s, it is reasonable to assume that the widowed Fannie Lulley Gassenheimer was the shop's owner. It was unusual, of course, for women to own businesses in 19th century America. The importance of the story behind this rare pitcher, then, is that of the positive economic contributions of women and Jewish immigrants in our nation's capitol and thus our nation itself. Provenance: Nancy Goff Collection