Manufacturer Notes: Goodwin & WebsterGoodwin & Webster were in business from 1810 to 1850. Horace Goodwin, born February 12, 1781 died October 3, 1850, was senior partner with Henry WebsterBulletin of the Connecticut Historical Society _______________________________________________________________________________________ Goodwin & Webster works on Front Street In the 1790's, also, John Souter, an Englishman, made his appearance in Hartford. He is said to have built an earthenware shop on the northeast corner of Potter and front Streets. In 1805 he sold it to Peter Cross, a stoneware manufacturer. The name Cross does not occur on land records, and I believe that he was not a native of Hartford. Although he made some excellent stoneware, he was not altogether successful. After a few years, he sold his first building to Horace Goodwin and Mack C. Webster and moved to 38 Front Street; but this, too, he abandoned at some time before 1818. Horace Goodwin, a brother of Seth Goodwin of Elmwood, and Mack C. Webster* ran both the Front Street potteries after 1830. They had acquired numerous pieces of land in the vicinity and had laid the foundations for the first successful manufactory of stoneware in Hartford. Risley says that the old corner pottery was sold and the firm dissolved in 1850. He has confused the two events, for Goodwin was no longer in the firm after 1840, when the style of M. C. Webster & Son appears in the Hartford city Directory, with the address 17 Front Street. The son, Charles T. Webster, after his father's death in 1857, ran the works in partnership with Orson Hart Seymour as Webster & Seymour. O. H. Seymour was the nephew of Israel T. Seymour of the West Hartford family, who is well known in connection with his potting activities in Troy, New York. Seymour's association with Webster lasted for some ten years. In 1867 the firm was Seymour & Brother at 50 Front Street. The brother was Henry Phelps Seymour, who combined his pottery interests with a position as chief engineer of the fire department. He died in 1871. His brother, two years later, reorganized the business with Stanley B. Bosworth as partner, Seymour & Bosworth were still running in the eighteen-eighties. These Front Street potteries, therefore, have a history of continuous operation, although under different managements, for about ninety years. Watkins, Laura Woodside; Early New England Potters and Their Wares (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1950). _______________________________________________________________________________________ Goodwin & Webster and other partnerships who carried on the Goodwin pottery until 1900, made stoneware and brownware. Ramsay, John; American Potters and Pottery (Boston, Cushman and Flint, 1939). _______________________________________________________________________________________ Potteries. -On Front street Daniel Goodale and Goodwin & Webster made on a large scale, pottery and stone-ware. Besides supplying the home demand, they kept up ware-houses in Boston and Salem, and sold to other towns on the coast. In winter lines of sleds carried away the product and brought back fresh fish. Davis, William Thomas; The New England States: Their Constitutional, Judicial, Educational, Commercial, Professional and Industrial History (Boston, D. H. Hurd & Co., 1897). _______________________________________________________________________________________ Go To North American Soda & Beers Home |