Extremely Rare Cobalt-Decorated Stoneware Presentation Pitcher, Stamped "E.B. HISSONG / CASSVILL," Huntingdon Co., PA origin, circa 1850, approximately one-gallon pitcher with ovoid belly, wide strap handle, and tall collar culminating in a heavily-tooled rim molding. Decorated around the belly with a series of five flowers brushed in bright cobalt blue. Under these designs, the name "JAMES : HAMSON" is written in freehand cobalt, the presumed owner of the pitcher. The extremely rare maker's mark "E.B. HISSONG / CASSVILL" is impressed at the center of the pitcher and surrounded by cobalt dashes in a sunburst or flower head pattern. Collar decorated with cobalt swags hanging from the rim and flanking the spout. "James Hamson" was almost certainly James K. Hampson, a prominent area resident who lived in Mill Creek (Brady Township), just up the road from Cassville, near Huntingdon. According to J. Simpson Africa, in his 1883 book, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania, Hampson was "for many years the keeper of the public-house ["pub"] at the village of Mill Creek" and held at least two different local offices. In 1853, an item in the Huntingdon Journal announced his petition to local judges, in which he stated, "That he still occupies that well known brick Tavern House, in said township, which has heretofore been used and occupied as a public house of entertainment, and is desirous of continuing to keep a public house therein." It is likely that this pitcher was presented to Hampson as a gift related to his pub. One of the finest examples of Huntingdon County stoneware known and one of the rarest signed pitchers from the state of Pennsylvania to have surfaced. Chipping to rim. Otherwise mint condition. H 10".
