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Pipe Collection
 Clay Pipes
In the 17th and 18th Centuries thousands of clay pipes came to the New World and many fragments are still being found in the soil of the earliest settlements. Pipe shards and some intact clays have been excavated on Civil War battlefields and in encampments in great numbers showing the strong presence of clay pipes in the 1860s among the soldiers who fought on both sides. "The Clay" remained king at least among men until the later part of the 19th Century.
   Clay Pipes, 19th Century or new from old Molds
   Original 19th Century Ribbed Pipe
 English 18th Century Style,Tavern Clay Pipe
 19th C. Gouda Clay
 Nice Clay, Shod, Horse Foot, Pipe Bowl made by Gambier in Paris.
 The long pipe has a nice angeled bowl with coat of arms. Pipes like this are often called Church warden pipes or Tavern Pipes. Many clay pipes were allso made in Holland at this time. Thousands were made in Gouda where fine pottery is still made today, a tradition that started in 1630 with the production of clay pipes! The hand extended with a glass is made in Holland. Perfect wouldn't you say, to have a drink of tobacco?
 18th Century Style with coat of arms
 This is a reproduction of a 17th Century Style with tiny bowl often refired to by folks of the period as the little ladle.
 My Thistle Pollock is my favorite 19th Century style Pipe!
I love the Scottish Thistle on the bowl and heal of this nice clay.
 Clay pipes can be repaired with the quill of a turkey or goose as a stem! I have geese here on my homestead but wild turkey works very nice too. Give new life to a broken clay! It may well be the first "plastic" known to man along with cow horn! It's great on the teeth and you can replace them when they get too dirty! I learned this from a book which had a handsome 18th Century pipe with a goosequill for a mouth piece.
 "When temperately used, there is not in all the world a medicine comparable totobacco. All of tobacco is wholesome."
William Barclay: Nepenthes; or, The Virtues of Tobacco, 1614
 18th Century wooden Pipecase from The Netherlands
 To keep those fragile clays from harm.
The first clay pipes were introduced to Europeans along with tobacco smoking by the Native Americans of South and North America. It was not long before clay pipemaking became an established trade. Follow the links to learn more history of the Clay in the New World. Later mass produced European and American clay pipes became a trade item and were bartered back to Native American tribes!
 In Virginia the Pamplin Pipe Factory - Located in Pamplin City, Appomattox County, VA is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its history dates back to the Appomatucks Indians and their cottage industry of clay pipes. The first major industry in Appomattox was the Pamplin Smoking Pipe Manufacturing Company. Established in 1878, this factory manufactured clay pipes for over 70 years before closing in 1951. The existing Pamplin Pipe Factory was built in 1880. It houses the original clay kiln which once produced one million clay pipes per month. The site now includes a museum.
Ohio with its rich clay deposits also had a number of kilns producing this type of pipe. The most famous being the Merrill Pottery of Akron, Ohio. Merrill Pottery occupied the site of the M. O’Neil Department Store building prior to 1927. Made there were most of the clay smoking pipes used by the Union soldiers in Matthew Brady’s famous Civil War photographs. Merrill also produced ceramic beer bottles.
 Many Clay pipes can still be collected or dug that were made by the Merrill Pottery better known under its latter name as the Akron Smoking Pipe Co. The Akron Smoking Pipe Co. (1890-1919) was located at 3775 Mogadore Road in Mogadore, OH. It started out as the E. H. Merrill Co., which produced Ohio stoneware and clay specialties. On September 3, 1890, the company was incorporated as The Akron Smoking Pipe Co. (ASPCo) with offices on Falor Street in Akron, OH just west of Main Street in the same building as the Diamond Match Co. It controlled the clay smoking pipe business of five other companies with directors who owned the other companies. One of those Companies was the Pamplin Co. The Pamplin Plant was located in Pamplin City, Virginia, near rich sources of a type of clay found only in Powhattan and Appomattox Counties. The company's mainstay products, Powhattan clay and "stone" smoking pipes were not only included with box matches, but were also packaged for retail sales.
 Note the reed stems
 This is a antique trade pipe of brown glazed clay with a quill stem. 19th Century
"There can be no doubt that smoking nowadays is largely a miserable automatic business. People use tobacco without ever taking an intelligent interest in it. They do not experiment, compare, fit the tobacco to the occasion. A man should always be pleasantly conscious of the fact that he is smoking."
-John Boynton Priestley
LINKS
    "A Dutchman without a pipe is a national impossibility. If a Dutchman were deprived of his pipe and tobacco, he would not even enter Paradise with a glad heart."
-Schotel
Pipes Pictured from the collection of Beth Maxwell Boyle
 This page is dedicated to my friend Tom who holds both lady smokers and pipe smoking in highest regard.
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 Please note: We are not able to give appraisals of your pipes you plan to sell on eBay! We will help serious collectors when we can. Enquiries are welcome from fellow collectors and historians, but please, we do not have the will or expertise to evaluate pipes for resale.
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