Images(6)

Water or Beer Cooler

Date1841 (dated)

Maker Ezra White (1799-1883)

OriginAmerica, Pennsylvania, Mercer

MediumSalt-glazed stoneware

DimensionsOH: 20"; D: 8 1/2" (top and base); OD: 10 1/2" (widest part of the body).

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund

Object number2025.900.1

DescriptionCooler: hooped barrel-shaped form with pronounced waist; at the base a bunghole in the shape of square with rounded corners and a circular opening; the top with a small circular opening. The body tooled to mimic hoops. The upper third decorated with an intricately incised eagle with a heart-shaped shield containing the incised date “1841” above the maker’s stamp “EZER WHITE”. The stoneware covered with a drizzly poured brown slip applied before it was salt glazed in the kiln.Label TextEzra [Ezer] White was born in Mercer, Pennsylvania in 1799. He seems to have lived and worked in Mercer until his death in 1883. The 1860 census lists him as a potter. His will, which he filed in 1873, names a son and daughter. Much more remains to be learned about the potter’s life, but he is best known for his earthenware tea canisters which he often inscribed with verses in addition to his name and a date. Colonial Williamsburg’s collection includes a pair of signed and dated 1848 lead-glazed earthenware tea canisters (1976.900.2&3).

Stoneware objects like this 5 gallon cooler marked by Ezra White are rare. The stamped mark makes this piece a Rosetta Stone for the attribution of other stoneware pieces to White's pottery.Inscription(s)The upper third decorated with an intricately incised eagle with a heart-shaped shield containing the incised date “1841” above the maker's stamp.Mark(s)“EZER WHITE” stamped below the date.ProvenancePrior to 2021, unidentified private collection. In 2021, the cooler was sold by Crocker Farm, Inc. (Sparks, Maryland) to Robert Hunter. It remained with Robert Hunter (Yorktown, Virginia) who subsequently sold it to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Virginia) in June 2025 where it remains to the present.