Fancy Knobs and Liverpool Jugs!

First: Micro-Preservation on Orange St: A Historic Home Field Trip, by Sierra Gitlin

"Something quiet, comfortable, interesting-but-not-too-interesting; a soothing pastime to while away the dark months while we wait for fairer days. Well, allow me to share with you my most recent diversion-turned-obsession, VICTORIAN DOOR HARDWARE!!

Second: Captain Buntin Goes Shopping: A Liverpool Jug by Marc Cendron

Read the full stories after event announcements...

Upcoming Events

‘In Search of Phillis Wheatley Peters’ Director Talk and Screening

An Exclusive Museum of Old Newbury Event

Wednesday March 11, 2026, 6:30pm

Join us for a special screening and conversation with the filmmakers as part of the Museum of Old Newbury’s MA250 series.

In September, the Museum of Old Newbury hosted Askew Pictures, a dynamic international documentary film team led by Leslie Askew, producer and director of projects for SBS, National Geographic, Al Jazeera, CBS, BET, PBS, History Channel, and CNN (including the award-winning CNN Heroes). During that visit, Askew interviewed Newburyport resident Kabria Baumgartner, who appears throughout the film.

We were thrilled to be invited to the film’s premiere to a packed house at the Museum of African American History in Boston, and jumped at the chance when when Askew Pictures offered to bring the film to Newburyport for a screening in our museum.

We’re proud to feature this program as part of MA250 programming, as the film highlights Phillis Wheatley’s belief in the Revolutionary cause and the era’s urgent, unfinished promises of liberty.

Tickets are limited. Please reserve yours soon. We hope you’ll join us for a memorable evening.

Micro-Preservation on Orange St: A Historic Home Field Trip



by Sierra Gitlin

Standard disclaimer: Sierra is a friend and a genius, but we at the Museum of Old Newbury would encourage any homeowner to consult a professional before beginning a project involving historic objects, chemicals and dental tools!

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good solid winter as much as the next hearty New Englander, but what in the Adolphus W. Greely is going on here? Three big snowstorms in three weeks following weeks of bitter cold? Certainly at this point everyone has taken up cozy indoor diversions - puzzles, knitting, baking, whiskey, etc. Something quiet, comfortable, interesting-but-not-too-interesting; a soothing pastime to while away the dark months while we wait for fairer days. Well, allow me to share with you my most recent diversion-turned-obsession, VICTORIAN DOOR HARDWARE!!

 “Definitely not too interesting,” you say? Perhaps I can change your mind. 

It all started a few months ago. I am lucky to be the owner/steward of a Victorian house on Orange St., described in the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System as “one of the most ornate and extravagantly detailed Queen Anne homes in the city.” The Henry T. Moody House was built by… you guessed it, Henry T. Moody in 1890. It’s a purple, cream, and green (chromatically polarizing) attention-grabber with a turret, stained glass, and elaborate turned and carved embellishments. One day last summer, I found a skeleton key. Obviously if you find a key, you look for a lock, and though all my doors have them, the closest was my bedroom door. I didn’t expect it to work, but with some gentle cajoling and a counterclockwise twist, I heard a click and the bolt slid out. Huzzah! I had a working skeleton key! 

Left: The Henry T. Moody House Right: The key!

That said, I’m so glad I did this little experiment with the door open, because try as I might that bolt would NOT slide back in. Not for anything. Not from either side. I gave up, and decided I’d just have to take out the mortise lock, manually return the bolt to the unlocked position, and put it all back together. Easy peasy. It’d probably take ten minutes. I’d get to that. Soon. 

Months passed. Cue that big snowstorm we just had. No, not that one. No, not that one either. The first one! The big one! I needed a project! I would unstick my stuck mortise lock! 

It really did take less than ten minutes, but once it was out I decided to remedy something that had been bothering me for the 20 years I’ve owned the house. (Pause here to say, humbly, that I have the most GORGEOUS doorknobs. No jokes please. I mean it. They’re original to the house and they’re spectacular. But more on that in a moment.) Over the course of many owners and many paint jobs, the lovely knobs and plates and rosettes had accumulated quite a bit of white door paint in sloppy streaks and dribbles. It was a crying shame and I was finally going to fix it!

Three snowstorms later, I’m on my tenth set (of 17) and am now the world’s foremost expert on cast-bronze Victorian hardware. Ok that may be a tiny exaggeration, but after lots of research, some trial and error, a dining table workstation, and some elbow grease (and some other kinds of grease), I am getting pretty good at making these beautiful and utilitarian bits even more beautiful and utilitarian. 

You’re still not convinced this is interesting, are you? Well look. At. These:

They’re like jewelry for the doors! According to “Municipal History of Essex County in Massachusetts” by Benjamin F. Arrington, Henry T. Moody Jr. learned blacksmithing from his father. Moody grew up to be a machinist, champion bicycle racer and manufacturer, and the inventor of, among other things, a specialized piece of hardware called the “Moody hangar” [sic] though I can find no further info on what exactly it was. He established Victor Manufacturing Co. at 63 Water St. - current home of the Newburyport Art Association - and ran a thriving business making fire-proof doors. I have to believe that when he built this house around 1890, the hardware he chose for his home was unlikely to have been an afterthought. It was part of his aesthetic vision. 

The cast-bronze knobs with matching backplates, rosettes, and keyhole escutcheons are in the Eastlake-style, part of the late 19th-century Aesthetic Movement. Though named for British architect Charles Eastlake, the design reform movement that bears his name found its greatest success in North America. Often categorized as a subset of the Queen Anne architectural tradition, the Eastlake style was a natural fit for this home’s late-Victorian character. The movement’s "bible" was Eastlake’s 1868 popular book, Hints on Household Taste, which argued that domestic decor should be defined by "honest" construction and the visible pride of the craftsman. He championed geometric silhouettes and thoughtful, hand-wrought details over the deceptive, over-embellished, and mass-produced fashions of the mid-19th century.

While Eastlake himself never manufactured a single piece of hardware, his "rules" for good design were enthusiastically co-opted by the very industrial foundries he sought to reform. By the 1880s, major American manufacturers had adapted (he would say corrupted) Eastlake’s design philosophy, ironically to the mass-production of cast-metal hardware. Eastlake’s structural discipline merged with the Aesthetic Movement, a philosophy that elevated the "House Beautiful" to a moral calling. For the Aesthetes, even the humble doorknob should be a legitimate work of art. The rich, eclectic hardware Henry T. Moody chose was manufactured by Lockwood Manufacturing Co of Norwalk, CT (they acquired Nashua Lock Co. in 1889). The pattern is called “Broken Leaf,” and it’s a perfect example of the pairing of Eastlake’s rigid, linear borders and geometric patterns with the exoticism of the era. Stylized botanicals, urns, and the intricate "Egyptian Revival" motifs that were fashionable at the time gave a hint of the Art Nouveau opulence that would develop over the next decade. 

Pages from the Nashua Lock Company's 1886 catalog via Antiquedoorknobs.org 

Looking deeper, the inner workings of the doorknob set – the mortise locks – reveal another layer of less obvious beauty: springs, levers, and cam mechanisms cast in iron and steel, remarkably intact after more than a century of daily use. The engineering is simple, durable, and surprisingly elegant. Some of them were a little stuck, and I had to order a couple replacements for broken flat springs. One had a white webby bug nest inside, and one had a tiny dried up grape in it, obviously stuck into the keyhole by one of the many children who has lived here. After a good cleaning and light brush with mineral oil, they work beautifully. In an era of planned obsolescence and constant bewildering technological advances, it’s incredibly comforting to dismantle, clean, and reassembly a purely mechanical object. No computer, no updates, just a straightforward, well-designed, functional item that has worked as intended for nearly 130 years. 

Freshly cleaned and oiled mortise lock interior.

But as I said, the doorknobs and backplates really were a mess, as the doors had been painted over the years without the hardware being removed. It would have been easiest to strip them completely — a common but heavy-handed approach — but that would erase their time-earned patina and their connection to the rest of the house. In several cases, I found that different backplates from the 2 sides of the same door had oxidized to slightly different tones. Light exposure, handling patterns, humidity, and even micro-variations in alloy composition can create subtle differences over the years. Rather than trying to force them to match, I appreciate the variation as evidence of lived time, improvement with age, and the beauty of slow, steady progress. 

Variations in oxidation: L: where there used to be paint (it will even over time)

R: two sides of one door.

Through trial, error, and Google, I found the gentlest and most effective ways of softening and removing old dried-on acrylic and oil paint. I learned of the chemical paradox that a vinegar and salt solution can be used both to produce AND to remove tarnish. Oh, and how about the conditions that produce the noble verdigris and its vile doppelganger “The Bronze Disease.” (Yes it’s called that. It’s a powdery buildup that resembles verdigris only flakey and brighter green. It’s a reaction between the bronze and chlorides, often found on exterior hardware in seaside towns due to the salt in the air. It is actively corrosive and needs to be treated!) This project is both an art and a science, and as such I do wish I had paid more attention in high school Chemistry, because…copper oxides, dezincification, chelating agents, acids, bases, chlorides, mineral oil, mineral spirits, cuprite, tenorite, and liver of sulfur?! Just like in chemistry class, mistakes have been made, but probably nothing to worry about long term.

I settled on this as the best process to balance preservation, conservation, and my own aesthetic preference: (PLEASE do your own research on your particular hardware before trying these or any other cleaning or restoration methods, especially the chemistry class stuff!). First I used WD-40 and/or Citristrip (a gentle citrus-based paint stripper) to soften and remove old dried paint with toothpicks and a dental scraper (not recommended - too scratchy - but highly satisfying and sometimes the only thing that will do.) Then a cleaning with warm water, dish soap, and a toothbrush. A vinegar soaked q-tip works well to remove some of the tarnish and brighten the raised design details, followed by a baking soda and water rinse to neutralize and flush away any acidic residue. A thorough air drying to prevent trapped moisture, and finally a light coat of Renaissance Wax applied with a soft cloth. High maintenance knobs over here on Orange St, but well worth it!

The goal was not to make them look new, but to stabilize, remove paint, and lightly boost the contrast that had developed naturally over many years. Speaking of which, yes, if you think too much about it, that patina is kind of grimy, but in a marvelous twist (pun intended), I give you the “oligodynamic effect:” the biocidal properties of some metals like copper, silver, and zinc, in which metal ions actually puncture the cell walls of bacteria and viruses, effectively self-sanitizing the doorknob within a few hours of contact with a sneezy child’s hand! In any case I made the aesthetic choice to leave as much patina as possible, including a single flake of gold glitter petrified into the knob of my daughter’s bedroom door. 

Before

After

It’s easy to overlook a doorknob. Yet it is the most touched object in a house. Every resident, every visitor, every generation has turned these same pieces of bronze. I think of all those hands, all those exits and entrances; the firsts, the lasts. Historic preservation is often thought of in grand terms: façades, rooflines, structural integrity, wide-pine floors discovered under old linoleum. But preservation also happens on a much smaller scale…sometimes through a magnifying glass with a toothpick. Keeping the hands busy, reveling in small wonders, and pausing to appreciate the everyday beauty that surrounds us are all good for the soul, especially when you can make something lovely shine even brighter in the process.

This is good winter work. Outside, the snow keeps falling.

Captain Buntin Goes Shopping: A Liverpool Jug with Newburyport on its Mind

by Marc Cendron

inspired by Betsy & Kem Widmer

In the dining room of the Museum of Old Newbury’s Cushing House stands a large, gleaming creamware pitcher made in Liverpool, England, in the early nineteenth century (likely c. 1805–1810), probably by a Liverpool pottery serving the American export market (often attributed to the Herculaneum Pottery). It is a “Liverpool jug” in the classic sense: a utilitarian form turned into a souvenir—part commemoration, part advertisement—through transfer‑printed imagery and a bold inscription.

On one side, a three‑masted ship under full sail carries the name MASSACHUSETTS. On the other, a harbor plan, complete with soundings and a lighthouse, reading NEWBURYPORT HARBOUR. Beneath the images runs the proud toast: “SUCCESS TO THE COMMERCE OF NEWBURYPORT.” The pitcher is at once local and international: Newburyport’s maritime ambitions rendered in ink and glaze by English potters for an American customer.

Creamware was a technological and aesthetic breakthrough of the mid‑1700s: a light‑colored earthenware body coated with a lead glaze that produced a glossy, glass‑like surface. Josiah Wedgwood refined and popularized the material so successfully that he marketed it as “Queen’s Ware” after receiving a commission from Queen Charlotte in 1765. By the turn of the nineteenth century, creamware (and its close cousin pearlware) was being produced across England in enormous quantities.



Transfer printing made these wares especially effective as souvenirs and advertising pieces. Rather than painting each object by hand, potteries could print fine, engraved designs onto paper, then transfer the image onto the glazed surface, creating crisp lines and repeatable results. Liverpool was a major center for the technique and for export ceramics aimed at Atlantic markets; in 1756, Liverpool printers John Sadler and Guy Green famously claimed the invention of transfer printing for pottery. One of Liverpool’s best‑known firms—the Herculaneum Pottery (active 1796–1841)—produced large numbers of transfer‑printed jugs and pitchers that celebrated ships, ports, political events, and commercial networks. Many were tailored to American tastes, pairing neoclassical figures and allegorical “America” with ships, flags, and mottos that read like toasts raised at a captain’s table.

Illustration of Pennington's Pottery Works, Liverpool, from The Ceramic Art of Great Britain from Pre-historic Times Down to the Present Day: Being a History of the Ancient and Modern Pottery and Porcelain Works of the Kingdom and of Their Productions of Every Class by Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt, 1878

Why would English potters print a Newburyport toast?



At first glance, an English factory printing “Success to the commerce of Newburyport” seems almost ironic. But it makes perfect commercial sense. Liverpool potteries made what their customers wanted, and American merchants, New Englanders especially, were an enormous market for British manufactured goods. A personalized jug could be ordered to celebrate a vessel, flatter a merchant, or commemorate a profitable voyage. In other words, it was merchandising with a purpose: a handsome household object that also advertised a ship’s name, a community’s identity, and a trading relationship.

The moment when this pitcher was likely made was also a moment of heightened risk. Britain and France were at war, and both powers sought to restrict neutral trade. Britain’s Orders in Council, issued between 1806 and 1809, tightened rules on port‑to‑port commerce and authorized capture and condemnation of vessels that violated the restrictions. For American shipowners, these policies turned ordinary voyages into legal and financial gambles.

The ship named on the pitcher was not an abstract symbol. Legal records held at the National Archives in London identify MASSACHUSETTS as a Newburyport‑associated vessel whose master was Captain Thomas Buntin, acting on behalf of himself and several partners, Amos Atkinson, Stephen Frotheringham, and Ebenezer Hale, described as “severally of Newbery and Newbery Port” and citizens of the United States. The printed appeal in a prize case shows Buntin pursuing the ship’s claim after an adjudication in the Vice‑Admiralty Court at Malta. The respondent in that appeal was Giovanni Battista Caviglia, commander of the private ship of war ENDEAVOUR, identified as the captor.

Those few lines from a court title page carry a whole Atlantic story: a merchant ship out of Newburyport, a British privateer, a detour into the Mediterranean, and a dispute that reached London’s prize appeals system. It is exactly the kind of story that helps explain why an object like this pitcher mattered. A “presentation” jug was not simply a keepsake; it was a marker of belonging to the maritime economy, an economy built on ships, credit, navigation, insurance, and (when things went wrong) litigation.

The harbor plan on the pitcher underscores that connection to navigation and print culture. The plan resembles the kinds of engraved charts and harbor views that began appearing in the early nineteenth century in editions of Edmund March Blunt’s American Coast Pilot. Blunt first published the Coast Pilot in 1796; the earliest editions circulated without charts, but later editions introduced engraved coastal plans and soundings that were essential tools for captains and mates. Liverpool potters drew from this wider world of printed navigation, turning practical knowledge into decorative imagery that could sit on a sideboard.

Seen today, the pitcher offers a vivid snapshot of Newburyport’s commercial self‑image (the town was incorporated in 1764) at the height of its maritime era. The motto is triumphant, perhaps even a bit boastful, yet the years that followed were difficult for New England shipping. War‑time restrictions, escalating diplomatic conflict, and (soon enough) the War of 1812 reshaped Atlantic trade. Newburyport’s own “Great Fire” of 1811 added a local catastrophe to international uncertainty. In that light, the pitcher becomes more than celebratory: it is a reminder of how much Newburyport’s prosperity depended on oceans, politics, and chance.

And it brings us back to the simplest, most human possibility: that a Newburyport captain, perhaps Captain Buntin himself, perhaps someone acting for him, walked into a Liverpool shop, chose (or commissioned) a handsome creamware jug with familiar images, and carried it home. The object still does what it was made to do: it makes a ship, a port, and a commercial community visible.

Something Is Always Cooking...

Ranger Cookies

This is an old fashioned classic recipe from the way-back machine. A staple of many a childhood cookie jar. Adapted from a King Arthur Flour recipe.

Ingredients

1 cup butter (softened)

1 cup brown sugar (packed)

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup shredded coconut

2 1/2 cups crispy rice cereal

Dark chocolate chips or bars (optional).

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine butter, brown sugar, sugar, and vanilla extract, combine till smooth, then beat in eggs.

Gradually add dry mixture to the wet; mix well.

Stir in oatmeal, coconut, and rice cereal; mix well.

Roll into small balls and flatten with hand.

Bake on parchment lined cookie sheets for 10-12 minutes or till light brown.

For chocolate covered cookie bars, press dough into a parchment lined pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the dough looks golden brown, lightly puffed, and appears set on top.

Remove the pan from the oven and immediately cover with a generous layer of dark chocolate chips or bars. Let sit until chocolate has melted, then using a spatula, gently smooth out the melted chocolate into an even layer. Let cool completely before cutting into squares or bars (chocolate should be firmly set).

Enjoy!

Puzzle Me This...

Click the image to do the puzzle

The interior of a mortise lock is a puzzle in itself. Here's a puzzle of a puzzle!

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