In order to succeed in the stoneware business, Manhattan potters William MacQuoid and Louis Lehman adopted niche manufacturing. The bulk of their production consisted of jars such as this, which served the merchant trade rather than home consumers.

Scholars long assumed that stoneware potter Thomas W. Commeraw was of European descent. Recent research, however, shows that he was a free African American. His pottery was located at Corlear's Hook on the East River, near today's Chinatown. It produced utilitarian storage vessels like this jug from 1797 to 1819. Commeraw was involved in the antislavery movement, and in 1820 he traveled to Sierra Leone as an advocate for the American Colonization Society, which promoted the "return" of free African Americans to Africa.

Asa E. Smith (1798-1880) founded the Smith pottery, later the Smith & Day pottery, A.E. Smith & Sons, and A.E. Smith’s Sons’ Pottery Co., in 1825. The pottery crafted and sold jars, jugs, plates, and pitchers until it became insolvent in 1887. In 1888 the pottery was sold to the Norwalk Pottery Company. All of the stoneware jars and churns are stamped “A.E. Smith & Sons, Manufacturers, 38 Peck Slip, N.Y.” This mark was used by the pottery from 1855-1874. Though the factory was located in Norwalk, Connecticut, all of the finished products were stored at the company warehouse at 38 Peck Slip, New York, before being shipped to various customers all over the United States.

This object was once part of the folk art collection of Elie Nadelman (1882-1946), the avant-garde sculptor. From 1924 to 1934, Nadelman's collection was displayed in his Museum of Folk Arts, located in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. The Historical Society purchased Nadelman's entire collection in 1937.

Thomas G. Boone operated a pottery in Poughkeepsie, NY from 1836 until he moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1840. Boone was the first potter to set up shop in Brooklyn, producing marked pottery successfully. His sons joined the firm, Benjamin R. Boone in 1842 and Thomas E. Boone in 1843. As a family business, the Boone’s were able to survive until 1846, when the firm was dissolved. Both sons remained active in the industry, producing drainpipes, roof tile, bricks into the 1860s, when their names no longer appear in records related to the potting industry.

"W K" might be the initials of tavernkeeper William Ketchum, who is listed in the New York City Directory for 1789. The incised jug decorating the object also supports the hypothesis that "W K" may have been a tavernkeeper or had some other association with drinking.