Stoneware Pipe

Local southern Illinois potters used two-piece molds to manufacture literally tens of thousands of “stoneware” clay tobacco-smoking pipes throughout the nineteenth century. The term stoneware refers to the hardness of the clay after firing. Pipe bowl types included plain, ribbed, and fluted as well as more ornate figural pipe bowls depicting the heads of U.S. Presidents and bearded “Turks”. The pipe was smoked by inserting a several inch-long hollow reeds into the short clay pipe stem. Smoked by both men and women, these pipes were sometimes called “granny” pipes due to the number of older women who used them.