Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 2

An Archaeological Study of Clay Pipes from the King's Bastion, Fortress of Louisbourg

by Iain C. Walker

Part II Casemates 10-15 Right: Summary

The following table shows which marks (including probables) occur more than once in the three casemates.

It would seem, therefore, that this study has been useful in bringing to light two hitherto unknown Dutch, presumably Gouda, marks; in giving an example of a possible Dutch prototype of the English type 9 bowl; in confirming the intricate decoration on the stem of the pipes with the crowned LV as Dutch; and in suggesting that John Stephens of Newport was working about a quarter of a century earlier than documentary sources had been able to show.

Despite the fact that the material from these casemates come from an exclusively French period in the occupation of the fortress a large amount (though it is difficult to say what proportion — perhaps half) of it is English (Fig. 48), and the rest is Dutch. At least eight unmarked English bowls came from Casemate 14 Right and fifteen from Casemate 15 Right. This can be explained by the fact that at this time there was virtually no native French pipemaking industry.

Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive study of the French pipemaking industry. The first known French clay pipemaker is one Vausselin of Avignon about 1670, and two brothers van Slaton — presumably Dutch — were working there in 1692, but it is not until the second half of the 18th century that a real French pipemaking industry arose, first at Givet in the Ardennes and later in the Pas-de-Calais, according to Fresco-Corbu (1962: 1,445). Snuff remained the only French way of taking tobacco among the upper classes until the 18th century (Laufer 1924: 44). By the 1740s and 1760s, pipes were being made at Dunkirk and St. Omer. Some of the best clay came from this area of northeast France, and from Belgium; from where it also went to Gouda (Duhamel du Monceau 1771: passim; Diderot 1713-84, IV: 375). Trade figures quoted by Oswald (1960: 48; cf. Oswald 1949: 59-60) for the port of London between Michaelmas (29 September) and Christmas, 1698, show that nearly 45,000 gross³ pipes were exported, of which 41,000 went to France compared to nearly 2,500 to Virginia and Maryland, indicating a very considerable trade with France and implying that there was little in the way of a native French industry. This year, 1698, was only one year after the end of the War of the League of Augsburg when England and The Netherlands fought France.