The first potter working at Jamestown made this earthenware handle, which comes from a mixed context within the fort dating to the second quarter of the seventeenth century. There is no evidence that the colonists made their own pottery until about 1630. Until that time they had to rely on imports from England for the ceramics they needed to prepare, store, and consume their food and drink.

The Jamestown potter produced lead-glazed earthenware in utilitarian forms such as cooking pots, storage jars, pans, porringers, pipkins, pitchers, and mugs. He was probably trained in England as his forms mirror the shapes of the pottery produced in London and in the potteries along the border of Hampshire and Surrey counties.