Chesapeake pipes are locally made tobacco pipes produced in the colonial Tidewater area between 1620 to 1680. Often referred to as 'terra cotta' or 'red' pipes, they're made of local clays and exhibit a brown, red and earthen color. The overwhelming majority of Chesapeake pipes predate 1670. Chesapeake pipes have been found at 17 sites, eight in Virginia with the balance coming from Maryland, concentrated on the Patuxent River and near Swan Cove in Annapolis, Md. 'The Wilderness', whose occupation started in 1665, is one of only two sites on the Eastern Shore where Chesapeake pipes have been found.
The only confirmed site of colonial era tobacco-pipe production is at Swan Cove near Annapolis, Md. Materials found there include kiln furniture, waster pipes, tools, raw clays and clay working pits, all of which indicate this was a commercial manufacturing facility. Modern experimentation with colonial era production techniques suggest the temperature for a successful firing is intense (1000 degress C/more than 1800 degrees F), far greater than what can be achieved in the typical open wattle and daub hearth common at that time.
Who used Chesapeake pipes? In those sites with occupation of a higher status few Chesapeake pipes are found, as those residents could afford the purchase of imported pipes. Where they are found suggests more use by servants, who had less resources to commit for luxury goods. Three of the Virginia sites attribute production of Chesapeake pipes to Native Americans. African slavery developed after 1680 as most labor in the Tidewater area until that time was furnished by indentured servants.
Production of Chesapeake pipes was short lived. Higher quality clays were available in Britain, which actually enacted clay export laws to protect their domestic industry. By the 1670's the Bristol American Export trade had exploded which made European pipes, particularly English pipes from Bristol, easy and cheap to obtain. Combined with a more mature and reliable trading network, local production of tobacco pipes couldn't compete, making such manufacturing efforts economically infeasible.
How do you identify a Chesapeake pipe? They're brown or earthen in color, have bore holes of 8/64ths or larger, and generally lack the precise uniformity of the more common Bristol pipes which tend to be of a bleached white color.Dvd.carroll (talk) 12:13, 18 January 2010 (UTC) <Locally-Made Tobacco Pipes in the Colonial Chesapeake, by C Jane Cox, Al Luckenbach, Dave Gadsby, with contribution by Shawn Sharpe>