MVAC Home

Pearlware, Hand-Painted Fragments from at least 31 hand-painted pearlware vessels were found during the 1999 excavations at Second Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. This bowl from the Enlisted Men’s Quarters is painted with a distinctive, two-tone blue design. It has a dark blue band near the rim and two different types of leaves in both light and dark blue. It also exhibits a leaf inside. MVAC staff saw a fragment of a bowl with this same design in collections from previous excavations at Fort Snelling, near St. Paul, Minnesota. The bowl from Second Fort Crawford might have been painted by the same person, or might have come from the same set of bowls. This is interesting, as many soldiers serving at Second Fort Crawford also served at Fort Snelling for a time.