“A very Large Jar which has 4 handles pack it full of fresh meats then light candles.”

David Drake was a highly skilled potter and poet. Twenty-Five Gallon Four Handled Stoneware Jar is remarkable for both its scale and beautiful poem incised across the surface. Drake’s poem reveals the history of the jar as a tool in meat production but is especially significant because it was illegal for him, a man born into slavery in South Carolina, to read and write during his lifetime.