Figural Pipe Bowls excavated from 346/1307 S. Liberty Street

Two lead-glazed redware pipe bowls recovered depict U.S. Presidents Zachary Taylor and Ulysses S. Grant. Such pipes were typically produced during Presidential campaigns to promote specific candidates. The pipe of Taylor, who won the election of 1848 as a Whig, would have been an heirloom at the point it was discarded in this privy, but the election of the former Union General Grant to the Presidency would have still been a very fresh memory in the New Orleans of this era. The third pipe shown here, which appears to depict a soldier, is more ambiguous in its message; the bowl itself is similar to ones produced by the Gambier Company of France, but is also reminiscent of the uniform of a Union soldier in the U.S. Civil War.