Manufacturer: Carr China Company
Pattern: Dolly Varden – Underglaze Print Pattern #7025
Date of platter: circa 1940s – 1952
Notes: We're not sure where Dolly Varden got its name, but it is one of the harder-to-find Carr named/numbered patterns.
On genealogy.com, there is mention in 1912 of someone's birth in Dolly Varden, East Bank, Kanawha County, West Virginia. The state capital, Charleston, is in Kanawha County. Given that so many other Carr patterns were named for places, it is likely that this was the source of the name.
Other possible inspirations for the name might be that Dolly Varden was a character in the Charles Dickens novel "Barnaby Rudge," that it was a costume in the late 19th century, that it was the nickname of the Chicago, Attica and Southern Railroad in Indiana (the Dolly Varden Line), and that it was the nickname for a trout.
Contributors:
Content: Susan and Ed Phillips