Definition of "tarpot"

“Oh, that’s it,” said Oak, jumping up, and dismissing for the present his thoughts on poor Fanny. “You are a good boy to run and tell me, Cain, and you shall smell a large plum pudding some day as a treat. But, before we go, Cainy, bring the tarpot, and we’ll mark this lot and have done with ’em.”

1874, Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

Tarpots bubbled over driftwood fires where men calked the seams of smacks and shallops and patched their dugout canoes.

1964, Robert Carse, The seafarers: a history of maritime America, 1620-1820