Page 24 - joa 2-2020

“ Wher the oven bakes & the pot biles”

POTTERY OF

SOUTH CAROLINA’S

EDGEFIELD DISTRICT

Figure 1: Storage jar signed “Dave & Baddler / May 13, 1859” on one side and inscribed on the other, “Made at Stoney Bluff / for making or adgin enuff”
On right - figure 2: Stoneware pitcher attributed to Benjamin Franklin Landrum Pottery, c.1860

n February 11, 1919, Paul Rea, director of so-called “Cherokee Clay.” Even Josiah Wedgewood
The Charleston Museum, acquired a sent agents to procure “an earth, the product of the
Ostoneware jar characteristic of those made in Cherokee Nation in America,” but found the exploit
Edgefield, South Carolina. Of course, it wasn’t the too dangerous and expensive to continue.
first piece of pottery the museum had ever received Eventually, as settlements expanded westward, a
but, unlike the few others, this one was different. physician, printer, publisher, and pottery owner
Immediately noticeable was its gargantuan size, named Dr. Abner Landrum arrived in Edgefield and
something that not even photographs can adequately was quick to make a name for himself, especially after
capture. Measuring just under 2-and-a-half-feet tall his re-discovery of kaolin in 1809. Despite the
with a 28-inch diameter (at the rim) and a capacity of encouraging news, though, Landrum, like those
at least 40 gallons, the piece might have been before him, found the harvesting of kaolin too
considered a work of art as much as a meat storage problematic to make profitable amounts of fine
vessel. Besides dimensions, however, there was porcelain. Thus, he quickly turned his attention to
something else equally important. Inscribed into the Edgefield’s basic clay, using it to produce a more
clay at the jar’s broad shoulders were two names and practical, utilitarian material, stoneware. For
a date: “Dave & Baddler, May 13, 1859.” On the Landrum, it was a wise decision. A high-fired,
opposite side, a short verse: “Made at Stoney Bluff, industrial ceramic, stoneware pottery was an essential
for making and adgin enuff.” [figure 1] tool in an agrarian economy like South Carolina’s. It
Now, while Rea may have been curious about the vitrified beautifully, which resulted in a durability
writings, his successor, Laura Bragg, was fascinated Figure 3: Decorated storage jar well suited for food storage. By 1820, Dr. Landrum,
by them. Becoming The Charleston Museum’s attributed Collin Rhodes Factory along with some family and a number of enslaved
director in 1920, Bragg had developed a vital interest at Shaw’s Creek, c.1850 people, had built a prominent community around his
in “Carolina clay” and, especially, the enslaved potters who worked it. stoneware pottery. This mini-empire of sorts was occasionally referred
Eventually, Bragg’s research, which included first-person interviews to as Landrumville or, more popularly, Pottersville and was, as one
and repeated visits to long-abandoned pottery sites, would yield data resident described, “a village altogether supported by the manufacture
quintessential to understanding the whole story of what was a once of stoneware.” As Pottersville grew in both area and success, other
considerable enterprise, “Edgefield Pottery.” potteries emerged around it, some with names associated with their
nearby locations like Kirksey’s Crossroads, Horse Creek Valley, and
The Beginning of a Local Industry Stoney Bluff. Landrum’s nephew, Collin Rhodes, ran two highly
successful potteries at Shaw’s Creek, advertising hollowware “in all
By 1860, The Edgefield district was about 950,000 square acres sizes” and “inferior to none made in the United States.” [figures 2, 3]
positioned midway between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the
Atlantic Ocean on the western edge of South Carolina at the Savanna The Story of Dave
River – what is today Edgefield, Aiken, McCormick, and Saluda
counties. For most of the nineteenth century, it held dozens of family- Pleased with Pottersville’s
connected potteries, each producing massive amounts of wares for use success, Abner Landrum
throughout the south. eventually sold most of his
The genesis for the eventual establishment, production, and stoneware interests to
commerce of South Carolina pottery is perhaps best attributed to the nephew, Harvey Drake who
lackluster desirability for European-made porcelain, considered in the brought to the business an Figure 4: Dave’s inscribed signature
mid-1700s “an expression of the needs and taste of the peasantry” additional number of on one of his stoneware works, 1859
compared to the ultra-refined wares exported from the Orient. enslaved Africans. Of these, it
However, the discovery of kaolin—essential for making both hard and was the “turners,” who were of particular value. Turners were the
soft-paste porcelain—in the Carolina interior gave western ceramicists, backbone of any pottery; each having a specific skill set to form clay
they hoped, a way to produce wares comparable to those of their Asian into myriad vessels, and a potter called Dave was one of them.
counterparts. Getting their hands on it, though, would not be easy. Born circa 1800, Dave first appeared in Harvey Drake’s 1818
Several expeditionary groups had already ventured inland to gather the mortgage as a “boy about 17 years old.” Though he had possibly

22 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles