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and by Germans from the Palatinate, pottery was made Jugtown Pottery, in a settlement peopled c. 1740-50 at
which was in wide contrast to New England work, Steeds, North Carolina, by a group of colonists from
marked by a love of color, a play of ideas, and an Staffordshire. Apparently, the plainest of “dirt
engaging humor. dishes” were made here [1750?] by Peter Craven,
The flat Pennsylvania fruit pie dish or first of his family, and latterly the place became
poischissel was a distinctive article: or the pots known as Jugtown, for the common vessels it
for apple butter called epfel buther haffa, the supplied to Southern distilleries. Languished
saucered flowerpots of bluma haffa. Fluted and long forgotten, the pottery was revived
turk’s head cake molds were produced in all in 1917 at a hamlet amusingly named
sorts and sizes, and there were standing Why Not?
pottery grease lamps not seen in New
England, quaint banks and bird whistles, and Decoration and Slipware
double-walled tobacco jars displaying skillful Last of the everyday wares, and different
pierced work. from the others, a buff pottery painted [some-
times stenciled] with manganese brown
Shenandoah Valley belonged to New Geneva, Pennsylvania. So
Just south of Pennsylvania, a numerous wholly unlike the Dutch county pottery seen
and flourishing group of potters worked farther east, this sober stuff with a hard,
throughout the 19th century in a hundred-mile John Bell trained with his father in Hagerstown, MD unglazed tan body was made in 1860-90 by
stretch of the Shenandoah Valley. Foremost and Winchester, VA. He worked with Jacob Heart in James Hamilton of New Geneva, in the
were the Bell family, founded by Peter Bell, Chambersburg and spent time in Baltimore. Bell was southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, and very
who from 1800 to 1845 produced “erthing- very successful in producing a line of utilitarian pottery likely also across the river at the A. & W.
wear” at Hagerstown, Maryland, and that included storage jars and flower pots. The Bell Boughner pottery in Greensboro.
Winchester, Virginia. His eldest son, John Bell Pottery produced approximately 15,000 pieces a year Long employed by redware potters every-
[1800-80], worked 1833-80 at Waynesboro, and over 800,000 pots in its 63 years of operation. where, a simple and most effective method of
Pennsylvania, and was followed by five sons Bell used many glazing techniques to decorate his decoration was by the use of diluted clay or
pottery, including common house paint. He used
who continued the business until 1899. John’s manganese dioxide to obtain browns, copper oxide to “slip,” which from a cup fitted with one or
brothers, Samuel and Solomon, were in produce green and a tin glaze that produced a white several quills was trailed on the surface of a piece
partnership from 1833 at Strasburg, Virginia, finish, similar to stoneware. This redware bowl was in flourishes or perhaps words like Lemon Pie,
where the factory continued until 1908. used to serve stew during the Love Feasts, a special names like Louisa. Those made by George
Communion meal, at the Snow Hill Cloister, Wolfkiel at Hackensack, New Jersey, during the
Midwest Franklin County, Pennsylvania. panic of 1837, slipware platters were woefully
inscribed “Hard Times.”
Fairly typical of what was made through
Ohio and Indiana, where a variety of pottery
and stoneware clays were abundant, the Society of Separatists [called Stoneware
Zoarites] was one of many religious sects gathered in communal The family of stonewares has a variety of values due to the use of
settlements that flowered and died in the 19th century. In a long list of finer and denser clays fired in a kiln much hotter than for earthenware
trades and crafts practiced here, we find weavers and carpenters, a [above 2,000° F], resulting in a hard body for which “no other glazing
printshop and bindery, a fine blacksmith shop, and of course a pottery. need be used than what is produced by a little common salt strewed
Red roof tiles [one is dated 1824] are still seen on a few houses, and in over the ware” [1785]. The salt vapor supplied a roughish, glassy coat-
1834 the Society was selling ‘porringers’ to farm folk in the vicinity. ing that was colorless. According to the clays used and the temperature
The services of an outsider were engaged, Solomon Purdy, a potter of the kiln, wares ranged from the familiar grey body to buff or cream,
recorded in 1820 at Putnam; in 1840 at Atwater. Until 1852-3 the even a dark brown.
Zoar associates still produced common brownware, and black- or Fine grades of stoneware approached the quality of porcelain, such
buff-glazed redware. as the “white stone Tea-cups and sawcers” sold in 1724 in

Redware
In kitchen and dairy, or for table use alongside
pewter and common woodenware, the simple forms of
this sturdy folk pottery were washed or splashed with
pleasant color – glazed with browns and yellows, rich
orange to salmon pink, copper greens, a brownish
black made from manganese. For this the least
equipment was needed: a horse-powered mill for
grinding and mixing clay, a homemade potter’s wheel,
a few wooden tools, with perhaps a few molds as well.
The maker might be no more than a seasonal or
“blue-bird” potter who worked when his other affairs
permitted and carried his output by wagon through
the near vicinity, or the larger and full-time potshops
might employ untrained lads [William Scofield of
Honeybrook got “one skilled potter from every 16
apprentice boys”] or migrant journeyman potters of
uncertain grades.
There were no secrets in this simple manufacture.
Since 1625-50, at the Jamestown colony, potters
everywhere had made useful everyday ware of much A Westhafer and Lambright stoneware This slip decorated pie plate,
the same sorts, in its own time used up, smashed up, jug from Tuscarawas County, Ohio. ca. 1800-1825,
never regarded as worth preserving. The ovoid just has a wide mouth, two measures 13.5” in diameter
Another venture in this region was the so-called strap handles, cobalt decoration and and was made in Connecticut
stands 18.5” high. photo: Garths.com by an unknown maker.
32 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles