152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



made and sold in exchange for general mercliandise. After 

 several changes in the firm name, the business descended to the 

 present proprietor in 1865, and five years later was transferred to 

 its present location, where it is said that more flower-pots are 

 produced than at any other factory in the world. Here also are 

 made the usual line of fancy garden terra-cotta and a large 

 variety of art pottery for decorators. 



Toward the latter part of the last century potteries for the 

 manufacture of earthen and stone ware had become numerous 

 throughout the States. During the Revolutionary period con- 

 siderable china was imported from India, Holland, and England 

 for the use of the wealthier citizens, but pewter utensils were also 

 much in vogue. The common people used earthenware, generally 

 red pottery, on which the first attemi)ts at decoration were made 

 with yellow slip. Dishes and flower-pots, with pie-crust edge and 

 rude floral designs or dates, were common (see Fig. 17). 



Before the beginning of the present century several stone-ware 

 and earthenware potteries were started in Connecticut. In 1791 

 John Curtis was making a good quality of pottery in Phila- 

 delphia from clay obtained where the brewery now stands at 

 Tenth and Filbert Streets, and his name is found in the directory 

 as late as 1811 in the same business. In the former year Andrew 

 Miller also made earthenware in the same town, and continued 

 the business until 1810, when it passed into the hands of Abraham 

 and Andrew Miller, Jr., who carried on the business jointly for 

 about six years. In 1824 Abraham Miller displayed, at the first 

 annual exhibition of the Franklin Institute, " red and black 

 glazed tea-pots, coffee-pots, and other articles of the same descrip- 

 tion. Also a sample of platinated or lustre pitchers, with a speci- 

 men of porcelain and white ware, all of which exhibited a grow- 

 ing improvement in the manufacture, both in the quality and 

 form of the articles." Quoting from the report of the committee : 

 *^ It is but a few years since we were under the necessity of im- 

 porting a considerable proportion of this description of ware for 

 home consumption, but since our potters have attained the art of 

 making it equal, if not superior, to the imported, and as cheap, 

 they have entirely excluded the foreign ware from the American 

 market." Miller continued to manufacture a fine grade of earth- 

 enware, such as plates, vases, and ornamental flower-pots, until 

 1858, but we can not discover that he carried the manufacture of 

 porcelain beyond some successful experiments. 



John and William Norton established a pottery in Bennington, 

 Vt., in 1793, for the production of red ware, which was discon- 

 tinued about 1800, when the manufacture of stone -ware was 

 substituted. This ware has been made continuously ever since, 

 the business being now carried on by Messrs. Thatcher and Nor- 



