i6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pronounced by the judges superior to the English ware. A " tor- 

 toise-shell " pitcher, eight-sided, with human head molded in re- 

 lief under the mouth, which is still in the cabinet of the Institute 

 was awarded a silver medal. ' 



Messrs. Alanson Potter Lyman and Christopher Weber Fen- 

 ton embarked in the manufacture of yellow and Rockingham 

 ware m Bennington, Vt., about 1847. Three years later they 

 commenced making white ware. Their workshop was known as 

 the United States Pottery. In 1S51, or the year following, Mr 

 Fenton had a large monumental piece of Rockingham made, ten 

 feet m height, in which was placed a life-sized Parian bust of 

 himself surrounded by eight glazed columns, the work being sur- 

 mounted by figures of a woman and child in Parian. This was 

 modeled by Daniel Greatbach, formerly connected with the Jer- 

 sey City Pottery. The base of the monument is made of several 

 varieties of clay mixed together, having the appearance of un- 

 polished marble. It stands at present on the porch of Mr. Fen- 

 ton's former residence in Bennington, having been first placed on 

 exhibition at the New York Crystal Palace in 1853, with other 

 productions of this factory, including a group of "patent flint 

 enameled ware," which was probably analogous to the so-called 

 majolica of the present day. Common china, white granite, and 

 Parian were made here extensively. A limited amount of' soft 

 porcelain was produced also, but chiefly in small ornamental fig- 

 ures and statuettes. These, like the Parian pieces, were often 

 copied from old English works. A graceful pitcher of the latter 

 ware, in the collection of the writer, is molded with white figures 

 in relief on a dark-blue " pitted " ground, and is almost an exact, 

 though enlarged, reproduction of a sirup-jug from the Dale Hall 

 Works, England. The jasper- ware of Josiah Wedgwood was also 

 imitated in Parian. The art of the American potter had not yet 

 reached that point where competition and public demand stimu- 

 lated originality in body, design, or decoration. Fig. 10 shows a 

 group of pieces made at the Bennington factory between 1850 

 and 1855. In the center may be seen a large Rockingham figure, 

 beneath which are two small mantel ornaments of artificial por- 

 celain. The central pitcher above the dog and the two small 

 pitchers to the right are white granite, decorated in gold. The 

 three remaining pitchers and the small vase are Parian, with 

 ornamentation in relief. 



The United States Pottery was closed in 1857, and two years 

 later Mr. Fenton, with Mr. Decius W. Clark, his former superin- 

 tendent, went to Peoria, 111., and there established a manufactory 

 of white and granite wares. After a period of three years this 

 experiment proved a financial failure, and the factory passed into 

 other hands. At present it is being successfully operated by the 



