514 EEPOET OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1899. 



terraces of the Monongahela, shown by Dr. 1. C. White to be coinci- 

 dent in geological time with the formation of the great glacial dam 

 across the Ohio near Cincinnati, furnish abundant and superior 

 material for pottery making.^ 



There was also an early market for the wares of Morgantown, and a 

 great part of the product of the pottery was sent in keel boats and tiat- 

 boats to various points down the Monongahela above Pittsburg and 

 into the "wilderness." 



The stoppage of intercourse between the United States and England 

 during the Administration of Thomas Jefferson worked hardship upon 

 the growing country, as yet depending largely upon foreign nations 

 for manufactured articles. However, the restrictions on trade and 

 intercourse of the embargo act of 1807 paved the way for independent 

 manufactures in the United States to supply home demand and mark 

 the Ijeginning of that industrial energy which has led to industrial 

 supremacy. At this period many small manufactories were started, 

 as the glass factory (1807) of Albert Gallatin and the pottery of 

 Alex. Vance at Greensboro, Pennsylvania (1809). 



During the war of 1812, as William Boughner, of Greensboro, Penn- 

 sylvania, informs me, the yellow glazed .ware was in good demand 

 and brought a high price. He instances that cups and saucers sold at 

 a dollar the set. It will be seen that again the cessation of commerce 

 with England cut off' the supplies of wares of the quality not made in 

 America and stimulated the small potteries to manufacture articles for 

 table use. Previously the wares were of the commoner forms for 

 domestic use, such as milk pans, preserve jars, jugs, etc. Unfortu- 

 nately, no examples of the tableware of 1812 survive, but fragments 

 from the site of the old pottery show that it was a good quality of 

 earthenware covered with a lustrous yellow glaze. 



The Vance-Boughner pottery at Greensboro, Pennsylvania, contin- 

 ued to produce lead-glaze earthenware up to 1849; one of the latest 

 specimens being shown in Plate 3. The manufacture of stoneware, 

 principally in the form of jugs and milk crocks, still continues at that 

 place. The earliest specimen of salt glaze stoneware from Greensboro, 

 turned by Alex. Boughner in 1850, is shown in Plate 6. 



One can hardly realize the difficulties that beset the potter on the 

 frontier in the early days. His materials for glazes were secured only 

 by the greatest exertions, and their compounding taxed his patieiu-o. 

 His colors were ground on stones by hand. Sheet lead secured from 



n. C. White, American Geologist, XVIII, December, 1896, pp. 368-379. 



Recent investigations seem to show that the clay deposits are due to local dams of 

 ice. The writer, when a boy, discovered fossil plants in these clays and brought them . 

 to the attention of geologists. Dr. F. H. Knowlton, of the U. S. Geological Survey, 

 has determined the plants to be of the Quaternary glacial period. 



