3 o4 CLAYS AND CLAY INDUSTRY. 



THE NEW JERSEY POTTERY INDUSTRY. 



Early history. — The State of New Jersey can probably lay 

 claim to having - one of the oldest potteries in the country, for 

 E. A. Barber, in his work on the Pottery and Porcelain of the 

 United States, notes that the remains of an old kiln fire hole were 

 found a mile or two below South Amboy, and that it is probably 

 a relic of the earlier pottery ware made on this continent, "and 

 most probably built by the Dutch to> make stewpans and pots." 



Dr. Daniel Coxe, a former governor of West New Jersey, was 

 probably the first to> make white ware in the Colonies, for he 

 erected a pottery at Burlington, N. J., before 1685. Barber gives 

 the following "quaint and interesting reference- to it as copied 

 from an inventory of property offered for sale in 1688" : 



"I have erected a pottery att Burlington for white and chiney 

 ware a greate quantity to ye value of 1200b have already been 

 made and vended in ye Country, neighbour Colonies and ye 

 Islands of Barbadoes and Jamaica, where they are in great re- 

 quest. I have two houses and kills with all necessary implements, 

 diverse workmen, and other servants. Have expended thereon 

 about 20oo£." 



Later, about 1800, a stoneware potter by the name of Van 

 Wickle, located at Old Bridge, now Herbertsville, and in 1820 

 J. H. Remmey established a. pottery at South Amboy, N. J. 

 Similar ware was also made at Roundabout (now Sayreville), on 

 the Raritan, about 1802. Another stoneware pottery was started 

 in Elizabeth, N. J., in 181 6, and operated later as a yellow and 

 rockingham ware factory. 1 Still later it passed into the hands of 

 L. B. Beerbauer & Company, and was used for making ironstone 

 china. 



In 1825 the Jersey Porcelain & Earthenware Company was 

 incorporated in the town of Jersey, Bergen county, and succeeded 

 in the following year in taking a silver medal at the exhibition of 

 the Franklin Institute, in Philadelphia, for "the best china from 

 American materials." These works passed into the hands of 



1 E. A. Barber, Pottery and Porcelain of the United States, p. 117. 



