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Pottery
Johannes Adam, who emigrated from Pennsylvania, is the earliest recorded British potter in the state, purchasing one of the first lots in Salisbury in May 1755, 6 months before Aust came to Winston-Salem. Until the second quarter of the 19th century, most potters made earthenware, primarily because it could be fired at a low temperature (1800 degrees F), and the final products could withstand major changes in temperature better than the later stoneware. Stoneware is fired at higher temperatures, causing the clay to become waterproof. In addition, because of their sizes, earthenware was used for food preparation and consumption (most containers were no more than a gallon), and stoneware, with its larger capacity, was used for storage.
British and European potters brought salt glazing to North Carolina in the 1700s. Salt was one of the region's earliest and most popular glazes. Other potters used a lead glaze to make earthenware watertight. As potters began shifting to stoneware production, the differences between British and German pottery became more pronounced, as did the regions they inhabited. By 1850, Randolph County was the center of salt-glazed stoneware, and Lincoln County primarily sold alkaline-glazed stoneware.
Whether Cherokee in western Carolina, Moravians in the Winston-Salem area or British settlers in the eastern Piedmont, original potters gathered their clay from the North Carolina soil. In addition, British folk potters ground their clay and turned it on a treadlewheel, while the Cherokee and Moravians used the clay directly from the ground or washed it before turning it on a kickwheel.
Sources:
HandMade in America, Asheville, NC
The North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh, NC
Sawtooth Center for Visual Art, Winston-Salem, NC
Zug, Charles III. Turners and Burners: The Folk Potters of North Carolina. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1986.
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