It’s Just Dirt! The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

STEPHEN C. COMPTON is an avid

Before retiring in 2013, Neolia Cole, the eighty-six year old daughter of potter Arthur Ray Cole, was first to arrive and last to leave the Cole’s Pottery shop. She possesses the indomitable spirit that has kept a Cole in pottery-making for more than two centuries.

Once when asked how much pottery was produced by Cole’s Pottery in a year’s time, Neolia answered by saying instead how much income a year’s sales represented. Despite the fact that Cole’s Pottery charged very little for the wares made there, the annual sum collected in a year was considerable. Wielding a sly grin, Neolia unashamedly conceded, “And it’s just dirt!”

In a way, pottery is just dirt. But collectors and lovers of the art form know that much more than dirt contributed to the incomparable successes of North Carolina’s early twentieth-century art potteries. It’s a success story marked by adaptation, innovation, collaboration, and immensely hard work – a legacy that endures today.

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THE HISTORIC ART POTTERIES OF NORTH CAROLINA’S SEAGROVE REGION

STEPHEN C. COMPTON

USD $45.00 / GBP £30.00 ISBN 978-1-62545-054-8

THE HISTORIC ART POTTERIES OF NORTH CAROLINA’S SEAGROVE REGION

collector of mid-18th to mid-20th century North Carolina pottery. Steve has written numerous articles and books about it, including, North Carolina Pottery: Earthenware, Stoneware, and Fancyware (Collector Books, 2011), and Seagrove Potteries Through Time (Fonthill Media, 2013). Widely recognized for his expertise, he is frequently called upon to be a lecturer and exhibit curator.

He once served as president of the North Carolina Pottery Center, a museum and educational center located in Seagrove, NC, and is a founding organizer of the North Carolina Pottery Collectors’ Guild. Steve resides with his wife in Raleigh, NC.

STEPHEN C. COMPTON

Cover illustrations: Front cover: N. C. Collection, The University of North Carolina Library. Bayard Wootten photo.

Front flap: Top view of large kiln. North Carolina Folk Life Institute. Bottom view of A. R. Cole working at bench. N. C. Collection, The University of North Carolina Library. Diana Caplow photo. Back flap: Ben Owen Sr. looking at candlestick. The State Archives of North Carolina.

USD $45.00 / GBP £30.00

IT’S JUST DIRT!

The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

Back row (L–R): J. B. Cole’s Pottery; C. C. Cole Pottery: Royal Crown Pottery and Porcelain Company Middle row (L–R): Teague Pottery; A. R. Cole Pottery; Smithfield Art Pottery; Jugtown Pottery Front row (L–R): North State Pottery Company; Owens Pottery; Auman Pottery

IT’S JUST DIRT!

The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

Stephen C. Compton Featuring Jugtown Pottery North State Pottery Company J. B. Cole’s Pottery A. R. Cole Pottery C. C. Cole Pottery Smithfield Art Pottery Royal Crown Pottery and Porcelain Company Auman Pottery Teague Pottery Owens Pottery Plus information on more than twenty-five additional potteries

For Kathy

AMERICA THROUGH TIME is an imprint of Fonthill Media LLC www.fonthillmedia.com office@fonthillmedia.com First published 2014 Copyright Š Stephen C. Compton 2014 ISBN 978-1-62545-054-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Fonthill Media LLC Typeset in Mrs Eaves XL Serif Narrow Printed and bound in England

Contents Introduction

seven

7

Royal Crown Pottery and Porcelain Company

Acknowledgments

12 one

Jugtown Pottery

13 two

North State Pottery Company

27 three

J. B. Cole’s Pottery

36 four

A. R. Cole Pottery

54 five

79 eight

Auman Pottery

83 nine

Teague Pottery

90 ten

Owens Pottery

95 eleven

Other Seagrove Region and Related Art Potteries

103 Marks and Signatures

120

C. C. Cole Pottery

Potters and workers

69

138

six

Bibliography

Smithfield Art Pottery

141

73

“Potters have to learn to make much out of little. That’s a basic bit of wisdom in the potter’s craft—and, for all I know, in life, too: to learn much, to need little.”

Marguerite Wildenhain, potter “Artistic pottery from the Carolina kilns will be for sale, with pansies, ivy and geraniums planted in them.”

James River Garden Club, Richmond, Virginia Richmond Times Dispatch, April 21, 1926 “Vernon Owens was not as talkative as his two partners, but he spoke eloquently with his hands, as within a space of about five minutes he made two pieces which were the most beautiful seen all day. A humility and dedication were evident in his work as well as in his manner and his few words. He spoke of the other potters in the area not as competitors in a market, but as fellow craftsmen and friends.”

Tom Patterson—October 31, 1974 “It’s Just Dirt!”

Neolia Cole, 6th generation North Carolina potter

Introduction My boss said, “Tom and Steve, I’m sending you down to Seagrove to get a story about the potters. Go to Jugtown and Teague Pottery.

You’ll find a few more shops along Highway 705 between Seagrove and Robbins. I need a good human interest piece and lots of pictures.” My boss was editor for the Mebane Enterprise-Journal, a small-town newspaper serving a rural clientele whose breadwinners mostly made furniture, wove and knitted textiles, and grew cattle and tobacco for market.

The year was 1974. Tom Patterson was the writer and I was his side-kick camera man.

I am an eighth generation North Carolinian and thought that I knew my state history pretty well. But I had never heard of Jugtown Pottery, or any of the region’s other potteries, and I had no expectations about what we would see as we headed off to Moore and Randolph counties that day.

We met Zedith Teague Garner at her shop near Robbins. She was an interesting person, but we didn’t get much of a story there and I took very few shots of the kiln, the shop, or anything else. My impression of Jugtown Pottery was an altogether different one. If you’ve ever been there, you know what it’s like the first time you turn off the paved road through a bamboo grove and into the compound that appears to belong to a time two centuries ago. A log dwelling and a log sales shop were there. Down the hill were workshops and tunnel-like groundhog kilns. Chimneys seemed to rise out of every building and shed. An idle contraption called a pug mill stood where it had in past times been turned round and round by a mule to grind clay. Everywhere, clay pots were lined up on shelves and earthen floors. Buckets were filled to their brims with liquid glaze. Ancient-looking, foot-powered treadle wheels stood alongside some driven by electric motors. At each station someone was working—potters, apprentices, glazers, and helpers—wedging

In 2002, a section of Highway 705 winding between Seagrove, in Randolph County, and Robbins, in Moore County, was designated the “Pottery Highway” in recognition of the region’s long history of pottery-making. Photo by the author.

Zedith Teague Garner, the daughter of potter Bryan D. Teague, shapes a vessel in her Robbins pottery shop. Circa 1975. Photo courtesy of North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, N. C. Photo by Jan Schochet.

clay, making and weighing balls ready for the wheel—turning, glazing, shelving, lugging finished pots to the sales cabin.

Nancy Sweezy, a studio potter and handicraft enthusiast whose incorporated non-profit Country Roads organization saved Jugtown Pottery for a time following the deaths of its founders, Jacques and Juliana Busbee, graciously allowed us to talk for a while. Vernon Owens, whose father and grandfather and many uncles were potters, was (and is today) the main turner. Watching him turn pot after pot on his spinning lathe was better than a magic show. From lump of wet clay to a beautifully symmetrical neck vase or pitcher—it was just a matter of minutes every time. Over and Introduction 7

over again his seemingly meditative focus on the spinning clay led to the creation of marvelous vessels made to be used and to be enjoyed by those determined enough to travel into Moore County’s remotely located “dark corner” for a sample of his work.

To say that I was mesmerized by my Jugtown Pottery experience is an understatement. Even as a kid, I was a collector—arrowheads, rocks and minerals, stamps—whatever was interesting to me at the time. My collecting gene kicked in at Jugtown. I could imagine having a collection of Jugtown pottery. But this kind of collecting cost real money and I was a recent college graduate with a new job and a young family to support. So, I satisfied myself (if only for a while!) with the purchase of a single piece—a salt-glazed vase bearing a floral design on one side and the circular Jugtown Ware mark on its base. I still have it today.

I didn’t remain at the newspaper job for long, but the visit to Seagrove and its nearby potteries left its impression on me. Fast forward through a couple of jobs, two stints in graduate school, and a second child, to a time when I believed that I needed a hobby. With a few more dollars to spend at my discretion and a hobby to find, all it took was the sight in 8 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

an antique shop of a little salt-glazed Jugtown Pottery jug (Wouldn’t you know it!) to get me started.

Many hundreds of collected North Carolina pots later, here I am offering a guide to collecting early- to mid-twentieth-century art pottery that was made by some amazingly capable Tarheel artisans. I’ve chosen ten potteries for primary attention, with a chapter about each one. Short accounts of more than twenty-five additional shops, and numerous additional brands, are added in Chapter Eleven. Without trying to provide an exhaustive catalog of the thousands of distinctive wares created by these shops, images are included throughout the chapters that represent some of the best work accomplished by North Carolina’s earliest artware potters. In addition to a list of potters and workers, 260 distinctive shop marks and signatures are shown to aid in the identification of North Carolina made wares.

Stored Jugtown wares in one of the pottery’s sheds in 1974. Photo by the author.

An unidentified Jugtown Pottery apprentice works at the wheel in 1974. Many former Jugtown Pottery apprentices continue to make pottery today. Photo by the author.

Interior view of the Jugtown Pottery sales cabin, as it looked in 1974. Photo by the author.

There were early artware potters in the western part of the state, namely the Hiltons (Hilton Pottery), Walter B. Stephen (Nonconnah Pottery and Pisgah Forest Pottery), Oscar Louis Bachelder (Omar Khayyam Pottery), and others. But the focus of this book is the Seagrove region encompassing something of a “Seagrove School” of artware potters ranging geographically across the state’s eastern Piedmont from New Hill in Wake County, and Smithfield in Johnston County, westward through Chatham, Lee, Moore, Montgomery, Randolph, Guilford, and Davidson counties. Most of the potters in these shops ascended from the Cole, Owen(s), Craven, and Auman clay clans. Many workers from these families were employed by two, three, or more of the potteries that emerged in the earliest years of the twentieth century through the 1950s and 60s. Traveling potters from out-of-state joined them, like Georgia’s Bill Gordy, and Guy Daugherty from Denton, Texas. African-American workers helped with clay and kilns, and some were most likely turners as well.

Pottery has been made by European settlers in North Carolina’s Piedmont region since about 1755. The first were Germanic, Moravian, and British Quaker earthenware and stoneware potters whose quest for land and happiness for their families drew them southward from Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, and the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia to the Carolina wilderness. Moravians in the colony’s eighteenth-century towns of Bethabara and Salem passed along their pottering ways by mimicking an old European guild system whereby a master potter trains

Potter and pottery manager, Nancy Sweezy, glazing wares during Jugtown’s Country Roads, Inc. period of operation. Courtesy of Charles Tompkins.

Longtime Jugtown Pottery’s master potter, Vernon Owens, forms a vase in the pottery’s log turning shed in 1974. Photo by the author.

A simple, yet elegant, salt-glazed stoneware jar turned in 1974 by Jugtown’s Vernon Owens. The author’s first collected pot.

apprentices who become journeymen and in some instances go on to be master potters themselves. The Moravians’ conservative approach did pass along the requisite skills for turning and glazing useful earthenware for a period of nearly 150 years, but it never led to the innovations necessary to switch production in the twentieth century from relatively drab utilitarian earthenware to the manufacture of colorful artwares.

Innovation and adaptation were values essential to North Carolina’s art potteries’ success. This is not to say that change was not resisted by some potters. Jugtown’s outsider founders, Jacques and Juliana Busbee, learned early on that old-timers liked clinging to their accustomed ways and were more than a little resistant to their new ideas about pottery-making. But what they did discover was young men whose fathers and uncles had taught them all they needed to know about how to find and prepare clay, turn and glaze wares, and build and burn kilns, who were willing to apply their knowledge, skills, and experience to the creation of new-fangled wares. So it was Charlie Teague, the son of potter John Wesley Teague, who was first employed to turn at the site of Jugtown Pottery; it was Jonah Introduction 9

Owen, the son of potter James H. Owen, who first turned artwares for North State Pottery Company; it was Charlie Craven, the son of potter Daniel Zebedee Craven, who made wares for North State Pottery Company, Smithfield Art Pottery, and Royal Crown Pottery and Porcelain Company.

In time, old-line potters’ sons, like Jason B. Cole, Charles C. Cole, and Arthur Ray Cole, started their own shops, making hundreds of colorful shapes and sizes of artware. So prolific were the Coles at pottery-making that the term “Cole pottery” today is nearly synonymous with what has more generally been called “Seagrove” pottery.

If the success of North Carolina’s early art potteries was derived from the acquired skills of potters whose families had made utilitarian earthenware and stoneware for generations, then their prosperity was in large part due to the genius and entrepreneurship of several outsiders whose acumen for business was first-rate, and whose worldview in marketing was more expansive than the Piedmont region of a still somewhat backward state.

This includes Raleigh socialites and artists, Jacques and Juliana Busbee (born James Littlejohn Busbee and Julia Adeline Royster), founders of Jugtown Pottery; Henry Alexander Cooper and Rebecca Palmer Cooper, who created Lee County’s North State Pottery Company; and Russian emigrant Victor Obler, whose Royal Crown Pottery and Porcelain Company supplied 10 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

Jacques and Juliana Busbee, founders of Moore County’s Jugtown Pottery, stroll near one of the compound’s rustic cabins. Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina.

More than two centuries after the first artisans turned pottery in the Seagrove region, hundreds of Seagrove area potters make beautiful wares like these produced at Bulldog Pottery by Bruce Gholson and Samantha Henneke. Courtesy of Bulldog Pottery.

his own New York store as well as some of the city’s largest department stores and florists with goods to sell. Not one of these men or women was a potter, yet they contributed to the design and styling of the wares, invented glazes, and recruited workers. But most importantly, they connected North Carolina’s potteries with buyers whose sophisticated tastes were satisfied by the purchase of vases, urns, lamps, and bowls made on foot-powered wheels and burned in semi-subterranean, wood-fired groundhog kilns.

The success of these enterprising business owners was not lost on the owners and operators of other nearby potteries. Auman Pottery, run by an indigenous family of Randolph County potters, created its Clay Craft Pottery line and sold it by catalog and through a New York outlet. C. C. Cole Pottery and Owens Pottery thrived from wholesale contracts leading to the sale of hundreds of thousands of pieces of pottery to tourist venues and to soap and candle shops. J. B. Cole’s pottery is not known today so much by its own company mark—a rarity, if found—but by the marks used to distinguish

various brands sold wholesale to customers with names like Sunset Mountain Pottery, Treasure Chest Pottery, The Blossom Shop, Artisan Ware, and Daison Ware.

Today, collectors everywhere seek out the best examples of North Carolina art pottery. Some novices begin by gathering up a few pieces at flea markets or yard sales for a few dollars while advanced collectors look for the chance to purchase unique pieces costing thousands of dollars each.

Museums, from New Jersey’s Newark Museum to Charlotte’s Mint Museum, hold whole groups of it in their collections. It is my hope that It’s Just Dirt!

The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region will aid collectors at all levels. But even if you’re not a collector, you don’t need to own pottery to appreciate North Carolina art pottery for its simple beauty, handmade qualities, and historic importance.

North Carolina’s art pottery tradition continues to thrive in the twenty-first century. Today, more than one hundred potters create beautiful wares in their Seagrove-area shops and studios. Some of their products exhibit contemporary designs and finishes not at all reminiscent of the old potteries discussed in this book. At the same time, some family-run potteries tied back to the old days still turn out wares whose ancestries are clearly related to the first colorful pots made in the wilds of North Carolina.

Before her shop recently closed, Neolia Cole (Womack), the eighty-six year old daughter of potter Arthur Ray Cole, was first to arrive and last to leave the Cole Pottery in Sanford, North Carolina. She continues to

With ties to one of the Seagrove region’s eighteenth-century pottery clans, potter Donna Craven carries on the Craven family tradition today. Photo courtesy of Donna Craven.

A far cry from the subdued browns and grays of the region’s early utilitarian earthenware and stoneware, today’s Seagrove area wares often bear sparkling displays of color, including some with crystalline surfaces like these examples by Phil Morgan. Photo courtesy of Phil Morgan. Ben Albright photo.

With nearly nine decades of life behind her, potter Neolia Cole Womack, hailing from one of the region’s most prominent pottering families, continued producing colorful and affordable pottery in her Sanford shop through 2013. Photo by the author.

exhibit the indomitable spirit that has kept a North Carolina Cole in pottery-making for more than two centuries.

I once asked Neolia about the quantity of pottery being produced by the Cole Pottery shop in a year’s time. She answered me by saying instead how much income a year’s sales represented. Despite the fact that Cole Pottery charged very little for the wares made there, the annual sum collected in that year was a considerable amount of money. Wielding a sly grin, Neolia shamelessly conceded, “And it’s just dirt!”

In a way she is right—pottery is just dirt! But collectors and lovers of the art form know that much more than dirt has contributed to the incomparable successes of North Carolina’s twentieth-century art potteries. That’s what makes it loved so much by so many who search for it and cherish it when they find it today.

Stephen C. Compton 2014 Introduction 11

Acknowledgments Just as many hands are involved in the successful production of pottery, many hands contributed to the creation of It’s Just Dirt!

The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region.

I am particularly grateful to the following persons and organizations for their assistance, shared knowledge, and generous access to their collections:

Art Andrews * Robert Armfield * Frances Bateman * Sid Baynes * Diana Caplow * Joe Champion * Jimmy Clark Matt Compton * Cecelia Conway * Cathy Cooper * Leon Danielson * Bill Ellenson * Joseph English * William Fields Walter Gable * Andrew Glasgow * Jack Gorham * Stanley Hicks * William W. Ivey * A. Everette James Jr. * Mark and Glenda Jardel * Neil Lapp * Rodney Leftwich * Mac McAtee * Oliver Mueller-Heubach * Benjamin Wade Owen III Bobby Owens * Boyd Owens * Pamela Lorette Owens * Travis Owens * Vernon Owens * William Parrish * Beverly Patterson * Linda Shelton Potts * L. A. Rhyne * Earl Senger * Paul Terry * Charles Tompkins * Rebecca Towers * Tom Turner * Peg Wiebe * Neolia Cole Womack * and staff of The State Archives of North Carolina * North Carolina Folk Life Institute * North Carolina Pottery Center * North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library * Randolph Room, Randolph County Public Library * North Carolina Collection, The University of North Carolina Library

12 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

chapter one

Jugtown Pottery A most unlikely collaboration between Raleigh socialites Jacques and Juliana Busbee and folk potters located in the remote woods of Moore and Randolph counties led to the establishment of now legendary Jugtown Pottery in 1921. Born James Littlejohn Busbee and Julia Adeline Royster, the Busbees had nothing to do with bringing a tradition of pottery-making to the region.

For more than a century-and-a-half before their arrival on the scene, farmer-potters had been producing traditional utilitarian earthenware and stoneware in the vicinity. Instead, the Busbees introduced an aesthetic reinterpretation of traditional forms to the potters’ palettes and promoted their wares to a customer base that was as alien to rural North Carolina as the Busbees were to their newfound artisan acquaintances.

Jacques Busbee was a portrait and landscape painter while Juliana, a life-long friend of noted North Carolina photographer Bayard Wootten, tried her hand at photography. Neither one was a very successful artist.

Juliana chaired the Raleigh Woman’s Club Art Department in 1911 and was elevated to the position of chairwoman of the Art Department for the North Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1915. This role led to her presence at the 1915 Davidson County Fair held in Lexington, North Carolina.

According to Juliana Busbee, it was there that she first spied a bright orange earthenware pie dish that proved to be the inspiration for what would become Jugtown Pottery. Legend has it that she was so enthralled by the dish that she shipped all her clothes back to Raleigh in a box so she could fill her suitcase with every dish like it available at a nearby hardware store where the first dish was acquired.

Much more was involved in Jugtown’s birth than this unanticipated pie plate epiphany. Jacques Busbee may have developed an interest in the

state’s potters on his own. The couple collected examples from the likes of Oscar Louis Bachelder, George Donkel, Walter B. Stephen, and Wade Johnson. Whereas Donkel (Buncombe County) and Johnson (Catawba County) mostly produced utilitarian wares, Bachelder, at his Omar Khayyam Pottery (a name supposedly suggested to Bachelder by Juliana Busbee), and Walter B. Stephen at Nonconnah Pottery and then Pisgah Forest Pottery, were creating decorative pottery.

1.1. Legend has it that in 1915 an orange pie plate caught the eye of Juliana Busbee, inspiring her and her husband, Jacques, to create Jugtown Pottery. Standing dish, earthenware with clear lead glaze. D-10 ¼”.

1.2. While the Busbees were planning their own art pottery operation for the state’s eastern Piedmont section, western North Carolina potters, including Walter B. Stephen (Nonconnah Pottery, and Pisgah Forest Pottery), and Oscar Louis Bachelder (Omar Khayyam Pottery) were producing decorative wares like these examples made in their Buncombe County shops. L-R: Cameo Ware, Pisgah Forest Pottery, H-4 7/8”; Vase with ivy leaves, Nonconnah Pottery, Skyland, N. C., H-9 ¾”; Vase with aubergine crackle glaze, Pisgah Forest Pottery, H-4 3/8”; Vase with Albany slip, Omar Khayyam Pottery, H-8”; Candlestick with black glaze, Omar Khayyam Pottery, H-7 ¼”.

Jugtown Pottery 13

Juliana Busbee’s involvement with the women’s clubs included the promotion of handicrafts, including basket making, pottery, and weaving.

Handicrafts were seen as a way to bring about social improvement among impoverished people. The work of “social missionaries” such as Eleanor Vance and Charlotte Yale, whose Biltmore Estate Industries’ woodcarvers and weavers attracted the attention of Edith and George Vanderbilt, Frances Louisa Goodrich, whose book Mountain Homespun tells of the establishment of Allanstand Cottage Industries, and Mary Crovatt Hambidge, founder of Georgia’s Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, was familiar to Juliana Busbee.

About 1916, the Busbees moved to New York City where Juliana opened a Greenwich Village tearoom called The Village Store at 60 Washington Square. Mostly, Jacques stayed in North Carolina where he acquired pottery for sale in the tearoom. Much of the first pottery was supplied

by James H. (Jim) Owen, William Henry Chrisco, Rufus Owen, and John Wesley Teague. Jim Owen was the primary supplier from 1917–1922. He died in 1923. The business grew and The Village Store never lacked a profit.

The Village Store was relocated to a larger site at 37 East Sixtieth Street

1.5. The establishment of Jugtown Pottery was funded, in part, by Jacques Busbee’s sale of his North Carolina Collection of books in 1921 through New York’s Walpole Galleries. Collection of the author.

1.6. Charles G. “Charlie” Teague, son of potter John Wesley Teague, was one of the first potters to turn wares for the Busbee’s Jugtown Pottery. Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C.

1.3. Following Jacques Busbee’s death in 1947, a memorial exhibition of Jugtown Pottery was conducted in his honor at the University of North Carolina’s Person Hall. The exhibit included utilitarian and decorative pieces, including wares glazed in Orange glaze, Buff glaze, Frogskin glaze, Blue glaze, White glaze, Stoneware glaze (most likely plain salt glaze), and Craven glaze (described as grey stoneware with blue decoration). Collection of the author.

1.4. Gallery guide for the memorial exhibition of Jugtown pottery made in honor of Jacques Busbee following his death in 1947. Collection of the author.

14 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

before being sold in 1926 when Juliana moved back to North Carolina to join Jacques at Jugtown where they would reside for the remainder of their lives. Jacques died in 1947 and Juliana in 1962.

Construction of the first kilns and buildings at Jugtown Pottery began about 1921. Jacques Busbee sold many of his books at auction in 1921, including a very significant collection of North Caroliniana, to raise funds for the construction of the pottery. He found the region’s old potters too resistant to his proposed innovations in form and decoration, so he hired a young potter named Charlie Teague to be the first on-site turner. Teague remained at Jugtown for about a decade. In 1923, eighteen-year-old Benjamin Wade Owen was hired to work with Charlie Teague. Ben Owen stayed at Jugtown for about thirty-seven years until 1959 when he left to open his own Old Plank Road Pottery. There he largely continued to replicate the forms and glazes for which Jugtown Pottery had become so well-known. These wares are distinguished from those he made at Jugtown by his circular impressed mark reading, “BEN OWEN MASTER POTTER,” and infrequently by an earlier stamped mark reading, “POTTERY BY BEN OWEN.”

1.7. Lidded earthenware jar. Clear lead glaze with multi-color slip runs. Attributed to Charles G. Teague. Possibly a one-of-a-kind example. H-10”.

1.8. A young Benjamin Wade Owen Sr., in the early years of his long career as Jugtown Pottery’s master potter. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, N. C. Bayard Wootten photo.

1.9. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. turning a Han vase on Jugtown Pottery’s foot-powered treadle wheel. Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C. 1.10. Chinese Blue glazed Han vase. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. Despite the glaze name, collectors prize examples bearing liberal areas of red color. H-8 ¼”.

Busbee turned to these young men not only because of the resistance of older potters to his invitations to make wares for him, but due to the fact that few potters were running potteries at the time. Jean Crawford, in her Jugtown Pottery: History and Design (John F. Blair, 1964), notes that when first visiting the region, Jacques Busbee, “found the country potters languishing, even (in) Moore (County), they were moribund—and stale.

Prohibition laws of years standing were the cause. There was no longer any money to be made in the production of jugs. Where fifty kilns once made a good living with orders from the distilleries, a half dozen potters could now supply the country neighborhoods with jugs for vinegar or sorghum syrup,

with churns, crocks and butter jars, pitchers and stew pots. ‘Toy stuff’ as the potters called table ware—the ‘dirt dishes’ of the Civil War period—were not in demand, since white ‘chiney’ was abundant and cheap. The price of ware had fallen to ten cents and lower, a gallon.”

Ben Owen accompanied Jacques Busbee to New York, Boston, Washington, and New Orleans museums where he viewed and sketched ceramics from around the world. Busbee had been encouraged by Tiffany Studios of New York, an early Jugtown Pottery customer, to add more decorative forms. Jacques Busbee took this suggestion to heart and introduced Chinese, Persian, and Korean translations to the Jugtown repertoire without abandoning the production of traditional earthenware and stoneware forms altogether. Neither Jacques nor Juliana Busbee was a potter. Juliana purportedly did some decoration with cobalt on salt-glazed wares. Early Jugtown Pottery glazes Jugtown Pottery 15

1.11. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. traveled with Jugtown Pottery co-founder, Jacques Busbee, to numerous museums where he studied and sketched designs from ancient examples for translation into early Jugtown Pottery forms.

Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N. C. Bayard Wootten photo.

1.12. Ernest Williamson (left) and Rancie Moore glaze Jugtown Pottery wares in preparation for firing in a groundhog kiln. Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C.. Bill Sharpe photo.

1.13. Finished Jugtown Pottery wares are passed by a worker from inside the groundhog kiln to Jacques Busbee. Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C. Bill Sharpe photo.

include Orange and Yellow (clear lead glaze over red or white clay), Tobacco Spit (manganese-tinted lead glaze), Frogskin (produced by burning Albany Slip with Salt Glaze), Mirror Black, Chinese White, Salt Glaze, Salt Glaze with cobalt blue decoration (called Craven Ware), and Jugtown Pottery’s famous Chinese Blue, supposedly created by Jacques Busbee himself. A clear lead glaze over red clay often resulted in unintentional spotting over the surface of wares made at Jugtown Pottery (probably due to inclusions of organic matter in the clay) and was referred to by the Busbees as 16 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

“accidental glaze.” The same outcome is sometimes seen on older locally made utilitarian earthenwares.

The Busbees were tireless promoters for their Jugtown Pottery venture. Their accounts of the origins of North Carolina’s potters were often embellished to enhance the mystique surrounding the origin and authenticity of their handmade products made so far away from their initial New York marketplace. Numerous articles were published in leading magazines and journals of the day telling the tale of how the Busbees “discovered” the artisans of the Seagrove region. The Busbees were perhaps the first to widely promote the notion that the potters had Staffordshire origins. Seemingly made up characters, like one called “Old Joe Shuffle,” colored their sometimes fanciful accounts. But the promotions made by them did work, and Jugtown Pottery set the standard for early North Carolina art pottery production.

Ben Owen’s departure from Jugtown in 1959 coincided with a dispute over ownership and the future operation of the pottery. Prior to the death of Juliana Busbee, Ben Owen was led to believe that he would someday own and operate the pottery. Nothing to that effect was ever put in writing

by Juliana Busbee. In an attempt to ensure the preservation of Jugtown Pottery, a group of friends and supporters created Jugtown, Incorporated.

A deed was made out by Juliana Busbee to this group for the Jugtown property. For a number of reasons, the deed was never signed. Meanwhile, John Maré, the former owner of a Southern Pines radio station who had previously visited Jugtown in 1949, befriended Juliana and offered to assist her with the operation of Jugtown Pottery. Maré and Busbee entered an

agreement and Jacques and Juliana Busbee’s Jugtown, Incorporated, was created in March, 1959. Despite the existence of an earlier deed written by Juliana Busbee, she devised another deed conveying the property to Maré.

Litigation between the two corporations ensued and for a few months in 1959, Jugtown Pottery closed.

Maré’s case prevailed and once again Jugtown was opened with Vernon Owens (grandson of potter James H. Owen, who was one of the Busbees’ earliest pottery suppliers) turning wares, assisted by his brother Bobby, and Charles Moore in the glazing and kiln operation. Both Maré and Juliana Busbee died in 1962. Ben Owen’s concern about the future of Jugtown is evident in his response to an August, 1962, editorial found in the Winston-Salem Journal, titled, “Can Jugtown Go On?” Owen wrote, “As the only living member of the threesome (Owen and the Busbees), I share your anxiety over the possibility of Jugtown being reincarnated … That Jugtown was a venture and expression of Mr. and Mrs. Busbee and myself is a fact.

Having been an active member of the team for 36 years, I now feel that the spirit and craftsmanship of Jugtown as we developed it no longer exists.”

Vernon and Bobby Owens leased the pottery from Maré’s estate for several years prior to the 1968 arrival of Nancy Sweezy, a studio potter and resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a co-founder with Ralph Rinzler of Country Roads, Inc., an organization created to encourage traditional arts. Jugtown Pottery was purchased by Country Roads, Inc. from the Maré estate, and was operated by Sweezy until it was purchased

by Vernon and Pamela Lorette Owens in 1983. The Owens’s continue to own and operate Jugtown Pottery today with Vernon, Pam, Travis, Bayle, and Bobby Owens turning, glazing, firing, and selling pots.

1.14. The Busbees were tireless promoters of their Jugtown shop. This little pamphlet, written about 1939, though titled, Jugtown Ware: An American Craft with a Pedigree (By Way of a Catalogue), is not a catalog at all, but a promotion of Jugtown Pottery’s prominence as a maker of artistically, though traditionally produced, art pottery. Collection of the author.

1.15. These two pamphlets, under different titles, include a reprint of an October, 1937, article written

by Juliana R. Busbee for the Bulletin of the American Ceramics Society. Collection of the author.

1.16-1.18. An undated Jugtown Pottery promotional brochure claims that the shop makes three appeals: Artistic, Patriotic, and Historic. Glazes used at the time included: Persian Blue, Shiny Black, Frogskin Green, Soft Warm Grey, and Orange. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, N. C.

Jugtown Pottery 17

During the Country Roads, Inc. period, lead-free glazes were introduced including new colors not previously produced by Jugtown. Glaze colors included Wood Smoke, Tobacco Spit, Salt, Orange, Ash White, Blue Ridge Blue, and Oak Moss. An apprentice program was initiated by Sweezy with around forty apprentices taking part in the program, some of whom continue to work as potters today.

Additional Jugtown glazes include Maré Blue and Black Ankle, the latter named for a nearby community, and made by combining Albany slip and white glaze. Newer glazes, many developed by Pamela Owens, include Peach Bloom, Weathered Bronze, Ash Glaze, and Claire-de-Lune.

Today, Jugtown Pottery continues in operation as it has for more than nine decades—replicating some old wares, and forever experimenting with new forms and glazes. Visitors sometimes come to buy, sometimes come to visit the site’s museum, and sometimes come just to enjoy the special place called Jugtown.

Most Jugtown pottery is stamped with a circular impressed mark on its base containing either a jug or pitcher and the words, JUGTOWN WARE. Dates were added in the 1970s. Signatures (in script or stamped) include

Vernon Owens, Pamela Owens, Travis Owens, and Charles Moore. Charles Moore contributed to Jugtown’s success in many ways as a worker and folk artist known for his hand-built chickens and other animal figurals.

In addition to the Jugtown stamped mark, some wares bear the stamped mark, “C. B. CRAVEN.” One of the state’s outstanding turners, Charlie Boyd Craven, was the son of potter Daniel Zebedee Craven. He worked as a journeyman potter for various shops including North State Pottery Company, Smithfield Art Pottery, Royal Crown Pottery and Porcelain Company, Teague Pottery, Owens Pottery, and Tobacco Road Pottery.

Other potters who have worked at Jugtown Pottery include Agnes Chabot Almquist, John Almquist, Laura Kim Brown, Martha Cooper, Cynthia Burns Monroe, David Stuempfle, and Nancy Sweezy. Indiana potter Karl Martz visited Jugtown in 1957 to learn the salt-glazing process, and made some wares during his ten day stay. Chicken and animal makers include Vernon Owens, Pamela Owens, Boyce Yow, Charles Moore, Nora Scott Moore, Martha Scott Owen, Alice Scott, Boyd Owens, Al Powers, Rosemary Poole, Viola Owens Brady, Bayle Owens, Emily Owens, Travis Owens, and Ina Owens Bolick.

1.19. A young Vernon Owens, managing unfired wares placed on drying boards. 1965. Courtesy of Jugtown Pottery. Photo by Liddell.

1.20. Jugtown potters and workers gathered around the site’s ancient mule-driven pug mill. Country Roads, Inc. period. Clockwise from L-R: Bobby Owens, Charles Moore, Vernon Owens, Jeannette Moore, Viola Owens Brady, Pamela Lorette (Owens), and Nancy Sweezy. Courtesy of Charles Tompkins.

18 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

1.21. Sign on Busbee Road leading to Jugtown Pottery, where for nearly a century, pottery bearing the Jugtown Ware mark has been produced.

1.22. Jugtown worker Walter Boyce Yow made some sculptured animals, including catfish and owls. Courtesy of North Carolina Folk Life Institute.

1.23. Salt-glazed stoneware jug bearing the inscription on its shoulder, “W. B. YOW 10-24-57 N. C.” This jug was part of the Jugtown collection when the pottery was purchased by Country Roads, Inc. Possibly one-of-a-kind example. H-5 ¾”.

1.24. Stoneware catfish in Frogskin glaze. W. Boyce Yow. L-9”.

1.25. Salt-glazed pitcher with cobalt blue decoration (a style referred to as Craven Ware by the Busbees.) Made by visiting potter, Karl Martz, during a ten-day 1957 visit to Jugtown Pottery to learn about salt-glazing. Rare. H-6 ¼”.

Jugtown Pottery 19

1.26. Persian jar. Earthenware with Chinese Blue glaze. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. H-15 ½”.

1.27. Large center bowl. Asian translation. Earthenware with Chinese Blue glaze. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. H-5”.

1.28. Vase. Asian translation. Stoneware with Chinese Blue glaze. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. H-10 ¼”.

1.29. Two vases. Stoneware with Chinese Blue glaze. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. Left, H-5”; Right, H-6”.

1.30. Lily vase. Stoneware with Chinese White glaze. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. H-9 ½”.

1.31. Bowl with fluted rim. Stoneware with Chinese White glaze. Chinese Blue glaze highlights on rim. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. H-6 ½”.

20 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

1.32. Lidded cracker jars. Earthenware. Clear lead glaze on both. Spotted orange and green coloration in the example to the right is called “accidental glaze.” Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. Left, H-9 3/8”; Right, 11”.

1.33. Neck vase. Earthenware. Clear lead glaze (“Buff” is the name given to Jugtown’s yellowware) with manganese inclusions. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. H-9 ½”.

1.34. Lidded bean pot. Earthenware. Clear lead glaze (“Orange” ware). Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. H-8”.

1.35. Lidded coffee pot. Earthenware. Clear lead glaze. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. H-9”.

1.36. Jar with four small looped pinch handles. Japanese translation. Earthenware. Tobacco Spit glaze. This glaze color is made by the addition of manganese to clear lead glaze. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. H-7 ¼”.

1.37. Three-handled jar. Chinese Sung dynasty translation. Earthenware. Clear lead glaze over white slip. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. H-6 ¼”.

Jugtown Pottery 21

1.38. Four-handled jar. Chinese Sung dynasty translation. Earthenware. Clear lead glaze over white slip. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. H-12”.

1.39. Oil jar. Earthenware. Mirror Black glaze. Orange interior. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. H-7”.

1.40. Vase and bowl. Asian translations. Juliana Busbee called this bowl form an “ice bucket.” Mirror Black glaze. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. Vase, H-3 ½”; Bowl, H-4”.

1.41. Thumbprint bowl; Grueby jar; Ming dynasty translation “gourd” vase; Japanese translation jar with four pinched handles. Stoneware. Frogskin glaze. Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. L-R: bowl, H-4”; Grueby jar, H-7 ½”; gourd vase, H-6 1/8”; Japanese translation jar, H-8”.

1.42. Bowl and pitcher. Salt-glazed stoneware with cobalt blue decoration (Craven Ware). Benjamin Wade Owen Sr. Bowl, H-5 1/8”; pitcher, H-6 ¾”.

22 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

1.43. Sculptured horse. Tang dynasty translation. Earthenware. Clear lead glaze. Made by Al Powers. From 1962-1964, Powers operated the Jugtown Pottery sales cabin. One similar example, and one larger example in Maré Blue glaze, may have been produced by Powers. Circa 1962-1964. H-8 7/8”. Very rare.

1.44. Vase. Salt-glazed stoneware. Light blue glassy glaze with red reduction. H-6 ¼”.

1.45. Canister set. Salt-glazed stoneware. Cobalt blue and white slip decoration. Vernon Owens. L-R: H-9 ½”; 8 ½”; 5”.

1.46. Pitcher and jug. Salt-glazed stoneware. Cobalt blue decoration. Vernon Owens. Pitcher, H-10”; jug, H-11 ½”.

1.47. Ring platter; vases; jug. Stoneware. Woodsmoke glaze. Vernon Owens. Platter, D-16”; Front row, L-R, H-9 ¼”; 5 3/8”; 4”.

1.48. Two-handled jar. Chinese translation. Stoneware. Black Ankle glaze. Glaze made by combining Albany Slip and white glaze. H-6”.

Jugtown Pottery 23

1.49. Charlie Boyd (C. B.) Craven. Trained as a boy in his father’s (Daniel Zebedee Craven) shop before turning for North State Pottery Co., Smithfield Art Pottery, and Royal Crown Pottery. Late in his life, Charlie Craven turned a limited number of stoneware pieces for Jugtown Pottery, Teague Pottery, Owens Pottery, and Tobacco Road Pottery. Courtesy of Jugtown Pottery.

1.50. Jug. Salt-glazed stoneware. Charlie Boyd Craven. Created in the likeness of a jug made by Charlie’s grandfather, Jacob Dorris Craven. Charlie called this style a “granddaddy jug.” H-11”.

24 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

1.51. Roosters. Wheel-turned and hand-sculpted. Left, salt-glazed stoneware with red glaze; right, earthenware with clear lead glaze. Vernon Owens. L-R: H-12 ½”; 7 ¼”.

1.52. Persian jar. Salt-glazed stoneware with cobalt blue decoration. Vernon Owens. H-17”.

1.53. Jar. Stoneware. Crackle glaze. Vernon Owens. H-10”.

1.54. Three jars. Salt-glazed stoneware with added glazes. Vernon Owens. L-R: H-10”; 11 ¾”; 9 ½”.

1.55. Ginger jars. Stoneware. Pamela Lorette Owens. L-R: H-9”; 11”.

Jugtown Pottery 25

1.56. Sheep. Stoneware. Hand-sculpted. Pamela Lorette Owens. H-9”.

1.57. Four roosters. Stoneware. Various glazes. Charles Moore. HOA-9”.

1.58. Sculptural figures. Salt-glazed stoneware. Hand-sculpted. Some with cobalt blue decoration. Ina Owens Bolick (daughter of Melvin Lee “M. L.” Owens). Squirrel, H-4 3/8”.

1.59. Sitting mules. Salt-glazed stoneware. Hand-sculpted. Ina Owens Bolick. Large mule, H-8 ¼”.

26 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

chapter two

North State Pottery Company Like the Busbees of Jugtown Pottery, Rebecca Palmer Cooper and Henry Alexander Cooper, the founders of North State Pottery Company, were not potters nor did they have family ties to any of the seminal North Carolina pottery families.

Their role in the creation of a market for North Carolina-made decorative art pottery advanced and accelerated a transition from utilitarian to art pottery production among a new generation of potters.

Words like visionary, entrepreneurial, passionate, and tireless would commonly describe the Busbees and Coopers.

Although it’s not clear how much contact there was between these two couples, they were undoubtedly aware of each other. They surely paid attention the others’ strategies that worked to elevate the importance of North Carolina pottery beyond a local market to one that spanned the east coast of the United States and beyond. Their enterprises fit well within an American Arts and Crafts Movement aesthetic. Decorative—but meant to be used—the wares made by Jugtown Pottery and North State Pottery Company were unabashedly promoted for their “handmade” character.

All four owners were North Carolina born, but their life experiences and education set them apart as outsiders to the rural, hardscrabble lifestyle of the potters who brought them fame. Jacques and Juliana Busbee came from wealthy Raleigh families, hobnobbed with others of significant social status, and fancied themselves as artists. Rebecca Palmer, though growing up near Gulf in remote Chatham County, was raised at home by a live-in governess, traveled the country as a young woman, was trained for a while at Flora McDonald Academy, and lived on a farm where her father, Oroon Dates Palmer Sr., raised Arabian horses. Henry Cooper traveled far away from his native Alamance County, North Carolina, home to Kansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, and other locales, first as a railroad worker

and then as a salesman for R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. His travels led him to chance encounters with potters in western North Carolina including Oscar Bachelder, whose acquaintance with the Busbees is well documented. Susan Iden, writing in a 1927 article for The Raleigh Times, relates Henry Cooper’s enthrallment with Bachelder and his work when he said, “In the dimness and grey dust of the place, while I watched the old potter with his grey hair struggling through a crownless old grey felt hat, shaping the clay on the potter’s wheel as potters have done through the ages, I became fascinated with the ancient art.” Cooper’s work may have led him into the Seagrove area as well, where in the 1920s a few traditional potters remained at their wheels and where the Busbees were already about the task of creating a new kind of pottery.

Sometime early in the 1920s, Rebecca Palmer Cooper and her sister, Dora Palmer Brown, made their own visit to the Moore-Randolph county region, reporting that they were, “struck with amazement at the startling beauty and character of the pottery.” Most likely, they visited Jugtown Pottery that day, and perhaps the nearby site occupied by James H. “Jim” Owen, one of the first potters to make wares for the Busbees. Jonah and Walter Owen, sons of James H. and Martha Jane Scott Owen, who served important roles in the initiation of Jugtown Pottery, played essential roles in the success of North State Pottery Company. Jonah “Jonie” Owen was the first potter employed by the Coopers. W. D. Morton, author of Handmade: A History of the North State Pottery: 1924–1959 (Carolina Avenue Press, Willard D. Morton, Jr., 2003), says that Martha Jane Owen, following the death of her husband, Jim Owen, made a few sculptured animals and salt and pepper shakers for the Coopers. The Owen family pottery was located just steps away from the site where Jacques and Juliana Busbee constructed their Jugtown Pottery compound. Both potteries remain open today at the hands of grandchildren and great-grandchildren of J. H. and Martha Scott Owen.

2.1. North State Pottery Company co-founders, Rebecca Palmer Cooper and Henry Alexander Cooper. Mid-1920s. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, The University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N. C.

North State Pottery Company 27

2.2. Henry Cooper standing in front of the North State Pottery Company’s 1926 Philadelphia Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition display. Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.

The successes of Jugtown Pottery and North State Pottery were dependent upon the presence of skilled potters and workers whose inherited knowledge and raw talent were made available to inspired adventurers possessing good business sense and enough showmanship about them to make them tireless, if not sophisticated, self-promoters of their ideas and products. Both parties understood that their primary market was not the same one that for generations had depended upon local potters for churns, jugs, and crocks, but was a more sophisticated, urban buyer whose appreciation for well-made craft, sometimes reflecting the shapes and colors of ancient ceramics displayed in museum cabinets, made them clamor for their colorful products.

In an address regarding the nascent North State Pottery, presented during the Sesquicentennial International Exposition held in Philadelphia in 1926, Rebecca Cooper said that, “The widespread improvement in public taste in the country in the last decade or so, and an increased appreciation of the value of handmade pottery have resulted in an increased interest in the work of the Sanford potters. Northern visitors at resorts in the vicinity passing the colony, noticed the pottery, and many of them recognizing the striking merit of the work, purchased it as objects of art. In this way the fame of the colony began to spread here and there throughout the country among people of culture and taste.” The fact that the resort communities of Southern Pines and Pinehurst were within a few miles of both potteries and others emerging nearby (e.g., J. B. Cole’s Pottery; Rainbow Pottery Company—later, A. R. Cole Pottery; Smithfield Art Pottery, Auman Pottery, 28 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

etc.) unquestionably played a role in the design and sales of these shops’ first wares. Whereas Jacques Busbee encouraged the young potter, Ben Owen, to sketch images of Asian and Persian ceramics seen in New York, Washington, and other big city museums, Rebecca Cooper devised many of her own designs inspired by images seen in books and magazines of the day.

While Henry Cooper continued his work as a traveling salesman, Rebecca Cooper and the potter, Jonah Owen, designed and produced the first North State Pottery wares for sale around 1924. Jonah Owen’s father, Jim Owen, had produced earthenware and salt-glazed wares, some decorated with cobalt, for the Busbees prior to the opening of their Jugtown Pottery in 1921. Some of the earliest North State Pottery wares exhibited a likeness to those produced by Jim Owen. Particularly, salt-glazed examples decorated with cobalt were made in the first years of production, and little thereafter. Jonie Owen remained at North State Pottery for about two years, departing in 1926. In 1925, his brother Walter Nelson Owen joined him at the Coopers’ pottery where he remained for the remainder of his life.

Two Craven brothers, themselves from a multigenerational pottery family, joined Walter Owen in 1927. Charlie and Braxton Craven were sons of Daniel Zebedee Craven, whose ancestry may include one of the first

2.3. Shown here in a photograph used as part of the 1926 Philadelphia Sesqui-Centennial Exhibition, potter Jonah Owen, one of the first potters to make wares for North State Pottery Company, stands at a treadle wheel where he turns a vase like the one seen in figure 2.4.

Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C. 2.4. Vase. Stoneware. Frogskin glaze. Second stamped mark. Jonah Owen. Circa 1925-1926.

H-7 5/8”.

potters to arrive in the Seagrove region, Peter Craven, whose forebears made their way from New Jersey through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to North Carolina around 1760. Braxton Craven mostly helped with glazing and tended the kilns. Charlie Craven, arriving at North State Pottery in early 1927 at age eighteen, turned wares alongside Walter Owen through 1928.

Though young in age, he must have been an accomplished potter capable of reproducing the shapes described to him by the Coopers. Many of the products bearing the second stamped mark utilized by North State Pottery were made during Charlie Craven’s two-year tenure and represent some of the best examples of those extant today. His subsequent work produced at Herman Cole’s Smithfield Art Pottery and Victor Obler’s Royal Crown Pottery and Porcelain Company, and that made later in his life for Jugtown Pottery, Owens Pottery, Teague Pottery, and Tobacco Road Pottery, show that he had an excellent eye for form and the hands required to consistently produce beautiful objects over and over again. Ironically, Jacques Busbee was rebuffed by Daniel Z. Craven when he attempted to employ Charlie Craven to work for him at Jugtown Pottery. The elder Craven cited Charlie’s young age and his need for him to work for his own pottery.

Around age thirteen Melvin Lee Owens (M. L. - he added the s to the family name), brother of Jonah and Walter Owen, worked and turned for a short while for North State Pottery, as did his brother Elvin Owen, who, upon arriving there at age sixteen turned many small pieces between 1935-36. Emmitt (R. E.) Albright, another Seagrove area potter, worked

2.5. Charlie Boyd Craven, one of the state’s finest turners, stands by North State Pottery Company’s treadle wheel where he honed his skills as an art pottery master. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, The University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N. C. 2.6. Charlie Craven, at work in the North State Pottery Company shop. Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C. 2.7. Charlie Craven, the son of potter Daniel Zebedee Craven, and a descendent of many generations of Craven potters, takes a well-deserved break from his labors at North State Pottery Company. Following his stint with the Coopers, Craven turned for Smithfield Art Pottery and Royal Crown Pottery and Porcelain Company. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, The University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N. C.

for the Coopers for a brief time. Numerous African-Americans, including Garland Williams and Amice Dorsett, helped as workers. It is not known if any of these workers also made North State Pottery wares.

It is likely that Henry Cooper left his job with R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company soon after the pottery was up and running, perhaps in 1925. He took over the day-to-day operations from Rebecca and he spent much of his time experimenting with glazes. Two groundhog kilns were used initially, one for bisque-firing and the other for glost-firing. Glaze applications sometimes required multiple runs through the kiln. Early North State Pottery wares are noted for the practice of double and triple dipping pieces into the same glaze, or glazes contrasting in color, creating a layered effect.

Swirlware (also called agateware), not unlike Arkansas’s Niloak Mission swirlware, and perhaps influenced in its form by it, was made by North State Pottery in the 1920s. Niloak was founded in Benton, Arkansas, in 1909.

North State Pottery Company 29

At North State Pottery, two and three clay colors were used, and most pieces were glazed only on the inside. Some swirlware was made by western North Carolina potters, including members of the Propst and Reinhardt pottery families, but it is not known if either pottery influenced the other in its creation. Examples of two and three-color swirlware made by him later in his career suggest that Charlie Craven may have learned the technique while at North State Pottery Company and that he may be responsible for some of the swirlware produced there. Extant examples of swirlware attributed to Jonah Owen made in years following his stint at North State Pottery Company suggest that both Craven and Owen made some of this line of pottery for the Coopers.

Glaze colors described in North State Pottery sales catalogs included Copper Red, Chinese Red, Moss Green, Brown, Turquoise Blue, Dark Blue, Black, Bronze Black, White, Yellow, and Tampa Green. A turquoise blue glaze found on many “3rd stamp” North State wares made by Walter Owen is frequently highlighted by red streaks and splotches and is sometimes compared to Jacques Busbee’s Chinese Blue glaze. If this was Henry and Rebecca Cooper’s attempt to match Jugtown’s popular glaze, or a coincidental occurrence, is not known.

North State Pottery Company was located in Lee County about eight miles from Sanford near the intersection of Highway 42 (Carbonton Road) and Old Plank Road. It occupied three sites, including the original site on the Cooper’s homeplace property, from about 1924–1932. A second site was replaced by a third following a devastating flood on Pocket Creek in September of 1945. The operation was relocated to higher ground nearby and remained the location for the pottery throughout the remainder of its history.

30 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

2.8. Though never a highly skilled potter himself, North State Pottery Company owner, Henry Cooper, was capable of demonstrating the craft to the shop’s customers. Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C. 2.9. North State Pottery Company’s two “Chinese” kilns. Mid-1920s. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, The University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N. C. 2.10. Geneva and Dorothy Susan Cooper, daughters of North State Pottery Company’s owners, Henry and Rebecca Cooper, stand outside the operation’s rustic log sales shop. Mid-1920s.

Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, The University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N. C.

Although some clay may have been procured locally, most clay for the pottery was dug and transported from sites in Moore and Randolph counties. The clay was washed multiple times, filtered, and then pressed to remove excess water before being ground for final preparation prior to being turned on North State’s wheels. This process ensured the availability of excellent clay making possible the consistent quality represented by North State Pottery Company wares.

Both wholesale and retail catalogs were produced by North State Pottery Company. Following early exhibitions of the pottery at the North Carolina State Fair in 1925, the Sesquicentennial International Exposition in Philadelphia in 1926, and the showing of donated pieces given by the Coopers to the North Carolina Museum of Natural History in Raleigh in 1927, sales increased and higher and higher production to meet public demand was required. Estimates of the number of pieces sold during the Sesquicentennial Exposition range from 1,000 to 5,000 items. The Coopers sold stock to raise $10,000 in capital for the improvement of equipment, greatly increasing their capacity to fill orders and to satisfy retail customers. In addition to a log sales cabin constructed at the pottery site, Rebecca Cooper operated a sales room and gift shop at a location known as “Three Points” in Sanford,

left column 2.11. Henry and Rebecca Cooper in front of their North State Pottery Company log sales shop. Mid-1920s.

Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C. 2.12. A view inside the North State Pottery Company’s sales shop showing a variety of glazed wares ready for sale. Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C. 2.13. North State Pottery’s first major exhibition of its products was made at the 1925 session of the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh.

Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C. Photo

by Denmark.

right column 2.14. Cover of a North State Pottery Company catalog reproduced in 1977 by the Mint Museum, Charlotte, N. C. Collection of the author.

2.15. Sample page a North State Pottery Company catalog reproduced in 1977 by the Mint Museum of Charlotte, N. C. Note the inclusion of swirl or agateware in the pottery’s inventory of wares.

Collection of the author.

North State Pottery Company 31

2.16. Neill A. Cole Pottery shop. Sanford, N. C. This was a retail outlet for North Carolina art pottery, including much that was produced nearby by potters at the North State Pottery Company. Collection of the author.

2.17. A roadside stand offering a selection of North Carolina art pottery. This shop was possibly owned by Jude Palmer (who may be the man seen here), a brother of North State Pottery Company’s co-founder, Rebecca Palmer Cooper. Wares sold by Palmer are found bearing an ink-stamped mark on their base. For an example of this mark, see Marks and Signatures section. Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C.

2.18. Narrow-necked pitcher. Earthenware. Clear lead glaze. J. Palmer Pottery ink-stamped mark on its base. H-10 ½”.

2.19. The Clay Pot Coffee Shop, once located on U. S. Highway 17 near Florence, South Carolina, sold North State Pottery Company wares as well as chicken dinners, sandwiches, and presumably, strong, hot coffee. Many North State Pottery wares are seen here, lined up along the floor boards and handrails of this log café’s front porch. Collection of the author.

2.20. North State Pottery Company’s registered trade mark. The business was incorporated in January, 1926.

32 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

and later, for only a brief period, one near the corner of Carthage and Steele streets in Sanford. The Coopers’ daughter, Dorothy, married Roger Foster, a florist, and sold North State Pottery from his shop in Bethesda, Maryland, in the mid- to late 1930s. An old postcard image of a Sanford shop operated

by Neill A. Cole shows hundreds of examples of pottery for sale including some from North State Pottery Company. Several more roadside shops sold North State pottery. Jude Palmer, the brother of Rebecca Cooper, operated a roadside stand south of Sanford. McElhaney’s shop in the far western North Carolina Cherokee tourist village sold wares for the Coopers, as well as Peter Murphey who operated Murphey’s Craft Shop in the western North Carolina town of Hendersonville. It is said that Henry Cooper took road trips with his car packed full of pottery for sale. Other sales included orders shipped in laundry detergent barrels filled with pottery.

Most North State Pottery is marked for identification in some way. The earliest method of marking wares may have employed paper labels bearing the registered North State Pottery Company logo. Soon thereafter, a rubber or metal stamp was impressed into the still-soft bases of wares. Perhaps used only in 1925, the first impressed mark includes the words, “NORTH STATE POTTERY CO./HAND MADE/SANFORD, N.C.,” all in upper case letters. On this mark, the words, “HAND MADE,” slant from left to right. The second stamped mark, used

from 1925 to 1938 (or 1939), is like the first with the exception that the words are printed in upper and lower case letters and the words, “Hand Made,” are not slanted. About 1938 or 1939, the second stamp was replaced by one reading, “HANDMADE/by/NORTH STATE/POTTERY/SANFORD, N. CAROLINA.” This was the last stamped mark bearing the name North State Pottery and its use was discontinued upon the death of Henry Cooper in 1959.

Following the deaths of Rebecca Cooper (1954) and Henry Cooper (1959), the pottery business was given to the company’s long-faithful potter, Walter N. Owen. He and his wife Callie were permitted to live out their lives in the house they had occupied at the pottery for so many years. Required by the Cooper family to retire the name of North State Pottery Company, Walter Owen chose to name his pottery Pine State Pottery. A stamp was made for marking his pottery that was not at all unlike the third North State Pottery stamp. It read, “HANDMADE/PINE STATE/POTTERY/SANFORD, N. CAROLINA.” Walter Owen used this mark from 1959 until 1965. In 1965, a round impressed mark was occasionally used with “W.N. Owen/Hand Made” written inside a circle. About 1970, Walter Owen began hand signing some of his work with the signature, “WN Owen.” Little pottery was produced in the mid- to late 1970s prior to Walter Owen’s death in 1981.

2.21. Tall neck vase.

Earthenware. Clear lead glaze with green oxide colorants added.

Attributed to Jonah Owen.

First stamped mark. Circa 1925-1926. H-10”.

2.22. Floor vase.

Earthenware. Black glaze with incised “sine wave” decoration. Attributed to Jonah Owen. First stamped mark. Circa 1925-1926. H-14 ½”.

2.23. Footed vase.

Stoneware. Glossy cobalt blue slip runs. Jonah Owen or Charlie Boyd Craven. Unmarked. A similar example bearing the pottery’s second stamped mark is known.

Circa 1927-1928. H-9”.

North State Pottery Company 33

2.24. Four-handled vase. Sung dynasty translation. Attributed to Charlie Boyd Craven. Second stamped mark. Circa 1927-1928. H-6 ¾”.

2.25. Tall, narrow neck vase. Stoneware. Crackle glaze with oxblood reduction red highlights. Attributed to Charlie Boyd Craven. Second stamped mark. Circa 1927-1928.

H-10 5/8”.

2.26. Candlestick. Stoneware. Crackle glaze with oxblood reduction red highlights. Attributed to Charlie Boyd Craven. Second stamped mark. Circa 1917-1928. H-2 ½”.

2.27. Vase. Stoneware. Cobalt blue glaze. Attributed to Charlie Boyd Craven. Second stamped mark. Circa 1926-1927. H-6 ½”.

2.28. Two low vases. Left: black “volcanic” glaze. Right: black “wrinkle” glaze. Both glazes uncommon. Both examples bear the second stamped mark. Jonah Owen or Charlie Boyd Craven. Mid-1920s. L-R: H-6 ¼”; 5 ¾”.

34 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

2.29. Two vases. Agateware. Example on left is clear glazed all over. Example on right is glazed inside only. Both bear second stamped mark. Jonah Owen or Charlie Boyd Craven. Both potters produced agateware following their terms at North State Pottery Company. Agateware is made by layering contrasting bands of clay into a ball before turning it on the potter’s wheel. Mid-1920s. L-R: H-6 ½”; 7 ¼”.

2.30. Two-handled jar. Earthenware. Chrome red glaze. Third stamped mark. Attributed to Walter N. Owen. Circa 1940s to 1950s. H-5 3/8”.

2.31. Two-handled jar. Earthenware. White glaze base, with mottled turquoise overglaze. Attributed to Walter N. Owen. Third stamped mark. “Lost Colony” written on side in India ink. North State Pottery Company wares were sold at the Lost Colony outdoor drama site, located in Dare County, near Manteo.

Circa 1940s to 1950s. H-5 ½”.

2.32. Vase. Dark reddish-brown glaze. Walter N. Owen. Marked W. N. Owen in a circle. Mid-1960s. H-7”. Collection of William W. Ivey.

2.33. Rebecca pitcher. Earthenware. Chinese blue reduction glaze. Walter N. Owen. Third stamped mark. Circa 1940s to 1950s. H-6 ½”.

North State Pottery Company 35

chapter three

J. B. Cole’s Pottery There is a saying among collectors of North Carolina art pottery that if it is colorful, unmarked, and unidentified, just call it Cole pottery and chances are that you are right. Claims have been made that this prolific family of potters got its beginnings in the potteries of Staffordshire, but it is more likely that the first Cole to learn the trade gained his skills from another potter already established in the Randolph County, North Carolina, region. It is possible that sons of hat maker Stephen Cole (b. 1734) were the first Cole potters, and it is more certain that his grandsons, Raphard (b. 1799) and Michael (b. 1797), were utilitarian earthenware and stoneware potters. Raphard Cole’s son, Evan (b. 1834) was definitely a potter and it is his son, Jason B. Cole, who established J. B. Cole’s Pottery on the border of Moore and Montgomery County. Other early- to mid-twentieth-century Cole potters producing artwares in their own shops include Arthur Ray Cole (Rainbow Pottery Company and A. R. Cole Pottery), Charles C. Cole (Carolina Craft Pottery and C. C. Cole Pottery), Everette Cole (E. C. Cole Pottery; Carolina Craft Pottery), and Herman C. Cole (Hillside Pottery, later named Smithfield Art Pottery). In addition, numerous members of the family, like Lorenzo “Wrenn” Cole (b. 1871), worked as journeyman potters.

Jason B. “Jase” Cole (b. 1869) began his career in his father Evan’s shop.

Once, it was believed that stoneware marked “Cole & Co.” was produced

by Evan Cole. In fact, examples bearing the Cole & Co. name were manufactured in Baltimore by the Parr family of potters for a beverage bottler named Charles A. Cole. No relationship between Charles A. Cole and the North Carolina Cole potters is known. No doubt Evan Cole’s shop produced thousands of jugs, crocks, and churns to supply nearby 36 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

homes and farms. For nearly a quarter century, Jason Cole traveled as a skilled journeyman from pottery to pottery. He turned out wares for John Chrisco, Jacob Dorris Craven, Lewis and Merritt Sugg, William T. Macon, Baxter N. Welch, and even for the Hilton family located far away to the west in Catawba County. His own shop, called J. B. Cole’s Pottery, was opened around 1922.

Jason Cole first made utilitarian wares in a traditional, wood-fired groundhog kiln. Later, a wood-fired upright kiln was built. Saggers used in this kiln, when wood was used as fuel for the burning, protected the surfaces of colored glazes from flying ash. In time, the upright kiln was

3.1. Jason B. Cole and Rhocida Cagle Cole. The son, grandson, and most likely, great-grandson of potters, Jase Cole founded his own J. B. Cole’s Pottery about 1922 on land straddling the Moore-Montgomery County line. Courtesy of the North Carolina Folk Life Institute.

3.2. Jason and Rhocida Cole, with two daughters, standing outside their home. Cole’s pottery shops were located a few hundred yards away. Courtesy of the North Carolina Folk Life Institute.

converted to burn oil. Early examples of Cole’s art pottery production show that he experimented with the inclusion of cobalt oxide in a traditional lead glaze. Cole salt-glazed some of his first pottery, with some of it bearing cobalt blue decoration. Albany Slip (named for its Albany, New York, source), first introduced in the nineteenth century to area potters by the Craven family, coated some of the earliest wares. Used alone, Albany Slip creates a smooth, chocolate brown surface coating.

When burned with salt-glazing, the slip produces what is called Frogskin glaze. Cole’s transition from utilitarian to decorative pottery may have begun around 1928 when Nell Cole Graves says that “flower pots” were first fashioned. Within a decade from his pottery’s startup, at least fifteen glaze colors or combinations were being applied to J. B. Cole’s pottery.

Colors listed in an early catalog (ca. 1932-35) include Gun Metal, Yellow, Blue Green, Rose, Dark Green, Turquoise, Light Blue, Dark Blue, Blue and White, Speckle Brown, Brown, Black and Green, Rose and Green, Peacock Blue, and Ivory. A subsequent catalog issued around 1940 displayed 526 artware shapes available in fourteen glazes including Alice Blue, Periwinkle Blue, Blue-green, Enamel Green, Rust, Antique, and Orange.

The glaze color Orange most likely refers to what collectors today call “chrome red.” Several potteries applied Chrome Red glaze to their wares, but J. B. Cole’s examples are exceptional in their color and quality and are highly prized by collectors.

J. B. Cole’s Pottery was unquestionably a family affair. In addition to Jason Cole, the primary turners were his son, Waymon Cole, his daughters, Nell Cole Graves and Vellie Cole King, and their husbands, Philmore Graves and Bascome King. A man small in stature but as strong as any at the wheel, Waymon Cole regularly turned jars and floor vases containing as much as sixty pounds of clay. Herman Cole, another son of Jason and

3.3. Jason Cole’s semi-subterranean groundhog kiln. Its primitive appearance veils its capacity to produce beautifully refined and decorated art pottery. Courtesy of North Carolina Folk Life Institute.

3.4. Loading and unloading a low-slung groundhog kiln is backbreaking work, and firing the kiln, as Jason Cole is doing here, is blistering hot work. Note the piles of “wasters” stacked around the kiln’s entrance, including large jars, wall pocket vases, and chambersticks. Not every piece fired is a success, making surviving wares all the more important to the success of a farmer-potter like Cole. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, N. C. 3.5. Standing at his traditional treadle wheel, Jason Cole turns one of thousands of pieces of pottery produced by him in the early years of his shop’s operation. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, N. C.

3.6. A growing business demands a growing workforce. Here, a worker assists Jason Cole in the task of glazing wares. The man aiding Cole may be Ernest Williamson, who also worked with the Busbees at their Jugtown Pottery. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, N. C.

J. B. Cole’s Pottery 37

3.7. Once turned and air-dried, Jason Cole dipped his wares in a wash tub laden with liquid glaze. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, N. C. 3.8. Jason Cole surveys his many products. He may be thinking, “What a fine lot of pottery!” or, “What a lot of work to do!” Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, N. C.

3.9. A catalog of J. B. Cole’s Pottery wares is an important document showing the many shapes and glazes provided by the operation’s four main potters—Waymon Cole, Nell Cole Graves, Philmore Graves, and Bascome King. An extant example of this catalog includes penciled annotations indicating which shapes were made by each of these potters. The catalog was most likely produced around 1940. Collection of the author.

3.10. This large, bright yellow floor vase, made by Waymon Cole, is like the example exhibited on the cover of the 1940s J. B. Cole’s Pottery catalog seen in figure 3.9.

It was purchased near Reading, Pennsylvania, where much Cole pottery was sold in the 1930s-1940s period. H-20 ¾”.

3.11. Page view from the 1940s J. B. Cole’s Pottery catalog. Note the hand written annotation beside each entry. The letter “W” suggests that these shapes were made by Waymon Cole. Collection of the author.

38 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

Rhocida Cagle Cole, operated his own shop in Smithfield in Johnston County and worked some for J. B. Cole’s Pottery. Virginia King Shelton, a daughter of Bascome and Vellie Cole King, made hand-shaped animal figurines and worked as a production turner for more than three decades.

She was joined for a time at the pottery by her daughter, Margaret Shelton Mabe, and her son, Mitchell Shelton. Jack Kiser, a journeyman potter trained in Montgomery County by Walter Lineberry, worked for Cole, as did Harwood Graves, brother of Philmore Graves. Harwood Graves was a mechanical jack-of-all-trades and may have been more involved in the operation of the pottery, than as a potter. On his own, he made press-molded wares with surfaces resembling tree bark. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, Sid Luck and Archie Teague worked as turners for J. B. Cole Pottery. In the 1970s, Judy Garner made more than 20,000 animal figurines for sale by the pottery.

Initially, much of the clay used by J. B. Cole’s Pottery came from the so-called Auman Clay Pond in Randolph County near Seagrove. Jase Cole’s brother Franklin first discovered the pond following a dream. This blue-gray clay produced excellent, light-colored stoneware. Known also as Michfield clay, the clay beds were subsequently sold by Franklin Cole to

3.12. An aged Jason Cole admires his handiwork. A finished example shaped like one he holds, and marked with his “J B Cole” stamped signature on its base, is seen in figure 3.13. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, The University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N. C. 3.13. Two-handled jar. Earthenware. Turquoise glaze. Jason B. Cole. Stamp-marked on its base, “J B Cole.” H-15 ¾”.

3.14. Turning a pot is only part of the process of pottery production. Here, Waymon Cole adds handles to partially dried jars. Many examples of his work are seen on the wall to his right. Most appear to hold papers which may be orders for certain shapes, or notes regarding glazing or other production requirements. The wooden structure to his left is a wedging bench where clay was thrust over and over through a tightened wire, and slammed against the table top, in order to remove air from it before turning it on the potter’s wheel. The burlap cloth may cover prepared clay, to slow its drying. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, N. C.

the Auman family of potters, who later sold them to Pomona Terra Cotta Manufacturing Company. Following this sale, Cole’s Pottery switched to a red-burning clay found in Johnston County. This source was also used by Arthur Ray Cole at his Lee County (Sanford) pottery. This was a fortuitous change for the pottery. The refinement of this clay using filter presses produced a clay body that turned very thinly and held whatever shape was applied to it by the potter’s hands. The amazing characteristics of this clay allowed Waymon Cole to create his highly sought after Aladdin teapot shape, and his sister Nell to turn her delicate vases, cups, and candlesticks.

J. B. Cole’s Pottery 39

3.15. In addition to his son-in-law Bascome King, Jason Cole employed Philmore Graves, who married his daughter, Nell Cole. Philmore Graves is seen here flanked by a huge pot most likely not made by him, but by journeyman potter Jack Kiser.

Courtesy of The State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C. 3.16. Potter Bascome King married Vellie Cole, the daughter of Jason and Rhocida Cole, and became one of his father-in-law’s primary turners. Here he is at the shop’s treadle wheel making strawberry jars. Courtesy of the Randolph Room, Historical Photograph Collection, Randolph County Public Library.

3.17. Bill Cole looks on as his father, Waymon Cole, makes wares in Jason Cole’s shop. Two of Jason and Rhocida Cole’s children, Waymon and Nell, learned the trade well. Both were masters of the art and mystery of pottery making. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, The University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N. C. Bayard Wootten photo.

3.18. A close-up of Waymon Cole’s hands shows how holes were pierced into semi-dry clay to create so-called “pansy pots” for displaying cut flowers. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, The University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N. C. Bayard Wootten photo.

3.19. A finished “pansy pot” from the hands of master potter Waymon Cole. H-5 ¾”.

40 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

3.20. Jason Cole’s son, Herman Cole, “pugs” clay for his father’s shop. Around the year 1927, Herman Cole opened his own successful shop, Smithfield Art Pottery (first called Hillside Pottery), in Johnston County, North Carolina. Courtesy of the North Carolina Folk Life Institute.

3.21. Vase with abstract, finger-painted decoration. This is an excellent example of transitional ware made by Jason B. Cole, and decorated by his son, Herman C. Cole. The earthenware clay, clear lead glaze, and manganese oxide “paint” used to make this vase, are well-known materials to old-line Seagrove region utilitarian potters. 1920s. H-8 1/8” .

3.22. Following in the pottering footsteps of his mother, Virginia King Shelton, and grandfather, Bascome King, Mitchell Shelton is seen here glazing wares for the J. B. Cole Pottery shop. Courtesy of the Randolph Room, Historical Photograph Collection, Randolph County Public Library.

3.23. J. B. Cole’s Pottery was a successful enterprise requiring adaptation in production methods to meet customer demands. The addition of filter presses, like these, for processing clay, ensured that high quality products could be supplied in a timely manner. Courtesy of the North Carolina Folk Life Institute.

J. B. Cole’s Pottery 41

J. B. Cole’s Pottery was one of the first in the region to successfully use fritted glazes. These glazes were made on-site by the Coles in their own fritting furnaces. This move added an array of glossy, brightly colored glazes to the pottery’s line of wares including colors called Burnt Sugar, Dove, and Redeye Gravy. A mottled green color dubbed “Malachite Glaze” by collectors, due to its resemblance to the mineral by the same name, is an outstanding achievement and is recognized as one of the pottery’s most successful glaze colors.

Many shapes included in the J. B. Cole inventory were suggested by visitors who frequented the pottery, especially travelers who found their way to the remote shop location from Southern Pines and Pinehurst. Although much pottery was sold from the rustic shop’s salesroom, even more was produced under contract and sold wholesale to florists, department stores, and tourist shops. From 1929–1935, a venture called The Treasure Chest, and then Three Mountaineers, based in Asheville, North Carolina, sold a line of J. B. Cole’s Pottery wares called Sunset Mountain Pottery. Advertised as mountain-made, all of it was made in the Piedmont hills of rural Moore County, merely taking its marketing name from a mountain located near Asheville’s famous Grove Park Inn resort. Other mountain venues, in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia hawked J. B. Cole’s pottery. Much of it surfaces today in sales and shops located in those regions.

42 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

3.24. Thinly-turned wares made by Nell Cole, like this nearly-completed vase, are prized by collectors today. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, The University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N. C.. Bayard Wootten photo.

3.25. With a wooden “chip,” or “rib,” in hand, Nell Cole smoothes the surface of a finely crafted vase to remove lines and ridges left in the wet clay by her hands. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, The University of North Carolina Library. Bayard Wootten photo.

3.26. Nell Cole’s experienced hands add delicate handles to teacups—by the dozens! Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, The University of North Carolina Library. Bayard Wootten photo.

Rarely, a piece of J. B. Cole pottery is found with the mark, “TREAURE CHEST POTTERY.” Other marks found on J. B. Cole pottery include the seldom-seen, “J. B. COLE Pottery/STEEDS, N.C.;” “ARTISAN WARE;” “DAISON WARE/American Hand Made;” “FRYEMONT INN;” and “VANCLEVE POTTERY/HACKETTSTOWN, N.J.” Sometime in the early 1970s, a printer supplied a sample roll of about one-hundred labels with red lettering on a gold background to Nell Cole Graves. These labels were randomly applied to pottery by Waymon Cole’s wife. The potters rarely added their signatures to the pottery. If found, they are likely marked “W.C.,” for Waymon Cole; “N.C.G.,” for Nell Cole Graves; “V.S.,” for Virginia Shelton; and “M.S.,” for Mitchell Shelton.

3.27. A handmade sign for handmade pottery. Similar signs have always been important for leading visitors to the remote and rural locations occupied by Jason Cole and other Seagrove region potters. Courtesy of the North Carolina Folk Life Institute.

3.28. Bill Cole, son of Waymon, and grandson of Jason Cole, poses in a pot in front of one of the J. B. Cole’s Pottery plank buildings. Courtesy of the North Carolina Folk Life Institute.

3.29. Although called Sunset Mountain Pottery, and said to have been made in the “Hill Country” of Carolina, the pottery advertised here was produced under contract by J. B. Cole’s Pottery. The Sunset Mountain line of wares was first introduced, and sold in Asheville, N. C., in 1929.

3.30. J. B. Cole’s Sunset Mountain Pottery line was named for the mountain location of Asheville’s famous Grove Park Inn resort. Collection of the author.

J. B. Cole’s Pottery 43

3.31. The mystique and beauty of Sunset Mountain, as conveyed by this early postcard view, was effectively used to entice tourists to visit Asheville. What visitor wouldn’t be tempted to take home a handmade piece of pottery, like the ones in figure 3.32, marked Sunset Mountain Pottery, and believed to have been made nearby? Collection of the author.

3.32. Three examples of J. B. Cole’s successful line of wares marked Sunset Mountain Pottery. All three examples attributed to Bascome King. 1929-early 1930s. L-R: H-8 ¼”; 9 ¼”; 9 ½”.

3.33. Sunset Mountain Pottery is one of many examples of contract work completed by J. B. Cole’s Pottery for east coast merchants. In the case of Sunset Mountain Pottery, the buyers were three Asheville businessmen, Hugh and Edwin Brown, and W. H. Lashley, who called themselves, the Three Mountaineers. Collection of the author.

3.34. It is not uncommon to find photographs and postcard views of western North Carolina mountain scenes, like this Spruce Pine cabin, exhibiting pottery made some 200 miles away by J. B. Cole’s Pottery. Collection of the author.

44 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

3.35. This 1950s promotional brochure for Gatlinburg, Tennessee’s Bearskin Craft Shop, does not disguise the fact that its offerings include J. B. Cole pottery. Its list of Cole pottery for sale includes a two-handled vase for $1.75; a candleholder for $1.50; and a strawberry jar for $1.25. Collection of the author.

3.36. Candle jug. Earthenware. Chrome red glaze. Bearskin Pottery stamped mark on base. The Bearskin Craft Shop opened in 1932 and closed a few years later. It was reopened in 1952. This example may have been made in the 1930s period, and was not offered for sale in the 1950s brochure seen in figure 3.35. H-9 3/8”. Collection of William W. Ivey.

3.37. The Cherokee Lodge, one of many former Smoky Mountain craft outlets in the town of Cherokee, was a great source for Piedmont North Carolina-made art pottery. A close look at this postcard view

shows that in addition to many examples of Cole pottery spread across its lawn, there are more pieces lining the windowsills of the shop’s dining room. Collection of the author.

3.38. In decades past, Cherokee, North Carolina’s Cherokee Inn sold river cane baskets, locally-made hooked rugs, and J. B. Cole’s pottery. Collection of the author.

3.39. From birth to death, Waymon Cole’s work and artistry was essential to the success of J. B. Cole’s Pottery. Courtesy of the Randolph Room, Historical Photograph Collection, Randolph County Public Library.

J. B. Cole’s Pottery 45

3.40. Tall jar. Transitional form. Earthenware. Cobalt blue infused lead glaze. The jar is signed in script on its side, J. B. Cole/ Steeds/N. C. This example of J. B. Cole’s handiwork demonstrates how he began moving from his learned, traditional utilitarian pottery forms to more decorative art pottery forms and colors. Except for the overall addition of cobalt blue color to the glaze, and the Art Deco-like undulations turned around the jar’s top section, this piece would function very well as a churn for making butter.

Very important example. H-19”.

3.41. Vase. Salt-glazed stoneware. Dark cobalt blue marbling. The abstract, marbled decoration found on this jar is like that applied to stoneware by Charles B. Masten at Auman Pottery in the mid to late 1920s. The form and squared rim edge suggests that it was made at J. B. Cole’s Pottery. A two-page Cole Pottery illustrated sales catalog, probably dating from the 1930s, shows a 9 ½ inch shape (Cat. # 181) like this jar. This may represent an effort by Jason Cole to mimic Masten’s decorating technique. H-11”.

3.42. Two-handled floor vase. Earthenware. Mottled blue glaze. Ink stamped on base: SHAMBURGER’S/HAND MADE/R. F. D. 4/ Richmond, Va. Circa 1930s. H-20 ½”.

3.43. Floor vase with rat-tail handles. Earthenware. Turquoise glaze. Waymon Cole. H-15”.

3.44. Rebecca pitcher. Earthenware. Chrome red glaze. Waymon Cole. H-15 ¾”.

3.45. Rope-handled floor vase. Earthenware. Chrome red glaze. Waymon Cole. H-23 ½”.

46 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

3.46. Split-handled refrigerator jug. Earthenware. Chrome red glaze. Bascome King. H-9”.

3.47. Trumpet vase. Earthenware. Chrome red glaze. Philmore Graves. Marion, Virginia stamped mark on base. H-4 ½”. Collection of William W. Ivey.

3.48. Lidded jar. Earthenware. Chrome red glaze. Waymon Cole. H-6 ½”.

3.49. Large basket. Earthenware. Chrome red glaze. Waymon Cole. H-18”.

3.50. Three-handled jar. Earthenware. Chrome red glaze. Waymon Cole. H-10”.

3.51. Fluted vase. Earthenware. Purple glaze. Philmore Graves. Tags include catalog number and glaze instructions. H-8 ½”.

J. B. Cole’s Pottery 47

3.52. Two-handled vase. Earthenware. Rose/pink glaze. Philmore Graves. Marked on base, THE BLOSSOM SHOP. 3.53. J. B. Cole’s Pottery made wares for sale at Seneca Falls, New York’s Windmill Tourist Camp. This postcard view shows the site’s namesake windmill, which inspired the stamped mark found on the base of the vase seen in figure 3.54. Courtesy of Seneca County, N. Y. historian, Walter Gable.

3.54. Two-handled vase. Earthenware. Mottled turquoise glaze. Philmore Graves. Marked on its base, “WINDMILL POTTERY/Seneca Falls, N. Y.” H-11”.

3.55. Three-handled vases. Earthenware. Turquoise and Ivory glazes. Asian translation. Waymon Cole. Both vases, H-7”.

3.56. Two-handled vase. Earthenware. Turquoise glaze. Philmore Graves. H-9”.

48 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

3.57. Rebecca pitcher. Two candlesticks. Earthenware. Turquoise glaze. Pitcher, Waymon Cole; candlesticks, Nell Cole. Rebecca pitcher, H-11 ¾”; candlesticks, H-5”.

3.58. Handled bowl. Earthenware. Turquoise glaze. Waymon Cole. H- 4”.

3.59. Fan vase. Blue glaze. Goose Creek Pottery mark on base. Nell Cole Graves. H-4”. Collection of A. Everette James.

3.60. Two vases. Earthenware. Turquoise glaze. Left, Nell Cole Graves. Marked Goose Creek Pottery. Right, Philmore Graves. Marked Treasure Chest Pottery. Collection of Sid and Ann Baynes. L-R: H-3 ¾”; 4”.

3.61. Tall vase. Earthenware. Black glaze. Philmore Graves. Marked Vancleve Pottery, Hackettstown, N. J. on base. H-16 ¼”.

J. B. Cole’s Pottery 49

3.62. Interior view of Fryemont Inn, Bryson City, North Carolina. Note the Cole art pottery perched on the fireplace wall. Collection of the author.

3.63. Two-handled jar. Earthenware. Dark green glaze. Bears Fryemont Inn stamped mark on base. H-7 ½”. Collection of William W. Ivey.

3.64. Narrow-top jar. Earthenware. Mottled rose colored glaze. Philmore Graves. Daison Ware paper label on base. H-7 ½”. Collection of William W. Ivey.

3.65. Vase with twisted-rope handles. Earthenware. Mottled green glaze. Nell Cole Graves. Daison Ware paper label on base. H-8 ½”. Collection of Sid and Ann Baynes.

3.66. Two-handled vase with fluted rim. Earthenware. Mottled golden glaze. Philmore Graves. Daison Ware paper label on base. H-12”.

50 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

3.67. Pair of three-handled vases. Mottled volcanic glaze. Waymon Cole. H-9 ½”.

3.68. Pitcher and chamberstick. Stoneware. Fritted glaze. L-R: H-7 ½”; 2 ½”.

3.69. Deep dish. Stoneware. Fritted glaze. Contract order. D-7 ¼”.

3.70. Floor vase with rat tail handles. Stoneware. “Malachite” glaze. Waymon Cole. H-16”.

3.71. Tall strawberry jar. Stoneware. “Malachite” glaze. Waymon Cole. H-16”.

3.72. Floor vase with attached ring handles. Stoneware. “Malachite” glaze. Waymon Cole. H- 17 ¾”.

3.73. Two-handled floor vase. Stoneware. “Malachite” glaze. Waymon Cole. H-19”.

J. B. Cole’s Pottery 51

3.74. Aladdin Teapot. Stoneware. “Malachite” glaze. Waymon Cole. H-4 ¼”.

3.75. Pair of two-handled vases. Stoneware. “Malachite” glaze. Waymon Cole. H-13”.

3.76. Pie dish with fluted rim. Stoneware. “Malachite” glaze. Attributed to Nell Cole Graves. D-9 ¼”.

3.77. Base of stoneware jar with fritted glaze. Three touch points remaining after removal of a trivet used to prevent running glaze from sticking to the kiln shelf are commonly found on later (1970s-1990s) period J. B. Cole pottery.

3.78. Tall candlestick. Gun metal black glaze. Waymon Cole. H-13 ¾”.

52 The Historic Art Potteries of North Carolina’s Seagrove Region

3.79. Turtle and frog figurals. Stoneware. Makers unknown. Animal figures were made as early as 1940 by Waymon Cole and Nell Cole Graves. L-R: H-1 5/8”; 1 ¾”.

3.80. Three animal figurals. Stoneware. Judy Garner. L-R: Cow, H-4 ¼”; sleeping dog, L-3 ½; Snoopy on doghouse, 4 ¼”.

3.81. Three animal figurals. Stoneware. Donna Messer. L-R: H-3”; 4 ½”; 4”.

J. B. Cole’s Pottery 53

STEPHEN C. COMPTON is an avid

Before retiring in 2013, Neolia Cole, the eighty-six year old daughter of potter Arthur Ray Cole, was first to arrive and last to leave the Cole’s Pottery shop. She possesses the indomitable spirit that has kept a Cole in pottery-making for more than two centuries.

Once when asked how much pottery was produced by Cole’s Pottery in a year’s time, Neolia answered by saying instead how much income a year’s sales represented. Despite the fact that Cole’s Pottery charged very little for the wares made there, the annual sum collected in a year was considerable. Wielding a sly grin, Neolia unashamedly conceded, “And it’s just dirt!”

In a way, pottery is just dirt. But collectors and lovers of the art form know that much more than dirt contributed to the incomparable successes of North Carolina’s early twentieth-century art potteries. It’s a success story marked by adaptation, innovation, collaboration, and immensely hard work – a legacy that endures today.

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THE HISTORIC ART POTTERIES OF NORTH CAROLINA’S SEAGROVE REGION

STEPHEN C. COMPTON

USD $45.00 / GBP £30.00 ISBN 978-1-62545-054-8

THE HISTORIC ART POTTERIES OF NORTH CAROLINA’S SEAGROVE REGION

collector of mid-18th to mid-20th century North Carolina pottery. Steve has written numerous articles and books about it, including, North Carolina Pottery: Earthenware, Stoneware, and Fancyware (Collector Books, 2011), and Seagrove Potteries Through Time (Fonthill Media, 2013). Widely recognized for his expertise, he is frequently called upon to be a lecturer and exhibit curator.

He once served as president of the North Carolina Pottery Center, a museum and educational center located in Seagrove, NC, and is a founding organizer of the North Carolina Pottery Collectors’ Guild. Steve resides with his wife in Raleigh, NC.

STEPHEN C. COMPTON

Cover illustrations: Front cover: N. C. Collection, The University of North Carolina Library. Bayard Wootten photo.

Front flap: Top view of large kiln. North Carolina Folk Life Institute. Bottom view of A. R. Cole working at bench. N. C. Collection, The University of North Carolina Library. Diana Caplow photo. Back flap: Ben Owen Sr. looking at candlestick. The State Archives of North Carolina.

USD $45.00 / GBP £30.00