An Old Time Pottery.

"Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change To something new, to something strange; Nothing that is can pause or stay; The moon will wax, the moon will wane, The mist and cloud will turn to rain, The rain to mist and cloud again, To-morrow be to-day."-Longfellow. The poet makes the potter sing truly, when he says, "All things must change, To something new, to something strange, Nothing that is can pause or stay." There is no industry in which that truth is more manifest than in the manufacture of pottery itself. True, a great deal of the product is yet shaped by hand, but the large concerns at Crooksville, employing scores of men, the work being done by machinery that turns out thousands where dozen were originally produced, is in sharp contrast to the "old timers," where the clay was ground by the family horse, and the wheel was turned by the foot.The kilns were but overgrown bake-ovens. Verily the world "do move." The utilization of potter's clay has for over sixty years been an important industry in the county. As early as 1838, Caleb Atwater, Ohio's first historian, in speaking of Perry county said, "A white clay is 118

found in abundance, suitable for pots and crucibles. It stands the heat very well, growing whiter when it is exposed to the greatest heat. It will one day be used extensively in the manufacture of Liverpool earthen- ware. It contains no iron and is almost infusible be- fore the blow-pipe." The neighborhood of Saltillo has furnished earth- enware for a long time. Along Buckeye Creek and the South Fork of Jonathan, the potteries were fre- quent. About the time of the Civil War, a pottery was conducted in Mondaycreek. It produced a good qual- ity of ware. Caleb Atwater's prophecy has proved to be true. The clays of Perry county are the best in the world. The manufacture of brick, stoneware or Portland cement can here be made a source of great profit. The abundance of clay, the presence of the coal fields, and the railroad facilities are making Perry county famous in the clay business. Perry county clay-ware is shipped in car lots to the states of the west and the south-west and the business bids fair to increase as the years go by. 119

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