Jabez Vodrey (1795–1861) is generally thought to be the first English potter to emigrate to and work west of the

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in the United States.

Early years

Vodrey was born on 14 January 1795 in Tunstall, Staffordshire, a centuries-old centre of the English

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...

industry. He is thought to be a cousin of Frederick Vodrey, who emigrated from Staffordshire to

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, Ireland in the late 19th century and founded an art pottery.

Emigration and first American potteries

In 1827, Vodrey and his wife, Sarah Nixon Vodrey, emigrated to

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, United States, with another Staffordshire potter, William Frost. Vodrey and Frost operated a pottery in Pittsburgh for about two years. In 1829, Vodrey moved alone to

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, where he continued to work as a potter for the next decade. In 1839, he moved to Troy, Indiana on the

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, where he took over the operation of the abandoned pottery of James Clews. It was not a success, as skilled labour was almost impossible to procure.

Years in East Liverpool, Ohio

In March 1847, Vodrey came to East Liverpool, Ohio, where he found work in the area's booming pottery industry. He began with the manufacture of clay smoking pipes, and by 1848 had formed a partnership with William Woodward, a wealthy farmer. Together, the two men produced simple yellow ware and Rockingham Pottery. Within months, their small pottery was destroyed by fire, but the men began to rebuild the pottery with the financial backing of brothers James and John Simpson Blakely. The new pottery of Woodward, Blakely and Company called its ware Phoenix, in honor of their success in rising from the ashes of the pottery Woodward and Vodrey had founded together. By 1852, the company employed more than six dozen workers in five buildings. A series of serious setbacks, including an

flood and a strike, decimated the business and by the end of 1857, it was essentially defunct. Meanwhile, Vodrey's sons William, James and John were busy converting an abandoned East Liverpool church into a pottery. By the spring of 1858, the Vodrey and Brother Pottery Company was operating at full capacity, producing Rockingham and yellow ware. The pottery operated under various names until its eventual permanent closure in 1928.

Later life

Jabez Vodrey died in 1861. His son John Wadsworth Vodrey was killed in the Battle of New Hope Church,

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while fighting for the Union Army's 46th Pennsylvania Infantry on 25 May 1864. Despite these setbacks, the family pottery prospered for an additional six decades. In 1876, the pottery began production of white ironstone. In 1896, it changed its name to the Vodrey Pottery Company and semi-

porcelain Porcelain (), also called china, is a ceramic material made by heating Industrial mineral, raw materials, generally including kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The greater strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to oth ...

became part of its range. Until it closed in 1928, Vodrey Pottery produced domestic and commercial dinnerware and chamber ware. Thus ended a hundred and one years of Vodrey pottery production in the United States, of which most were in what became the nation's pottery capital: East Liverpool, Ohio. Vodrey and his wife, Sarah Nixon Vodrey, are buried at East Liverpool's Riverview Cemetery. Descendants of the Vodrey family remain in the area.

References

External links

Vodrey Pottery Works price list, East Liverpool, Ohio 1864 - 1865Museum Of CeramicsRiverview Cemetery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vodrey, Jabez 1795 births 1861 deaths American potters People from Tunstall, Staffordshire People from East Liverpool, Ohio English emigrants to the United States