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oad tunnel" kiln and a mule-drawn "mud mill," the latter used to
grind the blue and yellow stoneware clay diat traveled in narrow veins
on the family property.
By springtime, everything was in readiness. Neither die pottery's
founder nor any of his six sons, who ranged in age from six through
nineteen, could turn ware, so John M. cast about for a journeyman to
turn piecework and to teach his boys the art. 6 Williams Dorsey, a
local potter then in his late twenties, was the first to fill this position,
turning ware at an agreed-upon fee of two cents per gallon capacity.
He was later replaced by another neighbor, Marion Davidson.
For the first few years, the John M. Meaders pottery provided only
an occasional diversion from the older agrarian routine. Mostly the
family patriarch hauled his produce, tended his little farm, and in
spare moments burned a kiln load of ware. By 1895, however, his
three oldest sons, Wiley, Caulder, and Cleater, were becoming proficient
enough at turning that the business was finding a life of its own.
Wiley Meaders, a powerful man of 230 pounds with a large frame and
unusually long arms, was especially adept at the work and served as a
model for his younger brothers who rapidly assimilated skills of their
own.
POTTER NEIGHBORS
It is important to realize that the Meaders pottery was situated in
one of the most active pottery districts in the South. As early as the
1840s, several "jug manufactories" were established in southern White
County, in a roughly five-square-mile block of land encompassing the
Leo and Mossy Creek voting districts. Later, as many as sixty potters
worked in the area —all presumably drawn to the region's ample
deposits of high-firing stoneware clay. Names of prominent families in
the trade during the latter half of the nineteenth century include,
among others, Brownlow, Chandler, Craven, Davidson, Dorsey,
Pitchford, Sears, and Warwick. 7
Some of the White County shops were simple one- and two-man
affairs with modest outputs of farm canning and dairy ware; others
were more like small factories, mass-producing whiskey jugs and
hiring professional itinerants for turners. Despite differences in scale,
nearly all of the shops turned out the same sturdy, functional ware.
The artisans worked in relative anonymity and gained such skills as
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