The Jones Pottery Factory: Part Two, 1850-1869
By Sam Pickard
This is part two of a two part series on the Jones pottery. If you have not read part one of this two-part series, you can find it here.
When interviewed by census enumerators in the summer of 1850, Marple Township’s Benjamin Jones was by many measures a success in life. The Chester County native had followed members of his mother’s extended family into the potter’s trade, which the family had practiced for generations. Now, at age 35, he had his own successful earthenware factory with two employees. Unlike his brother-in-law and fellow potter, Isaac Esbin, Jones owned not only his pottery and house, but the two sat on a more than seven-acre farm which provided his family both food and extra income. Jones also had a thriving family, including his wife Sarah Esbin Jones and five children, ranging in age from 12-year-old Jesse Esbin Jones to one-year-old Edwin Jones.[1] While the Jones’ nine-year-old son Chalkley would die in October 1850, the family was still growing—through the 1850s, Sarah would give birth to at least four more children.[2]
The Pottery During the 1850s
Little is known about Jones and his pottery during the 1850s, but how he—and the local artisan pottery industry in general—fared through the decade can be deduced through wider trends in American industrialization and records from 1860. American manufacturing became more centralized, mechanized, and industrialized through the first half of the 19th century. As historian Daniel Walker Howe noted, this “played havoc with the artisan systems of production, though its effects varied according to their trade and rank.”[3] While some masters and journeymen were able to transition into the new system, the traditional apprenticeship did not easily translate into this industrialized society, with pottery apprenticeships effectively dying out by the 1870s.[4]
The rise of railroads between the 1830s and 1860s opened up new markets and materials. Industries could now transport materials and products quickly over longer distances and consumers now had access to a greater variety of mass-produced goods. Cities located along railroad lines, such as Trenton, New Jersey, became centers of pottery production.[5] Benjamin Jones’ pottery in Marple was not located on a navigable stream or a railroad, with the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad passing three miles to the northeast and the Philadelphia & West Chester Railroad five miles to the south. A railroad town Marple Township was not.[6]
The same records that allowed us to learn about Jones and his competitors in 1850 paint a somewhat bleaker picture in 1860. By that year, the James family’s Radnor pottery had ceased operations, with Eber James’ son Levi G. James finding storekeeping more to his liking.[7] While the old James family pottery in Westtown and the Carter family pottery in Chester Township appear to have been in operation, they were not enumerated by the census, possibly indicating that value of their annual pottery output was less than $500.[8]
The 1860 census did enumerate the Jones pottery in Marple, reporting that in the past year, it had produced approximately $1,710 worth of “earthenware of various kinds,”—$470 more than he had reported in 1850. Unfortunately, the census presents conflicting information. According to the 1860 report, Jones used only 18 lbs. of lead in the preceding year, yet paid $160 for it. In contrast, he reported paying $96 for 1600 lbs. of lead.[9] Comparing Jones’ pottery to Chester County potteries in 1850 and 1860, it seems probable that the enumerator meant to write 1800 lbs.[10]
| Jones Pottery in Marple | 1850 Census | 1860 Census |
| Capital Invested | $500 | $500 |
| Clay Used | $70 worth (35 tons) | $180 worth (80 tons) |
| Wood Used | 35 cords | 45 cords |
| Lead | 1,600 lbs. | 18 lbs. [probably an error] |
| Other Articles | $5 worth | [no information given] |
| Number of Employees | 2 | 2 |
| Average wages | $40 | $52 |
| Total Production Value | $1,240 | $1,710 |
Jones also reported employing two men in his pottery factory, like he did in 1850. One of Jones’ employees was his now 21-year-old son Jesse.[11] The identity of the second employee is not known, though it is possible that it was none other than Benjamin Jones’ brother-in-law and former colleague, Isaac H. Esbin. The 1860 census indicates that Esbin and his family were renting a 40-acre farm near West Chester Pike in Marple Township. Having given up operation of the James family’s Westtown pottery in 1854, Esbin was enumerated as a farmer and according to Boyd’s Pennsylvania State Business Directory, he rented a stall to sell produce in the Union Market at Second and Callowhill Streets in Philadelphia.[12] Despite this, it seems likely that Esbin may have assisted Jones from at least time to time.
The Civil War and the Pottery’s Final Years
It is likely that there was little change at the pottery with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, though soon members of the Jones family would be swept into the war. Isaac Esbin enlisted in the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry in July 1861. Esbin would desert from the unit for a few weeks in May 1862, though the 42-year-old was subsequently discharged for a disability.[13] Jesse Jones also served the Union in the Civil War, albeit briefly, answering a call from for militia units to defend the state from Lee’s invasion (culminating in the Battle of Gettysburg) and serving 48 days from July 1 to August 17, 1863.[14]
Benjamin and Jesse Jones were assessed in September 1862 for a tax levied by the Internal Revenue Act of 1862 to help fund the ongoing war. At the time, the earthenware in Jones’ possession was assessed at a value of $150.[15] Jones is not listed in subsequent tax assessments, though he reappears in property records in November 1865, when it was recorded that he had paid off his $1500 mortgage debt to John Hunter.[16]
After the end of the war in April 1865, if not before, Jesse Jones seems to have ended his career as a potter. In August 1865 he purchased a house at 4007 Locust Street in Philadelphia and the next month married Hannah H. Burdsall of Radnor Township.[17] The couple settled in West Philadelphia and Jesse began working as a milk dealer.[18] Jesse Jones purchased more properties on Locust Street in 1867 and soon his younger brother Benjamin was also living in the city, selling milk.[19]
Little is known about the pottery through the remainder of the 1860s, though local historian Clarissa Smith noted that both Benjamin Jones and Isaac Esbin were listed as potters on an 1869 [voters?] registry.[20] This may be the last documentation of the pottery before its operation came to a dramatic conclusion. On the morning of August 26, 1869 Jones’ pottery factory was destroyed by fire. The Delaware County American reported that the losses from the fire were estimated to be in the range of $1,500 to $2,000, though Jones only had $900 worth of fire insurance coverage.[21] It appears that the pottery in Marple Township had not been “permitted to fall into disuse,” as Henry Graham Ashmead would write in 1884,[22] but had in fact met an abrupt and fiery end. It does seem possible that the pottery may have fallen into disuse before the fire, but the newspaper descriptions, the apparent up-to-date fire insurance, and the 1869 registry noting that Jones and Esbin were potters makes this scenario seem less likely.
After the Fire
When Benjamin Jones was enumerated for the census in June 1870, he was living with Sarah and their three youngest children and his occupation was given as a farmer.[23] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been unable to access the agricultural or industrial schedules of the 1870 census for Marple Township, but it seems likely that they would show that Jones was operating his small farm and that the pottery was no longer in operation. [n.b. This section will be updated when the information becomes available.]
The four older Jones children—Jesse, Anna, Benjamin, and Sarah—were all living in West Philadelphia with their families at the time of the 1870 census, as was Isaac Esbin, who had joined his nephews in the milk business.[24] At some point in the next few years, Benjamin and Sarah moved to Philadelphia, possibly living with their son Jesse. In early 1874, Jesse Jones purchased more property in West Philadelphia, including a house on Baring Street and a property on Powelton Avenue with a number of partners, including L. Morris Lewis of Marple.[25]
On March 31, 1874, Jesse Jones filed a petition with the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas alleging that his father, Benjamin Jones was a “lunatic,” in the legal parlance of the era. The surviving records do not elaborate on what symptoms Jones was suffering from and (if I understand correctly) the May 18, 1874 finding by the court that Benjamin Jones was non compos mentis could imply that he had dementia, a mental illness, or other mental health issues.[26] Due to the high levels of lead used by potters, neurological problems were (and continue to be) a significant hazard of the trade.[27]
Regardless of what precisely the issue was, Jesse subsequently petitioned the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas for permission to sell his father’s Marple Township farm to George S. Moore for $4,200—an alleged $200 above market value. The court agreed to the petition, and the farm was formally sold on June 22, 1874.[28]
On January 8, 1875, Benjamin Jones died in West Philadelphia. I have not been able to locate a death certificate for him, so we do not know what caused his death at the age of 61. After his passing, Benjamin was taken to Newtown Square where he was buried in the burial ground adjoining the Newtown Friends’ Meeting House.[29]
The Jones Pottery in Memory
While Benjamin Jones’ pottery factory burned in August 1869, its memory did not entirely fade from the township’s collective consciousness. Excepting a brief interruption, the seven-acre Jones property was farmed and owned by George S. Moore’s family until 1911, when Moore died a childless widower. He left the land to his good friend J. Wesley Hatton, for the kindness the latter had shown Moore’s mother during her life (Incidentally, both of these men were present when Charles Marsh was shot in July 1887.).[30]
During Moore’s ownership, the first historical accounts of Marple Township in the 19th century were written, and as mentioned in part one of this post, the Jones pottery was a footnote in several of these histories. Ashmead’s account, which stated that “In 1841, Benjamin Jones erected a pottery at the ninth mile-stone on the West Chester road, near the Buck Tavern,” was perhaps the most complete and accurate of these, though as noted above, he appears to have been unaware how the pottery met its end.[31] Subsequent historians, such as Samuel T. Wiley in 1894 and S. F. Hotchkin in 1897 seem to have simply paraphrased Ashmead’s statements about the pottery, though neither gave a reason for its closure.[32] Finally, in 1914, just three years after Hatton acquired the farm, A History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania and Its People edited by John W. Jordan rehashed the Ashmead account, but seemed to imply the short-lived nature of the pottery by stating that it had been established in 1841 “but the entire enterprise proved a failure and was discontinued.”[33]
Hatton sold the property to James J. Logue Sr. in 1925.[34] Logue was the man who owned and seemingly resided on the land when a program sponsored by the Great Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA) took account of historic sites in Marple Township. The survey’s description of the pottery, likely compiled through interviews of local residents, inexplicably dates its establishment to 1870. The short description concludes by noting “In 1895 the pottery was rebuilt as a dwelling, and is now occupied by James Logue.”[35] It seems unlikely that the pottery factory (or its remains) were converted into Logue’s house and it is not known whether the date given is simply a guess or refers to some modifications in the late 19th century.
The same survey noted that the nearby Buck Tavern, used as a dairy for a number of years, had burned in 1930 and only its four stone walls remained standing.[36] The ruins of the tavern were soon demolished for the Edgewood Park development, which was built on both sides of West Chester Pike west of the old pottery property between 1939 and 1941.[37] After World War II, when Logue sold the small seven-acre farm for development, the old stone house which was once home to the Jones family became a curiosity of a bygone age.[38] Aerial photographs show Franklin Getz Drive and many of the houses around it were constructed in the late 1940s, and the house itself was demolished in the mid-1950s and replaced with the building housing the Marple Memorial Post 805 of the American Legion.[39]
In the ensuing decades, the story and location of the pottery were increasingly forgotten, with Elizabeth C. Lodge writing in her 1969 booklet that there was a “very busy pottery at the ninth-mile stone on West Chester Pike near Darby Creek.”[40] This description leaves confusion about the pottery’s location, as Darby Creek is nearly a mile east of the ninth milestone. With the pottery and Buck Tavern both fading into history and their precise locations uncertain, photographs of Benjamin Jones’ house began to be mistakenly identified as the similar-looking, but larger Buck Tavern (see photo). So common is this mistake that the two buildings are conflated in even recent histories.[41]
If Benjamin Jones’ house is mistaken for the neighboring Buck Tavern, what of the pottery? When I first reached out to the late Rich Paul in July 2020 for information about the pottery, he sent me some information and photos that were allegedly ruins of the pottery. He recounted exploring it in his youth, but had not known it was anything other than a house at that time.[42] Later, when we met in person, we determined that the ruins could not be the pottery, as they were on the wrong side of (the old alignment of) West Chester Pike. A perusal of the photos, taken in the 1970s or 1980s, appears to indicate that they show an old farmhouse approximately in the same location as the present Royal Farms store.
Benjamin Jones’ pottery in Marple Township lasted not quite three decades. We have no photographs of the pottery itself, nor are any examples of his work—his actual pottery—known. The pottery was never a major source of employment and did not spur further industrialization. Finally, the Jones family were transplants to Marple. After the seven-acre farm was sold in 1874, none of the Jones children settled in Marple—Benjamin and Sarah were not even buried in the township. It could easily be said that the pottery is merely a footnote in Marple’s history.
In spite of all of this, the pottery is important for what it can tell us. Jones was able produce pottery, seemingly at a profit, for nearly three decades. Despite its disadvantages in transportation and lack of a pottery tradition, Marple was a location where Jones could thrive. Marple may correctly be thought of as a primarily agricultural community in the 19th century, but until at least the Civil War, it could also be said that it was hospitable to cottage industry.
Finally, the pottery serves as a case study for how fickle history and a community’s collective memory can be. With no pottery ruins or actual pottery vessels, Benjamin Jones and his factory were all but forgotten, with his now-lost house mistakenly assigned the identity of a neighboring tavern. While not all old buildings can or should be preserved, with each house or barn leveled, a link to our collective past is lost and the memories attached to that link begin to fade away.
My unanswered questions about the Jones pottery in June 2020 started me on a research journey that culminated not only in this two-part post, but also the Marple History Blog. I’d like to extend my thanks to the staff of the Delaware County Historical Society, Chester County History Center, Philadelphia City Archives, Radnor Historical Society, and Media Historic Archives Commission for their assistance with research and images. A special thanks go out to Greg Prichard for help locating photos and materials relating to the Radnor Pottery; the late Rich Paul for answering my initial queries, providing photographs, and letting me pick his brain; and to my loving wife Annie who has not only proofread all posts on this site, but listened to me think aloud about Ben Jones.
[1] 1850 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township, sheet 202A, lines 12-20.
[2] Chalkley M. Jones, death notice, Village Record (West Chester, Pennsylvania), 22 October 1850; 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township, page 111, lines 22-30.
[3] Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 537.
[4] Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 541-542; James Biser Whisker, Pennsylvania Potters, 1660-1900 (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993), 7-8.
[5] Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 564-567; Colin Fanning, “Ceramics,” in The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, 2019, https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/ceramics/.
[6] Joshua W. Ash, Map of Delaware County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Robert P. Smith, 1848); D. J. Lake and S. N. Beers, Map of the Vicinity of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: John E. Gillette, C. K. Stone, 1860).
[7] 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Radnor Twp., page 37, line 10-13; Gilbert Cope and Henry Graham Ashmead, eds., Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Chester and Delaware Counties, Pennsylvania, volume I(New York and Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1904), 83.
[8] Arthur E. James, The Potters and Potteries of Chester County, Pennsylvania (Exton, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, 1978), 106-107; 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Chester Twp., 48, line 33.
[9] 1850 U.S. Census, Schedule 5—Products of Industry, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township, page [671], line 5; 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 5—Products of Industry, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township, page 5, line 17.
[10] 1850 U.S. Census, Schedule 5—Products of Industry, Pennsylvania, Chester and Delaware Counties; 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 5—Products of Industry, Pennsylvania, Chester and Delaware Counties.
[11] 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 5—Products of Industry, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township, page 5, line 17; 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Marple Twp., 111, line 24.
[12] James, Potters and Potteries, 70; 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Marple Twp., 107, lines 12-20; 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 4.—Productions of Agriculture, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township, page 11, line 12; Boyd’s Pennsylvania State Business Directory, 1861 (Philadelphia: William H. Boyd, 1861), 1091.
[13] “Isaac Esbin,” Company D, 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry, in “Pennsylvania, U.S., Civil War Muster Rolls, 1860-1869,” Ancestry.com, [online database], original data from Pennsylvania (State) Civil War Muster Rolls and Related Records, 1861–1866, Records of the Department of Military and Veterans’ Affairs, Record Group 19, Series 19.11 (153 cartons), Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
[14] 1890 U.S. Census, Special Schedule—Surviving Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines, and Widows, etc,, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 24th Ward, Enumeration District 530, page 3, line 40, in “1890 Veterans Schedules of the U.S. Federal Census,” Ancestry.com, [online database], original data from Special Schedules of the Eleventh Census (1890) Enumerating Union Veterans and Widows of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Stephen W. Sears, Gettysburg (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004), 90-92.
[15] “Benjamin Jones, Benjamin Jones, Jesse Jones,” in Division 23, Collection District 7, Pennsylvania, in “1862-1866 Internal Revenue Assessment List for Pennsylvania: Chester, Delaware, Sept. 1862-June 1863,” microfilm Roll #33, M787, on file at the Delaware County Historical Society, Chester, Pennsylvania.
[16] Delaware County Mortgage Book G, 100.
[17] Philadelphia Deed Book LRB108, 422-425; “Marriage,” Delaware County American (Media, Pennsylvania), 20 September 1865.
[18] Isaac Costa, compiler, Gopsill’s Philadelphia City and Business Directory for 1867-68 (Philadelphia: James Gopsill, 1867), 700.
[19] Philadelphia Deed Book JTO91, 20-22; Isaac Costa, compiler, Gopsill’s Philadelphia City and Business Directory for 1868-69 (Philadelphia: James Gopsill, 1868), 853, 856.
[20] Clarissa Smith, “Long-Awaited Broomall Post Office Delayed Further by Steel Strike,” Delaware County Daily Times (Chester, Pennsylvania), 20 November 1959, 17.
[21] “Local Intelligence,” Delaware County American (Media, Pennsylvania), 1 September 1869, 3; “Local News,” Jeffersonian (West Chester, Pennsylvania), 4 September 1869, 3.
[22] Henry Graham Ashmead, History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts & Co., 1884), 582.
[23] 1870 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township, page 16, lines 13-17.
[24] 1870 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 24th Ward, 78th District, page 9, lines 19-21; 1870 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 27th Ward, 89th District, page 237, lines 23-26, and page 248, lines 12-14.
[25] Philadelphia Deed Book FTW15, 286-288; Philadelphia Deed Book FTW98, 536-538; Philadelphia Deed Book FTW105, 348-350; Philadelphia Deed Book FTW125, 179-181; Philadelphia Deed Book FTW126, 212-216.
[26] Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Proceedings in Lunacy, page 402, CP 304, RG 20.7 Lunacy Docket, Court of Common Pleas, City Archives, Philadelphia Department of Records, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Delaware County Deed Book O3, 479-481; Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “non compos mentis,” accessed March 14, 2021, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/non%20compos%20mentis.
[27] Elsie Irene Eubanks, “Lead Poisoning from the Colonial Period to the Present,” 1996, Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539626037, https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-3p5y-hz98.
[28] Delaware County Deed Book O3, 479-481.
[29] Benjamin Jones, death notice, Village Record, 19 January 1875, 3; Find a Grave, online database, page for Benjamin Jones, Find a Grave Memorial no. 93218849, https://www.findagrave.com.
[30] Delaware County Deed Book 575, 488.
[31] Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 582.
[32] Samuel T. Wiley, Biographical and Historical Cyclopedia of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, ed. Winfield Scott Garner (Richmond, Indiana, and New York: Gresham Publishing Company, 1894), 137; S. F. Hotchkin, Rural Pennsylvania: In the Vicinity of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1897), 360.
[33] John W. Jordan, ed., A History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania and Its People, volume I (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1914), 347.
[34] Delaware County Deed Book 575, 488.
[35] Works Progress Administration, “Marple Township,” (Works Progress Administration, 1936), 4, transcribed copy of document produced by WPA, in possession of Delaware County Planning Department, Media Pennsylvania [This is likely from Pennsylvania State Archives Series #13.108, the Working Files of the Works Progress Administration’s Pennsylvania Historical Survey, [ca. 1935-1950]].
[36] Works Progress Administration, “Marple Township,” (Works Progress Administration, 1936), 3, transcribed copy of document produced by WPA, in possession of Delaware County Planning Department, Media Pennsylvania.
[37] Franklin Survey Company, Real Estate Atlas of Upper Darby, Pa. and Vicinity (Delaware County — Volume II) (Philadelphia: Franklin Survey Company, 1942), plate 30.
[38] Delaware County Deed Book 1367, 34.
[39] Nationwide Environmental Tile Research, “2340 West Chester Pike, Broomall, PA 19008,” in Historic Aerials, online database, https://www.historicaerials.com/; Delaware County Deed Book 1434, 528; Delaware County Deed Book 1371, 436; Delaware County Deed Book 1500, 608; Delaware County Deed Book 1578, 154; Delaware County Deed Book 5154, 803.
[40] Elizabeth C. Lodge, Marple’s Heritage 1684- (Philadelphia: T. A. McElwee (printer), 1969), 11.
[41] Marple Township, “OUR HISTORY,” electronic document, https://www.marpletwp.com/DocumentCenter/View/338/Our-History-Marple-Twp?bidId=.
[42] A. Richard Paul, email to author, 5 July 2020.