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January 2000, Volume 1: Issue 1
TRENTON POTTERIES
Newsletter of the Potteries of Trenton Society
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Table of Contents
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In the latter half of the 19th century Trenton was one of the main pottery production sites
in the country, rivaled only by East Liverpool, Ohio. At its peak in the mid-1920s Trenton
was home to over 50 potteries, which made a variety of products such as china, art pottery,
bathtubs, sinks, toilets and electrical porcelain. The industry went into decline after
World War II, and today only a handful of industrial potteries remain.
The Star Porcelain Company on Muirhead Avenue was founded in 1899. Production was limited to
electrical porcelain specialties such as sockets and insulators. Today the company specializes
in electrical porcelain and produces a variety of custom porcelain insulators and specialty
items such as extruded porcelain tubing.
Also on Muirhead Avenue, not far from Star Porcelain, is the Bartley Crucible and
Refractories Company. The firm was established in 1908 on Oxford Street. In 1930
the company moved to its current location, the former John Maddock & Sons Coalport
Works where they produce crucibles and refractories.
National Ceramic Company is located on Southard Street in Trenton. The company produces
custom ceramic insulators. It was founded in 1919 and occupies the site of the Willets
Manufacturing Company.
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Stephen Wenczel founded New Jersey Porcelain in 1920. The firm produced bathroom accessories
and electrical porcelain. Still operating out of their original plant on Plum Street, New
Jersey Porcelain focuses on porcelain bath accessories, switchplates and cabinet hardware.
General Porcelain Manufacturing Company was founded in 1939 and occupies the old Trenton
Stilt, Spur and Pin Works site on the corner of Mulberry and Pennsylvania Avenues. The
firm produces laboratory and industrial pottery and miscellaneous home furnishings.
Cybis was founded in 1939 by Boleslaw Cybis in New York City. Two years later he moved to
a carriage house on Church Street in Trenton and began producing fine porcelain sculptures.
The firm remained there for about 30 years before moving to its current location on Norman
Avenue. The company continues to manufacture quality porcelain figurines.
Boehm Porcelain was founded in 1950 by Edward and Helen Boehm in a studio in Trenton.
The firm quickly gained a reputation for producing high quality figurines. Increased
production resulted in their relocation to a larger facility. The plant, located on
Princess Diana Drive (formerly Fairfax Street), continues to produce highly collectable
figurines.
Lenox and American Standard, which can trace their origins to late 19th-century Trenton,
no longer operate within the city. The seven firms of Star Porcelain, Bartley Crucible,
National Ceramic, New Jersey Porcelain, General Porcelain, Cybis and Boehm are all that
remain of Trenton's thriving ceramic industry.
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Display of ceramic artifacts recovered
during excavation in Trenton. |
The Potteries of Trenton Society made its public debut on October 3, 1999, at the
Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie. William Liebeknecht, an archaeologist and founding
POTS member, gave a lecture on the archaeology of Trenton's pottery industry.
Mr. Liebeknecht discussed some of the potteries and the wares that he has encountered
during his decade of work in Trenton. |
The lecture was very well received. Attendees showed great
interest in the topic and were very interested in the ceramic artifacts that Mr. Liebeknecht
displayed. POTS members met many people interested in Trenton's pottery industry.
POTS considers the event to be a success and is looking forward to our upcoming lecture in April.
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The Willets Cupid Jug. Private Collection. |
What do baseball players, southern belles, exotic birds and Polish brides all have in
common? They are all figures made in Trenton, modelled by some of the leading figure
sculptors in the United States and finished by the finest artisans in the pottery business.
On the afternoon of April 16, 2000, the Potteries of Trenton Society will sponsor a
workshop at the Trenton City Museum in which the arts and mysteries of figurine modeling,
making and finishing will be revealed. |
Presenters at the workshop include Roy Harbert, who recently retired after 25 years as
modeler at Lenox China; Dory Menzel, now at Lenox Collections, who has worked for Goebel
and Boehm as well; Evelyn Moore, who worked in the clay finishing department at Lenox
China during the 1930s and 1940s; and Molly Merlino, who painted Pat Eakin's figurines
at Lenox in the 1940s and early 1950s.
Mr. Harbert will discuss creating a model. Mrs. Menzel will describe the process of
dissecting the model into the many parts that ill be molded individually in order to
build a figurine.
The fine art of sticking up the parts of a figure into the whole will be explained by
Mrs. Moore. Mrs. Merlino will tell about adding the finishing touches of color. And
all of them will share the insights they have gained through many lifetimes of clay
in and around Trenton.
Molds made for Lenox's recent reproduction of the "Cupid Jug" designed by Walter Scott
Lenox and modeled by William Bromley in 1887 for the Willets Manufacturing Company will
be used to demonstrate the art of slip-casting clay.
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Potteries: The Story of Trenton's Ceramic Industry. By David Goldberg. Published by
the Trenton Museum Society, 1998.
David Goldberg, an avocational historian and expert on the Trenton ceramic industry, wrote
the Potteries monograph in 1983. It has been revised and re-released in 1998. Subtitled
Preliminary Notes on the Pioneer Potters and Potteries of Trenton, New Jersey, The First
Thirty Years 1852-1882 (And Beyond), it is indeed that and much more.
The pottery industry is examined in roughly chronological order with an emphasis
placed on the people who established and ran the potteries. One of the fascinating
aspects of the early potteries is the movement of managers, owners, designers, and
decorators from firm to firm. This gave the budding industry much vitality but left
the historical record a bit complicated. Often early information published about
pioneering efforts is false or misleading and Mr. Goldberg seeks to untangle the
confusion.
One example of the confusion concerns the "Colonel Ellsworth Pitcher," an early
white earthenware piece. The pitcher was made by Millington, Astbury & Poulson in
1861 in commemoration of the shooting death of Colonel Ellsworth, a young protege
of Abraham Lincoln. Examples of this piece are marked and highly collectable. The
designer of this notable pitcher has been dispute for a century. Edwin Atlee Barber,
an important writer on early American potteries, attributed it
to Josiah Jones, a designer who moved from New York to Trenton in the late 1850's.
However, in 1915 Miss Minnie Coxon claimed that her grandfather, Charles Coxon,
designed the pitcher during his brief stint at the firm. The issue of who designed
this pitcher has yet to be fully resolved.
Mr. Goldberg's discussion of each enterprise includes detailed information on
location, ownership, dates of operation, wares produced, maker's marks and number
of kilns. Mr. Goldberg also describes how the industry became established in Trenton
and illustrates the connections between the industry here and in other locations,
such as Bennington, Vermont. I would have appreciated a map to orient myself, as I
am relatively unfamiliar with Trenton, but this does not detract from the monograph,
which contains a wealth of information. Although the book focuses on the first thirty
years it does take care to bring the potteries up to the present in terms of final
closing and the disposition of buildings and kilns.
The book is available from the gift
shop at the Trenton City Museum for
$10.50. It can be ordered for $11.50
(the extra $1.00 covers postage) from
Molly Merlino, The Trenton Museum
Foundation, P.O. Box 1034, Trenton,
NJ 08606.
Reviewed by Brenda Springsted.
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Newsletter of the Potteries of Trenton Society
120 W. State Street
Trenton, NJ 08608
Phone: 609-695-0122
Fax: 609-695-0147
Email
POTS for more information. Please note, however, that we are not
able to identify, appraise, or provide information on ceramic objects.
Visitors to the site should consult with an appraiser or antique dealer.
Thank You.
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