Trending
PARKERSBURG – Now a coveted collectible, Donaghho Pottery has its roots in the clays of the Mid-Ohio Valley.
The Donaghho family crafted the stoneware which was used originally for food storage and other practical purposes and is now valued as decorative memorabilia.
Linwood Lowden, avid history fan, and researcher has been looking into Donaghho Pottery’s story trying to answer some lingering questions and clear up some misinformation that has been passed down as lore about the beginnings of the pottery industry here.
A student of history, avid researcher and prolific writer, Louden said anything and everything that peeks his interest turns into a research project for him. He plans to turn over all the information he has gathered on Donaghho Pottery to the Wood County Historical and Preservation Society.
“I like to make sure I have documentation for everything, and I don’t want the research to be lost,” Lowden said. Some of the information that is out there is incorrect and then has been proliferated when it was copied and repeated, and other information has been passed down and distorted or confused over time, Lowden said.
Alexander Polk Donaghho, born in Washington County, Pa. the son of Irish immigrants, operated a pottery in Fredericktown, Pa. from 1855 before coming to Parkersburg.
Records show he purchased 4.5 acres in Parkersburg in January 1870 and Lowden said it’s obvious from deeds on file A.P. purchased an already existing pottery.
According to courthouse records, Donaghho paid Hannah Kincheloe, her daughter Ione Gambrill and Ione’s husband Phillip D. Gambrill $4,250 for the property. A West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey of 1910 stated there was a pottery on the property in 1866.
“The phrase with all of the appurtenances were included in the deed, which may in fact have referred to a standing pottery building and equipment,” Lowden said.
Lowden said reports Donaghho operated a pottery on Market Street are untrue.
“That is an error that been reported and copied over and over,” he said. “The Market Street pottery was that of Alexander Pilcher. It was a failing enterprise until purchased by Nathanial S. Clark in 1865.”
According to a recorded description of the pottery, Donaghho produced stoneware crocks, jugs and jars, earthernware and flower pots. While the pottery is coveted today as a decorative, valued collectible, the crocks, jugs and jars served a variety of practical purposes when they were originally created, including use for food storage.
“The clay was prepared by grinding in a wet pan. Milk pans and flower pots were formed in plaster molds, all other items were turned on a wheel. There were three potters wheels; two were powered and one was a kick wheel. There were two large drying rooms where the ware was dried by steam heat for 48 hours,” Lowden said. There were two kilns used to fire the ware. The kilns were located on opposite sides of the potting shed.
Lowden said records indicated the first pottery on the site produced salt-glazed stoneware.
“He had manufactured this type of ware at Fredericktown and it is this stoneware that is associated with his memory,” Lowden said.
The firm employed 16 men. One of the best known of his potters was Dan Mercer. He was listed as a new employee in 1899, Lowden said. Other potters listed included “Capt. Laymen, Thomas “Turk” Taylor and William Taylor; John B. Bartlett who ground clay; Robert Lotterberry and John Crumine, who was a burner in 1870.
Lowden said a 1910 record shows the original pottery was “built in 1866 and was under one management until 1974 to a few years ago when it was abandoned.”
The only potters listed in 1850 records were Nathaniel Clark, his son Nathaniel S. Clark, Robert Dixon from Pennsylvania and George Gicer from Germany, Lowden said.
According to a Jan. 20, 1855 Gazette Courier newspaper article, the original pottery, became known as the Phelps Pottery” and was continuing to manufacture and enjoy the reputation of making the best in this part of the country.” Phelps was a nephew of then property owner Hannah Kincheloe. Stoneware produced at that time is marked: E.C. Phelps, grocer and stoneware manufacturer, Parkersburg, Va. This pottery was apparently abandoned 1860-1866.
Lowden said his research indicated the earliest known piece of Clark stoneware is dated 1852.
When the pottery came under the management of A.P. Donaghho it received a new name: EXCELSIOR.
The pottery’s kilns burned 30-48 hours per firing. Clay from the site was used in making the pottery. Bull Creek was the water source.
Donaghho’s son Walter was made a full partner in the business in 1884 at the age of 25, under his supervision for more than 20 years.
“He was was a good businessman. But more and more of the burden of operating the plant fell on his shoulders as his father’s mental capacity was slowly deteriorating due to dementia,” Lowden said records showed. A.P. died in July 1899.
“The name Donaghho is known and respected nationwide whenever there is an interest in stoneware,” Lowden said.
By 1889 Johnson Newlon Camden (attorney/U.S. Senator) entered the picture, purchasing the nearby Beeson farm adjacent to the Donaghho property.
“This began a period of intense pressure on A.P. and Walter Donaghho,” Lowden said.
A Jan. 25, 1889 newspaper article states: “One of the best and most valuable veins of pottery clay in West Virginia is to be found on Sen. Camden’s farm, adjoining this city. A never failing spring of pure water, a necessary adjunct in ware making flows right out of the clay bank and a better site could not be found anywhere for a first class industry of this kind. It is understood that a large pottery will soon be erected there to be run by experienced men from the east.”
“Mr. Camden was what has commonly been referred to as part of the class of robber barons,” Lowden said.
Camden announced publicly he planned to build a new state-of-the-art pottery at the location, then was going to build a park.
“He knew how to manipulate the media, and his name made headlines and sold newspapers,” Lowden said, noting Camden used his power to pressure Donaghho to sell out, telling the newspapers at the time that he had already purchased the pottery.
Soon after A.P. Donaghho died, Camden announced the nearby bluff would become a private park in Camden’s name, and he was going to turn 200 acres of pasture land into his massive park. Sand Road was to be widened from 30 to 50 feet to become a “Landscapped boulevard renamed Camden Avenue,” the newspaper articles at the time proclaimed.
Just up the road, Terrapin Park opened in June of 1899 and less than a month later Camden announced his plans for the 200-acre Camden Park separated from Terrapin Park/Casino only by Bull Creek Road.
“It does not take a great deal of imagination to deduce that Camden had his eye on Terrapin Park which was connected to his proposed park by the trolley line. Now Excelsior Pottery is seen as a much larger problem in the grand scheme of something that is underway in this city – it sat smack-dab in the middle of the two prize properties,” Lowden said.
The only actual improvement that went in was a fountain by the side of Sand Road and a brick paved road down to the spring.
“The source of the sale information when it had not actually occurred yet was certainly Mr. Camden and it was done to up the pressure on Walter Donaghho. The doom of the Donaghho pottery is very clearly spelled out,” Lowden said.
The sale actually occurred September 3, 1906. “It took years six years for Camden to wear him down,” Lowden said.
Camden Park in Huntington established in 1903 was to have served as a prototype for the Camden park planned in Wood County, which never came to fruition. Meanwhile closure of the pottery put 12 men out of work. Camden paid $15,000 for the property. Lowden said at the time of the sale, the stoneware market was declining.
“But the truth is Camden wanted it gone,” Lowden said. Camden died in 1908.
There was another pottery in Parkersburg, located at the foot of East Street known as the South Side Pottery which became operational in 1903. Walter began negotiating in 1906 with them to buy the plant, they offered $13,000, but he did not accept. The South Side pottery was abandoned and torn down to make room for an electric railroad line to the new fairgrounds, Lowden said his research showed.
“The fountain is gone and motorists speed by the area unaware of the battle that took place there between David and Goliath. No one associates the name Camden with this site but the name Donaghho lingers on,” Lowden said.
The abandoned pottery was never used again as a pottery. It was at times used to hold dances and then a filling station and 15-car garage was built on the spot. Walter Donaghho died in 1936.
Today the stoneware is a valued commodity as a collectible, part of Parkersburg’s history.
Christy Little, who along with her husband Jeff own Parkersburg Antique Mall, 4001 Emerson Avenue said the pottery is very popular.
“We get pieces in from time to time but they usually sell almost as soon as we get them in,” she said a recent piece they had at the shop a preservation jar. “I’ve seen butter churns, pitchers. From time to time we also see EXCELSIOR and Clark pottery. Instead of the blue lettering like the Donaghho Pottery, the Clark pottery has an impression mark pressed onto the piece,” Little said.
Lowden became so interested in the pottery industry he tried his hand at creating some himself.
“I love going down to the Parkersburg Art Center to take classes. I think it’s wonderful that they are teaching people how to make pottery. There was a pottery trade in Wood County for years, and the art center is keeping it alive. Some of those taking the classes produce some beautiful work,” Lowden said.
Lowden said he was especially impressed there were children taking the classes so the art would not be lost.
Lowden said his enjoyed he time he spent on the research project.
“It had been a mystery, at least aspects of it, and I love digging out things. I believe Walter was a very important part of the story, he was a very talented, gifted and successful man,” Lowden said.