William Meyer, Master Potter of Black Hill
Bernard Pyron
Black Hill is shown on a topographical map as being on both sides of what is now Interstate 35, which was Highway 81 when I first drove on it, or the Laredo Highway. On a site, http://www.usends.com/80-89/081/081.html, they say that Highway 81 ran from Pembina, North Dakota to Laredo, Texas from 1926 to the 1960s. Before about 1926 Black Hill was not split into two parts by Highway 81, but when William Meyer owned land on the hill Highway 81 did not exist. The Old Pearsall Road, which ran southwest in that same general area of southwest Bexar county, did exist, but was then north of Black Hill. Black Hill is said to be 4.3 miles northeast of Lytle and 4.7 miles northwest of Somerset. The small unincorporated community of Atascosa is about a mile and a half north of Black Hill and William Meyer had his five acre pottery in Atascosa.
http://www.rubylane.com/.../Tex78as-Meyer-Pottery...
"In 1887, German William Meyer and Franz Schultz opened their pottery on five acres of land purchased in Atascosa, Texas. Meyer Pottery very unique. After the first few years of using salt, th ey began to use a Slip Glaze inside and out. And, not your typical Albany Slip Glaze. Meyer had found a local source of unique clay located on the Leon Creek near San Antonio, Texas, where Kelly Air Force Base was later built. This unique clay gives the Stoneware color variations ranging from brown to mustard yellow to olive. Meyer Pottery is unusual in the way he attached his jug handles to the shoulder rather than the mouth ring"
The photos of Black Hill, the topo map of the hill and photos of the pottery of William Meyer that I have gotten off the Internet may be copyrighted and I don't want to use them on a blog.
One of the photos I got off the Internet is of a lighter colored William Meyer butter churn. My mother had one similar to this one, almost certainly from William Meyer. It was smooth, without the finger or knuckle marks that i used to leave on my pottery. She made butter and made it f rom fresh cow's milk that my Father milked from one of his cows he kept as milk cows. The buttermilk which is a by-product of churning
milk into butter was really good when fresh and in part
because of the fresh cow's milk.
See http://www.outdoorproshops.com/lovefield/meyer%20iii.htm
"The body is light terra-cotta, indicating Black Hill Creek as the source of the clay. The glaze is Leon slip in a soft yellowish-brown with some apple-green highlights at the upper extremities. The internal glaze is a deep cocoa-brown."
Here is a site with a color photo of a typical William Meyer stoneware butter churn: http://www.outdoorproshops.com/lovefield/meyer%20iii.htm
Now, I understand why a guy who used the name J.F. W. Meyer owned part of Black Hill - 122 acres, that in 1902 he deeded to Wilmina and Minnie Schulz, and was deeded to Mary L. Meyer in 1931.
William Meyer was digging his clay out of a creek bed on Black Hill.
He got his glaze clay from a tract which was part of what became Kelly Field.
In about 1915-1920 Mother and Father might have made it from where they lived near what was becoming Somerset to Black Hill in a one horse buggy in about 45 minutes to an hour.
Black Hill was never a town. It has a cemetery which indicates it was once a kind of community. I phoned a trailer sales place - Hudson Brothers Trailer Sales - that is right next door to Black Hill itself and the guy had never heard of Black Hill.
J.F. W. Meyer has to be William Meyer because the description of a tract of land said to belong to William Meyer is signed over to someone by J.F. W Meyer. In the 1940 census John F. W Meyer is living on Old Frio City Road with his wife, Mary L., Post Mistress of Atascosa, and his son, Gustav Meyer, whose occupation is listed as Pottery. Below them in the next household of the census are Frank Meyer and his wife Tena, and Frank Meyer must be Frank O. Meyer, whose occupation is listed again as Pottery.
Here is what got me interested in Black Hill: "February 16, 1935 - Went to Langley pasture. Pep jumped one hot. The dogs made two circles around Langley, one and a half hours and then left straight out to Black Hill. Part of the dogs went out of hearing. Jack came home. John McCain 2, We, 9. Stars: Pep and Queen."
Here is another reference to Black Hill in George Pyron's Wolf Hunting Journal of 1934-35:: "December 29, 1934 - John McCain and Luther jumped in Reed Thicket at 5 PM, ran to Black Hill, Kirk, Vogt, Bilhardt and Quesenberry. Ed Kampf tuned loose at 12 P.M., Otto at two A.M., we at five A.M. Ran on this side of Elm Creek when we turned loose and caught at 8 A.M. under a house on a road below the light line. Curley cut bad by wolf." Otto is Otto Koehler, of Black Hill. Luther is Luther James, also of the Old Bexar area.
In a recent letter Patricia Kenney Anderson mentions Black Hill and says "The Langley place I do remember. They were friends of Mother and Daddy (Billy and Stella Kenney). They lived across the road from Otto Koehler in Black Hill as we used to call it ."
An October 23, 1937 deed for 45 acres of the Alexander Bailey survey 184 involves the sale of the 45 acres to Erwin J. and Iola L. Langley.
George's Wolf Races says they ran hounds on or near the Langley land in 1934 and 1935, There were some families living near Black Hill in 1934 and 1935 and might have been awakened in the middle of the night by the barking of a pack of ten to thirty hounds, who can make a lot of noise on a hot trail on a quiet night out in the countryside.
Meyer got his glaze clay from a tract of land which was part of what became Kelly Field. Clay that is used as a glaze is called slip. I have used what we called Albany Slip.
At that time, in order to fire pottery to stoneware temperature - which is a temperature at or above about 2300 degrees F - you had to use wood. It might have been possible to use natural gas out of a well, but very few potters probably tried to do that which could have been dangerous. 2300 F is a light yellowish heat, moving toward white heat.
Building a kiln to fire up to 2300 degrees F with wood requires some knowledge which many potters probably did not have back in about 1900. The two stoneware kilns I built used propane and had small electric blowers which brought in the propane to the kiln.
Firing a kiln to 2300 degrees F with wood also would require longer time than firing with propane.
But if William Meyer and his sons, and earlier also his father in law Schultz, had access to trees to cut down and had access to pottery clay for throwing and slip clay for glazing free or very cheap they could have produced the huge number of stoneware pots that they apparently did produce. I had to buy and have shipped in all the throwing clay and glaze materials in the sixties, and had to buy propane, which made the making of stoneware pottery expensive.
Bernard Pyron
Black Hill is shown on a topographical map as being on both sides of what is now Interstate 35, which was Highway 81 when I first drove on it, or the Laredo Highway. On a site, http://www.usends.com/80-89/081/081.html, they say that Highway 81 ran from Pembina, North Dakota to Laredo, Texas from 1926 to the 1960s. Before about 1926 Black Hill was not split into two parts by Highway 81, but when William Meyer owned land on the hill Highway 81 did not exist. The Old Pearsall Road, which ran southwest in that same general area of southwest Bexar county, did exist, but was then north of Black Hill. Black Hill is said to be 4.3 miles northeast of Lytle and 4.7 miles northwest of Somerset. The small unincorporated community of Atascosa is about a mile and a half north of Black Hill and William Meyer had his five acre pottery in Atascosa.
http://www.rubylane.com/.../Tex78as-Meyer-Pottery...
"In 1887, German William Meyer and Franz Schultz opened their pottery on five acres of land purchased in Atascosa, Texas. Meyer Pottery very unique. After the first few years of using salt, th ey began to use a Slip Glaze inside and out. And, not your typical Albany Slip Glaze. Meyer had found a local source of unique clay located on the Leon Creek near San Antonio, Texas, where Kelly Air Force Base was later built. This unique clay gives the Stoneware color variations ranging from brown to mustard yellow to olive. Meyer Pottery is unusual in the way he attached his jug handles to the shoulder rather than the mouth ring"
The photos of Black Hill, the topo map of the hill and photos of the pottery of William Meyer that I have gotten off the Internet may be copyrighted and I don't want to use them on a blog.
One of the photos I got off the Internet is of a lighter colored William Meyer butter churn. My mother had one similar to this one, almost certainly from William Meyer. It was smooth, without the finger or knuckle marks that i used to leave on my pottery. She made butter and made it f rom fresh cow's milk that my Father milked from one of his cows he kept as milk cows. The buttermilk which is a by-product of churning
milk into butter was really good when fresh and in part
because of the fresh cow's milk.
See http://www.outdoorproshops.com/lovefield/meyer%20iii.htm
"The body is light terra-cotta, indicating Black Hill Creek as the source of the clay. The glaze is Leon slip in a soft yellowish-brown with some apple-green highlights at the upper extremities. The internal glaze is a deep cocoa-brown."
Here is a site with a color photo of a typical William Meyer stoneware butter churn: http://www.outdoorproshops.com/lovefield/meyer%20iii.htm
Now, I understand why a guy who used the name J.F. W. Meyer owned part of Black Hill - 122 acres, that in 1902 he deeded to Wilmina and Minnie Schulz, and was deeded to Mary L. Meyer in 1931.
William Meyer was digging his clay out of a creek bed on Black Hill.
He got his glaze clay from a tract which was part of what became Kelly Field.
In about 1915-1920 Mother and Father might have made it from where they lived near what was becoming Somerset to Black Hill in a one horse buggy in about 45 minutes to an hour.
Black Hill was never a town. It has a cemetery which indicates it was once a kind of community. I phoned a trailer sales place - Hudson Brothers Trailer Sales - that is right next door to Black Hill itself and the guy had never heard of Black Hill.
J.F. W. Meyer has to be William Meyer because the description of a tract of land said to belong to William Meyer is signed over to someone by J.F. W Meyer. In the 1940 census John F. W Meyer is living on Old Frio City Road with his wife, Mary L., Post Mistress of Atascosa, and his son, Gustav Meyer, whose occupation is listed as Pottery. Below them in the next household of the census are Frank Meyer and his wife Tena, and Frank Meyer must be Frank O. Meyer, whose occupation is listed again as Pottery.
Here is what got me interested in Black Hill: "February 16, 1935 - Went to Langley pasture. Pep jumped one hot. The dogs made two circles around Langley, one and a half hours and then left straight out to Black Hill. Part of the dogs went out of hearing. Jack came home. John McCain 2, We, 9. Stars: Pep and Queen."
Here is another reference to Black Hill in George Pyron's Wolf Hunting Journal of 1934-35:: "December 29, 1934 - John McCain and Luther jumped in Reed Thicket at 5 PM, ran to Black Hill, Kirk, Vogt, Bilhardt and Quesenberry. Ed Kampf tuned loose at 12 P.M., Otto at two A.M., we at five A.M. Ran on this side of Elm Creek when we turned loose and caught at 8 A.M. under a house on a road below the light line. Curley cut bad by wolf." Otto is Otto Koehler, of Black Hill. Luther is Luther James, also of the Old Bexar area.
In a recent letter Patricia Kenney Anderson mentions Black Hill and says "The Langley place I do remember. They were friends of Mother and Daddy (Billy and Stella Kenney). They lived across the road from Otto Koehler in Black Hill as we used to call it ."
An October 23, 1937 deed for 45 acres of the Alexander Bailey survey 184 involves the sale of the 45 acres to Erwin J. and Iola L. Langley.
George's Wolf Races says they ran hounds on or near the Langley land in 1934 and 1935, There were some families living near Black Hill in 1934 and 1935 and might have been awakened in the middle of the night by the barking of a pack of ten to thirty hounds, who can make a lot of noise on a hot trail on a quiet night out in the countryside.
Meyer got his glaze clay from a tract of land which was part of what became Kelly Field. Clay that is used as a glaze is called slip. I have used what we called Albany Slip.
At that time, in order to fire pottery to stoneware temperature - which is a temperature at or above about 2300 degrees F - you had to use wood. It might have been possible to use natural gas out of a well, but very few potters probably tried to do that which could have been dangerous. 2300 F is a light yellowish heat, moving toward white heat.
Building a kiln to fire up to 2300 degrees F with wood requires some knowledge which many potters probably did not have back in about 1900. The two stoneware kilns I built used propane and had small electric blowers which brought in the propane to the kiln.
Firing a kiln to 2300 degrees F with wood also would require longer time than firing with propane.
But if William Meyer and his sons, and earlier also his father in law Schultz, had access to trees to cut down and had access to pottery clay for throwing and slip clay for glazing free or very cheap they could have produced the huge number of stoneware pots that they apparently did produce. I had to buy and have shipped in all the throwing clay and glaze materials in the sixties, and had to buy propane, which made the making of stoneware pottery expensive.
No comments:
Post a Comment