Jabez Vodrey

Jabez Vodrey (1795–1861) was the first English potter west of the Appalachian Mountains.

Vodrey was born on January 14, 1795 in Tunstall, an area in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. This is the centuries-old centre of the English pottery industry. He is thought to be a cousin of Frederick Vodrey, who emigrated from Staffordshire to Dublin, Ireland in the late 19th century and founded an art pottery there.

In 1827, Vodrey and his wife, Sarah Nixon Vodrey, emigrated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania United States, with another Staffordshire potter, William Frost. Vodrey and Frost operated a pottery in Pittsburgh for about two years. In 1829, Vodrey moved alone to Louisville, Kentucky, where he continued to work as a potter for the next decade. In 1839, Vodrey moved to Troy, Indiana (Perry County), on the Ohio River. There he took over the operation of the abandoned pottery of James Clews. It was not a success, as skilled labor was almost impossible to procure.

In March 1847, Vodrey came to East Liverpool, Ohio, where he found work in the area's booming pottery industry. He began in East Liverpool with the manufacture of clay smoking pipes and by 1848, had formed a partnership with William Woodward, a wealthy farmer. Together, the two men produced simple yellow ware and Rockingham Pottery. Within months, their small pottery was destroyed by fire, but the men began to rebuild the pottery with the financial backing of brothers James and John Simpson Blakely. The Blakely brothers lost their investment in the financial panic of 1857. A pencil sketch of John Simpson Blakely and his wife Jemima Fortune Blakely as well as the bankruptcy papers are conserved in the Ohio Historical Society collection. For full details on the Blakely family see margotwoodrough.com.

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