Samuel A. Weller
| Samuel Augustus Weller | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 12, 1851 Muskingum County, Ohio |
| Died | October 4, 1925 (aged 74) Washington, D.C. |
| Resting place | Woodlawn Cemetery, Zanesville, Ohio |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Known for | Founder and owner S.A. Weller Pottery |
Samuel Augustus Weller (April 12, 1851–October 4, 1925), one of the pioneer pottery manufacturers of Ohio in the United States, founded the S.A. Weller Pottery in Fultonham, Ohio, in 1872. In 1882 he moved the business to Zanesville, Ohio, and for more than a half-century Weller Pottery produced both utilitarian pieces and more decorative art pottery lines.
Samuel Augustus Weller, born in Muskingum County, Ohio, was the fourth of nine children of Jacob Weller (1816−1871) and Mary (née Fulton) Weller (1826−1914). Weller married Herminnie C. Pickens (1862−1954) on January 11, 1885, in Muskingum County, Ohio. The couple had two daughters, Louise, born in 1896, and Ethel, born in 1898.
As a young man, Weller worked in the Bluebird Pottery, a local Muskingum ceramics factory, and by 1872 had established his own factory (a log cabin and a single kiln) in Fultonham, Ohio. Using a kickwheel, he turned stoneware jars and clay flower pots on a small scale, and sold these utilitarian pieces door-to-door. One of his earliest designs combined common sewer tiles to make a milk pan, which he marketed successfully locally.
Because Weller was both a potter and a talented salesman, his business prospered. He had an old white horse that pulled loads of crude red clay, dug from local hills, to his shop. The horse also propelled a grinding machine to prepare clay and pulled a dilapidated wagon carrying finished products to market. By 1882 Weller moved his pottery to Zanesville, at the foot of Pierce Street along the river, and began creating more decorative wares.
Weller expanded in 1888 with purchase of a wareroom, and again in 1890, buying a tract in the Putnam district, along Pierce Street near the railway, and erecting there a large three-story plant to accommodate his 68 employees.
In 1893 Weller attended the Chicago World's Fair, where he saw a line of decorative art pottery developed by a competitor, Lonhuda Pottery of Steubenville, Ohio. The name "Lonhuda" was a combination of the first letters of three partners' surnames: William A. Long, who had been a Steubenville druggist; and two investors, W.H Hunter, editor of the Steubenville Daily Gazette, and Alfred Day, secretary of the United States Potters Association. Long had based his high-gloss brown slip faience glaze on a process Laura A. Fry invented in 1886 at the Rookwood Pottery. Her process involved applying uniform background glazes with an atomizer, giving more possibilities for even shading. Fry patented this process by 1889, and she joined Long at the Lonhuda Pottery in 1892.
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