No considerable progress was made in the manufacture of porcelain in the United States until William Ellis Tucker, of Philadelphia, began his experiments. From 1816 to 1819 his father, Benjamin Tucker, had a china shop on the south side of Market Street, at No. 324, then between Ninth and Tenth Streets, near

FIG. 5.-TUCKER & HEMPHILL'S CHINA FACTORY. Philadelphia, 1832-38. (From a vase owned by Mrs. Thomas Tucker.)

where the new post-office building now stands. During this period Mr. Tucker built a small decorating kiln in the rear of his store for the use of his son, who employed much of his time in painting the imported white china and firing it in the kiln. These attempts were at first only partially successful. He then commenced experimenting with different clays, which he procured in the vicinity of the city, to discover the process for manufacturing the ware itself. These experiments resulted in the production of a fair quality of opaque queen's-ware. He then directed his attention to kaolin and feldspar, and finally succeeded in discovering the proper proportions of these ingredients, in combination with bone-dust and flint, necessary for the production of an excellent grade of natural or hard porcelain. Having secured a translucent

body of great hardness, density, and toughness, capable of withstanding extreme changes of temperature, he first seriously began the manufacture of the ware for the market in the year 1825. The old water-works, at the northwest corner of Schuylkill-Second (Twenty-first) and Chestnut Streets, were obtained from the city, where the necessary glazing and enameling kilns, mills, etc., were erected. His first attempts were fraught with many difficulties. While the body and glaze of the earlier productions were good, the workmanship and decoration were inferior. The decoration consisted generally of landscapes painted roughly in sepia or brown.

In 1828 Thomas Hulme was admitted to the business, but retired in about one year. During this period great improvement was made in decoration, the best productions being painted with floral designs in natural colors. A number of pitchers made during that period are marked "Tucker & Hulme, China Manufacturers, Philadelphia, 1828," the only pieces from this factory known to have been signed.

William Ellis Tucker died in August, 1832, but previous to this Judge Joseph Hemphill had put some money in the enterprise, and continued to carry on the business after his partner's death.

Messrs. Tucker & Hemphill purchased the property at the southwest corner of Schuylkill-Sixth (now Seventeenth) and Chestnut Streets, where they erected store-houses and three kilns, and greatly increased the producing capacity of the factory. In 1832 they appealed to Congress for the passage of a tariff law which would afford them protection from foreign competition.

Mr. Thomas Tucker superintended the business after the decease of his brother, which was carried on in the name of Judge Hemphill for about three years, but in 1835 the latter entered

into negotiations with a company of Eastern gentlemen, and sold the factory to them shortly after. In 1837 the factory was leased to Thomas Tucker, who continued the manufacture of fine porcelain for about one year, when it was permanently closed. Under the direction of Judge Hemphill, who had become interested in the subject while abroad, great improvements were made in the body of the ware as well as in the glazing and ornamentation. French porcelain was selected as the model after which the Tucker & Hemphill china was patterned, and skilled artists were brought from France to decorate the ware. Pitchers and vases were sometimes decorated with painted portraits of Revolutionary heroes; two of the former, with likenesses of Washington and Wayne, are still preserved. The later productions of this factory were greatly superior to anything produced in the United States before. They were characterized by smoothness of paste, beauty of coloring, and rich

ness of gilding-indeed, it is said that the amount of gold consumed in the decoration of this ware was so great as to cause a considerable pecuniary loss to Judge Hemphill. It is a matter of regret that the limit of this article is not sufficiently elastic to permit a more extended review of this interesting factory and description of some of its many beautiful productions which have been recently brought to light.

Isaac Spiegel, one of Tucker & Hemphill's workmen, started in business for himself in Kensington, Philadelphia, about 1837. He made Rockingham black and red ware of excellent quality, including mantel ornaments, such as figures of dogs and lions. Some of the machinery was moved to his pottery from the Hemphill factory on its closing, and he secured many of the molds which had been used for making ornamental porcelain pieces. In 1855 Mr. Spiegel retired from active business, and was succeeded by his son Isaac, who carried on the works until 1879. In 1880, John Spiegel, a brother of the latter, resumed the business, and is at

the present time engaged in burning magnesia for the drug trade.

About the time that Tucker first placed his new ware on the market a factory for the production of a somewhat similar commodity was erected at Jersey City, presumably by Frenchmen. Later, under the title of the American Pottery Company, creamcolored, white, Parian, and porcelain wares were made here. In 1842 an exhibit of embossed tea-ware, jugs, and spittoons was made by this company at the Franklin Institute, the specimens of Parian with blue ground and raised ornamentation in white being especially praiseworthy. After several changes in proprietorship the business passed into the hands of Messrs. Rouse & Turner in 1870, and the name of the factory was altered to the Jersey City Pottery. Mr. John Owen Rouse came from the Royal Derby Works about forty years ago. Mr. Turner died in 1884, leaving the former sole proprietor. The plant at present consists of four kilns, one of which has an interior diameter of nineteen and a half feet, and numerous large buildings for manufacturing and storage purposes. Here are now made large quantities of white granite ware in table and toilet services and decorative designs, a specialty of the factory being porous cups for telegraphic uses, of which fully five thousand are produced every week.

After the year 1840 the number of potteries in the United States multiplied rapidly. About that time Samuel Sturgis was making, in Lancaster County, Pa., in addition to earthen and stone ware, clay tobacco-pipe bowls, which he molded after the French designs in the form of human heads. These were glazed in yellow, green, and brown, and supplied largely to the tobacconists of eastern Pennsylvania. In 1843 there were one hundred and eightytwo potteries in that State alone, few of them, however, of any importance, whose aggregate productions amounted to $158,000. In 1890 there were only about eighty potteries in the same State, a falling off of more than half. This diminution in number does not by any means indicate a decadence of this industry, because the establishments of half a century ago were mostly scattered through the rural districts and were insignificant affairs, producing only the coarser and cheaper grades of crockery. Such potteries have almost entirely disappeared, while those of to-day manufacture, for the most part, the finer qualities of earthen, white granite, and porcelain wares. At the present time. there are over five hundred potteries in the United States, not including architectural terra-cotta and tile works, of which some twenty-five are in Trenton, N. J., and about the same number in East Liverpool, Ohio.

An exhibit of Rockingham was made at the Franklin Institute in 1846 by Bennett & Brother, of Pittsburg, which was