In 1988, I recovered a five gallon pottery churn from a Union campsite near the Burnt Hickory community of Paulding Co.   Subsequent research revealed that this jug was likely manufactured at Sligh's Mill, one of a small community of potteries in this area in the mid-19th through early-20th centuries.

Churn excavated near Burnt Hickory community The iron kettle was positioned upside-down over the top of the churn, the top of which was a foot below ground level.   If not for the kettle (metallic), I would have never detected this churn.   Civil War maps revealed that this was a homesite at the time of the war.   My theory is that the family living here refugeed to the south when the Union troops advanced, and buried valuables in the churn, covering it with the pot to keep out rain water.   After the War, they apparently returned and recovered whatever had been buried, since it was empty when I found it 125 years later.

A few images of the churn:

Churn profile

Churn - top view When I dug it, there was a chip in the rim of the churn. From the aged surface, I could tell that the break was old.

Unglazed lid

V-stamp   (Roman numeral 5) Signifying the 5 gallon capacity

When I located and visited the site of the pottery in 1988, the old brick and stone kiln was very much in evidence, with walls and a section of the arched roof still standing. I wish that I had brought a camera on that visit, because the intervening years have not been kind to the site, as evidenced by these images from December 2014:

Pottery waster pile (foreground), with scanty remains of the kiln at rear

Remains of the collapsed kiln The kiln is much degraded since my 1988 visit, with no evidence of the roof arch and little of the walls.

Side and rear wall of kiln

Details of kiln's rear wall stonework, likely the chimney area.

Waster pile, approx. six feet high...

Pottery sherds at edge of waster pile.

Plan view drawing of the kiln (from Espenshade, 2002)

1947 view of the kiln Photo courtesy of Tyler Newsome

For further information on Sligh's Pottery, see John Burrison's "Brothers in Clay: The Story of Georgia Folk Pottery", University of Georgia Press, 1983. Also, see "Taming the Groundhog: Excavations at the Sligh Stoneware Pottery, Paulding Co., GA" by Christopher Espenshade, SGA, Oct. 2002 Also, see "Paulding County Clay: The Story of Paulding County Folk Pottery 1860-1930" by Tyler Newsome, 2019.

All Text & Images: Copyright 2015.