Herrinton Pottery

Grand Ledge has a long and illustrious history in the clay industry. Over my next several columns I will give a history of this important historic industry that lasted well over a century and shaped so much of our town.

Grand Ledge is blessed with rich natural deposits of high quality clay and shale. Scientific examinations have determined that deposits found here are of the best quality for making brick, tile and other baked clay items. Natural outcroppings along the river have made the minerals available for thousands of years. Yet most of the shale can be found sixty feet or more below the surface. Once quarried, the shale is crushed, blended into clay, shaped and then fired in kilns. Firing the local clays produces fine quality products infused with attractive natural iron spotting.

Settlers were not the first to be attracted to the clay deposits. Native Americans recognized the value of the clay that is so abundant in the area. The first settlers reported finding the remains of “ash kilns” left behind by the Native American potters. Such kilns were reported in the gully where the Log Jam parking lot is today, near the corner of West Main and Tallman Road, and near Fitzgerald Park.

With ash kilns, native pottery was stacked on the ground and covered with leaves, husks, twigs, straw, etc. After all these layers, a final thick blanket of ash covers the mound to insulate the kiln and keep the heat in. Once the fire is started, the straw burns away, letting the ash fall between the pottery wares, keeping the heat in and letting them bake. After several days, the firing process is complete. The ash remaining is then saved for the next batch of pottery to be fired.

Information about the first potteries in Grand Ledge is scant. However, from pioneer recollections, maps, and census records I have been able to put their story together.

Lewis Herrinton was a potter from Scipio, New York. In the 1840s he came with his family west and along with this partner Timothy Wellman, opened one of the first known potteries in Michigan in Springfield Township, Oakland County.

In the 1850s, hearing of the clay deposits to found in Grand Ledge, Lewis Herrinton moved here and purchased 10 acres off Lawson Road that ran down to where the dam is today. The Herrinton Pottery was born. In the kilns on the site he made practical household items like jugs, crocks, bowls and churns. It is distinguished as being the first pottery in Grand Ledge, and one of the very earliest in Michigan, however it was short lived. Lewis Herrinton died in the late 1850s. His widow, Sophia, would become a teacher and his son Edward a well known local painter.