Meyer pottery, poultry fountain 7 1/8" diameter 9 1/2" tall

Meyer Pottery (1887-1962) The Meyer Family Pottery. As early Texas was settled, there was a huge demand for food storage vessels. As early as 1839, Taylor Brown was working In Rusk County. By 1850, three more potteries were established, and soon after that, twelve more. They were located In East Texas on the Wilcox Clay Formation, which extends across Texas through Bastrop and San Antonio areas. These potters migrated down From the Carolinas and Georgia. In 1885, German immigrants Franz Shultz and William Meyer landed at Indianola. They were trained in the art of pottery making, but Meyer wanted to try his hand at farming. That venture failed, and Meyer found himself once again in the company of Shultz, when he hired on with William Saenger who had come to America in 1874, and migrated down through New Jersey, Kansas, and Missouri. He established his pottery in St. Hedwig, and later moved to Elmendorf. By this time, there were dozens more pottery operations in East Texas, Bastrop, and the San Antonio areas. Meyer is unusual in the way he attached his jug handles to the shoulder rather than the mouth ring.