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THE HISTORY OF THE W. NELSON McCOY POTTERY By Dewayne Imsand

An Old "Blue Bird" Pot Shop

W. Nelson McCoy was born in 1812, in what is now called West Virginia. In January 1848, he and his wife Ester arrived in Ohio’s, Muskingum County, Springfield Township, in a community called Putnam. At that time, Putnam was a suburb of Zanesville, but in 1872, Putnam became incorporated into Zanesville.

W. Nelson came to Putnam as a farmer. He acquired some land and built a house. In addition to farming, he also built a small, log building to produce stoneware during the warmer months. The pottery was a small, “Blue Bird” type shop, which was like the ones many of the farmers had at the time. It was primitive in its equipment, and the ware it produced was rough and unfinished. Although during that period, most of the home-owned, “Bluebird” shops operated under primitive conditions.

W. Nelson probably produced pottery for around eight years. Considering the labor involved in farming, maintaining his household, supplying clay and firewood for his kiln, one would imagine that he only had a small amount of time for actual pottery production. Surely, the volume he produced was small, and it was undoubtedly unmarked, since none has ever come to light that is attributable to him.

During the same year as W. Nelson and his wife arrived in Putnam they had a son whose name was James W. By the time, J.W. was eight years old in 1856; W. Nelson had given up much of his blue-collar work at the farm, and had taken a job in downtown Putnam. H e acquired the major share in the Benjamin & Co., a grocery and dry goods business. The new name of the store was McCoy - Benjamin & Company. Besides W.N., the owners were James Benjamin and Hugh McDonald.

In addition to the store, James Benjamin had other interests; he was also a wholesale dealer in stoneware. The newspaper Zanes Times Signal recalled in an article that in the 1870’s he was one of the three major stoneware wholesalers in the region.

In 1862 or 1863, W. Nelson’s brother, William M. who lived in Harpers Ferry, WV, along with his wife and his son Wilber, who was born in 1842, moved to Putnam. Upon his arrival, William M. and a partner established a dry goods store, McCoy & Adamson, in Putnam. By 1864, his son Wilber F. went to work in another dry goods store in town. After a few years, probably following his father's death, Wilber became a partner in the Zanesville Hardware Co. The company was incorporated in 1888, and the company sold both wholesale and retail hardware.

Wilber devoted his time to running the hardware store, and there is no evidence to show that he ever produced pottery. However, in the 1880’s he did become one of the largest wholesale dealers of pottery through his hardware store. Over the years a number of stoneware pieces have surfaced with an inked stencil reading, W.F. McCoy Wholesale Dealer in Stoneware Zanesville, 0.

Through the years, W. Nelson, as a Zanesville businessman, became respected and popular. In 1881, he was elected as the mayor of Zanesville, and in 1883, he was reelected.