Village of Kaolin described, description of Southern Porcelain

[FOR THE COURIER.]

Kaolin, South Carolina.

Messrs. Editors: — This is the euphonious and significant name of the village where the Southern Porcelain Manufacturing Company have their works. It is situated in Edgefield District, about six miles from Augusta, Ga., and one mile and a half from Bath, on the South Carolina Rail Road, on a ridge, alongside of the famous Horse Creek Valley, once so celebrated for its pine lumber and timber, but now fast becoming equally noted for its manufactories. No better selection could have possibly been made for the site of a town or village, as there a perhaps no spot on the face of the globe where there exists fewer local causes for disease. With a remarkably pure and dry atmosphere on the hills and ridges, an abundance of water power in the valley, and the whole surface of the earth underlaid with some of the most valuable deposits for manufacturing purposes, Nature seems have designed this region for the use for which it is now being occupied.

For many years past it has been known to the residents of this vicinity, that a valuable deposit of Porcelain clay existed here in abundance. Subsequently Professor TOUMEY, then State Geologist of South Carolina, examined and pronounced it of very fine quality and suggested its value; but it was not until within the last four or five years that it was subjected to any practical test, which was accomplished through a dentist (KIDDER, I believe was his name,) from the North, temporarily residing at Aiken, who manufactured artificial teeth from the clay, and carried some of it to a factory in one of the Eastern States, where it proved to be equal if not superior to any Porcelain clay in use, both for manufacturing crockery-ware and fire bricks. Subsequently a bed of this deposit was purchased by a manufacturer by the name of LYMAN, who sent an agent to dig and ship the clay to the North, which has been kept up ever since at the rate of a thousand or more tons each year. In the meantime, however, the property changed at a vastly increased price over the original pur­chase, and fell into the hands of the present very enterpris­ing Superintendent of the Porcelain Works, W. H. FARRAR. Esq. Mr. F. continued the shipment of the clay on his own account until about a year since, when a manu­facturing company was formed with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, subscribed by Mr. FARRAR and several gen­tlemen of Augusta, Geo. Although so short a time has elapsed since its formation, and notwithstanding the com­pany have had a great many difficulties to encounter in the way of testing the materials and procuring suitable workmen, yet they are now in full operation with a com­plete sett [sic] set of hands, and are manufacturing various kinds of ware that will compare with any of the same sort that can be produced in the United States.

One is surprised at the extent of the operations of this company in the short space of time that it has had an ex­istence. They have erected a large building of wood in the shape of the letter T, two hundred feet long, forty feet wide, and two stories high, with two large furnaces. This is the main building. Besides this is another building, about one hundred feet long and one story high, in which the machinery for preparing the raw materials for manu­facturing is placed. There are also some twelve or fifteen cottages for the operatives residences already erect­ed, and others in the progress of building; and like all country villages there is a store. Last, though not least, there is in the course of building a neat little Episcopal Church, the corner stone of which it is expected will be laid in a few days. This church I understand is to be call­ed St. George’s Kaolin, to distinguish it from St. George’s in another part of the State.

I have not yet said anything about the origin of the name of this village, which is singularly appropriate, and may be said to be in a measure aboriginal, as it is derived from the Porcelain clay, which the Chinese call Kaolin.

Doubts have been expressed by some in regard to the success of this manufacturing enterprise, but it seems to me that there is nothing to cause a failure, as it has all the elements of success, so far as the raw material is con­cerned, there being an inexhaustible supply of the purest Kaolin, or clay, in the world, and an abundance of re­markably fine silex on the spot, and in another part of the State, easy of access, an unknown quantity of very superior Feldspar, these being the chief ingredients, so far as bulk and cost are concerned, and such an unlimited supply of them at hand, together with the increasing perseverance, the untiring industry, and the exhaustless energy of the present superintendent, who has himself a large interest at stake, a failure is all impossibility. In fact, it requires not the help of a very active imagination to foresee that this region of country is destined at no distant day to become the chief source of supply for the Porcelain ware consumed in the United States and perhaps elsewhere.

Thus, Messrs. Editors, is added another new and impor­tant enterprise to the manufacturing interests of the South, giving an additional proof of the oft repeated saying that her internal resources are inexhaustible, and which the folly of the North is compelling her daily to develop. It like­wise bids fair towards adding materially, both to the popu­lation and wealth of old Edgefield, placing her in those respects in the position which her large extent of territory entitles her to occupy. There are now within her borders three considerable manufacturing villages, viz: Graniteville, Bath Paper Mills and Kaolin, or the Potteries.

August, 1857.                                  EDGEFIELD.

{The above letter reached us yesterday. —EDS. ~~ Cour.}