Small museum displays rare Illinois pottery

COBDEN, Ill. -- "People come here and they're just amazed at how much we have," said Sue Brumleve as she led a visitor through the Cobden Museum.

Like many other small historical museums, the one at Cobden has a diverse collection of pioneer artifacts, mounted animals, local memorabilia and the like.

But the Cobden Museum also has a collection that even a major museum might envy -- a number of the presentation pieces made by the Kirkpatrick Pottery that operated from 1859 to 1903 in Anna.

Among the museum's finest pieces of Kirkpatrick ware is a large stoneware jug made to commemorate the Union County Fair in 1886. The jug, which is 18 inches high, is incised with dozens of names, including those of the winners of the numerous livestock classes at the fair.

When the jug came up for sale at an estate auction some years ago, it fetched $17,000. The purchaser, who didn't want it to leave the county, has lent it to the museum, Brumleve said.

Another jug, from the Jonesboro Fair of 1877, makes for fascinating reading since many of the livestock breeds listed on it, such as Devon and Alderney cattle, have almost disappeared.

So who were the Kirkpatrick Brothers, and why is their pottery so sought after?

Part of its appeal is due to the fact that at a time when mass production was becoming the norm in most potteries, the Kirkpatricks still made one-of-a-kind pieces. Those pieces are now considered a form of folk art.

"I remember, said Brumleve, "that we went to this big flea market in Belleville and some man was walking around wearing a sandwich board that said: 'Wanted to buy: Kirkpatrick pottery.'

"I also can remember going on a behind-the-scenes tour of the (New York) Metropolitan Museum of Art's pottery collection and asking the curator if they had any Kirkpatrick pottery. 'No,' she replied, 'but we wish we did."'

There are examples of Kirkpatrick ware at the Smithsonian Institution, the Illinois State Museum and in other private and public collections. Although the pottery operated by brothers Cornwall and Wallace Kirkpatrick was the most famous, the family business originated in Pennsylvania, where their father, Andrew, began working as a potter at age 14.

Many of Andrew's 10 sons also operated potteries of their own. Cornwall and Wallace Kirkpatrick made pottery at various sites in Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois before moving to Anna because of its fine source of white kaolin clay.

Much of the pottery produced in Anna was unmarked. One of the brothers' main sources of income was from clay pipes, of which they sold half a million annually. But the creative pieces bore the stamps of the Kirkpatrick Pottery.

The Kirkpatricks were imaginative. They made frog mugs, in which a pottery frog appeared at the bottom when the beer was drained out. They also made brown pottery whiskey flasks shaped like pigs. These flasks were frequently incised with a map showing Southern Illinois railroads.

Wallace Kirkpatrick was responsible for the pottery's most unusual item, temperance jugs embellished with lifelike snakes that warned the drinker of the perils of overimbibing.

Ellen Paul Denker, who wrote the catalog for the museum's Kirkpatrick exhibition, said Wallace Kirkpatrick, who belonged to several temperance organizations, also had a collection of live snakes, which he exhibited at a fair in Belleville in 1877.

The collection was expanded to become the "Snake World of Egypt Exhibition," which toured county fairs. While on display at Cairo, the collection of about 50 snakes was purchased by a circus.