Maps- Where did potters live and work?

Utah's immigrant potters left several different countries of origin.  Many left from Denmark and the United Kingdom, particularly Staffordshire and the English Midlands.  Other European-born potters came from Germany and Norway.  Potters also migrated from other parts of the United States, including from New York, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri:

Individual potters could settle wherever they wished, but many chose to take on missions to settle specific towns and regions.  The leaders of the Latter-day Saints sought to settle a chunk of the Rocky Mountain and Great Basin regions of the United States which they called Deseret. Brigham Young and his advisors led "the gathering" of people to the headquarters at Salt Lake City and then organized them into settlement companies sent throughout the region.

This pattern of settlement, guided/directed and open/undirected, led to potters distributed through the area.  Each blue dot in the map below indicates a pottery.  Overlapping dots represent multiple potteries in a single town.  Keep in mind that some of these dots are interpretative arguments- we don't always know who partnered together and who worked independently.  

Latter-day Saints established some potteries outside of Utah's modern borders:

Potteries within the modern political boundaries of Utah:

We are building a "map" of the potter's marks.  The upcoming museum exhibit will present all that we know about the different potter's marks:

The Davenports in England

Over the next few days, I thought I would post some of the information I have gathered about the Davenports. I'll start at their beginnings-- births, marriage, and starting their family in England.

Thomas Davenport
born: April 1, 1815; parish of Brampton, County of Derby, England.
fifth child of Robert Davenport and Ann Jarvis Davenport

Sarah Burrows (Davenport)
born July 24th, 1811; parish Eckington, Derby, England.
fourth child of John Burrows and Charlotte Barber Burrows.

According to family histories, Thomas and Sarah married in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, in 1836. Their children were baptized at St. Thomas in New Brampton. According to online records at Genuki, Thomas and Sarah lived in Brampton Moor and Thomas was listed as "potter" and "working potter". The 1841 census lists them living in New Brampton, not Brampton Moor, and also lists Thomas as a "Pottery M" which some modern Davenport family researchers take to mean "pottery molder" but I think may just be "pottery maker".

According to the family history, these are the key events recorded in the records of the Latter-day Saints:
Thomas was baptized April 21, 1847 and Sarah two weeks later, June 8, 1847.
Thomas was ordained a teacher shortly after baptism and then ordained a priest on September 26th of that same year. The family history gives two dates when Thomas was ordained an elder: March 20th and April 27, 1848.

The Latter-day Saints changed branch designations through time as the membership expanded and contracted. March 20th, 1848, while Thomas was made an elder, he was also appointed as president of the Bolsover branch in Derbyshire. March 6, 1848, he became branch treasurer. In June of 1848, the Holdover and Warley branches were combined into a single unit and Thomas was appointed president of the newly combined branch. Through the rest of 1848, he was mentioned regularly in the records in relation to his missionary efforts both traveling and hosting visiting members. The family history says that the official Church records make no reference to his daily work.

Thomas and Sarah's children born in England before 1849:

William Davenport, b. May 28, 1837, bap. June 6, 1837, Brampton, Derby, England.
Thomas Davenport, b. April 7 1839, bap. May 5, 1839, Brampton, Derby, England.
Died February 16, 1840; buried St. Thomas Church, Brampton, Derby, England.
John Davenport, b. December 17, 1844, bap. January 1, 1845, Brampton, Derby, England.
Sarah Ann Davenport, b. February 14, 1847, bap. March 21, 1847, Brampton, Derby, England.

I'm working with a curator at the Chesterfield Museum, trying to learn more about where Thomas worked making pottery, what his jobs may have been, and if Sarah worked in a pot shop.

In my next post, I'll list the Davenport's immigration information.