One of the many jobs Carl Sandburg had while growing up in Galesburg was that of “ball pounder.” At the Galesburg Stoneware Manufacturing Company he had to weigh a ball of clay, cut it in half with a wire and shape it into two flat cakes. Pounding the clay required use of the palms and wrists of each hand. When he began the job Carl was warned that his arms would be sore for a couple of weeks. For a few nights he was unable to sleep because his wrists ached so much.

 

The clay was handed to the potter who placed it on a rotating iron wheel. He sprinkled on a little water and shaped the mass into a jug. To finish it, a handle of clay was applied. Then the jug was moved to the second floor of the factory building for drying. Later it would be fired in one of two large kilns next to the building.

 

Other men in the factory made stoneware crocks of four, six or eight gallons. They were called turners. The clay, mined near Colchester, was placed on a wheel inside a plaster of Paris mold. The turner used a scraper to hollow out the inside of the crock while the wheel turned. The crocks were covered with a glaze which turned brown during firing. The name of the company and the capacity of the crock were added to the bottom of the container.

 

Sandburg recalled there was a friendly rivalry between the men who shaped the jugs and those who molded the crocks. They made jokes about the ability of one another. Each group felt they were the better workmen. Some of the men were from the eastern United States and others came from Posey County in the southwest corner of Indiana.

 

The pottery occupied a fifty by one hundred foot brick building which had been constructed in1891 on the 900 block of Pine Street. It was near the junction of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad and the Narrow Gauge Railway. A spur was built to the factory for bringing in the clay and shipping out the finished products. George B. Churchill was president of the company and M.H. Caldwell was superintendent of the factory. Later the company was owned by Adolph Weinberg, Frank Pech and G.M. Stevens. It maintained an office and sales room at 23 East Main Street.

 

On the morning of December 3, 1897, Sandburg walked into his mother's kitchen and was told the factory had burned down during the night. Any ambition he may have had to be a potter was thus ended.