Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

Clinton County was known for a lot of industries that helped build the local economy. Lumbering, brick, iron, and tobacco all come readily to mind. Brick making was especially big, because of the presence of clay in the county. That also accounts for another big local business—Pottery.

There were potters all over the county, Sugar Valley especially. But for purposes of this column, I’m writing about the one in Lock Haven, a potter by the name of Wilhelm Schroat.

Schroat was born in Germany in 1814, got married to Eva Beckman, and had one child before he emigrated to America in 1840. He had six thousand dollars saved up at the time. The boat trip to America took three months, during which time Schroat became sick. He was still sick when the family arrived in Philadelphia, and spent several weeks recuperating there.

Once he was back on his feet, his goal was to find a good location to start a pottery business, because Wilhelm Schroat came from a long line of potters. The family traveled to Reading, and then to Gettysburg, but neither place seemed quite right. (Gettysburg still had about twenty years before it would develop a big tourist industry.)

Then the family heard of a newly founded community that sounded perfect: Lock Haven.

With what remained of their money, the family moved to Lock Haven, and settled on Hanna Street. Schroat set up his business in a warehouse, on property owned by a man named Marshall. He began making clay crocks. (He made other things, too, including utensils, but I really wanted to use that headline.) Initially, the business only showed modest profits, a situation not much improved by the birth of four more children.

His wife Eva stepped in at this point, to help supplement the income. In Germany, she had become a proficient baker, and she began to sell baked goods to the local canal boat operators as they passed through Lock Haven.

A 1939 article says,”The pottery business was none too profitable, so Wilhelm’s good wife, Eva, an expert German baker, baked ginger bread, cakes, and other breads to sell when the canal boats docked at a point near the pottery.” In the same article, their grandson speculated whether the bread was baked in the same fires that were heating up the pottery, or whether the baking was done in their home on Hanna Street. As far as I know, nobody ever resolved that question, and it’s still a mystery almost a century later.

The pottery business grew, however, and Schroat became somewhat successful. In 1866, he purchased a new team of horses with the intent of expanding his business, hoping to carry his pottery throughout central Pennsylvania. This plan never materialized, though, as he died not long after. Schroat passed away on November 22, 1866, at age fifty-two. (The articles don’t say if Schroat did romantic pottery with his wife as a ghost after his death. Somehow, though, I doubt it.)

Eva sold the pottery business to a man named Barnhart Huffard, though she kept baking for the locals. Huffard continued to operate the business in the Marshall Warehouse for a while, until he moved it to the corner of Main and Grant Streets. The business ended when it burned down sometime around 1878.

Schroat was buried in Highland Cemetery, where his grave remains. Eva died in 1882, and was buried beside him. Some of his pottery is likely still in existence out in Clinton County somewhere, though it would be hard to tell where, offhand. If anyone finds any, let me know—Pottery made by a little-known, early citizen of Lock Haven. I’d like to see that.