David Eldreth, Class of 1963

A few miles west of Oxford, just across the rushing Octorara Creek, a small workshop and store sit on a gentle hillside among Amish farms in southern Lancaster County. It’s an unassuming place, but it attracts art lovers and collectors from all over the country who have come to see the latest creations of Oxford Area High School graduate David Eldreth.

Mr. Eldreth has taken the traditional craft of pottery as practiced by the Pennsylvania Germans of centuries ago and brought it back to life. His products are both practical enough for everyday use and so beautiful that we can use them to decorate our homes.

After graduating in 1963, Mr. Eldreth went to art school in Baltimore and spent several years as an art teacher in Maryland. After taking a job at Kennett High School he found that he needed to take a few more art courses to get a Pennsylvania teaching certificate. It was a pottery class at West Chester that fired Mr. Eldreth’s imagination, leading him to a new hobby that turned into a part-time job and before long became a full-scale business.

Because potter’s equipment was expensive on a young teacher’s salary, Mr. Eldreth was forced to be creative: he made his first potter’s wheel from an old Maytag washing machine, and he borrowed a kiln from a friend. But this innovative artist was also fascinated by traditional craft methods, such as the production of salt-glazed stoneware, which used techniques largely abandoned by the 20th century.

Through trial and error, consultations with engineers, and studying the chemistry of clays and glazes, Mr. Eldreth mastered the processes he had been seeking, and Eldreth Pottery had begun.

At first a small business with four employees, the company has grown over the years to include 45 talented craftspeople. To the original line of gray and blue crocks, plates, and figurines, Mr. Eldreth has added pieces of Pennsylvania redware which are available in a wide range of colors and decorating styles. A high point of his career was his being asked to create a holiday ornament for the White House Christmas tree.

— John Bradley