NEWS

By THOMAS DAIL
UNC-CH News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Nicholas Fox, a Chatham County potter born in 1797, would be proud.

Replicas of a jug he made sometime in the second quarter of the 19th century will honor University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty members who have reached out to the state's communities as part of the Carolina Speakers program.

The replicas will be given during a ceremony hosted by Chancellor Michael Hooker to recognize the Carolina Speakers program. The ceremony will take place at Quail Hill, the Chancellor’s official residence, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Nov. 5.

Carolina Speakers, which began as a statewide outreach effort in 1993, brings 83 leading faculty members to business, civic and community groups to share their expertise on more than 100 topics, including 44 that focus on North Carolina and the South. The program is part of UNC-CH's ongoing efforts to connect with North Carolinians.

For instance, Peer Learning, an organization of retirees who want to stay intellectually active, taps the Carolina Speakers program for most of its weekly lectures. Peer Learning organizer Milton Donin said that Carolina Speakers has been an essential part of the group.

Dr. William Leuchtenburg, Kenan professor of history at UNC-CH, spoke at one of Peer Learning's Tuesday meetings in October.

"Bill Leuchtenburg comes out like gangbusters," said Donin, referring to the standing-room-only crowd of people gathered for the lecture.

By the end of Leuchtenburg’s talk, audience members' hands shot up, as though the crowd had been whipped into a frenzy.

Fifth-generation Seagrove potter Sid Luck will turn and fire the replicas using glazing materials and techniques that North Carolina potters like Nicholas Fox employed in the 19th century. Luck began turning pots at the age of 12 for J. B. Cole Pottery. After teaching chemistry for a number of years, he returned to pottery full-time in 1990. His son, Jason Luck, a senior computer science and anthropology major at UNC-CH, also will turn several of the replicas.

A team of excavators from UNC-CH’s Research Labs of Archeology unearthed the original fox jug during UNC-CH's bicentennial dig at the Eagle Hotel site next to Graham-Memorial Hall from 1993 to 1994. The team, led by Stephen Davis, research archeologist, found the pot in a soil layer that had accumulated during the second half of the 19th century, when Hugh Guthrie owned the building and ran it as the Eagle Hotel.

In his book, "Turners and Burners: The Folk Potters of North Carolina," Dr. Charles Zug, English professor and folklore chair at UNC-CH, explores one of North Carolina's most important indigenous art forms. North Carolina's pottery tradition is remarkable because it has survived technological advances, he said. In the 20th century, when mass-produced glass and plastics became available, North Carolina's family pottery studios began to shift from the production of utilitarian pieces to decorative and ornamental ones.

The Foxes were Pennsylvania Germans who migrated from Bucks County, Pa., to Chatham County around 1779, according to Zug. Farm families used pieces like the Fox pot to store food during the winter. The Fox jug is most likely a cream pot, used for storing milk, butter, lard or for souring cream, said Zug. The original wheel thrown pot is 7.5 inches in diameter and 7.5 inches tall. Fox marked it by stamping "N Fox" on the side of the vessel.

Though pieces like the Fox pot were utilitarian, Fox family potters took great pride in the artistry of their work. During the 19th century, Fox family pottery gained a reputation in the area for perfect form, even glaze, neat thumb printed handles and decorative incised bands. In fact, the term "Fox jug" became part of the local potters' language to describe their pieces.

"They were unsurpassed by anybody in Chatham or Randolph counties," Zug said.

Zug, who has been a Carolina Speaker since 1993, said he thought the program, besides being a great service for the state, helps the university show the rest of the state what takes place in Chapel Hill.

"Especially for me, since I talk about the folk culture of the state, I get to present the culture back to the people of the state, whose culture it is," he said.

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(Dail is a senior journalism and English major from Upper Marlboro, Md.)

News Services contact: L.J. Toler, 962-8589.