This may not be a type of production that is well-known today, although it is significant, seeing that any unmarked wares that exist from this pottery business could be mistaken for production from North Carolina in the twentieth century and perhaps elsewhere, as well as some of the glazes having been possibly inspired from actual wares made in western New York in the nineteenth century. Furthermore, the potter who produced these wares later went on to make stoneware face jugs and possibly other forms in South Carolina after 1950.
The Roadside Craftsmen was opened in the early 1930s by Clarence Wemett (1885-1961) as a place to make and sell novelty items. Homer Bullock (1888-1957) was hired in 1934 as a wood craftsmen. Guy Daugherty (1879-1958) was the potter (but there may have been others), who had previously worked for Smithfield, North Carolina potter Herman Cole among others, but left sometime before or around 1940; a weaver and metal worker were also involved with the business. Wemett was a Shell Oil distributor with headquarters in Hemlock, NY. He also had a gas station and a restaurant down the road to the left of the craft business.
According to New York archaeologist and museum specialist George Hamell, "There was a southern potter, Guy Daugherty, an itinerant potter from Denton Texas, having started his pottery career in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and later worked in the summer months during the Great Depression and in the early years after World Word II in making pottery in East Bloomfield, Ontario County, New York. He and other craftspeople - such as weavers and tinsmiths worked at the Roadside Craftsmen along Routes 5 and 20 just west of the village selling to tourists.
Daughterty's southern pottery heritage is reflected in the lip treatment on this pitchers, although he did produce some larger pitchers and vases, among other forms. He also fired his wares in a groundhog kiln. Interestingly, he perhaps knew of the earlier red earthenware heritage in the Town of Bloomfield - he used a red-firing clay, and much of his production is covered in a glaze strikingly similar to that found on a lot of the wares made in West Bloomfield around the mid-1800s (as well as some of the wares made in Morganville, New York).
The wares were sometimes stamped "Roadside Craftsmen" and adhesive labels were also sometimes used. He also made larger wares marked "Bloomfield Art Pottery." He even occasionally incised objects with his initials "GD," and the last two digits of the year that the piece was made, such as "48" or "49." The shop closed in 1953."
Nonetheless, many students from the Alfred State School of Ceramics helped work with the glazing and firing of the pottery. One of the early glaze technicians for the pottery was Emil "Chip" G. Zschiegner (1905-1936). Emil G. Zschiegner received an undergraduate degree in Ceramic Art and Design from Alfred in 1930. All of this information can be found in the documentary "A Group of Spirited Works: A History of the Roadside Craftsmen," which was produced by Laurel C. Wemett.
Afterwards, Daugherty bought the pottery business in Bethune, Kersaw County, South Carolina, where he manufactured some stoneware face jugs in a traditional nineteenth century style, some of which also resemble face jugs made by the Brown family in Georgia and North Carolina. In fact, it was published in 2014 in Cinda K. Baldwin's book Great and Noble Jar, "A 1955 article in the State Magazine described Daugherty as "one of the few remaining 'old time' potters in the entire Southeast. . . who will be 77 years young on his next birthday [and that he] made his first piece of saleable pottery in 1888 when he was only ten years old."
For additional reading about Daugherty's work in western New York, see an article written by Hamell published in 1980 in Northeast Historical Archaeology, titled, Earthenwares and Salt Glazed Stonewares of the Rochester-Genessee-Valley Region: An Overview.
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