Clay in Virginia

bricks were made from local clay at Jamestown
Source: National Park Service, Making Brick at Jamestown (Sidney King painting)

local clay was used by the English colonists, as well as Native Americans, to make pottery
Source: National Park Service, Making Pottery at Jamestown (painting by Sidney E. King)

Clay minerals form by the decomposition of bedrock. The iron in the original source oxidizes. Virginia clay and bricks are red because of the rusted iron.

in the 1920's, ethnographer Frank Speck recorded how clay was dug from the riverbank for making Pamunkey pottery
Source: Museum of the American Indian, Chapters on the ethnology of the Powhatan tribes of Virginia (p.401)

Links

• US Geological Survey
• Environmental Characteristics of Clays and Clay Mineral Deposits
• Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy
• Clay Materials
• West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey
• History of West Virginia Mineral Industries - Clay

wealthy members of the gentry such as Thomas Nelson, Secretary of the Colonial Council of Virginia, built brick houses in the 1700's
Source: National Park Service, The Secretary Nelson House (Sidney King painting)