Question about a material

[mrspatino]

does anyone know if we had access to Alibaster and or a white clay and can anyone tellme what it may have been used for?

[Tom]

Certainly white clay, for almost everything, from white washing huts and houses, to bowls jars and no doubt pipes etc, possibly even food!
Alibaster I have no idea.

[mrspatino]

I did not know that about how much the clay was used for, still curios about the Alibaster too. hmm

[Linda]

Well, I live at ground zero for the old Saponi/Tutelo nation and when I tried to buy a lot here, the first one wouldn't perc because there was a lot of what the guy called white "pipe clay." It's too dense, water doesn't pass through it fast enough for a septic system. I wound up buying the lot two lots over, where there's tons and tons of red clay everywhere.

[Ed Yancey]

I was born and raised in northern Granville County,NC just two miles from Va. line. Most of the land in that area is red clay soil but we had white clay deposits. These areas had been identified for generations and this clay was dug to daub the log barns and houses newly built. Every summer before harvest time my father and I would go to one of the deposits and dig it to repair the daubing that might have weathered and fallen out between the logs. We also had people in the community who ate the clay. I was told they did this to replenish mineral deficientcies in their system but I think they really just liked to eat it. I would see them dig some out when we worked in the fields and I even tried it. To me it really had little taste and nothing I craved or really wanted but for them you would have thought it was candy. Ed

[Linda]

I wonder what kind of pottery it would make. Why would it be especially good for pipes? I wonder what the derivation of that term "white clay" is?

[rockhound]

That white clay could be kaolinite, which was/is used in Tootsie Rolls.

[mrspatino]

this is very interesting the Kaolinite hmmm

[PappyDick]

I know just about enough about these clays to say something stupid, so I shouldn't try. However. When fired, they are used for very different kinds of ware, of which the white (like porcelain dinnerware, and the smooth shiny pipe bowl with a long stem, fired as one object) is more expensive; and the red (like a Shenandoah Valley cream bowl, lead glazed inside to make it watertight, and you sick) is cheap -- being more like a brick, porous and soft, easily cracked. A red clay pipe bowl would need a separate, wooden stem inserted.

There are places (I think Chester Co. PA is one, but this may be in Delaware) that have a Red Clay Creek and a White Clay Creek fairly close to each other. Also "Whittler's" Creek, in the Middle Atlantic states, is from Swedish "hvita ler," white clay.

There are of course a lot of white clay things that aren't so expensive, like toilet bowls.

If Kathleen6 is reading the forum these days, she probably would have something more useful to contribute about the clays -- she does kiln firing, I don't.

Alabaster, by the way, is a soft white translucent stone, easily carved and polished, often used for lamp bases, chess sets, etc. I guess maybe pipe bowls, but I don't know how well it would take the high temperature.

[Linda]

Here's a link to a photo of some Tuscarora pipes, ca 1713 in Greene County, NC at the site of Fort Neoheroka:

http://tuscaroras.com/fortneoheroka/PageEight.htm

They're similar to those I've seen from Gaston, attributed to the Saponi.

[mrspatino]

Thanks Pappy and AUntie! interesting i am actually gonna do some leg work on this I think too to all of you have been super helpfull. I am thinking that what I am looking for is not clay but a type of stone. i'll get back to you on this it maybe clay though to but it would have to be like a bright white when dried. ugh ok more on this later ithink lol