The following is of part of chapter seven of "Brothers in Clay" The Story of Georgia Folk Pottery, John A. Burrison; The University of Georgia Press, Athens, 1983.
This book is alive with history, information of classifying types of pottery, illustrations, and personal lives of Georgia potters and their times from the Eighteenth through to the Twentieth century.
"Georgia's preeminent colonial potter was Philadelphia-born Andrew Duch`e, the third son of Anthony Duch'e. an English-born potter of Huguenot stock who had settled in that city by 1705 and in 1730 unsuccessfully petitioned the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for support in " "the Art of making Stoneware," " to which he had been applying himself " "for severall Years past," " Salt-glazed stoneware marked with the initials AD and attributed to Anthony, patterned on both German and English types, has recently been excavated in downtown Philadelphia; while his fourth son, James, was instrumental in producing the first New England stoneware.
Andrew worked with his father and brothers in their Philadelphia " "Pot-House" " on Chestnut Street until the early 1730's, when he left with his wife Mary for Charleston, South Carolina." Andrew advertised selling earthenware in the South-Carolina Gazette on April 5, 1735.
Shortly Duch'e appears to have moved to the trading settlement of New Windsor, on the Savannah River near the present-day North Augusta, South Carolina where he remained a year or two. In New Windsor Roger Lacy, Georgia's agent to the Cherokee Indians, convinced Duch'e to move to a promising new Georgia town that had been founded in 1733 called Savannah.
Col. William Stephens, resident Secretary to the English Trustees of Georgia, in a letter dated May 27, 1738 describes the encouragement (financial support, and shop & kiln) and potential results of their investment in Duch'e's pottery works in Savannah.
Several months later (about December 1738) Duch'e boasted that he was "the first Man in Europe, Africa or America, that ever found the true material and manner of making porcelain or China ware," he seemed to overlook the fact that hard-paste porcelain was produced as early as 1715 in Meissen, Germany. He petitioned the trustees for more financial support, and materials, to pursue this adventure.
On July 14, 1739, he was given part of the materials he requested, with the rest to follow after he had sent over specimens of his wares. While this experiment was in progress Duch'e supported himself and his wife by manufacturing utilitarian products (kitchen wares.)
By 1740 Andrew had made another reputation for himself, as a political dissenter. The local press did not like his political stand. The Savannah Chronicler disliked Duch'e; in 1740, Col. Stephens wrote in his journal that Duch'e had aligned himself with the "Malcontents."; Thomas Jones, a Savannah magistrate and storekeeper for the Trustees, complained the following year in a letter to General Oglethrope of "Instances of Mr. Duchees Behaviour & Conversation, tending to disturb, if not subvert the peace & Tranquility of the Colony."
Dissatisfied with the political situation Duch'e left Georgia in 1743. After a visit to England he returned to South Carolina, then became a merchant in Norfolk, Virginia, and finally settled at his birthplace, Philadelphia."
In closing we will use the authors (John A. Burrison) words, "What remains then, is that for a five-year period Andrew Duch'e made both folk and experimental wares at Savannah, and is the earliest documented potter in Georgia."
