Location: On the west side of US Route 23, at the Parsons Springs, 
where the side road leads through Ramsey Gap.

Date: About 1870

Owners: At the time the Crockery was started, the property belonged to the County Road Department, and it now belongs to the State Highway Department.

Description: The furnace was something on the order of a coke oven, except that it was more oblong than hive shaped. It was made of rock, lined and floored with brick. Had a firebox underneath and a brick floor over the firebox where the crocks were stacked for burning. This floor over the firebox had open eyes to let the heat and blaze penetrate around the crocks and other earthenware vessels. The crocks were stacked in the furnace, a fire started underneath at each end of the furnace and burnt for three days and nights. Then, the third day, Mr.
Anderson, would take a half bushel of parched salt, throw it in among the crocks from the top, seal the furnace air tight and allow to cool for about a week. This was to glaze the crocks. 
Then they were taken in from the furnace and put on the market.

     The way clay was prepared: The clay was dug and ground in a mill, something similar to the old fashioned cane mill. After it was ground it was thoroughly pulverized and freed from all foreign matter and made into mud.
     Turning The Crock: The turning lathe was a large wheel near the ground running on a spindle, and just above this was another wheel and this one was run by a foot lever and the prepared mud was placed on this second wheel and the crock was formed while the wheel was turning. After it was formed it was taken off the wheel, let dry and then it was ready to go into the furnace to be burned.

History: (Bob) Anderson, was a brother of James Anderson, who ran a Crockery in Norton from 1858 until in the 1880s. He was married to Ura, a daughter of Jimmie Brown, who once ran a Horse Grist Mill in Wise. After he left the above mentioned place, where he lived in the old Parsons House, he moved to Lee Co., and there for awhile made Crockery. He died in 1888 from a horse kick. His wife continued to live at the home place near Fletcher's Ford in Lee Co., until March, 1896, when she, along with her daughter-in-law, Easter, wife of her son Andy, and her two infant children, and a niece, Mary Fleenor, and her infant child, were
drowned in a water spout that struck in the head of a hollow near the home.

Informant: Mrs. Susie Moles, daughter of said Bob Anderson.