Back Then is devoted to kaolin. What’s kaolin? Well, you may very well conclude when you finish reading this article that you know a lot more about the stuff than you ever wanted to know. Kaolin has its bright side and its dark side.

One of the most intriguing stories of our immediate region is that of the kaolin mining industry. It began over 200 years ago in Macon County when Thomas Griffith, a representative of the noted English pottery firm headed by Josiah Wedgwood, journeyed into the Cherokee heartland to secure samples of the “white burning” clay.

Even more sensational, perhaps, is the ongoing habit of eating kaolin that has been documented recently in middle Georgia. Eating kaolin is categorized by researchers as a form of pica, which is defined as “a craving for unnatural food, as seen in hysteria or pregnancy.” It is also sometimes categorized as geophagy, which is defined as “the practice of eating earthly substances such as clay.” Locally, the habit is simply called “earth eating” or “chalk eating.”

First, the bright side. Kaolin was extensively mined in Western North Carolina from the late 1880s until roughly 1950. Old kaolin quarries still dot the landscape. Kaolin, or “China clay,” is an essential ingredient in the manufacture of fine china and porcelain. It has also been widely used in the making of paper, rubber, paint, and heat resistant materials.

Fine chinaware is, of course, associated with the nation that first refined the process. The name kaolin derives from the Chinese for Kau-ling (“high ridge”), designating a hill in China where the earliest pure clay samples were obtained by a Jesuit missionary about 1700.

The Europeans quickly recognized that kaolin retains intended forms and characteristics when fired at high temperatures; it is the only clay from which a translucent-glassy hard white ceramic can be made. For commercial purposes, they required a source closer to home, and after the “white burning” clay was discovered in the early 18th century in France, Germany, and at Cornwall in England, Europeans began producing their own porcelains and chinaware.

As they explored the New World, the Europeans sought out natural products that could be utilized in colonial industries or shipped back home. Sure enough, the white clay materialized in feldspar deposits throughout the southeastern region of what became the United States.

Some of the finest deposits were located in the middle Cherokee homeland here in the far southwestern tip of North Carolina, especially in present Jackson, Macon, and Swain counties. Although it is now mostly a forgotten industry and topic recalled mainly by old-timers - some of whom went down into the clay pits to earn a living - it’s not difficult to locate the quarries and imagine the toil which went into excavating them.

Thomas Griffith arrived at Charleston in September 1767 and reached the clay mine area at Iotla just south of the Indian town of Cowee on the Little Tennessee River in November. By the time he embarked for England the following spring, he had dug five or more tons for Wedgwood, the famous British pottery manufacturer renowned for artistic and scientific approaches that revolutionized the porcelain industry.

The fullest account of Wedgwood’s interest in and use of the clay is provided by Bill Anderson, a Western Carolina University historian. In an article titled “Cherokee Clay, from Duche to Wedgewood: The Journal of Thomas Griffiths, 1767-1768” published in “The North Carolina Historical Review” (1976), Anderson relates that Andrew Duche - a Philadelphia Quaker who had established himself in Savannah in 1737 - was the first potter in the English-speaking world to make porcelain, and that “Moreover, he was making it from clay secured from the Cherokee Indians.”

Wedgwood became aware of superior kaolin deposits in the “Ayoree Mountains” deep in the Cherokee backcountry. The Cherokee may have used the clay - which they called “unaker” (for white) - to some extent in their own pottery, but were more interested in mining mica as an ornamental and trade item.
Anderson details the Wedgwood-Griffith pursuit of kaolin in a lively fashion and reproduces Griffith’s journal with annotations. What did Wedgwood make of the stuff once he had five or six tons in hand back in England? In 1769, he took out a patent for a painting process called “encaustic ornamentation” using the clay, and in the 1770s he used it to prepare gems and cameos, as well as for making jasper, a porcelaneous stoneware. But, Anderson concludes, “No further attempts were made to secure additional clay from the Cherokee because of the cost and the difficulties involved.”

In his book “The Southern Appalachian Region” (vol. II, 1966), Highlands author T.W. Reynolds recounts his efforts to relocate the mines in Macon County which Griffith had worked. He explored the region and decided it probably did not come from the Snow Hill Road area where a state highway historical marker citing the incident is now situated.

In the company of a kaolin producer, and relying on “local inquiry and guide lines of the Journal,” he felt that they “located Griffith’s clay pit, and if not the precise one, then mighty close to it, and the best white clay around ... three miles from Franklin by Highway 28(where) Rt. 1372 takes off left towards Burningtown, whereon at 1.5 miles before the bridge at Iotla Creek, Rt. 1385 turns off left 0.6 miles, and then turns over a bridge where the road forks right to the home of Boyd L. Jones ... and left 0.1 mile up a hill ... and the best white clay is found well down the steep slope of the hill.

“Mr. Jones,” Reynolds continued, “refers to the mine as the old Gurney mine for one Gurney who is said locally to have come from Wedgwood in England. Two or three men lost their lives in the mine in about 1912.”

Because of the remoteness of the white clay in our region and its availability elsewhere farther east in this state, as well as in Georgia and Florida, kaolin mining was not an important industry in this area for over a century after Griffith’s exploration. But from 1888 up until about 1950, it became very significant in both Jackson and Swain counties, providing an alternative to agricultural subsistence for many local people.

And now, alas, the dark side of the kaolin story. The ingestion of kaolin has been extensively documented in Georgia. In Atlanta it is widely sold, sometimes at produce counters. In fact, kaolin, until 20 or so years ago, was a key ingredient in the anti-diarrheal product Kaopectate.

“Eating dirt” has been treated in literature and journalism as a strange but relatively harmless part of Southern culture. But experts say that it can sometimes be fatal.

Women, pregnant women in particular, claim the white clay settles their stomach. It is sometimes addictive. One user in Georgia stated that “You get a craving for it like you get a craving for cigarettes. If I didn’t have it, I would eat starch, just to get that chalky taste.”

Another Georgia woman, age 51, has fought her clay-eating habit since childhood. She is of all things a nurse. We’ll conclude with her statement:

“Mama would give us 15 cents and say, ‘Go up to so-and-so’s house and get me some chalk,’ she said. Naturally, as a child you’re going to taste it. All of the sudden, I’d say within a year, it was like - ‘I want that.’ I don’t have much of a social life anymore. It’s more important I get home to get my fix. Do you know how the ground smells when it’s real dry and along comes a little sprinkle of rain - that fresh smell? If you could taste a smell, that’s how I would describe it. Most people expect it to be gritty, but it’s creamy smooth. Technically, I’d rather eat dirt than food. If I could eat dirt for breakfast, dirt for lunch, dirt for dinner and a little iced tea I’d be fine. Some people just go out and dig in their yard. But I’ve seen it at convenience stores, stores in black neighborhoods, gas stations. Even though it says right on the package that it’s a ‘novelty item, not for human consumption,’ sometimes you’ll find it with the vegetables at the grocery store. It’s embarrassing for me. It’s embarrassing for my family.”

(George Ellison is a writer who lives in Bryson City. He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Readers can contact him at P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C., 287713, or at ellisongeorge@cs.com.)

 

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