Isaac Knowles
Isaac Watts Knowles
According to those who knew him, Isaac Knowles was an all-around great person. A man of many talents, he perfected a shaft driven jigger (machine for making pottery), designed a profitable fruit canning jar (pre-Mason jars), loved botany and local history, despised an untruth and was a fine conversationalist.
Isaac Watts Knowles was born in 1818 on a farm near Beaver, Pennsylvania. His family came to East Liverpool when he was thirteen years old. Isaac had very little formal education and became a cabinetmaker and carpenter. Some say he even made frames for David Gilmour Blythe’s paintings. Isaac married Hester Ann Smith, the granddaughter of the city’s founder, Thomas Fawcett. Together they had four children. Hester died in 1855 and Isaac married Rebecca Merchant, and an additional four children were born.
In the 1840s, Isaac sold ware along the Ohio River for James Bennett. By 1853, along with Isaac Harvey, he had built his own pottery, The East Liverpool Pottery Works. Following the Civil War, Knowles took over complete ownership of the pottery and in 1868 brought in his son and son-in-law to create Knowles, Taylor, and Knowles.
Knowles was a man of great foresight. He led his firm into the production of whiteware in 1872, Belleek ware in the late 1880s, and Lotus Ware in the 1890s. KT&K became East Liverpool’s largest pottery.
Isaac succumbed to a stroke on July 23, 1902 while living in Monticeta, California. He is buried in Riverview Cemetery, East Liverpool, Ohio.
