John Wesley Hilton (1836–1923), Catawba County, North Carolina, signed Catawba Valley stoneware canning jar, of tall cylindrical form with rounded shoulder and rolled rim beneath a warm brown alkaline glaze. Hilton was the patriarch of a multigenerational Catawba Valley pottery family whose tradition continued through his descendants for generations. His son Ernest Auburn Hilton and later descendants became important figures in preserving and reviving the region’s pottery traditions. 13" mint condition as fired from the aritst.