Manufacturer Notes: Gunther & Burns

802 725 Peter Buns     36 M W Potter 1300 100  Baurn
                Rosina "         37 M W                                  "
                Mary            8/12 F W                                Wis

Gunther was not in Sheboygan in 1860 Census.

1860 Census Wisconsin Sheboygan Sheboygan Ward 4
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81 84 Berens Rosina    47 F W     Keeps house 900 124     Bavaria
           --Mary                11 F W      goes to school                  Wis
           --Caroline            6 F W           id                                    id
           --Theresa             4 F W                                                  id

1870 Census Wisconsin Sheboygan Sheboygan Ward 4
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The earthenware was made at the Theodore Gunther Eastern Stone Ware Factory, which is located on the south side of Wisconsin Avenue, between N. 8th and 9th Streets. This pottery was established before the Civil War and was formerly known as Gunther and Berns.  Peter Berns sold his interest in the factory to Theodore Gunther on June 28, 1866. The factory was still in operation in the late 1880s and many types of household ware were manufactured there and sold in the Sheboygan County area.

Sheboygan Press; (Sheboygan Wisconsin) March 29, 1972.
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Business in 1863

February ........Peter Burns started a pottery works west of the Calumet Road.

June, Theodore Guenther and Peter Berns started a pottery works on the south side of Wisconsin avenue a short distance west of Eighth street. this was destroyed by fire a few years later and started a configuration that wiped out most of the buildings in the north half of that block.

The Sheboygan Press April 23, 1926
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1870........ former partner, Peter Berns, who had died four years ago.

Peter had come from Bavaria to establish Sheboygan's first pottery in the late 1850s. Valued at just $100 the small factory was located in the 4th Ward.

Theodore has spent little time at Bern's old pottery. By 1863, when he joined Berns, It was time to relocate to this space at the center of Sheboygan's downtown on the site of the new Mead Public Library. 

Gunter brought all the right credentials to their prosperous partnership. Born in Metz France, he had learned the trade from European craftsman. When he immigrated to America in 1855, he settled in Detroit, but later came to Milwaukee where he worked for the large Herman Bros. Pottery where many Wisconsin potters got their start in a new country.

The Sheboygan Press December 11, 1976 
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