Teapot is Steeped in Local History

  • Saturday, October 25, 2008
  • Harmon Jolley
The name "Gibson and Lee Manufacturing Company" was seen every time this teapot whistled.  Click to enlarge.
The name "Gibson and Lee Manufacturing Company" was seen every time this teapot whistled. Click to enlarge.
photo by Harmon Jolley

A reader recently asked me to help her to find information on a cast iron teapot. The manufacturer’s name, Gibson and Lee Manufacturing Company, appears on the teapot’s lid.

So, with my fedora, sunglasses, and spy glass in hand, I head to the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Bicentennial Library’s local history/geneaology department on another quest.

The history of the teapot begins with a predecessor firm, Williamson and Company. This business was engaged in manufacturing and marketing of stoves and house furnishings. According to the Hale-Merritt history of Tennessee, J. Thomas Williamson was born in Hamilton County in 1824. No, not that one; the one in Ohio where Cincinnati is located. Mr. Williamson came to Chattanooga in 1872, and joined his brother-in-law, William R. Frye, in the stove and cookware business.

Meanwhile, Fillmore Gibson, a native of Marshall, Virginia, moved to Chattanooga in 1877 and joined Williamson and Company as a bookkeeper. The owners sold the business in 1881 to Mr. Gibson and fellow investor J. Gordon Lee of Ringgold, Georgia.

The first listing for Gibson and Lee Manufacturing appears in the city directory of 1882, where the makers of stoves and tinware are shown as being at 180 Market Street. Subsequent addresses included 626, 608, and 619 Market Street. The casting of stoves and cookware took place at a foundry on Missionary Avenue (later renamed 23rd Street).

According to a Gibson and Lee advertisement, the reader’s teapot was likely part of an extensive set of “trimmings furnished with each stove.” With every stove came thirty-six pieces including:

* 1 Wash Boiler
* 2 Iron Pots
* 2 Iron Skillets
* 2 Iron Griddles
* 1 Iron Gridiron
* 3 Iron Baking Pans
* 1 Biscuit Cutter
* 1 Coffee Boiler
* and 1 Iron Tea-Kettle

In 1889, J. Gordon Lee retired to pursue other ventures, and sold his interest in the business to W.E. Love. Mr. Lee was active in agriculture and other endeavors. He was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1904 and served twenty-two years there.

J. Gordon Lee was a major promoter of the establishment of the Chickamauga National Military Park. He also lived in the Gordon-Lee mansion which was first owned by his grandfather, James Gordon and previously occupied by his parents, James and Elizabeth G. Lee.

For a few years, the new operating name of the cookware business was Gibson-Love Manufacturing Company. In 1891, Fillmore Gibson sold his share, and went into the grocery business. He also served as the secretary of the Chattanooga Steamboat Company. In 1896, Gibson-Love became the Mountain City Stove and Manufacturing Company.

So, based on this information, the reader’s old cast iron teapot was manufactured locally sometime in the 1880’s. It was an era in which Chattanooga was rapidly moving into a leadership position in many types of manufacturing.

If you have information on the Gibson-Lee Manufacturing Company, any of its predecessors or successors, or have a Chattanooga-manufactured item you would like to be researched, please send me an e-mail at jolleyh@bellsouth.net.

Gibson and Lee advertisement.  Click to enlarge.
Gibson and Lee advertisement. Click to enlarge. photo by
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