In the early 1800s, American potters tried to improve their pottery to compete with cheap English imports. They made yellow ware with a brown glaze called Rockingham. From 1848 to 1857, the Larkin brothers in Newell (Hancock County) were the first in what is now West Virginia to make molded pottery using this glaze.

Porcelain was the most sophisticated ceramic ware. It was made in Wheeling by the Ohio Valley China Company 1890 and 1895 and the Wheeling Pottery Company between 1879 and 1900.