Stoneware merchant and entrepreneur. Born in New York around 1818, John B. Maxfield arrived in Milwaukee with his wife Eliza and son William in 1846, where he engaged in a wide variety of business endeavors. He worked as a carpenter until 1850, when he opened a grocery store on East Water Street. In 1854, Maxfield and his brother Amos purchased Oscar F. Baker's Milwaukee Stoneware Factory on the corner of West Water and Clybourn streets. The pottery imported stoneware clay from Ohio to produce a variety of utilitarian salt-glazed wares, including jugs, crocks, churns, chamber pots, and flowerpots. John bought out Amos in mid-1855 and was the sole owner of the pottery business until 1858, when he sold the factory to E.D. Chapin, who converted the building into a flour mill. In census records following the closure of the pottery, Maxfield is listed as a cigar maker and a commission merchant. View examples of Maxfield's work in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database.

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[Source: Kenneth Dearolf, Wisconsin Folk Pottery (Kenosha Public Museum, 1986).]