Potters Emigration Society, 1840s

[Erato]

Does anyone have ancestors who were members of the 'Potters Emigration Society' who went to the United States in the late 1840s?  I have two families in my tree - the Watsons and the Bennetts - who appear to have been members of this group who emigrated as part of an effort to resettle surplus potters [mostly from Staffordshire] on frontier land in southern Wisconsin [Columbia and Marquette Counties].  The founding immigrants of these two families were William Watson and James Bennett.  The colonization scheme in Wisconsin quickly failed but the Watsons and Bennetts did stay and did eventually become modestly successful farmers, as did some other members of the group.  Other potters went to Ohio, Illinois and other locations to set up pottery works or to attempt farming.

http://www.thepotteries.org/potworks_wk/067.htm
http://www.ephemera-society.org.uk/queries/2005/q7_05.html
http://www.chipstone.org/article.php/75/Ceramics-in-America-2003/
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/boards/localities.northam.usa.states.wisconsin.counties.columbia/301.307/mb.ashx





edited - the founding Bennett was James Bennett who arrived with his wife and adult son David.