John Lewis Stone was born in Kentucky and learned the potter’s trade at Cornwall and Wallace Kirkpatrick’s Anna Pottery in Anna, Illinois, famous for its snake-covered, so-called temperance jugs. Stone came to Texas and managed William Knox’s pottery at Oletha in Limestone County; he also worked for the pottery’s subsequent owner, John Fowler, until 1875.

The temperance jugs feature surfaces with squirming snakes, spiders, and insects tormenting human figures presumed to be drunkards. They have been interpreted as having a temperance message, a warning for those who would take too much of the jug’s contents. Other scholars argue that the meaning was perhaps slightly subversive or tongue-in-cheek. After all, distillers and liquor distributors were important clients for potters at the time. Stone’s jug borrows directly from the Kirkpatricks’ work with a similar composition incorporating shared figural elements.