Colonial American Glassmakers and Glassmaking
Norton, Southwick, Smeedes and Wistar Led the Way
During the first hundred years of colonial American history, settlers made various attempts to establish glass factories. Many of them failed. The few who succeeded are remembered and appreciated by glass collectors and historians alike.
Jamestown, Virginia Was Home to First Glassmaking Attempts
When the first English settlers sailed into Chesapeake Bay and started building cabins along the James River, one of the first things they needed was glass for windowpanes. To help the settlers with this, the London Company sent eight skilled glass blowers, Dutchmen and Poles, in 1608. Their names are lost to history, but their glassmaking settlement was “located in the woods about a mile from Jamestown”, according to Stith’s History of Virginia.Another attempt to manufacture glass was made by one Captain William Norton in 1621, but it is also considered to be a failure even though it produced some brightly colored glass beads used to barter with the local Indians for Manhattan Island.
Glassworks Established at Salem, Massachusetts in 1639
Lawrence Southwick (1600-1660), Ananias Concklin (1610-1657) and Obadiah Holmes (1606-1682) founded a glass factory in Salem in 1639. It failed after just a few years, apparently due to a shortage of appropriate materials such as clay, sand and alkalines.
Both Southwick and Holmes were persecuted and punished for their religious beliefs, adding another element of hardship to their efforts to operate a profitable business. It is believed that they limited their production to bottles and other small pieces because the manufacture of windows was beyond their capabilities.
Johannes Smeedes Founded Glassworks at New Amsterdam in 1654
New York City’s Wall Street area was once home to Glass-Makers Street. Johannes (Jan) Smeeds and some other artisans, whose names are lost to history, operated several glass factories in this area in the 1650s. Glass Makers Street soon became Smee Street in honor of the Swedish entrepreneur, and later the name was changed to William Street. Cornelius Dircksen and a man named Jansen were two of Smees’ apprentices who reportedly started their own glassworks, but little is known of their accomplishments.
Caspar Wistar Created South Jersey Glass
German by birth, Caspar Wistar (1696-1752) started what is generally considered to be the first profitable American glass factory. He set up his business near Allowaystown, New Jersey and hired four Belgian glassblowers in 1739. The factory produced bottles, bowls, pitchers, vases and drinking glasses. Unlike his predecessors, Wistar had access to skilled workers as well as the sand, clay and other materials necessary. Wistar became well-known as the creator of South Jersey glass, recognizable for its trademark lily-pad designs as well as its wide and generous form.
The onset of the American Revolution in the 1760s made a significant impact on glassmaking as well as many other industries. Among all the early glassmakers in the colonies that would become America, only a few intrepid individuals would succeed enough to have their names go down in glassmaking history. Glassmakers were honored by the U.S. Postal Service in 1974 when they were included in the Colonial American Craftsmen series of Bicentennial commemorative postage stamps.
References:
- Weeks, Joseph D., Report on the Manufacturing of Glass, United States Department of the Interior, Census Bureau, 1884
- Tait, Claire V., "Glassmakers Among New World Settlers", Antique Monthly, June 1972
Colonial American Glassmaking in New Englan
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Colonial Jamestown Was Home of First Glassmakers
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