But his only glass was some salts in the parlor. Wealth and fashion did not dictate an elaborate collection of glass, for the Reverend Ebenezer Thayer who died in nearby Roxbury less than a year later had £137 worth of silver. "For those who did buy taste in the newest styles, drinking glasses were the inverted baluster type (popular in England from 1720 to about 1735) or the later drawn stem glass (1730–1745)." Both types have been found in Virginia. Merchants also offered japanned glassware. Boston merchants advertised wine glasses, jelly glasses, syllabubs, decanters, sugar pots, barrel cans, punch bowls, bird fountains, and candlesticks. The 1730s saw an increasing variety of products. Īmerican glass factories were founded first in New York in 1732 and then in South Jersey by Caspar Wistar in 1739. According to his records, a Ralph Fisbourn died in Chester, Pennsylvania in 1708 with an estate of £1,762 his only glass possessions were a few bottles. Many wealthy colonists had little to no glass in their households. Glass was not universal in most households. Round bottles assumed a more squat shape. Over 70 percent of Hume's finds were fragments of quatre foil-stemmed glasses. Most glass was utilitarian with a case of glasses in the parlor quite common. Ivor Noël Hume excavated in Virginia and found one fragment of a piece of glass. Glassmaking in America symbolized wealth. The Virginia Company expected returns since the glassmaking business was in decline, they ventured to other manufactories. Glassmaking in the colonies was discontinued in 1609 during the Starving Time. The glass was comparable to that produced in England: exhibit showcases, window panes, bottles, and drinking vessels. In 1948, while excavating the foundation of the furnaces, archaeologist Jean Carl Harrington theorized that the workmen probably produced a lot of green glass. Overall the glass house was about thirty seven feet wide by fifty feet long, and probably had a high thatched roof and partially open sides with the office situated next to the furnaces. A rectangular wood-frame building was constructed to protect the furnaces and the workers from the weather. The construction of the furnaces was made up of huge boulders rolled out of the river and glued together with mud. A fourth furnace was erected to fire up the clay pots used in the glassmaking process. And an even smaller fritting furnace for preheating the ingredients needed for making the glass. The first furnace was for melting the glass, the smaller one for annealing or cooling the finished glass. The glassmaking operation required three furnaces with different sizes. They didn't succeed, and were kicked out of the village when the chief became suspicious of their dealings. The Dutchmen went to Werowocomoco (a Native American village on the York River fifteen miles from Jamestown) in order to build a house for the chief of the Powhatans, and plotted to kill Captain John Smith and steal powders and arms from the settlers. The glass manufactory was controlled exclusively by the Polish glassmakers. Though this location made the recovery of mineral resources easily accessible, it also made the glassmakers vulnerable to sneak attacks by local tribes. The area came to be called Glass House Point. The Jamestown Glasshouse was situated where the Native Americans used to camp and where the main roads converged, known to the settlers as the Greate Road. The location was near the Jamestown peninsula over a mile from the fort, in a location that was convenient for glassblowing. The glass factory at Jamestown was believed to be the first manufactory in the United States. Most of it was window glass, bottles, vials and plain drinking glasses. The first shipment sent to England was called the trial glass. They set up making the first batches of goods exported to England from the New World. They used local material: sand in the James River, potash was in the forest and a bed of endless oyster shells which could be burned and ground to make lime. The glassmaking business in the United States started when eight Germans (known as "Dutchmen") and Poles arrived as part of the Second supply on board the Mary and Margaret. While some glass window panes were made there after 1608, most of the windows had been shipped from England. ( July 2016)Įvidence for early glassmaking in the United States has been found of glassmaking at the English settlement on Jamestown Island, Virginia. Please introduce links to this page from related articles try the Find link tool for suggestions. This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it.
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