Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1893 — First American Glass Works. [ARTICLE]

First American Glass Works.

It was only a hundred and sixtMß years after the discovery of America that, the first gloss works were established in j the colonies. It was a modest venturi; in an industrial way, but one to whicii much importance is attached, since it was the starting point in that intenx&ixqg history which it is the purpose of the. present paper to outline; and still inonv because it was the first industry started* by Europeans on American soil. It thus heads a list which is to-day certainly as. long as humau needs and almost as long as human desires. It is u list which ism been nearly three hundred year: in the making. This was in the year IGOB. The pioneer glass-house was a part of the ac-' tivities at Jamestown. The sjnrit of the London Company was distinctly commercial. It had gold and silver in maud ns the ultimate goal, but, with a prudence characteristic of British enterprise, it had also an eye to nearer and smaller profits. The plan of colonial Touutlacture was meant to serve this end. On the second voyage of Captain Newport, eight Poles and Germans wore sent over for the express purpose of makings glass, pitch, tar, and soap ashes. The glasshouse was out in the woods, about m mile from Jamestown. It was a crude , affair, but it seems to have been the center of considerable activity, for whm the ship returned to England in this following year, “a trial of glass'' w*s among her cargo. The glass -was presumably exported in the form of common black bottles, for the state of therait in those days, and the limited time, vrtoid scarcely have allowed the evolution «£ anything more difficult of, manufacture. The progress of the glass industry m America has been far from constnxA. Ik has suffered severe and violent Seetu* tions, to be born again. But the mar total of the successes and vicissitudes has* - been the establishment of industry which, while it is the oldest, is also at the present time one of the most paouraßeg and most highly developed of au mm in-dustries.—-[Popular Science- Monthly.