Old New England Glassware in the Home - Part Four - "Good Luck With That"

Old New England Glassware in the Home

Part Four

"Good Luck With That"

            At 1750, in New England,  between ‘several’ and ‘numerous’ endeavors-to-make-glass had occurred, or were attempted and... ‘fell back’.  ‘Everything’ was ‘right’ ‘on paper’ at the tavern for that swell idea (make glass) to ‘happen’.  Men, money, rum, demand (for glassware), raw materials, location, rum again... money again (venture capital), demand again, rum again...:  In the morning it was a ‘go’. “Remember?”

            I am not writing about glass making in New England.  Or about how to make glass.  Glass is a metal best made by fire and chemistry.  In New England... and simplified to redundancy... glass required sand (as ‘on a beach’) and fuel to melt the sand (as in four foot logs burning twenty-four hours a day continually).  That; sand and wood, was ‘we have that.  Add ‘men’ ‘working’ with shovels and axes (include rum ration), carts, animals pulling the carts.... a ‘furnace’, a building(s)... a ‘the owners’, a ‘glass maker’ and... another small group of men from Europe who do not speak English who ‘know how to do this’ (make glassware with the glass metal)...:

            So we go down to the beach to see how this is going and notice that already they have ‘exhausted’ a considerable body of ‘fuel’ ‘near’ ‘the furnace’.  And... have only a small gathering of rather crude sort-of-look-like European glass bottles “Huh”.  As is famously said of venture capitalized commercial endeavor ‘launches’ in old New England:  “That’ll launch it but I don’t know how long it’ll stay up.” Meaning:

            Did you plan on walking down to the beach and buying some... empty bottles?  The makers actually had to load the ‘glassware’ into a cart (in the Midwest [Mantua] they actually loaded a canoe) and go door to door peddling... to a community that did not have any money or any real ‘need’ for ‘glassware’... although they did ‘like’ the ‘bottles’.

            So glass making in old New England at 1750 right on up to 1820 (1815) was... ah... ‘not doing well’.  One could ‘loose money’ ‘doing that’.

            Example?

            On the first page of the catalog of the ‘their collection’; the first item, #1, is a ‘snuff bottle’ ‘attributed to’ (being made at) the Germantown (Braintree, MA) glass... ah...’works’.  On the beach.  From there on no further mention is made of this... old New England glassware.  Just one entry; the number one... entry.  It’s easy to miss.

            The book; a reference book, too, makes it ‘easy to miss’ too.  Weighing ‘a ton’ this slip cased two volume set is

            Absolutely essential for one active with old New England glassware (this does NOT include ‘old New England glassware in the home’) to... ah... ‘be familiar with’ (memorize).  Don’t worry, I work with NO ONE who even has a copy let alone ‘has looked at it’.  That’s right:  Don’t worry... because I

            DO NOT CARE

            And

            Work with uninformed-by-choice idiots all the time too.

            The book is Ken Wilson “The Toledo Museum of Art American Glass 1760-1930, Hudson Hills Press, NY, 1994.  Good luck with that.

            IF... one should ever... ‘get serious’ about ‘old New England glassware NOT in the home... one WILL have to ‘contend with’ (confront?) this... book.

            MEANWHILE more adroit venture capitalists were ‘introducing’ old ENGLSH and IRISH glassware into the old... New England... HOME.  “WHAT IF” they said... “we stow away GLASSWARE made HERE and ship it OVER THERE... sort of quietly.... and when it gets there... we sell it... sort of quietly”

            “I like that idea.  Count me in”.

            “Done”.

            This ‘selling glassware’ was a naturally exclusive niche market.  It was not intended for the pioneer log cabin set’s domestic decorative impulse.  It was... best for and there found in the homes of, for example, the ruling merchant aristocracy who had ‘ventures’ (slave trading and sugar plantations) in the West Indies and... their ‘homes’ (estates) ‘in New England’.  Need to read up on that?  I recommend C. S. Manegold “Ten Hills Farm”, Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, NJ, 2010.

            The tale told in this book... is a horrific... and... ‘one needs to know this tale’... of old, old New England that includes places... one never thought of  (today’s tourist islands) and... there at these places doing things one never thought of (slavery until death)... and... old houses in the Boston area one may visit, old oil paintings there too one may visit, words like ‘Harvard’...  LARGE ‘land holdings’ in old New England, places like the Royal River ( end ‘L’ dropped from the original spelling)  in Yarmouth (Maine) where there is, at the falls (and under –actually under- the interstate overpass on Route 88, a bronze plaque on a stone monument for a man who was killed and scalped ‘there’ while ...serving the interests of the land owner who... moved his operations to Boston so to avoid ‘further problems’....and... no mention of glassware ever.

            BUT:  I assure you that THESE PEOPLE did have GLASSWARE in their HOME in old New England.  The SLAVE always kept the glasses clean and the decanter FULL.  Got it?  And good luck with that (this book).

            FROM this slave-serves-master-using-glassware... in the old New England home, this import venture glassware from England and Ireland (“Anglo-Irish” from now on) but including too...  glassware from... Germany, Austria, ah.., Italy, Belgium... FRANCE and... ‘the Mediterranean region”...:  “Anglo-Irish”... GLASS... WARE... trickled down to become... glassware... in old New England homes...

            That

            I

            STILL FIND

            IN

            The old New England home.

            It’s, like, most times, all beat up and, like, ah... “WHAT’S THAT?”.  What does that mean?  It means that thrift shops, three day ‘estate’ tag sales and ‘yard’ sales are my best source for a perpetual “FIND THAT” ‘for nothing’ (no cost):  “ITS ALL CHIPPED”

            “Good luck with that.”

            There is an antiquarian market for “it” (Anglo-Irish glassware).  There are people who ‘like it’... know it.... love it.  There are ‘collectors’.  There are snotty ‘if you don’t know what that is then you wouldn’t know if you stepped in dog... poop... either’.  For this last, I say... there should be that attitude.  It goes back to the ‘those people’ and their... ‘juice glasses’... in their “MY” “OLD” New England home.  IF

            I have a ‘relic’ condition Anglo-Irish decanter set out for sale... no... one... ever... ah... “asks”.  IF I have six juice glasses set out full of JUICE the same THEY will take one (a juice glass) without comment and start sipping from it (“OH I THOUGHT THOSE WERE TO DRINK [for free]”).

            What is the net worth of Anglo-Irish glassware?
            I don’t spend a lot of time ‘helping people with this’

Source of ....

            Glassware in the old New England home.

            One is, with this first responder New England glassware,

A ‘there’ or... a ‘there-not’.  And:  On the own (of self and of possess).

            We move on to 1815.