Belgian Laces 98

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Belgian Laces

Courtesy of Denise Fransaer-Corke
Volume 26 - #98 January 2004
THE BELGIAN BELGIAN LACES: Official Quarterly Bulletin of
RESEARCHERS THE BELGIAN RESEARCHERS
Belgian American Belgian American Heritage Association

Heritage Association
Our principal objective is:
Our organization was
Keep the Belgian Heritage alive
founded in 1976 and
in our hearts and in the hearts of our posterity
welcomes as members

Any person of Belgian
President/Newsletter editor: Régine Brindle
descent interested in
Treasurer/Secretary: Melanie Reynolds
Genealogy, History,
Past Presidents: Micheline Gaudette,
Biography or Heraldry,
Pierre Inghels
either amateur or
Co-Founders: Micheline Gaudette
professional.
You are invited to and Ardiena Stegen
become a member and
to participate actively in Send payments and articles to this office:THE BELGIAN RESEARCHERS
Régine Brindle - 495 East 5th Street - Peru IN 46970
the work of the society.
Tel/Fax:[phone] OR e-mail [email protected]
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*All subscriptions are for the calendar year*
fee includes a
*New subscribers receive the four issues of the current year, regardless when paid*
subscription to the ** The content of the articles is the sole responsibility of those who wrote them**
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BELGIAN LACES
Articles to Belgian Laces:

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May 31 - August 31

I enclose my remittance for

membership in The BELGIAN RESEARCHERS, Inc.

NAME:
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Belgian Laces Vol#26-98 January 2004 - 1 -
Dear Members,

We hope your holiday season was a memorable
one and send you all our best wishes for 2004.

Guy Gallez and Kathleen Race are continuing their work on the
1870 census and shiplists. The result of their work is being loaded
at http://web.wanadoo.be/gallez.nic/index.htm
Ancestry.com is extracting the shiplists from 1851 to 1891 and
publishing them online. Considering the human factor that makes
extraction work less than perfect (illegible names on the shiplists
added to the fact that these names were sometimes just written

according to how the names sounded rather than the actual
spelling), they are going to have to be double-checked against the originals.
If you have a subscription to Ancestry.com we would appreciate hearing from you.
If you are interested in helping but are not subscribed to Ancestry.com, you might be able to check with
your local FHC and veify the extracted work there.
I am including an example of this work here so that you will get an idea of how wonderful this new tool is.
BUT as with every tool, remember to remain flexible in your use of the information you have and the one
you find. For example, Guy asked me to do a look-up for a friend. His friend was looking for “Joseph
Fournier, his wife and children, who arrived in New York on April 20, 1854, aboard the ship "Ann
Washburn."
The information was not quite correct, so I didn’t find the passengers right away.
The “Ann Washburn” did not dock in New York on April 20th, 1854. It arrived on May 23rd, 1854.
Then the entry found that ‘had to be’ the FOURNIER family was actually listed as FOURINA. A closer
look at the original document on Ancestry.com images shows that it was easy to mistake FOURNIER into
FOURINA and so there was the correct information. More about this further in this issue.
This is the Gargantuan task laid before us. So your help would be most welcomed. If this is something
you feel you can devote some time to, please contact us ASAP.
Thank You!!!
Régine
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Letter from the Editor/Belgian News p1
Books In Review p2
The Luck of a Belgian Horse Merchant p3
Flanders, a Self Portrait p4
Gas & Glass p6
Birth Records of Strepy-Bracquegnies p9
Pennsylvania & West Virginia Obituaries p11
Boneffe p13
Belgian Emigrants who arrived in 1865 p14
Obituaries Online p17
Researching Online: Ancestry.com Images and Databases p20
Internet Links of Interest p22
The King Baudouin Foundation p23
Issue’s Surname Index p24-25
Belgian Laces Vol#26-98 January 2004
Saints and Soldiers
By Jeffrey Scott
Hunker down with Captain Winley and the others in the snowy
forests of Belgium during the winter of 1944.
The Saints of War is an action packed story based on the
horrifying historical event known as the "Malmedy Massacre."
In mid-December 1944 Hitler's Army blitzkriegs through the
Ardennes Forest into Belgium creating the colossal wintertime
offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge. Sergeant Daniel
Epstein and close friend, Nathan Greer, find themselves held
captive with over seventy other American Soldiers in a snow-
covered field. Without warning German soldiers open fire on
the American Prisoners. Epstein, Greer and a handful of other
soldiers are able to escape the massacre by hiding in the nearby
woods. Without weapons or food they take on the unforgiving
winter trying to find their way back to allied occupied territory.
You will learn as much about the battles, historical events and the outcome of that great war as you
will about human suffering, rebirth and spiritual growth.
Based on the Ryan Little movie - The Film's Web Site: www.saintsandsoldiers.com
softcover, 280 pages
Rick Steves' Amsterdam, Bruges, and Brussels 2004
By Rick STEVE
Check out the city on a seat of a bike; take a self-guided tour of Van Gogh's
masterpieces at the Van Gogh Museum; sample the sweet leaf at one of the
city's many "coffehouses," and more. With Rick Steves' Amsterdam 2004,
travelers can delve into the culture, make friends with the locals, and
experience everything Amsterdam has to offer — economically and hassle-
free. Completely revised and updated, Rick Steves' Amsterdam 2004 includes
color maps, selective coverage of both famous and lesser-known sights;
friendly places to eat and sleep; suggested day plans; walking tours and trip
itineraries; clear instructions for smooth travel anywhere by car, train, or foot;
and Rick's newest "back door" discoveries. America's number one authority
on travel to Europe, Rick's time-tested recommendations for safe and
enjoyable travel in Europe have been used by millions of Americans in search
of their own unique European travel experience.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1566915392/qid=1072993170//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-0895400-0923315?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Paperback: 272 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.76 x 8.01 x 4.50
Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing; (October 2003)
Belgian Laces Vol#26-98 January 2004 - 3 -
THE LUCK OF A BELGIAN HORSE MERCHANT
Submitted and translated by Micheline GAUDETTE

Many thanks to the Societe Historique de la Saskatchewan and their coordinator, Mr. Rémy Lapointe for granting permission
to use their internet publication “Titanic et chevaux belges” as a base for this story, and to further identify for us the
Southeastern part of Saskatchewan and Bellegarde as places where numerous Belgians settled.
http://www.societehisto.org/Musee/Recits/Titanic.html

The Titanic

The Mauretania http://www.skarr.com/titanic

http://www.liv.ac.uk/~archives/cunard/ships/mauret1.htm
- Cunard Archives

It was around 1909, when a friend of Hector DELANOY, convinced him to abandon his life as a farmer in Belgium,
and start a business exporting Belgian draft horses to the United States and Canada.

Soon, Hector’s business activities brought him to Nebraska, to Deloraine, Brandon, Sainte Amelie in Manitoba and
Estevan in Saskatchewan. He traveled back in forth between Belgium and Canada, using New York as a port of transit and is
recorded in the 1910, 1912, 1913 New York passenger lists.

In 1911, or is it at the beginning of 1912, Hector DELANOY went back to Belgium for unspecified business, but it
must have been an urgent matter, since he had to leave before selling all his horses. The unsold horses were left with a
businessman in Brandon, Manitoba. Well, the businessman sold Hector's horses and pocketed the money. It’s easy to imagine
how upset Hector DELANOY must have been, he hired a lawyer in Brandon, who advised him to return immediately for an
appearance in court. It was Hector DELANOY’s lucky day, but he didn’t know it at the time.

Hector DELANOY had already made plans to travel back to Brandon, but the ship he had selected was leaving too
late for him to make it on time for the court appearance. So, Hector cancelled his reservation on the TITANIC and instead
boarded the Mauretania in Liverpool, England on March 23, 1912, arriving safely in NY on March 29, 1912!

On the Mauretania passenger list of 29 March 1912, Hector DELANOY is described as 5’6, dark complexion, brown
eyes, brown hair, he is 38 years old, his residence in Belgium is in Hooglede where his wife Mary lives, his place of birth is
hard to read, but it might be Torhout – a place not far from Hooglede in West Flanders. Many Flemish emigrants from West
Flanders to Manitoba can also be found listed on the Mauretania.

Hector never recovered his horses or his money. He settled for a while with his family in Sainte-Amelie in Manitoba,
but it’s only after the end of World War I that he was able to resume his business activities. In 1928, Hector and his family
settled in Sainte Colette, Saskatchewan.

We don’t know much about the composition of the Saskatchewan DELANOY family, but from the obituary of
Germaine DELANOY, one of his children born in Belgium on April 6, 1909, who passed away in Winnipeg on April 6, 1999,
we learned that the name of Hector’s wife was Marie VAN EXEM, that they had at least 7 children: George, Germaine (in
religious life Sister Benedicte), Marie, Josephine, Marcel, Jules and Gerard.

Sources:
LAPOINTE, Richard, La Saskatchewan de A à Z, Régina, La Société historique de la Saskatchewan, 1987, pp. 294-296.
New York Passenger Lists at: www.ellisisland.org
Obituaries in the Weyburn Review. www.weyburnreview.com/obituaries/1999/9916.html
Belgian Laces Vol#26-98 January 2004
" Flanders a Self Portrait "
Extra "Knack" Magazine 3 July 2002
Reprinted with permission from Jos De Vuyst on behalf of the Magazine “Knack“editors and author Misjoe Verleyen
Submitted by Ed Blomme, [email protected]

p. 88-... "... The downtrend really began in 1830, when the
new Belgium was created. In one blow the country lost the
markets of The Netherlands and the Dutch colonies. And
although the new constitution looked like the most liberal of its
time, the liberal ideas in reality were an economic disaster.
Belgium contracted business agreements whereby custom duties
were reduced or eliminated. England, at that time the leading
industrial nation, through far reaching mechanization produced
much cheaper and took over the Flemish markets. That meant
unemployment and of assistance other than charity, there was no
discussion... The beginning mechanization eliminated many
home workers. In 1833 the first rural flax spinning factories
made a half million unemployed. Ten years later one small
steam machine of 100 hp employed 750 workers. But they
" The Houses were poor, unhealthy and over populated"
spun as much thread as 200,000 home spinners...
The life expectancy at birth was 35 years, or lower than
today in Sierra Leone. Of a thousand children, twenty died before age five.... Eight out of a hundred women giving
birth died delivering, that is higher than today in Tadzhikstan.
Such numbers are indicative of bad nutrition, bad housing and bad medical care. And it could not be
otherwise: almost half the work population- and they were counted from age 10 - were regularly unemployed.
Those who did work, put in 70 hours. A workers family of six had to make do for a year with 780 francs. Equated
on the basis of food prices that amounts to 464 modern euros of some 9 euros per week ($13.5 Can. or $10 US).
That is for 6 people, in a family where the children worked.
The figures for child labor are very incomplete, but from other statistics we know that not 45% of children
under 10 ever went to school. For men 20 percent could read and write and for women that was 1o percent. Those
figures are lower than Afghanistan after the Taliban were driven out.
No wonder all medical reports speak of labor children who are " thin and shrunk, Show chlorosis, swollen glands
and rickets. The muscles are hardly developed, the belly is swollen, digestion is difficult and is accompanied by
sour regurgitations. The child complains about headaches, bellyaches and intestinal colic. It grows slowly and
irregularly and the final height is below average."...Children and adults were short on calcium, eggwhite and
vitamin D. Lung diseases were daily occurrences and epidemics like typhus and cholera regularly wiped out the
weakest.
...Communities demanded police reinforcements to
control the mass of beggars and vagrants, because the citizenry
was scared, because the "scum" regularly revolted against the
protectionist measures demanded by the factory owners.
Working conditions demanded investigation. There were
investigations that now give us a view of the terrible work
conditions. Ironic detail: many of these reports were made by
the owner himself "on his word of honor". Thus we read that "
the workplace is warmed because cotton requires a temperature
of eighteen degrees" and that" accidents only happen to drunk or
inattentive workers". The reports and descriptions paint a picture
of disturbing hard labor, noisy workplaces, many accidents,
punishments and fines "having eaten a sandwich, was laughing,

was looking". Workdays of 14 hours were not exceptional.
Sunday rest only meant that for that day no pay was given. The unpaid midday break was short and many a time
non-existent.
Belgian Laces Vol#26-98 January 2004 - 5 -

WET CONTINUS

About one thing everyone agreed: the treatment of flax was especially unhealthy. Carding produced an
enormous amount of dust so "many people got dustlung". Spinning occurred in a hellish temperature. The raw flaw
was pulled through a bath of seventy degrees to remove the pectin to make the thread thinner. The new machines,
the so-called "wet continus" had not stolen their name. Through ingenious techniques they were capable to do all
work between raw cottonwick and thread continuously, as long as the thread remained springy and wet enough.
The hot water produced clouds of steam and the female workers were sprayed by the condensed water, that leaked
from the ceilings. After work they went home soaking wet. Women especially were chosen for work because they
were handier and had to be paid less. That this increased the mortality of women and babies everyone knew. The
song "The Continu Girl" of the Ghent singer Henri van Daele (1877-1957) describes it this way :
" We spinners of the flax factory/ Are quickly cripple, pale and sick/We're only slaves/ By stinking water
overrun/ Often cancer gets us/ A glowing child we don't expect/ More often just a little corpse."

Everyone also knew that wages were reduced. Workers were played out against each other. Each spinner had
three or four helpers. They had to retie broken thread, sweep up the dust from under the machines, remove the full
spools and replace them with empty ones (see photo). The spinner had to pay them herself/himself and it was thus
important to keep their wages as low as possible. Preferably a child that did not have to be paid much than an adult.
Catholic and liberal politicians thus were right to claim that parents wanted their children to go to the factory. That
was the only way to survive.
The nineteenth century stayed a century of crises: between 1830 and 1900 one year in four was a year of crisis.
Catholics and liberals supported one another to maintain the status quo and that meant that the labor force were
surrendered to wage cuts, lock-outs, dirty and underpaid work and hunger. Only at the end of the century would
there be slow change. The emergence of unions, co-operatives, credit unions... brought a beginning to a better life.
Each famine produced a revolt, each revolt required social change. There came an end to the crudest abuses: wages
were no longer permitted to be paid out in the pubs, workers could no longer be forced to shop (expensively) only
in owners stores. And specially the "truck system" was prohibited. Under that system the worker was partially paid
in useless goods, that he sold back immediately to the boss at reduced prices. Only to get them back the next week
as part of his (her) wages....
The introduction of the general right to vote brought workers as representatives to parliament and they would
introduce social legislation. That would take almost twenty years...

The caption above the street picture reads and the one that interests you is from a popular singer Henri Van Daele:
"Our pregnant good ones never hope for a rosy baby..."
The whole song is worth quoting for you :

"We spinners of the flax fabric
Are quickly cripple, pale and sick.
We are but slaves
By stinking water always soaked
And cancer often does us in.
Our pregnant good ones never hope
To see a rosy baby cope
Most often one find a little corpse"

There are few folk literatures that express themselves
so tragically, I think.
Belgian Laces Vol#26-98 January 2004
Gas and Glass: While Natural Fuel Lasted Indiana Industry Prospered
(Excerpt) By Herbert R. Hill, Editor of Outdoor Indiana

In 1880 Indiana had four glass factories, employing 862 men, women and boys. In 1890 there were 21 Hoosier glass
plants, employing 3,010. The U.S. Census shows that the peak was around 1900, when 110 factories employed 13,454. By
1910, when the gas supply was rapidly failing, the factories were down to 44, employing 9,544. These statistics reflect also the
absorption of many small plants by the two principal glass manufacturing combines which operated in Indiana, as well as the
substitution of mechanized processes for manpower.
The Ohio gas fields, having been worked longer, started failing even before 1900. The Indiana glass factories, farther
away from Lake Erie white sand than the Buckeyes, were turning to the making of flint glass and container articles instead of
concentrating on window and plate glass. There had been no strikes originally despite the use of child labor, the replacement of
glass pots by continuous melting tanks, and individual piecework quotas. But in 1893, with “hard times” reducing the income
of most families, a strike began against the United States Glass Company, which had units largely in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Of the 62 glass plants operating in Indiana in 1896, records show that 15 bottle-making factories and six fruit jar factories were
unionized.
The American Flint Glass Workers Union, organized in New York in 1862, had moved Westward to Pittsburgh by
1878. In 1881 it helped to form the American Federation of Labor. By 1899 the AFGWU had 14 Indiana locals—at Albany,
Alexandria, Anderson, Elwood, Frankton, Gas City, Marion, Matthews, Muncie and Upland. Membership totaled 393 in
Indiana. This union claimed jurisdiction over all pressed glass and bottle glass operators.
The younger United Green Glass Workers Association was reorganized in 1896 as the Glass Bottle Blowers
Association. It was a practice of the National Manufacturers Association, which included the largest operators in the glass
industry, to attempt to play off one union against its rival. In Indiana the Ball Brothers Manufacturing Company negotiated
contracts with both the AFGWU and the GBBA. The former held its 1897 national convention in Indianapolis. The latter held
national conventions at Marion in 1893 and at Muncie in 1899.
Indianapolis for a time was the national or international headquarters for such large unions as the Carpenters, Mine
Workers, Teamsters and Typographers. In addition there were numerous smaller unions, many of them also joining the
American Federation of Labor.
Elwood (later to become widely known as the birthplace of Wendell Willkie) was a town of 400 when it was
incorporated in Madison County in 1872. But the discovery of natural gas in 1887 more than doubled the population in one
year, and in 1890 it was more than tripled. In 1893 it was 9,031 and in 1899 Elwood had grown to 15,289. The flexibility of
gas as a fuel made Elwood a leading manufacturer of tinplate (sheet iron coated with tin), which was widely used in the food
canning industry. But in 1898, in addition to the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company, Elwood also had five glass factories,
and ~although the gas boom faded at the town after 1903 there is still some glass making there.
The George A. Macbeth Glass Company started operations at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1874. In 1891 it became a
foremost manufacturer of optical glass, not only for individual wearers but for such advanced instruments as telescopes and
microscopes. In 1898 Macbeth merged with the Thomas Evans Company. Subsequently Macbeth-Evans operated several
plants around Pittsburgh and in Ohio, and also at Elwood and Marion in Indiana.
Of Baden ancestry, John J. Klumpp began working for Macbeth just four years after it started Pittsburgh operations.
He was only age 12, but child labor was common in numerous American factories at the time. The bright and ambitious lad
became so skilled that he was one of the experts who presented a glass-blowing exhibition at the World Fair in Chicago in
1893. In 1898 Klumpp became a Macbeth-Evans plant superintendent in Pittsburgh. In July of 1902 he was transferred to
Indiana as superintendent of his company’s operation at Elwood and Marion and also at Toledo, Ohio.
The Elwood factory made lampshades, lamp chimneys and lantern globes that were sold throughout the World. In
1910 John Klumpp, Jr., became Elwood superintendent. Only the decline of the natural gas supply interrupted Elwood’s
industrial progress.
Napoleon Bonaparte had offered a prize of 12,000 francs (a considerable sum then) for a way by which food could be
preserved and transported for his armies. In 1810 Nicholas Appert discovered food preserved by sterilization. Then on
November 30, 1858, an American tinsmith named John Landis Mason patented a way to seal a glass jar hermetically by
screwing a tin lid down on a rubber band around the threaded neck of the jar. Another form of sealing was to pour melted wax
in the groove around a tin lid inserted at the top of a glass jar.
In 1880 five brothers in upstate New York borrowed $200 from an uncle to organize the Ball Brothers Glass
Manufacturing Company at Buffalo. They started making stamped tinware, and also glass containers fortified by wooden
jackets for the marketing of oil, kerosene, varnish and other household liquids. In 1884 Mason’s patent expired, and the Balls
adapted his threaded neck design to produce glass jars with lids made of zinc and lined with glass. But the enlarged Buffalo
factory they had built in 1882 burned to the ground in 1886.
At the time Muncie, Indiana, had a population of only 6,000. Then the series of gas well drillings inspired town
officials to offer a six-acre tract, five years of free gas, and $7,500 for moving expense if the Ball Brothers Would come to
Muncie. Accordingly George A., Lucius L., Frank C., Edmund B. and William C. Ball built a new factory in the Southeastern
Belgian Laces Vol#26-98 January 2004 - 7 -
part of Muncie. It started manufacturing glass on March 1, 1888, utilizing gas from a big well drilled the preceding September.
This glass operation continued until 1962, and the far-reaching Ball operations are still headquartered at Muncie.
Charles E. Blue had invented a hand-operated semi-automatic glass-blowing machine at Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1894. The
Balls utilized this type of apparatus so extensively that by 1897 they were making 65% of all American glass fruit jars and also
had developed foreign markets. They were sold at 5 cents each and shipped in one dozen lots in Michigan pine boxes
beginning in 1894. The jars were packaged in corrugated paper cartons beginning in 1902.
Ball Brothers absorbed the Fort Wayne Glass Works at Upland in 1898, and the Windfall Glass Company in 1901.
Now a major manufacturer, Ball in 1904 bought glass companies at Marion, Fairmount, Converse, Loogootee and Swayzee in
Indiana, and at Belleville in Illinois and Coffeyville in Kansas. The year before Michael J. Owens had come out with an
improved glass blowing machine in 1903. This and every other manufacturing and fuel improvement was utilized by the Ball
Brothers as they continued to expand.
From 1902 to 1962 they shipped their fruit jars all over North America in their own freight cars. In 1909 they bought
the fruit jar business of the Root Glass Company at Terre Haute. Root thereafter devoted its full time to making Coca Cola
bottles. Also acquired by the Balls in 1909 was the Greenfield (Indiana) Fruit Jar and Bottle Company and another plant at
Coffeyville. A third factory at Coffeyville was bought in 1912, and as the gas well drillings advanced Southwestward so did
Ball, with a new factory at Wichita Falls, Texas.
After World War I Ball glass factories were extended into Oklahoma, and then after World War II into Tennessee,
North Carolina, Florida and California.
These long years of continuous production made Ball glass fruit jars outstanding objects in millions of home canning
operations. What might seem more unusual is the way the various versions of the Muncie glass have become “collectible”. Ball
jars were made not only in flint (clear), but blue, green, aqua, amber and even pink. Exact color control could not be consistent,
so there are varying shades of these colors, and also there have been various designs for the Ball trademark.
To help promote the fruit jars the company began in 1909 to issue an annual edition of recipe books that were printed
by the thousands. Frank C. Ball also began making regular weather and crop forecasts. As the company prospered, the closely-
knit Ball family members were able to support numerous philanthropies throughout the Nation, including Ball State University
at Muncie. A more detailed account of Ball family activities was published in the September 1973 issue of Outdoor Indiana.
There were at least six other glass manufacturers in Muncie during the gas era. Nearby Albany, Dunkirk, In-galls,
Yorktown and Redkey had factories, as did most of the other communities in the Indiana gas belt Counties. [An account of
glass manufacturing at New Albany, which is a city on the Ohio River a considerable distance from the town of Albany in
Delaware County, was published in the March 1975 issue of Outdoor Indiana.]
Increasingly sought by collectors are examples of glass made by the Indiana Tumbler and Goblet Company at
Greentown, to the East of Kokomo where Highway 22 forms a T with State Highway 213. The seemingly unexhausted supply
of natural gas in Howard County prompted organization of the company on March 2, 1894. Promoters of the village offered not
only free gas but also free water, as well as a free site and siding on the Cloverleaf Railroad (which later became the Nickle
Plate and now is part of the Norfolk & Western.
The proprietor—and also the pot room boss—was David C. Jenkins, Jr., an immigrant from the iron furnace country
in Wales. He was an apprentice at the McKee & Brothers glass factory at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then a superintendent
for the Columbia Glass Company at Findlay, Ohio. When that factory was sold to the newly organized United States Glass
Company in 1891, Jenkins began scouting for a site for his own operation. He was joined at Greentown by several relatives
from Jonesboro, in nearby Grant County.
A freight car full of fruit glass cullet was obtained from Findlay. Machinery was moved to Greentown from Cincinnati
early in April, and a big new gas well “came in on April 28. From 1894 to 1898 the Green-town factory made flint glass
tumblers, jugs, stemmed glassware, bar goods, packer’s goods, jelly jars and tableware. The first product, a stemmed wine
glass, was made on June 11, 1894. It resembled McKee’s “Champion” pattern.
Soon the factory included five buildings, with eight new pots added to the 10 original pots in the Summer of 1896. It employed
250 men and boys.
Charles Miller, Jr. and then Charles E. Beau had the important function of pattern designer at Green-town. Clear,
bright blue, amber, canary, clear green, opaque nile green and a form of milk glass was produced from 1896 to 1900. These
included cordial, wine, claret, and champagne glasses, ranging from one ounce capacity to 5½ ounces, as well as 8-inch and 9-
inch goblets and 9-inch buttermilk goblets. The Spanish-American War brought introduction of patterns honoring Admiral
Dewey and Admiral Sampson.
When housewives showed they could prefer a food product packed in a decorative or unusual glass container,
Greentown began making snuff, honey, mustard and pickle jars. This was expanded into a complete “novelty line” that
included all sorts of unusual glass articles sold to food processors, to peddlers, and at County Fairs.
Greentown glass attracted such attention at the famed Pittsburgh Exhibit in January of 1898 that in 1899 the Jenkins
company was among the 1 8 flint glass factories merged to form the new National Glass Company. The National merger made
it the principal rival of the United States Glass Company in the production of American pressed glass tableware. It was an era
of corporate amalgamations and the smaller companies must either join or be ruined.
Jenkins sold his stock in National in 1900 to organize the Kokomo Glass Manufacturing Company. Thus he continued
to be a friend and neighbor of Elwood Haynes, the Hoosier-born automobile inventor who had come to Greentown in 1890 as
Belgian Laces Vol#26-98 January 2004

an official of the Indiana Natural Gas Company and then moved to
Kokomo in 1892. Two years later he made an historic test run with his
gasoline-powered “horseless carriage” at the edge of Kokomo. (See
Outdoor Indiana, May, 1976.) When the Kokomo glass factory burned in
1905, it was rebuilt the next year as the D. C. Jenkins Glass Company.
A new building was erected to the west of the first Greentown
factory in the middle of 1899, with six-ring continuous tanks and three
leers (annealing ovens). When Jenkins departed in 1900 William Barns was
transferred from Pittsburgh to be Greentown’s superintendent. Also
transferred from Lancaster, Ohio, in September of 1900 was Jacob
Rosenthal, an innovative research chemist who had learned the glass
business in his native Pittsburgh.
The Greentown line of transparent and opaque packers receptacles and
novelties was again broadened. Rosenthal designed pattern glass, lamps,
etc. in unusual colors ranging from deep chocolate to light caramel.
Quickly imitators tried to match the new color. Then, in January of 1903, Rosenthal
introduced the golden agate ware, which gave the little Indiana plant world-wide fame.
“Greentown daisy”, “wild rose” and “Indiana Feather” were augmented by “holly amber”,
an opaque layer making it a fine quality bi-textured sensation. Day and night shifts were
kept busy around the clock six days each week, the payroll increasing to 300.
The orders poured in but bad weather slowed shipments. Articles made during the Winter
were stored in sawdust and excelsior at adjoining packing sheds. Greentown was booming!
Then, at noon on Saturday, June 13, 1903, a bag of nitrate of soda exploded in the newer
part of the factory. A high West wind quickly ignited the entire plant. The factory whistle
brought the town’s new Oberchain chemical fire engine. But within minutes all was lost,
only the furnace stacks standing above the charred rubble and iron junk. All molds were
destroyed. The loss was put at $170,000 (and the U.S. dollar had a much higher real value
then).
The Indiana Natural gas fields were beginning to yield less. National’s factory at
Marietta, Ohio, burned in 1904. The Greentown operation was ended, even though the dying
community offered $5,000 to help rebuild the works along West Uncle Tom Street.
Rosenthal went to Evansville, Indiana, and then to the Fenton Art Glass Company
at Williamstown, West Virginia. But he did not make any of his golden agate glass there in
his final years. His career began when he was an 11-year-old apprentice at the Pittsburgh
plant of Campbell, Jones & Co., and which had brought him to Anderson, Indiana, in 1880,
and then transferred him to Martin’s Ferry, Ohio, in 1890. It had reached its zenith in the
three exciting years at Greentown.
Some representative pieces of Greentown glass have survived, many in private
collections. The biggest and most representative exhibit available to the public is at the
Greentown Glass Museum, which was dedicated on June 13, 1970. More than 700 pieces are
on display. The museum is open from 10 A.M. to Noon, and from 1 to 5 P.M. Tuesday
through Sunday between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The remaining weeks it is open
from 1 to 5 P.M. on Saturdays and Sundays.
The Museum is small but outstanding.