Shield F - the Mark of Quality Morning Stopping for Mail on Our Way
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Bottles and Extras Winter 2006 13 Mary Gill, then 19 years old and the youngest of the four Beatty children, continued, “We went to the factory very early in the Shield F - The Mark of Quality morning stopping for mail on our way. After building a fire in the stove and thawing out our by Marg Iwen fingers in the cold weather, George would go out to the factory and I would open all the mail, A Family Affair business community. laying the letters upon his desk ready for him Ask people about the Federal Glass The partners called their new enterprise and copying all the orders myself into the order Company and chances are they’ll scratch their Beatty and Stillman. After they had updated book. After that I made out the invoices for heads and answer the question with a question, and operated it for a few years, it passed through what was shipped the previous day. “It was mostly a bottle and jar factory, wasn’t the hands of several owners until about 1852 “I remember very clearly the puzzled and it?” Certainly bottles and jars made up a large when Joseph’s younger brother, Alexander, incredulous look on the faces of elderly percentage of the early output, but over a became the new owner. businessmen from large cities when they were 79-year life span, the Federal made a wide array Alexander J. Beatty, already a successful assured that this boyish, beardless young man of products. Steubenville wholesale grocer and wool of 21 [George] was the sole proprietor of the By the 1960s, this company had merchant, razed the early glass house buildings establishment in the absence of older brother mushroomed into the undisputed industrial and erected a new factory. Before long, he had age 23 [Robert]. No one but the three of us behemoth of the South Side of Columbus, Ohio. built the business to where 160 workers made ever knew to what financial extremes we were Nearly two decades later, multiple forces from 36,000 goblets and tumblers daily (Doyle, reduced at the time,” Mary Gill concluded. both the inside and the outside felled this 1910). Although tableware was also made at glassmaking giant. the thriving Beatty factory, tumblers established Following the Natural Gas The factory site, bustling since 1900, is A. J. Beatty & Sons’ reputation in the glass By 1887, the Beatty brothers accepted the uncharacteristically quiet today. The hiss and business. relocation offer of $50,00 in cash and land as clang of automatic glassmaking machines are When Alexander J. Beatty was struck by a well as free natural gas for five years from then only memories for those who still remember life locomotive of the Pan Handle Railroad while gas-rich Tiffin, Ohio. In their new factory, at the old Federal. The physical plant, with its walking along the tracks in the rain to his home, constructed at a cost of $65,000, they made the conglomeration of once tightly packed he received a severe brain injury and died a first glass in 1889 from three furnaces of 15 buildings, has been largely eviscerated to clear short time later in Kenbright’s Hospital in pots each. Tumblers and tableware in crystal a thoroughfare for an industrial park that still Philadelphia. His tragic and unexpected death (clear), colored, and opalescent constituted the bears its name—Federal Industrial Park. plunged three of his four children into full-time bulk of the output from the factory that still bore The story of this major player in the glassmaking. their father’s name. American glass industry must also include the Mary Gill Beatty (Rhodes Patterson) many In Tiffin, the Beatty brothers established achievements of the Beatty family, pioneer years later described in detail how the untimely their reputation as outstanding glass men, glassmakers whose lives were inexorably linked death of her father affected the family. “A heavy beneficent employers, and hard-headed to the trade starting before the Civil War. burden fell upon my brothers who were very executives. By January 1892, A. J. Beatty & Family members built and managed glass young and boyish in appearance. Due to the Sons had joined 17 other formerly independent factories in five cities—Steubenville, Tiffin, and business depression that had affected the glass companies that merged to form the United Columbus, Ohio; Dunkirk, Indiana; and glassworks, it was decided that Robert should States Glass Company (U.S Glass) combine. Washington, Pennsylvania. go on a business trip at the earliest opportunity. When the natural gas supply in Tiffin largely Just as Beatty sons followed their fathers to In that case, someone should be in the office ran out, in 1896 the Beatty brothers headed west the Federal, so did the sons in many other with brother George. Since they wished no to Dunkirk, Indiana, where the gas still flowed families. They considered co-workers their outsider to know their state of affairs, I freely. They bought the abandoned Dunkirk extended family. After working hours, suggested that they allow me to take that place.” Locomotive and Car Repair Works buildings employees joined in sporting and social events, and in times of illness or bereavement, comforted and supported one another. This “city within a city,” this Federal Glass Company across all departments, became the home away from home for thousands of workers for almost eight decades. The Early Beatty Factories Long before the Federal Glass Company started up in Columbus, a small glassmaking operation built about 1830 near the banks of the Ohio River in Steubenville beckoned to Joseph Beatty. Together with his partner, Edward Stillman, they took over the previously unsuccessful glass factory in 1845 when only about 5,000 people lived in this thriving Early advertisement by Joseph Beatty and Edward Alexander J. Beatty (born November 14, 1811; died A.J. Beatty & Sons 1879 catalog from Steubenville, Stillman (typo Steelman) who bought the old Kilgore November 29, 1875) and his wife, Abbie Ann Ohio, offering wares in over 20 categories, including & Hanna factory, which failed due to brittle glass. Johnson, had four children, Sarah, Robert James, table tumblers, ales, bar tumblers, handled jellies and (Dohrman, 1884). George and Mary Gill. tin-top jellies. 14 Winter 2006 Bottles and Extras and grounds, which due to lack of funding, never became operational. From two continuous tank furnaces instead of pot furnaces they began making tumblers, jellies, packers’ goods, fruit jars, and tableware at the factory they named Beatty-Brady. In October 1899, Beatty-Brady joined with 18 other glass factories to form the National Glass Company combine. About a year later, George Beatty sold out to the combine. Now free from the controlling combine management, he marshaled his considerable assets, including plans for a new glass factory, and set out for Columbus, Ohio. At 515 E. Innis Avenue on the South Side he intended to manufacture low- cost wares from glass melted in continuous tank furnaces and formed by automatic machinery. By 1896, George Beatty was making tableware, such as this sugar and butter, from continuous tank furnaces. Opened Under Foreign Charter No. 106 is now known as Spiralled Triangle (CGL, March 31, 1899). The Federal was originally incorporated under the laws of West Virginia by five purchased the West Virginia corporation for ‘First Chance,’ according to Cuthbert. Washington, Pennsylvania, glass men: George $245,000 and assumed all unpaid obligations. Columbus numbered about 125,000 residents Beatty, Robert James Beatty, Charles Neave Incorporators included George and Robert in 1900. Brady, James Kuntz, Jr., John W. Donnan, and James Beatty, James S. Bracken, George T. When the Federal started up, Innis and attorney H. M. Hussel of Wheeling. State law Everett, and George W. Davis. The capital stock Parsons Avenues were nothing but dirt roads. required that a West Virginia lawyer be of $250,000 was divided into 2,500 shares of Helen Everett Fisher (daughter of George T. appointed and present at the incorporation $100 each. Everett, a Beatty faithful who was the plant proceedings. Kuntz was also the president and manager at Dunkirk and a Federal stockholder chief stockholder in the Mississinewa Gas There is a Beginning . as well as a factory supervisor) recalled that Company, Marion, Indiana. Donnan had served Ground was broken for the new factory on workers going to and from work often became previously on the Beatty-Brady board of June 1, 1900. Two Columbus contractors, mired in mud. Out of necessity, an early directors. William E. W. Cherry and D. W. McGrath, construction project entailed building a The new company’s first officers included secured the contract for the two-story office sidewalk of planks measuring eight feet long, George Beatty, president; James S. Bracken, building, mold shop, mixing room, finishing four inches wide, and two inches thick, running vicepresident; William C. Bracken, secretary; room, and a galvanized (zinc-plated sheet steel from Parsons Avenue to the factory. Soon after, and James Kuntz, Jr., treasurer. To cover the over a wood frame) structure for the engine workers erected an eight-foot-high board fence cost of new buildings and machinery, the initial room. Herman Laub of Pittsburgh won the around the factory buildings, a common practice amount of capital stock was increased from contract for the factory buildings. among factories running non-union. $175,000 to $275,000. James Cuthbert, Sr., a life-long Federal Fisher recalled that “After Parsons Avenue The West Virginia charter under which the employee originally hired at Tiffin, reported that was paved we always knew when it was 8 company had operated for about four years was George Beatty had rented an old stove works in o’clock because Mr.