THE PAMPLIN SMOKING PIPE AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY
In the middle 1850’s that part of Ohio that surrounds Akron was the pipemaking capital of the United States, with at least six clay products companies producing them (Blair, 1965:26-30). The leading producer of clay smoking pipes in the Akron vicinity was the E. H. Merrill Co., which had been producing pottery objects since its founding in 1831. In 1843 or 1844 Calvin, brother of E. H. Merrill, invented a machine for making pipes which greatly increased the output of the company and gave quite an advantage over its competitors (Blair, 1965:3).
The Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company, Inc., was established by the Akron Smoking Pipe Company of Akron, Ohio, when they built the plant at Pamplin.
That the clay in Appomattox County was well suited to pipe manufacture was well known. The establishment of this plant was no doubt the result of the Company’s realization of the availability of the fine red clay from which the local women were producing pipes, a clay that could be used without even sifting.
When the Pamplin Factory was established is quite uncertain. Examination of the microfilm of newspapers of the area that were available from the Virginia State Library, beginning February 3, 1869 through December 25, 1896, gave no clue to the date of the establishment of the Pamplin Factory, nor did county records, probably due to the fire of 1892.
Sometime immediately prior to 1880 William Merrill of Akron, Ohio, undoubtedly a member of the pipe making family, established a pipe making factory at Pamplin. (Omwake, 1967:23). Our Pamplin informants were of the opinion that the Akron plant was devoted to the manufacture of drain tile after the pipe machinery was moved to Pamplin.
Bob Davis of Pamplin, born 1871, in an interview with John W. Walker in September 1962, said, “I was a kid when the factory came in”. Timewise this would be in general agreement with Omwake’s estimate for the date of the establishment of the factory at Pamplin.
That Pamplin pipes were also available from Akron in 1893 is evidenced by a letterhead of the Akron Smoking Pipe Company, dated June 26, 1893, showing examples of two clay pipes similar to [Plate 22] AF & AG, (Blair, 1965:36). A communication from the Summit County Historical Society reports, “The Akron Smoking Pipe Co. is recorded as being in business from 1891 to 1895, and were manufacturers of stone, Powhatan Clay, and corn cob tobacco pipes. Daily capacity 100,000 pipes. General offices, Akron, Ohio. Factories, Pamplin City, Virginia; Mogadore, Ohio.”
Statements in company literature are also confusing. In a leaflet which carries a testimonial for their pipes, dated April 28, 1941 and price lists “effective November 15, 1941”, the statement is made, from careful search of the records, this factory started more than 200 years ago ... the present plant has been in operation for 44 years. Skilled American labor is used in a modern, day-lit plant with special attention to cleanliness, sanitation, and ideal working conditions ([Plate 8]).
This would give a date for the “present plant” of 1897, but it also suggests that an earlier plant had been rebuilt or replaced. (An undated and unidentified news clipping does state that at some time the pipe plant had burned). Company literature also states, “Established 1739” ([Plate 8]). This obviously cannot refer to the establishment of the plant, nor even to the mother plant at Akron, since pottery was first produced in Summit County, Ohio, in 1828 (Blair, 1965:2). The Company may simply have been employing “poet’s license” and appropriated a date which they felt representative of the start of the Home Pipe Making Industry in the Pamplin area.
The Times-Virginian of Appomattox, date unknown, carried a news article, Pamplin Clay Pipe Plant once termed largest in the World. The Farmville Herald of March 29, 1935 stated, ... the output of the Clay Pipe Factory at Pamplin is 1,000,000 a month, when it is running full time. In the roster of business in Virginia, this factory is mentioned as the largest clay pipe factory in the United States, and so far as is known, in the world.
At one point in the history of the plant, pipes were sold to England as well as some other countries in Europe.
Also vague has been the terminal date of the Pamplin Company; it is variously given locally as 1948 to 1951.
There is a contemporary news article on the factory published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 21, 1946. A History of Appomattox, Virginia, published 1948, states, The Akron Pipe Factory of Pamplin holds the title of manufacturing the finest clay smoking pipes in the world, known as the ‘Powhatan’ (Featherstone, 1948:44).
In a personal letter to the writers, John C. Ewers said, “During my field work on the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana, in 1953, I first learned of the Pamplin clay pipes. One of my Indian informants told me about selling them when he was working at a trading post on the reservation during the first decade of the present century....
“Later I visited the trading post at Oswego on the Fort Peck Reservation. There the proprietor showed me the illustrated price list of the Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company, Inc. He showed me the only type of pipe he still had in stock—the ‘Century of Progress’, Chicago type ([Plate 23] AJ). He said the manufacturer wrote him in 1951 that he planned to go back into the manufacture of the other styles, which the Assiniboine preferred.”
The Tomahawk pipe was a good specialty item for sale at such events as fairs and expositions, and the Company’s sales to the “Century of Progress” in Chicago in 1933 must have been excellent, even though they had not sold all they had made in anticipation of that demand. The bowl, necessarily narrow and elongated since it was in the blade of the tomahawk, did not recommend it to serious smokers, nor to the Assiniboine.
It would seem evident that these pipes were left over from the production of the Company in 1933, that their regular pipe models had by this time been sold out, and that the Company was already in a State of quiescence in 1951.
Dr. Clyde G. O’Brien of Appomattox stated that the Company ceased operations in 1951.
The Charter of the Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company shows that it was incorporated by the Commonwealth of Virginia on the 15th day of August, 1929. The officers at that time were, J. V. Lewis, Pres., Prospect, Virginia; J. W. Franklin, V.Pres., Pamplin; L. N. Ligon, V.Pres., Pamplin; T. R. Pugh, Secy-Treas., Pamplin.
The purposes of the Company then were, among other things, to deal in wood of all kinds, own timber lands, contract to do construction work, deal in real estate, and to buy and sell all kinds of necessary material ... and operate all the necessary equipment and machinery for the purpose of manufacturing clay pipes, crocks, and earthenware.... (Charter Book No. 1, Page 108, Appomattox County, Virginia). The corporation (Charter No. 34565-16) was dissolved by the State Corporation Commission, at the request of the stockholders, on February 21, 1952.
A personal communication, February 23, 1972, from Morton L. Wallerstein who with Ralph L. Dombrower as corporate officers were the last active operators of the pipe factory, states, “Mr. Dombrower and myself, as sole stockholders, started the operation in 1938 and baked the clay pipes up to the time of the enactment of the Minimum Wage Law by Congress. At that time it was apparent that the part-time workers, largely farm girls and boys who worked in the afternoon, would cease to be employed because the pipes could not be marketed under the wages required to be paid.
“However, Mrs. Betty Price and another woman made the hand-made clay pipes at their homes, which pipes Mr. Dombrower bought after 1938 and very cleverly boxed in antique fashion and sold them for some years. However, unfortunately the women who made these pipes died and they were no longer made.
“The factory, itself, did not manufacture pipes beyond the period stated above. The property was sold in 1947 and the corporation was dissolved in 1952.”
Apparently then, the Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company ceased all activity in 1951, having been in existence slightly more than 70 years.
Some time after the closing, the main factory building was used as a garage. In July of 1969 this frame building, with the name “Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Co., Inc., American Indian Clay Smoking Pipes” still painted above the entrance, stood unoccupied; the crumbling old smokestack and large round kiln of brick construction were still there (Plates [4] & [5]). Another building which had served Company purposes had been destroyed.