Colonial Homes and Their Furnishings

by Mary Harrod Northend

Other fine pieces are found at the Nichols house on Federal Street, Salem, and in the Atkinson collection, also at Salem, while at Andover, at the old Kittredge house, many rare bits are to be seen. All of these specimens are heirlooms, those in the Kittredge house having been in the family since the home was erected, in the latter part of the eighteenth century.

While examples of all types of glass are to be found in America, perhaps the most common specimens are of English make, brought to the new country after business had become firmly established, along with the other fine household equipments. Among these are many fine decanters and tumblers of various designs, particularly interesting from the part they shared in the long accepted belief that glass drinking vessels of every kind, made under certain astronomical influences, would fly to pieces if any poisonous liquid was placed in them; and also that drinking glasses of colored ware added flavor to wine, and detracted materially from its intoxicating quality. Some of these drinking glasses, known in England as toddy glasses, were the forerunners of our present tumblers.

English collections, of course, include much earlier specimens of the ware than do American, for it was not until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when the seaport towns of New England were at the height of their prosperity, that sea captains brought here from England and other ports all kinds of glass. Some of the finest of this found its way to Salem, and in the Waters house, on Washington Square, are stored some of the rarest of these specimens. These have all been collected by Mr. Fitz Waters, who has devoted years in research of old-time things, and they represent not only the different periods of manufacture, but the output of the different countries as well. Included are many engraved pieces, decanters which cannot be duplicated, and rare and wonderful bits, such as toddy glasses and numberless other glasses of varying kinds, many of them beautifully engraved with delicate tracery and the tulip of Holland.

Many beautiful wine glasses and tumblers can be classified by their name, such as the white twist stem, made between 1745 and 1757,—the twisted appearance of the stem being the result of a peculiar process,—the baluster stem, and the air twist stem, some of the latter showing domed feet.

Several of the best types of glasses are shown in the West collection in Salem. The cutting of the stems of several of these fix the date of manufacture at about 1800, while others of unusual shapes show bird and shield designs, also the wreath and flower. It is by the design more than anything else that the date of manufacture is fixed, determining the choiceness of the piece, and the money it should bring.

While England has furnished most of the pieces shown here to-day, yet in the Northend collection in Salem are several fine Russian specimens. These are deeply cut, and were brought to this country from Russia by one John Harrod about the year 1800. For many years they were stored in the old Harrod house at Newburyport, finding their way to their present abode when the Harrod dwelling was dismantled, the owner being a descendant of this family. One piece, which is most unusual, is a deep punch bowl with a cover.

Curiously enough, the first industrial enterprise undertaken in America was a factory for the manufacture of glass bottles. It was built very early in the history of the Virginia colony, and stood about a mile from Jamestown, in the midst of a woodland tract. Later, other factories were erected, many of them manufacturing glass beads to be used in trading with the Indians. The oldest glass plant still doing business, which has been continuous since its beginning, is located at Kensington in Philadelphia, having been established in 1711.

To many it may be still unknown that Bohemian glassware has been manufactured in this country, and at a very early period. From Mannheim, in Germany, in the year 1750, came a certain Baron Steigel, whose parents had dubbed him William Henry. He laid out, in Pennsylvania, the village which bears the name of his native place, and there he established ironworks and glassworks, and deeded a plot of ground to the Lutheran congregation, in consideration of their annual payment, forever, of one red rose. The glasshouse was dome-shaped, and so large that a coach-and-six could enter at the doorway, turn around inside, and drive out again. He brought skilled workmen from the best factories in Europe, and made richly colored bowls and goblets, which have the true Bohemian ring, and which are now in the possession of local collectors.

His works did not continue for any length of time, as he failed in business about five years after he started, but the old Steigel house is still standing in the heart of the town, distinguished by the red and black bricks of which it is built. And there still, in the month of June, is often celebrated the Feast of Roses, one feature of which is the payment of a great red rose by a church officer to the baron's descendants.

But of all the old glass made here, perhaps the bottles form the most interesting portion. For the first seventy years of the nineteenth century, fancy pocket flasks and bottles were manufactured in the United States. The idea of the decorations probably came, in the first place, from the fact that English potters were decorating crockery with local subjects, in order to catch the American trade. This glassware, however, was wholly the result of our own enterprise. The objects here shown were blown in engraved metal molds, which had been prepared by professional mold cutters.