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.