“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.
FACTORY MACHINERY
The machinery to mold smoking pipes and bottles was invented by Calvin J. Merrill of the E. H. Merrill Pottery, Summit County, Ohio, in 1843 (Blair, 1965:3).
The pipe machine was simple: the individual metal molds in the foot powered mechanism could be changed to vary the pipe form. The whole was contained in a simple wooden bench ([Plate 6]). Miss Wilsie Thornton felt that a man working such a machine could produce thousands of pipes per day. It is unknown how many such machines were used by the factory, nor how many people were employed since ideas of our informants varied; however, the best estimate seems to be 8 to 10 machines, with employees varying from 10 to 40, depending upon the press of work and the rush of orders at any given time.
Bob Davis of Pamplin, in the interview with John W. Walker said, “Old man Taz Harvey made the Powhatan mold. He had a shop and made many molds”.
FACTORY FIRING AND GLAZING
The pipes were packed in round stoneware crocks or saggers made from fireclay, and the saggers were stacked alternately around the kiln. The saggers were some eight inches high and 16 to 18 inches in diameter ([Plate 7]). There was an opening in the top of the kiln through which, in glazing, salt was put when the pipes were hot. They were fired some 24 or 48 hours (Miss Thornton’s statement).
Mrs. Maddox said: “As a child I used to go with a colored man who worked with us and also for the factory, and watch him throw salt down a hole in the top of the kiln on the pipes to make a glaze.”