The first glass factory built in Wellsburg after the Civil War as the Riverside Glass House, located on the Southeast corner of Sixth and Yankee Streets. This factory was incorporated September 17, 1879, by John Dornan, formerly with the Buckeye Glass Company of Martins Ferry, Ohio, Charles Brady and J E Ratcliffe, former employees of Hobbs Brockunier Glass Company of Wheeling, West Virginia, J. Flannagan, and A McGrail, John Dornan, manager of the factory, supervised the construction of the buildings. Mr. Dornan, who was born in Ireland in 1838, started working in glasshouses at the age of fifteen.
Riverside, the first glasshouse in this area to utilize natural gas, used the patent owned by John Dornan. Although no patent number or date has been found, there was a special collar for Riverside lamps, called "Riverside Clinch On Collar". The mold shop for the factory was located on the northwest corner of Fifth and Commerce streets. Mold makers were Joseph C Reed, Joseph B Bean, Fred West, Eugene Schmidt and Solly Combs. The blacksmith was John O'Donald, David W Bird, who became associated with the firm in August 1887, was elected president of the company in January 1888. One of the first Riverside salesmen was George I. Caldwell, who later became the first manager of the Jefferson Glass Company in Follansbee, Wet Virginia.
The Dornans, Gundlings, Gasmires, Joe Combs, John Burns, Honus Letzkus, Boot Lacey, Christ Arbogast, Harry Davis, Mathew Deighton, Mr. Upperman, the DeFossetts, The Blankenshop. Chuffy Miller, Jimmy Black, the Donners, Miss Fannie Letzkus and Miss Sally Bell were among the glass workers and decorators at this plant. Montgomery Beam started working at Riverside in 1904 at the age of eleven as a "Carry in Boy". After serving his apprenticeship, Mr. Beam became a glassblower with Crescent Glass Company and worked there more than forty years.
On September 8, 1886, the Riverside factory burned, but the following year it was rebuilt with the new buildings made as fireproof as possible. On October 23, 1899, Riverside joined the National Glass Company, a syndicate established in 1899 to meet the competition of the increased flow of glass imports.
Cut and pressed glass, brick and stone fireproof glass, crackle and colored glass, tableware, lamps, paperweights, barber bottles, whimseys, beer and ale glasses, covered hen dishes, compotes, finger bowls, castor sets, goblets, tumblers. molasses jars, celery vases and water sets, both plain and engraved, were made at Riverside and shipped all over the United States, Great Britain, South America and Mexico.
Among the many patterns made at Riverside were Classic (combination of characters from Greek Myths), Button and Daisy (clear, amber, several shades of blue and a combination of clear and colored glass), Pressed Fern, Frosted Cabbage, Satin Band, Deer and Pine Tree, Oak Leaf, Grasshopper, Diagonal Bands, Swirl, Crosus, Swam, Loop,. Bull's Eye, Maple Leaf, Psyche and Cupid, and Cabbage Leaf with Three rabbits clear and frosted).
In 1907 Riverside closed and their molds were sold to the Cambridge Glass Company at Cambridge, Ohio. In 1911 the furnaces and buildings were sold to the Rithner family and Ellery Worthen.
The Dalzell Glass Company was organized in 1884 by W A B Dalzell, Andrew Dalzell, James Dalzell and E D Gilmore. James Dalzellk had been associated with the Adams Glass Factory in Pittsburgh and Ed Gilmore was a banker from Pittsburgh. The buildings occupied about two acres of ground just above Twenty Second and Yankee Streets. While the factory was under construction in Wellsburg, the company rented a building in Brilliant, Ohio. Dalzell Glass employed more than 150 workers. Smith Hunter of Brilliant made the molds for the factory and Asa Neville, who later became manager of the Eagle Glass Works, as on of Dalzell's glassblowers. In August 1888 the factory moved to Findlay, Ohio. The Wellsburg plant made tableware's, character bottles, novelty items, and onyx glass, known as "Oriental Ware". Among patterns made by the company were Daisy-Button, Daisy Button-Petticoat, Starred Block, Racing Deer, Teardrop, Wellsburg, Quaker Lady, Amberette, Bull's Eye, Dalzell, Priscilla, Delos, Double Fan, Fan Top Hobnail, Swirl, Oak Tree and Racing Deer. In 1899 the company sold out to the National Glass Company, a syndicate organized to combat competition with foreign imports.
The Jefferson Glass House of Follansbee was incorporated February 25, 1907, by J D Sinclair, H G Darkman, A G Lee, and James Porter of Steubenville, Ohio and A G Frokme of Wheeling, West Virginia. The plant was located at the south end of Follansbee adjoining the railroad tracks, G L Caldwell was the first manager. Jefferson Glass also owned a factory at Millersburg, Ohio, that made carnival glass. At the Follansbee plant their products included hand-decorated and opalescent crystal glassware as well as pressed, blown, and marbleized glass. In June 1907 the company received a patent to mark some of their wares "Chipendale" with "Krystol" marked on the bottom of the pieces. Hugo Broccolini of Follansbee reports that the chandeliers in the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, are made of Jefferson glass. He learned this when he was assigned to wash them as a member of a work detail at the Stevens during World War II. He was one of 15,000 stationed there for training. The factory closed in the early 1930's . Office workers, "gathering boys" blowers, ball blowers carry out boys and girls" craftsmen, artisans, and artists composed a cosmopolitan group according to their fellow workmen as they reminisced about the plant that employed Swedes, Germans, Irishman, Japanese, Blacks and Brooke countian: Mr. Blumenhaurer, Vincent Beck, E J Coyne, John Deer, Sr., Edward Geary, Emil Hagberg, James Haydn, Whitey Evans, Flora Johnson, Werner Johnson, Emma Baldaug Straka, Jim Shay, Otto Peterson, Mr. Wilson, Gus Yandalia, Harry Walker, Leo Bund, Hugo Broccolini, and John Good.
Crescent Glass Company was established in Wellsburg in 1908 by Henry Rithner, Sr. and Ellery Worthen. When Mr. Worthen was killed in an accident in 1920, the Rithner family bought his interest in the company from his heirs. The first location was above Twenty[ninth and Yankee streets. Later the company moved to the former Riverside Glass site at Sixth and Yankee and is till operating at this location.
Their original line, until the Prohibition era, was "bar goods". After Prohibition, the company started a new line- red lantern globes. The company became the major supplier for Ford Motor Company's ruby taillight lens. For these items Mr. Rithner, Sr., had developed a solid ruby glass processing. Prior to this, the globes and lenses had to be stained. Crescent also made cut, crackle, carnival and marbleized glass.
At the present time (1975) the Crescent Company makes lamp parts, novelties, signal globes, and votive glass. Henry Rithner III, the third generation of Rithners in the glass business in Wellsburg is president of the firm.
Erskine Glass Company was incorporated June 10, 1919, at Wellsburg by John O Erskine of Steubenville, Ohio, W Erskine, J G Simpson, Robert S Cain, and D S Swaney all of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This factory is located above Twenty -second and Yankee streets on the site of the old Dalzell plant. Their original wares were lamps and novelty items. A the present time (1975) the company makes illuminating glassware for the lamp and lighting fixture industry as well as private mold items. William Erskine, Jr. is president of the company.
Brooke County has had forty glass factories and decorating shops from 1813 to the present time (1975)
From "West Virginia Geological Survey" 1906
Pg 15
As early as 1813 Isaac Duvall & Co. erected a flint glass factory at Wellsburg near the site of the present Riverside glass works, and it was operated with varying degrees of success until 1842.
In 1836 the Markley Brothers erected a green glass factory which was in operation two years and then closed. In 1850 interest was revived in the glass industry and in 1855 the Metcalf & Miller Glass Co. was selling $25,000 work of ware a year, but later failed. At the present time there are five glass plants in Wellsburg and the adjoining town of Lazearville, employing about 1,000 people.
The Eagle Glass Co. of Lazearville, was established in January 1894 and operates a plant of 70 pots. Its decorating department and ware rooms occupy 45,000 square feet of floor space, and a new large addition has been completed.
The company manufacturers an extensive line of decorated lamps, lamp shades, druggists sundries in opal, flint and amber glass and a large variety of novelties in plain and decorated ware.
The Riverside Glass Co. built their first plant in January 1880. It was later destroyed by fire and result and sold to the National Glass Company in 1900 when it was operated as factory 15 of that company. In 1904 the company was reorganized under the name of the Riverside Glass Co. The plant is equipped with one ten -pot, one six-pot furnace, also with one tank. Two hundred and ten people are employed in the manufacture of table ware, lamps, and stationery glass ware.
There are two bottle glass factories at Wellsburg, the Union Bottle Glass Co. and the Tanner-French Company. The Wellsburg Glass & Manufacturing Co. are engaged in specialty goods.
FOLLANSBEE
The town of Follansbee, four milers north of Wellsburg, was started June 1st, 1904, and now claims a population of 1600. The Follansbee brothers, who founded the town, have erected a 10 furnace tin plate mill which employs 500 men
There is also a large metal construction plant established here, and the Jefferson Glass Co. has completed a 16 pot glass plant for the manufacture of decorated and opalescent crystal glass ware.