Redford Glass: Clinton County’s Unique, Priceless Glassware

The Redford Glass Company, in the town of Saranac, Clinton County, NY was in business for only 20 years (over 200 years ago) and produced products that demonstrated unique skilled craftsmanship that survive to this day. The Company, that was once famous and esteemed for its crown glass windowpanes, has become synonymous with unique and priceless glassware.

The glass works was the operated by Gershom Cook and Charles Corning of Troy, NY, in the fall of 1830. According to Sarah Baker’s Saranac Valley, Vol. 1: The Pioneers (1985):

“This area was found desirable for two reasons: first, the improved road of 1829 provided easy access to the lake for shipment of the finished product, and second, the sandstone found in the surrounding area was of an unusually desirable quality, particularly the deposits of Kents Falls, Ausable Chasm and the Mud Pond in the northwest corner of Black Brook; all of which were of white flint.

“Messrs. Cook and Corning were apparently backed by the Champlain Glass Co. of Vermont. The first transfer of this land in Redford, as recorded in Book of Deeds, Vol. T, p. 80 reads: “From Philip Kearney to the Champlain Glass Co. of Vermont, for $1294, two certain square mile lots, #33 and #34 in Township #4, of the Old Military Tract as surveyed by Alonson B. Vaughn, and found to contain 1294 acres of land. Title to the land and factory was later transferred to Messrs. Cook and Corning on July 27, 1832, for $1594, along with lots #47 and #49. The company was first incorporated under the names of Gordon Corning, Gershom Cook, John S. Foster and Charles Corning. All leases, contracts or deeds of tenements on the company land contained a clause forbidding the sale of “ardent spirits,” on the premises, however, ale and beer were permitted.

“In March, 1831, Messrs. Cook and Corning arrived at Redford along with the man who was to be superintendent, Mr. John S. Foster, who was a well experienced chemist from the Champlain Glass Works in Burlington. Through the spring and summer hundreds of laborers and a multitude of oxen teams were at work constructing the factory town. A sawmill was first built, then a grist mill, and as work on the factory itself progressed, barns, shops, a store and boarding house also came into being. The glass factory works were completed in the fall of 1831, after seven months labor at a cost of $50,000, and the first batch of glass was turned out.

“The factory itself was 12 ft. high, 80 ft. wide and 150 ft. long and contained two furnaces, so if one failed; work could proceed in the second. It has been described as follows: The kiln (melting furnace) was 15′ square, constructed of stone and brick, and had a chimney in the center. This was the backbone of the glass works, for in here the rough ingredients were converted by intense heat into molten glass or metal ready for the workmen to shape. John Hooey was the metal-mixer. This square furnace had a door at each end. Inside were arches closed by fire brick and clay, concealing all but the openings of the crucibles. The open pots were put in through the doors and their contents withdrawn through openings in two rows at the sides. A well under the furnace received any molton glass that might escape from a broken pot.

“Each of the two furnaces had six melting pots made of Stoarbridge Clay and imported from England. The pots were called “Monkey Pots” and were oval cylinders with a rounded covering that opened on the top of one side. Their manufacture demanded the most tedious and exacting work of the entire industry, as the slightest flaw in structure or material was sufficient to waste the contents. Each pot cost from $40 to $100, required fastidious handling, and lasted only about seven weeks. The most hardy “monkey” seldom survived three months.

“Heat for the melting furnace and working furnace (small blast furnace) of which there were several to each melting furnace, was supplied by burning wood cut fine in “splints.” The working furnace provided a number of openings into the flame, known as the “glory holes.” In these the workmen resoftened the glass as they completed various small objects, such as bowls, cocked hats, balls, canes, lamps, etc. The annealing oven was a long low rectangular chamber through which the finished products passed in shallow trays from an intense heat to ordinary temperature.”

You can read more about the company and their glass making process here.

Photo of one of a kind glassware on display at CCHA provided.