Although polished metal mirrors have been used since antiquity, it was not until the early 1800s in Germany that mass production of silvered glass mirrors came into being.
Scientist Justus vol Liebig (1803-1873) experimented with a wet deposition process which left a thin layer of metallic silver on panes of glass through the chemical reduction of silver nitrate. This eliminated the use of dangerous mercury coating used in such places as the Hall of Mirrors at Louis XIV’s palace of Versailles.
Von Liebig’s process was later adapted for mass manufacturing which led to the greater distribution of mirrors from handheld looking glasses to mirrored walls.
Hassan Abdul Ali, who owned the India Glass and Mirror Company in the small town of Altona hamlet of Irona, Clinton County, NY, was born in Hyderabad, Pakistan in 1915. At ten years of age, he was sent to England for schooling. While a young man, he moved to Germany and learned the art of mirror making from master craftsmen.
Hassan used this knowledge to invent his own silver and gold backed mirror making techniques. He boasted that he could duplicate any mirror in the world. He later emigrated to Canada and set up a glass business in Montreal.
His company installed glass in such places as the United States Pavilion at Expo 67 and the veined “antique glass” mirrors at the Beaver Club in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal. After a storm at sea, the luxury ocean liner, SS Constitution, called Hassan’s company to match and replace thousands of dollars’ worth of mirrors which were broken on the voyage.
In 1963, Hassan purchased the old wooden Irona Creamery in the Town of Altona, from Robert Duley after the closure of the Delaware & Hudson Railroad and built two additional steel buildings. He moved from Canada into the United States at that time.
The India Glass and Mirror Company enjoyed the spacious interiors and employed, at various times, up to more than a dozen men from the local area during peak periods, many from the Guerin, Guay and Sorrell families. At the time, the hourly rate paid $4.
A visitor to his Irona shop would find it stacked with racks of frosted and clear glass and mirrors, in addition to all kinds of other glass – tempered, safety, thermal, plate – and premade single and double pane windows and doors ready for installation. Mirrors processed there were formula-made, and hand crafted to the wants and needs of the purchaser.
This writer is fortunate enough to own two oval wall mirrors made there in the 1970s. The company took on large government projects such as installing Thermopane windows weighing seven hundred pounds each in the central tower at the Plattsburgh Air Force Base and small custom jobs like installing tinted glass at Pearl’s Store and the IGA in Chateaugay.
Hassan also learned the art of making and repairing old stained-glass windows. When the hundred-year-old St. Philip Neri Catholic Church in Westport burned in the early 1980s, he salvaged seven of the eleven stained-glass windows and restored them.
He also worked for the Melodist Church in Keeseville putting new windows in the classrooms. When St. Mary’s School in Champlain had a fire in 1981, some of the windows were replaced by his company. Several other churches in the area worked with Hassan to repair their stained-glass windows.
In February 1985, fire struck the India Glass and Mirror Company, sub-zero temperatures and high winds destroyed the main building. Hundreds of local people turned out to view the blaze and firefighters from as far away as Hemmingford, Quebec, were on stand-by.
Three employees risked their lives to rescue a $45,000 truck that was in one of the burning buildings. Foreman, Floyd Guerin said much of the glass was destroyed in the 60’ x 200’ building, and his glass-cutting table looked like a potato chip. Luckily, the last one of the Westport Church windows had been shipped out just two months earlier.
The plant reopened in 1986 with a chicken bar-b-que and a new minimum wage of $5 an hour. Most of the insulated glass in Northeastern New York was still being supplied by the company at this time.
Hassan tried to expand his business in the late 1980s, at one point thinking about building in Wilmington, NY, but he could not arrange the funding. By 1994, the company with all Hassan’s locally owned property had gone into receivership. C & D Equipment Company Inc. now occupies the buildings.
Julie Dowd is Trustee Emeritus at the Clinton County Historical Association.
India Glass Company photo from Retrospect by Frank P. Conners.
Thanks, Julie! You & CCHA continue to feed my curiosity and set my late-life roots. I was a POCW – Prisoner of the Cold War and my first 20 years were spent moving around US & Germany as an Army Brat. Now I have other nearby destinations to explore during the long days of Summer.