Brooklyn (Glass House Co.) 1754-1758 A glass works was founded on what would become State Street in the present day borough of New York City Brooklyn in 1754 by the GLASS HOUSE COMPANY of New York to be located near one of the partners Lodewyk Bampers home. These works were the second ones built by the Glass House Company as three years prior they had found the glass house 70 miles north in the village of New Windsor now present day Newburgh. The glass works again were designed by Johan Martin Greiner and skilled glass blowers from Bristol and Germany were acquired for this venture. An ad placed in the New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy " of October 7th, again on Oct 14th and lastly 21st of October in 1754.
The key words in the ad to me are "Gentlemen that wants Bottles of any size with their names on them".This is huge in the attribution of North American made sealed gentlemans bottles for glass historians have always dismissed the notion they could have been made here in the Colonies and have just assumed they were always made in Europe in the countries of England, Germany,Holland,France or Scandinavia.
Glass Historian Frederick Hunter looked at bottles in the Van Cortland Museum with seals impressed upon them of Sidney Breese 1765, and another with the intials F V C which stood for (Fredrick Van Cortlant) and the date 1765 examined these bottles, and in his own judgement they looked every bit the type made at Wistarburgh where he had prior found seals walking the grounds of this factory site. Even though Hunter felt the bottles were most likely made at Wistarburgh( In which I believe he is incorrect), it has become quite evident to me they were a product of present day New York City most likely of the glass House farm which was in operation in 1765. Although the Brooklyn Glass works advertised they made sealed bottles for gentleman they most likely were not the makers of the Breese and Frederick Van Cortlant bottles in the Museum he saw first hand for the Brooklyn works were out of buisness in 1758 seven years prior to the date on the seals.Fast forward to Monday August 19th 2013........
A friend of mine Gary Katzen from Haddonfield New Jersey and fellow glass collector with an amazing milk glass collection has in his possesion a bottle with a seal of the intials P S that has been lightly attributed by glass collectors and glass historians to Peter Stuyvesant who served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was renamed New York.
By simply doing a little research it becomes quite apparent that this bottle was was made in the style and era historically proven to be in the period of the mid 1700s. Armed with this information it is now very easy to prove the bottle was not made for Peter Stuyvesant the I,however quite excitingly the bottle may have been made for his great great grandson Petrus (Peter) Stuyvesant [1727—1805]. This Peter was still an extremely influential New York Merchant was a close associate and neighbor of Lodewyck Bamper and as stated earlier was related to the very famous Great Great Grandfather. Below is Gary's bottle photographed in his backyard and home. I feel pretty confident bottles like this type were the ones being advertised by Lepper for the Glass House Company and they quite likely made this one as there are too many good reasons to believe otherwise. A big thank you to Gary for allowing to publish this great bottle into my website
Gary Katzen's 14 inch Tall personalized with the letters P S,German type rolled lip seen often on glass attributed to Wistarburgh.Deep olive amber in color.
The Impressed seal with the letters P S
The color looks like dark amber but trust me it is black glass in the true sense when photographed outside as seen in the below pictures.
Photographed outside on a stone top table,and as you can see this bottle is black as night in broad day light.
Photographed with a Wistarburgh attributed mallet type wine bottle. This bottle is a huge wine bottle as the Wistarburgh bottle stands 9 and a half inches tall.
Photographed along with a Wistarburgh attributed mallet type bottle. Both bottles are extremely dark in color.
Two sea serpents Nessie and Champ!!
Beautiful sand type pontil mark on the P S Bottle.
Looking down into each bottle you can see similar markings on the inside of each lip.
The bottle sports the famous Wistar rolled lip suggesting a gaffer from the same region Caspar and his son Richard imported their workers from.
In close on the rolled lip,Gary suggested umbrellas and sheets and...I told him it would cost us a fortune to have these bottles professionally photographed!! This is good enough!!
I have named this picture the world map pontil mark for I can see Africa and Asia like shapes in the areas within the sand pontil mark