South Stoddard Glass Manufacturing Company 1851-1858 Luman Weeks,Almon Woods,Ebenezer A. Rice,Frederick A. Gilson and Nicholas Hilt formed a corporation named the South Stoddard Glass Manufacturing Company on July 4th 1851. Work on building the glass factory began in October of 1850. This factory would go on to be the most successful of all of the Stoddard glass factory's lasting until 1875. Frederick Gilson and Nicholas Hilt brought the practical glass making skills to the company as each man had worked prior for the Keene Marlboro Street glass works and briefly for Joseph Foster in both Keene and Stoddard.
Items manufactured at this factory included medicine bottles such as Kimballs Jaundice Bitters,and Hartshorn's Medicine. A main output of the factory were the spring mineral water bottles along with stubby beers and three part whiskey mold bottles. Most of the glass shards and remnants found at the factory site were in varying shades of ambers to olive amber's to blood red amber's. Below is the incorporation act read by and passed by the United States House Of Representatives and the Senate in General Court.
A large fire was reported near the glass works of Weeks and Gilison on August 21st 1854, in the Thursday August 31st 1854 edition of the Farmers Cabinet Newspaper out of Amherst New Hampshire.
A devastating fire at the store front connected to the glass manufactory owned by Luman Weeks who at the time was living in Keene ended the factorys production for good in November of 1875. Below is a short news story from the New Hampshire Sentinel out of Keene New Hampshire describing the event.
The types of glass and bottles made at the South Stoddard Glass factory in the 8 years of existence
Some of the Farleys ink bottles were undoubtedly made at these works as shards matching these bottles have been found by many relic hunters over the years. The following Farleys ink bottle is in the Robert Woodbury collection.
Stoddard Jewelry made from glass drippings. The following pieces of glass jewelry were found at the various factory sites in Stoddard. I have placed them here at the South Stoddard page because of the wide range of colors that have been found at the south Stoddard factory site. It is quite likely that some of these were products of this factory. These are a recent addition to my collection.
The first pieces which resemble jewels and are tear drop or egg plant shaped were formed when glass would drip down from the gather to the brick floor below.
The second group in which the pieces are long cylinder shaped and slender are also twisted telling me these were not factory refuse ,but true end of day canes,or other glass whimseys made by one of the more talented workers.