# The Estellville Glass Works New Jerseys Stonehenge



## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

By putting the following coordinates 39Â° 23' 27.14" N  74Â° 44' 31.19" W in your GPS , smart phone or any map program site on the internet such as google maps you will be at Americas most preserved historic glass works site called Estellville. A good portion of the original factory still stands today. Estellville is located in the out skirts of the City of Mays Landing Atlantic County New Jersey.The gif I created above zooms in to Estellville from outer space. In the last picture of the sequence you can see the lay out of the factory walls.The first picture below is the main factory building erected in 1824 which housed the various furnaces. The annealing oven layout foundations still stand today inside of the large sandstone arched window and doorways.

  In 1825 John Scott erected a glass works on Stephen's Creek in Estellville in an area next to the old Game Preserve. In 1834, Brothers Daniel and John Estelle became the new owners of the glass factory. In the year 1825 the new Tariff Law had given a preference to glass made in this country and John Scott and then Daniel and John Estell took full advantage of it. The works first produced window glass and there were many grades of glass offered. A short time later around 1830 the factory began to produce hollow ware. The Estells  employed approximately eighty men and boys in 1834.The site also had nearby a gristmill and sawmill. The glass works operated until the spring of 1877 when the fuel supply was depleted.

 The factory was always thought to have mostly produced Clear aqua window glass. Although a sizable amount of light aqua window glass shards are still found just about everywhere on the site to this day it is the dark green and the dark to light shade of ambers which dominate the site in all directions when walking the area between the factory buildings.Enormous amounts of glass slag frit abounds as some of the pieces are the size of grape fruits!!. With this amount of dark glass an obvious prodcut of this factory was plain and simply alcohol.The bottles blown were porter,wine and whiskey bottles in great numbers.

 I would recommend visiting this site when in the area of Atlantic City which is just 15 minutes East of Estellville.I know the Pitkin works in Connecticut still has a couple of walls standing but not to this degree.If you love old glass and want to see first hand what an early 1800s glass factory looked like then this is the place.There is a lot to see and do in this area.There is a 15 mile walk/bicycle path surrounding the entire park where the glass factory is located.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

2 Taken from the other side inside of the factory.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

3 In all my glory this past fall.


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## epackage (Feb 12, 2013)

It would be so cool to get that property and build a log cabin on it leaving the stone walls or using them in the build...


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

4


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

5 Yes Jim you could build one heck of a house.This pile by the way was one of the main ovens or furnace as they are called.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

7 The buildings are marked with plaques.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

10  Slag and shards are everywhere at this site.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

13 Lime stone rocks, slag ,frit shards everywhere.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

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## RED Matthews (Feb 12, 2013)

Well 'Steve' You've done it again;
 The Estellville Glass Works New Jerseys Stonehenge - 2/12/2013 8:13:22 PM    

 A neat set of pictures and history of this early glass house in New Jersey.  Steve has done so much great information assembly that it is all prime glass history for those of us that care really appreciate.  CSM


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

Red thanks ,this place is a must see if you love old glass. It should remain for quite some time as far as development goes for it is in a county park system and it is near water.


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## fer_de_lance (Feb 12, 2013)

Steve,
             Can you post photo of a bottle attributed to this factory? 

                                           Tim


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 12, 2013)

Tim I found shards of many popular Medicine bottles,Opodeldocs,Batemans,Godfreys ect. ,Historical flasks: I am quite confident one of the Washington Taylor historical flasks was made here along with a Jenny Lind calabash type I am sure. There is an enormous amount of amber glass suggesting bitters bottles were made here also. In 1842 the glass works was taken over by Jackie Getsinger and John Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum also owned a half interest along with Thomas Whitney in the Malaga Glass works 15 miles north of Estellville. I think through some careful research it will be found that some of the amber famous bitters bottles were also a main output after 1855 right on up to 1875. There were at least three large New York Merchants who were sole agents for the glass works in the 1830s,40s,50s and 60s.I will post the shards tomorrow after work.


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## fer_de_lance (Feb 13, 2013)

Thanks Steve, I really envy you folks in the East as we don't have anything like that here in southern Indiana.Did you have a chance to look at photos I posted of the James River mallet ?


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

Yes Tim, your Mallet bottle is looking more American all the time. Here are shards,moils,slag, and Frit from the Estellville factory. This place was enormous and should have been recognized by Mckearin in his famous book. The works were around for 50 years with many famous owners. I wish someone from the Corning museum would recognize this treasure of a site the only one of its kind.     The blue shard to the left is a corner piece of a Cathedral food jar.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

2 The piece on the lower right hand portion is a Cornucopia flask melted.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

3  Molten Frit in green and grey.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

4 I would love to find a bottle in this color green/grey!!


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

5 Different shades of amber's and dark greens.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

6 The shard at the bottom based on the size is the neck of a very large Green/Grey Demi John.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

7 Here is a good sizeed hunk 2 inches round of various shades of amber slag.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

8 This piece is neat about 10 different colors in it.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

9  Amber's, greys, greens, and plain aqua.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

10 Neat color


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

12 A large 4 inches long by 3 wide piece of grey green slag,again a bottle in this color would be outstanding.I believe this piece of slag fused in the clay melting pot.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

13 A neat multi colored piece of amber. Booz or Kelly's who knows!!


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

15    Molten slag unique color.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

16  Large pale light aqua shard off of a Jenny Lind historical flask


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

17 A slightly fused raw batch of Soda lime and sand right from the pot.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

18 What you are staring at here is a rather large over  (5 inches in length by 4 inches in depth) unique piece of amber pot slag,frit and sand. This piece is shaped like the pot it cam out of. This is what light amber glass looks like before the fusion process.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

19 The side view of this piece,you can see the crystallization beginning in the upper portion.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

20     Large hunk 3 inches long and round of various shades of amber's and greens.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

21 This was found by the flattening house. Window glass slag!!


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

22 Feast your eyes on these twp pieces. The one on the left is a quite rare batch of pulverized quartz pot stones and sodam lime slightly fused on the last day the window works made product. On the right is a piece of glass which resembles petrified wood.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

23  Same piece from another angle.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

24   The quartz frit again as you can see only the top portion began to fuze which was probably the bottom portion of the clay pot the day it was melted..


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

27  Same process as the light amber but this time dark amber. again you can see only a small portion began to fuse. This is what dark amber glass looked like right before it was .... dark amber glass!!!


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

30 Amber taffy looks like candy doesn't it


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

31 Window glass shards crystal clear.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 13, 2013)

Got to run will continue this later.


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## Dugout (Feb 16, 2013)

Very interesting!


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## Ohiosulator (Feb 20, 2013)

Great post!


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 23, 2013)

Here is a portrait of Daniel Estell. His relatives were French Huguenots.


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## Steve/sewell (Feb 24, 2013)

Before Rick got to do this I beat him to it........,Elvis Estell has a nice ring to it or Daniel Presley kinda plain sounding...either way Elvis owes the look to Danny boy Estell as he sported the burns and the duds first[8D]


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## surfaceone (Mar 2, 2013)

Steve, you handsome devil, [8D]

 Thanks for this great thread, and here's hoping you and the family are feeling up to snuff real soon.


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