ZANESVILLE GLASS: BIRTH OF AN OHIO INDUSTRY

Ohio has a long and distinguished history in the making of fine glass. The high quality and distinctive style of pioneers in the Ohio glass industry at Zanesville set the standard for those that followed. The Zanesville Glass Works was granted glassmaking privileges by the Ohio legislature on May 13, 1815, and it began producing a variety of hollowware, pattern-molded deep pans, sugar bowls with covers, tumblers, cruets, pitchers, creamers, and compotes. The products were of fine quality and competed well with more established glassmakers in New England and Pittsburgh. The earliest glass was clear, amber, or green but could also be blue, yellow, dark red, tan, yellow green, blue green, and many other shades. A distinctive swirl, vertical ribbing, or ten diamond over ten flute pattern molding was often used. Zanesville glasshouses continued manufacturing a variety of products from bottles to window glass; nearly 200 years later, Zanesville still has a robust glass industry..

Zanesville had many advantages for the fledgling glassmaking industry in Ohio. Located on the Muskingum River, a natural transportation corridor to southern markets, the city was also on Zane’s Trace and the National Road, popular early overland routes to the eastern United States. There were abundant nearby natural resources critical to glass production, such as high-silica sandstone; limestone used as a fluxing ingredient; excellent quality clays critical to manufacturing the crucibles; and coal to fire the kilns. Pennsylvanian-age sandstones quarried in the Zanesville area exhibit silica dioxide levels of 98–99.4 percent after washing and low to moderate amounts of aluminum, iron, calcium, magnesium, and titanium. The Pennsylvanian-age Putnam Hill limestone and the Mississippian-age Maxville Limestone contain greater than 90 percent calcium carbonate. Pennsylvanian-age coals were used in the Zanesville glass plants as early as 1816. Superior quality Pennsylvanian-age clays and shales are found south of the city and led to the establishment of Zanesville as a national leader in the production of ceramics in the 1800s.