Hartford City Glass Company was among the top three window glass manufacturers in the United States between 1890 and 1899, and continued to be one of the nation's largest after its acquisition. It was also the country's largest manufacturer of chipped glass, with capacity double that of its nearest competitor. The company's works was the first of eight glass plants that existed in Hartford City, Indiana during the Indiana Gas Boom. It became the city's largest manufacturer and employer, peaking with 600 employees.
Many of the skilled workers employed at the Hartford City Glass Company were from Belgium, at the time the world's leading manufacturer of window glass. The Belgian workers and their families accounted for over one-third of Hartford City's population during the 1890s, and lived on the city's south side. Because of the importance of the French-speaking Belgians, one of the local newspapers featured articles in French.
In 1899, Hartford City Glass was acquired by the American Window Glass Company, which controlled 85 percent of the American window glass manufacturing capacity. During the next decade, the company began replacing its skilled and well–paid Belgian glass blowers with machines and less-skilled machine operators. The company used the Hartford City plant to test and refine the new technology. Most of the Belgian glass workers left town.
During the 1920s, competitors developed new window glass production processes that eclipsed the American Window Glass technology, and the company lost its advantage. By the time the Great Depression struck, the Hartford City plant had closed.
Manufacturers drawn to Indiana
During the late 1880s, the discovery of natural gas in Eaton, Indiana started an economic boom period in East Central Indiana. Manufacturers were lured to the region to take advantage of the low cost fuel. Blackford County, a small rural county located close to Eaton, had only 181 people working in manufacturing in 1880. By 1901, the county had over 1,100 people employed at manufacturing plants in small communities such as Hartford City, Indiana. Between 1880 and 1900, populations doubled in area counties such as Blackford, Delaware, and Grant. The region became Indiana's major manufacturing center.
Hartford City Like many Indiana communities during the gas boom, Hartford City's leaders sought to take advantage of their newfound energy resource. The Hartford City Land Company was formed in 1891 as part of the effort to attract manufacturers. The company offered "free sites, free gas, excellent switching facilities, and reasonable cash subsidies" as enticements for manufacturers to locate in the boom town. Manufacturers that used high quantities of energy were especially attracted to no-cost or low-cost natural gas sites, and glassmaking was one of those energy-consuming industries.
Hartford City's success in attracting manufacturers can be indirectly measured by its population growth. The city's population was 2,287 in 1890, but grew to 5,912 by 1900. In 1890, the city convinced glassmaker Richard Heagany to relocate from Kokomo, Indiana. An additional glass maker, Sneath Glass Company, relocated from Tiffin, Ohio, in 1894. During 1901, Indiana state inspectors visited 15 manufacturing facilities in Hartford City. These manufacturers employed 1,077 people, and the American Window Glass plant (the former Hartford City Glass Company) plus the Sneath Glass works accounted for over half of the manufacturing employees. By 1902, Hartford City was the home of 8 glass factories.
Organization and management
In 1878, glassmaker Richard Heagany organized a window glass plant in New York and was the factory's superintendent. That plant became the largest window glass plant in the state. In 1886, he moved to Kokomo, Indiana, and opened the first window glass plant in the region to use natural gas as a fuel source. Heagany's Kokomo plant lasted three years before it was destroyed by fire. Instead of rebuilding in Kokomo, he moved to Hartford City and organized the Hartford City Glass Company. The company was organized in 1890 with the financial assistance of several capitalists. Production began in early 1891 after the plant was constructed. Heagany was the plant manager until his retirement in 1899.
Capitalists One of the principal stockholders of the new company was multi-millionaire A. M. Barber. Barber was involved in grain and banking in Akron, Ohio. Another important investor from Akron was Colonel Arthur Latham Conger, who was the company's first president. Conger was a Civil War veteran who invested in companies in Ohio and Indiana (including in Kokomo). He was also elected president of the Hartford City Land Company in 1893. Hartford City's Sydney W. Cantwell was secretary of the Hartford City Glass Company during its early years. He was also president of the state organization of window glass manufacturers. Cantwell was an attorney involved with the Blackford County Bank, Akron Oil Company, and Hartford City Land Company. Another Hartford City investor, Henry "H. B." Smith, was president of Hartford City's Citizen's Bank.
Management change Top management changed during 1895 after the company's annual shareholders' meeting. Colonel A. L. Conger, who had been president since the company's beginning, lost his position to another colonel from Akron, George T. Perkins. Conger had fallen into disfavor with many of the local citizens. He immediately expressed his unhappiness with the election by selling his company stock and leaving town. Conger's stock was purchased by Kokomo banker John A. Jay. Officers of Hartford City Glass in 1896 were George T. Perkins, President; John A. Jay, Vice President; H.B. Smith, Treasurer; Richard Heagany, General Manager; and John Rodgers Johnston, Secretary.
Colonel George Tod Perkins was a Civil War veteran and president of the B. F. Goodrich Company. He was also involved in banking and had been president of the Bank of Akron. John R. Johnston began working at the Hartford City plant in 1890 as a bookkeeper. He was elected secretary after 4 years. Johnston lived in Hartford City and helped Heagany run the business. Heagany submitted his resignation at the August 1899 board meeting, retiring after 42 years in the glass business. Johnston became plant manager at that time. Johnston resigned a short time later, effective April 1900. He formed Hartford City's Johnston Glass Company in September of the same year.
Workforce During its peak years, Hartford City Glass Company employed 500 to 600 people. In 1894, it employed 100 glass blowers as part of a total workforce of 540 people. The wages for that workforce were said to be equivalent to "about 1500 men in any other industry." Not only was the glass works the largest industry in the county, it was thought to be the second-largest plant of any industry located in the Indiana Gas Belt. To help meet the housing needs for the factory's many employees, 184 houses were built nearby. In 1896, 443 workers at the plant lived in Hartford City, especially on the south side. Assuming each local worker had a family of five, over one-third of the city's population (2,235 of "an estimated 6,000") was financially dependent upon Hartford City Glass.
Glassmakers The window glass manufacturing process used by Hartford City Glass was known as the Cylinder Method. The process was labor-intensive, and required the services of a glass blower and glass cutter—who were both highly skilled and well paid. The glass blower led a small production crew that included skilled and unskilled workers. At older plants, the glass blower's workstation was adjacent to a ceramic pot located inside the furnace. Each pot contained molten glass created by melting a batch of ingredients that included sand, soda, and lime. At newer plants such as the Hartford City works, tanks were used instead of pots. The tanks were essentially huge brick pots with multiple workstations. A tank furnace is more efficient than a pot furnace, but more costly to build.
In the first step of the glass-making process, molten glass was extracted from the pot or tank. The glass blower and his helper used a blowpipe, which was typically to long, to create a bubble of molten glass. The glass blower manipulated the bubble into a cylinder, and removed it from the pot or tank. The cylinders were to in diameter, and or long.
Next, the glass–cutter cut the cylinder, and the glass was flattened. It was necessary to gradually cool the glass, a process known as annealing, to prevent it from breaking. A lehr or annealing oven was used to anneal the product. A typical 20th-century lehr was a large conveyor inside a long oven. The newly made glass gradually moved from the hot end of the lehr to its opposite end, which was at room temperature. The glass would then be cut into the desired window glass size, placed in a box, and moved to inventory. It is not known if (or when) the lehrs at the Hartford City plant had conveyors.
The Belgians During the late 19th century, glass blowers were difficult to find. Belgium was the largest exporter of window glass to the United States, and plant manager Heagany previously used the skills of glass blowers from that country in his Kokomo glass works. In Hartford City, Heagany again relied upon Belgian workers for the skilled positions in his glass works.
The city's influx of French-speaking Belgians affected the town. The south side (south of Lick Creek) became known as Belgium Town. Most Belgians were Catholic, and they built the city's Catholic church near their homes on the city's south side. The church's Father Dhe was a native of France and was also involved with glass making. During the early 1900s, the local Blackford County Gazette claimed to be the "only newspaper in State that prints French and circulates among the window glass and iron workers, the highest paid skilled mechanics in the world."
The Belgian workforce also affected the city's north side. Hartford City's Presbyterian Church, which is now part of the National Register of Historical Places, was built one block north of the courthouse in 1894—and features large stained glass windows imported from Belgium. For over 50 years, the bigger of two huge windows was considered the largest single-frame window in the state of Indiana. These stained-glass windows, plus at least four smaller ones, were installed by the local (and mostly Catholic) Belgian glass workers.
Infrastructure Construction of Hartford City's new glass works was completed in early January 1891, and production started shortly thereafter. The glass works was located on Hartford City's south side, and originally occupied . Natural gas was the plant's original fuel source for both the furnace used to make the glass and the ovens used to gradually cool it.
In the United States, two systems were used during the 1890s to create molten glass. The older system used a pot furnace, where ceramic pots were heated inside the furnace to melt the batch of ingredients needed to make the molten glass. The newer system used a large brick tank that could be operated continuously or by the batch. The Hartford City plant used the tank system, and it was originally the "largest tank window glass factory in the world". The tank had a capacity equivalent to 30 pots, giving the Hartford City plant more than double the capacity of some of the window glass plants built a few years earlier in Ohio.
With its size, newest technology, and newly built facilities, the plant was "said to be the largest and best arranged window glass works in the world." During its existence, the plant was always one of the largest window glass works in the United States.