Sandwich Glass Museum
The Sandwich Glass Museum tells the story of the glass industry in Sandwich through exhibits, collections and glass blowing demonstrations. You can even check out the Sandwich Glass Factory Marker which sits in the original location of the factory.
The town of Sandwich was settled in 1637 and originally an agricultural community. In 1825, Deming Jarvis, a Boston businessman, left the New England Glass Company to found the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company. Most people would think he chose Sandwich for the readily available beach sand but it was too impure to make glass. Rather, he chose Sandwich for its closeness to a harbor and the possibility of a canal being built which would make it easy to ship goods. He brought master glassblowers with him from the New England Glass Company and recruited workers from England and Ireland. In addition to making blown glassware, the factory produced glass pieces from molds and also began to make glass using a lever-operated pressing machine. You can see this in action during a glass blowing demonstration at the museum. The factory turned to more delicate, finely blown, engraved and decorated glassware to compete against factories in the Mid-West that produced cheaper pressed glass because of the growth of the coal industry. The company grew and created an entire community around the factory, including all of the factory buildings, the workers' houses, stores and a school. The factory employed hundreds of men, women and children in the various processes of glass making. The Boston & Sandwich Glass Company closed in 1888 and caused a severe economic depression, forcing people to leave Sandwich or find other jobs. You can read more detailed information about the history of the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company here. To log this geocache on opencaching.us, the password is Bus Tours. |