Bakewell, Pears and Company was Pittsburgh's best known glass manufacturer. The company was most famous for its lead crystal glass, which was often decorated by cutting or engraving. It also made window glass, bottles, and lamps. The company was one of the first American glass manufacturers to produce glass using mechanical pressing. In the 1820s and 1830s, Bakewell glassware was purchased for the White House by presidents James Monroe and Andrew Jackson. Founder Benjamin Bakewell is considered by some to be father of the crystal glassware business in the United States.
The company was founded in 1808 by Benjamin Bakewell, Benjamin Page, Robert Kinder and Company represented by Thomas Kinder, and Edward Ensell. The original company name was Bakewell and Ensell, and the factory was called the Pittsburgh Flint Glass Manufactory. The company had nine different names throughout its lifetime, which typically changed when principals in the partnership changed. The name Bakewell was used in all nine names. Bakewell family members, as well as members of the Page and Pears families were involved with the company. The name Bakewell, Pears and Company was used for the longest period—1844 through 1880. The glass works was closed in 1882, and the facility was sold to a wire manufacturer.
English businessman Benjamin Bakewell recruited skilled English glassworkers that enabled the company to become well known for its glass cutting and engraving. Some of the company's local workers became skilled enough to start their own glass companies. Among those glass men were John Adams (Adams & Company), James Seaman Atterbury (Atterbury & Company), James Bryce (Bryce Brothers), David Challinor (Challinor Taylor), and William McCully (McCully and Company). Pittsburgh became the nation's glassmaking center by the 1850s. Its location provided access to river transportation, coal for fuel, and good quality sand.
Background
Benjamin Bakewell moved to New York from London in 1793. In London he had been an importer of luxury goods, and he started the same type of business in his new home city. Living with Bakewell's family was his wife's widowed sister and her daughter Sarah Palmer. Sarah Palmer became romantically involved with a young English clerk in Bakewell's firm named Thomas Pears, and they married in 1806.; Bakewell was very familiar with French and English fashions and styles. His import business prospered, and he diversified by establishing a brewery in New Haven, Connecticut. The brewery business did not do well, and it was destroyed by fire in 1803. It was not rebuilt. The import business thrived enough that by 1807, Bakewell owned multiple houses and stores in New York—plus land in Vermont, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Among those assisting him in his New York import business was Thomas Woodhouse Bakewell, son of Benjamin's brother William. Benjamin's own son, also named Thomas, became involved in the business in 1807 at the age of fourteen.
The Napoleonic Wars eventually ruined Bakewell's import business. Because of war between France and Great Britain, American ships' cargoes and crews were always under the threat of being confiscated by those two naval powers. In November 1806 Great Britain enacted a blockade of the European continent. Napoleon responded by issuing the Berlin Decree that blockaded Great Britain. The United States responded by legislating the Embargo Act of 1807, which said that United States vessels could not sail to foreign ports. This ruined Bakewell's import business, and he was bankrupt by January 1808.; After losing everything except his clothing, furniture, and personal library, Bakewell was eager to leave New York. Businessman Benjamin Page lived on the same street as Bakewell. He also lost money because of the Embargo Act, but his losses were not as severe as Bakewell's. Page closed his importing business in 1808, and sought better places to invest his money.
Beginning
In 1807 George Robinson and Edward Ensell began building a glass works in Pittsburgh. The town would have a population of 4,700 by 1810, with over 200 brick houses plus over 350 wooden structures. Pittsburgh had a transportation advantage for glassmaking because it was located where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers converge to form the Ohio River. It was closer to the growing new western territories than the Atlantic Coast glass factories that were separated by the Allegheny Mountains.; Pittsburgh also had coal available nearby that could be used by manufacturers for fuel. Robinson and Ensell depleted their funding before construction was completed, so their incomplete works was sold in 1808 to New York merchants Benjamin Bakewell, Benjamin Page, and Robert Kinder and Company represented by Thomas Kinder.;
The glass works was located along the Monongahela River at the foot of Grant Street extending from the south side of Water Street to the river. This gave the facility easy access to the town and to river transportation. The new company was known as Bakewell and Ensell, and consisted of Bakewell, Page, Ensell, and Robert Kinder and Company. Bakewell was named managing partner, and he moved to Pittsburgh and provided the business expertise for the company. Page and Kinder remained living on the nation's east coast. Ensell provided the glassmaking expertise, which included the processes for making window glass and flint glass (leaded crystal).; ; Operations began by August1808.
Already familiar with importing quality goods, Bakewell believed there was a market for high quality glassware. He was already aware of the designs that were popular in Europe. He would not become the first producer of crystal glassware in the United States. That had already happened in the previous century, before the United States existed, at a short–lived works owned by Henry William Stiegel. During the early 1800s in the United States, the production of crystal (a.k.a. flint) glass was limited by a lack of skilled workers and the scarcity of a necessary additive known as red lead. Much of the crystal available in the United States during the early 1800s was imported from England, and Bakewell employed English and French craftsmen to compete in that market.
Benjamin Bakewell and Company
Ensell and the other three partners did not get along. The Bakewell family believed Ensell misrepresented his qualifications.; ; Ensell left the company in 1809, and the partnership was dissolved after only six months. One historian doubts that Ensell had faulty glassmaking expertise, since Bakewell lost a lawsuit against Ensell in June of the same year—and Ensell started another glass factory in 1810. Bakewell and the two other remaining principals continued the company. The firm was renamed Benjamin Bakewell and Company. Bakewell's company called its glass works the Pittsburgh Flint Glass Manufactory.; The factory's original furnace contained only six pots. Changes were necessary at the glass works because of a number of problems. The furnace for melting glass was not well constructed. The work force was not highly skilled, and it was reluctant to train new employees (or management). Some of the raw materials used to make glass were delivered by wagon from Philadelphia and New Jersey—a considerable distance for the time that was difficult to travel because the Allegheny Mountains had to be crossed. Sand, a major raw material for glass, was obtained from near Pittsburgh—but it was low-quality and more suited for window or bottle glass than glassware.
Bakewell learned the glass business and worked to solve his factory's problems. The furnace was replaced with a ten-pot version in 1810. Better raw material sources were found, and Bakewell was able to produce better quality glass. The company's products were mostly glassware, including tumblers, wine glasses, jars, and egg cups. Flint glass versions of these products could be made because Bakewell was able to make his own red lead using Mississippi pig lead.; Among the new hires in 1810 was former factory superintendent and glass cutter William Peter Eichbaum, who cut the first crystal chandelier made in America. The chandelier was sold by Bakewell to an innkeeper for $300 ().
Bakewell's son Thomas became a valued assistant and expert chemist. Although many European countries forbade their glassworkers to come to the United States as part of an effort to retain glassmaking secrets, Bakewell improved his workforce by smuggling skilled glass workers from England to Pittsburgh.; Bakewell's glass works began to establish a reputation for "quality and workmanship". Effective March 13, 1811, the company's partnership was dissolved, and it was announced that the "business will in future be carried on by B. Page and B. Bakewell, under the firm of the former partnership." Robert Kinder and Company withdrew from the partnership because it was having financial difficulties. Bakewell's brother William, and associates of Page, provided assistance to make sure the partnership continued.
Effects of war
The Napoleonic Wars and resulting tariffs had already made trade with Britain and France difficult. The War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain was good and bad for American glassmakers. England, part of Great Britain, controlled the supply of a necessary raw material for crystal—red lead. It also controlled the known supply of good quality sand. The Embargo Act of 1807, and then the War of 1812, made it nearly impossible for American companies to acquire the raw materials necessary to produce good quality crystal. However, the lack of European goods also meant that consumers in the United States became dependent on domestic producers for manufactured products. The number of glass factories in the United States increased from 22 in 1810 to 44 in 1815. Many of these factories produced window glass or bottles, which did not require red lead or high quality sand.
In the case of Benjamin Bakewell and Company, domestic sources of red lead and good sand had been discovered. Management at Bakewell realized that they had an opportunity to take advantage of an increased demand for glass. Capacity of the furnace and factory were doubled in 1813, and the company prospered beyond expectations. Bakewell's oldest son Thomas formally joined the company on September 1, 1813. Although Thomas Bakewell was a salaried employee and not a shareholding partner, the company changed its name to Bakewell, Page and Bakewell. At that time Page began plans to move to Pittsburgh, and he arrived with his family in 1814. By 1815 the company employed 30 men and 30 boys.
Difficult post–war period
The War of 1812 ended with the Treaty of Ghent, which was signed December 24, 1814, and ratified to take effect on February 17, 1815. During that year, Thomas Bakewell visited England to recruit more skilled glassworkers and to acquire samples of English glassware. Since glassworkers were still not allowed to emigrate, a warrant was issued for Bakewell's arrest—but he escaped detention. President James Madison retained wartime duties on imports until June 30, 1816.; At that time, England began dumping low–priced glass products in the United States while keeping its price for red lead high.
The introduction of the steamboat in the United States enabled imports to move from the port of New Orleans up the Mississippi River to the western markets of the United States—which affected Pittsburgh glassmakers. Another glass manufacturer in Pittsburgh, Bolton and Encell, failed in the summer of 1818 because of the foreign competition. Page wrote that "from the beginning of 1817 till about the middle of 1822 we were literally gasping for breath". The British/English competition caused some American glass factories to go into bankruptcy. Bakewell used 80 to 100 tons of raw materials in 1815, but only used 20 tons in 1820. Its workforce changed from 30 men and 30 boys to 10 men and 12 boys.
Bottle works