Salem County NJ Archives Biographies.....Caspar WISTAR 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 November 9, 2008, 10:36 pm

Author: Mary Depue Ogden, Editor  (1917)

WISTAR, Caspar,
Pioneer Glass Manufacturer.

  The first glass works to be established in New Jersey were the plant erected
about 1739 near Allowaystown, Salem county, by Caspar Wistar. A deed of
agreement dated December 7, 1738, said to be still in existence, shows that
Wistar brought these four glassmakers from Rotterdam: Simon Kreismeir, Caspar
Halter, John Martin Halter and Johan William Wenrzell.

  The following letter, printed in the New Jersey Archives, volume vi., was
sent, July 31, 1740, by Charles Carkesse, secretary at London of the
Commissioners of the Customs, to Thomas Hill, Esq., of London, secretary to the
Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations:

  Sir, Mr. William Frazor, Collector of the Customs at Salem in West Jersey
having informed the Commissioners, that there has been lately effected a Glass
work within Eight miles of that Port by one Casper Wester a Palatine, and is
brought to perfection so as to make Glass: I am directed to give you an account
thereof for the information of the Lords of Trade.

   Caspar Wistar died at his home in Philadelphia in 1752, but his son Richard
continued to make glass at Allowaystown until the Revolutionary War. Richard
died in 1781.

  A letter from Governor Jonathan Belcher, written at Elizabeth Town, August 24,
1752, to Colonel Alford, of Boston, contains some interesting information about
Wistar and the manufacture of glass in New Jersey. He wrote:

  I have begun to make Inquiry about the Glass Works in this Province which are
130 miles from this Town & as I know no proper person near them capable of
getting the Information you desire I have hardly a lean hope of rendering you
any Service is that matter in which the Undertakers are very close & Secret.

  I was Acquainted with one Caspar a German who lived at Phila and was the first
and principal Undertaker of the Glass Works in this Province, and with whom I
discours'd particularly about them (5 years ago) and he complain'd also that
they cou'd not make their glass so Clear and strong for want of Help, their
Works being near two hundred miles from any Quantity of it.

  This Caspar is lately dead and from a very poor man rais'd and left a Fortune
of 20. or 30,000£ Str. I have had from others Engag'd in the Works the same
Complaint of want of proper Materials for the Mettle and for the Furnace.

  In 1768 Governor William Franklin refers to Wistar's works as having been
established some twenty years and as making "Bottles and a very coarse Green
Glass for Windows, used only in some of the Houses of the poorer sort of People."

   The second glass works to be established in New Jersey were located at the
present Glassboro. Cushing and Sheppard in their "History of Gloucester County"
make the following reference to that plant:

  The pioneer glass works at what is now Glassboro were erected in 1775 by
Jacob, Solomon, John,, Christian, Adam, Francis and Philip Stanger, seven
brothers, who had been working at Wistar's glass works on Alloways Creek, in
Salem county. They brought with them an only sister, Sophia.

  A piece of land was purchased by the Stangers from Archibald Moffet, the
timber was taken off, the necessary buildings were erected, and in the fall of
the same year they made their first melt. A bottle now in the possession of a
descendant of Philip is said to be the first bottle blown. Wistar's works were
abandoned about this time, and a number of the employes found work at the new
factory in Gloucester county.

  The Stangers continued the business for about five years, when they were
compelled to make an assignment on account of the depreciation in the value of
continental money. The unfortunate originators of the glass works were sent to a
debtor's prison at Gloucester, the then seat of justice of Gloucester county.
                         J. F. F.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

MEMORIAL CYCLOPEDIA OF NEW JERSEY

UNDER THE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF MARY DEPUE OGDEN

VOLUME III
MEMORIAL HISTORY COMPANY NEWARK,  NEW JERSEY
1917


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