 Hi, welcome to CCTV channel 17 live 525 the preservation Burlington show preservation Burlington is a Non-profit 501c3 organization whose mission is to preserve and protect the historic architecture and livability of Burlington It's a it's a big task And we do that through education and advocacy. I would like to thank everybody for tuning in this month We have a pretty great show lined up and we'll introduce our guests in about a second Do we have any upcoming events or anything that we want to talk about? Yeah, we had Well, we had a lovely tour earlier this week was it last week. I can't remember a blur It's a but actually it was on Monday So Champlain not Champlain st. Michael's College has an advanced history class you and Ryan did that Ryan and Krista came out And we led them up church treated a little tour And it was really great and one thing that came out and what just occurred to me as you were reading What we are is we are an all-volunteer board an organization. There is no paid person behind us and the students were really Marvelling at that like everything that we do we're all volunteer and so I think you know, we need to recognize that from time to time Yeah, remind ourselves and we feel like we're dropping the ball or something Yeah, so we did that that was a really great tour and just just before I came out got some great feedback on that And then last night Karen did the webinar on historic architecture of Burlington neighborhood by neighborhood I'm I unfortunately couldn't see it. I don't think you you were able to attend to but hopefully it was recorded and the replay will be Yeah, we'll put that back on the website. Yeah, sure. We did last time. She did one. So and it was well attended last time. I think 40 people or something for you uppers of 40 almost 50 people last time It's pretty yeah, it's pretty fun when we get pull those things together, you know, I'll keep people engaged that way You know, I'm still not very tech savvy. So I'm not when it's webinars I've never been I tried to you know all through not to bring up the pandemic or anything But you know when we're doing everything from remotely from home. I signed up for all these webinars. I swear I didn't do any of them. Okay, I couldn't Talk about the beautiful thing on your leg. Well, this is hiding the hole in my knees But yeah, this was in our newsletter. Yes, right Last month well not month this winter. Yeah, there's the winter newsletter and it's also I think up on our website. So people are What do they call it a raffle? We're having a raffle for this beautiful quilt by Mary Ann Koch And it is going to be a wonderful fundraiser for us. We are taking Or selling raffle tickets. Mm-hmm one ticket for five bucks six for 25 And I believe we're going to raffle it off at our home store in June and she's like the head of the quilters will Guild guild Neither of us can talk today. I know And she does this a lot. She does these makes these beautiful quilts to raffle off and help Organizations and causes she believes in and supports and raise funds. So we are really grateful to her Yeah, it was very generous of her to donate this for that. It's beautiful. It really is So let's get on what we've got one thing before we introduce our guest, right? Which is what is on your preservation bookshelf? Oh the bookshelf segment the bookshelf segment Do you want to go first whip right there? Well, I bought One of we'll motor right through this. It's a great book. It's called where we lift it is a national historic trust Publication it's by Jack Larkin and it's discovering the places we once called home the American home from 1775 to 1880 it's beautiful storytelling and illustrations You know black-and-white photographs, but it really tells the story of early America Why people built what they did where they did and how they lived in their homes and sort of helps explain Some of the features and architectural styles that we see In that early American period. So it's a beautiful book. I highly recommend this jealous. I don't have that one I think I yeah, I'll write my name in it. You can borrow it So anyway just quickly because especially because we're in the midst of a big zoning ordinance Consideration right now and a change where we're increasing density and you know as a present as preservationist We're all for infill housing and but you know again. It just gets says in our Livability of Burlington. It's all about community and sense of place and stuff like that So it's gonna be a huge topic coming up in the next few months in the next year so I brought Sustainable preservation, which is Jean Karoon who's an architect for goody Clancy in Boston and yep It's a big name and they've done a bunch of projects again Perry Hall for Champlain College was the one where I met her and it's cited in this book because it's a lead platinum project and it's really all about just reiterating and hammering home the fact that the Greenest building the greenest building is one that's already there and and all those other sort of you know Maybe cliches at this point, but we always forget you know as we let things like Memorial auditorium slip through our fingers or The 20 pine Street the Cathedral Immaculate Conception, you know these are our architectural gems And I think as a community. We're not embracing enough that preservation is sustainable and Possible and and realistic very very possible. Yeah. So anyway, that's a good one to put on your bookshelf and So maybe I'll take the wrong book home today will trade will trade You want to introduce Diana? Sure We are so glad to have you here today Diana Carlisle and you have been part of Unearthing lots and lots of Burlington history and you're here today to tell us about a very special topic, right? So Why don't you launch right in and tell us what that is? Okay? Well the topic I see honoring the old North End's glass makers It was the glass makers But it was also those business people that decided that Burlington could move out of the agrarian farmer mold after the War of 1812 10 years later and Sparked by the Erie Canal completion Which opened up the world to the West and all those cities that developed and Burlington took advantage of that with help from Boston investors and some in Burlington itself and decided to start a glass company window glass So although now we have a lot of glass makers in town. Yeah, we do It's a it's a culture that keeps going And it's funny because we do have the raw materials right here when you look back at the indigenous people They were making glass beads and all that sort of thing. It's kind of a continuity, but anyway when the Erie Canal opened there was an opportunity and with the investment and the the Perseverance and the entrepreneurship a glass company was formed in 1827 Not an easy task. I mean I I was just doing a little bit of research for the UVM Students and we talked about windows. So this is a I'm really interested in the manufacture of glass But it was it was imported from Europe for the longest time to get the the crafts people and the money and To be big enough to actually do it was took such a long time for our fledgling nation That's right part of that was a colonial Control and tariffs and controlling the flow of product right and So that's exactly right and it took tariffs. It took some economic Helps along the way because of England was giving us glass for less money than it would cost us to make it but anyway yes, so they started and It was a four people from Burlington that were the head head of it But the most important person was a Boston superintendent of glass making who brought these Immigrant glass blowers Germans mostly some English and there had been a glass company in Boston that had just closed and he brought them up and He established it and he had the recipe for the glass which made it beautiful and clear and strong And he had the craftsman the is the blowers the glass blowers Yeah, and it took years and years and years to learn how to be a glass blower So this was key and then they also and so it was window glass by the cylinder method Yeah, and that meant that they blew them into long cylinder kept it going get bigger bigger bigger And then it put it back in the oven and then it opened out and they tempered it And then they put it on a table tempered it and kept it and then finally they could cut it into the Into the sizes right so they make a bottle. Yeah, cut the ends off Yeah, well, yeah, they cut it sit with the scissors and flattened they'd score it right so in the oven It would flop down. Yeah, it's not like the bullseye. It's different. Yeah, and it was the German people So anyway, and it made great glass and the fan lights and the mirrors and other things like that so Let's see and they needed other things that it were here in Burlington and the company was called Champlain glass company it had many different owners through the years But it always went by the business name Champlain glass company And one person that was very important in the beginning was a young Person in his teens late teens called Frederick Smith named Frederick Smith and he was an apprentice His father had died early and he'd been bonded out to a farmer to his mother didn't have enough money For feeding him and keeping him. So this was common in those days But he ran away because he said they didn't feed him well enough He ran away to Burlington and he found this glass company and he was a protégé of the superintendent John Foster Took him under his wing saw the possibilities. He was smart and he'd had some schooling and Brought him along the food was better Let's hope I think it was yes so anyway that so that was Frederick Smith and Jumping ahead he was pretty pretty constant through the life and it was due to his preser Perseverance that though that it went as long as it did. So let's see. What what else do I so? He was like a common thread during that ownership changes and everything else Yes, and actually he was There was some ownership changes. There was a little hanky-panky there in the early 2018 30s where some people took the money from the Champlain glass company and started something across the lake which didn't help with the business but Frederick Smith left and went to Lake Dunmore for a large amount of money even though it was only 20 or so but then he came back and purchased Rented and then purchased and took it through to the end. Oh, wow. So when was the end? How long was the company? It went to about 1849 1850. It's a little uncertain because We can't find any actual date when it finished There were fires. There were deep, you know economic downturns. There was competition for the skilled glass people there was coming and going and It says here that they were located between North Champlain and Water Street, which is now battery. It was in that area So that opened up the old north end because there was nothing there except the contendment They cut the common the the barracks right from the from yeah from the war of 1812 So there's the picture and you can see That's the battery park common. Yeah, uh-huh And then there's the lake up to the left you can see a little bit of the lake Yeah, and then you can see the glass works there and a couple of the outbuildings and then across the street They began to build houses for the workers the workers had to live nearby because they required very high temperatures to melt and Then blow the glass so the young boys that were working. It was child labor Yeah, run off and get the blowers and say it's time. So they a housing area developed there So that's why it was so important to that area and later Frederick Smith was tasked by the city to develop all the area lay out the streets to the left and the right of what you can see there So he was also instrumental in that and he bought up a lot of the property there and I developed that There's not much left We can't find any original of the glass works, but there are two beautiful homes on North Champlain as you go north Brick homes that are very similar. I can't I forgot the number. They're gorgeous and they were by the glass blowers They were built by the glass blowers and one of them was probably a boarding house The young glass right because they're big. They're big. So yeah, but that shows that the glass blowers were a high Economic level in the community. They even sent their sons to dancing school Do you have a sense of how many people the glass works employed? They employed about a hundred when they started to build and to get it going and I think it said in 1840 when it was It's most prosperous. They employed 40 Now that was people to make the pots people to blow people to Drive the wagons people to keep the horses people to cut the wood people to make the boxes And of course they had agents all throughout the Erie canal all the way to Chicago So they were employed a lot of yeah a lot of and in and they paid by cash the Burlington Free Press wrote a very congratulatory Editorial about it a year after it opened that it's giving jobs for the winter It's paying cash rather than barter So it's it really was key to to that whole development and to bring us into the manufacturing factory And those are the some of that Okay, yeah cash-given for us. Yeah. Yeah, what got you interested in the glass works. How did you come to? Dive into this. Well, I was in I was brought up I went to school here in Burlington it but I then I went away and when I came back I was visiting my mother and my dad and I was saying the summer and I wanted something to do of interest I am a history major and So a friend said well, why don't you take a class? Mm-hmm. So I took a summer class with Tom Visser Historic preservation. Oh That opened up a whole new thing so at the end of the class We had to pick a building material and how technology had impacted the building material and therefore the design of homes Mm-hmm, and I was quite fascinated with glass because in my small 20 years in my own home I was as it became more heat It you didn't lose so much heat you could build bigger windows and change So I came home to my mother Lillian Baker-Carlyle and I said mom I'm going to write a paper on glass and she said oh Do you know there was an old glass company in the old north end not much has been written about it But I said that's my topic. That's David Blow and my mother had begin begun as they did the historic guides together a few starter pieces Yeah, I'm gonna give a shout out to the special collections. Yeah do that Oh my gosh, I thought well, let's see. I'm gonna start to look into this and I went down to special collections And I said do you have any information on a glass company that was in the old north end? She said let's go look or I'll go look, you know about a half an hour later. She came out laden with with the the the the Employment books the the financial books the the the list of the company store what they you know They're their transactions the ledgers the ledgers. I Just couldn't get over it that the Smith family had donated All these things in their home and in the office to the special collections for somebody in the future me Yeah, come and write Is what they have up there? Yes It's so great. So if anybody has anything in their family or in their business, you know now It's like the first place to go to leave it so that somebody in the future. Oh, yeah Because that's that's that's something that historians really do grapple with in this digital age Yeah, what is going to be left? Yeah, so if one funny thing in the ledger Apparently one of the Smith children had used it as a penmanship practice paper And he and I he was writing over and over again a fool Let's see a fool can fool you once know a Villain can smile and smile a man me smile and smile and be a villain yet Those aphorisms or whatever they And I said it's still true. Yeah That's amazing. Yeah, I love the special collections It's like we were mentioning earlier before we got on on air about the you know the rabbit hole You know that you can go into things and you have a topic or something speaking of holes and digging I think you brought you found something didn't you? Yeah? Yes, so I'm so I did we did do a little bit of digging in the area nice segue. Yeah and They're you know, you you don't know the but but you have to leave a little bit of the old Cullet or frit to put in when you make the next batch So there's all and then you so it gets buried and discarded and so forth So if you know where glass companies are you can poke around and dig and of course in Boston They have done a big job. They know where the Boston glass You just use two words, I don't know call it and right well frit is just a piece that you can cut off Yeah, whatever and the cullet is the leftover and you have to put along you saw the sand the clay the salt That go into making You have to put a little bit of this leftover stuff. So of course they discarded and it's underground Yeah, that's really neat So this is just part of the old It really does right like something you'd find like amethyst in the ground. Yeah, that's really cool So into glass goes what you said clay sand Sand and clay and salts sometimes arsenic Sometimes There's another to make different colors different things But a bed of sand is particularly important and we have the big quartz in near the Winooski near the high bridge in Winooski There's sand There's a delta in Colchester and and then the clay of the wood ashes everybody had wood ashes Yeah, I would bring them down and it's a source of income for the local people and then clay very important for the pots Yeah, talk about recycling right You don't throw anything away you sell it to the last company wood wood wood Because the temperatures were so high and I'll and that's what? About two thousand sometimes two thousand degrees now I don't know what that's what it was that and I must say that's what one of the things that finally caused the end To the New England glass makers because the wood wood ran out. Yeah lack of land in Pennsylvania The coal and the natural gas Was a much better source of you know heat that they needed and they were near the markets Yeah, so and the railroads came in. Yeah, it's so 1849 all of that stuff happened around that side The railroads came in and so the lake advantage was gone. Mm-hmm, and the wood was gone Yeah, yeah, because what we didn't burn we sent to Boston or Montreal or New York City as lumber Right, I want to say we just saw on the screen Historic marker, which is also part of the story that we asked you to come on and talk to us about right because we're planning an event All right. Yes. Yes, so so tell us about this this marker in this event. Well I'm looking to you to help with the It's going to be installed in Battery Park I should have said that the owners Bought the Battery Park bought the common and the government land when they sold it in 15 years after the war or whatever They bought it and a few years later. I think was 1830 1840 They donated that part of the common, which is the battery to the city of Burlington With a proviso when they deeded it with the proviso to be used as a park and for the common good forever Oh, great, which is why we have that wonderful public space So that's very important and very thank Goodness for those people and I heard from the family that it was Fred Smith's wife That said that wouldn't should be a park forever And she persuaded them to buy it. Yeah, so thank you Especially then when there was so much industry down on the lake I mean that was fledgling industry and it was happening right there But you know the lakefront wasn't what then people perceived as beautiful exactly and they were moving up on the hill and It was a dicey area down there Right, right. So a lot of forethought to save that for future generations again like handing all the paper all the papers to Special collections. Yeah, that's right. So Anyway, one day I just I've been seeing the historic markers and I said what a good good idea to pause and what happened on the space Place who was important who did you know who made an impact who left something for the future? So it was your idea. It was The only one, you know, I was the one that researched and yeah, so You know, but so I I called the state historic woman Laura Tishman. I think. Oh, yeah I know I talked to talk to Tom Visser. Thank you Tom Visser and he said great idea important company important thing for housing and so they came on board immediately and Sent me the application assigned me an intern Cheyenne Stokes a grad student because it became a little overwhelming when I saw I had to go and Establish the longitude and the latitude. So this is a process. It's not just an application apply for a marker It's a they very careful about what you say and what you do and how you describe it and where it's going to be They don't want any mistakes, you know No, that makes so much that my daughter helped so Cheyenne and my daughter and I wrote it up and kept it going and Now it's approved. It's made and it's about to be installed by Park and Rex Oh, that's in a battery. So how long of a process did you how long did it take you three to? Yeah, they're all the information and well it was about I just was noticing a year ago We we submitted the application it's about six months off and on because I didn't think it would be such a big deal So and it was not you know, I had everybody had other things going of course So but when it's I'd love to have a ceremony and I'm talking now back to us That's right. I know Bob our new chair of the Education Committee to celebrate it I will say that I did give a talk at Vermont history because they were donated a beautiful bowl the only extent piece of private a Glass-making that we have from that company. Oh, wow They made it for their own use at the end of the day Mm-hmm, and he so so Vermont history helped me put together a PowerPoint presentation Which I can do and if you want to do a little walking tour. Yeah, that's the plan The plan because it's part of I mean it comes up a little bit in our old North End Ramble tour Which we sometimes it shifts from this end of the old North End back towards Battery Street because if we do the whole thing It's really long, you know, but I know that yeah Bob was asking us to find the exact time and date He wants us to put it in the ground like right now and just cover it with a blanket until it's time to have Mentioned this bowl. Is there other are there other examples of you know, what that's a sad story There were only two and if they'd become and they're missing I don't think it seemed to have that the family had one piece and when the person and when a Dotsmith Hannah died who was so helpful to me as were a couple of the other people in the family She was living in an assisted assist of senior and and when she passed away She told me she was going to leave it to somebody in her family It disappeared So the only thing we have is this gorgeous milkpan bowl that Milton Crouch bought That's another story and before he passed away. He donated it to Vermont Historical Society Great, and who knows the windows in Holmes in Burlington that were blonde. Yeah, I know never know Yeah, well, maybe maybe maybe that's a you know, keep digging. Maybe we'll find it. No I Mean you're done. Yes. No. No, I mean we can guess but you know, there's no there's no way to The only way we know this was definitely from it was because there was a picture in the free press When a descendant of one of the glassblowers gave the ball Okay to Flaming Museum. Oh, right. Oh neat. No, so anyway, yeah, that's such a great story So there's some of the window people have the window restoration people around especially the Northeast But I've seen they have the stickers as save the wavy glass. Oh, yeah, there is some wavy glass I have to say Fred Smith's house is still standing the red brick house. Yeah across from Battery Park Yeah, gothic, right? Does it have a plaque maybe we should give it a block well the owners they may I think they do have one and they took a window restoration workshop from preservation Burlington, you know in my shop and Women that live there Learned to restore that. Yes, and they said there is some wavy glass up in A little continuity So what's next for you glass works is all done all on the chance, you know, there's never it's never it's never done I was in the I was in the I like to walk in the Lakeview cemetery I like to walk in the cemetery. It's near my house and I look at this Fred Smith tombs, you know monument And I read the year That he had bought the glass company in the 1830s and started it again The same year you see his first born child died two weeks after it was born And then you know, I look a little more and then I see four years later another little child dead and Then the glass company relocated up to Canada for a while thinking they'd get more wood up there And he lost a 12 year old son and the only son that survived is Charles P. Smith who started the Burlington Bank with the time and temperature but I see so to me that whole Personal side yeah of what else was going on and and some of the glass bars in the tragedy, you know I could go that rabbit hole that Digging up the personal and then his his partner Landon I They auctioned off all their land and I thought it was because it had gone out of business Now with the internet. I did a little it said Ralph Landon killed by the cars in Swanton rushing to get on the train It's two years after the train went through. Oh my goodness to go to his father's dying bedside in Rutland And I I said to myself there's a whole nother part of What people were going through I smell a book? Well, and I'm doing the lake the chapel of course. Yeah always so and we'll be doing tours again of the chapel Now, thank you for all the work you do and for it's fun for digging up all these stories It's just really you know, it was like Where we where we lived in the well I like to honor all of these people that made so much to leave the place what it is that we know today And we'll announce the event as soon as we have be up on the website, you know, thank you This was so much fun. Yep, so thanks everybody for tuning in To our live at 525 show and preservation Burlington for more information on history our tours and events The quilt and to get a marker Diana's work and to get a marker for your house You go to preservation Burlington dot org and we'll see you next month. Thanks again Yeah, you can say another time they could go online and find the whole story