By John DeCaro and Richard W. Updike
Several years ago, one of the authors bought an 18th century seal bottle
in an eastern Pennsylvania shop. The subsequent research and investigation
concerning the bottle suggests the need for a reappraisal of the widely-held
assumption that the two light-green 'RW' seal bottles (circa 1770), said
to have been made at Wistarburgh, New Jersey for owner Richard Wistar *
are the only American seal bottles that at present can be attributed to
an American glasshouse. This article offers abundant evidence to contradict
that assumption.As the photograph reveals, the author's
bottle is of
"black glass" (that is, dark olive-green) with a round seal high
upon its tapering side. Of a style that was fashionable circa 1730-1750,
- Type 6, according to the chart in McKearins' American Glass the bottle
is asymmetrical and rather crudely made. The seal proclaims the name of
the person for whom it was blown - 'C Willing.'
Charles Willing (1710-1754) was born in England and trained in the mercantile
business, coming to Philadelphia in 1728 to take charge of a mercantile
house which his family had established. He carried on a large foreign trade
and was very active in city affairs. Elected to the Common Council in
1743, he was commissioned one of the Justices of the City Court, and in
1748 was elected Mayor of Philadelphia. In 1754, he was again elected mayor.
One of the founders of the first trustees of what became the University
of Pennsylvania, he died from ship fever in 1754. His obituaiy in the Pennsylvania
Gazette of December 5, 1754, said of his business skills: "as a merchant
it was thought that no person amongst us understood commerce in general,
and the trading interests of the Province in particular better than he,
and his success in business was proportionally great; as a friend, he was
faithful, candid and sincere."
Charles Willing, Mayor of Philadelphia 1748 - 1754
Charles Willing died in the mansion which he had built on Third Street.
The house was bequeathed to his son Thomas, who succeeded him in business
and was a partner of Robert Morris, "the financier of the American
Revolution," in a firm that dominated West Indies trade. From 1796
to 1811, Thomas Willing was the President of the First Bank of the United
States.
*NOTh: Masterpieces of American Glass, Jane S. Spillman and Susanne K. Frantz
(N.Y. : Crown Publishers, 1990) has a photograph on page 4 of the 'RW' seal
bottle, and the caption states, "This and two other bottles with identifiable
Philadelphia owners' initials are all that can be identified of the thousands
of bottles produced for 37 years at Wistarburgh." Regrettably, the
authors do not further describe or inform us about these other two bottles.
A second 'RW' seal bottle has recently been found and is on display at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art. The RW seal bottle in the photograph referred
to, is owned by the Corning Museum of Glass.
Like Charles Willing, Caspar Wistar (1696-1x752), the founder of America's
first successful glassworks, was also an adopted Philadelphian. A Palatine
German, Wistar emigrated to Philadelphia in September, 1717 with almost
no money. Within three years he was buying, dividing, and selling real estate
to German immigrants. Soon after, he invested in an iron furnace and a forge,
and he established a lucrative brass button manufactoty in Philadelphia.
In 1726, after joining the Society of Friends, he married into the Philadelphia
Establishment by wedding a wealthy Quaker, Catherine Jansen (later Johnson).
He became one of the city's leading merchants, with a house and general
store on
Market Street, near the homes of Charles Willing and Benjamin Franklin.
At the time of his death from dropsy in 1752, Caspar Wistar was one of the
wealthiest men in the 
colonies.____________________________Close-up of the "C. Willing" seal.
In 1739, Wistar launched his bold entrepreneurial venture in glass making
near Alloways Creek in the wilds of Salem County, New Jersey. The site contained
excellent sand, clay for crucibles, abundant wood for fuel and potash, and
access to the Delaware River and Philadelphia by water. Wistar contracted
with four master glassblowers in Palatine, agreeing to pay their passage,
furnish food and servants for them in America, and allow them one-third
of the profits from the glassworks. Those master craftsmen agreed to oversee
the construction of a glassworks (at Wistars expense), to operate the works,
and to teach Caspar Wistar and his son and "no one else" how to
produce glass.
Bottles and window glass were the chief products of "Wistarburgh,"
as the glasshouse and its surrounding community were called. Arlene Palmer,
the contemporary historian of Wistarburgh glass, states that "bottles
formed the major thrust of the Wistars' output." She estimates, based
on the glasshouse ledger figures for the period from October, 1748 to May,
1749, that, if all the bottles blown by the three named German craftsmen
were "quart bottles of the kind Caspar Wistar sold in the Philadelphia
shop for four shillings a dozen, the Germans could have made over 17,000
bottles" during those seven months.
Despite this huge output, Miss palmer tells us in the same source that the
light-green bottle (there are now two of these known)
with the seal 'RW' "probably made for Richard Wistar at his glassworks'
is "the only seal bottle that at present (1976) can be attributed to
an eighteenth century American glasshouse.
" The 'RW'
seal bottle has a very different color and shape from the 'C Willing' bottle
because it was made much later - circa 1770, according to the McKearin chart
previously cited. That chart discloses that during the 18th century, the
seal bottle styles changed fundamentally at least eight times, and those
changes included the type of lip, the placement of the seal, the type of
kick-up, and the type of pontil. George S. and Helen McKearin make a very
emphatic statement about the form and appearance of Wistarburgh's early
bottles. That description matches the 'C Willing' bottle exactly: Caspar
Wistar started his glassworks in Salem County, New Jersey, nearly ten years
after the squat bottles had given way to a type with a higher and more cylindrical
body, and a wider and higher kick-up. This later form Type 6, shown by THE
WILLING HOUSE
the line drawing No. 6, Plate 221, is about the type of bottle which
Wistar undoubtedly made as one of his principal commercial products at the
start of his glass house in 1739.
_______________'C.
Willing' Bottle (McKearin Type 6)
And, after the fashion of the time, and confirmed by numerous bottle fragments
of necks, lips, and kick-ups found on the Wistarburgh site (some of which
are in the possession of one of the authors), the earliest Wistarburgb wine
bottles were of dark olive or "black" glass. Helen McKearin, in
her final book, acknowledged that the 'C Willing' type of bottle was indeed
made at Wistarburgh. She stated That the English-type wine bottles were
among the sorts (of bottles blown at Wistarburgh) is indicated not only
by high probability but also by fragments and bottoms of such bottles found
on the Wistarburgh site by Frederick Hunter, John B. Kerfoot, and Harry
Hall White. In the period of the works' production, possibly bottles of
Type 4, 4A and 5 were blown and almost certainly of Types 6, 7 and 8. Also,
at least one seal with initials has been unearthed, and a bottle with the
seal of William Savery of Philadelphia has been tentatively attributed to
Wistar. Personally, I believe it would be surprising if wine bottles were
not sealed for some of Wistar's customers.3
Later in the same work, Helen McKearin reiterates: "I, among others,
believe some sealed bottles were produced at Wistarburgh in the years between
1739 to l775."
It is inconceivable that Caspar Wistar and Charles Willing were not well
acquainted. It is also very likely that Charles Willing would wish to encourage
a fellow Philadelphian in his attempt to introduce a useful industry by
buying his wine bottles from Wistar, especially since they were cheaper
in price than similar imported bottles. Admittedly, this is speculation.
However, the physical evidence of the 'C Willing bottle offers only substantial
support and no contradiction of the assertion that Charles Willing bought
seal bottles made in Wistarburgh, and that at least one of them has survived.
It is the seal that presents the most compelling evidence of American origin.
The C for the first name is somewhat crudely fashioned, resembling a crescent.
The W is made like two V's overlapping. The next letters, i-l-l-i-n, are
shaped as conventional manuscript letters. However, it is the final letter
which displays a crudeness and irregularity which would not, in the authors'
opinion, be allowed to appear in English-made seal bottles ordered specially
for important customers abroad. The final letter is written g! (See close-up
photo of C. Willing seal.)
The final and indisputable evidence offered to verify that the 'C Willing'
bottle is a Wistarburgh product is visual - a photograph of a virtually
identical bottle that was found many years ago in a creek at Wistarburgh.
Photographs of that bottle appear in several books: American Glass, by Maiy
Harrod Northend (1926), page 30; and Early American Glass, by Rhea Mansfield
Knittle (1927), page 16.
A very rare Wistarburgh bottle, apparently one of the oldest made by Wistar. Dug out of the bottom of Alloway Creek, Salem County, N.Y. It shows the effect of the long submergence In the Iridescence resulting from the action of moisture and carbonic gas
That bottle probably was discarded because its seal did not adhere to the
bottle. An examination of Figure 4 shows a depression where the seal was
applied. The depression is in exactly the same location on the shoulder
of the buried bottle as the seal is on the 'C Willing' bottle.
It defies credulity to suppose that out of the numerous seal bottles produced
at Wistarburgh over a forty-year period, only the two 'RW' bottles, circa
1770, have survived. The seal bottle was an 18th century status symbol.
Benjamin Franklin and James Logan were two of the prominent public men known
to have patronized Caspar Wistar's glassworks. Logan ordered 72 pint bottles
in July of 1747. Franklin, a purchaser of glass scientific apparatus, recommended
these Wistarburgh products to fellow scientists, and he repeatedly referred
to Wistarburgli as "our glassworks."
Is it not likely that another Philadelphia public man, Charles Willing,
also bought his wine bottles from his fellow merchant and fellow member
of the Philadelphia Establishment? There is no reason to doubt that Willing
was an early patron of Caspar Wistar's glasshouse. We present Charles Willing's
seal bottle as the evidence that he was.
NOTES
1 Arlene Palmer, The Wistarburgh
Glassworks (1976), p. 76; pp. 13-14.
2 George S. and Helen McKearin, American Glass (1941), p. 427.
3 Helen McKearin and Kenneth M. Wilson, American Bottles & Flasks and
Their Ancestry (1978), p.73
4. Ibid, p.204
5.Palmer, The Wistarburgh Glassworks, pp 14-15 citing the Logan Papers in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania