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Reminiscences 66 of 123
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product seventy-five thousand dollars; giving employment to from sixty
to seventy hands. From time to time, as their business warranted, they
increased their capital until it reached the present sum of four hundred
thousand dollars. Their weekly melts have increased from seven thousand
pounds to much over one hundred thousand pounds; their hands employed
from seventy to over five hundred; their one furnace of eight pots to
four furnaces of ten pots; and yearly product from seventy-five thousand
dollars to six hundred thousand dollars.
In 1820 another secession of workmen from the New
England Glass Company took place, to embark on their own account their
savings of many years in the doubtful enterprise of establishing flint-glass
works in Kensington, Philadelphia, under
the title of the Union Flint-Glass
Company. The proprietors, being all workmen, were enthusiastic in the
project, happy in the belief that they could carry it on successfully, work
when convenient, and enjoy much leisure. All was then to them
sunshine. Ere long they realized the many inherent evils attendant on
flint-glass works; the demon of discord appeared among them, and they
discovered, when too late, that they had left a place of comfort and ease
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