Up: Glassmaking
Reminiscences
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Mr. Bakewell also carried on glass-cutting, and among his workmen was
an Englishman who had served as a soldier in Canada, being taken as a
prisoner in one of the battles on the Lakes in 1813. He proved not only
a good glass-cutter, but an excellent mechanic, in various branches;
but still a dissipated and idle man, and of course of but little service
in the manufactory.
One of the amusing incidents connected with the
manufacture occurred when General Clark (then Governor of Missouri) took
a party of Osage Chiefs to Washington. On their
way they visited Bakewell's Glass-Works, and their attention was greatly
excited; they watched with great curiosity the process of making various
articles, and the mode of affixing the handle to a glass pitcher quite
disturbed the equanimity of the head chief, who, after shaking hands
with the workmen, said, through the interpreter, "That man must have
had some intercourse with the Great Spirit."
The following, from Sigma's pen,
shows a decanter-stopper can be made to point a moral or illustrate a
satire:-- "Mr. Flint, in his 'Ten Years in the Valley of the Mississippi.'
tells a pleasant story of an Indian who told him he
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