Part 2

Some years ago Miss Thornton had made a train trip and met an old colored woman in a rest room to which they had both gone to smoke. (When we met her, Miss Thornton chain-smoked at the age of 89). The colored woman had a sack of tobacco and pulled out a clay pipe which Miss Thornton recognized as of the kind that her father used to take in trade, so she asked the woman if it was a good one.

The woman answered, “Law, yes, but I can’t buy them any more!” so Miss Thornton told her that it was made long ago, in her home town, and that she would try to get her some.

Her next problem was to find some pipes. After several days she thought of the pipes that she felt sure were covered with earth and still in the basement of her father’s old store, so she talked to her cousin and next door neighbor, Mrs. Bess Franklin Mattox.

Shortly after that, they dug at the site. Mrs. Mattox thinks it was around 1958, though possibly 2 years earlier. “Erosion through the years had covered the pipes and when we first started to dig we found none, then there they were, under the dirt. We found two or three sugar barrels full. Tar was on a few of the pipes, from road tar that was also stored in the basement and spilled”. (This tar, in hard-dried rough spots, is present on some of the pipes we examined; however it chips off readily and leaves the pipe relatively clean).

So the colored woman who couldn’t find a Pamplin pipe to buy received “either 15 or 16” and Miss Thornton received a letter of thanks from her from Atlanta.

Miss Thornton still had approximately 1,450 of the home manufactured pipes for us to see when we visited her in July 1969, and Mrs. Mattox had a few.

Dr. Clyde G. O’Brien of Appomattox has had a lifelong interest in the clay pipes of his area and in the history of their manufacture. He has a collection of pipes as well as two pipe molds, and has given us much information.

HOME INDUSTRY PIPE MAKING METHODS

We asked Dr. O’Brien for an account of the method of making pipes in the homes. The following is his contribution, in a letter dated March 11, 1971.

“I talked to Jack Price, age 86, he had worked in the plant for years. His mother, Mrs. Betty Price, and grandmother made pipes at home in Pamplin.

“The clay was made up and put into molds, when the pipe was removed from the mold the shaper was used to smooth mold marks, if the pipe was to be identified with ‘Original’, ‘Hayiti’, or some other marking this was impressed on the base with a stamp at this time. The pipe was then sun-dried on a board in summer, or in the stove oven in winter. Then after they had ‘set-up’ the pipes were put into an iron pot, the pots were put into an oven in the back yard and dry chestnut wood was placed around the pots and this was then set on fire. They did not have a thermometer so he did not know the temperature, but when the wood had burned completely the pipes were brought out to cool.

“If a piece of wood fell into the burning pot and started to smoke it was removed at once to keep from blackening or staining the pipes.

“After the pipes cooled they were brought into the house and Mr. Price said that when the pipes were poured out of the pot in which they were baked, to the floor, they would ring or chime when they hit against each other.

“The pipes were then waxed with bee’s wax and mutton tallow and then polished with a woolen cloth, and the children helped.”

In all of this, Bob Davis of Pamplin, age 91, in talking to John W. Walker in 1962, had concurred. He said, “The pipes were molded, trimmed, put on a board and dried in the sun, baked in iron pots, waxed, and rubbed. The pipes were made all through the country, the local stores bought and shipped them, and the Factory would buy these ‘country pipes’.” Here was more direct evidence that the Factory, on occasion at least, bought and shipped pipes made by the Home Industry (Walker, personal communication).

There were, however, two men who made pipes.

Dr. O’Brien’s father Thomas O’Brien, was born in 1843. When he came back after the War, about 1865, he made his own mold of white-oak with lead lining and made pipes for his own use.

According to Miss Wilsie Thornton, a Mr. Rodgers was making molds and pipes until about 1938 as a hobby. One of them was in the form of an Indian head (Plate 23 AL). The “peach seed” pipe (Plate 23 AM) is also thought to be one of his manufacture.

THE PAMPLIN SMOKING PIPE AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY

In the middle 1850’s that part of Ohio that surrounds Akron was the pipemaking capital of the United States, with at least six clay products companies producing them (Blair, 1965:26-30). The leading producer of clay smoking pipes in the Akron vicinity was the E. H. Merrill Co., which had been producing pottery objects since its founding in 1831. In 1843 or 1844 Calvin, brother of E. H. Merrill, invented a machine for making pipes which greatly increased the output of the company and gave quite an advantage over its competitors (Blair, 1965:3).

The Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company, Inc., was established by the Akron Smoking Pipe Company of Akron, Ohio, when they built the plant at Pamplin.

That the clay in Appomattox County was well suited to pipe manufacture was well known. The establishment of this plant was no doubt the result of the Company’s realization of the availability of the fine red clay from which the local women were producing pipes, a clay that could be used without even sifting.

When the Pamplin Factory was established is quite uncertain. Examination of the microfilm of newspapers of the area that were available from the Virginia State Library, beginning February 3, 1869 through December 25, 1896, gave no clue to the date of the establishment of the Pamplin Factory, nor did county records, probably due to the fire of 1892.

_Sometime immediately prior to 1880 William Merrill of Akron, Ohio, undoubtedly a member of the pipe making family, established a pipe making factory at Pamplin._ (Omwake, 1967:23). Our Pamplin informants were of the opinion that the Akron plant was devoted to the manufacture of drain tile after the pipe machinery was moved to Pamplin.

Bob Davis of Pamplin, born 1871, in an interview with John W. Walker in September 1962, said, “I was a kid when the factory came in”. Timewise this would be in general agreement with Omwake’s estimate for the date of the establishment of the factory at Pamplin.

That Pamplin pipes were also available from Akron in 1893 is evidenced by a letterhead of the Akron Smoking Pipe Company, dated June 26, 1893, showing examples of two clay pipes similar to Plate 22 AF & AG, (Blair, 1965:36). A communication from the Summit County Historical Society reports, “The Akron Smoking Pipe Co. is recorded as being in business from 1891 to 1895, and were manufacturers of stone, Powhatan Clay, and corn cob tobacco pipes. Daily capacity 100,000 pipes. General offices, Akron, Ohio. Factories, Pamplin City, Virginia; Mogadore, Ohio.”

Statements in company literature are also confusing. In a leaflet which carries a testimonial for their pipes, dated April 28, 1941 and price lists “effective November 15, 1941”, the statement is made, _from careful search of the records, this factory started more than 200 years ago ... the present plant has been in operation for 44 years. Skilled American labor is used in a modern, day-lit plant with special attention to cleanliness, sanitation, and ideal working conditions_ (Plate 8).

This would give a date for the “present plant” of 1897, but it also suggests that an earlier plant had been rebuilt or replaced. (An undated and unidentified news clipping does state that at some time the pipe plant had burned). Company literature also states, “Established 1739” (Plate 8). This obviously cannot refer to the establishment of the plant, nor even to the mother plant at Akron, since pottery was first produced in Summit County, Ohio, in 1828 (Blair, 1965:2). The Company may simply have been employing “poet’s license” and appropriated a date which they felt representative of the start of the Home Pipe Making Industry in the Pamplin area.

The _Times-Virginian_ of Appomattox, date unknown, carried a news article, _Pamplin Clay Pipe Plant once termed largest in the World_. The _Farmville Herald_ of March 29, 1935 stated, ... _the output of the Clay Pipe Factory at Pamplin is 1,000,000 a month, when it is running full time. In the roster of business in Virginia, this factory is mentioned as the largest clay pipe factory in the United States, and so far as is known, in the world._

At one point in the history of the plant, pipes were sold to England as well as some other countries in Europe.

Also vague has been the terminal date of the Pamplin Company; it is variously given locally as 1948 to 1951.

There is a contemporary news article on the factory published in the _Richmond Times-Dispatch_, April 21, 1946. _A History of Appomattox, Virginia_, published 1948, states, _The Akron Pipe Factory of Pamplin holds the title of manufacturing the finest clay smoking pipes in the world, known as the ‘Powhatan’_ (Featherstone, 1948:44).

In a personal letter to the writers, John C. Ewers said, “During my field work on the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana, in 1953, I first learned of the Pamplin clay pipes. One of my Indian informants told me about selling them when he was working at a trading post on the reservation during the first decade of the present century....

“Later I visited the trading post at Oswego on the Fort Peck Reservation. There the proprietor showed me the illustrated price list of the Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company, Inc. He showed me the only type of pipe he still had in stock—the ‘Century of Progress’, Chicago type (Plate 23 AJ). He said the manufacturer wrote him in 1951 that he planned to go back into the manufacture of the other styles, which the Assiniboine preferred.”

The Tomahawk pipe was a good specialty item for sale at such events as fairs and expositions, and the Company’s sales to the “Century of Progress” in Chicago in 1933 must have been excellent, even though they had not sold all they had made in anticipation of that demand. The bowl, necessarily narrow and elongated since it was in the blade of the tomahawk, did not recommend it to serious smokers, nor to the Assiniboine.

It would seem evident that these pipes were left over from the production of the Company in 1933, that their regular pipe models had by this time been sold out, and that the Company was already in a State of quiescence in 1951.

Dr. Clyde G. O’Brien of Appomattox stated that the Company ceased operations in 1951.

The Charter of the Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company shows that it was incorporated by the Commonwealth of Virginia on the 15th day of August, 1929. The officers at that time were, J. V. Lewis, Pres., Prospect, Virginia; J. W. Franklin, V.Pres., Pamplin; L. N. Ligon, V.Pres., Pamplin; T. R. Pugh, Secy-Treas., Pamplin.

The purposes of the Company then were, among other things, to deal in wood of all kinds, own timber lands, contract to do construction work, deal in real estate, _and to buy and sell all kinds of necessary material ... and operate all the necessary equipment and machinery for the purpose of manufacturing clay pipes, crocks, and earthenware_.... (Charter Book No. 1, Page 108, Appomattox County, Virginia). The corporation (Charter No. 34565-16) was dissolved by the State Corporation Commission, at the request of the stockholders, on February 21, 1952.

A personal communication, February 23, 1972, from Morton L. Wallerstein who with Ralph L. Dombrower as corporate officers were the last active operators of the pipe factory, states, “Mr. Dombrower and myself, as sole stockholders, started the operation in 1938 and baked the clay pipes up to the time of the enactment of the Minimum Wage Law by Congress. At that time it was apparent that the part-time workers, largely farm girls and boys who worked in the afternoon, would cease to be employed because the pipes could not be marketed under the wages required to be paid.

“However, Mrs. Betty Price and another woman made the hand-made clay pipes at their homes, which pipes Mr. Dombrower bought after 1938 and very cleverly boxed in antique fashion and sold them for some years. However, unfortunately the women who made these pipes died and they were no longer made.

“The factory, itself, did not manufacture pipes beyond the period stated above. The property was sold in 1947 and the corporation was dissolved in 1952.”

Apparently then, the Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company ceased all activity in 1951, having been in existence slightly more than 70 years.

Some time after the closing, the main factory building was used as a garage. In July of 1969 this frame building, with the name “Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Co., Inc., American Indian Clay Smoking Pipes” still painted above the entrance, stood unoccupied; the crumbling old smokestack and large round kiln of brick construction were still there (Plates 4 & 5). Another building which had served Company purposes had been destroyed.

FACTORY MACHINERY

The machinery to mold smoking pipes and bottles was invented by Calvin J. Merrill of the E. H. Merrill Pottery, Summit County, Ohio, in 1843 (Blair, 1965:3).

The pipe machine was simple: the individual metal molds in the foot powered mechanism could be changed to vary the pipe form. The whole was contained in a simple wooden bench (Plate 6). Miss Wilsie Thornton felt that a man working such a machine could produce thousands of pipes per day. It is unknown how many such machines were used by the factory, nor how many people were employed since ideas of our informants varied; however, the best estimate seems to be 8 to 10 machines, with employees varying from 10 to 40, depending upon the press of work and the rush of orders at any given time.

Bob Davis of Pamplin, in the interview with John W. Walker said, “Old man Taz Harvey made the Powhatan mold. He had a shop and made many molds”.

FACTORY FIRING AND GLAZING

The pipes were packed in round stoneware crocks or saggers made from fireclay, and the saggers were stacked alternately around the kiln. The saggers were some eight inches high and 16 to 18 inches in diameter (Plate 7). There was an opening in the top of the kiln through which, in glazing, salt was put when the pipes were hot. They were fired some 24 or 48 hours (Miss Thornton’s statement).

Mrs. Maddox said: “As a child I used to go with a colored man who worked with us and also for the factory, and watch him throw salt down a hole in the top of the kiln on the pipes to make a glaze.”

At a high temperature the salt vaporized and combined with the silica in the body of the clay to form a glassy or ‘silicate glaze’. The kiln was fired 32 to 36 hours before maximum temperature was reached; it was cooled the same period to prevent crazing (minute cracking) of the glaze (Blair, 1965:15). This description of glazing refers to stoneware in the mid-nineteenth century potteries near Akron, Ohio. However since the Pamplin kiln was the same sort of “walk-in” kiln, the detail would fit, and it is substantiated by Miss Thornton’s statement of firing time.

From the scarcity of glazed pipes among the many that we examined, we conclude that the majority were finished without glazing.

REED STEMS

The stems sold with the factory pipes were made from switch cane _Arundinara gigantea_ known locally as reed and once abundant in the Great Dismal Swamp in southeastern Virginia (R. H. Woodling to Chas. H. Meadows, May 15, 1969). (The stems used with the pipes made by the Home Industry usually came from the same source.)

The reeds were cut in 12 foot lengths by men in boats, allowed to dry for six months, cut in lengths and reamed out. Some were put in a machine and bent (Miss Thornton, Dr. O’Brien).

Cork plugs or washers were used in the base of the pipes to hold the stem in place. Some were still in place in pipes we examined. A plug mill, a high pressure machine, extruded the cork plugs which were cut off by wire (Heite).

(Replacement reed stems for clay, hickory, or corn cob pipes, retailed in the grocery stores in Lexington, Missouri, for 10¢ per dozen about 1916).

PIPES MADE BY THE FACTORY

A number of people and institutions with varying numbers of Pamplin Factory pipes in their possession have given us an opportunity to examine them. The largest number of specimens were in the hands of the following.

Our attention was first called to these pipes in 1968 at the Craft Club in Arrow Rock, Missouri, where some of them appeared for sale as an unusual item. They obviously had been underground, for the bowls and bases were still filled with earth containing numerous rootlets growing through the pipe cavities.

It was learned that the pipes had been supplied by Francis B. Fitzgerald, Suffolk, Virginia; David I. Dautenhahn, Marshall, Missouri, put us in touch with him. As a youngster, Fitzgerald had on various occasions visited his grandfather’s farm, which was near the Pamplin Factory, and had played in the water of a little creek on pipe plant property. In so doing, he discovered that there were numerous clay pipes in a bank which apparently had been placed in the creek to form a dam. (The dam was probably for the purpose of retaining water to mix with the clay). He had hundreds of these pipes. Practically none would seem to have been rejects—how or why they got into the dirt which was used to make the fill is unknown. Through the years Fitzgerald had made a selection of forms representative of this group, all of which he made available to us.

Since that time an owner of the pipe plant property had secured many pipes, later acquired by the Appomattox National Historic Park. They were made available to us by Alford L. Rechtor, Superintendent.

The Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission supplied photographs of some Pamplin pipes, as well as photographs of a pipe mold and pipe maker’s bench (Plate 6) and saggers (Plate 7). We were granted the use of these by Edward F. Heite and Edward A. Chappell of that institution.

John W. Walker of the National Park Service, who had worked in the area and become interested in the pipes made there, provided us with a copy of his field notes and some examples of pipes.

John C. Ewers of the Smithsonian Institution had visited Pamplin. He gave us much information and showed us several pipe forms from the area that are in the collections of that institution.

Rex L. Wilson, National Park Service, loaned us a copy of his manuscript, “Clay Tobacco Pipes from Fort Laramie, Wyoming and Related Sites”, in which he identified some specimens as having come from Pamplin.

FACTORY PRICE LIST OF PIPES AND JOBBERS DISCOUNTS, AS OF 1941.

The Company’s price list of November 1941 listed “The Powhatan Machine Made”, fitted with cork closures and 10″ reed stems, bowls trade-marked, packed 50 to box, 25¢ retailer. Price $6.00 per box.” (Plate 10).

Five other models were listed, “5 in. reed stems, packed 100 to box, 15¢ retailer. Price $3.00 per box.” Two models were listed similarly, but 10¢ retailers, price $2.50 per box. Two other 10¢ retailers were listed at $2.70 per box, and one model at $2.85 per box but the suggested retail price was still 10¢ each.

One model, their “Ole Virginny Hamburg”, was offered in finest fire-clay, hard-burned, white, simulates meerschaum, also in red. Similar to “Ole Virginny Shaker”. It was a 10¢ retailer, $2.70 per box of 100. (It is of interest that this pipe, listed elsewhere in this same price list, but as “Ole Virginny Shaker of Virginia red clay, a heavier stone pipe”, was priced as a 15¢ retailer and $3.00 per box). (Plate 10 ).

Jobbers discounts were offered. “10 to 20 boxes, 20%”, and going up by 5% stages to “101 to 500 boxes, 35% discount”. “We make many other styles of Indian Clay and Stone Pipes, ... we can make any style of pipe that can be made of clay. Our own designers and artists are at your service” (Plate 11).

In the last years of Factory operation their sales carried an identification tag, “This Is An ‘Original’ Powhatan Pipe”, and it was being made by the last two women of the Pamplin area who were still making pipes at their homes (Plate 12).

PAMPLIN AREA PIPE FORMS

The pipes are illustrated natural size. The largest and the smallest pipe of each form available to us are shown. In many instances this difference in size is not great; however, it does illustrate that minor variations often existed in different molds for the same pipe form. The diameters for the stem openings have not been included since they have proved useful only in consideration of the earlier integral-stem clays, and not for consideration of the “short-base” pipes of the type and time included in this report (Wilson, 1971:2).

TABLE NO. 1. Sources of Pipes, and Relative Numbers Available for Examination.

Total number of pipes inspected—4,451.

Plate. Source. Number of Examples.

13 A. Both Many 13 B. Home 2 13 C. Home 11 14 D. Home 4 14 E. Home Many 14 F. Both Many 15 G. Factory Many 15 H. Home 3 15 I. Factory Many 16 J. Factory Many 16 K. Both Many 16 L. Factory Many 17 M. Both 37 17 N. Factory 1 17 O. Factory 1 17 P. Both Many 18 Q. Both Many 18 R. Home 10 18 S. Both Many 19 T. Home 14 19 U. Home 2 19 V. Factory 1 19 W. Surface 1 20 X. Factory 1 20 Y. Both 2 20 Z. Factory 4 20 AA. Factory 4 21 AB. Factory 1 21 AC. Home 1 21 AD. Factory 1 21 AE. Factory 1 22 AF. Factory 2 22 AG. Factory 1 22 AH. Factory 1 22 AI. Factory 2 23 AJ. Factory 1 23 AK. Factory 1 23 AL. Surface 1 23 AM. Home 2

TABLE NO. 2 Identifications Appearing On Certain Pamplin Pipes. Plate: Source of Pipe. Designation. Lettering.

13 A. Both Original Impressed 13 B. Home Original Impressed 17 M. Both Original or Florence Impressed 18 Q. Both Hayiti Impressed 18 R. Home Genuine Impressed 19 V. Factory 117 Raised 20 Z. Factory Catlins Raised 20 AA. Factory 103 Raised 21 AC. Home Original Impressed 21 AD. Factory Powhatan Impressed