IAN SIMMONDS

From the middle of the 18th Century, German craftsmen in Pennsylvania and neighboring New Jersey and Maryland added a distinctive twist to what were typical English forms. What remains is some of the most delightful and exciting of American decorative arts, from the furniture of Lancaster County to the glass sugar bowls of Wistarburg, pokals of New Bremen and flasks of Manheim.

After the War of Independence this creative energy steadily migrated west to Pittsburgh and beyond. A battleground in the War of 1812, by 1815 the rich agricultural land of central and northern Ohio was again becoming settled. Connecticut's former Western Reserve was a target for New Englanders escaping the crop failures of 1816's 'year without a summer'. Further south migrants floated down the Ohio from Pittsburgh to enter Ohio's farmlands along the deep valleys of the river's northern shore.

Among Ohio's interior towns, Zanesville became a prominent center for glass and other manufactures. Located on the northern edge of Ohio's southern hills where Zane's Trace and the later National Road crossed the Muskingum River, it was a convenient marketplace and supplier for nearby farmers. Besides abundant local materials and a ready market, Zanesville gave glass manufacturers another great advantage - access to the Ohio River and its markets via the Muskingum.

So few hand blown, pattern-molded pitchers from Zanesville and other rural factories survive that they are recognizable as individuals. Its picture in Parke-Bernet's 1940 catalog of the Gaston collection, copied in the McKearins' American Glass, shows this pitcher's distinctive proportions, the curve and attachments of its ribbed strap handle, and the degree of swirl to its ribs. It even captures the size and position of a diagonal bubble that was elongated and angled as the glass around it was ribbed, swirled and expanded.

The more usual products of Ohio glass factories were bottles and flasks among which Zanesville's products are familiar and striking. In Cincinnati Zanesville bottles were listed as commodities alongside other frontier staples such as bread, crackers, candles and beeswax.