Dorflinger Factory in White Mills exhibits colored glass, President Grant display

Standing in the very factory space in White Mills, Wayne County where skilled artisans patiently cut and polished fine Dorflinger glassware over a hundred years ago, scintillating examples of their work refract and reflect the sunlight today for a new generation to learn of and admire anew.

Within this historic, former cutting shop now turned into a museum, dishes, bowls and goblets mostly brilliant, colorless and clear are joined by two special exhibits on display through December 15, 2022. One is a spectrum of rare colored Dorflinger cut glass, and the other of glassware and assorted memorabilia once owned by President Ulysses S. Grant and his family. The special Grant exhibit is in honor of the 200th anniversary of his birth this year.

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Colored glass

James Asselstine, founder of Dorflinger Factory Museum, stated only about one percent of Dorflinger glass was made with color. It is both harder to produce and more costly. Christian Dorflinger, however, had glass blowers on staff skilled in producing the fine pieces. The exhibit contains some of his finest examples of color beginning in the 1850's at his manufacturing site in Brooklyn, NY and continuing through the Brilliant Period (1876-1917).

Dorflinger relocated his cut glass works to White Mills in 1865, where it was produced until the factory's closing in 1921. His only surviving factory structure, part of a once large industrial complex, is the long cutting shop at the foot of the hill at Route 6 where the museum was established. Built in 1883, the factory stands next to the company office building, today housing part of the museum collection.

Among the glass display cabinets highlighting the colored glass is a unique red and white punch bowl, the only known piece made by Christian Dorflinger's own hands, Asselstine said.

This Dorflinger family bowl is believed to have been made by him in the mid-1840's in France while he was an apprentice for eight years at the firm Cristallerie de Saint Louis, where he worked and learned the trade of glass making, blowing, cutting and decorating.

Dorflinger emigrated to the United States in 1846 and worked at the Union Glass Company in Philadelphia before he moved to the New York area and established several glass factories.

One of several pieces from four private collections on special loan for this colored glass exhibit, this one-of-a-kind piece is owned by Priscilla Smith Tagle of White Mills, great-great granddaughter of Christian Dorflinger and a member of the Dorflinger Factory Museum board of directors. Some of the pieces on view are part of the museum's permanent collection.

Other rare colored glassware pieces are examples of multi-colored glass, and the only known red Dorflinger punch bowl.

Ulysses Grant exhibit

The exhibit, “Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)” mostly contains privately owned items on loan, as well as pieces from the museum inventory. The exhibit celebrates the life and accomplishments of President Grant, with a particular focus on First Lady Julia Dent Grant’s decorating and entertaining in the White House.

On view are examples of the glassware service ordered from the Dorflinger Glass Company for the 1874 White House wedding of the Grants’ daughter Nellie, as well as the French State porcelain service and a remarkable “Rose Medallion” export porcelain service ordered by Julia Grant.

One may also see memorabilia from the Grant White House years (1869-1877) and from their subsequent World Tour. Asselstine stated that Grant was the first U.S. President to circumnavigate the globe.

Memorabilia includes books, a parasol handle sculpted as a dog's head, a child's teapot and a whisk from Egypt. Also exhibited is fine porcelain and china.

Some of the glassware carried Grant's initials; others have the Great Seal of the United States. The state china set was used for White House dinners, perhaps held by Grant himself and other dignitaries, as well as their wives.

Both the Dorflinger Factory Museum and the complementary but separate Dorflinger Glass Museum on top the hill in White Mills, contain presidential sets of glass ordered for different White House administrations and many other examples of finely crafted, prized glassware produced in White Mills. The Dorflinger Glass Museum is located at Christian Dorflinger's former country home, part of the Dorflinger-Suydam Wildlife Sanctuary.

Also found at Dorflinger Factory Museum is a a section showing how the glassware was cut, with several cutting frames and other equipment put back in place where the craftsmen worked.

Asselstine confirmed that their mission is to educate the public, to keep the awareness alive of this once critical portion of American industrial heritage. Dorflinger was the largest of numerous cut glass establishments in Wayne County history.

Dorflinger Factory Musem is located at 670 Texas Palmyra Highway (Route 6) in downtown White Mills. The museum is open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m.- 5 p.m., and Sunday, 1 p.m. - 5 p.m. For more information call 570-253-0220 or visit: dorflingerfactorymuseum.com

This article originally appeared on Tri-County Independent: Wayne County exhibit celebrates life of President Ulysses S. Grant