ELLENVILLE- For the month of May, historian Alex Prizgintas has a special programs planned for the Cragsmoor Historical Society. His popular lecture on the Rondout Valley’s Glassy Past: The History of the Ellenville Glass Works, will be shown on Saturday, May 18, 2024, at 4:30 p.m.
The factor’s last building, its company store, was demolished in 2019. “This project began with the loss of that building” says Alex Prizgintas, author of “The Rondout Valley’s Grassy Past: The Ellenville Glass Works” published in the Spring 2022 edition of Marist College’s peer-reviewed Hudson River Valley Review.
“At the same time a close friend of mine happened to come by some unusual glass telegraph insulators produced by the Glass Works. These products were known to have been produced at Ellenville yet information remained relatively vague,” said Prizgintas.
Starting in late 2019, Prizgintas began to cull information from local newspapers, fellow antique bottle collectors, and the Ellenville Public Library & Museum for the creation of his article.
“At thirty-three pages, the last time an article this detailed was written on the glassworks was during the early 1940s when Benjamin Taylor wrote material for the proceedings of the Ulster County Historical Society. My work strives to build upon the efforts of Taylor and other authors as well as expanding the depth of information available for this fascinating topic,” he said.
From the time its fires were first roared on October 2, 1837 until its abandonment around 1896, the Ellenville Glass Works was a pivotal in the production of glass which shipped its products across the country and, according to some documents, had more than 700 employees at its height. With such a prominent legacy, it is both surprising and tragic that so little of the glassworks remains today.
The one-hour program will discuss the glassworks’ history through much of the nineteenth century which will feature a number of rare items that it produced. Examples of Ellenville glass will be on display along with copies of Prizgintas’s article for sale.
