Brookfield Glass Company (aka Bushwick Glass Works)

Brooklyn, New York (1864 - c. 1906)
Old Bridge, New Jersey (c. 1906-1921)

This company, also known as the Bushwick Glass Works, began as a bottle manufacturing firm about 1864. James Madison Brookfield, who had moved to Brooklyn some time after the Honesdale Glass Works of Traceyville, Pennsylvania, was destroyed by a flood in 1861, seems to have been the main person involved with the management of this establishment in the earlier years, and presumably from it's very beginning. A brewer named Martin Kalbfleisch owned the glass factory and hired Mr. Brookfield to run it for him to supply bottles for his business. (Although there is a listing for Brookfield as a glassmaker in the 1863-1864 city directory, that seems to have been an earlier, separate location before he became affiliated with Kalbfleisch and the Bushwick Glass Works.) Brookfield bought the company from Martin Kalbfleisch in about 1869, after having managed it for the first few years. In later years his son (William Brookfield), and later, grandsons, eventually would become involved in the company. Various types of bottles and jars were made, especially in the earlier years, and judging from the content of advertisements as late as the 1890s, were continued to be made throughout most, if not all, of the duration of the company's operation, although very little is known about them. Most were evidently unmarked, and/or were bottles made for companies with only the product or company name embossed on them. A cylinder whiskey or wine-type bottle is known to exist which is embossed "Bushwick Glass Works" in a circle on the base. This bottle is mentioned in McKearin & Wilson's American Bottles and Flasks and their Ancestry (1978), page 221. Evidently it is a very rarely seen item, and probably dates from the 1860s. A very rare type of fruit jar embossed "Brookfield/55/Fulton St/N.Y." is known, but only a very few examples have been found by collectors.

The production of insulators rapidly increased in the late 1860s and 1870s, until by the 1880s most of their production consisted of glass insulators for telegraph and telephone use. The great majority of the insulators from this time period are found in a light blueish-aqua color. Brookfield was second only to the Hemingray Glass Company in the sheer number of insulators they manufactured. For a period of approximately 57 years, huge quantities of insulators marked "W.BROOKFIELD", "BROOKFIELD", and later, with just a "B", were produced. Some of the very earliest types that were made, circa 1865-1868, were evidently unmarked. Brookfield made insulators for various utility companies, and these are found with a variety of embossed names on them. Brookfield maintained business offices in Manhattan throughout most if its history, and these office addresses were embossed on many of the earlier insulators. 55 FULTON ST (1868-1882); 45 CLIFF ST (1882-1890) and 83 FULTON ST (1890-1893) are embossings found that may help date a particular example, although some molds may have been used for a time after the office changed locations. Brookfield made more than 100 different types of insulators during it's history, and some types that are illustrated in their 1912 catalog have never been found (assuming they did actually exist).

The first factory location was in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, New York and was known as the Bushwick Glass Works throughout the early period, and evidently into the later years as well. A second glass plant was built in Old Bridge, New Jersey, and from recently discovered evidence by collector/historian Bob Stahr, that plant seems to have commenced production in about 1906. The exact time when the Brooklyn plant was closed is still open to question, but it may have been around the same time the new plant started production. Brookfield Glass Company was officially incorporated in 1898 and (again!) in 1908. I am not certain if this business name had been in use unofficially for a long period beforehand, but in any case, no insulators have been found that are marked "Bushwick Glass Works"!

Much of the later production at the New Jersey location tends toward the darker shades of aqua, "teal", and shades of dark green, including emerald and olive greens. Production of glass at Old Bridge ended in either late 1920 or early 1921 (sources of info vary) but the corporation was officially dissolved in September 1922.

Sources of information for this webpage include N.R.Woodward (The Glass Insulator in America: 1988 Report), Bob Stahr, Alice Creswick and Helen McKearin.

(Pictured: CD 102 embossed "BROOKFIELD//NEW YORK"; CD 112 embossed "B"; CD 103 embossed "B").



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