In the beginning of this effort we had assumed that the pipes made by
the Factory would be quite different, in both form and decoration, from
those made in the homes. We have found that this assumption is not
valid.
There is a great deal of overlapping, probably due to the Factory, after
its arrival in Pamplin, taking over and producing a number of the shapes
and designs that had long been in use in the Home Industry. It is also
possible that the Home Industry appropriated some of the Factory pipe
forms.
In addition, all local evidence agrees that the Thornton Store did not
purchase pipes from the Factory; they were getting plenty themselves,
taken in trade for their merchandise, and which they would have to
dispose of on the wholesale market in competition with the Factory.
There is local evidence that the Factory did, at times, buy locally made
pipes in order to fill large orders, as well as when their machinery was
not in operation. It is quite unlikely however, after buying and paying
for them, that these pipes would be found in the landfill on the Factory
grounds, the fill from which the “factory” pipes considered in this
study came.
Of the total of 39 pipe forms located by us, 10 were from Home Industry,
19 from the Factory, (eight appeared in both), and two were either
surface finds or the knowledge of their exact place of manufacture lost,
as they had long been in the hands of their local Pamplin area owners.
The Akron Company had made pipes before they established the pipe plant
at Pamplin, and the names of some of their pipes in the Pamplin
literature would infer that at least one form, the “Akron Hamburg”, had
been carried from Akron to Pamplin, which then is described as “from
Virginia clay, attractive red color”.
On the other hand, Mrs. Betty Price has been quoted as saying that the
pipe form known as “Hamburg” was one of the first made by the women of
the area.
For a time in later years, at least by 1941, the Pamplin Factory made a
pipe similar in form and decoration to their “Akron Hamburg”, but of
fire clay, and called it “Akron Shaker”.
Since there is so much overlapping of form and decoration between the
pipes made in the homes and those made by the Company, one wonders if
there might not have been even more overlapping had the sample available
to us at this late date been greater than the 4,451 pipes examined.
It is our conclusion that when the Akron Company came to Pamplin they
started to produce pipes of a number of forms that had long been made by
the Home Industry of the Pamplin area. They may also have brought one or
more Akron pipe forms and decorations with them, to be manufactured at
Pamplin. In turn the Pamplin Home Industry possibly adopted some forms
now being produced by the Company. (Some of these forms may also have
been in production in other areas, but probably of different clay).
The foremost factor distinguishing Pamplin area pipes, from either
manufacturing source, was the “Virginia clay, of attractive red color”.
So far as we have been able to determine, no particular friction ever
developed between the Factory and the industry being carried on at the
homes; each had its own wholesale outlets.
To the best of our knowledge, the Home Industry started about 1740 and
definitely closed in 1953.
The Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company was established about
1878, and it definitely closed in 1951.
In our work we have handled literally hundreds of the pipes, Plate 13 A,
called “Powhatan Original” in the Company’s literature and advertising.
These had been excavated both from the factory grounds and from the
basement of the old Thornton Store, and we found nothing about these two
lots of pipes that would seem to distinguish the two manufacturing
sources. Of the total, only one single pipe failed to carry the word
“Original” impressed in the base.
This “Original” was an early Home Industry form, and there is strong
evidence that when the Company came to Pamplin they adopted this form,
and added “Powhatan” in their advertising, just as they must have
adopted some other local pipe forms. “Original” was also impressed, but
probably at a still later date, on the base of three other pipe forms;
they were forms “B”, “M”, and “AC”.
We also believe that the Company made the best estimate as to the
starting date of the home pipemaking industry, (they would have had
about a hundred year advantage in arriving at such a date, as compared
to the problem under present circumstances), and applied that date to
Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company as having been
“established 1739”. In other words, they pictured themselves as being a
continuation of the industry that was already there.
If the date of 1878, or one near that time, for the establishment of the
Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Co. is correct, then this is
later than the terminal date of some of the western forts and trading
posts at which Pamplin pipes have been reported. It would therefore seem
evident that the Pamplin pipes found in some western locations were the
result of Home Industry, made before the pipe plant ever got to Pamplin.
This is authenticated by the fact that they were being carried by the
_Bertrand_.
It would seem desirable, instead of considering these pipes as Pamplin
Company products, to simply think of them as Pamplin Area Pipes.