Day 43 Millville, NJ

June 6, 2019

Our ride around Millville

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We visited two places in Millville today. Southern New Jersey was the center of glass making in the United States, actually in the Colonies, beginning in 1739. One of the biggest, most successful glass companies was Wheaton Glass, founded by T. C. Wheaton in Millville in 1888.

This is the Wheaton Glass factory, the abandoned factory we saw on the way in yesterday.

It is a huge complex of decaying buildings.

The large glass factory here has now closed, but the last Wheaton owner of the company founded the WheatonArts center, which has a glass museum, school and studio for glass arts and also a pottery studio. We spent a couple of hours there visiting the various buildings. There was a presentation about glassworking in the school, where a group of students were taking a course from a resident glass artist.

A side note about this presentation - there was a class of third graders there watching. Almost every one of them had a cell phone. These are eight and nine year olds! I was surprised, but we don't have much contact with kids anymore, so maybe that's what is normal now.

We walked over the the pottery studio and talked to two women making pottery there.

The museum was fun to tour. The exhibits covered the history of glass making in the United States and had examples of many types of household glass.

American glassware from the late 1700's and early 1800's.

American glassware from the later 1800's

I found a piece on display that I own. This was made by Fenton Glass in West Virginia and dated 1939. Kerry's mother gave me mine and I believe she received it as a wedding gift in 1948.

After the glass works, we went to a museum at the Millville Airport. It is on the site of the first "defense airport" in the United States. The Millville Army Airfield was a gunnery school for WWII fighter pilots. It was in operation only from 1941-1946.

This device records the course the pilot in the trainer takes.

At the museum, we met Walter Kocielski, a 93 year old Marine veteran who fought at Iwo Jima. Walter was 18 when he enlisted and was less than a year out of high school when he landed on Iwo Jima. Immediately involved in fierce fighting, only six of 56 men in his unit survived the first week.

Today's ride: 14 miles (23 km)
Total: 1,648 miles (2,652 km)

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Rich McKayBetween seeing the glass studio and meeting Walter... this was probably a better option than visiting "Tandems East" any day!
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