The Marshallville Glassworks

Not many people think of glass making when they think of Cape May County, but during the early to mid-1800’s, there were three glass making factories in the county. The Cape May Glass Company and the Hereford Glass Company were located in Cape May Court House. The Hereford Company merged with the Cape May Company and operated there until it burned down in a massive fire. The other major glass works was located in Marshallville in Upper Township.
In 1811, Randall Marshall and his son-in-law, Frederick Stanger, bought a large tract of land along Mill Creek, which flows into the Tuckahoe River. In 1814, they purchased 450 adjoining acres and established the Cumberland Glass Works, later known as the Marshallville Glass Works. The glass works manufactured window glass and produced glass bottles. The proximity to silica sand used for making glass, ample woods for fuel, and a navigable waterway for transporting, made the site ideal for glass making.
The village of Marshallville was founded as a glassmaking village and was built around the glass house. Randall Marshall built about 20 houses for his workers and larger homes for his family. An 1862 map shows four glass houses, a tavern and over 40 houses. The village also included two stores and a school, which was also used as a Methodist chapel. Nearby, there was also a lime kiln. Lime kilns were once used for calcination of limestone to produce a form of lime called quicklime. This was used in the making of both mortar and glass.
Randall Marshall built a home for Frederick and Ann Marshall Stanger near the factory where Frederick blew glass and was the overseer. Ann, who was only twenty years old, died in 1815 a few days after the birth of her second child. The Stanger house no longer exists. The Thomas Chew Marshall house was built in 1818 by Randall for his son Thomas. He moved to Marshallville to follow his trade as a glass blower. He and his wife Experience raised 14 children in the house. Randall Marshall built a third house in 1835 for his youngest son Randolph who attended the School of Pharmacy in Philadelphia and started his practice in Marshallville.
When Randall Marshall was nearly seventy years old, he decided to build a house in Marshallville for himself and his wife Mary, and their daughter Hannah, who never married, so they could live near the glass works and their other children. The house was completed but Marshall apparently never carried out his intention. When he died in 1841 he still resided in Port Elizabeth and he was buried in the Quaker cemetery there. His widow and daughter did move in to the new house and lived there until their deaths.
Today, there are no road signs for Marshallville and it’s easy to pass by it as you travel on Route 49 in Upper Township. There are no traces of the successful glass works that gave rise to the thriving village except for the two beautiful brick Marshall houses that still stand.