Three Trevaise Vases

The photo has been “posterized”.

Early in the 1900’s the Alton Mfg. Co. of New York bought the old Sandwich Glassworks, which had closed a few years earlier. They hired gaffer James H. Grady, who had worked at the Tiffany Studios to come to Sandwich, MA, to head a team to produce “High Class Glassware”, to be called TREVAISE.

Production began sometime in May 1907, but stopped by the end of the year when the glassworks was closed for extensive repairs. Work was supposed to resume after the holidays, but never did because C.F. King, the president of Alton Mfg. Co., disappeared with all the company’s funds. Alton Mfg. Co. closed permanently. Thus Trevaise glass is rare, only being made for a few months, from mid-May, 1907, to the end of that year.

C.F. King was later arrested and convicted of 27 counts of larceny. He went to prison but obtained (bought?) a pardon from the governor of Massachusetts. He was murdered the day before his release. Possibly someone had a different definition of justice, particularly given the devastating impact King’s crimes had had on the populace of Sandwich, Mass.