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Note: My father, Lawrence Alley, Jr., told me much of what is written here about his father, and several details were added from research done by my cousin Frank Sellers.
Lawrence E. Alley, Sr. went to work for Fostoria Glass in Moundsville , WV sometime before 1904.. He started as a carry-in boy. The boy, who started with him the same day, was the son of the company president, William A. B. Dalzell (president 1902 - 1928). The son William F. was 17 in 1908 and worked there before attending college. Being younger he probably did not start the same day, but he would have been there at the same time. He was president from 1945 to 1958. Lawrence amazed the salesmen at the factory when he was able to buy glassware at less than wholesale cost because he knew the president. Lawrence and Bertha Weekley were married in 1904. In the April 1910 census he was painting coaches in Huntington, WV. He soon went to Tri State Glass Manufacturing Company in Huntington which became Pilgrim Glass.Dalzell (Lawrence, Jr., my father thought it was Huntington Glass that became Pilgrim Glass. But, Huntington Glass had moved to Marietta, Ohio and burned in 1903.) This may be where he learned to cut glass. Next he did cutting on quality glassware at Fenton Art Glass Co., in Williamstown, West Virginia. He had saved a barrel full of his glassware. It was stored under the porch of his house, and someone stole it. Thus the family has very little of this early glassware that he made and cut.
Lawrence than started his own business at Kingwood, West Virginia. It was a complete glass factory and cutting shop. It did not prosper fast enough to satisfy the investors and it was closed. He went back to Williamstown for a year and then to the St. Marys Glass Company as a cutter. His WWI draft registration card dated 12 September 1918 lists him as a Glass blower at the Western Glass Co.in St. Marys. In 1920 he was a glass blower in Moundsville. Lawrence also worked in Cumberland, Maryland for a while. Next, he became general manager of Picquet Glass in Shinnston, West Virginia. After designing a sandblasting machine for glass, in the latter part of 1925, he started a sandblasting and cutting shop of his own. He then moved and merged with the Salem Glass Company. The company had financial problems before the merger and closed soon afterwards. After some other jobs he worked at Akro Agate Company. Then he started a company at Ravenswood, West Virginia, left it and in 1929 started the Lawrence Glass Novelty Company, in the old button factory next door to the Missmach Glass Company at Paden City with a partner, Dewey Hibbs. In 1931 Berry Pink joined the company. The company's marble-making machines were designed by Lawrence and were built in the Skagg Machine shop in Sistersville. These machines produced 165 marbles per minute, a quantity not achieved by other machines of that time. In 1932 they moved to Sistersville. There were legal problems and he sold out to the broker. Next he started a plant at Parkersburg, West Virginia.
From the "History of the Vitro Agate Factory in Parkersburg, West Virginia"ÙCbÙD
ÙC/bÙD"Henri Arthur (Art) Fisher, Lawrence E. Alley and Press Lindsey founded The Vitro Agate Company on April 19, 1932 at Vienna, West Virginia. In the late 1930s, Fisher and Lindsey bought out Alley, and later Art Fisher bought out Lindsey. The original marble-making machines used by Vitro were designed and built by Mr. Fisher. In, May 1945, the company moved to a larger building in Parkersburg." (This statement is in doubt since Lawrence had already designed machines.)
Finally in 1932, he started the Alley Agate Company at Pennsboro, West Virginia in an inadequate building and moved a few years afterwards to St. Marys. Here he purchased the building formerly used by Gilligan Glass Company, which was currently being used by a local grower to pack apples. By January of 1937 he was established in St. Marys. He owned this business until he retired in 1949. Lawrence, Jr. started working for him in 1935 in Pennsboro. The St. Marys plant was a partnership between them. In 1947 the company name was changed to Alley Glass and Manufacturing Company. This reflected the wider product line of more than marbles. Maybe it was just a joke, but the reason my dad (L. E. Alley, Jr.) told me was that they got tired of people calling them Mr. Alley Agate. During the peak of the marble demand around 1940s they were making a billion marbles a year. Their only customer for marbles and toy dishes was J. Pressman and Company. The Chinese checkers game was very big at that time, and a large percentage of the marbles went into the games. My cousin, Frank Sellers, talked with a woman who had been Mr. Alley's secretary in the early years in Pennsboro. She was an old lady by then. She would open the mail and only give Mr. Alley the important pieces. In the mail one day was a letter from Jack Pressman, whom they did not know. She almost threw it out, but decided it might be important and passed it on to Mr. Alley. Pressman became their primary customer with many millions of marbles going into his Chinese checkers. Besides marbles, their products were toy dishes, small glass animals and electrical insulators. In July 1949 the company was sold to Marble King. Later the building burned and the business moved to Paden City. For health reasons, Lawrence, Jr. and his family moved to a warmer climate in Clearwater, Florida where he purchased a hardware store, the Harbison Supply Company. Later the name was changed to Clearwater Hardware Company.
Click to see <a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=37203644" target="_blank">PHOTO</a> of an Alley Agate Salesman's Sample Case , thought to be from the early 1940s. and also one of his marble making machines. Many of the fine line swirls and flames in this case were not produced in large quantities. This leads me to believe that this case was assembled before the Chinese checker craze hit the nation. The plant was running at full capacity to keep up with the demand for the plain marbles used for the game and did not have the facilities to continue to make these outstanding patterns. A distinguishing characteristic of Alley Agate marbles it that there are seldom overlaps of glass that abruptly cut off a color stripe in the pattern. Mr. Alley was proud of the quality of his marbles and put much effort into developing formulas for high quality glass. The family still has his book of glass formulas.
Information on his WWII Draft Card:
5 ft 9 in, 270 lbs. light complexion, blue eyes, bald (Brown hair - WWI Card) Last finger, right hand off at second joint.
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