Hemingray Employee Becomes Insulator Collector, story about Henson Price selling chimneys

POLECAT ALLEY

By ERN PARKISON

"The Red Cent Man"

1304 Greenbriar Road

Muncie, Indiana 47304

Hemingray Employee Becomes

Insulator Collector

Although I number a great many "polecats" among my friends and acquaintances, perhaps, I should devote a few lines to an introduction. I have been around a very long time, so long in fact that I have been employed in the old Hemingray plant at Muncie, Ind., for nearly 40 years. And, because Hemingray was definitely the largest producer of glass insulators in the world, I have made or been involved in the making of literally millions of their product. Some years ago, encouraged by company officials, I began to accumulate as many of the different types of the famous old insulators as became available. This was before the hobby of insulator collecting became popular and I know that I missed out on many which would now be of great interest. But interest was aroused and I have since continued in the hobby.

Perhaps, too, I should hasten to explain the term "polecat." The word has come to mean any of those of us who participate in the hobby of collecting, trading, and researching of glass and ceramic insulators. The origin of the term is that there were those among us who would go so far as to climb a pole in order to obtain a desired specimen, perhaps replacing it with a common one of little value. This practice is not only illegal, but very dangerous. Recently a "polecat" in Texas climbed a pole at night to filch a coveted item and, unfortunately, fell and was entangled in high tension wires, where he hung until he was seen at daylight. While the practice of "polecatting" is disdained by many, still the name is accepted by those of us who are "hooked" on these jewels of the wire.

Since they were the giant of the industry, perhaps, we should start off with a brief history of the Hemingray production. There seems to be some doubt as to the exact location of the first plant. The company was formed in Cincinnati by Robert Hemingray in the year 1848, and continued to have offices in that city until 1920. However, by 1858 and, perhaps, from the beginning, the manufacturing plant was across the Ohio River in Covington, Ky., located on the river bank at about the corner of Madison and Second Streets.

At first, the plant turned out many different products, among them lamps and lamp chimneys. This writer remembers many years ago, hearing an old employee, a freedman named Henson Price, who was then approaching the century mark in age, tell how he and "Mr. Bob" had made lamp chimneys in the daytime and sold them in the streets at night from a wooden wheelbarrow.

The exact time when the first insulators were made has never been established definitely. However, a patent was issued to Robert Hemingray on Dec. 19, 1871 for a process for molding glass insulators with a screw thread plunger. We know that the first production of the line was made in the Covington plant.

Production was continued at the Covington plant until 1919 when the factory was destroyed by a flood and was not rebuilt. However, in 1888, during the gas boom days in central Indiana, a plant had been established on Macedonia Ave. in Muncie, where it continues to operate to this day. Various partners and members of the Hemingray family were involved in the management of the company during these years.

Of the family members, only one was known to this writer, Carrol [sic] Carroll Hemingray Macabee [sic] McAbee, granddaughter to old "Mr. Bob," who together with her husband, Col. Phillip Macabee [sic] McAbee, continued to operate the plant until it was sold to Owens-Illinois Glass Co. in 1933.

Owens-Illinois continued the manufacture of glass insulators until March 1, 1966, when, because of diminishing demand, the process was discontinued. A few efforts by a sub-contracting glass company to produce export insulators have been made, even as late as June of this year, but with no marked success. We will go more deeply into the rich history of this industry when time and space allow.

Meantime, as is said on T-V, keep those cards and letters coming, folks, as the interest and response of its readers is the life blood of any column. I hope to hear from my friends and fellow collectors and if there are black and white pictures available, send them along too as they add much interest and clarity to any written matter.