Dear Elton,

My grandfather was born and lived in New Lexington so when I finally started doing some genealogical research in the New Lexington Tribune, I naturally was on the lookout for any mention of the New Lexington High Voltage Porcelain Company. The microfilm can be ordered through interlibrary loan but it cost me $8 to do so and I only had a few weeks to read several years worth of newsprint. So far, I have covered the period from January, 1904 to April 1, 1904 and January 1, 1905 to June 16, 1905.

I tried to photocopy the articles but the copy did not turn out satisfactorily. First, the print is very small. Secondly, it came out reversed -- white print on black -- which is not very easy to reproduce in Crown Jewels. Third, it is very faint and appears to be smudged. I decided to copy the articles by hand. Following are the bits and pieces that I found:

From the March 9, 1905 New Lexington Tribune p. 1:

PORCELAIN PLANT WILL START
Will Be Running in Full Blast By Monday -- 
Many Men Working Now

The New Lexington High Voltage Porcelain plant will be running in full blast by Monday. W. H. Lowry of Victor, New York will assume the duties of superintendent, and the works will be run to their utmost capacity.

Mr. Lowry thoroughly understands the business and has had years of experience in the clay industry. That the enterprise will be successful under his management, there is not a doubt.

This will be good news to New Lexington people as well as to the stockholders of the company, and it will mean much to the future welfare of the town.

From the April 6, 1905 New Lexington Tribune:

The New Lexington High Voltage Porcelain Company has been reorganized with the following officers at the head of the institution: Judge M. A. Donahue, President; Joseph Weiland, Vice President; T. J. Weiland, Secretary and Treasurer; A. Bingardner, General Manager. With these successful business men in charge, the company ought and no doubt will succeed in making the venture pay good dividends.

On the same page:

H. W. Brown left this week for New Lexington, where he has accepted a position with the Porcelain Works, as head burner. Mr. Brown is an expert in his line and has had years of experience in his work. -- Roseville Review.

Also on the same page:

A. Bringardner, general manager for the New Lexington High Voltage Porcelain Co., was down from Junction City Thursday.

Richard Soller
NIA $2958

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Dear Richard,

I appreciate your researching the history of New Lexington. This is boring stuff for some collectors, but very interesting to me and those collecting the early classic porcelain insulators.

As you probably know from reading Jack Tod's book Porcelain Insulators Guide Book for Collectors -- 2nd edition, there is very little known about New Lexington. It is very interesting why the company waited until March 1905 to start production when they had incorporated a full two years earlier in March 1903. Were they raising funds to buy equipment, land and etc. during that two year period? Another interesting point is the superintendent, W. H. Lowry of Victor, New York. He must have been from the Locke plant in Victor.

All of the information that your sent is filling a rather large gap in their history and I hope that your continued research will turn up even more. Thanks again for your extra effort for the hobby.

Elton

Dear Elton,

I found an unusual insulator of which I cannot find any information in any of my books. I have enclosed two photos (could not reproduce here) of the insulator. There are four indentations in the base where I was told some type of clip held it down.

The base has an internal recessed area (inverted cone) with vertical parallel (corrugated) grooves. The top has a flat wire groove with four unglazed projections. It has a black glaze and is 3" wide at the base and 3" high. Could you please tell me what it was used for?
Tim Robinson 

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Dear Tim,

Your insulator is indeed a collectable insulator. But what makes it so interesting is that we have never yet found out exactly what its use was!

It has been written up several times years ago in Crown Jewels, and it has always been shown in Gerald Brown's books -- page 54 of Collectible Porcelain Insulators, 3rd edition.

As far as I know, we have no information on who manufactured this item, who sold it, or whether or not it was a special patented item. I did recently see one of these in the Milholland collection in Washington state. I took several pictures of it for detail but the photo store ruined that roll which also had views of the Milholland insulator museum and a good view of Mt. Rainier as the plane flew over the crater. The Milholland unit had a copper wire clip attached to the four projections in the wire groove on the top. I relied too much on the photos to recall exactly what that looked like.

Maybe one of the readers will have an idea as to how this insulator was used.

Elton