Cambridge History from News Articles - Part VI

by Charles Upton
Issue No. 159 - July 1986

"GLASS PLANT TO START"
The Cambridge Jeffersonian. Cambridge, Ohio.
July 28, 1904

After being shut down for about three weeks, during which time necessary repairs were made and stock taken, part of the Cambridge Glass plant will resume operations next Monday, and by August 15th the entire plant will be running in full. On Monday the engraving and mold shops started up, and on August 1st the press department will resume operations. The blowing department will not be started until August 15th.

"GLASS PLANT AT BYESVILLE IS SOLD TO NEW YORK CAPITALIST
AND WILL RESUME OPERATIONS ABOUT FIRST OF YEAR"
The Cambridge Jeffersonian.
December 1, 1904

The plant of the Byesville Glass and Lamp Co., which recently went into bankruptcy, was sold Wed. by the trustee, J. B. Wikoff, to Charles M. Schott, Jr. of New York City, consideration $37,000, and it is understood that operations will be resumed about the first of the year.

Mr. Schott and his attorney, John B. Driggs, of Bridgeport, 0., have been in the city for the past few days trying to purchase the plant but it was only today that the sale and transfer of the property was made.

That the plant will resume operations in the near future will be good news for the citizens of Byesville.

"BYESVILLE GLASS CO. AFFAIRS"
The Cambridge Jeffersonian.
January 26, 1905

The adjourned meeting of the creditors of The Byesvifle Glass & Lamp Co. was called Tuesday morning before Referee Dugan in the probate judge's courtroom. Judge Granger and Mr. O'Neal, of Zanesville. Trustee Wikoff and his attorneys, and several local attorneys for creditors were present. The trustee reported the progress of the work of auditing the company's books at which he and Secretary Boyd, of The Cambridge Glass Co., have been engaged, and that in some respects they had not yet been able to complete it, many difficulties which were not anticipated having been met. Several of the officers of the company were present, ready for the examination, but the creditors present all agreed that time would be saved in the end by waiting until the audit has been finished before beginning the examination of witnesses. Accordingly, upon a vote being taken, Referee Dugan adjourned the meeting to January 30, 1905 at 1 o'clock p.m., at which time it is believed the examination can be promptly begun, and carried on to a finish.

"GLASS COMPANY FIGURES"
The Cambridge Jeffersonian.
March 2, 1905

The report of the careful and very thorough investigation into the affairs of the Byesville Glass Plant has been filed and from it we are able to "speak by the book" and give a few important figures that have been misrepresented and grossly falsified by the Morning Times on a number of occasions prior to the close of the investigation and the filing of the report.

The total indebtedness of the Byesville Glass and Lamp Company is $151,952.53. The Morning Times said it was $350,000.

John C. Beckett's total liabilities as endorser, on accommodation paper and every other form of indebtedness, direct, indirect and collateral is $131,753.63. The Morning Times again and again asserted it was $175,000, and all this against Mr. Beckett personally.

Here is one publication made in the Morning Times February 2nd: "Considering the heavy failures of John C. Beckett, for about $175,000, the Byesville Glass Works for some $350,000 and the Commercial Bank, the extent of the latter being largely increased by the former two, it is true that Cambridge has made marvelous record for business in the past year."

Who furnished these false figures?

The only possible object Mr. Taylor can have in publishing such outrageously false statements is the fact that T. E. Amos, who is associated with the Jeffersonian, is a son-in-law of John C. Beckett, and that a malicious attack upon Mr. Beckett might tend to intimidate the Jeffersonian from its exposures of the terrible robberies of those commercial bank officials, who absconded, one of whom is yet a fugitive, the other convicted and sentenced and of whom the Morning Times is the self constituted champion and apologist, for some apparently inscrutable reason.

These wild and extravagant publications utterly failed of their object. The investigation of the figures shows Mr. Beckett's total personal indebtedness to be $2,000.

At the time, October, 1900, when Mr. Beckett gave his daughter, now Mrs. T. E. Amos, four thousand dollars, the facts are Mr. Beckett had no personal indebtedness whatever and no other indebtedness of any kind. The object of the Morning Times is to make the impression that Mr. and Mrs. Amos are occupying valuable property that should belong to creditors of Mr. Beckett.

Could anything be more utterly false and malicious? We make the foregoing statements after the most careful examination of facts and figures and are confident of their absolute correctness.

We have no interest in Mr. Beckett's business affairs and only mention them because the base attack of the Morning Times was made upon our son and business associate, in the most insidious and malignant manner, and as we believe at the instance of Herbert 0. Barber, with the false and delusive hope of switching the Jeffersonian away from its efforts to protect the people of Cambridge and Guernsey county against robbery and cruel wrongs.

"BYESVILLE GLASS WORKERS STRIKE BECAUSE TWO OF THE MEN
ARE NOT RE-EMPLOYED BY THE COMPANY"
The Cambridge Jeffersonian.
August 3, 1905

After the regular summer shut down of four weeks the Byesville Glass Plant was to have resumed operations Monday morning, but owing to the fact that the company refused to re-employ two of the men, the employees declared a strike, and refused to go to work.

During the shut down extensive improvements were made about the plant, and everything was in readiness for a long and steady run. Monday morning when the plant was to resume operations, General Manager Brudewold announced to the men that all of the old employees would be taken on except two, the Hartman brothers. The men demanded that these two men also be re-employed and when the company refused to do this the men declared a strike and left the building.

General Manager Brudewold was called up over the telephone by the Jeffersonian Monday and when asked as to the cause of the strike said: "The whole matter is a question of whether or not the company has the right to employ and discharge who they want to." He said it not only effected the Byesville plant but all other glass plants, and he thought the question would be decided at the conference between the employers and employees now in session at Atlantic City. Immediately after the men refused to go to work Mon. morning, Mr. Brudewold telegraphed the facts of the strike to the conference at Atlantic City and is expecting an answer.