Local History

Monongalia County Ferries - This article appeared in the Proceedings and Papers of the Monongalia Historical Society for 2013. The article discusses the various ferries within the present borders of Monongalia (Mon) County, West Virginia. In addition to dates and locations, it describes the methods in which ferries were located, constructed, and operated before powered boats became available.

My wife Norma and I have finished a picture book titled Around Morgantown. It was published by Arcadia Publishing in May 2007.

Riverfront Museums, Inc. in Morgantown

I did much of the display construction and publication work for Riverfront Museums, Inc. in Morgantown. The RMI museum in Seneca Center opened in 2000 and closed in January 2005.

One of our projects was the reprinting of Extrinsic Ornamentation of Glass In The Morgantown Area by Rebeccah Jane Louise Ball. Extrinsic Ornamentation of Glass In The Morgantown Area was written in 1960 as a thesis for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at West Virginia University, a was published as a typed document. The typography and illustrations in this edition have been redone by volunteers and copies were sold at Riverfront Museums. I have scanned the book to create the .PDF version on this website.

Paperweights produced by Gentile Glass Company

Another short project which I did while RMI was operating was to create a page of the various stamps used on the bottoms of paperweights produced at Gentile Glass Company in Star City - a Morgantown suburb. Not shown is a blank stamp used on the lowest cost weights. After the weight was broken off the punty, the base was headed with a torch and then the weight was placed in a modified drill press and the impression was made.

John Gentile did not consider these stamps to be "signatures," and he considered any weight carrying a stamp to be a factory product, not one of his "art" weights. The original purpose was two-fold: (1) to create a company mark on the weights since they were often being resold by others as their own work. (2) to reduced production costs since earlier weights had the pontil marks removed by grinding.

No weight carrying a stamp can be the work of Peter Gentile, and most weights with a stamp were actually made by John's step-grandsons.

A detailed description of the production process used at the Gentile factory can be found in American Glass Paperweights and Their Makers which describes paperweight making just before the start of the studio glass movement.



Melvin, Jean Sutherland, American Glass Paperweights and Their Makers - A story of glass-paperweight craftsmen of the United States, their processes, and their products, Thomas Nelson Inc., Canden, NJ, 1967 & revised edition 1970