Founded in 1780 by Robert Hewes, a Boston-based businessman, the glassworks employed Hessian deserters from the British forces of the American Revolutionary War.

The glass furnaces were damaged by frost before rebuilding was completed, after which Hewes appealed first to the town and then the state for additional financial support.

The glassworks site was excavated in the 1970s, in what archeologist David Starbuck in 2006 termed "the largest industrial dig ever conducted" in New Hampshire.

[2] According to artifacts recovered there, the site produced window glass, small bottles, and "vessels suitable for chemistry".

[3] The main glasshouse was determined to be about 65 feet (20 m) square, containing a glass furnace of German design.