Wistarburg Glass Works

He began by recruiting experienced glass artisans from Europe, and built homes for the workers along with a mansion for the factory's foreman.

[3] Wistar's button-making business proved to be a success, and together with his gains from speculating in land allowed him to accumulate sufficient capital to fund a new enterprise.

[5][6] He arranged in January 1738 to lease 50 acres (20 ha) of land containing 18,000 cords (65,000 m3) of wood from John Ladd, a local landowner.

Products could be purchased on credit against the glass a worker would make in the future; a bookkeeper was employed to keep track of the store accounts and housing rents.

To ensure their continuing support, he set up a joint venture among five members, the first cooperative manufacturing joint-venture business in America and the first long-term successful glasshouse.

[13] The four Germans held one-third ownership and shared the expenses, assets, and profits of the three individual joint ventures.

It was an inexpensive traditional method whereby the main materials of wood ash and sand produced a greenish-yellow glass.

[17] Franklin built several of his machines, using the Wistarburg glass globes, for Cadwallader Colden and Lewis Evans, for which they paid him between ten and twelve pounds each.

Richard also mostly ran the business from Philadelphia, but worked on increasing sales and expanding the company's product range.

Richard also had personal problems that occupied much of his time, and financial difficulties caused by the Revolutionary War; in an attempt to make ends meet, he sold a major portion of his father's New Jersey real estate.

The final year of the enterprise is disputed by scholars, but it is known that in 1793 the property that the factory was on was divided up among Richard's heirs and sold in parcels.