The purposes of the Company then were, among other things, to deal in wood of all kinds, own timber lands, contract to do construction work, deal in real estate, _and to buy and sell all kinds of necessary material ... and operate all the necessary equipment and machinery for the purpose of manufacturing clay pipes, crocks, and earthenware_.... (Charter Book No. 1, Page 108, Appomattox County, Virginia). The corporation (Charter No. 34565-16) was dissolved by the State Corporation Commission, at the request of the stockholders, on February 21, 1952.
A personal communication, February 23, 1972, from Morton L. Wallerstein who with Ralph L. Dombrower as corporate officers were the last active operators of the pipe factory, states, “Mr. Dombrower and myself, as sole stockholders, started the operation in 1938 and baked the clay pipes up to the time of the enactment of the Minimum Wage Law by Congress. At that time it was apparent that the part-time workers, largely farm girls and boys who worked in the afternoon, would cease to be employed because the pipes could not be marketed under the wages required to be paid.
“However, Mrs. Betty Price and another woman made the hand-made clay pipes at their homes, which pipes Mr. Dombrower bought after 1938 and very cleverly boxed in antique fashion and sold them for some years. However, unfortunately the women who made these pipes died and they were no longer made.
“The factory, itself, did not manufacture pipes beyond the period stated above. The property was sold in 1947 and the corporation was dissolved in 1952.”
Apparently then, the Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company ceased all activity in 1951, having been in existence slightly more than 70 years.
Some time after the closing, the main factory building was used as a garage. In July of 1969 this frame building, with the name “Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Co., Inc., American Indian Clay Smoking Pipes” still painted above the entrance, stood unoccupied; the crumbling old smokestack and large round kiln of brick construction were still there (Plates 4 & 5). Another building which had served Company purposes had been destroyed.
The machinery to mold smoking pipes and bottles was invented by Calvin J. Merrill of the E. H. Merrill Pottery, Summit County, Ohio, in 1843 (Blair, 1965:3).