They Take the Land, and I Get the Invoice for Clearing It Off
“They take the land, and I get the invoice for clearing it off.” Why a 71-year-old Ohio Valley glassblower is parting with his last figural decanters at a fraction of what they’re worth, before the wrecking crew arrives.
There are 283 hand-blown glass decanters on the shelves of a small shop outside Williamstown, West Virginia. Eagles, tractors, dachshunds, owls, motorcycles — every one shaped by mouth since 1975. On October 31, every piece still in that room goes into a demolition container along with the building around it.
Wendell Boggess is not closing because he wants to. Eleven feet from his shop door, four wooden stakes stand in the gravel. Orange ribbon on top, the kind surveyors use. They went in on a Tuesday in April, while he was at the bench with hot glass on the end of a pipe. Nobody knocked. He found them at lunch. He has looked at them through the same window every working day since.
Three hundred and forty acres. They needed his one for the cars.
In 2024 the man who owned the land died. His children sold all of it — 340 acres along the river — to an investment company on the East Coast. They are building a data center.
Boggess rents one acre at the far north edge. On their plans, his acre is not the data center. It is not the power station. It is not anything they actually need.
It is a parking lot. And a pond for the rainwater.
The letter came in February. It did not have his name on it. It was addressed to “Occupant, Parcel 14-B.”
It gave him until October 31 to get off the acre his father rented on a handshake in 1961. And it said he has to hand the ground back clear.
Clear means empty. The furnace, the cooling oven, the gas line, the building — all of it has to come out. And he has to pay for that himself. A demolition company quoted him nine thousand four hundred dollars. The quote is taped to the wall above his bench.
Twice he asked to buy his one acre. Any price they wanted to name. In two and a half years he got one answer: four sentences from their lawyers, with no offer in it. They spelled his name “Boggus.”
Nobody from the company has ever driven out to look at the place. A lawyer in Parkersburg read the old rental deal, charged him for the hour, and told him he has no case. His father shook a hand on it in 1961. Nobody ever signed anything. There is nothing to fight with.
“They take the land, and I get the invoice for clearing it off.”
Wendell Boggess, glassblower, 51 years at the same bench
He never drew a catalog. People asked, and he made it.
There are five shapes in that room. Not one of them came out of a design meeting.
The eagle was first made in 1987 for a Marine’s retirement dinner over in Parkersburg. They have gone to veterans ever since. He stopped asking why a long time ago.
The tractor came from a farmer’s wife in 1994. It was for her husband. He had worked the same ground for forty years. Almost every tractor since has been bought for somebody’s father.
The dachshund came from a man whose dog had just died. He walked in, described the ears, and paid without saying much. Boggess has made that dog about seven hundred times since.
The owl is the one shape that goes to grandmothers, almost without exception.
The motorcycle is the hardest one to make. Nine trips to the fire. The handlebars are pulled by hand while the rest of it is still soft. The first one went to a man who had just sold his bike.
Empty it is glass. Filled, it is the animal.
Two things surprise people. The first is what happens when you fill one. The liquid becomes part of the figure. Amber gives the eagle its feathers and the dachshund its coat. Empty, it looks like a piece of glass. Full, it looks like the animal.
The second is the size. These are small. Each one holds about 300 millilitres — roughly a third of a wine bottle. It is made to sit out where people can see it, and to pour a glass or two. If you are picturing a big bar carafe, this is not that. If you want something for the shelf, it is exactly that.
Five shapes, 283 pieces, and one room that has to be empty by October 31.
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The fire has not gone out since 1978
Boggess and his father built the furnace by hand in the summer of 1978. Brick by brick. Three weeks of work in July. They lit it that October. It has not been off since.
That is not sentiment. It is how glass furnaces work. Brick shrinks as it cools, and shrinking brick cracks. So a furnace that goes cold stays cold. You cannot light it again. You have to tear it out and build a new one.
So it has burned at 2,100°F, day and night, for forty-eight years. Through two blizzards. Through the flood in 1985. Through his father’s funeral, when a neighbor sat with it all night so the brick would hold.
People ask why he does not just move it. It weighs 4,200 pounds and was built where it stands. The moment it cools, it is scrap. Building a new one — furnace, cooling oven, gas line, permits — costs more than $180,000. And it takes about two years before the first piece comes out of it. He is seventy-one.
There is nobody to hand it to. Both his sons work away from the river. He took on two apprentices over the years, and neither lasted a winter.
A hundred years ago this stretch of the Ohio River had about five hundred glass shops. Fenton Art Glass, four miles up the road, closed in 2011 after a hundred and four years. Boggess believes he is the last man in his valley still blowing figural glass by mouth.
“Mouth-blown figural glass in this valley is almost gone. More people collect it than can still make it. And there is one mark a machine cannot fake: the rough circle on the base, where the piece was broken off the rod and polished smooth by hand. If it has one, a person made it. If it does not, a machine did.”
Dr. Marion Ellery, curator of decorative arts, Ohio Valley regional collection
Five ways this is not a molded bottle
Glass can only be shaped between about 1,600 and 2,000°F. Hotter than that, it runs like honey. Cooler, it stops moving.
An eagle with separate wing feathers, or a tractor with tread on the tires, takes six to nine trips to the fire. That work used to take a team of four men. Boggess has done it with two since 2009. Five things happen to every piece along the way. Not one of them survives on a molded copy.
1The Borosilicate Wall
The glass he starts with
He uses borosilicate glass, not the cheap soda-lime kind. It is the same glass a lab uses for beakers. It takes more heat to shape, which is harder on him. But it is why these can sit in a sunny window, or take a cold pour, and not crack.
2The Ninety-Second Window
How long he has to shape it
The eagle’s beak. The owl’s brow. The handlebars on the motorcycle. Every detail was pulled by hand in under ninety seconds, then the glass went back in the fire. A mold has all the time in the world. A glassblower has ninety seconds.
3The Fourteen-Hour Descent
Why it does not crack years later
Straight from his hands into the cooling oven. It comes down from 900°F to room temperature over fourteen hours. Slowly, so the inside and the outside of the glass shrink at the same speed. Rush this step and the glass cracks later. It is also the first step a factory cuts.
4The Fitted Stopper
Why it actually seals
Every stopper is ground by hand to fit its own bottle. One at a time, until it sits tight. No two are the same, so they cannot be swapped. It is slow, dull work. It is also the difference between a bottle that seals and one that lets everything inside go flat.
5The Ground Pontil
How you know a person made it
Turn one over. There is a small rough circle on the base, polished smooth. That is where the piece was broken off the rod by hand. It is the closest thing this trade has to a signature. No mold can make one.
What happens on the thirty-first
There are 283 pieces left in the annealing room. He counted them on a Sunday in June. It took eleven minutes.
Whatever is still on that lot on October 31 goes into the demolition container with the walls. Not to a museum. Not into storage. Into a dumpster that he is paying nine thousand four hundred dollars for.
A dealer came out in May. He offered to take all 283 in one load and clear the room in an afternoon. Boggess said no. He wants them to leave one at a time, to people — not stacked on a pallet in a warehouse two states away.
“They’re getting the ground. They’re not getting these too.”
Wendell Boggess
Every dealer in the valley has told him the price is too low. He knows. He is asking a fraction of what they are worth.
But he is doing different math than they are. If these do not sell now, they do not sell later. They go in the container. So the price is not what fifty-one years of work is worth. The price is whatever empties that room before the thirty-first.
“Somebody’s kitchen table, or their dumpster,” he says. “Those are the two options left. I know which one I want.”
Whatever is unsold on the thirty-first goes into the container with the building. There is no second batch, and no next season.
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What people say about Wendell’s glass
★★★★★
“Bought the eagle for my father-in-law, who did twenty-two years in the Corps. He turned it over, saw the mark on the bottom, and asked me who made it. He never asks that about anything.”
Dale Whitaker — Parkersburg, WV
★★★★★
“It is smaller than I pictured and I am glad. It sits on the sideboard next to my grandmother’s photograph and it does not take over the room. Filled, the light through it in the afternoon is something else.”
Rosalind Feeney — Lancaster, PA
★★★★★
“My dad farmed the same forty acres for thirty-eight years. I gave him the tractor one in April. He has not said much about it, which for him is the highest possible review.”
Kevin Marsh — Zanesville, OH
Questions people are asking
Where can these actually be bought?
Only through this page. They are not on Amazon, not on Temu, and not in any store. There are 283 of them and they are in one room in West Virginia.
How long will they be available?
Until they are gone, or until October 31 — whichever comes first. That date is not a sales trick. It is the day the ground has to be empty. Anything left goes into the container with the building.
It is hand-blown glass. Will it survive the mail?
A glass motorcycle has handlebars thinner than a pencil. So nothing leaves here in a box stuffed with paper. Every piece ships in a double-walled box, held in cut foam so no part of the glass touches the sides. It is the way a lab ships instruments. It costs more, and it is not optional. If one still arrives broken, send a photo by email. A replacement goes out the same week, free.
What if it arrives and it is simply not right?
Thirty days to send it back for a full refund, no explanation required.
The furnace has burned continuously since October 1978. It goes out this October, and it does not come back on.
Check AvailabilityLimited quantity — 283 pieces remain
Three more people who kept one
★★★★★
“I ordered the dachshund the month after we put our old girl down. I did not expect a glass bottle to do anything for that. It sits in the front window and it does.”
Marianne Kessler — Frederick, MD
★★★★★
“Rode for thirty years before my back said no. My wife found the motorcycle one. The handlebars are pulled by hand and you can see it. Nothing about it looks stamped out.”
Ray Considine — Erie, PA
★★★★★
“Packed better than anything I have ordered this year, which I was worried about. The owl came through without a chip. My mother has already told three people where it came from.”
Priya Vance — Chapel Hill, NC