Threadless Shards - Early Georgia Telegraph Line

By Jack Kesling; posted January 25, 2004

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In an earlier posting I referenced "threadless" and Boston Bottle Works shards found on the Central of Georgia Railway telegraph line which ran from Fort Valley to Columbus, GA - see the following:

"Another interesting note - Bill Rosato, Claude Wambold, Jim Frustieri, and I took a collecting trip down to GA in order to hunt insulator in the mid-1990's - when you get old you forget exact dates. We mostly hunted the line between Columbus and Fort Valley, GA. The older line was gone, but we did find a large number of CD 158 Boston Bottle and threadless glass shards along this line where the line was trenched and put underground. Clearly, there was buried glass along the line."

This is a picture of the various shards which I found. Bill, Claude, and Jim also found many shards as well. On the top left you will see a nice section of what appears to be a CD 731.3 or CD 731 in black glass. The top middle shard appears to be a section of CD 729 in a deep teal green and the shard on the top right could not be identified. It has a straight skirt and at first I though it might be a wade, but the curvature does not match that of the other wade I have in my collection. In the middle, you will find a number of Boston CD 158 shards. In the lower part of these shards, you can see a small part of inner skirt with the word "WORK" from Boston Bottle Works. On the lower left you will see two shards from large bell type hats. I think they are CD 737 Lefferts style or maybe the big blue. The one shard is about 30% of a flat topped hat in beautiful blue. The lower middle shard is a section of crude black glass with lots of bubbles. I've got it turned so one can see the threadless pinhole. At first I though CD 701.6 egg as it's a good match on the type of crude glass, but the pinhole does not match the egg styles I have. The shard on the lower right is the most interesting. When I match it to photos in John and Carol's book, it comes the closest to matching a CD 788 slash top. You can see a lower convex shirt, and upper convex section, and the start of the dome section. This shard is threadless and like all the other shards shown has a portion of threadless pinhole. Anyone have a suggestion? Maybe it's a new unlisted threadless style.

[id=79719339] [id=79719587]

Finally, a note on the various lines. Clearly, these shards were from a very early and not later generation threadless line. It of interest to note that we did not find "any" evidence of the older Western Union line which I hunted and likely was wrecked out in the early 1970's maybe right after I left Georgia. We did find evidence of burned cross arms and some melted glass, but no evidence of the many CD 145 W. Brookfield and the other CD 126 and 126.3 etc. We did find two generations of pole holes which were likely from the line I hunted and an earlier telegraph line. There were also new poles with cross arms that were cut down and in the ditch along side the railway. Most of the insulators were the CD 154 WT's in pink and some 145 "B" which were likely taken off the line I hunted and were used to construct a short term line. The line was put underground as the trenching was recent and there were shards of the very old threadless and Boston line. Each of us probably recovered 15 to 20 pink CD 154 WT's to take home with us.

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