New Lexington High Voltage Insulator Company

By Matt Grayson

The New Lexington High Voltage Insulator Company was in business from 1903 to approximately 1913. A very small percentage of their production carried any type of marking, and these were mostly multi-part insulators. At last years show, Josh Guisinger displayed an assortment of insulator shards and plaster molds which he recovered from the New Lexington dump. With these samples and other observations made over the years, there has been a general consensus that these metallic glazed insulators, with squared inner skirts, are most likely products of New Lexington.

Shown are two other pieces that appear to conform to the characteristics of New Lexington pieces, both with two notable differences. One, has yellow glaze, but is otherwise quite similar to the metallic glaze examples. The second is dry process porcelain. It is possible that this piece was manufactured at the plant after it became the Consumers Insulator Company in 1914. There were examples of standard wiring cleats made by the dry process recovered at the dumpsite.

As it appears that New Lexington made a full range of unipart pintypes and there is little doubt that many more examples of their production are out in collections. Perhaps there is even an example marked, “new Lexington, o.” with a metallic glaze or squared inner skirts.

For more information on the history of New Lexington please refer to Porcelain Insulators, Guide for Collectors, by Jack Tod, and Multipart Porcelain Insulators, by Elton Gish.