T. G. Hawkes & Co.

Thomas Gibbons Hawkes was born in Ireland and came to New York at the age of seventeen. He secured a job as a draftsman with Hoare and Dailey, a cutting shop in Brooklyn where he learned glass cutting. In the 1870s, he supervised a branch shop of Corning Glass Works, and by 1820 established Thomas G. Hawkes and Company in Corning, New York, which produced cut and engraved glass by decorating blanks supplied by Corning Glass Works and other factories. Hawkes’ first patent assignment was for Philip McDonald’s Russian Pattern in 1882. By the turn of the century, Thomas G. Hawkes and Company was one of the largest glass cutting and engraving establishments, employing up to four hundred cutters and engravers. In 1903, Thomas G. Hawkes joined with Frederick Carder to establish the Steuben Glass Works, which later produced blanks for Hawkes’ company.

Thomas Hawkes died in 1913 and his son Samuel continued business operations until he was succeeded by his cousin, Penrose Hawkes. Thomas G. Hawkes and Company closed in 1962 after 82 years in the glass cutting business.