england glass company, which was the precursor to the lily glass company started in 1818, edward drummond libby's father william langdon libbey became the agent for the new england last company in 1872, and so he learned the glass business from his and so, he learned the glass business from his father and in 1883 his father suddenly passed away unexpectedly. and he took over the business. in 1888 he brought the libbey glass company to toledo because number one there was natural gas in nearby finley, there was sand available, which is a component of making glass. plus the toledo -- they gave him the site for the factory, as well as site for to build houses. once they were here in toledo, it faltered a bit. workers were not happy because they did not have family around. and it was not a highly developed area. all of the amenities that they were used to in the boston area were not available in toledo, so, he lost a bunch of workers. he went out to west virginia to recruit more workers. and not only did he recruit the workers that he needed, but he also recruited a man named michael owens. and in tho