Information On A Newly-Discovered Very Small Black Glass Threadless
by R. M Settle

Reprinted from "INSULATORS - Crown Jewels of the Wire", September 1972, page 25

Early this summer I had the good fortune to discover a few unembossed "Black Glass" threadless insulators of a type not previously, reported. I'd like to describe my find to your readers, in the hope of encouraging them to leave climbing to the linemen, hang up their "hooks", and "hit the books". Research indicates where to dig, and the best insulators of all may be found in the ground. 

After three years of spare time research, travel and pick'n'shovel work on the Canadian prairies, I finally zeroed in on a privately-owned site which had not been excavated, and which, in fact, showed very little surface indication as to what was to be found underneath. Negotiations followed between myself, a friend who was to help me dig, and the landowner, and the excavation began, despite rain, flies, and swarms of mosquitoes.

We uncovered the sub-grade floor of what had been a log and sod shack along the "Battleford Line", the first telegraph line to extend west of Winnipeg into the frontier. My information indicates that this shack was "home" to two telegraph company employees from about 1875 to 1886.

At a depth of five to six feet beneath what is now an open wheat field I recovered a few insulators, a "Warner's Safe Cure" and other medicine bottles, a large number of tin cans, zinc and copper "crowsfeet" from wet-cell batteries, a piece of a clay tobacco pipe, square nails, rifle shells and several pounds of  broken insulator fragments. The accompanying photograph shows some of these items, and in the background is an early photograph of a line shack of the type I excavated.

I call these insulators "Battleford Baby Threadless", as they are smaller and lighter in design than any other insulators I have ever seen. Mr. Milholland has assigned them an exclusive consolidated design number (744), which covers both the square-shouldered and the round-shouldered variations of this insulator. They average only 2-5/8" in height, and are only 2-1/8" in diameter at the base. The threadless pin hole is the standard one inch in diameter. When comparing the "Battleford Baby Threadless" alongside a "McMicking" threadless, the "Battleford Baby Threadless" stands fully one half inch shorter, and is thinner and lighter throughout.

It's interesting to speculate as to why these insulators were made so small and of such light construction. My research indicates that all the line materials were first stockpiled at Winnipeg in the early 1860's so the date of manufacture may be well before 1865. It's my guess that reduction in weight was a prime consideration when the line materials were ordered, and the insulators were specifically designed to meet weight restrictions, with little consideration to durability. It must have been irritating to the linemen of that era to have to use insulators which were so easily broken, and which refused to stay on their pins, but I guess Mr. Cauvet's idea of threaded insulators took a while to catch on in some of the less accessible regions of this continent.